93 thoughts on “Support Exposing the Dirty Secrets of the National Security State – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. @Richard

    I support Israeli NGO’s like B’Tselem, Machsom Watch, Adlalah and Breaking the Silence.
    To me, their very existence proves that Israel is a vital, pluralistic society, strong enough to weather criticism.

    Was your blog’s sole mission, that of exposing the dirty secrets of the Israeli national security State, I might support your blog as well, but I do not.
    Your blog’s greater agenda is to simply to shame Israel, as often as possible, using character assassination, innuendo, baseless accusation, etc.

    Your disrespectful treatment of some commenters, and your capricious use of ‘comment rules’ to moderate, censor, and ban the views of some commenters, are other reasons why I don’t support your blog.

    That said, I wish you and all your readers a happy, and healthy New Year.

    1. @ Barbar:

      I support Israeli NGO’s like B’Tselem, Machsom Watch, Adlalah and Breaking the Silence.

      And I support Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. What does your claim even mean? How have you “supported” them. You’ve never done so here. Have you ever protested with them? Visited a checkpoint or Palestinian village with them? Offered them a testimony (BtS)? Ever sent any of them a donation? If not, you’re little more than a hypocrite. Anyone can say they support anything. It means nothing.

      My mother always said, if you have nothing good to say, say nothing. When I offer an appeal, you will remain silent in future. Everyone hates someone who pissses in the drinks at a party. That’s you. Stop pissing (& moaning). BTW, if you did send me a donation, I’d return it.

      As for “shame,” I think you & your leaders cast shame on Israel, not I.

  2. You, a self-hating Jew, has the chutzpah to try and educate other Jews that they must give Tzeddukah? If so really want to teach basic Judaism, perhaps start with the fundamental rules of lashon hara, that is speaking badly about others. Practice that for a few years and then maybe you can talk about the merits of charity.

    1. @ Allison Cilber: You, an alleged Jew, hater of fellow Jews, has the chutzpah to tell us what is or is not a good Jew? And that you are one & I am not? Who says? Your rebbe? The Jewish pope? Oh that’s right, we don’t have one. The Jewish chief rabbi? We don’t have one of those either. At least not where I live. So none of us will be taking any lessons from you on the subject.

      As for lessons in lashon hara, don’t need any from you. My reporting is journalism, not gossip. Here’s a phrase for you to study up on: am haaretz–that’s YOU!

      Send our regards to your settler friends. Looks like they’ll need your help getting out of prison. Better start lobbying now to get a pardon from the president. By the time they’re convicted you may be able to get them pardoned.

      If you show your face around here again, I’ll ban it.

  3. @Barbar

    I don’t think Richard expects a donation from you and neither, I think, do any of the human rights organisations you mentioned – their expectations are generally based on a record of earlier donations.

    I have gone back over the last five to six weeks of Tikun Olam to check up on your contributions and found that you have done little else than sniping here, generally in an effort to undermine Richard’s credibility. In the process you have managed to damage your own.

  4. @Barbar:
    You will soon enough be called a liar.
    Fundamentalism – as in the inability to see complexity – saddens me. On the left as well as on the right.

  5. @Arie:
    Speaking just for myself, not for Barbar, I engage right-wingers as well as left-wingers in comments and talkbacks for the sole reason of trying to add some shade of grey to their all-too-often black & white worldviews. I have always voted Meretz (well, twice I voted Aleh Yarok, when Kadima was headed for landslide victories anyway) and my kids went to a mixed Jewish-Arab school. I do hope that’s leftie enough for you – despite the fact that like Barbar, I am frequently accused here of being part and parcel of the Hasbara horde. Amazingly enough, one can (for example) support Breaking the Silence and still criticize their money raising practices and partial connections with BDS, support a Palestinian state but not the right of return, or view with equal loathing Bezalel Smotrich and Haneen Zoabi. Reality’s complicated, especially *lived* reality, as opposed to reality viewed from afar (correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t live in Israel, do you?)

    1. @ Yaniv: I don’t see voting Meretz as anything to be proud of. They support all Israeli wars and are liberal Zionists. They are better than Likud & Labor. But not by enough to make them palatable. Meretz is the U.S. equivalent of Hillary CLinton. Not even as progressive as Bernie Sanders imo.

      As for BtS, I have no idea what you’re talking about in terms of criticizing their fundraising. You mean the fact that they take money from foreign sources? As for supporting BDS, BtS does not support BDS & I’d like to see any evidence to the contrary.

      As for supporting a Palestinian state, you get no points for that because you’re not in favor of an immediate end to Occupation, recognition of that State & its Jerusalem capital. THe fact that you reject ROR is further evidence that your claims of liberalism are unfounded. There will be no Palestinian state without ROR. That is, if there ever is a Palestinian state at all, which I strongly doubt.

      If you write Smotrich’s name in the same sentence with Zoabi you are indeed disgusting. There is, & should be no comparison.

      Reality’s complicated? Not so much. But for liberal Zionists it’s exceedingly complicated because you need to believe you have a conscience about these matters when you really don’t.

  6. @Yaniv

    “Fundamentalism – as in the inability to see complexity – saddens me. ”

    And an unwillingness to listen, as well.

    Saddens me too, brother.

  7. @Yaniv

    “the inability to see complexity” huh.

    Do I spot here one of the basic apologetic moves of defenders of the Israeli status quo? Ah the problem is sooo complicated?

    The Harvard scientist John Spritzler had this simple, uncomplicated message about this.

    “Israel/Palestine: “It’s Complicated!”…Or Is It?

    by John Spritzer

    We often hear it said that the Israel/Palestine conflict is complicated. But is it really?
    What makes a conflict “complicated?” Take South African apartheid, for example. White South Afri- cans before 1992 responded to criticism of apartheid by insisting that it was a “complicated” issue. Their government said it was “anti-Christian” to oppose it. Racial equality was a noble idea, said many whites, but there were special reasons why it wasn’t a good idea in South Africa. But then, in 1992, South Africa’s President de Klerk, no doubt in response to the growing world wide boycott against apartheid, decided that apartheid needed to be abolished. He made his views known, and he held a referendum on apartheid for whites.

    In 1992 the BBC reported that “White South Africans have backed an overwhelming mandate for political reforms to end apartheid and create a power-sharing multi-racial government…In a landslide victory for change, the government swept the polls in all four provinces, and all but one of 15 referendum regions…It won 68.6% of the vote in a record turn-out, which, in some dis- tricts exceeded 96%.”

    Suddenly, apartheid wasn’t “complicated” anymore, just wrong. Today, few whites admit they ever supported it. It turns out that what had made apartheid “complicated” for white South Africans was the fact that their leaders had said it was right when, in their hearts, white people knew it was wrong. The same thing made many whites in the American South think that slavery, and later Jim Crow, was “complicated” until their leaders stopped supporting these evils.
    When one’s respected leaders say one thing and one’s heart says the opposite, the natural and genuine subjective reaction is to believe that the issue is “complicated.” This doesn’t, however, mean it really is.
    The conflict in Israel is no more “complicated” than was apartheid or slavery.

    How do … Jews respond when they hear their respected rabbis and other Jewish leaders telling them that it is necessary for Israel to deny Palestinian refugees their basic human right …These Jews respond by saying to themselves that it is “complicated.”

    What would they say, however, if tomorrow their most respected rabbis and Jewish leaders announced that Is- rael ought to stop denying Palestinians their rights? In short order it would be hard to find a Jew who would admit to having ever supported the denial of those rights.
    Once upon a time people said that slavery was complicated. They said that apartheid in South Africa was complicated. But these things were not complicated, just wrong.”

    Richard has been telling you for a long time that the Israeli oppression of Palestinians is not complicated, just wrong.

  8. @Arie:
    Yes, well, comparing Israel to Apartheid is indeed a prime example of “the inability to see complexity.”
    A one state solution is a recipe for another Syria; a two state solution which includes the right of return – same problem in a smaller area.
    I’m all for dismantling the settlements and returning (unilaterally, if need be) to (roughly) pre-’67 borders, but then what do you do with the “right” of return? What do you do then with a Lebanonization or Gaza-ization of the West Bank?
    So sorry but no, not so simple.

