New proposal: Transfer-for-cash plan (Transfer Arabs out of Israel)

[Tom Joad]

Comment: It is nearly 60 years since the founding of Israel, when nearly 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes to become stateless refugees, and over 500 of their villages destroyed. These politicians wish to complete what was left uncompleted in 1948 by Israel's founders.

The debate among Israel leaders is not if there is a demographic problem (a growing indiginous Arab population, while the Jewish population grows more slowly) but how to respond. This is one proposed response. I have no doubt that the funding from this proposal would be expected to come from working people in the United States, where else would these folks get such large funds??

For those that think these people represent the very extreme of Israeli politics, do keep in mind that the Clinton's dined with one of the leaders of the extremist movement in favor of transfer ("voluntarily" or not) Avigdor Lieberman. Avigdor and friends were in New York at the Saban Institute. Haim Saban, the funder of this institute (and very wealthy Hollywood producer), has the world record for individual donations to the Democratic Party. He was also a big funder of Arnold's campaign in California.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6230.shtml
(includes cute pic of Hillary and Haim)

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467783009&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A new proposal designed to solve Israel's Arab demographic concerns suggests offering a million Palestinian residents of refugee camps in Judea and Samaria incentives totaling as much as $50 billion to convince them to leave the area.

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of the Ateret Kohanim Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and MK Benny Elon (National Union-National Religious Party) have joined forces to promote the proposed program, which they said would be funded by the state. The two men, who are next door neighbors in Beit El, propose paying the refugee camp residents $50,000 to $100,000 each if they agree to emigrate.

"Those poor people have been suffering for six decades," said Elon. "I believe that if we give them the option of leaving they will grab it."


Aviner, a respected halachic authority, has written an article advocating the transfer-for-payment idea, which appeared this weekend in Be'ahava U'Be'emuna, a pamphlet that is distributed in thousands of synagogues across the nation every Shabbat.

(snip)

Arabs who agreed to stop all terrorism against Israel and to accept second class citizenship, without voting rights, would be allowed to stay, Aviner said.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[mazzarro]

2. This is a disgusting idea - IMHO

I foresee this stupid idea becoming the next phase of neo-colonialism in which developed countries, urged by big global corporations, overthrow/occupy underdeveloped countries, especially in Africa, for the natural resources then turn around to pay-off the indigenes to move somewhere else whilst the bring in malleable and acquiescent (slave) labor to harvest/plunder the resources. This is a dangerous and unacceptable development in world affairs if allowed to go forward.

[jody]

3. Excellent points. n/t

[Shaktimaan]

4. So is that what you think is happening here?

I'm not in favor of this plan but I don't see how your criticism applies. You know that there's no natural resources to plunder in the areas under discussion, right?

And it's also not in Africa either.

[mazzarro]

17. The post was pointing to the fact that this will create the precedence

And then it will definitely be exploited by unscrupulous/unconscionable businesses to no end. And besides, land is a natural resource; water is a natural resources. So your assertion that no natural resources exist in this case is wrong. As for Africa, you may want to brush up on your geography; Africa has quite a substantial quantity of natural resources.

[Igel]

5. Sarsour sounds like a sweetie, doesn't he?

Eh, traditionalists. But that's not the point.

Are there refugee camps within the Green Line?

If not, then he's talking about the refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza. If that's the case, how is this different from paying compensation to 'refugees' in lieu of their exercising their 'right of return' to Israel proper? I guess one could say it's stipulating what the compensation is, but since accepting it would be voluntary that's more of a quibble.

[furman]

6. Correcting Tom Joad's misinformation

For the record, Tom Joad, the majority of Arabs simply fled to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
Others fled at the behest of Arab leaders who vowed that the nascent Jewish state
would be quickly destroyed and that they would be able to return to their homes soon.
Some Arabs were expelled, but that was definitely the minority. The exact numbers are disputed to this day.

Also for the record, Tom Joad, there would be no refugess at all had the Arabs accepted the UN partition resolution of 1947.
But the Arabs would not accept a Jewish state, five Arab countries attacked Israel, and were soundly defeated.

"The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in
opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously and
they must share in the solution of the problem."
-- Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut
Telegraph September 6, 1948. (same appeared in The London Telegraph, August 1948)

"The most potent factor was the announcements made over the air by
the Arab-Palestinian Higher Executive, urging all Haifa Arabs to quit... It was clearly intimated that
Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."
-- London Economist October 2, 1948

"It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their
homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem."
-- Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, April 3, 1949

"Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with
their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and
interests will be safe."
-- Haifa District HQ of the British Police, April 26, 1948, (quoted in Battleground by Samuel Katz).

