Israel, Palestine and the Arab/Israel Conflict

[StrawDog]

If it was mythology, I fully agree with your stand. But my history lessons says it is the reverse of mythology, a term which only applies to Muslim Palestineans. Israel's history of her homeland is perhaps the best evidenced of any other nation anywhere - because this is backed by factual, historical writings and relics, backed by a host of other nations' contemporary writings.

Please present your evidence for this claim? Links will do. :m:

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Please present your evidence for this claim? Links will do. :m:

That shouldn't be hard. Both the Romans and the Greeks transliterated the names "Israel," "Judah," etc., into their own alphabets.

 

[hypewaders]

Don't compare it with Egyptian records, though: They don't agree- the meticulous administrative history of Egypt includes no Jewish exodus. Neither is there a Levantine history of predominate Jewish administration (divinely-ordained or otherwise). The Bible is not a history book, although it has historical context.

 

[pjdude1219]

Don't compare it with Egyptian records, though: They don't agree- the meticulous administrative history of Egypt includes no Jewish exodus. Neither is there a Levantine history of predominate Jewish administration (divinely-ordained or otherwise). The Bible is not a history book, although it has historical context.

exactly that would be tantamount to claiming that since the illiad was translated in to english it was true.

 

[S.A.M.]

IDF mulls lifting ban on Israelis entering Palestinian-controlled West Bank

The Palestinian Authority is interested in having Israelis visit Area A, because it could signal the resumption of trade and tourism, which would boost the Palestinian economy.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-editio...ing-palestinian-controlled-west-bank-1.302689

Saeb Erekat: Nearing the moment of truth
Saeb Erekat, said that the PA is approaching the moment of truth when the Palestinian people will have to be told that “the two-state solution is no longer an option.”
By Noam Sheizaf

http://www.haaretz.com/magazine/friday-supplement/saeb-erekat-nearing-the-moment-of-truth-1.302138

baby steps

 

[S.A.M.]

IDF destroys West Bank village after declaring it military zone
Since 1967, Israel has prevented the growth of Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley by cutting off their water supply or declaring large areas as live fire zones.
By Amira Hass

The IDF's Civil Administration destroyed a Palestinian village Monday morning that had earlier been cleared out when its water supply was cut off.

The IDF demolished about 55 structures in the West Bank village of Farasiya, including tents, tin shacks, plastic and straw huts, clay ovens, sheep pens and bathrooms. These structures served the 120 farmers, hired workers and their families who lived in the Jordan Valley village. ...Since 1967, Israel has prevented Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley from growing, whether by cutting off their water supply, declaring large areas as live fire zones or banning all construction.

About a year ago the IDF set up hundreds of warning signs near Palestinian farming communities, marking them closed military areas. Such a sign was set up at the entrance to Farasiya.

The families had recently been forced to leave the village when the Israeli authorities cut it off from its water sources, said the popular committees' coordinator in the valley, Fathi Hadirat. The villagers were forbidden to use the water wells the Mekorot Water Company had dug in the area.

Hadirat said a few years ago the Civil Administration destroyed the pipe the villages had laid from a nearby stream used for drinking water and irrigation.

Since then they have been watering the sheep and fields with water unfit for human consumption, pumped from a salt water source. They received drinking water in tanks.

About four months ago the IDF confiscated their pumps. On Sunday, 10 families from Bardala, a village north of Farasiya, were given demolition notices.

A farmer who owns 300 sheep was told to leave in 24 hours or his herd would be confiscated.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-editio...age-after-declaring-it-military-zone-1.303098

Nothing says "I love peace" like ethnic cleansing in occupied territories

 

[Tiassa]

Defending Israel

This is what Israel is defending:

Disparity: Umm al-Kheir, in the foreground, contrasted with the Israeli West Bank settlement of Karmel.
(Photo: Nicholas D. Kristof/New York Times)​

Nicholas D. Kristof explains what you are seeing:

On one side of a barbed-wire fence here in the southern Hebron hills is the Bedouin village of Umm al-Kheir, where Palestinians live in ramshackle tents and huts. They aren't allowed to connect to the electrical grid, and Israel won't permit them to build homes, barns for their animals or even toilets. When the villagers build permanent structures, the Israeli authorities come and demolish them, according to villagers and Israeli human rights organizations.

