What in particular jumps out as wrong in terms of their internal policies? Are you talking about their religious issues because I agree.
I doubt the Palestinians think that Israel is particularly free.
Whether or not they think they're free or not is irrelevant. Most have no experience of the other Middle Eastern, Arab-dominated countries which empirically suggest that an Arab state in place of Israel would be significantly less free than a Jewish one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World#Middle_East_and_North_Africa. A quick scroll down on that link to the disputed territories bit will reveal that those areas controlled by the Palestinian National Authority are definitely not free.
Just out of curiosity, why do you think that Palestinians are blowing themselves up inside Israel, but not inside Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia?
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Don't know. It seems that Arab countries oppress them. For instance Lebanon bars them from certain jobs and even though Palestinians make up two-thirds of the Jordanian population they are ruled over by a British-installed Hashemite family. I think that the reason they blow themselves up in Israel is that Israel currently have a military presence in the West Bank, however no action was carried out against Jordan or Egypt when those countries occupied the West Bank and Gaza respectively from 1948-1967. The fact that Israel is a Jewish state has a lot to do with it, especially given the corruption and brainwashing-power of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.
Tartan Pimpernel: What in particular jumps out as wrong in terms of their internal policies? Are you talking about their religious issues because I agree.
Just take a look at the percentage of public expenditure over GDP. That’s all you need to know. Plus its not a particularly decentralized country, and I dislike political centralization.
You don't need to be a libertarian to be opposed to Zionism. Zionism is an ideology that is similar to fascism. It's based on racial exclusion, the idea that ethnic Jews all over the world are intitled to all the land in biblical palestine. The gentiles should be kicked out because Israel should be ethnically pure. To unterstand this ideology one needs to read the book of Joshua and how the Hebrews after the exodus settled the land of Palestine. They basically exterminated every one. coexistence was not an option.
Even today in the so-called democratic country of Israel, Israeli Arabs are treated as second rate citizens and many politicians are openly talking about deporting them. As for the other Palestinians they were mopped up and placed in huge open sky prisons in Gaza and the West Bank.
Any one who heard Netenyahu's speech in the Knesset understands that Israel doesn't want to trade land it conquered in 67 for peace.
Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing, it's like equating being a Nazi with being a German. I personally have nothing against the Jews as an ethnic group, some of the people I admire most are Jews (Mises, Rothbard, Hayek, Einstein, Chomsky, Finkelstein etc.). But I despise Zionism just as I despise Nazism, Apartheid, Islamic fundamentalism and any other racist, violent and intolerant ideology
Sigh... It is a shame people associate the bad or the worst elements of a movement with the entire movement itself. The fact that the grassroots campaign 'Peace Now', which actively campaigns against the Israeli government, calls itself Zionist is of no concern to many or completely unknown. Organisations like the New Israel Fund, which seeks to improve the condition of Israeli Arabs, also proudly describe themselves as part of the Zionist tradition, as do dovish parties like Meretz/Yachad. 'Zionism' merely means Jewish independence (and the Israeli Declaration of Independence speaks of equal rights for all). Beyong that, there are Labour Zionists, Religious Zionists, Dovish Zionists and Hawkish Zionists. Comparing Zionism to Nazism or Islamism is plain nonsense.
Zionists say Palestine is theirs because God gave it to the Jewish people. Now let’s see what the bible says about that:
The LORD your God hath (...) given you this land. (Deuteronomy 1:13)
When Yahweh your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you — the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites...and when Yahweh your God gives them over to you...you must utterly destroy them...Show them no mercy (Deuteronomy 7.1-11).
"And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. Joshua 6:21
"So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded. And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon." Joshua 10:40-41
What I find most shocking about the biblical narrative was that the divine promise of the land of Palestine came with the mandate to exterminate the indigenous peoples. Living side by side with the people who already lived in the land is never considered. The ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 becomes more comprehensible in the light of these biblical passages.
This is the ideology that inspires the Zionists in control of Israel and to me it is more similar to Nazism than to it is libertarianism.
As far as I understand it, there's a lot of ideology mixed up within "Zionism". For sure there's religious fundamentalism and nationalism and I think more socialism than free enterprise. I don't think it's absolutely correct to equate Zionism with "Jewish independence" because, after all, it's not as if Zionists wish for Jews to form independent nations outside the region of Transjordan and Palestine.
For this stupid obsession with the desert (and it's a stupid obsession unless one is an extremely religious Jew) I find Zionism to not only be undesirable for Jews, but dangerous for them as well. Establishing your independent nation on a narrow strip of land, backs to the sea and surrounded by hostile enemies does not strike me as recourse for protecting your people. It seems more like a massive ghetto. What the Israelis have done to maintain possession of that place has brought shame upon themselves as well as non-Israeli and non-Zionist Jews all the same.