"The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter
of Haifa a ghost city.... By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa."
-- Time Magazine, May 3, 1948, page 25

"The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were frequently abandoned before they
were threatened by the progress of war."
-- General John Glubb "Pasha," The London Daily Mail, August 12, 1948

"The Arabs of Haifa fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and
rights as citizens of Israel."
-- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, New York Herald Tribune, June 30, 1949

"The Arab states which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in
order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help
these refugees."
-- The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, February 19, 1949.

"The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of
Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead."
-- The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, October 12, 1963

"Arabs still living in Israel recall being urged to evacuate Haifa by Arab military commanders who wanted
to bomb the city."
-- Newsweek, January 20, 1963

Mahmud Al-Habbash, a regular writer in the official Palestinian Authority paper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida,
indicates in his column “The Pulse of Life” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, December 13, 2006) that the Arabs
left Israel in 1948 only after political Arab leaders persuaded them to do so by promising the Arabs a
speedy return to their homes in Palestine:
“…The leaders and the elites promised us at the beginning of the “Catastrophe” <[the[br />establishment of Israel and the creation of refugee problem] in 1948, that the duration of the
exile will not be long, and that it will not last more than a few days or months, and afterwards
the refugees will return to their homes, which most of them did not leave only until they put
their trust in those “Arkuvian” promises made by the leaders and the political elites.
Afterwards, days passed, months, years and decades, and the promises were lost with the
strain of the succession of events…" tradition - who was known for breaking his promises and for his lies."] ”

[idontwantaname]

7. woah, deja vu!

thanks for all these helpful and informative yet selective quotes. now where the rest of the story they were attached to?

do you have any idea just how long these villagers were gone for before they returned to their homes/villages only to find them occupied? one day? one week?

im sure this past summer some may have described haifa as a ghost city, though i dont think any of the residents left under the impression they would never return.

[Tom Joad]

8. why do you wish to deny history and the suffering of others. nothing is gained by that.

In Tehran it is wrong.
It is also wrong here.

It is wrong when Japan continues to discount its crimes against the people of China, those who deny the Nazi crimes against Jews, those who forget the crimes of the US against the people of Southeast Asia, it is wrong to deny the crimes committed agains the Palestinians during the Nakba in the founding of Israel.

If there is to real healing and reconciliation to take place, the real truth must be told.

[Tom Joad]

9. There are no recordings of Arab leaders telling people to leave, but only to stay

pleading with Palestinians to stay, despite their well-founded fears, and the terror war being waged against them by the Irgun and others.

remember Deir Yassin!

[Shaktimaan]

12. really? Link it up!

[Violet_Crumble]

13. Not everything's on the internet...

I've got a book by Ilan Pappe, who went to the British Archives to track down these alleged recordings. He found no trace of them at all, though I'm sure that won't stop some folk from insisting they exist...

[Douglas Carpenter]

18. Benny Morris could find no evidence of Arab radio broadcast except one urging them to stay put

and from page 43 - From Scars of War Wounds of Peace by Shlomo Ben-Ami:

" Benny Morris found no evidence to show 'that either the leaders of the Arab states or the Mufti ordered or directly encouraged the mass exodus'. Indeed Morris found evidence to the effect that the local Arab leadership and militia commanders discouraged flight, and the Arab radio stations issued calls to the Palestinians to stay put, and even to return to their homes if they had already left. True, there were more than a few cases where local Arab commanders ordered the evacuation of villages. But these seemed to gave been tactical decisions taken under very specific military conditions..."

[oberliner]

15. Some of them were waging a terror war against the Jews as well

A few days after the horrible events at Deir Yassin there was the Hadassah medical convoy massacre.

And of course, if some Arab leaders had their way, they would have attempted to complete the genocidal campaign begun in Europe against the Jewish people.

And if some Jewish leaders had their way, they would have attempted to drive all of the Arabs out of Palestine permanently and completely.

In spite of the actions of past and present day extremists, however, I still feel like there is a chance for a peaceful resolution of this conflict.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. for the record

Even the Peel Commission in the late 1930's acknowledged that a viable Jewish state would not be possible without a transfer of hundreds of thousands of Arabs.

