There are numerous reasons why it is appropriate for the international community to focus so heavily on Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.
The latest installment in United Nations bashing occurred this past week when all 100 United States Senators——including such progressive figures as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren——signed a letter accusing the organization of using its platform “to advance an anti-Israel agenda” and “at times” to “reinforce the broader scourge of anti-Semitism”.[1] The allegation is not a new one, and has long been a favorite of US officials attempting to obfuscate Israel’s appalling human rights record.
Indeed, while explaining why the United States had abstained from exercising its veto over the December 2016 UN Security Council resolution condemning the ongoing Israeli settlement project in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, then U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power reserved her harshest criticism for Israel’s critics at the UN:
The simple truth is that for as long as Israel has been a member of this institution, Israel has been treated differently from other nations at the United Nations. And not only in decades past——such as in the infamous resolution that the General Assembly adopted in 1975, with the support of the majority of Member States, officially determining that, “Zionism is a form of racism”——but also in 2016, this year. One need only look at the 18 resolutions against Israel adopted during the UN General Assembly in September; or the 12 Israel-specific resolutions adopted this year in the Human Rights Council——more than those focused on Syria, North Korea, Iran, and South Sudan put together——to see that in 2016 Israel continues to be treated differently from other Member States.[2]
Power’s argument bears a measure of superficial validity. It is undeniable that since 1967 there has been disproportionate focus on Israeli crimes in some bodies of the United Nations, particularly in the UN Human Rights Council which has passed more resolutions condemning Israel than it has any other country——a discrepancy criticized by both UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and his predecessor, Kofi Annan.[3] Indeed, while there are several countries with human rights records more egregious than Israel’s, Israeli crimes often remain the center of international attention.
Regardless of the validity of the charge of unfair concentration on Israel it ought to be recognized that accusations of ‘disproportionate focus’ or of being ‘singled out’ have long constituted a final line of defense for egregious human rights violators. The arguments presented by Samantha Power particularly echo those once propounded by apologists for apartheid South Africa.
In 1989, during the height of the anti-apartheid movement, Anne-Marie Kriek, in article entitled “South Africa Shouldn’t be Singled Out”, lashed out against the international community’s tendency to close “its eyes to the true situation in Africa” as “all the hand wringing over South Africa turns to hand washing when it comes to condemning black Africa”. “Why”, she questioned,” is South Africa so harshly condemned while completely different standards apply to black Africa?” Kriek pointed out that while far more severe human rights violations were occurring in other African states, the international community had reserved the bulk of its condemnation for the Afrikaner government:
There are endless lists of human rights violations—mounting atrocities of black against black. Political prisoners are tortured in Zimbabwe. There are 200,000 to 300,000 people behind barbed wire in Mozambique. Escaped SWAPO [South West Africa People’s Organization] detainees tell of torture—in some cases until death. The list goes on and on, and yet it never seems to get the attention of the media or the anti-apartheid campaigns.
“Is it that one form of repression is more acceptable than another?” Kriek concluded. “Or is it maybe that better conduct is expected of a white-ruled country than from black-ruled Africa?”[4]
Just as Power’s accusations of differential treatment and double standards bear some form of superficial validity in relation to Israel, so too did Kriek’s accusations of inordinate condemnation bear some validity in relation to Afrikaner-dominated South Africa. Yet no human-rights oriented individual today would argue that the international opposition to apartheid in South Africa was unjustified. The human rights violations of the white Afrikaner government were egregious and shocking enough on their own to transcend any comparative framework. Apartheid is, after all, one of the only two international crimes, the perpetration of which States are duty-bound to prevent.[5]
Many supporters of Israel will, of course, assert that to accuse Israel of apartheid, or to draw a comparison between Israel and South Africa, itself amounts to an anti-Semitic slander. However, indignation over such a comparison is belied by the ever-lengthening index of human rights reports and political figures who have found such a comparison to be valid.
Most recently, a comprehensive United Nations Economic and Social Commission of Western Asia (ESCWA) report co-authored by the international law professor Richard Falk and the political science professor Virginia Tilley found——working within the framework of the 1973 Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid——that Israeli policies towards the Palestinians clearly met the legal definition of apartheid.[6]
Moreover, the journalist Mehdi Hasan pointed out in the wake of Israeli backlash to the ESCWA report that numerous high level Israeli’s—most of them far from sympathetic to the Palestinian cause—have warned that “apartheid is not a future risk but a present reality” in the occupied territories.[7]
Other reputable figures—from former U.S President Jimmy Carter to esteemed South African lawyer John Dugard to South African Archbishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu—have argued that Israel’s system of control and segregation in the Occupied Territories constitutes apartheid.
Of course, it would be disingenuous to claim that the South Africa-Israel apartheid comparison carries over at every level. As Noam Chomsky has asserted:
In the occupied territories, the situation is far worse than it was in South Africa, where the white nationalists needed the black population: it was the country’s workforce, and as grotesque as the bantustans were, the nationalist government devoted resources to sustaining and seeking international recognition for them. In sharp contrast, Israel wants to rid itself of the Palestinian burden. The road ahead is not toward South Africa, as commonly alleged, but toward something much worse. [emphasis added][8]
It is often difficult to adduce why the struggle of certain peoples—and not others—are catapulted into the international limelight. The exact motivational factors that drove the international community to emphasize the case of the black South Africans, or that drive it now to emphasize the plight of the Palestinians, are difficult to ascertain with absolute certainty. Even so, what follows is a thorough, yet necessarily incomplete, list of ‘reasons’ for the ‘singling out’ of Israel:
1. The UN Bears Responsibility for Helping to Create the Conflict
The United Nations focuses disproportionately on the Israel-Palestine conflict in part because it has historically played a disproportionate role in the origination and perpetuation of the conflict.
In 1947, in response to Britain’s request to turn over responsibility for the Palestinian mandate, the United Nations General Assembly passed UN resolution 106, which established the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine and assigned it the responsibility of submitting “such proposals as it may consider appropriate for the solution of the Problem of Palestine”.[9] The United Nations’ proposed solution of territorial partition—embodied in UN General Assembly Resolution 181—manifestly failed to resolve the conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine and was not implemented. The Partition Plan was nevertheless seized upon by the Zionist leadership as a “birth certificate” for Israel, which unilaterally declared independence on May 14, 1948.
In both passing the Partition resolution (correctly regarded by Palestinians as highly prejudicial towards their national right to self-determination) and failing to enforce it, the United Nations bears a level of responsibility for spawning the plight of the Palestinians that it does not bear in relation to any other enduring international conflict.
As Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley wrote in an open letter to US Ambassador Nikki Haley, “denying that the UN has a special role here ignores the unique responsibility of the UN in relation to this conflict”.[10]
2. The UN Was Lenient Towards Israel in the Past
Prior to 1967, the United Nations demonstrated unprecedented lenience towards Israeli breaches of international law. The 1948 war ended with the drawing of armistice lines, and Israel is thus the only country in history to have attained membership of the United Nations while failing to specify its legal borders. At the United Nations the Arab states cogently argued that admitting Israel would constitute “condoning, by a solemn act of the United Nations, the right of conquest”.[11]
They furthermore argued that Israel’s forcible expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians, compounded by its refusal to allow these refugees to return, rendered it unable to meet the United Nations’ criterion for membership, namely that applicants demonstrate themselves to be “peace-loving”.[12]
As such, while Article 2 of the United Nations Charter unconditionally bars the acquisition of territory by war and the United Nations Partition Plan had allotted no more than 56% of historic Palestine to a Jewish state, in accepting Israel as a member the United Nations effectively recognized Israel in 78% of historic Palestine and legitimated Israel’s egregious violation of international law.[13]
Having already been granted one free pass, Israel’s further territorial acquisitions post-1967 constitute a consummate middle finger to the authority of international law and the United Nations. It was only then that the deluge of United Nations resolutions against Israel began.
3. The Legal Framework of the Conflict is Unambiguous
Israel attracts asymmetric international criticism because the legal contours of its conflict with the Palestinians are so conspicuously clear-cut. Many internationalized conflicts—Syria, Iraq—are convoluted to the point that it is difficult to imagine a politically realizable resolution in the short to medium term. By contrast, for decades the international community has been virtually unanimous in its understanding that the Israel-Palestine conflict ought to be resolved within the legal parameters of a two-state settlement along the June 4, 1967 borders, with the establishment of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Immediately following the 1967 war, the Security Council passed Resolution 242 which, recalling “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” as first articulated in Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, called for Israeli withdrawal “from territories occupied” in the 1967 War and a “just settlement of the refugee problem”.[14] That understanding has been reinforced by the annual and overwhelming adoption of the “Peaceful settlement of the Palestine Question”[15] resolution by member states at the General Assembly in addition to a near-unanimous (14 votes to 1) 2004 International Court of Justice decision.[16]
The two-state settlement has been endorsed by all of Israel’s Arab neighbors since the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative[17], including Hamas, which has repeatedly signaled its intention to negotiate a settlement along the internationally recognized borders.[18]
By contrast, in continuing to demand Israel’s ‘right’ to unilaterally annex East Jerusalem and various settlement blocs, Israel and the United States remain virtually alone in opposing it.[19]
4. Israel Evades Meaningful UN Security Council Action
Israel is subjected to a barrage of critical resolutions from various United Nations organs and agencies in substantial part because it is shielded from criticism at the only United Nations body capable of authorizing real action to end Israel’s human rights abuses—the Security Council.
While the Security Council has authorized sanctions against a number of states in response to their refusal to terminate a belligerent occupation—most memorably, Iraq, after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait—the United States’ veto power over resolutions tabled by the Council has crippled the organ’s ability to hold Israel accountable for its crimes.
In 2016, for example, the UN Security Council passed eleven resolutions concerning human rights abuses in Sudan and South Sudan, six concerning Syria, five concerning Libya, five concerning Somalia and a multiplicity of other resolutions concerning various conflicts across the globe. It passed only one resolution, however, concerning Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.[20] Not only was Security Council Resolution 2334’s criticism of Israel restricted to a toothless condemnation of the expansion of settlements and a vague call for all parties to refrain from “acts of violence against civilians”,[21] but it was also the first resolution passed against Israel in eight years.
In the same speech condemning UN ‘bias’ against Israel, Samantha Power bragged that “since 1967, the only president who had not had at least one Israeli-Palestinian-related Security Council resolution pass during his tenure is Barack Obama”.[22]
5. The World Superpower is Complicit in Israel’s Crimes
Israel is already singled out for exceptional treatment—from the United States. In addition to vetoing UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, the Obama administration signed a 38 billion dollar aid deal to Israel—the largest aid deal in human history.[23] Needless to say, one searches in vain for any U.S Senator’s outraged condemnation of the United States’ disproportionate focus on Israel, and its “singling out” of the ‘Jewish State’ for preferential treatment.
6. The Occupation is a Throwback to the Colonial Era
For the Arab population across the Middle East, Israel’s occupation of Palestine represents a flagrant residue of European settler-colonialism and subjugation of indigenous peoples in a region with a long and bitter history of imperialism.
For reasons not altogether apparent, foreign occupation and the denial of an indigenous people the right to self-determination have almost always engendered greater popular outrage and regional opposition than have the crimes of homegrown authoritarians and dictators. The Palestine struggle deeply resonates across the societies of the Middle East and Israel’s implementation of apartheid in the occupied territories is widely regarded as a bigoted affront directed at all Arabs living in the broader region.
As such, just as the ‘singling out’ of South Africa was initiated and sustained for decades by the African continent, so too have the attempts at isolating Israel originated in the Arab-Muslim world. That Arab states have sought to castigate Israel via the United Nations, while the African states opted to utilize other means to turn South Africa into an international pariah, is a distinction without a substantive difference.
7. Israel Claims to be ‘Democratic’
Unlike the vast majority of other human rights abusers in its region, Israel, like South Africa before it, claims and flaunts democratic credentials. While South Africa saw itself as a democratic bastion holding out against a sea of black dictatorships, the Israeli government repeats ad nauseum its claim to be “the only democracy in the Middle East” (with the “most moral army in the world”) while simultaneously denying millions of Palestinians their basic civil and human rights.
If Israel claims for itself a higher moral standard, is it so absurd for the international community to hold it to that standard?
8. The Palestine Region is of Great Religious Import
The Palestine region remains one of manifest historical and theological importance to broad swathes of adherents to all three major monotheistic religions.
For Jews, Palestine is the ‘Promised Land’ of the Old Testament.
For Christians, it is the birthplace of Christ and the historical setting of the Biblical narrative.
For Muslims, Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam.
Is it not then unsurprising that mass human rights violations in a region revered by billions produces disproportionate international incensement and condemnation?
9. The Conflict is Totally Unbalanced
The response by the international community to the Israel-Palestine conflict appears one-sided because the conflict itself is so one-sided. Beyond the obfuscating discourse of Palestinian “terrorism” is the reality that the conflict’s violence has been overwhelmingly inflicted upon the Palestinian side.
According to the estimates of even right-wing pro-Israel sources, almost four Arab/Palestinians have been killed for every one Israeli over the course of the conflict.[24] At its core, the conflict remains one of a regional superpower, backed unilaterally by a global superpower, against a stateless, military-less people, the symbolic weapon of which is the stone.
Few other conflicts evince such a radically clear-cut David versus Goliath image.
Other international conflicts and military occupations might share one or even a few of the features here described. None, however, can claim to share them all. Disproportionate focus upon Israeli crimes at the United Nations may not be, in a strictly technical sense, “fair”. But if criticism of Israel really were the product of conscious bias or virulent anti-Semitism, wouldn’t ending the occupation and restoring the rights of the Palestinians be the most effective way of demonstrating such a reality? Wouldn’t those anti-Semites attempting to use the United Nation’s opposition to Israeli crimes as a cover for Jew-hatred be exposed as such?
Self-proclaimed ‘supporters of Israel’ have pointed every which way in search of the source of Israel’s ever-worsening public relations debacle. It seems they’ve considered every possibility but the one staring them in the face: a 50 year old military occupation and the ongoing flagrant denial of Palestinian self-determination.
When those end, so too will Israel’s status as an international pariah.
