Survival of the fittest

[DuctapeFatwa]

...they came to the mistaken conclusion that when Morris describes the cruelest deeds that the Zionist movement perpetrated in 1948 he is actually being condemnatory, that when he describes the large-scale expulsion operations he is being denunciatory. They did not conceive that the great documenter of the sins of Zionism in fact identifies with those sins. That he thinks some of them, at least, were unavoidable...Who will be less pleased with the book - the Israelis or the Palestinians?

"The revised book is a double-edged sword...What the new material shows is that there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought. To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape..

"At the same time, it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove children, women and the elderly from the villages. So that on the one hand, the book reinforces the accusation against the Zionist side, but on the other hand it also proves that many of those who left the villages did so with the encouragement of the Palestinian leadership itself."

...In Acre four soldiers raped a girl and murdered her and her father. In Jaffa, soldiers of the Kiryati Brigade raped one girl and tried to rape several more. At Hunin, which is in the Galilee, two girls were raped and then murdered. There were one or two cases of rape at Tantura, south of Haifa. There was one case of rape at Qula, in the center of the country. At the village of Abu Shusha, near Kibbutz Gezer there were four female prisoners, one of whom was raped a number of times. And there were other cases. Usually more than one soldier was involved. Usually there were one or two Palestinian girls. In a large proportion of the cases the event ended with murder. Because neither the victims nor the rapists liked to report these events, we have to assume that the dozen cases of rape that were reported, which I found, are not the whole story. They are just the tip of the iceberg."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/380986.html

[Violet_Crumble]

1. Interesting...

I'm wading through 'Righteous Victims' right now, and as I got to the second page of the article, I started thinking to myself that there was going to be some punchline at the end, and that Benny Morris had a point to the racist comments and justification of ethnic cleansing that he was making, but I think he was being for real. One thing that's occurred to me is that this article would make the minds of many American Zionist zealots who cling to the belief that Israel was squeaky clean in 1948 turn into super-heated mush. I mean, here's a historian giving people facts on the atrocities committed by the Zionists back then, and then the man himself uses many of the fluffy and racist catchcrys of those who believe that Israel did no wrong to the Palestinians. So if any of them were to bother reading the article, I imagine they'd quickly skim page one while they wailed to themselves: "Lies! Lies! It's all lies!" and then eagerly devour with total agreement the comments on the second page about Israeli-Arabs being a fifth column, and how back in 1948, the entire Arab population between the sea and the Jordan river should have been ethnically cleansed :)

Violet...

[Gimel]

2. Somehow

I don't think the smiley face on the end is suitable to the subject matter. Personifying a whole people is unjustified, in my view.

:puke:

[Violet_Crumble]

3. That's okay...

I think it was very suitable for the last few lines of my post, and, well, that's all that matters :)

Personifying a whole people? Care to explain how and where that happened, either in the article or in my post?

Violet...

[Gimel]

4. American Zionists

If they were the zealots you personify them as, and having a self-righteous view that you call "the belief that Israel was squeaky clean in 1948" they think

they'd quickly skim page one while they wailed to themselves: "Lies! Lies! It's all lies!" and then eagerly devour with total agreement the comments on the second page about Israeli-Arabs being a fifth column, and how back in 1948, the entire Arab population between the sea and the Jordan river should have been ethnically cleansed"

So you think of American Jews who support Israel as supporting "ethnic cleansing"?

A rather heavy charge.

[Violet_Crumble]

8. You overlooked the word zealot...

Zealots of any type are not an entire group of people and I've got no problem calling that sort of pond-scum exactly what it is, no matter what cause they attach themselves to. Point me to where I actually talked about American Jews, because of course I said nothing of the sort.

Are you claiming that there's no such thing as Zionist zealots in the US?

Violet...

[The Magistrate]

5. Mr. Morris, Sir

Is one who looks on the world as it is, with open eyes, and no attempt to pretend it is something it is not, or something it should be. Once matters have reached the pitch of war, there is no other way to regard them. Humans are what they are; it cannot be blinked or prettified....

[Violet_Crumble]

7. Did you read the entire article??

His views as expressed on the second page of the article are racist, and if that's looking at the world with open eyes, then the same applies to anyone else expressing racist opinions...

Violet...

[vierundzwanzig]

6. A man gone mad.

He is known for being a loose cannon.