It now appears obvious even to many Palestinians that rejection of the November 1947 U.N. partition plan was a mistake. However, in the context of the time with much of the Zionist movement claiming that their acceptance was only a first step and with open talk of transferring major portions of the Palestinian population and with 66% of the population being offered 45% of the land it may not have seemed like a very generous or even a very wise offer at the time.

On the broader question of the transfer of Palestinians out of Palestine, let me quote former Israeli Foreign Minister and Israeli historian Shlomo Ben-Ami (who I might add is an ardent Zionist) from Scars of War Wounds of Peace, the Israeli-Arab Tragedy, page 25-26

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Scars-War-Wounds-Peace-Israeli-Arab/dp/0195181581/sr=1-1/qid=1166681762/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8701952-4352901?ie=UTF8&s=books

"The idea of transfer of Arabs had a long pedigree in Zionist thought. Moral scruples hardly intervened in what was normally seen as a realistic and logical solution, a matter of expediency. Israel Zangvill, the founding father of the concept, advocated transfer as early as 1916. For as he said, ' if we wish to give a country to a people without a country, it is utter foolishness to allow it to be the country of two people...."

"The idea of transfer was not the intimate dream of only the activists and militants of the Zionist movement. A mass exodus of Arabs from Palestine was no great tragedy, according to Menachem Usishkink, a leader of the General Zionist. To him the message of the Arab Revolt was that coexistence was out of the question and it was now either the Arabs or the Jews, but not both. Even Aharon Zislong, a member of the extreme Left of the Zionist Labour movements, who during the 1948 war would go on record as being scandalized by the atrocities committed against the Arab population, saw no 'moral flaw' in transfer of the Arabs...But again, Ben Gurion's voice had always a special meaning and relevance. At a Zionist meeting in June 1938 he was as explicit as he could be. 'I support compulsory transfer. I don't see in it anything immoral.' But he also knew that transfer would be possible only in the midst of war, not in 'normal times.' What might be impossible in such times, he said 'is possible in revolutionary times.' The problem was, then, not moral, perhaps not even political,it was a function of timing, this meant war"

and from page 43:

" Benny Morris found no evidence to show 'that either the leaders of the Arab states or the Mufti ordered or directly encouraged the mass exodus'. Indeed Morris found evidence to the effect that the local Arab leadership and militia commanders discouraged flight, and the Arab radio stations issued calls to the Palestinians to stay put, and even to return to their homes if they had already left. True, there were more than a few cases where local Arab commanders ordered the evacuation of villages. But these seemed to gave been tactical decisions taken under very specific military conditions..."

From page 44:

"The first major wave of Arab exodus in April-May 1948, essentially in the wake of the Dir Yassin massacre that was perpetrated by Lehi and Irgun with the Haganah's connivance and the unfolding of Plan D, might perhaps have taken the leadership of the Yishuv by surprise. But they undoubtedly saw an opportunity to be exploited, a phenomenon to rejoice at -- Manachem Begin wrote in his memoirs, The Revolt, that 'out of evil, however, good came-and be encouraged. 'Doesn't he have anything more important to do?' was Ben-Gurion's reaction when told, during his visit to Haifa on 1 May 1948 that a local Jewish leader was trying to convince Arabs not to leave. 'Drive them out!' was Ben-Gurion's instruction to Yigal Allon, as recorded by Yitzak Rabin in a censored passage of his memoirs published in a censored passage of his memoirs published in 1979, with regard to the Arabs of Lydda after the city had been taken over on 11 July 1948....Plan D, however, was a major cause for the exodus, for it was strategically driven by the notion of creating Jewish contiguity even beyond the partition lines and, therefore by the desire to have a Jewish state with the smallest number of Arabs.