References
[1] Amir Tibon, “All 100 U.S. Senators Demand UN Take Action Against ‘anti-Israel Agenda,’” Haaretz, April 28, 2017.
[2] “U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power’s Full Speech at the Security Council,” Haaretz, December 24, 2016.
[3] May Bulman, “Ban Ki-moon says UN has ‘disproportionate’ focus on Israel,” The Independent, December 17, 2016 and Kofi Annan, “Kofi Annan’s Last Speech Last Speech on the Middle East to the Security Council”, The New York Review of Books, February 15, 2007.
[4] Anne-Marie Kriek, “South Africa Shouldn’t be Singled Out,” The Christian Science Monitor, October 12, 1989.
[5] The other is Genocide. Article VI of the 1973 Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid reads “The State Parties to the present Convention undertake: (a) to adopt any legislative or other measures necessary to suppress as well as to prevent any encouragement of the crime of apartheid and similar segregationist policies or their manifestations and to punish persons guilty of that crime.”
[6]United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid, E/ESCWA/ECRI/2017/1, (2017).
[7]Mehdi Hasan, “Top Israelis Have Warned of Apartheid, so Why the Outrage at a UN Report?” The Intercept, March 22, 2017.
[8] Noam Chomsky, “On Israel-Palestine and BDS,” The Nation, June 29, 2015.
[9] UN General Assembly Resolution 106 (S-1), Special Committee on Palestine, A/RES/106 (S-1) (May 15, 1947).
[10] Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley, “Open Letter to UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on Our Report on Apartheid in Israel,” The Nation, April 25, 2017.
[11] These are the words of Charles Habib Malik, the representative of Lebanon at the General Assembly. Quoted in Jeremy R. Hammond.“The Role of the UN in creating the Israel-Palestine Conflict,” Foreign Policy Journal, August 26, 2013. For a comprehensive analysis of the United Nation’s decision to admit Israel as a member see Jeremy R. Hammond, Obstacle To Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. (Cross Village: Worldview Publications., 2016), 79-88.
[12] The United Nations Charter, Article IV. Accessible at http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/.
[13] For an account of the Palestinian/Arab opposition to the United Nations Partition Plan see Walid Khalidi, “Revisiting the UNGA Partition Resolution,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. XXVII, No 1. (Autumn 1997).
[14] United Nations Security Council, Resolution 242 (1967), S/RES/242(1967) (November 22,1967).
[15] In 2016 the General Assembly’s vote on the “Peaceful settlement of the Palestine Question” resolution passed by a margin of 155-7. “Traditional Voting Pattern Reflected in General Assembly’s Adoption of Drafts on Question of Palestine, Broader Middle East Issues,” United Nations, November 24, 2015.
[16] Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion. (International Court of Justice July 9, 2004), 43 IL M 1009 (2004).
[17] “Arab Peace Initiative: full text,” The Guardian, March 28, 2002. Israel ignored the initiative, with then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon labelling it a “nonstarter”. In 2016, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again rejected the initiative–which is grounded in United Nations Resolution 242– as a basis for talks. Barak Ravid, “Netanyahu: Israel Will Never Accept Arab Peace Initiative as Basis for Talks With Palestinians,” Haaretz, June 13, 2016.
[18] For a survey of the history of Palestinian peace overtures and Israel’s intentional sabotaging of them, see Jamie Stern-Weiner, “Did Israel Just Thwart Another Palestinian Peace Offensive?” Jamie Stern-Weiner.Wordpress, March 19, 2017.
[19] For comprehensive analysis of Israel’s attempts to legally justify its rejection of UN Resolution 242 see “Israel Versus the World”. In Norman G. Finkelstein, Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End (New York: OR Books, 2012).
[20] “Resolutions adopted by the Security Council in 2016,” United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/sc/documents/resolutions/2016.shtml.
[21] United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2334 (2016), S/RES/2334 (2016) (December 23, 2016).
[22] “U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power’s Full Speech at the Security Council,” Haaretz, December 24, 2016.
[23] Peter Baker and And Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “U.S. Finalizes Deal to Give Israel $38 Billion in Military Aid,” The New York Times, September 13, 2016.
[24] According to the Jewish Virtual Library as of May 3, 2017, 24,969 Israelis have been killed over the duration of the conflict, while 91,950 Arab/Palestinians have been killed. Over the same duration 36,260 Israeli’s have been wounded while 78,038 Palestinians/Arabs have been wounded. “Vital Statistics: Total Casualties, Arab-Israeli Conflict,” Jewish Virtual Library.
Nice piece, Colter. Looking forward to more from you.
In the late ’40s, when America controlled the United Nations and was thus able to arrange the right number of votes to illegally split up Palestine and give its best parts to Jewish immigrants who were in the country illegally, the United Nations was the good guy for Zionists and the Zionist controlled media. Now that the world has changed and even Israel’s former supporters have seen that Israel is nothing more than a racist, theocratic, aggressive and greedy colonial power, Israel and its friends call the UN a racist organization. And to add irony, they say Israel is a legitimate state because its creation was supported by the UN.
The US does not and has not controlled the UN. The small majority that voted in favor of a Jewish State did so in order to allow the Jewish Nation to have a home land in it’s ancestral land. As opposed to the Arabs who came from Arabia and conquered the land. Their small numbers caused mass destruction over the 1400 year reign that included not only Arabs but converted Muslims from Asia as well. Interesting that you say that Israel is nothing more than a racist, theocratic, agressive and greedy colonial power. One that offers equal rights to all citizens no matter what their background, that offers freedom of religion to any religion, that is on the defensive against constant attack by the Arabs looking to destroy her in any way possible and the one who has developed a land that was sparsly populated with very little furtile land into the a great country with forests, fields, industry and technology. The legitimate forming of Israel under the auspices of the UN has brought only good to the people living within her borders as well as the ME in it’s entirety. The only thing that is not positive about the State of Israel are those envious of her acheivements in just about every possible department, while her neighbors stagnate behind and loose their constant battle of trying to destroy the State of Israel,
You’ve bought the tired Zionist party line hook, line, and sinker. Practically everything you say is a cliche which has been provide false.
It all depends how far back you want to go. Let’s go all the way back to avoid the conflict of dates. The first invader was a stranger from southern Iraq called Abraham. He claimed God had sent him to the Promised Land. But why would God take the land of the natives and give it to the alien from Ur? Easy The Bible was written by Abraham’s fellow settlers. The relevant fact is that Arabs were the majority people starting in the 7th century. When the Jews of Europe started to illegally settle in Palestine, 95% of the people were Arab. They also owned most of land. Through propaganda, Western support, money, and guns these foreign Jews stole Palestine from the Arabs. There is no other fact which can challenge this crystal clean fact that Palestine belongs to the Arabs. The Israelis are all settlers, thieves, murderers
If you would like to return to the roots of the Bible and Judaism, Christianity and Islam no problem to go to Abraham who with his family moved west to the Land of Israel. No invasion, just a family moving to better pastures. Since the land, similar to the 19th century was basically empty of inhabitants and agriculture, it was a natural place for the Almighty to give to the Chosen People. Like in Biblical times the land has been filled with people, not only Jews immigrated but many Muslims, Christians, Marronites, Druze and others in the past 150 years, since massive Jewish immigration commenced in modern times. Yes the Arabs conquered the land in the 7th century. The first Arabs were okay with the local residents but it did not take long (several decades) when their newfangled religion took precedence and those who failed to confirm were murdered in cold blood, if they were not willing to convert. Very similar to the Christians throughout history starting in the 4h century. Actually through propaganda you believe the falsehoods spread by antisemitism who sole agenda it to help make the State of Israel irrelevant and perhaps to cease to exist. There is no other way to teach individuals such as yourself except with facts. But unfortunately facts get in the way of your agenda. The Arabs have always been murderous to those who do not conform to their ways (Shariya Law), thieves (today’s day in age — cars, livestock), illegal setting and building on land they don’t own nor have building permits for. Too bad you have never lived the city you grew up in. There is an entire world out there, you might one day get to discover, not through the lenses of disinformation.