On the other side of the barbed wire is the Jewish settlement of Karmel, a lovely green oasis that looks like an American suburb. It has lush gardens, kids riding bikes and air-conditioned homes. It also has a gleaming, electrified poultry barn that it runs as a business.

Elad Orian, an Israeli human rights activist, nodded toward the poultry barn and noted: "Those chickens get more electricity and water than all the Palestinians around here."​

Yes, this is what Israel is defending, and why it must defend itself. Sarit Michaeli, of B'Tselem, explained that in some places, Palestinian farmers live in caves because they cannot get building permits, and any permanent structures they assemble are razed. Farmer Ibrahim Jundiya said potable water costs about $11/m[sup]3[/sup], which is four times what Israeli settlers pay.

Violent clashes with Israeli settlers add to the burden. In Tuba, Palestinian children walking to elementary school have sometimes been attacked by Israeli settlers. To protect the children, foreign volunteers from Christian Peacemaker Teams and Operation Dove began escorting the children in the 2004-05 school year — and then settlers beat the volunteers with chains and clubs, according to human rights reports and a news account from the time.

Attacks on foreign volunteers get more attention than attacks on Palestinians, so the Israeli Army then began to escort the Palestinian children of Tuba to and from elementary school. But the soldiers don't always show up, the children say, and then the kids take an hour and a half roundabout path to school to avoid going near the settlers.

For their part, settlers complain about violence by Palestinians, and it's true that there were several incidents in this area between 1998 and 2002 in which settlers were killed. Partly because of rock-throwing clashes between Arabs and Israelis, the Israeli Army often keeps Palestinians well away from Israeli settlements — even if Palestinian farmers then cannot farm their own land.

Meanwhile, the settlements continue to grow, seemingly inexorably ....

(ibid)​

Aid efforts to the essentially disenfranchised Palestinians have had some impact. Activist Elad Orian's organization installs windmills and solar panels to bring some of the Palestinian farmers electricity, and B'Tselem's contribution of video cameras has apparently deterred some attacks by Israeli Jewish settlers.

Still, amid all the rhetoric of this ugly dispute, people need to remember that there is a human side to this all. We are supposed to gasp and weep and mourn for a few Israelis killed by rockets, but not the thousands of Palestinians killed by the IDF. We are to remember that Israel must defend itself, but does anyone ever ask why?

Those evil Palestinians ... how dare they not be happy with their lot? When they can show the world that they are happy living in camps, drinking dirty water, and having less access to electricity than the damn chickens, well, maybe Israel will think about letting them have clean water and as much electricity as the chickens.

That's what Israel is defending.

It's fair to acknowledge that there are double standards in the Middle East, with particular scrutiny on Israeli abuses. After all, the biggest theft of Arab land in the Middle East has nothing to do with Palestinians: It is Morocco's robbery of the resource-rich Western Sahara from the people who live there.

None of that changes the ugly truth that our ally, Israel, is using American military support to maintain an occupation that is both oppressive and unjust. Israel has eased checkpoints this year — a real improvement in quality of life — but the system is intrinsically malignant ....

.... Israel has a point when it argues that relinquishing the West Bank would raise real security concerns. But we must not lose sight of the most basic fact about the occupation: It's wrong.