The debate about whether or not the mass exodus of Palestinians was the result of a Zionist design or the inevitable concomitant of war could not ignore the ideological constructs that motivated the Zionist enterprise. The philosophy of transfer was not a marginal, esoteric article....These ideological constructs provided a legitimate environment for commanders in the field to encourage the eviction of the local population even when no precise order to that effect was issued by the political leaders. As early as February 1948, that is before the mass exodus had started but after he witnessed how Arabs had fled West Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion could not hide his excitement."

from page 42:

"The reality on the ground was at times far simpler and more cruel than what Ben-Gurion was ready to acknowledge. It was that of an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab armies, but also by the intimidation, at at times atrocities and massacres it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community. A panic-stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs' monument of grief and hatred."
-------------------------

for more information: What Really Happened Fifty Years Ago?
by: Ilan Pappe of Haifa University - link:

http://www.ameu.org/page.asp?iid=35&aid=427&pg=1

Professor Pappe of Haifa University is author of a number of books...Perhaps the two most important being:

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine -- Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851684670/sr=1-1/qid=1169611339/ref=sr_1_1/102-8701952-4352901?ie=UTF8&s=books

and A History of Modern Palestine: One Land--Two Peoples - Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Palestine-Land-Peoples/dp/0521556325/sr=1-3/qid=1169611458/ref=sr_1_3/102-8701952-4352901?ie=UTF8&s=books

-------------------------

Map showing the massive destruction of Palestinian towns after al-Nakba in 1948 - LINK: http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story572.html

[Shaktimaan]

14. come on. be fair.

However, in the context of the time with much of the Zionist movement claiming that their acceptance was only a first step and with open talk of transferring major portions of the Palestinian population and with 66% of the population being offered 45% of the land it may not have seemed like a very generous or even a very wise offer at the time.

This is after TransJordan has been discounted of course. Come on. That was like, 80% of Palestine.

But this is an academic argument anyway. The fact of the matter is we all know that some Palestinians were evicted, some left amid the war and we're never going to know how many of who did what exactly. No one can even agree on the number of refugees that left, let alone why.

My question is this. Following WWII we saw massive transplants of large geoups of people, sometimes whole ethnicities. Some were bloodier than others, (Partition comes to mind.) The Palestinian refugees were obviously one of those groups. Now, I'm in no way trivializing their plight, it's a very real issue of humanity and an outright crime that so many of these original refugees have been living in camps for generations. What I don't understand is, Why?

There have been tons of other refugee groups who've lost their land, possesions, etc. at some time. And no other group of refugees has received anywhere near the level of aid that the Palestinians have. Yet the only Palestinian refugees to gain citizenship somewhere else are the ones who either went to a western nation or the few that returned to Israel. Very few, out of the millions of refugees who lost land after WWII got it back. None of the millions that Stalin deported got their houses back. 10 million Bangladeshis split for India, 3 million boat people from Communist Indochina. Yet somehow none of these groups remained refugees for decades. I really want to know why this one tenacious refugee problem has lasted for almost 60 years. I mean, what the hell?

Obviously, there's something more at work here than anything Israel has done or colonialism or US/EU imperialism. And there's clearly something influencing this even over the Arab League resolution barring any Arab states from granting Palestinians citizenship. Admittedly that's a big hurdle. But 60 years?! And more assistance than any other group? Literally, Billions in aid, and they're still in the camp stage? The UNRWA has a half-billion a year budget and 25,000 employees and has been around for 60 years!

And Jordan even gave them citizenship at one point. Then took it away. But they were still considered refugees the entire time. Palestinians are the only refugees whose descendents qualify for official UN refugee status. Isn't that weird? They actually inherit their refugee status. If you lived in Mandate Palestine for at least 2 years then you and all of your descendents qualify as refugees according to UNRWA. So some people who lived in Palestine for 2 years have now been living in camps for 60 as refugees. Does that seem weird to anyone else?

So, really. Why?

[Douglas Carpenter]

16. what became Transjordan was under an entirely different administrative district

during the Ottoman period. Even in the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 what became Transjordan was completely separate from what became the British Mandate of Palestine. Although technically what became Transjordan was briefly included in the British Mandate of Palestine, since Emir Faisal gaining his influence over what became Transjordan there never really was at time in which Transjordan was fully administered by the British Mandate of Palestine the way the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterianian was administered.

More importantly for as long as national identity developed, Palestinians and Jordanians considered themselves different people as they still do today even for Palestinians who have lived in modern Jordan their entire lives and hold Jordanian citizenship. It should be mentioned that almost all Palestinians now living in Jordan do hold Jordanian citizenship but still, both they and the Jordanians have a different national identity.