Amazing how the writer who has studied the ME has misconstrued much of the ‘facts’ he purportedly states in this article. While the number of borderline inaccuracies are multiple there are some that stick out like a sore thumb. One is that Israel is really the only true democracy in the Middle East. Not not stated ad naseum, unless you refuse to see the truth in the statement. If not Mr. Louwerse please post an answer as to which other ME country has freedom of religion (any religion), equal rights for women, freedom of speech by anyone (even citizens who speak treason against their country), education for all people, the right to live anywhere in the country, freedom of movement and more. Name ONE country that has ALL of the above that is located in the Middle East or is a predominately Muslim country (any of the 28 countries worldwide). It is also unclear what ‘human rights violations’ Israel has done against the so called ‘Palestinians’. Who are the Palestinians in his book? According to the definition I now of a Palestinian is a Jewish citizen living under the British Mandate from 1922 until 1948 when they automatically became Israeli citizens with the founding of the State of Israel. There is no country, nor ever was a country called Palestine, so it is unclear just who has their ‘human rights’ violated by the State of Israel. So just who is he referring to?
The Palestine Mandate calls Palestine a country throughout. In fact it was also a state, because it had all the attributes of a state according to the Montevideo Convention: a population, a government, defined borders, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. ALL the people living in Palestine were called Palestinians, obviously. The State of Israel was created in only part of Palestine. The people whose human rights are being violated are first; the Palestinian refugees who left as a result of the founding of Israel, who Israel refuses to allow to return, in violation of the universal Declaration of Human Rights: “every person has the right to leave his country and return to his country”; second, those Palestinians who are living outside the borders of Israel but under Israeli military rule in the West Bank, or under Israeli military blockade in Gaza.
When exactly was there a country called Palestine? You write that the Palestine Mandate, when in fact it was the British Mandate in a small part of what was considered Palestine by the British for about 100 years. When was it a State? When did it receive independence? Who was it’s first Head of State? What currency and language were official? Where was it’s capital? When exactly was there a place called Palestine that had a government, defined borders and capacity to enter into relations with other States? Which states did they enter relations with? Please provide me with some reading material that clearly discusses the local population as Palestinians prior to 1948 and refers to the Arabs living under the British Mandate. The so called Palestinian refugees, if there are any still alive, left under their own free will, by the Arab League and a very small number were expelled due to their constant attacks on innocent civilians. Those who left were invited to return to Israel and become equal citizens, half returned, the other half chose to live in the countries they came from in constant limbo for generations (4 and 5 generation as of right now). How many of those who left in 1948 are still with us. Even the youngest would be 69 years old and not remember a thing about where they may have been born and certainly not where their parents lived for 5 years prior to their birth. Every person has the right to leave his country and return to his country, but the people who left went back to the countries they came from, none of which were Israel which only became a country in 1948. The Ottoman Empire dissolved in 1917, most of them did return to the former Turkish lands, if that is the country you are referring to. Arabs living outside the borders of Israel, do not live within the borders of Israel (i.e. Judea and Samaria/a.k.a. West Bank). Those living in Judea and Samaria are actually under the Palestinian Authority who dictates their lives in any way they see fit without any intervention from the side of Israel. The only hand Israel has in the lives of the Arabs in those areas is security. Either directly like in Area C, or together with the PA in Area B. It does not have any jurisdiction nor does it operate in Area A without the consent of the PA. What is the blockage in Gaza? Please elaborate. The one that Egypt put on the border to prevent goods from entering the strip?
Oh, and the West Bank according the San Remo conference of 1922 refers to the Jewish State that would be formed there, with the east bank of the Jordan River being dedicated to the Arab State (over 2/3’s of the land under the British Mandate.
It’s true that Arab Palestinians remaining in the area today known as Israel became Israeli citizens. Their number was around 160,000, less than a quarter of the number of Arabs who were ethnically cleansed from their homes in Palestine in order for the Zionists to establish their “Jewish state”.
Actually approximately 600,000 Arabs left Israel between November 1947 until the end of the War of Independence. After being asked to return about half returned and resettled inside Israel. Not sure where you get the notion that the the Arabs were ethnically cleansed, when Israel has over a 20% Arab minority of which about 25% of the ancestors lived in what is today Israel prior to 1940. The Arab League told the Arabs to leave until the State of Israel is destroyed. Unfortunately they believed their brethren and are still waiting to ‘return’ even though very few had any connection to the land or property.
“After being asked to return”!!!
Israel has consistently refused to allow the refugees to return. Please give your source for this remarkable statement.
Well not exactly. In 1949 Israel made a statement inviting all Arabs who chose to leave their homes to return and indeed over 300,000 did until 1952 when apparently there were no more people interested in ‘returning’ to their homes in what became the State of Israel. You are more than invited to visit the National Archives of Israel located in Jerusalem to read all of the original documentation (which is my source of information). Note that the nearly 1 million Jews who were expelled from Arab countries, even though they had resided there for thousands of years, became a much large larger refugee problem as they were expelled without their property or compensation for what they owned in the Arab/Muslim countries. Of these nearly million Jews, none were considered refugees within a year or so of arriving in Israel. Second generation were already in integral part of Israeli society. Of the Arabs who fled in 1948, how many are still alive? Even the youngest among them, who were infants when the State was founded is now 69 years old. A refugee by defination is one that was expelled by force, famine, war or immediate danger and are unable to return due to those factors and their children. So even if there are hand full of so called (self made) refugees in the surrounding countries, I doubt that they would want to pick up and leave their home of the past 69 or more years, especially when Israel was only a temporary home of maybe 1, 5 or perhaps ten years.
No, it was the internally displaced Arabs, still within the borders of Palestine, who were invited to return to their homes and were offered Israeli citizenship. Jeremy says there were about 160,000 of them. It is not helpful to refer me to the National Archives where there may be millions of documents. Please give links to the documents you want to quote.
Approximately 750,000 Arabs left the areas of Palestine controlled by Israel during the 1948-49 war, becoming stateless refugees living in camps in the neighboring countries, and Israel never allowed them to return (which is why they are still refugees). Their descendants in the camps are also stateless refugees, and have a right to return to their family homes under international law. Contrary to what you suppose, many of these descendants know a great deal about the villages where their families lived, and some have title deeds and door keys to their homes. The UN also has information about property ownership at the time.