It's quite clear most of the people commenting on Zionism know little about it. You, for instance, regurgitate passages from the bible that most people disregard, whilst ignoring that most of the original Zionists were actually secularists! Theodor Herzl, whose books Altneuland and The Jewish State set forward the idea of Zionism as a political theory, fully believed that Jews ought to share the land with Arabs. Ben Gurion, the Jewish leader during the early twentieth century, believed that the Arabs should be encouraged to remain full and equal citizens of Israel. The semi-expulsion of the Palestinians can only be understood when considering that the Palestinian community rejected the will of the international community and then launched hostilities against the Jews. Then, and only then, did the Zionist leadership realise that to hold such a large and hostile Arab population would result in a second genocide of the Jews, as was the stated Arab intent. Putting down the tragic Finkelstein books will reveal a different Zionism than that to which you seem accustomed.
Continuously dwelling on what Zionism "was" or "could've been" belies what it became and has become. Is there Arab complicity? Of course. But it takes two to tango and two wrongs do not make a right.
This post has been updated:
Tartan Pimpernel criticized me for this post (he actually accused me of being an incredible liar) because I said: “All these authors are Israeli Jews and they all agree on the following:
- Israel’s security was never threatened in any of its wars against the Arabs.
-The Zionist started the hostilities in 1948 and committed countless massacres against the Palestinians and those they didn’t kill they kicked out of their homes.
-Israel never wanted peace with the Arabs, and rejected many peace offers.”
I recognize I was a bit sloppy when I wrote this. What I should have said instead is the following:
“Reading these books I came to the following conclusion:
- Israel’s security was never threatened in any of its wars against the Arabs. (Ilan Pappe & Zeev Maov)
- The Zionists started the hostilities in 1948 (Ilan Pappe), massacred many Palestinians and expelled many more.(Ilan Pappe, Avi shlaim, Benny Morris)
- Israel never wanted peace with the Arabs, and rejected many peace offers. (Zeev Maov & Avi Shlaim)”
Here’s the original post:
"You just brought up one of the contradictions of Zionism. On the one hand Zionists were secular yet on the other hand they claimed Palestine was their land given to them by God.
As for not knowing anything about Zionism, that’s your opinion. When I want to learn about a topic I try to find what respected authorities have to say about it. For the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here are the authors that I consulted:
All these authors are Israeli Jews and they all agree on the following:
- The Zionist started the hostilities in 1948 and committed countless massacres against the Palestinians and those they didn’t kill they kicked out of their homes.
-Israel never wanted peace with the Arabs, and rejected many peace offers."
Tartan Pimpernel said: "It's quite clear most of the people commenting on Zionism know little about it. You, for instance, regurgitate passages from the bible that most people disregard, whilst ignoring that most of the original Zionists were actually secularists!"
In recent years there has been a dramatic growth of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel and Jewish fundamentalists take the bible literally.
The respected Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling said: “The value of the [Jewish] religion, at least in its Orthodox and nationalistic form that prevails in Israel, cannot be squared with democratic values. No other variable—neither nationality, nor attitudes about security, nor social or economic values, nor ethnic descent and education—so influences the attitudes of [Israeli] Jews against democratic values as does religiousity.”
Rabbi Kook the Elder, the revered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism, said, “The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”
According to the ideologies which underlie Gush Emunim, the militant West Bank settlers group, and Hasidism, non-Jews have “satanic souls” Common to both the Talmud and Halacha, Orthodox religious law, is a differentiation between Jews and non-Jews.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who was very influential in Israel as well as in the U.S., explained that, “It is written, ‘And the strangers shall guard and feed your flocks’ (Isaiah 61:5). The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews…”
Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh said: “If you saw two people drowning, a Jew and a non-Jew, the Torah says you save the Jewish life first,” Shahak says that, “Changing the words ‘Jewish’ to ‘German’ or ‘Aryan’ and ‘non-Jewish’ to ‘Jewish’ turns the Ginsburgh position into the doctrine that made Auschwitz possible in the past.
The Jewish fundamentalists believe that God gave all of the Land of Israel (including present-day Lebanon and other areas) to the Jews and that Arabs living in Israel are viewed as thieves. Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, another spokesman, said, “We must live in this land even at the price of war. Moreover, even if there is peace, we must instigate wars of liberation in order to conquer it [the land].”
When it comes to Baruch Goldstein who murdered 29 Palestinians at prayer, fundamentalists refuse to acknowledge that such an act constitutes “murder” because, according to the Halacha, “the killing by a Jew of a non-Jew under any circumstances is not regarded as murder. It may be prohibited for other reasons, especially when it causes danger for Jews.”
You are an incredible liar. I know for a FACT that you have not read Benny Morris' book otherwise you would not make those ridiculous claims. Benny Morris, a historian who is critical of the Israeli state's propaganda surrounding the creation of Israel, has affirmed as HISTORICAL FACT that Israel's security was threatened enormously by its neighbours and that the Arabs started the hostilities.