It was in 1911 that the newspaper Filistin was founded and addressed its readers as Palestinians. The First Palestinian National Congress meeting in Jerusalem occurred Jan. 27-Feb. 10, 1919. There was no question by then that Palestine meant the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean and Palestinians were the people who lived between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Certainly by the time of the U.N. Partition of November 1947 there was not the slightest doubt that the partition was dividing the former British Mandate of Palestine with approximately 55% going to form Israel and 45% going to form an Arab state although Arabs comprised 66% of the population of the divided area.

http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/chronology/14001962.htm

1878 Map of the Ottoman Empire



1916 Map of division under Sykes-Picot agreement

[Douglas Carpenter]

19. Palestine in the Ottoman Empire, Around 1900

Source: Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 7th edition - Sir Martin Gilbert; Publisher: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2002; ISBN: 0415281172 (paperback), 0415281164 (hardback); Map: NPR Online
link: http://www.npr.org/news/specials/mideast/history/map1.html

[Tom Joad]

21. You complaining about Palestinians getting aid? What about

Israel, whose economy is on par with advanced european countries, still gets massive economic aid from the US. Seems quite strange.

[Shaktimaan]

26. You took that post as me complaining about giving Palestinians aid?

THAT'S strange. I'm actually not complaining at all, I'm exclaiming. It's different.

This isn't about aid. It's about Why. Considering that the refugee situation is a huge factor in this conflict I think it's a reasonable question. In fact, one of the main stock answers offered as to the motive for suicide bombing is the refugee situation and the deplorable conditions in the camps. The stock rebuttal is that Israel has always been prevented from building better accomodations for the camps on the basis that they are temporary homes. They are supposedly only to be used until the inhabitants obtain the right of return and go back to the homes they lost in 1948. Since that's not happening we have a bit of a catch 22 which keeps many Palestinians in awful living conditions, feeds the conflict, kills any possible local economy and creates in its place a self-perpetuating false economy based entirely around aid. Which means in another 60 years nothing will have changed.

If there's a half-billion USD connected to this organization then you can bet anything that there are plenty of people who have a personal economic interest in keeping things just as they are. Think about what Israel does with the 2.5-3 billion they get in direct aid from the US. I think that since the Palestinian refugees are getting around 20% of that figure yet don't seem to be reaping the fruits of it in terms of real benefits something is not working as it should. Sure Israel gets much more aid. If everyone in Israel were living in hovels I'd be asking the same questions of them.

I am not against aid. sking questions is not the same as condemning. And I fail to see how anyone who has an interest in seeing the status quo change would not be interested in this.

Hey, maybe there's a simple explanation for all the weird points I raised. If there is I honestly would love to hear it.

[Violet_Crumble]

11. Why do you keep repeating the same nonsense over and over after it's been rebutted?

Let's see. You've changed from the last thread where you said *a handful* of Palestinians had been expelled to now *a minority*...

Seeing as how you obviously must have missed the posts that corrected yr false claim in the other thread, I'll repost what I posted there:

In "1948 and After" Benny Morris examines the first phase of the exodus and produces a detailed analysis of a source that he considers basically reliable: a report prepared by the intelligence services of the Israeli army, dated 30 June 1948 and entitled "The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948". This document sets at 391,000 the number of Palestinians who had already left the territory that was by then in the hands of Israel, and evaluates the various factors that had prompted their decisions to leave. "At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations." To this figure, the report’s compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which "directly (caused) some 15%... of the emigration". A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases...

In short, as Morris puts it, this report "undermines the traditional official Israeli ’explanation’ of a mass flight ordered or ’invited’ by the Arab leadership". Neither, as he points out, "does uphold the traditional Arab explanation of the exodus - that the Jews, with premeditation and in a centralised fashion, had systematically waged a campaign aimed at the wholesale expulsion of the native Palestinian population." However, he says that "the circumstances of the second half of the exodus" - which he estimates as having involved between 300,000 and 400,000 people - "are a different story."

One example of this second phase was the expulsion of Arabs living in Lydda (present-day Lod) and Ramleh. On 12 July 1948, within the framework of Operation Dani, a skirmish with Jordanian armoured forces served as a pretext for a violent backlash, with 250 killed, some of whom were unarmed prisoners. This was followed by a forced evacuation characterised by summary executions and looting and involving upwards of 70,000 Palestinian civilians - almost 10% of the total exodus of 1947- 49. Similar scenarios were enacted, as Morris shows, in central Galilee, Upper Galilee and the northern Negev, as well as in the post-war expulsion of the Palestinians of Al Majdal (Ashkelon). Most of these operations (with the exception of the latter) were marked by atrocities - a fact which led Aharon Zisling, the minister of agriculture, to tell the Israeli cabinet on 17 November 1948: "I couldn’t sleep all night. I felt that things that were going on were hurting my soul, the soul of my family and all of us here (...) Now Jews too have behaved like Nazis and my entire being has been shaken (10)."