Let’s get this straight, there is no Palestine nor was there ever a place called Palestine as a sovereign country with defined borders. The Arabs who left were invited to return whether they had moved to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, iraq, Egypt (from whence they arrived less than a decade prior to the founding of the State of Israel). I do not have time to search the internet for copies of authentic documents which are readily available at the archives. The fact that Jeremy makes such a quote should be substantiated with authentic documents. Have you asked for him to provide such original documents?
Your numbers again are wrong, of approximately 800,000 Arabs living in what became the State of Israel, about 600,000 left and over half returned. The country did not become empty of Arabs, this is very far from the truth. Those who stayed are fully integrated into Israeli society with all it’s benefits and rights. Those who left, did so on their own accord for whatever reasons they had at the time. They also chose not to return. They did not own any property or even the home they lived in so there really was not much to return to. Especially since most had only arrived within the previous decade and others from the start of the 20th century. Why are the so called refugees stateless? Because the Arab countries have deliberatley decided that these once migrant workers do not belong in the midst. The iroy is that the 4th and now 5th generation of so called Palestinians have never even been to Israel, are totally and completely disconnected from the country and probably will never even visit the country. Any property their great-grandparents may of lived in has been reverted back to either the Waqf which owns most of the Arab holdings in Israel or to the State, according to the Ottoman and British laws of abandoned property whose owner is unknown. Most of the Arabs lived illegally on the land they lived on (this is true until today), so they really don’t have what to return to. Those who have deed and title have been invited to reclaim their property or receive compensation (which many took advantage of). But since most of the Arabs did not own anything the owners were absentee warlords who generally just abandoned their property. Since these people are long gone (dead) it would extremely difficult to prove ownership — especially when there is no written record of any form.
Nope they were asked to return. Those who returned by 1952 live in the only democracy in the ME. Those who chose to live elsewhere still do on their own accord and legally cannot be called Palestinian refugees, because a refugee is one that is not able to return home — these people chose not to. Their descendants were born in the country they choose to live in and are citizens of those countries, live and work in those countries and are integrated into the society of those countries and therefore are not refugees — especially those younger than 69.
nope: they are stateless refugees living in refugee camps. They were not asked to return. Where did you get that idea from? They have been prevented from returning, despite scores of UN Resolutions saying that they do have a right to return.
Actually their number is closer to 300,000 out of the 700,000 that left Israel on their own accord. Ethnic cleansing would mean that there would be no more Arabs which is absolutely inaccurate as the Arabs are over 20% of the the State of Israel’s population.
Norek, You and I are wasting our time on this: the Bible is not history. It’s a mythological book with borrowings from neighboring countries (for example, the story of the Flood). While other nations’ mythology is rightly considered as such, for some reason Jewish mythology is regarded history by Zionists and ignorant Christians.
There was no Moses and no Passover. During their long occupation of the Sinai Peninsula Israeli archeologists, despite huge efforts, found not a single trace of Moses and his 300,000 (?) followers. There was no David either. No archeological proof. During the millennia before Christ, Hebrews ruled Palestine only for a couple of centuries. The rest of the time the land belonged to the Egyptians, Hittites, the Hyxsos, Sumerians, Assyrians… This is history.
Since by far the majority of the people of Palestine, from the 7th century (except for the Crusader era) to the 20th century were Arab and they the land individually, Palestine belongs to them. It was stolen from them by the Zionists with the assistance of the West. By the way, many Westerners then and now want to have an Israel because they were/are anti-Semites and were hoping/still hope that they would get rid of the Jews of their countries when Jews move to Israel. People say Israel was created to provide sanctuary to world Jewry from anti-Semitism. The irony is that Israel has increased global anti-Semitism through its countless criminal acts.
Arabs and Jews are ethnic and language cousins. They should be able to live peacefully together. But the Jews, after centuries away from the Middle East, have stopped being Jews. They have become Westerners. They look down at the East…and yet they have forcibly made an armed nest among the people of the East. That’s what I call national and ethnic alienation.
In your uneducated opinion the Bible is not history. However, since there is a lot of substantiated proof of many of the stories in the Bible, your ascertation is false. It is true to say that there are many peoples with similar epochs such as the flood. However, there is no other book that has a full conglomeration of them in one place. It would extremely difficult to find much if any evidence of Nomads living in a desert (Moses with the Israelites), since they were Nomads and did not really leave any material culture. There is no inscription saying Moses was here, but there are other inscriptions which give precedence to Biblical stories and figures such as King David. What you call palestine is a name given by the Romans in the 2nd century CE and used for about 200 years, It was again used starting in the beginning of the 19th century by British explorers. Israel has been known as Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) for about 4000 years. Up until Hadrian’s rule it was known as Judea (thus the name Jew). Afterwards it was called Syria, Greater Syria or similar — until the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and the British had a Mandate of the area and called it Palestine ‘officially’. True the Arab had a conquest in the 7th century, converting/ massacring those who were considered infidels (mostly Pagans like their forefathers and Christians).
The main reason for Antisemitism today is due to incitement and the spreading of inaccuracies, falsehoods and disinformation which is based on envy by those who which to aspire to greatness in various fields but haven’t. What is ironical is that over the ages Jews were forbidden to own and work the land and so became bankers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc. which were considered inferior professions. Now that the Jews have their own country, with brain power the greatest commodity the world says — no land no farming for the Jews, but also no free professions (listed above). Without the Bible there would no civil law in your country, or just about anywhere else. So, no you are wrong, the Bible is not just a book but the basis for modern day life.
Yes, the Arabs are a Semitic people like the Jews and of course both the Jews and Arabs should be able to live peacefully with each other (see Israel as a model for this). But the Arab pride has been hurt time and again, whether due to the development of Israel by the Jews, the wars lost to Israel or just plain envy. Once they overcome these hurdles and accept the Jewish nation for what it is, there will be peace. Israel is here to stay. The Arabs are welcome to accept peace with Israel, until then Israel will defend herself again Arab attack,
Go the the website of the Israel National Library and search for Palestina Moderna, You will find a map of Palestine dated 1480, based on one from the 2nd century CE. Palestine has been called Palestine for two thousand years.
As you said, the map based on a second century map calls the area now known as Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Arabian Penninsula as Palestine. Since the map you are referring to is based on a 2nd century map (when the Roman’s changed the name from Judea to Palestina) it is only logical that it would be called Palestine on this copy. Keep searching.
No it doesn’t: the map extends from the Litani River in the north to Beersheba in the south, from the mediterranean sea in the west to the edge of the cultivated strip of land on the east side of the River Jordan. (North is on the left in the map). Jordan or the other territories you mention were never considered part of Palestine. The map presented by the Zionists to the 1919 Paris peace conferences corresponds very closely with historic Palestine as shown in this map from 1480. Mandatory Palestine lost the territory now known as Southern Lebanon, and the cultivated strip to the east of the River Jordan which went to Jordan. It gained the Negev.
Actually it shows the HOLY LAND (Terra Sancta) of Palestina Moderna, not a country called Palestine. But why let facts get in your way. Actually the original declaration was for the land under the British Mandate which included what is today Jordan and the State of Israel (including Judea&Samaria and Gaza).