  9. You support B’Tselem, Machsom Watch, Adalah and Breaking the Silence, and donate to the latter?
    You have just convinced me…. that you are the reincarnation on this blog of Granny Flemstein!

  10. @Richard:
    Not really looking to score points with you.
    It would be nice, though, to see, at least occasionally, some sort of acknowledgement that The Truth might not be solely entrusted with You. Inklings of doubt, you know.

    As for BDS & BtS – no official links that I know of (and I didn’t say “support” in my comment), but Yehuda Shaul has on at least one occasion, stated “that he agreed with the intention of the BDS movement” (“but… felt that its approach could compromise the goal”).
    https://pmg.org.za/tabled-committee-report/1347/

  11. Oh – and yes, I’d like to see BtS not taking money from foreign countries (also, I would be very happy indeed if Sheldon Adelson and Irving Moscowitz died tonight in their sleep. But their despicable agitation does not legitimize others).

    1. @ Yaniv: So you have no problem with American Jews donating $220 million in individual contributions to settlements & convicted Jewish terrorists, but you hate Israeli human rights NGOs taking a few million dollars from German & Dutch foundations & the EU. Hypocrite. Your stand is precisely the same as Vladimir Putin who has turned civil society NGOs in Russia into spies and foreign agents. Congratulations, that’s where you’re headed. And you will only yourself to blame.

  12. I would like to understand from your point of view and the logistics of how the ROR could possibly happen without an all out war ensuing.
    To bring back 7 million? Palestinians just from the practical point of view of no housing available and what to do with the Jewish population that is already here?
    Certainly the European Jews could not return and would not want to return to Europe and the Jews from Arab countries{which mostly do not exist anymore} would have no place to go.
    It seems to me there is no practical solution to the above. As far as Jerusalem being the Palestinian capital or divided that would be tantamount to a bloodbath. You are familiar with the geography of Jerusalem so you don’t have any difficulty understanding this.
    Aside from that there never was a capital of the ‘Palestinian’ people because there was never a Palestinian state. The area and all the surrounding areas were part of the Ottoman empire and there was no autonomy to “Palestine’ per se.
    This area which is now called Palestine is a name given by the Romans 2000 yrs ago for whatever reason and a country called Palestine with delineated borders never existed.
    So simply I do not understand any referents to support the claim of a once existing Palestinian state.

    1. @ yosef: Read the comment rules very carefully. This topic (ROR) has been aired many, many times here. I have rebutted exactly the same false arguments you offer here many times in the past. I don’t repeat myself. Your argument is stuff & nonsense. Not even Palestinian activists have ever estimated 7 million refugees would return to Israel. So your very first premise is sensationalist & unreasonable. You only go downhill from there.

      Further, this comment is off topic. Keep all comments directly related to the post. Palestine-denial is also a cardinal comment rule violation. Not to mention, your claim about the origin of the term “Palestine” is false. It far predates the Romans and originated with Herodotus.

      If you comment further and do not respect the comment rules, you may have your privileges restricted.

  13. @Yosef

    You wrote:

    “This area which is now called Palestine is a name given by the Romans 2000 yrs ago for whatever reason and a country called Palestine with delineated borders never existed.
    So simply I do not understand any referents to support the claim of a once existing Palestinian state.”

    I live presently in a country that consisted of a group of divergent islands that after strife between the Spanish, British and Dutch, ended up being a Spanish colony for more than three hundred years. It is named after one of the Spanish kings. After Spanish domination ended the US colonised it for half a century. Those islands never constituted a state only a colonial possession. Nevertheless its citizens feel today that they are very much part of one nation.

    Down to the South of us is another archipelago nation that consisted of quite separate islands with a great diversity of cultures and languages. Through a fluke of history they were saddled with Dutch overlordship. Today it is very much one nation and nobody doubts its right to exist because it never existed as a separate nation with defined borders before.

    Benedict Anderson, the polyglot sociologist cum political scientist who died just a few weeks ago, coined the term “imagined communities” to emphasise that a nation consists of individuals who “imagine” that they share a common identity.

    That is most certainly the case with the Palestinians.

  14. @Arie:
    That is actually a most excellent summation of the point. One of the sillier points right-wingers like to bring up.
    (unfortunately it doesn’t help with the much more practical question of the 7 million – bloated though this number may be).

  15. @Yaniv

    The reason why the problem hasn’t been solved is not primarily because of its complexity. It is basically because the powers that be in Israel do not want to give up the territory acquired in the Six Day War. To pretend anything else is just disingenuous.

    And as to that complexity: many European states had in the immediate post Second World War era to deal with what seemed to be insoluble problems. Germany, for instance, was largely in ruins, it had to cope with the influx of millions of people; it had a serious demographic imbalance between the sexes; it had the problem of an isolated Berlin; it had to come up with hefty repair payments.etc.
    Yet it was back on its feet in a surprisingly short time. Perhaps it didn’t deserve to be, but it was.

    I cannot imagine that the problems Israel will be faced with when this occupation comes to an end will be any more serious.

    A “blood bath” was predicted in South Africa as well – it didn’t come about.

  16. @Arie:

    I do not dispute the fact that “the powers that be in Israel do not want to give up the territory acquired in the Six Day War”. Or rather, more positively: I totally agree. Hence the immense stupidity of the settlements.

    As for the Right of Return: aside from being morally wrong, I’m not quite sure that the comparison with Germany – with millions of Germans expelled post-WWII from all over Europe, never to return, serves your argument very well. Not to mention the fact that post-WWII Europe (and the world) was in complete flux, quite a different world from what we have today.
    I may as well ask the government of Romania to supply me and all my brothers and sisters (if I had any) with houses to replace the one my grandparents had to give up when they left in 1960.

    “Blood bath” – we’d rather not take our chances, thank you very much. We Israelis are, indeed, paranoid. But that doesn’t mean no one’s after us. What Hizbullah wants with us, for example, only Allah knows – it most certainly isn’t directing its missiles against us for the Palestinians’ sake.

    1. @ Yaniv: ONly an Israeli living in his Occupation-free bubble could say that Palestine and the rest of the frontline states are not living in a state of complete flux comparable to the one facing post WWII Europe. Millions of Syrians are refugees. Lebanon has been turned topsy turvy by this civil war. Palestine is a basket case, largely due to Israeli siege or economic domination/exploitation. Israel has produced tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees as well. And you claim there is no flux?

      As for Romania, many European governments have reparation provisions. I suggest that making such a claim of Romania is a worthwhile endeavor if it’s possible. And if it isn’t, pressuring Romania to do so is worthwhile. On second thought, I don’t know the reasons your parents left Romania and I don’t know the circumstances of their property they left behind.

      As for the imaginary “blood bath,” I’m sick & tired of that stupidity. The only reason there would be a blood bath is if your idiot terrorist brethren decide to create one. By “taking your chances” you mean you will reject ROR completely. Thus the world will reject you & Israel as you have made it. Israel will become something else with or without your support. Serbia lost Kosovo against its will. Eventually, you may lose your country entirely, at least in the separatist, supremacist form it now takes.

      Hezbollah isn’t your most dangerous enemy, believe me. You are.

      This thread isn’t meant to refight the ROR debate wars. WE’ve done that here numerous times in the past.

  17. It should be obvious to all from the above comments that there is no common ground between the so-called solution advocated by Richard & Co, on one hand, and the clear majority of Israelis (including Israeli Arabs) on the other. As Richard said above, he doubts that a Palestinian state will ever come to be, in which he seems to acknowledge that his position, like the radical right’s, is unrealistic. So why continue advocating something that is impossible? Only to be angry and kvetch? How about something workable?!

    1. @ Yehuda: Where did you get the idea that “Richard & Co” advocate a solution? I don’t advocate any particular solution. And I make this choice deliberately because of dopey claims like yours.

      Further, your claim a majority of Israeli “Arabs” [sic] don’t support the solution you claim I advocate is ludicrous as well. How in Hell would you know what solution Israeli Palestinians advocate? Don’t be daft. You wouldn’t know this any more than you know the radioactive decay cycle for a rare isotope. Israeli Palestinians would certainly not oppose any solution that offered them complete equality with Israeli Jews. THat could conceivably be in a one state solution or two states (though Israeli rejectionism makes this solution dead in the water).

      he doubts that a Palestinian state will ever come to be, in which he seems to acknowledge that his position, like the radical right’s, is unrealistic.

      I didn’t say a Palestinian state would never come to be. I said it would likely, because of Israel, never come to be as part of a 2 state solution. But I do believe a solution will eventually be achieved. It will probably be a one state solution imposed on Israel. In that case, Palestinians rights to self determination would be realized within an Israel that is transformed into a true democracy. But again, this isn’t my call & I don’t make choices about things like this.

      How about something workable?

      Right now you & your leaders’ have made nothing workable. You will have to wait for mass indictments from the Hague, international sanctions, & being ejected from the UN as a pariah before anything workable can be arranged. If you don’t create something workable for the Palestinians the world will create something workable–and you won’t like it.

  18. richard , if we are talking about money…
    as a long time reader of your blog i was always wondering
    what is your profession ?, what do you work at ? (i have readed
    that you have a degrees in hebrew literature but we all know that
    that don’t bring jobs…

    so what do you do for work ?

  19. It is in general remarkable how quickly the hostility between two peoples can dissipate once the main stones of offence have been removed.

    To go back to the earlier history of South Africa it is well known that the war between the British and the South African Boers was a very bitter one. The British used a scorched earth policy and initiated the system of concentration camps to deprive the Boers of the support of their womenfolk and farms.

    Nevertheless fifteen years after the Peace of Vereeniging (1902) had been signed one of the Boers’ main guerrilla leaders, Jan Smuts, was a member of the Imperial War Cabinet (he was so too in the Second World War). Not all Afrikaners were as cooperative as he was but nevertheless the Peace worked.

    To turn to my present abode: In about the same year as the Peace of Vereeniging was concluded the Filipino – American War ended in a treaty of sorts. The Filipinos’ short lived dream of independence had come to an end with that. The total number of Filipino military casualties is not known but high estimates say over two hundred thousand, not counting the civilian casualties – and that on a population of then four million. You never hear about that war here. By and large Americans are popular.

    And who would have said forty years ago that the US and Vietnam would be on the relatively amicable footing they are today?

    When one looks at future chances of peace through the prism of present day hostilities one seems to be almost invariably too pessimistic.

  20. @Arie:
    I applaud your optimism. Truly.
    i find that advocating (relatively) practicable solutions is a better way to maintain my own optimism.

  21. It is rare that the victor in a conflict is willing to make repair payments to the defeated but that is what the British did. They forked out 3 million pounds for repair of the havoc they had caused (mainly destroyed farmhouses). Even when we multiply that amount by one hundred that doesn’t seem very much but the population involved was small – moreover it was approximately what the Boers had demanded.

    I don’t know about the Right of Return. But it seems to me that Israel, apart from withdrawing from the West Bank, has to provide some indemnification on a collective and individual level for the immense harm it has caused the Palestinians.

  22. This is tangentially related, regarding migration and movements of people, and very interesting.

    http://freakonomics.com/2015/12/17/is-migration-a-basic-human-right-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

    I think it speaks to the larger question about nationalism and nation states, and the conflict between the idea of a nation and certain concepts of human rights. (I know that the Palestinian problem is different than migration– I am posting this because I think that the discussion here is informed by attitudes about states and human rights, and our differing attitudes about them. )

    @Arie-I do not think that the enmity between Israelis and Palestinians would end if the occupation ends. I won’t repeat the arguments why this is so, they have been said many times here, and I am observing a comment rule.

    1. @ Yehuda: At the end stage of the conflict “enmity” doesn’t have to end, but violence does. Of course there will be “enmity.” But both sides can live with enmity. There will be so many material, economic, cultural, educational, democratic gains for both sides that violence will taper off significantly and probably end entirely…unless…your side decides it won’t. The problem will be with your friends, not the Palestinians.

  23. @Richard:
    quote: “@ Yaniv: So you have no problem with American Jews donating $220 million in individual contributions to settlements & convicted Jewish terrorists, but you hate Israeli human rights NGOs taking a few million dollars from German & Dutch foundations & the EU. Hypocrite. Your stand is precisely the same as Vladimir Putin who has turned civil society NGOs in Russia into spies and foreign agents. Congratulations, that’s where you’re headed. And you will only yourself to blame.”

    But didn’t I JUST say the exact opposite? That I do have a HUGE problem with that? How else can you possibly interpret my remarks about Adelson and Moskowitz??

  24. @Richard:
    I find it absolutely incredible that your could say something like
    “violence will taper off significantly and probably end entirely…unless…your side decides it won’t. The problem will be with your friends, not the Palestinians”
    with a straight face.
    Incredible.
    And then call other people names.

  25. @Arie:
    quote: “I don’t know about the Right of Return. But it seems to me that Israel, apart from withdrawing from the West Bank, has to provide some indemnification on a collective and individual level for the immense harm it has caused the Palestinians.”

    I’ve no problem with reparations. It seems not entirely without justification though, that this should at least be partly covered by reparations owed by the likes of Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Yemen to their own expelled Jews.

  26. @Yaniv
    You wrote:
    “I’ve no problem with reparations. It seems not entirely without justification though, that this should at least be partly covered by reparations owed by the likes of Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Yemen to their own expelled Jews.”

    We better don’t open that can of worms. This has been extensively discussed, here and elsewhere. There are firm grounds for believing that at least part of that expulsion was due to Zionist, let us say. “encouragement”. Some nine years ago I wrote about it here:

    http://mondoweiss.net/2007/10/we-live-in-a-da

  27. @Arie:
    “A part of.”
    I am aware of that, of course.
    This entire discussion is premised, though, on Israel being the only culpable party in the conflict. An absurd premise, to say the least. So reparations – sure, no problem; but ignoring entirely the fact that it takes two to tango is exactly what’s made this conflict so impossible to solve thus far.

  28. The comments are still problematic Richard. No possibility to reply, and if one commenta page is full and the next still empty there is no way to get to the previous comments.

  29. I’m just seconding Elizabeth’s frustration re: technical problems in trying to post a reply.

    But mainly I want to let Richard know – if he doesn’t already – that today’s article in the NYT (Business Section) officially confirms his hunch that the Las Vegas Review-Journal was in fact bought by the Adelson family, in secret and under someone else’s name.
    It looks as though it’s already been put to work ‘monitoring’ judges involved in Sheldon’s shenanighans.

  30. I’m just seconding Elizabeth’s frustration re: technical problems in trying to post a reply.

    But mainly I want to let Richard know – if he doesn’t already – that today’s article in the NYT (Business Section) officially confirms his hunch that the Las Vegas Review-Journal was in fact bought by the Adelson family, in secret and under someone else’s name.
    It looks as though it’s already been put to work ‘monitoring’ judges involved in Sheldon’s shenanigans.

  31. @Yaniv

    Even if the Arab states were guilty of this expulsion to the extent that Israeli mythology has it, what have the Palestinians got to do with that? Oh they are Arabs too, are they? By that logic the whole of Europe was responsible for, let us say, erstwhile Portuguese oppression in Angola or the Italian onslaught on Ethiopia. Weren’t they all fellow Europeans?

  32. @Arie “Even if the Arab states were guilty of this expulsion to the extent that Israeli mythology has it, what have the Palestinians got to do with that?”
    Straw man argument. Who says that the Palestinians themselves must compensate? Even with the Palestinian RoR, various solutions have floated around, with Israel providing a portion of the compensation fund, but also from European and American money. So Jews who get compensation would get it from a general fund, as would Palestinians.
    The crux of the claim is political– The Arab side (and some people here) cannot envision Jewish refugees from Arab countries as victims. Only Palestinians are victims. This is a sign of black and white thinking. Even if Israel was the “winning” side, Jews who were expelled were refugees nonetheless.

    @Richard– you say that you don’t propose solutions, but it is clear from combining your many statements on the matter what you hope for. But failing to propose or advocate an actual solution allows you to evade actually defending a position. You only attack, complaining bitterly about what everybody is doing wrong, and how immoral everybody is,

  33. @Arie:
    “what have the Palestinians got to do with that? Oh they are Arabs too, are they?”

    Oh, right, because Palestinians had absolutely nothing at all to do with the organized armed resistance to Israel leading to and continuing through 1948, and simply sat on their hands while Arab armies invaded.
    (I hope you’ll excuse me for not distinguishing herein between the invading countries; they did all refer to themselves variously as “the Arab states”, “the Arab countries” or simply “the Arabs” in their official declaration of war dated 15 May 1948. I also hope you’ll excuse the anachronism embedded in the sentence “Palestinians had… nothing… to do with the organized armed resistance to Israel,” seeing as that same declaration of war only mentions “the Arabs in Palestine”).

    I am no more bigoted against “Arabs” in general than you are antisemitic, Arie.

  34. @Yaniv, Yehudah

    I never ascribed the view to you that the Palestinians had to compensate Israel for the “expulsions”. This is a straw man argument about an alleged straw man argument. My question was simply this : if A owes B money why would B have to wait until A is paid by C? Your answer: because B was complicit in the “aggression” by C .

    Well these Zionist myths have been laid to rest since almost thirty years but apparently the news hasn’t reached you.
    Here are some fragments of reviews in the London Review of Books, remember the journal that published Mearsheimer &Walt’s original article on the pro-Israel lobby when no American journal had the guts to do so – not even The Atlantic that had originally commissioned the article.

    Cleansing the Galilee

    David Gilmour

    London Review of Books Vol 10 N0 12 13th June 1988

    • The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities by Simha Flapan
    • Croom Helm, 277 pp, £25.00, October 1987, ISBN 0 7099 4911 1
    • Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine by Avi Shlaim
    • Oxford, 676 pp, £35.00, May 1988, ISBN 0 19 827831 4
    • The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 by Benny Morris
    • Cambridge, 380 pp, £30.00, March 1988, ISBN 0 521 33028 9

    “Simha Flapan, a writer, socialist politician and veteran of genuine attempts to achieve a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians, died last year. His book is a moving testament to his humanity and capacity for self-criticism, an old man’s mea culpa on behalf of his country and the movement to which he dedicated his life. Realising in old age that he ‘had always been under the influence of certain myths that had become accepted as historical truth’, he decided to investigate them. His book examines the myths that have sustained Zionist propaganda for forty years and destroys each one in turn. Avi Shlaim, whose long, impressive work has no such polemical purpose, reaches similar conclusions: documentary evidence in Israel’s archives, he writes, demolishes the ‘numerous legends’ that surround the state’s birth.

    Flapan’s first target is the much-repeated claim mat Israel accepted the UN Partition Plan of 1947 in good faith. Politicians of all parties, he points out, regarded acceptance as a tactical move, ‘a springboard for expansion when circumstances proved more judicious’. Many years earlier, Chaim Weizmann had advised the Jews to accept a state ‘even if it were the size of a table-cloth … C’est le premier pas qui compte!’ It was advice that Ben-Gurion carefully followed. Begin might rant in public about the illegality of partition but Ben-Gurion hid the same views behind a mask of moderation. As Flapan convincingly demonstrates, ‘the line from Ben-Gurion to Begin is direct’: both of them refused to share Palestine with the Palestinians. But Ben-Gurion was prepared to wait for ‘judicious circumstances’, and these, fortunately for him, occured sooner than expected. In March 1948, two months before the end of the British Mandate and the establishment of Israel, he revealed his real attitude towards the partition plan by approving proposals for conquering territory designated by the UN for the Arab state. Known as Plan Dalet, these were quickly put into operation, with the result that various Arab areas were captured and a large number of Palestinians turned into refugees before there was any question of intervention from the Arab states. Later in the year Ben-Gurion felt that circumstances were once again judicious and planned to capture the whole of Palestine, but his cabinet narrowly decided to leave the West Bank and Gaza for the time being.

    Mr Flapan’s second target is ‘the myth of monolithic Palestinian extremism’, the claim that the Palestinians all rejected partition and clamoured for war. The author finds the evidence against this notion ‘so overwhelming’ that he is amazed it could have lasted for so long. The Mufti and his followers were certainly planning to fight, but the great mass of the population had no intention of joining them. The Palestinians did not welcome partition – how could they when it meant losing over half their country? – but most of them were resigned to it and were unwilling to contest the matter by force. Moreover, the Zionists knew all this and even Ben-Gurion admitted that ‘the decisive majority of them do not want to fight us.’ Evidence of the Arabs’ attitude was indeed overwhelming, attested by a great many non-aggression pacts between Arab villages and neighbouring Jewish settlements. Even the posturing Qawukji and his Arab Liberation Army received little support from the native population. The Palestinians were rightly suspicious of Qawukji, though they could not have known that, besides his incompetence as a leader, he was also a traitor who secretly encouraged Zionist troops to attack the Husseini forces and then stood by, quietly applauding the Arab defeat.

    From the myth of Palestinian extremism, Mr Flapan turns to ‘the myth of united Arab intransigence against Israel’, the persistence of which he finds ‘quite amazing in view of the very rich literature – including a great deal of research by Israeli historians’ – which disproves it. Dr Shlaim’s conclusions fully support his argument: ‘The first and most important casualty’ of his research in the Israeli archives ‘is the view that from the moment of its birth, the State of Israel had to confront a monolithic Arab world that was implacable in its hostility and fanatical in its determination to wipe it off the Middle East map.’ As both men point out, opposition to Zionism was very often a secondary concern of Arab politicians in 1948. The principal aim for some was the defeat of the Mufti; for many others, the chief objective was to prevent King Abdullah from incorporating the Arab areas of Palestine into Transjordan. The idea of a co-ordinated attack by five Arab armies – Goliath and his hordes against little David – is fatuous. When Israel attacked Egyptian forces in September 1948, Abdullah hoped the Egyptians would lose: he believed that an Israeli victory would prevent the Arabs from challenging his right to the West Bank. In the weeks preceding the establishment of Israel, the Arab states hoped to avoid fighting the Zionists and made no military preparations. When forced by their own public opinion to do something for the Palestinians, they agreed, four days before their intervention, to discuss operations. The result was of course a fiasco: there was no attempt to co-ordinate tactics or even to exchange information. Nor did they have any idea about the size and capability of the enemy forces. A day or two before the ‘invasion’, Sir John Glubb informed Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, that the Zionists had 65,000 trained men. Azzam was surprised by this but replied: ‘I expect it will be all right. I have arranged to get up seven hundred men from Libya.’ On being asked how they were to be armed, he replied: ‘I have sent a man to buy seven hundred rifles from Italy.’”

    From Avi Shlaim “It can be done” London Review of Books Vol16 No.11 9th June 1994

    “The failure of the parties to reach a settlement at the end of the war ensured the perpetuation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Traditional Israeli historians explain this failure exclusively in terms of Arab intransigence; Pappé explains it essentially in terms of Israeli intransigence. He shows that at the conference convened at Lausanne in April 1949 by the Palestine Conciliation Commission, the Arabs were prepared to negotiate on the basis of the UN partition resolution which they had rejected 18 months before. Israel, however, insisted that a peace settlement should be based on the status quo without any redrawing of the borders or readmission of the Palestinian refugees. It was therefore Israeli rather than Arab inflexibility which stood in the way of a peaceful settlement.”

    And that is still very much the case today.

  35. To put things in perspective: By the time those neighboring countries took up arms, the Jewish militia had chased 200.000 thousand people over their borders. NATO started to bomb Serbia a lot earlier when it started to kick out the Kosovar Albanians.

  36. Oh yes, that Arab aggression and the Palestinians’ complicity in it.
    You are about thirty years behind the times mate. Avi Shlaim, Simha Flapan, Ilan Pappe, Tom Segev, even Benny Morris have worked in vain as far as you are concerned. You apparently repeat what you were told in primary school.

    (I am trying to get this letter through because an earlier one was caught in this blog’s moderation filter)

    From M.B.Qumsiyeh

    20 Zionist myths exposed

    The “War of Independence” did not start on 15 May and in self-defence against the “aggression” of the Arab armies who invaded Israel. The war started in early April by the Haganah, which launched its offensive according to “Plan Dalet”. Preparations for this war began immediately after WWII. (I refer you here to the activities of Ben-Gurion that were detailed in Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion: A Biography. New York: Delacorte Press, 1977).

    The Zionist leadership was in tacit agreement with Emir Abdullah of Transjordan. According to this agreement, Palestine would be divided between the Jews and Abdullah. Abdullah would take that part of Palestine allotted to the Arabs west of the Jordan Valley according to UN Resolution # 181 (II) of 29 November 1947. This part later became to be known as the West Bank. The rest of Palestine was to be left for the “Exclusive Jewish State”. (Documented and intriguing details of this agreement were presented in: Avi Shlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, The Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

    Yosef Weitz, Director of the JNF Lands Dept. was very active as of March 1948 in planning for and implementing plans to expel the Palestinians, destroy their villages, and build new homes for the influx of new Jewish immigrants. These activities were given in detail by Benny Morris in his The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem: 1947 – 1949, and 1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians. If the Jewish Community in Palestine was in a state of self-defence and threatened by the “mighty Arab armies” they could not afford the time for Yosef Weitz activities [that were planned and implemented in cold blood].

    From Dominique Vidal “The expulsion of the Palestinians reexamined” Le Monde Diplomatique Dec. 1997

    The same is true as regards the responsibility or otherwise of David Ben Gurion. Morris makes clear that the prime minister was the originator of the Dalet Plan. In July 1948 we find Ben Gurion again, giving the order for the operations in Lydda and Ramleh: “Expel them!” he told Yigal Allon and Yitzhak Rabin – a section censored out of Rabin’s memoirs, but published thirty years later in the “New York Times” (15). This order, Morris tells us, had not been debated within the Israeli government. In fact, some days previously the Mapam, partner of the ruling Mapai, had obtained from the prime minister an instruction explicitly forbidding the military to carry out expulsion measures… Ben Gurion later attacked the hypocrisy of this Marxist Zionist party for condemning “activities” in which its own militants, Palmah troops and kibbutzniks alike, had also taken part.

    In Nazareth, General Chaim Laskov decided to take the official instruction literally. One story has Ben Gurion arriving there, discovering the local population still in situ, and declaring angrily “What are they doing here?” (16) Also in July, but this time in Haifa, we have Ben Gurion as the man behind the scenes in the operation for the “de-localisation” of the 3,500 Arabs still remaining in the town, followed by the partial destruction of the former Arab quarter.
    In short, as Morris himself points out, power at that period of Israel’s history resided with Ben Gurion and with him alone. All issues, whether military or civilian, were decided with him, often without the slightest consultation with the government, let alone with the parties that comprised it. In such a situation, the absence from the archives of any formal parliamentary or governmental decision to expel the Palestinians proves nothing. As Morris himself admits, “Ben Gurion always refrained from issuing clear or written expulsion orders; he preferred that his generals ’understand’ what he wanted done. He wished to avoid going down in history as the ’great expeller’” (“The Birth…”, pp. 292-3).

    The fact that the founder of the State of Israel took advantage of the impressive extent of his powers and worked towards the maximum enlargement of the territory allocated to the Jewish state by the United Nations, and towards reducing its Arab population to a minimum, is a matter of historical fact. Morris devoted an important article (17) to Ben Gurion’s long-term support for the transfer project. As he writes in his preface to “1948 and After…”, “Already from 1937 we find Ben Gurion (and most of the other Zionist leaders) supporting a ’transfer’ solution to the ’Arab problem’ (…) Come 1948, and the confusions and deplacement of war, and we see Ben Gurion quickly grasp the opportunity for ’Judaising’ the emergent Jewish State” (“1948 and After…, p. 33).
    Prior to this, he tells us that “the tendency of military commanders to ’nudge’ Palestinians’ flight increased as the war went on. Jewish atrocities – far more widespread than the old histories have let on (there were massacres of Arabs at Ad Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Safsaf, Majd al Kurum, Hule (in Lebanon), Saliha and Sasa, besides Deir Yassin and Lydda and other places) – also contributed significantly to the exodus” (“1948…”, p. 22).”

    1. @Deir Yassin: Thanks for letting me know! Isn’t L’Express right wing?

      I am planning to ditch the blog theme which is causing so many problems for readers & commenters. It should be fixed in about a week with a new theme & new look. The site will be redesigned.

  37. @ Richard
    Yes, L’Express is right-wing but which news magazine isn’t these days (Le Point is too) but still sometimes it has ‘good’ articles on Israel/Palestine (after all France isn’t the States – yet ? – on these issues), the owner is Patrick Drahi, the Moroccan-French-Israeli billionaire (considered the richest person in Israel though he lives in Switzerland, maybe because his Syrian wife isn’t allowed to live in the Jewish State ?), the founder of i24tele.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Express

  38. @Elisabeth: “By the time those neighboring countries took up arms, the Jewish militia had chased 200.000 thousand people over their borders.”
    That is inaccurate, to the best of my understanding.
    Benny Morris talks about 4 (and a half) stages of displacement. In the first – Nov. 1947 to Mar. 1948 – about 100,000 Palestinians, mostly middle- and upper-class, left of their own accord, in fear of the (two-sided) hostilities. In the second stage, Apr.-Jun. 1948 (the Arab invasion started in May), “when the Haganah had turned from defense to offense,” about 300,000 more Palestinians were displaced. Some escaped, some were encouraged to leave, some were actively expelled.
    Your statement makes it sound like first there was the expulsion (of un-involved, peaceful inhabitants), then war broke. That was not the case.
    http://zochrot.org/he/article/52330

    1. @ Yaniv: Wow, I’m impressed. Even the devil quotes Scripture (by that I mean your quoting Zochrot). As for the stages of displacement, I think this matters to historians (& possibly hasbarists) far more than anyone else. The fact is that around 1-million were expelled. The end result is much more important than how we got there.

  39. @Arie:
    Saying that “these Zionist myths have been laid to rest” does not make it so…
    That Arab “fiasco,” just as a small example, supposedly a foregone conclusion in view of the Arab nebechs who go out buying 700 rifles at the very last moment, would hardly explain how so many Jews died defending against the nebechs, or why it was far from obvious that the Jewish state would indeed be able to win the war (hence the US’s decision to retract its support for the partition plan, dated 19 Mar 1948).
    (700 Syrian soldiers entered Palestine, btw, on 20 Jan 1948. The Arabs in Palestine were by no means fighting on their own even before May 1948).

  40. @Arie– do you really want to have link/quote wars? If I copied and pasted whole opinion pieces by Charles Krauthammer or George Will, or from MEMRI, Richard would moderate/delete/ban me, for violating one of his many rules.
    As I have previously stated it is pointless to do this anyway, because we do not have an agreed upon standard for who and what is a reliable source. All you’re doing is converting the choir. It should be obvious by now that the disagreements expressed here are not due to knowing different facts, most of which are well known. Don’t give me any of that universalist post-nationalism morality crap, either– because you clearly support the idea of nationalism for the Palestinians, while denying that for the Jews. In your comments don’t just criticize the Israeli leaders, you condemn the entire nation as evildoers.Honestly, do you think if I proved or disproved one or more of your “facts” it would change your opinion? Clearly not, and the same for me. This is about the different narratives and values which weave them together. It’s how you weigh the facts. We all agree that killing and oppression is a bad thing, its all about which side killing and being killed bothers you the most–that determines which side you see as murderers and which side as victims. You or Richard do not have a monopoly on facts or truths, just a moral frame of reference. You side with one tribe, and I another. Don’t pretend to be a disinterested honest broker. You’re not.

    If that sounds relativistic, it is. Morality is relative, like it or not. Morality is what men decide is moral or not. But that’s for another post.

    1. You or Richard do not have a monopoly on facts or truths, just a moral frame of reference. You side with one tribe, and I another.

      That’s bullshit, and offensive bullshit to boot. For you Judaism may be tribal. But for me it’s not. My Judaism is based on values and much less so on blood. Nor am I a member of the Palestinian “tribe.” Tribalism hasn’t benefited the modern world greatly though it may’ve been useful at one time in the deep dark past. It sure isn’t benefiting latter-day Israel.

      You claim you base your views on “facts” but all of your facts turn out either not to be facts at all, or are twisted into unrecognizable pretzels shapes.

  41. @Arie “This is a straw man argument about an alleged straw man argument.”

    I’m not an idiot. The context was about compensation. There was an inter-ethnic conflict which resulted in displacement of populations. Not the first time in history. Yaniv simply explained that expelled Jews should be part of the arrangement for compensation, as part of a resolution of the conflict. The specific Palestinian culpability for Jewish displacement, or lack thereof, is not relevant.
    How about indemnification for the enormous harm caused to the Palestinians, by Arab host countries, except Jordan, who refused to resettle them, and kept them and their descendants as refugees for 66 years?

  42. Yaniv, thanks for your reply. I appreciate the tone of your response. I have read about this earlier and I still think I am correct, but I will look into it further, as this is an important issue. I am very busy the next couple of days but I hope to get back to you…
    Best wishes,
    Elisabeth

  43. @Yehuda December 29, 2015, 11:04 AM

    “do you really want to have link/quote wars? If I copied and pasted whole opinion pieces by Charles Krauthammer or George Will, or from MEMRI, Richard would moderate/delete/ban me, for violating one of his many rules.”

    “Opinion pieces” is right. Since when have Krauthammer and Will be regarded as historians? Source for source I know which ones would be picked as reliable by uninvolved foreign historians. Gilmour, Vidal and Qumsyeh referred to Israeli historians who are by now pretty mainstream (Polisar, though also taking recourse to the cop out “it is all a matter of perspective”, acknowledges at least that http://azure.org.il/include/print.php?id=294) .You referred to some American commentators who are well known for their extreme bias. You were wise not to quote from them.

    “As I have previously stated it is pointless to do this anyway, because we do not have an agreed upon standard for who and what is a reliable source. “

    Well you can say that again.

    “All you’re doing is converting the choir. It should be obvious by now that the disagreements expressed here are not due to knowing different facts, most of which are well known. Don’t give me any of that universalist post-nationalism morality crap, either– because you clearly support the idea of nationalism for the Palestinians, while denying that for the Jews.”

    I have argued that legally Israel is only entitled to what was allocated to it in UNGA 181 that already gave it the larger part of Palestine while it constituted only one third of its population then. That is not the same as “denying nationalism” for the Jews.

    “In your comments don’t just criticize the Israeli leaders, you condemn the entire nation as evildoers.”

    Another unwarranted statement.

    “Honestly, do you think if I proved or disproved one or more of your “facts” it would change your opinion? “

    Try me.

    “Clearly not, and the same for me. This is about the different narratives and values which weave them together. It’s how you weigh the facts. We all agree that killing and oppression is a bad thing, its all about which side killing and being killed bothers you the most–that determines which side you see as murderers and which side as victims. “

    Well we know which side had and has the heavy weapons, which side has suffered most fatalities (for an up to date count see “If Americans knew..”), which side has transgressed furthest from the territory that was allocated to it in UNGA 181 and which side has been and is still being robbed of its property. It doesn’t take an Einstein to discern who are the victims here (speaking about Einstein have a look at this letter to the New York Times of which Einstein was a co-signatory http://www.globalresearch.ca/albert-einsteins-letter-warning-of-zionist-facism-in-israel/5438170 )

    You or Richard do not have a monopoly on facts or truths, just a moral frame of reference. You side with one tribe, and I another. Don’t pretend to be a disinterested honest broker. You’re not. 
If that sounds relativistic, it is. Morality is relative, like it or not. Morality is what men decide is moral or not. But that’s for another post.

    You don’t seem to be able to make up your mind whether we just differ about “perspective” (“narrative” is it?) or also about the facts. To wit:

    1.” It should be obvious by now that the disagreements expressed here are not due to knowing different facts”

    2.” “Honestly, do you think if I proved or disproved one or more of your “facts”…”
    So now the facts that we both seem to know are suddenly encumbered with the quotation marks of doubt.

    3. “You or Richard do not have a monopoly on facts or truths, just a moral frame of reference”

    While I wouldn’t dispute the fact that we don’t seem to share a MORAL frame of reference I am still in the dark whether you believe we differ about the facts or just about that “frame of reference”. Or do you think there is no difference between the two? In that case you need a good dose of Popper.

  44. @Arie-This is my third comment for the day, so it will be the last until tomorrow.
    “I am still in the dark whether you believe we differ about the facts or just about that “frame of reference”
    I would estimate that we probably agree on 90% or more of the facts. We would probably disagree which of them are important or relevant. History is not an exact science since it is interpreted.
    “You don’t seem to be able to make up your mind whether we just differ about “perspective” (“narrative” is it?) or also about the facts. ”
    When I refer to a “monopoly on facts”, I am not disputing the specific information that Richard is reporting on. I would admit that the specific factual information that he provides seems to be mostly true, but IMHI his perspective and editorializing is way off. All news reporting is about interpretation based on perspective and context, and I believe this is where Richard falls short.
    “Since when have Krauthammer and Will be regarded as historians?”
    What, is Anshel Pfeffer from Haaretz IS a historian??
    And BenZion Netanyahu, who was a Professor of history at Cornell, not a historian?? Yet I know that to quote his work here is not relevant.
    “I have argued that legally Israel is only entitled to what was allocated to it in UNGA 181 that already gave it the larger part of Palestine while it constituted only one third of its population then. That is not the same as “denying nationalism” for the Jews.”
    Well, at least you are being honest about turning the clock back in history. That such a proposal is totally unrealistic, would cause immense suffering (due to large population transfers) and not consistent with a viable Israel, shows your bias.

  45. @Richard: WOW indeed.

    Fact: “The fact is that around 1-million were expelled.”
    Well, no. Unless 750,000 is “around 1-million”. That’s from UNRWA. Benny Morris says 600-760, and even the unreferenced Palestinian Wiki version only goes up to 800-850 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugee#Refugee_statistics).

    Interpretation: “The end result is much more important than how we got there.”
    So we don’t care “why” 12 million Germans were expelled after WWII?
    Or similarly, “why” 8,600 Jews were “expelled” from Gaza in 2005? (personally I find it offensive to call this one an “expulsion,” but if we don’t care “how we got there” then we don’t care).
    Do we care how or why about 750,000 people have escaped Ukraine over the past 2 years?

    Attitude: “Even the devil quotes Scripture.”
    Right. Thanks for that.

    @Arie:
    Referencing Popper and “If Americans Knew” in the same post. Funny.

  46. @Arie “Even if the Arab states were guilty of this expulsion to the extent that Israeli mythology has it, what have the Palestinians got to do with that?”

    “Straw man argument. Who says that the Palestinians themselves must compensate?”

    Well not me.

    “Yaniv simply explained that expelled Jews should be part of the arrangement for compensation, as part of a resolution of the conflict. The specific Palestinian culpability for Jewish displacement, or lack thereof, is not relevant.”

    Well you should tell Yaniv that. He seemed to think that Palestinian culpability in general had a lot to do with it. He wrote:

    “Oh, right, because Palestinians had absolutely nothing at all to do with the organized armed resistance to Israel leading to and continuing through 1948, and simply sat on their hands while Arab armies invaded.”

    Those cheeky Palestinians. Occasionally putting up (weak) resistance to being kicked out.

    “How about indemnification for the enormous harm caused to the Palestinians, by Arab host countries, except Jordan, who refused to resettle them, and kept them and their descendants as refugees for 66 years?”

    Another Zionist Evergreen. Talking about shifting responsibility. I think the reasons Arab states didn’t do that are pretty clear.

    According to Art.49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention “individual or mass forcible transfers …are prohibited” . If the “security of population or imperative military reasons” (which is hardly the case here AB) demand it “persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased.”
    UNGA Resolution 194, that affirmed the right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property, dates from 11 Dec.1948 (in other words when this was still halfway feasible though a great many Arab villages had been wilfully destroyed to make it impossible). It has been repassed 28 times since then.
    On the 12th of May 1949, under the aegis of the UN”s Palestine Conciliation Commission, Israel accepted for the first time in a joint protocol the principle of the repatriation of the Palestinian refugees and the internationalization of Jerusalem “(but] they did so as a mere exercise in public relations aimed at strengthening Israel’s international image…Walter Eytan, the head of the Israeli delegation, [stated]..’My main purpose was to begin to undermine the protocol of 12 May, which we had signed only under duress of our struggle for admission to the U.N. Refusal to sign would…have immediately been reported to the Secretary-General and the various governments.’” Ilan Pappe, “The Making of the Arab-Israel Conflict, 1947-1951.”

    Another glaring example of bad faith!

    Why should Arab countries have relieved Israel of its responsibilities and make themselves complicit in a war crime? Your crocodile tears about the “enormous harm”
 they thus caused the Palestinians are entirely unconvincing.

    As a final point: to state that Israel is only legally entitled to the territory allocated to it in UNGA Res.181 is not advocating its return to it (though God knows it might come to that). It is merely stating that it is now largely on territory to which it is not entitled and aggravates this situation by the day.

    @Yaniv

    Obviously Israeli strength didn’t look that way before the conflict – but the David vs Goliath image of it they put out after it was over is now pretty generally recognised as entirely inappropriate. And so was your earlier suggestion that the outbreak of the war was entirely a one-sided Arab affair. What is now clear (except possibly to the likes of you) is that the Israeli leaders, in the first place Ben Gurion, never meant to stick to the UN division and were hell bent on expansion from the word go.

    You found it funny that I referred Yehuda to Popper? Well yes the expectation that he might profit from it was rather funny.

    And now I must take leave from your guys’ charming company and from commenting for the next few days.

  47. @Arie:
    Just Popper is great. Popper-cum-If-Americans-knew? Funny.
    Now as for believing Ben-Gurion’s expansionistic statements but disbelieving Arab exterminationists – seems a bit one-sided to me, but that’s just me. Yes, our own plans were indeed – thankfully – bit more successful.

    1. @ Yaniv:

      as for believing Ben-Gurion’s expansionistic statements but disbelieving Arab exterminationists – seems a bit one-sided to me, but that’s just me. Yes, our own plans were indeed – thankfully – bit more successful

      Now you’re seriously claiming that Ben Gurion’s ethnic cleansing (“expansionist” was a nice euphemism for what he actually did) was acceptable because you claim there were Arabs who would’ve done the same thing if they’d won (but didn’t because they lost)??? Is that really your logic? So then if I murder your brother, but you only plan to murder mine but don’t–that gives me a clean bill of health? Wow. If I was a murderer, that’s where I’d go…wait, oh that’s right, that’s where so many of them have gone!

  48. @Arie:

    Oh, just one more:
    “Why should Arab countries have relieved Israel of its responsibilities and make themselves complicit in a war crime?”

    Great question.
    Perhaps, when one actually *cares* for the people he supposedly represents, he can actively help them instead of perpetuating their suffering. Tens of millions have been violently displaced the world over since 1945. Most have not received “justice” (as in: back to home and property. That includes Jewish refugees, both from Arab countries and from Europe).
    But 4th generation refugees?? Only in Palestine. And Syria. And Lebanon. etc.
    Because those Arab countries you speak of are so intent on “responsibility” and on not being “complicit in war crimes.”
    Wow. That is really, really funny. Sad, actually. But funny.

    1. @ Yaniv:

      …when one actually *cares* for the people he supposedly represents, he can actively help them

      You’re excluding from any obligation the very Israeli leaders who actually had a responsibility for “caring” for Israeli Palestinian citizens, since they too were citizens of the same state as Ben Gurion. He had an affirmative obligation to care for the expelled Palestinians; either to return them or to arrange for their resettlement.

      No, you won’t get away with that shit around here about “Arabs” being at fault for Israel’s refugee crisis because it was the Arab’s responsibility to clean Israel’s dirty linen. No way buddy. You send that argument back to Hasbara Central for a tuneup.

      By singling out “4th generation” refugees for exclusion I assume you’re conceding 1st, 2nd & 3rd generation refugees do have a legitimate claim. Because if you are that would be marvelous. With your permission, I’d like to offer you up as the Noble Israeli, finally willing to come to terms with ROR. May I do that? What? No? Damn, I thought we’d finally turned a hasbara corner here!

      those Arab countries you speak of are so intent on “responsibility”

      Yes, it is such a quaint notion, that countries have responsibility for their actions and that there is a body of international law that governs them; and that if they violate them they must give redress. It’s mighty old fashioned, but it seems to work when properly used. That is, when properly respected. You should try it. It will resolve that terrible hasbara migraine you’re experiencing and clear up that bit of ethnic cleansing acne you have.

  49. And just one more on my side:

    “Now as for believing Ben-Gurion’s expansionistic statements but disbelieving Arab exterminationists – seems a bit one-sided to me”

    Ben-Gurion had deep laid plans and acted on them – the Arabs had merely rhetoric.

    You have a weird sense of fun. Whatever its nature it can’t pass as an argument.

    And now really Salve.

  50. @Arie- “the Arabs had merely rhetoric.” It stayed rhetoric because that’s all they were capable of. (They did manage to get in some little mini-massacres, even if that isn’t deserving of your empathy.) If the Nazis had actually reached Palestine, Amin al-Husseini would have been able to fulfill his wishes. Anyway, that is all alternative history and counterfactuals. I prefer to keep it that way, by Jews being strong. If that contradicts the your ideas of full Palestinian national rights, so be it. Call me a Zionist racist if you want, but at least I’ll be a live one.
    See what I mean? We know the same facts. We weigh them differently.

    1. @ Yehuda:

      If the Nazis had actually reached Palestine,

      Wait, are you channeling Bibi here? Was this part of that speech he delivered that was excised before he delivered it? Sure coulda fooled me. Sounds like it came straight outa PMO.

      But seriously, if your grandma had balls she could be your grandpa. That’s how serious your argument is. If the Nazis had reached South Africa they’d be enjoying the view from Table Mountain. If they’d reached Tibet the Dalai Lama might speak German.

      Call me a Zionist racist if you want

      How nice for you to give us permission to say what we have long known (behind your back of course).

      by Jews being strong

      A bit of identity confusion, you seem to be having. Are you speaking for me? Because I never gave you the right to. If you are strong it’s not as a Jew because your strength has nothing to do with my religion. Now if you want to claim you are strong as an Israeli that’s something different. Still objectionable, but different. I can quarrel with you about it. But at least you’re not hijacking my religion in the process. So don’t go there.

  51. Well never mind the Mufti and your PM’s ridiculous (and generally ridiculed) inflation of his role.

    Weigh this fact

    If the spiritual predecessors of the Israeli Right (to which you seem to belong) had had their way there would have been an alliance between the Nazis and the Irgun Zvai Leumi. I think that Einstein, Hannah Arendt and the other co-signatories of the letter to the New York Times (to which I gave you a link) didn’t know about this. Nevertheless they warned at that very early stage against fascist tendencies in Israel.

    The following document was published in Lenni Brenner’s “Zionism in the Age of the Dictators” which you can find on the internet here http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres/LBzad.pdf
    You can also buy it as a book at Amazon. An idea for a New Year ’s present to Netanyahu?

    “….. an alliance between his (Stern’s) movement and the Third Reich was discovered in the files of the German Embassy in Turkey. The Ankara document called itself a ‘Proposal of the National Military Organisation (Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe and the Participation of the NMO in the War on the side of Germany.’ (The Ankara document is dated 11 January 1941. At that point the Sternists still thought of themselves as the ‘real’ Irgun, and it was only later that they adopted the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel –Lohamei Herut Yisrael– appellation.) In it the Stern group told the Nazis:

    The evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is a precondition for solving the Jewish question; but this can only be made possible and complete through the settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine, and through the establishment of a Jewish state in its historical boundaries…

    The NMO, which is well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion that:

    1. Common interests could exist between the establishment of a New Order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO.

    2. Cooperation between the new Germany and a renewed volkish-national Hebrium would be possible and

    3. The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East.

    Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany’s side.
    This offer by the NMO… would be connected to the military training and organizing of Jewish manpower in Europe, under the leadership and command of the NMO. These military units would take part in the fight to conquer Palestine, should such a front be decided upon.
    The indirect participation of the Israeli freedom movement in the
    [268]

    New Order in Europe, already in the preparatory stage, would be linked with a positive-radical solution of the European Jewish problem in conformity with the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Jewish people. This would extraordinarily strengthen the moral basis of the New Order in the eyes of all humanity.”

    The Sternists again emphasised: ‘The NMO is closely related to the totalitarian movements of Europe in its ideology and structure.’602″

  52. @Arie re; Yair (Stern) –
    That’s another known fact interpreted to mean… what exactly? That a year before Wannse, Stern was supposed to anticipate the Final Solution From Tel Aviv, it was obviously a matter of trying to align Jewish interests with “Vilest” in order to deal with “Vile” and “Viler” (or the other way around). Hardly an easy choice for a stateless pariah nation in a room full of gorillas. Was cooperating with Stalin a much better choice, for anyone (the Jews? the Allies?), from a “perfectly” moral standpoint? Did cooperating with Britain or the US help the Jews in any way?

    1. @ Yaniv:

      Yair Stern was supposed to anticipate the Final Solution From Tel Aviv

      I do so love latter day Israelis defending early proto-fascist terror gangs who collaborated with the Nazis. You keep doing that. It’ll get you & Israel far I guarantee.

      And btw, good leaders do try to anticipate the long range implications of their action/decisions. Bad ones like yr current leaders think only in the shortest of terms.

  53. I see that the number of comments is increasing. When I try to click on them however I get invariably “0 comments”.

  54. @Elisabeth:
    Who’s Granny Flemstein?
    The funny thing (sad, really), is that when commenting in Israeli media I come off as an almost rabid leftist, and am frequently accused of serving as a paid mouthpiece for foreign “hostile” (European) countries. It is only when I come here that I discover that I’m actually a rabid right-winger. Clearly, then, I am doing something right…
    (I believe your comment wasn’t directed at me, but still)

    1. @ Yaniv:

      The funny thing (sad, really), is that when commenting in Israeli media I come off as an almost rabid leftist, and am frequently accused of serving as a paid mouthpiece for foreign “hostile” (European) countries

      First, it ain’t funny at all. Second, I know Israeli leftists, some of my best friends are Israeli leftists, and you, my friend are no Israeli leftist. The fact that you’re participating in the Israeli rightist media echo chamber guarantees you will considered a “leftist.” For most of them Ben Gurion was a “leftist.” Who cares? If you commented at 972 or HeOketz or HaGadah HaSmolit or any of the scores of truly liberal-left publications, you would be seen for the mealy-mouthed lib Zio you are.

      Clearly, then, I am doing something right

      About as clear as mud!

  55. The 77 comments listed still become “o comments” when I click on them. I might not be missing much because the gent of the ‘tribal perspective ” is probably still in the air but yet …

  56. Just putting it out there:

    “Refugee children from Syria often tell me: Hitler is good, Hitler is good, right? They ask if there’s a museum dedicated to him, if they can visit it – and I reply in astonishment: No, Hitler is not good.”
    With an embarrassed smile, a worker in a refugee camp in Germany tells about meeting the new immigrants, who seem to be trying to please the locals with familiar symbols. “The refugees seem to be thinking that Hitler is a reason to appreciate the Germans,” she explains. “They don’t know nor understand the context.”

    Now why, oh why would innocent children be thinking this way about Hitler?

    http://www.themarker.com/markerweek/1.2806072

    1. @ Yaniv: Oh puh-leeze. This is deeply offensive. You’re talking about children! Children who likely haven’t been in a proper educational environment for years. And you complain that they’re Nazis? YOu should be ashamed. Ashamed. I have very, very little patience for this.

      If an Israeli journalist or the Marker thinks this anecdotal bullshit of probitive of anything they’re loons.

      Rather than questioning why “innocent children” would supposedly (remember this is a journalist hearing from a source who claims he heard he heard it from children–a mighty long & suspect game of Telephone regarding such information) admire Hitler, let’s question why a supposedly sentient adult like yourself would stoop to such inanity.

  57. @Yaniv. Of recent comments I could only pick up yours. Big deal. If I were you I would worry about other things than what Syrian urchins are saying:

    “It was the year that heralded the start of blatant and unapologetic Israeli fascism. One could not say that before. But a year after Operation Protective Edge, a year in which citizens feared to protest, the fruit ripened. The battle for the regime was abandoned without a fight. It is still in full swing, but the results are in; there is no one left to stop the downward slide.

    Israelis were preoccupied with lots of things this year, from Sara Netanyahu’s bottle deposits to the suicide of senior police commander Ephraim Bracha. Of the 30 most-read stories on Haaretz’s Hebrew website, not a single one had to do with the occupation or the cracks in Israeli democracy, other than a recent, sweet story about the little Jewish boy who insulted an Arab rider on a bus (“Do you have a knife?”) and ended up hugging her in a true Hollywood happy ending.
    A nice end to a bad year. The next one looks to be even worse.”

    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.694616

    1. @ Arik: You link to an article by an Israeli screenwriter & former child TV actor, who fancies himself a serious academic philosopher able to stand in the ring with Edward Said??? Really? And one who publishes at Tablet (aka Tabloid) Magazine, Fathom & The New Republic[an]. Tells us most of what we need to know.

      This comment & link too is off topic. This will be your last warning. I’ve done so a number of times earlier, grown weary & tired of it. The next comment violation could lead to moderation or further action.

      Those Hasbara Central flights are revving their engines for the Ben Gurion leg of the trip. Yaniv & Arik appear to racing to get on board. Please prepare your successors for impending duty & request that they appoint candidates next time with better skills of suasion.

  58. [comment deleted: you apparently are deaf or obtuse. I said the earlier claim & comment about children being guilty of being Nazis based on hearsay evidence the actual reporter never heard is shameful on a number of counts. Your attempt here to reopen the case is even worse. Do it again & you’re toast]

  59. @Arik

    A joke, huh? You must share Yaniv’s sense of “fun”
    .
    You better be glad that you have Levy. He is for the outside world a sign that there is some decency left somewhere in Israel. As ex-Dutch Prime Minister Van Agt wrote recently about him: “he is my hero”.

  60. [Comment deleted: You too apparently failed to read my comment. This portion of the thread is over. When I say something you write offends me take this very seriously & stop it immediately. Besides, your original comment was entirely off topic. I will not warn you again. Move on to a new thread now.]

  61. @Arie, re Gideon Levy:
    Unfortunately, the rise of the “Gideon Levy-ness” in Ha’aretz is exactly the reason why Israeli mainstream is now so leery of anything “left.” He gives a bad name to reporting, not least because he does not even speak Arabic (nor do I, but I don’t presume to do journalistic work in exclusively Arabic speaking areas).

    1. @ Yaniv: This is Yaniv, our flame-throwing “leftist” who boasts of telling us how much the big bad Israeli rightists hate him. Yet he stands here with a straight face and says Gideon Levy, one of the few remaining decent things in all of Israeli journalism, gives reporting a bad name. Further claiming the “rise of Levy-ness” is just plain stupid. What is he, a movement? Who does he represent? Even at Haaretz, Israel’s shining pretension to liberalism? WHo are his acolytes, disciples? Where is his impact on Israeli policy or public debate? Again, you’re just being stupid & offensive.

      Of course the reason your ilk hate him is you know he speaks to an extremely narrow & relatively powerless Israeli audience. It’s not that which threatens you. It’s that his voice resonates abroad. And that when Israelis go to the Hague the only credible Israeli voice the world will listen to will be Levy’s & a few others. The rest of you will fade like wilted violets. You will be discredited for the pseudo-liberal apologists you all were.

      OMG, Gideon LEvy doesn’t speak Arabic. Nor do most of the foreign journalists reporting from international conflict zones. Must they know the native languages in order to report well? Or can they hire translators to help them do their job well? I’ll give you .4 milliseconds to answer the question. Bingo…yes they can do that & they do & quite well at that.

      Next thing you’ll claim is that LEvy can’t report about Palestine because he’s not Palestinian, or not Muslim, or isn’t married to a Palestinian, or doesn’t like zattar. Gimme a break.

      How many Israeli reporters who cover Palestine or “Arab affairs” speak Arabic? I’ll bet the number is quite low. How do they do it? I guess it must be impossible because Levy shows us how badly he does it. When Levy is virtually the only reporter willing to truly report things happening in the Arab communities. Sheesh, you grow more and more tiresome & pathetic.

  62. Funny, that someone whose prize means of “suasion” include such gems as “bullshit,” “loons,” “shove it,” “deaf or obtuse,” “stupid” and “tiresome & pathetic” (all from this page alone), not to mention a healthy dose of cynicism, should be so easy to offend.

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