The Israeli government of the time pursued a policy of non- compromise, in order to prevent the return of the refugees "at any price" (as Ben Gurion himself put it), despite the fact that the UN General Assembly had been calling for this since 11 December 1948. Their villages were either destroyed or occupied by Jewish immigrants, and their lands were shared out between the surrounding kibbutzim. The law on "abandoned properties" - which was designed to make possible the seizure of any land belonging to persons who were "absent" - "legalised" this project of general confiscation as of December 1948. Almost 400 Arab villages were thus either wiped off the map or Judaised, as were most of the Arab quarters in mixed towns. According to a report drawn up in 1952, Israel had thus succeeded in expropriating 73,000 rooms in abandoned houses, 7,800 shops, workshops and warehouses, 5 million Palestinian pounds in bank accounts, and - most important of all - 300,000 hectares of land (11).

http://mondediplo.com/1997/12/palestine

[furman]

22. "For the record" by Benny Morris, The Guardian, January 14, 2004

Since publishing the book that you quoted from, "new historian" Benny Morris has since changed his mind.
If you study some of his more recent work, you will find that he puts far more blame on
the Arabs than Israel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1122425,00.html

For the record
In 1948, thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in what is now Israel, and became refugees.
Both sides have blamed each other ever since. But new documents show neither is entirely innocent, argues Benny Morris
January 14, 2004
The Guardian

...

Birth Revisited describes many more atrocities and expulsions than were recored in the original version of the book. But, at the same time, a far greater proportion of the 700,000 Arab refugees were ordered or advised by their fellow Arabs to abandon their homes than I had previously registered. It is clear from the new documentation that the Palestinian leadership in principle opposed the Arab flight from December 1947 to April 1948, while at the same time encouraging or ordering a great many villages to send away their women, children and old folk, to be out of harm's way. Whole villages, especially in the Jewish-dominated coastal plain, were also ordered to evacuate. There is no doubt that, throughout, the departure of dependents lowered the morale of the remaining males and paved the way for their eventual departure as well.

...

the problem wasn't created by the Zionists but by the Arabs themselves, and stemmed directly from their violent assault on Israel. Had the Palestinians and the Arab states refrained from launching a war to destroy the emergent Jewish state, there would have been no refugees and none would exist today.

...

[idontwantaname]

23. can my post get some attention?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=164002&mesg_id=164131

additionally stating there would have been no refugees today had the arab states not attacked would be false. all the folks who lived in what is now israel would be refugees, no?

[oberliner]

24. in response

to your question: all the folks who lived in what is now israel would be refugees, no?

I think the gist of what Morris is saying is, if the 1947 partition plan had been accepted then there would have been a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish state would have taken up much less of what is currently Israel (a little more than half). There would be no refugees because there would be an Arab Palestinian state. The Jewish state would also have had a large Arab minority (much like it does now).

[idontwantaname]

25. ah, i see.

yes, the curse of hindsight is something else isnt it. if i could only take back so many mistakes ive made in the past i would... and im sure this goes for everyone else out there.

[Violet_Crumble]

28. He's talking about Birth...Revisited...

I've got it and I've read it, and if yr under the impression that in it he supports yr totally ridiculous claim that a only a handful of Palestinians had been expelled, yr very mistaken. In the book he goes into a lot of detail documenting what had been the result of expulsion or fleeing. If you want to try to argue that he supports yr claim, I'm more than willing to grab the book and show you otherwise. While Benny Morris did change, his change was to become a raving bigot. His work is so strong that even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to turn around and argue that his work was incorrect...

[furman]

29. Efraim Karsh: Benny Morris's Reign of Error, Revisited, Spring 2005

Benny Morris's Reign of Error, Revisited
The Post-Zionist Critique

by Efraim Karsh
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2005

...

Prominent Palestinian politicians such as Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Hanan Ashrawi cited the "findings" of the New Historians to support extreme Palestinian territorial and political claims. Academics lauded Morris for using newly available documents to expose the allegedly immoral circumstances of Israel's creation. With frequent media exposure, the New Historians had an impact on mainstream Israeli opinion, which became increasingly receptive to the notion that both the fault and the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict lay disproportionately with Israel's own actions.