Palestine IS the Holy Land. I learned that in Sunday School when I was six years old. Saying that Palestine included Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and the Arabian Peninsula is complete nonsense. Palestine covered the area shown in the 1480 map and was considered part of Syria, as was Transjordan. The Mandate said that the British could set up whatever type of administration it considered appropriate in TransJordan i.e that they did not need to apply the Jewish national Home policy to the east of the Jordan.
As I said, it’s pointless to debate with you on this subject because you believe the book of mythology called Old Testament is history. You believe Adam and Eve ate the apple. You believe Cain an Abel (there were not women) somehow gave birth to humanity. You believe Noah put two dinosaurs etc. in his Ark. You believe Elijah flew to Heaven in a burning chariot. You believe Lot’s daughters slept him him and Moses leading 300,000 people lived for 40 years in an arid desert. Should I give you more examples of this nonsense? And one more thing: you boast that Hebrews are responsible for our laws and values because God gave the Commandments to Moses. Don’t you realize what you’re saying primarily insults your own Hebrews. The Moses fable means that before the mythical crossing of the Red Sea, Hebrews were allowed to kill, steal, commit adultry, mistreat their parents, lie, etc. and that’s why God was forced to give the Commandments to them. Otherwise, why would have God given the Commandments? Your Hebrews lived like wild beasts and that’s why God came down from the Heavens to straighten them out. That’s what you’re saying but don’t seem to realize it. And don’t you realize that every time Hebrews do what you just did (crow and boast) you add fuel to anti-Semitism? Anti-Semitism existed long before the birth of Christ. Hebrews were annoying people long before they crucified Christ. Finally, Israel is a racist, apartheid, theocratic, militaristic colony. Hitler dreamt about creating such a people as the Israelis. You have realised Hitler’s dream. Israelis are “Aryan” Semites. Congrats.
You should read the New Testament. It says that those who live by the sword, die by the sword.
Yes you are right that the debate is pointless. Your insults and pure hatred of other peoples beliefs is purely disgusting. You have no idea what I believe, what you believe is nothing. There are many aspects of the Bible which have been discovered/proven to be true, whether you agree with that or not is none of my business. The fact that no proof of one story or another has yet been found does not disprove it. This is a basic fact of archaeology, science and research. As a hatred of monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam you fail to understand the modern world, at least in the West and Middle East which whether you like it or not are based on one of these religions. Once again your lack of education has led you to make false statements. The Roman’s may not have liked the Jews, becuase they refused to pray to rocks, but I would not call that antisemitism. The Roman’s crucified Christ for not keeping to Roman law. That was the proper punishment in those days for people of his nature.
It also appears that you are unfamiliar with the definition of racist, apartheid, theocracy and militaristic colony, as Israel does not fall even remotely within any of these categories. I have read both the Bible and the Gospels of the New Testament. It is true that the conquers of other nations who did so by the sword have died by the sword. However, any subtle connection between the Jewish nation and this passage is so far from reality that its like standing on Long Island and annoucing you can see the Opera House in Sydney Australia.
You are clueless to what I believe. You should read the Old Testament — it is the base of the New Testament.
Everybody’s mythology–from China to India to Egypt to Greece to Rome to Iceland–is considered mythology but the Hebrew mythology is history and religion. Give me a break! God spoke to Abraham, to Moses and I don’t know to who else…god picked a non-Hebrew from the Iraqi city of Ur and sent him to a desert country which he called Promised Land. The funny thing is that Hebrews have been transgressing against their mythological god since day, but like an obsessive and blind lover this god, who lives above the clouds, forgives them because he has decided that of the tens of thousands of nations they are his FAVORITE PEOPLE, the CHOSEN because ???
Ahh… god loved his pets so much that he gave them, according to Hebrew mythology, a piece of desert land with a tiny river and a dead sea.
You do not need to believe in what over 2 billion of the Earth’s population believe in. But you cannot insult those 2 billion people with your obviously obnoxious baseless notions. Avram was a figure who emigrated from the eastern part of the fertile crescent to a desolate land in the west (very similar to the immigration of Jews starting in the 1880s) You do not need to believe in Gd, no one will force you to. Intelligent people look for explanations into the unknown, today as in yesterday. Until there is an actual explanation to the makings of the earth and it’s people the 2 billion people and counting will continue in their belief of one true Gd (whatever his name is) and you can eat yourself up trying to figure out where the world came from. Good luck!
There is no Palestine and the fact that the Arabs made a conquest and illegally confiscated all the lands from the locals does not give them exclusive rights to what did not belong to them in the first place. The here and now allows for the correction of history and allowing the true ‘owners’ of the land to return and develop it. And this has been done in the best possible way.
Arabs conquered the Holy Land which was illegally occupied by Byzantium. Arabs conquered the Holy Land when such conquests and wars were considered normal politics. Arabs lived there for the next 1,400 years. They are today’s Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Jews had been driven out by the Romans 600 years before the arrival of the Arabs. From the 7th century to the early 20th century there were hardly any Jews in Palestine. And then, with the treacherous support of the Brits and Hebrew money (Rotschilds, etc.) Jews from the West (converted Khazars) began to settle illegally and against the will of the natives in Palestine. Eventually, with their money, control of media, by purchasing Western politicians, through guile and terrorism the Hebrews took control of Palestine which was 95% Arab owned when Hebrews started to head to Palestine. About 750,000 fled Hebrew terror and became refugees. Nowadays, Zionist propagandist say that 750,000 (!) Jews from Arab countries fled these countries because of anti-Semitism and settled in Israel. The fact is these Jews left Arab countries because they were Zionists. Others who didn’t want to leave because they were living comfortably were pushed by Zionists to leave. To encourage them to leave, Zionists perpetrated supposedly Arab initiated terror. They put bombs in synagogues to convince these Jews that Arab countries are unsafe.
Bottom line: what was acceptable in the 7th century (invade someone’s territory and grab it) hasn]t been acceptable for more than a century. You don’t steal someone’s land because you can, because you’re stronger. Zionism: the last relic of colonialism, imperialism, racism.
Roman Empire did not ‘illegally’ conquer the Land of Israel. As you said this is what was done in that period of time. The Romans started their rule in the Land of Israel in the year 63 BCE and continued until 638 CE with the invasion of the Persians who were replaced by the Arabs who used their newfangled religion to conquer vast areas of the ME/Mughrab. The Jews have had a presence in Israel for close to 4,000 years. True that there was an exchange of populations when the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE but at least half the Jewish population continued to live in the Land of Israel. There was never another time when any conqueror has expelled the Jewish population — FACT.
Another fact is that there were hardly any Arabs in the Land of Israel since the start of the Mamluke conquest in the 13th century. Before that Islam spread by threats of death if people did not convert. Some left, others forced converted to Islam (a great deal of the native Arabs in Israel today are descendants of that group of converts and descendants of the Crusaders). Jewish people always help other Jews, this is not anymore treacherous than a Christian helping a fellow Christian, atheist helping another atheist, etc. Not sure way the Khazars are in this equation. True there was a small community in Russia of about 75 people whose head converted to Judaism, but then so did hundreds/thousands of people throughout history. There was no illegal settling against anyone’s will in Israel. In fact the Arabs were very welcoming and happy that the Jewish nation was returning to it’s native homeland and developing it. So much so they took the invitation of the British to come and settle in the land — none owned any land (as is today, practically no Arab owns the property they sit upon). It is true that the Arabs have been building illegally for decades causing horrific issues due to lack of structural checking, building permits, etc. But the world will be quiet until an earthquake occurs and these illegal buildings collapse. Time will tell.
You are correct that the Muslim trust called Waqf owned most of the land of Israel prior to 1860. However that has been changing over the course of time, to the advantage of anyone living with Israel’s borders.
The Arabs left Israel because of the great lie presented by the Arab League that it would be only a matter of days or weeks until the new State of Israel would be destroyed and all the Jews pushed into the sea. The Jews left the Arab countries because they were evicted and only the State of Israel was willing and able to absorb close to 1 million immigrants within a couple of years. Without Israel those Jews may have well perished. It is clear that you read basis propaganda. Read what you are repeating. Does it sound logical???
Yes, invading land and taking it over is not acceptable and for this reason the Jewish nation has purchased with alot of money the land that the State of Israel sits upon, including alot of land in Judea&Samaria, some in Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The last two do not provide compensation for the Jewish owned lands within their country, but Jordan does. At least one country has found that being at peace with such a high technological country could only be to their advantage.
Zionism — definition: the desire of the Jewish people to return to their ancient and native homeland in the Land of Israel with Jerusalem as it’s capital. One Jewish country in the world in a tiny piece of land and you are complaining about this. You are clearly not part of a worldwide minority. Lucky you.
The Arabs conquered the Land of Israel which was part of the Roman Empire. In fact they took over a very large part of the Roman Empire (Byzantium was the eastern Roman Empire until 640 CE. The Arabs came with their newfangled religion and after a short period of time when the locals could not accept this new belief started killing those who did not want to convert to Islam. That is how the religion spread so fast.
There was a small group called the Khazars, (200-300 people) who lived in Russia and whose king apparently converted to Judaism, but there is no connection with 99.999% of the worldwide Jewry who have no connection with this small community. Not sure why this comes up so much in anti-Israel propaganda. The Arabs left Israel because they were told to by the Arab League who sold them false hopes of the new Jewish State being destroyed within days or weeks. Some of the great-grandchildren still have the key to the homes they were renting for a few years prior to their departure. The Jews in Arab lands were evicted without any property. Your ridiculous bombing theory is so far fetched that I think your hatred has gotten the best of you. Think logically before posting such a ridiculous notion.
Bottom Line: the Arabs started a conquest out of Meca by force conversion of the masses in order to obtain a great Muslim population because people were not interested in conversion of their own free will. Yes the Arabs stole land from the locals, yes the Jewish immigrants paid exorbitant amounts of money to legally purchase lands from the foreign warlords who owned most of the privately owned land in the Land of Israel.
http://www.targetofopportunity.com/palestinian_truth.htm
“Peaceandquiet” I guess means peace and quiet Occupation of Palestine by a foreign people.
Reading you is like watching the same trick for the nth time: you unleash the tired and proven-to-be-false cliches about the conflict. But let’s start with your knowledge of the Roman Empire. You believe that there was a Roman Empire in the 7th century when the Arabs conquered Palestine. I have news for you: ALL historians agree the Roman Empire expired in 476.
I find it funny that you call Palestine “Land of Israel”. What’s that? The French, for example, don’t call France, “Land of the French”. What are you trying to say?
You say Hebrews have been in Palestine for 4,000 years. Hold on a second. From B.C. 1 to 1948 (that’s 2,000 years) Jews were an insignificant minority in Palestine. In the previous two millennia they were in Egypt, Iraq, and Assyria, and when they were in Palestine, they ruled it for a couple of hundred years. The rest of the time the country was owned by Egyptians, Assyrians, etc. The Hebrew presence as rulers is a blip.
I see you’re taking advantage of the current Islamophobia and are calling Islam a “newfangled” religion. In saying so, you betray your bias and also deliberately confuse politics (who owns Palestine) with the fastest-growing religion in the world. By the way, was there a time when Judaism was not a new religion like the “newfangled” Islam?
Your claim that about 300 Khazar converted to Judaism is a joke. Read Arthur Koester’s (a Hebrew) “The Thirteenth Tribe” and you will learn that the whole Khazar people (million of them) converted to your religion. Then they changed their Khazar name and became the Ashkenazim who through money, PR, and terror, established Occupied Palestine aka the Illegal State of Zion.
One of the cliches you use has been unfortunately very effective in misleading world opinion. I am talking about throwing the Hebrews into the sea and Arab radio stations urging Palestinians to flee so as not to be killed when the Arab armies attack. LISTEN CAREFULLY AND DON’T REPEAT THE LIE. The British, who helped established Zionia, monitored every Arab radio station during 1948-49: they could not find a single sentence where Arab radios urged Palestinians to flee or that Arabs were going to push the Hebrews into the sea. This lie is similar to the Zionist propaganda in the ’30s and the ’40s “give the land without people to people without a land.” That claim is false in both claims. Palestine was occupied; Hebrews were citizens–well-off, I might say, in the countries they lived. They were not a people without a country.
By the way, it’s “Mecca” and not “Meca”.
While it’s true that some corrupt Arabs sold land to the illegal Hebrew immigrants, in 1948, prior to the war, the overwhelming mass of Palestine was owned by Arabs. The Hebrews, who had bought the land, were largely illegals who had entered Palestine through British subterfuge.
There are so many “facts” in your letter that need to be corrected but I have no time to teach you.
You can cite all the made-up, skewed stats you want. You can bring your mythological Old Testament as witness. You can unleash all your misleading cliches (“Give the land without people to people without a land”, “Jews turned the desert into a garden”, etc. etc.) but all your palaver will not change the core and shining fact: Arabs were 95% of Palestine when the corrupt Brits (Balfour) decided to hand Palestine to international Jewry. After that it was a matter of time for the Brits to allow more and more illegal Jewish immigrants into Arab Palestine against the natural and rightful opposition of the native Arabs who knew that they were going to lose their homeland to Jews through British and later American connivance.Did I mention the Rothschilds, Jewish control (to this day) of Western media?
Israelis, Jews and all Zionists should go bed in shame every night realizing that the land of innocent people was stolen by their fellow Zionists, the despicable Likudnik and the disgusting thieves called Settlers.