(ibid)​

____________________

Notes:

Kristof, Nicholas D. "The Two Sides of a Barbed-Wire Fence". The New York Times. July 1, 2010; page A31. NYTimes.com. July 21, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/opinion/01kristof.html

 

[Tiassa]

Jew-baiting, anti-Semitism, and the occasional dose of reality

Gideon Levy writes for Haaretz:

This video should have been banned for broadcast to minors. This video should have been shown in every home in Israel, then sent to Washington and Ramallah. Banned for viewing by children so as not to corrupt them, and distributed around the country and the world so that everyone will know who leads the government of Israel. Channel 10 presented: The real (and deceitful ) face of Binyamin Netanyahu. Broadcast on Friday night on "This Week with Miki Rosenthal," it was filmed secretly in 2001, during a visit by Citizen Netanyahu to the home of a bereaved family in the settlement of Ofra, and astoundingly, it has not created a stir.​

Sounds spectacular. What ever could it be? Liel Leibovitz explains for Tablet:

newly revealed tape of Netanyahu in 2001, being interviewed while he thinks the cameras are off, shows him in a radically different light. In it, Netanyahu dismisses American foreign policy as easy to maneuver, boasts of having derailed the Oslo accords with political trickery, and suggests that the only way to deal with the Palestinians is to "beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it's unbearable" ....

.... Netanyahu is speaking to a small group of terror victims in the West Bank settlement of Ofra two years after stepping down as prime minister in 1999. He appears laid-back. After claiming that the only way to deal with the Palestinian Authority was a large-scale attack, Netanyahu was asked by one of the participants whether or not the United States would let such an attack come to fruition.

"I know what America is," Netanyahu replied. "America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in their way." He then called former president Bill Clinton "radically pro-Palestinian," and went on to belittle the Oslo peace accords as vulnerable to manipulation. Since the accords state that Israel would be allowed to hang on to pre-defined military zones in the West Bank, Netanyahu told his hosts that he could torpedo the accords by defining vast swaths of land as just that.

"They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords]," Netanyahu said. "I said I would, but ... I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I'm concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue."

Smiling, Netanyahu then recalled how he forced former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher to agree to let Israel alone determine which parts of the West Bank were to be defined as military zones. "They didn't want to give me that letter," Netanyahu said, "so I didn't give them the Hebron agreement [the agreement giving Hebron back to the Palestinians]. I cut the cabinet meeting short and said, 'I'm not signing.' Only when the letter came, during that meeting, to me and to Arafat, did I ratify the Hebron agreement. Why is this important? Because from that moment on, I de facto put an end to the Oslo accords."

(Boldface accent added)​

Levy calls the tape "both pathetic and outrageous", and suggests the tape should change the mind of anyone who believes Netanyahu will bring peace:

Israel has had many rightist leaders since Menachem Begin promised "many Elon Morehs," but there has never been one like Netanyahu, who wants to do it by deceit, to mock America, trick the Palestinians and lead us all astray. The man in the video betrays himself in his own words as a con artist, and now he is again prime minister of Israel. Don't try to claim that he has changed since then. Such a crooked way of thinking does not change over the years ....

.... If he had said so honestly, as he did when he thought the camera in Ofra was turned off, then he could have been forgiven for his extreme positions. It's his right to think that way and get elected for it. The people will have gotten what they chose. But when Netanyahu hides his real positions under camouflage netting and entangles them in webs of deceit, he not only reduces the chances of reaching an agreement, he also damages Israel's political culture. Many people may want a right-wing, nationalist prime minister, but a prime minister who is a con artist? Is is too much to expect of Netanyahu that he speak to us precisely as he spoke in Ofra? Why do a handful of settlers deserve to know the truth, and not us? Tell us the truth, Netanyahu. Talk to us as if the cameras were off, just as you thought then, in 2001 in Ofra.​

Some supporters of the Israeli cause would have us believe that any opposition to Israeli policies equals anti-Semitism. Lee Smith, writing for Tablet, pushed that line in a broad attack against the likes of Philllip Weiss, Stephen Walt, Glenn Greenwald, and Andrew Sullivan:

If not quite as popular as adult-content sites, the anti-Israel blogosphere is a dirty little thrill that major U.S. media outfits have mainstreamed for the masses, the intellectual equivalent of the topless "Page Three" girls that British tabloids use to boost circulation. Among the dozens of blogs and websites obsessed with Israel and the machinations of the U.S. Israel lobby, Phillip Weiss' Mondoweiss (a project of The Nation Institute), Glenn Greenwald's blog on Salon, and Stephen Walt's blog on ForeignPolicy.com (owned by The Washington Post Company) sit atop the junk-heap.