Such plaudits, however, were undeserved. Far from unearthing new facts or offering a novel interpretation of the Palestinian exodus, The Birth recycled the standard Arab narrative of the conflict. Morris portrayed the Palestinians as the hapless victims of unprovoked Jewish aggression. Israel's very creation became the "original sin" underlying the perpetuation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Had there been an academic foundation to Morris's revisionism, such acclaim may have been warranted. But rather than incorporate new Israeli source material, Morris did little more than rehash old historiography. While laying blame for the Palestinian refugee crisis on the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces and its pre-state precursor, the Haganah, Morris failed to consult the millions of declassified documents in their archives, even as other historians used them in painstaking research.<3>

Once this fact was publicly exposed,<4> Morris conceded that he had "no access to the materials in the IDFA or Haganah archive and precious little to firsthand military materials deposited elsewhere."<5> Yet instead of acknowledging the implications of this omission upon his conclusions, Morris sought to use this "major methodological flaw" as the rationale for a new edition of The Birth, which he claimed would include new source-material.<6>

...

Such selective rendering is reflective of Morris's method. He repeatedly takes a statement out of context and then dismisses the rest of the text as insincere propaganda.

..

Ironically, Morris's press comments from the time during which he drafted The Birth Revisited again contradict his conclusions, squarely putting the blame for the Palestinian tragedy on "the instinctive rejectionism that runs like a dark thread through Palestinian history."<54> Yet this is not good enough. For the damage done by Morris's written words outweigh his more truthful public assertions. His books have become a staple of the academic curriculum in both Western and Israeli universities. And so the younger generation of students will continue to be inculcated with the lies and distortions on the origin of the Palestinian refugee problem. That Morris admits errors, but continues to print them, raises questions about whether the star New Historian is motivated more by headlines than by truth. Regardless, it is both truth and scholarship which suffer.


Efraim Karsh is director of the Mediterranean Studies Programme at King's College, University of London, and editor of the quarterly journal Israel Affairs. He is the author of Arafat's War: the Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest (Grove Press).

[Tom Joad]

30. Thanks for the neo-con link. These are the kind of people who

support anti-Arab extremists like Dan Pipes and the rest... bush and his boys in the White House have a last bastion of support here.

More detailed rebuttal soon.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

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

[Violet_Crumble]

36. Only two posts ago you were using Benny Morris to support yr argument...

..now you've done a complete turnaround and yr quoting Ephraim Karsh to try to argue that he's a bullshit artist. It's hard to keep up, furman ;)

I just read the article you posted. How does that support yr false claim that only a *handful* of Palestinians were expelled?

[furman]

38. It doesn't help support my claim as much as ...

other people attempting to debunk it by quoting Morris in the first place.

Benny Morris seems somewhat unreliable as a credible source, especially his earlier works.
I will not normally use him to help prove a point,
except in refuting revisionist claims of the "New Historians".

As for my use of the word "handful", you noticed that I changed it to "minority" in my second post.
I did that for you, Violet_Crumble, in recognition that the actual circumstances of all the 1948 refugees
will probably never be known.

Instead you went on the attack once again even though I softened my position and even
provided actual historical quotes with the intention of supporting my claim.

[Violet_Crumble]

39. You think I'm not aware that people try to debunk Benny Morris??

I've read Efraim Karsh's book on the New Historians, so I'm aware of their tactics. Trotting out an article from one of them does not mean that Benny Morris' work is unreliable at all...btw, furman, don't make the mistake of thinking that calling you out on a remarkably ridiculous claim you made is going on the attack. I tend to not believe in the miraculous softening of positions from one thread to the next and think the original claim, as well as other comments you've made, tell me all I need to know about yr 'position'...

[ContraCommando]

20. Disgustingly racist

“A new proposal designed to solve Israel's Arab demographic concerns…”

That’s all I can really say about something like that.

[UndertheOcean]

27. Racist ....

that sums this up.

[The Magistrate]

32. An Odd Article, Mr. Joad

And rather oddly quoted into the bargain.