I totally understand that actual facts are difficult to accept when you have been fed propaganda and disinformation so long, It is your prerogative to accept such nonsense. I have not mentioned a people without a land for a land without a people, but if you read even two pages of a history book you would see that this statement is pretty much accurate. There were approximately 300,000 people living in what is today the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (formerlly Transjordan) and the State of Israel (including Judea, Samaria and Gaza). Read the Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain who visited Israel at the end of the 19th century. If you read other languages there are literally dozens of diaries written by visitors around the same time as Mark Twain — all writing the same. The land is desolate, there are barely any trees, the people are poor in rags, most live in squalid conditions in the cities and very few in the country-side. There is barely enough food to feed the people, What happened in 1880 is that the massive Jewish immigration started — trees were planted, farms were developed, buildings built, schools started, many job opportunities came to be — and thus the Arabs started migrating to the area to afford them a better quality of life (these are the so called Palestinians). Unfortunately the British did NOT allow many Jews into the Land of Israel during the 26 year Mandate over ‘Palestine'(Jordan and Israel of today), so there you are wrong again. Your native Arabs came from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Arabia at the invitation of the Ottomans and later the British. The limited number of ‘native’ Arabs (who over the course of history were mostly converted Christians/Jews and slaves brought to serve the Muslim rulers) would not have produced more than 2 million people, most of whom live in Jordan today. The Rothschilds are the founders of modern banking (yes the banking you use on a daily basis)
Yes the Jewish nation goes to sleep each night remembering how the land was stolen by the Arab conquest and the continuous lack of respect for the native Jews in the Land of Israel. But Israel, the only democracy in the ME, who has returned to redeem the land stolen in the 7th century and return it to the rightful owners. The settlers in Tel Aviv have purchased their homes as required by law, as have those settlers in Tiberias, Eilat, Haifa, Kiryat Shmona and all the settlers living on kibbutzim, moshavs, moshavas and smaller urban settlements throughout Israel.
Israel is a light until the nations. If you hate Israel and the Jewish nation so much I suggest joining BDS and discontinue your support for Israel. You can start by stop using Waze, WhatsApp, talk back technology, instant messenger, your cell phone and any computer with an Intel chip, since they are all Israeli technologies, which supports the country on a daily basis. There are many other things you can stop using, just start with these
Your inaccurate comments betray their nature through their inflation of language:
You write “I totally understand…”. Why isn’t “I understand” not good enough for you?
You write “actual facts are difficult…” Why isn’t “facts are difficult…” not good enough?
The above are in your first sentence. The rest of your comments are consistent. You also don’t listen and go into the boring Hebrew jag of thumping your chest, bragging (sorry, I forgot God chose you out of 6,000 plus nations). The believers in the Chosen Race nonsense don’t realize that when they spout that concept they’re saying the Hebrews were such a despicable race that God was forced to intervene again and again to straighten the incorrigible people who create mischief, disturbance, alienation, avarice, tribalism, arrogance, exclusiveness, elitism…wherever they go and are thus hated even in countries (Japan) where they have not lived. Ask yourself why no other race, nation, people is hated as much and as universally as the Hebrews? Why is humanity over millennia in agreement that there is something seriously wrong with the Hebrews (I mean ‘the Teacher’s Pet’)?
I am getting bored with your tautology, the Hebrew superiority complex, the repetition of the same tired falsehoods, your ignorance of history. Ergo…I will not write to you. I can’t change rust into gold.
Unfortunately those who are in denial without much to prove their theories start to be nit picky with other peoples words. You do not need to like the Jewish nation. No one is forcing you to. I ask myself why the Jews are not particularly cared for and have found that envy is the basic cause. Envy of success when being depressed, envy of life when others are loosing theirs, envy of expression of love when others express only hatred, envy of fulfillment where others are always looking for fault. I could go one but you get the idea. Not sure were you get the notion that ‘humanity sees that the Jewish Nation has something seriously wrong. Remember that hatred spreads and like cancer takes over. Hatred causes cancer in human beings. Just remember to tell the oncologist not to use any Israeli/Jewish invention/technologies to help with your quality of life.
Although I had written that I would not reply to Norek, his/her comments are not entitled to a free pass.
I will reply categorically.
1, He says Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Wrong on two counts: Greek Cyprus is a democracy. As well, Israel is not a democracy: it is, sort of, democracy, if you are a Jew. Besides, the extreme Jewish religionuts control the government.
2. Norek says there’s religious freedom in Israel. It is some freedom of religion when Muslim and Christian clergy are regularly attacked on the streets by Israelis and their convents are spat upon or desecrated? It is some freedom of religion when the government constantly pushes the Churches to slice away the real estates of the Churches. Through blackmail, “legal” leger de main” the Israeli government gobbles the lands of the Churches. The Churches can’t fight (unless they are Catholics who have European nations backing them or the Protestants who have America, Germany, and the UK supporting them) the Zionist government. Thus the Eastern Churches, which have no outside protector other than Putin for the Russian Church, are pushed around. If they make too much noise, their clergy can be deported. All kinds of subtle screws can be turned to make the Christians “behave”.
3. Norek says there’s no religious freedom in Muslim countries. There is religious freedom in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Iran. The hostility towards Jews in Iran is because of Israel’s barbarous acts.
4. Norek’s logic is insidious. He is saying that there is religious freedom in Israel therefore Israel has the right to occupy the lands of Muslims. This kind of false logic has been the bread and butter of the Zionists for a century.
5. Norek says there are no Palestinians. That’s what despicable Golda and butcher Ariel said also. Because Palestine was occupied by foreigners for so long, the Palestinians were unable to form their own country. They have struggled for the past century to form a state and have met with Jewish aggression every step of the way. There will be a Palestinian state (in the West Bank) because Palestinians exist and want their own independent country without the benefit of Uzi-carrying heroes.
To say Palestinians don’t deserve to have Palestine or that there was never a Palestine is like saying, in 1776, that there are no Americans …therefore there should be no United States of America.
Norek and his friends yap that you can’t turn the clock backwards and that Israel exists and Palestinians should shut up and accept the invader. However, at the same time, Israelis expect the world’s applause for having turned the clock backwards more than 2,000 years.
Again… there are so many inaccuracies here, I will make only two point since I don’t have all afternoon to teach history.
Among the many tricks of logic that Zionists have deployed to the world public opinion are the following:
1.”We are a democracy. Arabs aren’t. Therefore we are entitled to Palestine.”
The truth? A. Occupied Palestine is not a democracy. At a stretch is it is a democracy for Hebrews only. Actually, it’s a theocracy. Even if it were a true democracy that doesn’t mean it is entitled to another people’s land.
B. “Zionists turned the desert into garden. This has been a very effective way to distract world opinion from the truth. Just because Zionists turned the desert into garden doesn’t mean they’re entitled to other people’s land. That’s like saying a home decorator has a right to your house because he can decorate your house better than you can. Besides, Palestine was not a desert before the foreign invasion of the Hebrews. It had fabulous villas, cultivated orchards, an educated class, and even exported produce and handicrafts despite Ottoman Turk oppression.
The Zionist Textbook of Propaganda is replete with similar tricks of logic to convince third parties that Palestine belongs to the Hebrews. A careful analysis of the Zionist Myth shows that it is a house of cards.
Zionia also boasts about its achievements in technology. With all the billions the American taxpayer has been forced to infuse into Israel what can one expect? Zionia, is by far, Numero Uno Global Welfare State. It would have vanished had it not been for the US and the atomic secrets Zionists agent stole from America (with the help of American Hebrews) and the assistance of France. Why did France help the upstart gangster of the Middle East? Because the French were angry the Arab states condemned French colonialism in Algeria. Thus Arabs were punished for fighting French colonialism and the beneficiaries were the Hebrews whose relatives are now fleeing France because of Islamic terrorism. Irony?
–and Israel is thus the only country in history to have attained membership of the United Nations while failing to specify its legal borders.–
Despite this intrinsic flaw – UNO has accepted its membership and on the other side Palestine could get only the status of an observer State!! What kind of hypocrisy is this?