"Whenever one of these guys writes about me, I can tell without having looked at their blogs, because my inbox quickly fills with anti-Semitic invective," says The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, a Tablet Magazine contributing editor and a frequent target of Weiss, Greenwald, and Walt. "Whenever I see a subject line with something like 'You fascist Zionazi,' it's pretty much assured the link in the email will lead back to a post from one of these guys."

Some of these bloggers, like Weiss and Andrew Sullivan, were widely published journalists prior to their careers as Jew-baiters. Walt is a different case: A tenured professor of international relations at Harvard, his reputation extended no further than academic circles until The Israel Lobby put him in the middle of the national debate over U.S. Middle East policy. "I wouldn't consider it a Middle East blog," Foreign Policy's managing editor, Blake Hounshell, says of Walt's work for the site. "He writes about a lot of other things. It's a regular foreign-policy blog."

While it is true that Walt covers a wide range of international subjects in his blog, nothing provokes the same amount of reader feedback as his posts about Israel. Last week, a post on the Russian spy scandal received 14 comments; another post during the same period, enumerating what Walt considers the "five big questions about contemporary world politics," fared a bit better, garnering 53 responses. In the eyes of Walt's readership, however, those five major issues are dwarfed by the significance of his post concerning the Emergency Committee for Israel, a new pro-Israel organization founded by William Kristol, which was commented on 378 times.

These numbers suggest that the purpose of Walt's blog is to act as a magnet for the animus of a readership hostile not only to Israel but also to American figures friendly to Israel, especially American Jews. Whether that bothers the owners of The Washington Post or thrills the advertising staff is another question. Jeffrey Goldberg believes that big media companies have morally blinded themselves to the ramifications of using anti-Semitism to attract readers. "I suppose that to the managers of Foreign Policy, traffic is traffic," Goldberg says. "But in the course of building that traffic they're surfacing some fairly dreadful invective about Jews. I don't think they'd be comfortable surfacing the same kind of invective about African-Americans or other groups. But there seems to be a high tolerance for hosting a Jew-baiting blog."​

Smith's logic is astounding. Applied broadly, what does that say of anyone whose article is cited by an internet troll? In his response, Stephen Walt asserts:

As one might expect, the piece is long on invective and innuendo but almost completely devoid of meaningful evidence. Its only real value is to once again demonstrate the usual tactics that many of the so-called defenders of Israel employ against anyone who is critical either of Israel's actions or of America's special relationship with Israel.

The first thing to observe about Smith's screed is that even though he accuses me and my fellow bloggers of being anti-Semites and "Jew-baiters," his article contains not a scintilla of evidence that Sullivan, Greenwald, Weiss, or I have written or said anything that is remotely anti-Semitic, much less that involves "Jew-baiting." There's an obvious reason for this omission: None of us has ever written or said anything that supports Smith's outrageous charges.

Smith therefore has to resort to a new and bizarre form of "guilt-by-association." He attacks the four of us-and me in particular-by looking at some of the anonymous reader comments that appear in response to some of our posts. He finds that a few of those individuals who comment make some extreme statements, which he uses to argue that we are deliberately fostering anti-Semitism on our blogs. In other words, we must be anti-Semites because a handful of people whom we don't even know -- because their identities are secret -- are commenting on our posts. (It's not clear how this applies to Sullivan, by the way, because his blog doesn't have a comments thread.) ....

.... Smith's other source of "evidence" against me and my fellow bloggers is a handful of outlandish quotations from the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who has made some of those same bogus charges against me in the past. Goldberg, in case you didn't know, is a journalist whose intense passion for Israel led him to emigrate there and enlist in the IDF, where he served as a prison guard. I have no problem with that, as Americans are allowed to hold dual citizenship; but it does help you understand why he is quick to attack anyone who criticizes Israel. Objectivity about the Middle East is not his strong suit.​

Andrew Sullivan was even more direct—

There is just cherry-picking of vileness that often shows up on comments sections (which this blog does not even have). I mean: seriously. To argue from a bunch of selected comments on other sites that I have made a "career as a Jew-baiter" is so disgusting and transparent a smear it refutes itself. ​