Its headline is a complete mis-characterization: as the areas denoted by Judea and Samaria are not within the borders of Israel, whether people living there depart or multiply in place has no effect whatever on Israel's demographics. The paraphrased statement that Arabs who accept a second-class citizenship will be allowed to stay is nonesensical for the same reason, namely that the areas are not within the borders of Israel, and residents of them would have no citizenship in Israel, whether second class or otherwise, in any case. It could be rendered sensible only if it was part of a program calling for the annexation of these areas to Israel. While this doubtless is the program of the ultra-nationalist figures cited, espousing such a course does indeed suffice to demonstrate adequately the fringe position of the persons quoted here in the Israeli political scene. No major party in Israel, and no majority of its population, supports the annexation in toto of the Jordan valley. The multi-party list system of Israeli politics does give fringe elements a better shot at a toe-hold in office, but this should not be taken as indicating they set or move state policy any more than such elements, whether the Constitution Party or A.N.S.W.E.R., do so here. In short, this is not a serious proposal reflective of anything more than a crank's ride on his hobby-horse.

Another interesting element of the article are the items you chose to leave out of yopur post, namely the quotes and paraphrased statements of a Knesset member from the United Arab List. These statements are every bit as imflammatory as anything the persons you focused on in the elements you excerpted have made. It is unclear from the article who is playing the mirror game with whom in this instance, but it is clear enough the National Union/National Religious types, and the United Arab List types, both deserve one another, as well as the scorn they receive from the great majority of Israel's citizens.

This game of presenting fringe figures as major players to whip up emotional heat is a poor means of engaging this issue. No good will ever of deliberate distortion, and that is what this method embodies. We have today in the United States Senate a man elected to office as a Socialist: is there anyone here prepared to point to his platform as demonstrating the United States is now set on the dismantling of the Capitalist economy? There has been for some time a Congressman from Texas who routinely states that the Federal Reserve is a fraudulent illegality: is there anyone here prepared to point to this as demonstrating the Justice Department is now preparing indictments and seeking the dissolution of that institution? What you are doing here is tantamount to either of these exercises.

[Violet_Crumble]

35. You do realise that there's a copyright limit at DU?

Another interesting element of the article are the items you chose to leave out of yopur post, namely the quotes and paraphrased statements of a Knesset member from the United Arab List.

Truth be told, we could all sit and nitpick at other posters for 'leaving' things out of their OPs, but the vast majority of us don't do it because we're aware of the copyright rules. We also realise that the vast majority of people will click on the link and read the entire article before commenting.

[The Magistrate]

37. It Is Said Of Music, Ma'am

That the silences between the notes are important as the notes themselves.

Something similar applies in excerpting selections from a piece of writing. You will doubtless be familiar with the old jest that the critic's review stating "If you are looking for an evening of laughs, you do not want to see this movie!" may appear in the adverts as "If you are looking for an evening of laughs...see this movie!" Excerpting is often done with an eye towards coveying a desired impression, rather than a representative sampling. When large portions of an item are passed over in selecting what will be presented in the available space, ot is possible that is what is being attempted, and when what is ommitted clearly does not serve to buttress the views of the person doing the selecting, that possibility ascends to the level of likelihood.

The presentation of this article was an attempt to persuade persons not too familiar the situation that virulent bigotry was not only predominant in Israel but peculiar to it. Under the conventions of debate among leftists, to identify the side one opposes with bigotry is to carry the day, for a root precept of the left today is opposition to bigotry, which necessarily requires opposition to bigots. The unhappy fact of the situation being discussed here, however, is that a good deal of bigotry is displayed by people on both sides of the conflict, so that a person who wants to take a stand in it in the character of an opponent of bigotry must resort either to hushing up some of the bigotries displayed, or else declaring that some bigotries are worse than others, and so the lesser ones do not count as "really" bigotries. That both courses are problematic at best is obvious.

[Tom Joad]

33. Benny Elon served two-terms as Tourist Minister in the rightist Sharon govt.

Avigdor Lieberman, who shares these views, has served as the Minister of Strategic Affairs and as a Deputy Prime Minister of Israel since November 2006 in the present regime.

[The Magistrate]

34. Minister Of Tourism, Sir

Now there is a heavy duty portfolio....

Under the Israeli system, small fringe parties are often essential to cobbling together a majority coalition. They invariably demand a price for their services, and the accustomed coin is something that provides a good living and the trappings of prestige for its leadership. The price is never paid in policies that would be rejected by the opposition in the Knesset and fracture the governing coalition into a question of confifence that could cause the fall of the government.

[number6]

40. good stuff from ...

Douglas Carpenter and Tom Joad

on this thread :thumbsup: