One of the reasons I so deeply appreciate the open comments here is that sometimes, my critics bring up a valid point. (It’s kind of a blind squirrel/broken clock thing.) Other times, they’ll challenge one of my beliefs in such a way that makes me re-examine it — and reaffirm it.
The other day, one of those critics took issue with my support for Israel in the current fighting with the Palestinians. They said that it seemed, to me, that “Israel can do no wrong.” Normally I just blow off such twits, but it got me thinking.
When there is a conflict one is not directly involved in, there are three positions one can take: support side A, support side B, or refuse to take sides. (Yes, there are gradations and variations, but they boil down to those three choices.)
Neutrality tends to come in three flavors itself: 1) “a pox on both your houses”/why can’t both lose, the sentiment I had during the Iran/Iraq war; 2) both sides have valid points, it’s a shame they can’t work it out peacefully; 3) I refuse to get involved on principle/it doesn’t affect me.
Now, I don’t believe neutrality is a valid option here. We have too many ties, too many interests, too much history invested in the region to simply sit by. Besides, in such cases, regardless of the eventual outcome, those who did nothing tend to lose any respect and credibility in the aftermath.
So that leaves us with just two choices: which side should we support?
Now, obviously Israel isn’t perfect. We have had pretty good relations with the modern-day incarnation of the Jewish state, but with a few bumps here and there. Overall, though, Israel has been a pretty consistent friend and ally. And their contributions to the world are not to be underestimated — that hunk of desert (apparently the only one NOT sitting on top of vast amounts of oil) is a high-tech center of the universe, their economy is thriving, and they’ve been willing to share the bloody lessons they’ve learned in decades of conflict with the rest of the world. We now know far more about treating horrific shrapnel wounds, for example, than we would have known otherwise — and that’s a lesson they paid for in blood.
They are also a stable, functioning democracy, with actual protections for minorities. Hell, in some cases, it’s better to be a non-Jewish Israeli than a Jew — only Jews are required to give military service. Non-Jews can do pretty much everything a Jew can in Israel, including serving in the armed services and the government.
On the other hand, we have the Palestinians.
Someone once described them as a people “who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” At every crossroad, they look carefully down both paths to see which will cost them less heartache, grief, and blood — and inevitably turn away from it.
As another person put it, after the 1948 Partition that established Israel, “the Jews took the deal and made a nation. The Palestinians took the deal and made a war.” And promptly lost it. And have lost every single war since. It never occurs to them that perhaps war is not the way to get what they want.
People always bring up the 800,000 Palestinian refugees created with the founding of Israel. But they don’t mention a few other details surrounding that number:
1) Many of those refugees willingly sold their land to Jews and moved away.
2) Many of those refugees listened to the Arab world’s promise that if they just got out of the way, the Arabs would drive the Jews into the sea, and then they could return to their homes. It’s been about 60 years, and the Arabs haven’t kept that promise.
2a) Nor have those Arab nations done much to help the refugees who took them at their word. Instead,they’re denied citizenship, shoved into “refugee camps,” and kept as pathetic as possible for use as propaganda tools.
3) That number of 800,000 is woefully low. There were 1.6 million refugees created at the founding of Israel. While 800,000 Palestinians left Israel for Arab lands, another 800,000 Jews were flowing in the opposite direction, leaving behind nearly all their worldly possessions. But they didn’t sit around on their asses and whine about it. As I said before, they were handed lemons, but they didn’t make lemonade. They started a lemonade franchise that grew into a huge conglomerate, and never looked back. You’ll find very little sentiment among those refugees and their descendants to go back to their “ancestral homes” in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, or any of the other places. They GOT OVER IT.
3a) Those refugees were so successful partly because their new host government welcomed them, made them citizens, and helped them get on their feet — something not a single Arab nation did for their “Palestinian brethren. In fact, it’s worth noting that Muslim nations have killed far more Palestinians than Israel has — Jordan killed between 3,000 and 5,000 alone in September 1970, and in subsequent months the death toll from that struggle most likely broke 10,000.
4) The Palestinians have repeatedly constructed elaborate fantasies and charades, and demanded the world buy into them. They tout their “historic ties” to the region, but it’s utterly fabricated. Challenge a Palestinian supporter to cite some of the ancient Palestinian rulers. Or some noted events in Palestinian history. Or how it got along with some of its ancient neighbors. For god’s sake, ask them what ancient Palestine called its currency. They will have no answers, because there are none.
What is known as “Palestine” was a Roman corruption of “Philistine,” the name they gave to the region after they oppressed and tried to drive out the Jews. As part of their plan to erase the Jews’ ties to the land by naming it “Syrian Palestine.” It didn’t take, though. Even as late as the 1920’s, news accounts of “Palestinians” referred to Jewish residents of the region.
4a) The Palestinians, while saying they don’t embrace violence and terrorism, nevertheless seem to do so at every opportunity. Hamas stole an idea from the Irish and established “militant” and “political” wings, much like the IRA and Sinn Fein, but didn’t even bother to name them differently. And do a search on the name “Wafa Idris” — the last time I did so, the first 20 results were all about the first female suicide bomber. #21 mentions how the Palestinians, in cooperation with UNICEF, named a girls’ summer camp in her honor.
5) The Palestinians, virtually alone among the Arab world, cheered Saddam Hussein’s 1991 invasion of Kuwait. While the rest of the Arab world looked nervously at their own defenses and made a deal with The Great Satan (i.e., the USA) to save their own asses, the Palestinians lauded Saddam’s move and predicted massive defeats for those who challenged him.
Then, after the war, the Palestinians found themselves extremely unwelcome in newly-liberated Kuwait. Gee, nobody coulda seen THAT one coming…
6) After the 9/11 attacks, Palestinians were seen celebrating wildly and dancing in the streets. It was only when someone clued Yassir Arafat into the PR disaster brewing that he publicly extended his sympathies (and disease-ridden blood in a horrifically-staged photo op) and condemned the attack his very people were rejoicing over.
7) The Palestinians have had many, many “peace accords” with Israel, and made several agreements that were designed to lead to peace and an independent state. And by my reckoning, they have not kept a single element of a single one of those pacts. Instead, they make their demands, make a few promises, wait for Israel to make a few concessions, announce they can’t fulfill their end, arrange for a few horrific terrorist attacks, announce that Israel’s retaliation has “destroyed” the pact, and start a new round of negotiations — with Israel’s concessions from before as the new starting point.
8) When Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip, some of the settlers planned to dismantle and take their greenhouses with them. Bill Gates (anonymously at the time) ponied up big bucks to buy them, then turned them over to the Palestinian people. Instead, the instant the settlers left, the Palestinians descended on their new property and looted, vandalized, pillaged, and destroyed it. They didn’t just kill the goose that laid the golden eggs, they ripped it apart and threw it on the trash heap.
9) In the latest outburst of violence, Hamas — the legally elected government of the Palestinian people — all but formally admitted its role in the recent invasion of Israel, the killing of two Israeli soldiers, and the kidnaping of a third. By any standard, this was an open act of war. Now they are complaining when Israel is actually returning war with war.
No, over the years, the Israelis haven’t taken every single opportunity for peace, understanding, and justice towards their Palestinian neighbors. But over those same years, I haven’t noticed the Palestinians taking even a single opportunity for the same. Instead, at every turn, they demand what they see as “theirs,” and they repeat that they will get all they demand, or they will fight and kill with every means at their disposal.
So be it.
Marshall, we are mostly in agreement with your introduction but not with the eventual conclusion.
What we agree with is that civilians can be injured when a country rightfully defends itself or when it preempts aggressive actions by another. Their injury is something to be lamented but does make the action immoral. (At least I THINK we are agreeing on lamenting the killing of civilians, although the post itself takes the opposite view and most of the yes-men commenters agree.) What will determine the morality of any military action is whether inaction would lead to more suffering in the long run.
Where we disagree is the value placed on one life over many. If our country could kill ever other person in every other country on earth, our own children would benefit because they would be safer. That is the path that your argument takes. But I’m afraid that we have a higher, more complicated moral duty than to only look after our own. And this, thanks God, is how the Israelis feel about the Palestinians. They DO care a lot about their suffering, which is why they usually take a measured approach with their military actions. And THAT is morally appropriate.
So … what you are saying, McCain, is that the Israelis care more about “Palestinian” children than the “Palestinians” themselves do?
From some of the stunts the “Palestinians” have pulled … using children to bait the Israelis, as human shields, placing them where they know they will be hurt or killed just to make Israelis look bad … teaching them how to be terrorists while they are still toddlers … yep, we do agree that the Israelis care more about “Palestinian” children than the “Palestinians” themselves do.
Those people do not deserve a state of their own.
If there wasn’t overwhelming support, there wouldn’t BE terrorism in that sandbox.
Interesting logic. Try this one: if there wasn’t overwhelming support for crime, we would have no crime.
Or how bout this one: If there was overwhelming support for parental notification, parents would be notified before abortions.
Ah, so the rocket attacks into Israel are immaterial, eh?
No. But guess what? Psst..the women and kids aren’t doing those either. You can add another couple of hundred rocket attackers to your list so you end up with a few hundred out of 5,000,000 people. Make it a few thousand and you have the same math challenge.
That is actually a rather blatant lie, but I doubt you care about that.
You probably don’t realize that data is available. Care to find it yourself or do you want to hear the details?
So … what you are saying, McCain, is that the Israelis care more about “Palestinian” children than the “Palestinians” themselves do?
No. But what we can agree on is that the Israelis care more about Palestinian children than the average commentor on this thread.
Whether or not they “deserve” a state of their own is an irrelevant subjective consideration. If you care about Israeli children, Palestinian children, or your own children, they should positively have a state of their own. And of course, that is why an eventual Palestinian state is the policy of Israel.
Marshall, this line is missing a rather important word…sorry…
“Their injury is something to be lamented but does NOT make the action immoral.”
Hard to keep up, but I’m rather enjoying defending the position of Israel toward the Palestinians here. Haven’t had this much fun in weeks.
McCain … the people here most certainly do care about the children of the “Palestinians” … otherwise, we would not be so pissed off about the rampant child abuse perpetrated by the very people that should be taking care of them that occurs among that population.
They use their own children as weapons against Israel. They kill their own children as they strike against Israel. Not as collateral damage, or oops … but deliberately.
A people that treats their own children that way most certainly does not deserve a state of their own. A people that would commit genocide does not deserve a state of their own.
It is well past time for the myth of Palestine to come to an end.
LissaKay, I think you are missing the entire point of this post. The post is an argument to NOT care (“sympathy”) for the Palestinian people at all, and I appear to be rather lonely in taking a normal view that 99% of the people in the world will support. Good old Ed, bless his heart, wants them all Napalmed. At least he gets to the point. Most others just agree without daring to admit the logical application of their views.
No, I believe you have missed the point.
The “Palestinians” are beyond sympathy. Way beyond. That ran out as the blood ran out of the veins of Israeli civilians, women, children, babies … in restaurants, on buses, sitting in their car. Anyone who feels any measure of sympathy for the “Palestinians” needs to have their head examined.
There is no redemption possible. Those people have been bred for several generations to hate and kill. They start training their children this as soon as they can walk. It is all they know – kill the Jews.
What exactly would you propose to do with these people? They elect terrorists to rule themselves, who wish to anilhilate the Israelis – deny their right to even exist. As we type, they are lobbing rockets into Israel hoping to kill innocent civilians. They should be shipped back to their real countries, from where their ancestors came from … Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi. Whereever. They do not deserve a state of their own. They never did, they never will.
And blaming the Israelis for the harm that comes to their children absurd. The “Palestinians” created the situation in which they could be harmed, indeed often placing them directly in harms way. They bear the blame. No one else.
As I said, any population that would treat its children the way the “Palestinians” do does not deserve a state of their own. I wouldn’t trust them to manage a vegetable garden.
OK, then you are contradicting yourself. You first say what one would hope is true but is not, “the people here most certainly do care about the children of the “Palestinians”” Now you throw yourself back into the Agora by saying the opposite: “The “Palestinians” are beyond sympathy. Way beyond.” You are now with Ed and the gist of this post. Just kill them all, right? And if we don’t do it ourselves, someone else can do it morally and you don’t care. Find, I understand.
And I don’t “blame” the Israelis for anything. They are doing a pretty good job with the situation by utterly ignoring the immorality which you and others profer here. In other words, YOU are blaming Israel for being too tolerant. You see, they actually DO sympathize with the Palestinian people, just as you should but do not. That is why they almost always show proper restraint. In other words, they don’t just kill them all to satisfy primitive human instincts.
I do disagree that the innocent Palestineans are beyond sympathy. However, as I said in an aside after your idiotic comment, the people of Palestine seemed to have elected a government that will only make things worse. McCain, even though they don’t represent a “majority” of the population, Hamas STILL won the election. That says to me they represent ALL Palestineans now (although damn near all Palestinean leaders in any “election” were nothing but terrorists anyway, its just a matter of which terrorists do you wish to elect). If the majority of Palestineans, as you say “want peace”, then how come they didn’t vote for a peacemaker?
No one is advocating the destruction of innocent lives (people keep saying women and children, but I’m tired of people using women and children for political purposes, such as those disgusting “send money to starving children in africa” ads while sally struthers is looking fat and healthy), but how many Israeli military strikes specifically targeted those lives? Sure there is collateral damage every now and then, but what WE don’t hear from YOU McCain, is the condemnation of innocent Israeli live, those of which ARE specifically the targets of any and all attacks BY Palestineans.
“condemnation of the killing of innocent Israeli lives.”
Sorry, geez I must be tired.
Consider it duly condemned, now let’s get back to the point of the thread which is about the suffering of innocent Palestinian lives. If you want to talk about Israeli lives, find a thread calling for us to ignore their suffering. You will find me rather disagreeable on that thread as well.
McCain – by coddling them and insulating the PAlestinians from the effects of their bad choices, they won’t learn to stop making them> If Israel had done somethign like this a long time earlier, its quite likely there would have been LESS suffering from “palestenian children” not more. If they had had their sweet and tender illusions about wiping out the jews and driving them into the sea demolished inste4ad of being strung along by playing teir game and allowing them to think it was possible for them to do so. perhaps they would have given up and actually, you know, built something for themselves instead of living like a leech on the teat of the same country that they are murdering the citizens of on a regular basis?
McCain –
Despite words taken perhaps out of context, I think everyone here is saddened at the death of an infant or child, as such ones are presumed fairly to be innocent. The problem may be that no one has been able to deal with the Palestinian children, as their parent, uncles, aunts, and siblings all seem to keep gettin in the way, or putting those kids in the way, or (as I said above by metaphor that you declined to address) beggaring their kids for the aims of the parents.
If, for example, one declines to put kids at risk under any conditions, what does one do when an AK-47 gunman runs towards a playground full of innocent kids while wearing his own kids strapped all over his body atop a suicide vest?
The above, in micro, bears many similarities to the situation here. If you are the police and do nothing for fear of hurting the gunman’s kids or making him set off his bomb, what of the kids in the playground he intends to slaughter?
I would offer that police should stop the terrorist with lethal force to best protect the playground and, yes, lament (a favorite of yours) the dead kids.
Look at the beggar family example again. If you see a damaged child beggar and give that one alms, what if that child’s family has injured the child and placed that one there because they know your views? The aid you give the child will flow to the parents who may well decide to improve their income further by beggaring more children. Why work at all? Where have the billions of aid gone that went to the Palestinians? If they get billions more, where will it go? There is no doubt in my mind and likely few anywhere that future aid given to them will follow the same path as the past aid. They are remarkably well armed for such avowed pverty, yes?
mccain
“Les, I think that Ed’s last comment provides an answer to your question. “
Well, you got me there. I think the vast majority do not feel that way, though.
I just don’t understand how holding the Pals accountable for their actions is beyond the pale. In the short term, it may cause more pain for ‘the children’, but with the hope of eventually convincing them to be a responsible, non-warring ‘nation’. Not holding them accountable condemns them to perpetual hardship for ‘the children’. I don’t understand how you don’t get that. Why should the Pals be treated differently from everyone else?
Hmmmm.
Am I really in the minority?
What McCain likes to gloss over is that Palestinian terrorism has been active for decades, and often targets Americans. A case in point is Klinghoffer. A disabled American confined to a wheelchair on a Med cruise with his family. And a Palestinian terrorist shoved him overboard to drown.
The simple fact is that any similar set of actions by any nation would have long since resulted in war. And quite frankly I think that’s the only thing that would ever really wake the Palestinians up. Is there any question
There is a certain amount of infantilism in the muslim world. Often exacerbated by those on the left who seek to continue coddling them. Thus it continues that muslims feel that they’re the ones oppressed, even as they murder. That muslims feel that they are victims, even as they murder.
And such nonsense is even worse in the Palestinians due to the liberals just like McCain who seek to temporise their crimes and draw ridiculous equivalencies.
What such nonsense is used for is to try and hide the fact that Palestinians do not consider *any* Israeli jew to be a non-combatant or innocent. That murdering a jewish infant is perfectly acceptable because that jewish infant is by their definitions both a combatant and a criminal deserving of death.
My opinions simply reflect the **actual** views of the Palestinians. To them no infidel is deserving of life. No infidel is deserving of a future. And for jews to live, is an anathema.
McCain likes to try and push the utter fiction that the average Palestinian doesn’t support terror. Ignoring the massive crowds supporting Hamas and Fatah. Ignoring the lengthy history of variously named, and often enough merely names, terrorist groups that act as fronts for both Hamas and Fatah. Do you remember Black September and the myriad others?
Push aside the bullshit and the facts remain clear and convincing. The Palestinians do in fact eagerly support terrorism and terrorists and if Israel doesn’t suffice, then Americans will do just as well.
And this state of affairs will not end as long as the muslim world is coddled. The simple fact is that similar actions by established nations would have long since resulted in devastation or destruction. And as long as we are unwilling to impose such we’re going to continue getting this infantilism in the muslim world. As long as they can continue believing that terrorism won’t result in their destruction, we will get terrorism.
The proper way of doing things is made clear by Russia of all things. There the order was public and very simple: find the ones that murdered Russian diplomats and kill them. No codding involved whatsoever. No infantilism allowed. No misunderstandings due to cultural differences. Death is a very clear cut thing to understand.
Ed, you just took up a lot of space when your prior comment was enough. You want all Palestinians dead, napalmed in fact. Fine, understood.
That makes your last paragraph laughable in which you disengenuously pretend that only guilty people should be punished. Duh. Who would argue with killing killers, but you have already given yourself away earlier by arguing that 5,000,000 people should be killed, all of them. You would happily beat Saddam’s killing record by 3,000,000, and equal Pol Pot and half Hitler.
Oh by the way, I’m not a liberal. Conservatives believe in personal responsibility and the soverign nature of the individual. Liberals like you believe in the politics of group association. Do you have simlilar feelings about affirmative action?
McCain … each of these comments has its own link. Could you provide the link to Ed’s comment as well as a quoted excerpt where he states that he wishes to napalm all “Palestinians” … thanks.
And while you are at it, perhaps you might want to make a brief visit to Merriam-Webster.com to review the definition of sympathy, especially the absence therein. Because, unless I am very confused, I am pretty sure that not having sympathy for someone does equate to wishing them dead.
And whether or not the “Palestinians” are deserving of sympathy is, after all, the subject of Jay’s post.
does NOT equate …
PIMF
Well Lissakay, since I’m not smart enough to provide links, the quote itself will need to do:
“As far as I’m concerned we should just napalm the whole bunch and let them fry.”
I agree with your comments, meaning I don’t need a dictionary, thesaurus, or the Analects of Confucus for reference. And since you think that YOU also understand the meaning of “sympathy”, you will agree that if Ed has his way, those who are not sympathetic would not care about the slaughter. On the other hand, if you would in fact care about the death of innocents, that means you ARE sympathetic and therefore disagree with the thrust of this post. In other words, although you might not actually wish them dead, a lack of sympathy means that you don’t care.
By the way, I love the design of your website!
Ed,
Herod was appointed “king” of the Jews long before the Romans changed the name of Israel/Judea to Palistine. The term Palistine does not appear anywhere in any of the books of the Bible, Jewish or Christian.
You gave us a Zionist depiction of what happened which is no more honest than the fraudulent Zionist slogan “A land without people for a people without land” which pushed the lie that there were no people in Palestine. Zionism was born in a time when almost unbelievable racism was routinely excused.
Here are the facts. The dominant Zionist agenda envisioned by Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, was that European Jews were to move into Palestine and the native population, with the exception of the very small Jewish minority living there, were to be pushed off their land.
Even before the 20th century, some Jews saw warning signs that the Jews moving into Palestine were not going to respect the non-Jewish inhabitants. Ahad Aham, a Jewish critic of Zionist supremacy, complained in 1891 that “they treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them without cause, and even boast of these deeds; and nobody among us opposes this despicable and dangerous inclination.”
In 1898, Leo Motzkin reported to the Second Zionist Congress that in Palestine “one must admit that the density of the population does not give the visitor much cause for cheer. In whole stretches throughout the land one constantly comes across large Arab villages, and it is an established fact that the most fertile areas of our country are occupied by Arabs.”
“Our country,” as Motzkin called it, actually consisted of an almost entirely non-Jewish population, 95 percent were not Jews, they were Muslims and Christians. Yet Herzl plotted massive Jewish immigration “based on assured supremacy” and early on he attempted to gain the the power to remove Palestinians who were not Jews. In 1901, Herzl went to Constatinople to try to get a charter from the Ottomans that would have given Jews the right to deport the native population.
Zionists knew “a land without people” was a lie. In 1905, Israel Zangwel, a British Jew who coined this propaganda phrase, argued that Zionists “must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the tribes in possession as our forefathers did or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population.” Another Zionist leader wrote, “Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples together in this country.” and “There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries–all of them. Not one village, not one tribe should be left.”
In 1938, Ben-Gurion said to other Zionists, “after we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.” He wrote to his son, “A partial Jewish state is not the end, but only the beginning … I am certain that we will not be prevented from settling in the other parts of the country, either by mutual agreement with our Arab neighbors or by some other means…[If the Arabs refuse] we shall have to speak to them in a different language. But we shall only have another language if we have a state.”
In Nov 1947, the UN made a recommendation for partition of Palestine, due in large part to Zionist pressures. Zionists privately plotted massive ethnic cleansing and they used the announcement of the recommendation as a way to carry out their plans. The recommendation was made by the UN General Assembly to divide Palestine up into 7 pieces, 3 pieces for a “Jewish state”, 3 pieces for a “Arab state” and 1 piece for an international zone. General Assembly recommendations have no force, they are only recommendations. The majority of the people living in Palestine, over 67% percent, did not want their land chopped up into 7 pieces and it was their democratic right to turn down the recommendation. Less than 33% of the population had no right to insist that the recommendation was binding. What American would say that a UN recommendation forces over 67% of the people to give up their rights? The UN partition proposal was grotesquely unfair to the Arabs because Jews, who owned only 5.4 % of the land, were to be given 55% of the land.
In practice, Zionists did not accept the UN Partition Plan. Zionists seized areas beyond the proposed Jewish State and did not recognize the International Zone. Using force and terrorism months before May 1948, Jews seized land beyond the UN proposed borders. The UN Plan was used as a pretense for taking over most of Palestine.
NOTE: This is a critical fact often omitted when the history is presented and this leads to a very distorted view of what happened in 1948. The misleading story often told is that “Jews declared Israel and then they were attacked.” The fact is, from November 1947 to May 1948, the Zionists were already on the offensive and had already attacked Arabs. In the months before Israel was declared, the Zionists had driven 300,000 non-Jews off their land. In the months before Israel was declared, the Zionists had seized land beyond the proposed Jewish State and ignored the proposed international zone.
“The Zionists were by far the more powerful and better organized force, and by May 1948, when the state of Israel was formally established, about 300,000 Palestinians already had been expelled from their homes or had fled the fighting, and the Zionists controlled a region well beyond the area of the original Jewish state that had been proposed by the UN. Now it’s then that Israel was attacked by its neighbors – in May 1948; it’s then, after the Zionists had taken control of this much larger part of the region and hundreds of thousands of civilians had been forced out, not before.”
The May 1948 unilateral declaration of “Israel” was made by Zionists who were less than 33% of the population and who were imposing their will on over 67%. After the creation of the state in 1948, Menachem Begin made clear how serious the “Jews accepting the UN partition” was in reality, “The partition of the Homeland is illegal . It will never be recognized. The signature of institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel (the land of Israel) will be restored to the people of Israel, All of it. And forever.”
The Zionists knew there would be a reaction to their May 1948 unilateral declaration declaring “Israel” and they made plans, for example Plan D, to use it to carry out even more ethnic cleansing. The ethnic cleansing continued after May 1948, “thousands died in massacres, battles, and, finally, hardship from the brutal exodus of an entire population fleeing for its life, children dying along the roadsides.” After May 1948, 400,000 to 600,000 more was added to the 300,000 driven from their homes.
There were thousands of non-Jews who didn’t leave yet still had their homes and land stolen! In the first 8 years, the Jewish State took away a staggering 50% of all the land owned by Palestinians remaining in Israel. The shocking fact is some 39,000 Palestinians who never left were robbed anyway! “Israel seized property and land from some 39,000 Palestinians who escaped expulsion and remained in Israel. It was never returned, and these individuals never received compensation although they are citizens of Israel.” – See endnote 67 of The Palestinians: In Search of a Just Peace by Cheryl A. Rubenberg
Hmmmm.
*shrug*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine#Boundaries_and_name
YMMV
Hmmmm.
1.
You completely misunderstood my points.
Re-read my comments and try to comprehend.
Or don’t and remain ignorant. I frankly couldn’t care less.
2.
Show me an innocent Palestinian.
Can you? Their entire society is organized around the single principle of murdering Israelis, and by extension Americans. The children are indoctrinated in killing and are often used as auxiliaries to transport weapons and ammunition in the sure and certain knowledge that if they are unharmed, then the flow of weapons and ammunition is uninterrupted. If these children are killed then they are media-fodder.
Youths are encouraged and trained to attack Israelis whenever and wherever possible. Stone throwing is encouraged to generated incidents that can later on be used as propaganda. Young men are indoctrinated into murder. Look at all of those Palestinian mothers who are proud their son(s) murdered Israelis.
To limit retaliation to the guilty *requires* that there be innocents. Where are they? Show them to me. Show me the Palestinians who *didn’t* dance on 9/11. Show me the Palestinians who wept when Israeli children were buried. Show me that Palestinian who objected when Israeli children were shot in the head by snipers.
Show me the Palestinians who objected to rockets being fired into schoolyards.
I promote the concept of killing the guilty. The trouble is that the Palestinians are a philosophical canker and organized entirely around death. There is no negotation possible. There is no mediation acceptable. There is no possibility of peace.
3.
I would respond to Palestinians, and muslims, with *exactly* what they propose. It is they who seek to murder millions and it is *you* who seek to absolve them of that crime before the fact.
Show me where Palestinians aren’t seeking to murder every jew in Israel. Where they aren’t trying their level best to push every jew, living or dead, into the sea.
You cannot and that makes your entire position a lie.
4.
I seriously doubt that. The essence of conservatism is responsibility. The essence of liberalism is making excuses.
And all you’ve been doing is making excuses.
5.
Yep. You should try it.
6.
You are a fool with more opinion than thought if you think I’m a “liberal”.
7.
There is no “group assocation” involved here.
Where are the moderate Palestinians? Where are the moderate muslims?
They either don’t exist at all or they are moderate only in a relative way to OBL.
…
Additionally what you also ignored were my points made about the infantilism of the muslim world. Something that you’ve been promoting in this discussion. The muslims, and Palestinians more certainly, have no trouble blaming America for whatever indirect misdeeds they attribute. Indeed the Palestinians have no trouble murdering Americans for whatever indirect misdeeds they seek to blame America for. Yet when this same standard is applied to them it is, in your opinion, somehow wrong.
It is not wrong at all.
The citizens of a state are just as responsible for the actions of the state in that they provide the legal, political and economic basis for that state. It is this that justified the firebombing of Tokyo that resulted in more than 100,000 Japanese civilian casualties. It is this that justified the firebombing of Dresden.
And there is no possible dispute that the Palestinian people do in fact support their government of both Hamas and Fatah. You like to point a finger and state that Hamas didn’t win the majority. Well there is little difference between Hamas and Fatah and the two of them did indeed obtain a vast majority of the Palestinian vote.
So it’s your choice “conservative” McCain. The Palestinians are damned by their direct actions in supporting terrorism and they are also damned by their indirect actions by supporting terrorist organizations that conduct terrorism.
And yet back to that infantilism yet once again. When you make excuses for the excesses of muslims you are encouraging them to continue as they are. To convince them that there are no or minimal repercussions for their actions you lead them into wilder and greater acts that can only have one single result.
At some point they will cross the line and the result will be mass death.
Ed, your post is so full of inconsistencies and logical fallacies that I marvel at the production. You are a closet liberal so therefore I don’t expect logic from you, but I will humor you a little.
By the way, thanks for honoring me with a whole lot of attention for someone who claims that you couldn’t care less. Liberals are so wordy, but I enjoyed it.
Visit the nursery in a Palestinian hospital for the zoo-like spectacle of innocent Palestinians. The devaluing of human life is a very liberal notion, Ed, so please check into the psychiatric ward while you are there. Ed, your extreme liberalism is a mental disorder.
“Indeed the Palestinians have no trouble murdering Americans for whatever indirect misdeeds they seek to blame America for. Yet when this same standard is applied to them it is, in your opinion, somehow wrong.”
This is a good example of your liberal illogic. Because you are a liberal, you are unable to comprehend that I am applying the precise same standard while you are not. Killing of innocents is wrong Ed, no matter where it occurs, except in your strange liberal immorality. Killing babies is wrong, Ed. Abortion is wrong. Another SCOTUS justice, and your immoral liberal views will be history.
And stop holding groups accountable for the actions of individuals. I’m just sick of that liberal nonsense that brought us affirmative action. I’m guessing that you live in Massacheussetts?
McCain, just out of curiosity, are you calling Ed a liberal for sarcastic’s sake? I’m just curious, because otherwise..I have yet to find a liberal who is pro-Israel.
Oh, and Tom Murphy, that little history tidbit, while maybe partially correct, is also completely one-sided. You never mention the outrageous anti-semitism that caused the UN to vote on it in the first place. It wasn’t pressure from the Zionists (although that was partially there), the world was feeling a little guilt syndrome over letting Hitler perform his genocidal actions against the jewish population in his conquered states (not to mention long before the war, his actions in Germany itself!). I believe the British were against the creation of the state of Israel because they didn’t want to piss off the Arabs…gee I wonder why (oil anyone?). As far as I can tell, only anti-semites refer to the entire Jewish population as Zionists…
Hmmmm.
And again you fail to address significant portions of my response. You fail to address the fact that, according to muslims and most particularly Palestinians, **no** Israeli of any age or gender is innocent. That they are all wheat for the scythe.
And yet you expect me to apply a different standard?
When muslims, and specifically Palestinians, eschew the murder of infant infidels then I’ll accept the possibility that Palestinian infants are innocent. Until then, I’m willing to apply the Palestinian standard *to* Palestinians. And if they don’t like it, well fuck them.
As for your ignorant “liberal” nonsense, it’s exactly that; nonsense. But what the hell. If it makes you feel better, then go for it. It won’t change my opinion that you’re a complete imbecile so it doesn’t matter much either way.
Are you completely incapable of reading comprehension?
Thank you, Jay. Excellent piece indeed.
Henry,
Clearly I’m having a little fun at Ed’s expense. Most Jewish folks in America happen to be Democrats and most happen to be “pro-Israel” as you put it. So other than Jewish liberals, I agree with you that the average liberal (like Ed) is anti-Israel.
And if you define “anti-Israel” as those who disagree with the official Israeli government positions on the Palestinians, and disagree with the wishes of the majority of Israelis, then you would have to call Ed anti-Israel. As I’m sure you know, the official Israeli government position that their majority population supports is for a Palestinian state. They are building its eventual walls now.
And there also is an abundance of sympathy among Israeli Jews for the Palestinian Arabs, which is in contrast to this post and in remarkable contrast to Ed. Ed is literally anti-Israeli, both against their government and against their people’s own moral views.
That isn’t entirely what I meant by “anti-Israel”. I would have said “anti-joo” or something snarky like that but I also know that Israel isn’t entirely Jewish. I know the entire situation is more complicated than anyone here has written, so any generalizations we make is more for the sake of completing our argument (full of fallacy they may be). I rather enjoyed the wikipedia link Ed posted earlier though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine#Boundaries_and_name
That was the most objective history I’ve read yet (along with a bunch of the other wikipedia links I clicked on while there to go into the specifics).
So McCain; Do you not think the Palestinians should be _personally responsible for the cgovernment they have elected, applauded and perpetuated, and not opposed despite its express purpose, express WRITTED purpose, of murderign jews? How many countries can you find that have as part of their governing philosophy the elimination of a people?
Ken Hoop, anti-Semite from way back. Ignore what he says, people, because it’s nothing but his Jew-hatred slipping out every time he opens his virtual mouth.
Ryan has a point. The Palestinian Liberation Organization has removed its plank of eliminating Israel from its platform, but Hamaas continues to assert that one of its goals is the annihilation of Israel. They won’t recognize Israel – reflected in the fact that many Hamaas members will not even refer to “Israel,” they refer to “Zionist” something (entity, occupier, enemy, et cetera).
Israelis want to be assertive in securing the stability, safety, and integrity of its (admittedly self-established) borders and people, and many oppose this vociferously, but no one condemns Hamaas for its desire to push the Jews into the Sea. Why this double standard?
No one comdemns Hamas? Haven’t heard that one before. Consider them duly condemned, but to answer Ryan’s question about holding all innocent residents responsbible for the actions of their government, Osama used that logic to fly planes into buildings.
In truth, Hamas got “only” 42% of the vote, far too many but not even a simple majority. The mathematics of those votes tell you that most Palestinians do not support Hamas. In fact, Hamas is trying to block a referendum on formally recognizing Israel because the referendum is expected to pass easily. But let’s not let any facts get in the way of our theories.
The notion of group accountability is so foreign to western civilized tradition, that one struggles to grasp the thought at all. By way of comparison, I clearly don’t feel personally responsible for the liberal government policies pursued in my hopelessly liberal state. Do you? Group accountability is partly a far eastern tradition, but it is the antithesis of western civilization where we value the individual. Our roots are in Plato, not feudal Japan.
There are so many lies in that lot that I don’t know where to start. How about at the beginning?
>>>>>> 1. Many of those refugees willingly sold their land to Jews and moved away.
Not one of the refugees did so. Some land (thought to be about 7% of Israel) was supposedly bought – but not from the people who lived on it. The ethnic cleansing seems to have started right from the First Aliyah in the early 1880s. What else do you call throwing people out of their homes because of their ethnicity, whether you’ve paid their “landlord” for it or not? “Transfer” perhaps? No difference, is there!
>>>>>>> 2. Many of those refugees listened to the Arab world’s promise that if they just got out of the way
A few Arabs (c. 5-10%) left because they were ordered to do so by gang-leaders supposedly planning to attack the huge Zionist military machine. There is nothing to indicate a general order to leave.
But even in the case of those people who were ordered to leave by Arab thugs, those people have an absolute right to right to return to their homes, both legally and morally.
Perhaps you’d care to tell me what we prosecuted Milosevic for – or is this just one more question/issue that the Zionists really cannot deal with?
Yes Norman, perhaps the Germans who fled what is now Poland at the end of WWII have an “absolute right” to return to their homes too?
Norman,
Your allegations that the “ethnic cleansing” started during the first aliyah are unfounded. A very small amount of tenants were displaced in early land transactions, but that does not equal “ethnic cleansing”.
You also seem to think that the leaders of the Arab states who attacked Israel at its birth were nothing but “thugs” or “gang-leaders”? The “huge Zionist military machine” was outnumbered during the 1948 war.
Don’t like Israel much do you?