—and goes on to note:

Meanwhile, the current Israeli prime minister has just been caught on tape saying in 2001 that he openly deceived president Clinton and has this view of how to deal with the Palestinians:

"beat them up, not once but repeatedly, beat them up so it hurts so badly, until it's unbearable."​

Why is Netanyahu not an "open sewer of hate"? None of the writers the Tablet cites has ever written anything even faintly as disgusting or as racist as that.​

And the whole situation does beg a question: With a mouth like Netanyahu's, what damage could Smith's fab four of hate possibly do that the Prime Minister hasn't already done himself?
____________________

Notes:

Levy, Gideon. "Tricky Bibi". Haaretz. July 15, 2010. Haaretz.com. July 21, 2010. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/tricky-bibi-1.302053

Liebovitz, Liel. "Fibi Netanyahu". Tablet. July 15, 2010. TabletMag.com. July 21, 2010. http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/39692/fibi-netanyahu/

Smith, Lee. "Mainstreaming Hate". Tablet. July 21, 2010. TabletMag.com. July 21, 2010. http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/40064/mainstreaming-hate/

Walt, Stephen M. "The problem with judging a blog by its commenters". Foreign Policy. July 21, 2010. Walt.ForeignPolicy.com. July 21, 2010. http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07/21/the_problem_with_judging_a_blog_by_its_commenters

Sullivan, Andrew. "'Jew Baiters'". The Daily Dish. July 21, 2010. AndrewSullivan.TheAtlantic.com. July 21, 2010. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/07/jew-baiters.html

 

[IamJoseph]

Please present your evidence for this claim? Links will do. :m:

Re. Israel's history of her homeland is perhaps the best evidenced of any other nation anywhere - because this is backed by factual, historical writings and relics, backed by a host of other nations' contemporary writings.

There are 100's of links applicable, because there are 1000's of ancient, contemporary writings of it, which have become countered only in the last 60 years. I would remind you of the Flavius Josephus and the Roman archives as pivotal proof this land was Called Judea - the last commonwealth [sovereign kingdom], which the name Palestine was applied to by Rome. It was not applied to any Arab or Islamic land. If you claim being unaware of the ancient archives [easily searched], then try this link, because it offers a reference to the source points of its descriptions:

Judea was located approximately where the present day country of Israel is. In the east, the River Jordan flows south into the Dead Sea. To the West lies the Mediterranean Sea. The west coast lies mainly at sea level, with increasing elevations toward the inward section. These heights vary from 200 m to 1500 m above sea level, and decrease to below sea level when the region of the River Jordan is reached.

The territory usually ran from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan, in the east-west direction, and from the southern tip of the Dead Sea and the Gaza Valley in the south to the Plain of the Esdraelon (Jezreel) in the north. These boundaries changed quite often, but they always remained in this general vicinity.

Native Population

The people of this area were of Hebrew decent. Sources for our Knowledge:

The main bulk of our historical information about Judea comes from Josephus. He was a Jew who fought in the Revolt of AD 70 and at the end surrendered to Rome. After he was taken to Rome he took to recording the Jewish and Roman struggles and encounters that lead to the outbreak of the revolt. He often puts heavy blame on the radicals for the war, and relieves the mass of the Jewish population of responsibility. Josephus’ works are not objective. He clearly wrote the books, especially The Jewish War, with the intent of restoring Rome and Judea to their previous state of understanding and respect. There are many questions that Josephus leaves unanswered, and many times he gives conflicting opinions.

Accounts can sometimes be cross referenced with the Bible, Rabbinic sources, the Dead Sea Scrolls, or another writer named Philo, who was a philosopher and a well distinguished Jew in the city. Although none of these sources are as direct or extensive as Josephus’s works, the accounts do compare and can be evaluated for their independent historical significance.

Roman Rule

The official time period of Roman rule lasted from AD 6 to AD 638, when the land was conquered by the Arabs.

# Here, the term ROBBERY [as opposed conquer] correctly applies - the Arabs were fully aware whose land this was - the Josephus documents say the Arabs were paid mercenaries in the Roman army destroying Jerusalem and its temple. It negates the view the Jews stole another peoples' land and the notion the Arab Muslims never knew of a Jewish temple where they dumped their mosque - theJews never did such things as the Arabs in all their 4000 year history. That the land was stolen, and the owner's return was barred via murder and false teachings to its people - makes the statutotry period negated.


More: http://people.usd.edu/~clehmann/pir/judaea.htm

 

[IamJoseph]

Nothing says "I love peace" like ethnic cleansing in occupied territories

Agreed. Yet is it not a good trick for those who now occupy other peoples' lands where ever they are in the world, to call those occupying 12% of their own historic land as OCCUPIERS? Are Indians OCCUPYING Kashmir?

Here's my version of "Ethnic cleansing":

1. The corruption of the Balfour Mandate - for 30 barrels of oil and the term applied of a 2-state compromise for carving off 80% of a tiny land. This is nothing short of a genocidal deed.

2. The calling of a 3-state as a 2-state in the same land [genocidal math?]

3. The re-dumping of the name Palestinean today [since Arafat] after 2000 years - on to those obsessed with the utter destruction of Israel and who hated this name more than they do Zionism today.

4. The flaunting of pogroms, robbery of land and mass murder of Jewish refugees from Arab lands, whose numbers are far greater than the entire claim of Arab refugees combined.

5. The allocation of a Saudi dwarf as a monarch in Palestine - who barrs the Arabs from Jordanian citizenship and entry - flaunting the only reason this state was created ['It will be a historic compromise to grant two states in Palestine - one for the Jews and one for the Arabs' - Churchill].

6. The creation of a host of fictional Islamic states in Arabia and India, of countries which never existed before [unlike Israel and India], as dictatorial regimes and as owners of vast lands and resourses as their private and personal properties. [Dictatorial regimes unanamously don't like democrasy - one need not wonder why!]

7. The flaunting of all other groups in Arabia which predate both Islam and the Arab race, and who were the historic owners of those lands - including the Kurds, Copts, Jews and Drews - all persecuted, gassed and forbidden to exist unless under the feet of Muslims.

8. The lack of a UN Resolution for the greatest crime in the UN's history - that of a multi-state Arab attack on a UN established state, even after the attacking Arab states voted in the UN Motion.

9. The genocidal demand for a ONE STATE and a ficticious RETURN of a intentionally swelled influx of Muslims to this area even when millions of acres were given Muslims which they never owned 120 years ago - because it requires a nation to become a minority surrounded by those obsessed with its total demise. [Ethnic cleansing - but of whom?].

10. The genocidal demand for the splitting of a nation's capital - because no nation can survive in that mode. [Very clever, no?].


If all the demands made upon Israel are examined - they all co-incidently will all be seen to be based only on genocide [ethnic cleansing]. And its all for the justice to the Pretend Palestineans. I say of those who were aligned with Hitler and now call the Nazi ethnic cleansing as a Zionist myth:

AT LEAST THE NAZIS WERE HONEST ABOUT IT. :bugeye:

 

[pjdude1219]

Agreed. Yet is it not a good trick for those who now occupy other peoples' lands where ever they are in the world, to call those occupying 12% of their own historic land as OCCUPIERS? Are Indians OCCUPYING Kashmir?

Here's my version of "Ethnic cleansing":

1. The corruption of the Balfour Mandate - for 30 barrels of oil and the term applied of a 2-state compromise for carving off 80% of a tiny land. This is nothing short of a genocidal deed.

and you fail the whole truthful honesty thing with the first one. anyone who thinks the British promised the jews land that was never theirs for a homeland is just being really well stupid. splitting jordan off wasn't a mistake it was correcting one.



every damn thing you said here in this post is BS. you seem to have many problems with fact.

 

[S.A.M.]

America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction

He certainly knows what he is talking about.

 

[S.A.M.]

Weisberg in Newsweak:

Because Israel is a refuge for Jews persecuted everywhere else, this kind of existential challenge [i.e. boycott]is hard to disassociate from anti-Semitism—even if Ryan and Costello intend nothing of the kind. When people are trying to murder you because of your religion, it is difficult to credit the bona fides of those who merely want to shun you because of your government.

You can tell that social exclusion is a major concern of Zionists - but only when it comes to Israel.

Perhaps boycotts should be off-limits as a tactic against democratic societies, where other means of peaceful protest exist

Note that he is talking about Israel - where peaceful protests are met with guns and raids and apartheid is a way of life. The man is a liberal a graduate of one of those [poison] ivy league exclusive clubs

 

[S.A.M.]

Israel razes "illegal/unrecognised" Bedouin village in the Negev, evacuates and dispossesses the inhabitants:

Juma al-Turi and his family sat for hours yesterday looking with disbelief at the ruins of their unrecognized village of al-Arakib, north of Be'er Sheva. The houses, the storage building and the bird cage were all destroyed, and the olive trees uprooted.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-editio...nrecognized-bedouin-village-in-negev-1.304443

 

[spidergoat]

Israel razes "illegal/unrecognised" Bedouin village in the Negev, evacuates and dispossesses the inhabitants:

That should make the Arabs happy.

 

[S.A.M.]

On the eve of Ramadan:

In the middle of the night on August 10, residents of the unrecognized Bedouin village of al-Arakib sent a panicked text message to Israeli activists in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Israeli police helicopters were buzzing overhead, surveying the scene ahead of what was likely to be a new round of demolitions. Three activists staying in the village had been nabbed during a night raid. Having already witnessed the razing of their homes twice in the past two weeks, the residents of Al-Arakib expected the third round of demolitions to arrive tonight, on the eve of Ramadan. During Ramadan, when the villagers fasted all day, the police and Israeli Land Adminstration reasoned they would be too weakened to rebuild — it was prime time for destruction.

I arrived in Al-Arakib at 3 AM with a handful of Jerusalem-based activists. A local couple hauled out mattresses and blankets and poured us small cups of coffee. “I’ve had enough of sleeping,” the man grumbled as he reclined next to his wife. He seemed grateful to have company. I laid down and stared at the desert sky, listening to the man describe in a lulled tone the experience of watching his neighbors’ homes crumple under the teeth of bulldozers again and again. As he trailed off, I heard a low droning sound in the distance. Were they here already? I looked around at the others. No one to register the slightest sign of concern. Finally, I slipped into a light slumber.

Two hours later I was torn from my sleep. “They’re here!” someone shouted in Hebrew. I leapt from my mattress and scrambled up a dune until I reached the center of the village. A phalanx of one hundred riot cops were already there, bristling with assault weapons and centurion shields. Flanked by bulldozers, they quickly ringed the activists and journalists, who numbered about two dozen, and began forcibly pushing them away from the site of the demolitions. Their intention seemed to be to prevent any brave souls from standing between the bulldozers and the homes they sought to destroy. Dispatched by a faceless network of clerks and engineers in air-conditioned offices to do the dirty work of the state, the police performed their duty with cold efficiency.

Happy Ramadan, everyone!!!

Video by activists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rud19ytcPS8&feature=player_embedded

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/08/in-the-wasteland-of-democracy-israel-destroys-al-arakib…again.html

 

[Buffalo Roam]

The Question? Palestine.

Buffalo

For a start, I am not anti-semitic. I am, to a degree, anti-Israeli, but only because of the shocking way they treat the Palestinians.!

Your not a anti Semite? seems that everyone who wishes the destruction of Israel claims not to be a anti Semite, even the Palestinians who launch rockets, and mortars, and come as suicide bombers say they are not anti Semite, only anti Israel.

Yes, split the hair anyway you want, you post speak for themselves.

I am not anti-christian. I am anti-religion, or more properly, I am pro-rational thought, which appears to have little to do with religion.

Then tell me rationally why if the U.N. can set up Arab Muslim countries from the French and British Mandates, like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, that the U.N. can not up a Jewish State for Israel?

The aspirations of the Palestinian people I am talking about are the desire for sovereignty, for a nation of their own, for a chance to live without repression, to earn a good living and raise their families without persecution.

Their aspirations were met under U.N. 181, until the Arabs rejected
U.N. 181, and then promptly lost a war they started, the Arabs had many guns in their hands in 1947-48....56....67....68-70....73....82....06....And you choose to support those who held the guns, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia.....yes all of those Muslim countries sent men, weapons and supplies to attack Israel even before Israel had a government.

Jordan is the State of the Palestinians, it compromises 90% of the British Mandate of Palestine and that isn't enough for the Arabs?

The fact that Palestine was once part of the Ottoman empire is of little relevance. So was much of Eastern Europe, and it is now made up of independent nations.

Really and why? because it is a nonevent truth that doesn't support the idea that there was ever a Palestine State, a Palestinian People.

In the same way, the fact that the United Nations was a party to this terrible injustice makes it just as much of an injustice. The Palestinian people were invaded, and in many cases, tossed out of their homes and made to leave, becoming refugees, for no fault of their own.

Then being logical, what of all the Jews tossed out of their home's and land's in the Arab Muslim States of Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen?

Seems that the Jews of Israel found a way to integrate the exodus of Jewish refugees into the lands of Israel as brothers, so why? since the lands taken from the Jews, by the Muslim Arab States, which are 4 times the size of Israel, could the Muslim Arabs, not have taken in the Arabs of Palestine, They being the refugees that they were, and treat them as fellow Muslims and brothers and settle them in the confiscated lands of the expelled Jews, you being so rational.

Other states in the region were populated by local people, who stayed there. Israel was populated by Palestinians, many of whom were forced from their homes and made to leave. Instead, their homes were occupied by invaders - Jews who became Israelis.

Really, and what about all the Arabs who moved into the land west of the Jordan illegally, there was more illegal immigration into the that area by Arabs from around the Mandate than by the Jews.

Nothing you say alters the terrible fact that the land that became Israel was home to a people who had been there 1400 years and had that home stolen off them. The action was morally equivalent to robbery at gunpoint.

And you choose to support those who held the guns. What the parties did, all them, Jewish, American, British, French, and UN, was utterly despicable!

Stolen land? what stolen lands? the lands that the Jews bought Legally from the Ottomans? The lands granted to the British by Treaty? the unoccupied lands that no one held title to, open desert, the lands of Arab squatters who didn't hold title or deed too, and didn't want title and deed because it would make them liable to taxes, and subject them to service in the military forces of the Empire?

To pay taxes gives title, pay the back taxes on any land and you gain title.

Yes, it was utterly despicable that the Arabs instead of honoring their U.N. Treaty Obligations, broke their word, and bond, and went to war in contravention of the U.N. Charter that they gave their word to abide by.

 

[Doreen]

Then tell me rationally why if the U.N. can set up Arab Muslim countries from the French and British Mandates, like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, that the U.N. can not up a Jewish State for Israel?

Were those specifically intended to be Arab Muslim states entitling the Arab Muslims to relocate other kinds of humans?

Further he UN did not have the right to set up those states, especially given that they did this for reasons that benefited specific interests in the West. And it was no boon to Muslims, Arab or otherwise. Just as Israel has not really helped Jews.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

Were those specifically intended to be Arab Muslim states entitling the Arab Muslims to relocate other kinds of humans?

Further he UN did not have the right to set up those states, especially given that they did this for reasons that benefited specific interests in the West. And it was no boon to Muslims, Arab or otherwise. Just as Israel has not really helped Jews.

Sorry Doreen, but yes the U.N. did have that right, it was established by a fact of Treaty, signed by all Member States of the United Nations.

 

[pjdude1219]

the UN didn't create Israel nor any of the arab states what it did do in most cases is allow the people in the former colony to choose their own political status. except in palestine where it for some reason decided it was ok for armed jewish immigrants to conquer it. The UN had an obligation to the palestinian people to insure they got their right to self determination which they decided to abrogate because of jewish voting power in some of the major players.