Allow me to demonstrate to all other readers here that JB Say is lying through his teeth. Here is a quote from Benny Morris' righteous victims which I have right in front of me. "From December 1947 to March 1948, the Arabs held the initiative and the Haganah remained on the strategic defensive... Much of the fighting in the first months took place in and on the edges of the mixed cities - Jerusalem, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and Haifa - in most cases initiated by the Arabs... Attacks on Jewish vehicles were one of the components of the first stage of the war." (Pages 196-200)
Morris describes the very first part of the war. After the UN's vote, he notes that "the Zionists and their supporters rejoiced." (Page 186) Here is the important part - "Not far from each celebrating Jewish throng was an Arab villace or neighbourhood where the mood was grim... The initial reactions were spontaneous and explosive, and apparently unorganised. On the morning of November 30 a band of Arabs ambushed a bus near Kfar Syrkin, killing five Jews and wounding several others. Twenty-five minutes later they let loose at a second bus, killing two more people.. These were the first casualties of the first Arab-Israeli war." (Page 190)
Morris has written several articles online where he affirms that the Arabs perpetrated hostilities and that Israel's security was ultimately threatened. Here he says this: "In fact, what actually happened was this: The Arab states and the Palestinian national leadership, headed by Haj Amin al-Husseini, opposed the partition of Palestine, claiming all of Palestine for the Arabs. When the General Assembly voted in favor of partition, on 29 November 1947, the Palestinian leadership rejected the resolution and the Palestinian militias launched hostilities to abort the emergence of a Jewish state. They were aided by money, arms and volunteers from the Arab states. In the course of this first, civil-war half of the 1948 War (roughly from 30 November 1947 until 14 May 1948) the Palestinian militias attacked Jewish traffic and settlements for four months. But eventually the Jewish militias, chiefly the Haganah, went over to the offensive (in early April) and routed the Palestinians, and some 300,000 were displaced from their homes and lands. On 15 May 1948, the day after the Zionist leaders declared the establishment of the State of Israel, the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq invaded Palestine, in defiance of the will of the international community, as embodied in the partition resolution, and attacked the Jewish state. The army of Jordan, the fourth invading army, occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the core of the territory earmarked in the partition resolution for Palestinian Arab statehood. (The Palestinians failed to declare statehood, and Jordan did not allow the Palestinians to establish a state and subsequently formally annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Egypt emerged from the war in control of the Gaza Strip.) During the weeks and months after 15 May, the Israeli army contained the invading armies and eventually drove them out of most of Palestine. Another 400,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the course of the fighting: Some were expelled by Jewish troops (for example, from Lydda and Ramle in July 1948), some were advised to leave or ordered out by Arab leaders and officers (for example, from Haifa in April 1948 and Majdal in October). But most of the 700,000 simply fled out of fear of being caught up and harmed in the fighting. In summer 1948 the Israeli government decided not to allow the displaced Arabs—most of whom ended up in refugee camps in other parts of Palestine, i.e., the West Bank and Gaza—to return to the area of the State of Israel, deeming them inimical (they had just assailed the Jewish community and tried to destroy the Jewish state) and a potential Fifth Column."
Furthermore, he deals with the idea that Israel's security was threatened in another interview: "We are a small minority in a large sea of hostile Arabs who want to eliminate us. So it's possible than when their desire is realized, everyone will understand what I am saying to you now. Everyone will understand we are the true victims. But by then it will be too late."
On top of this, I find it incredibly ridiculous that you claim Ilan Pappe is a "respected authority on Israel." I'll direct you to another piece by Benny Morris which deals with Pappe's historical inaccuracies.
Pappe uses fake sources.
"About the 1929 “Temple Mount” riots, which included two large-scale massacres of Jews, in Hebron and in Safed, Pappe writes: “The opposite camp, Zionist and British, was no less ruthless [than the Arabs]. In Jaffa a Jewish mob murdered seven Palestinians.” Actually, there were no massacres of Arabs by Jews, though a number of Arabs were killed when Jews defended themselves or retaliated after Arab violence. Pappe adds that the British “Shaw Commission,” so-called because it was chaired by Sir Walter Shaw (a former chief justice of the Straits Settlements), which investigated the riots, “upheld the basic Arab claim that Jewish provocations had caused the violent outbreak. ‘The principal cause... was twelve years of pro-Zionist [British] policy.’” It is unclear what Pappe is quoting from. I did not find this sentence in the commission’s report. Pappe’s bibliography refers, under “Primary Sources,” simply to “The Shaw Commission.” The report? The deliberations? Memoranda by or about? Who can tell? The footnote attached to the quote, presumably to give its source, says, simply, “Ibid.” The one before it says, “Ibid., p. 103.” The one before that says, “The Shaw Commission, session 46, p. 92.” But the quoted passage does not appear on page 103 of the report. In the text of Palestinian Dynasty, Pappe states that “Shaw wrote [this] after leaving the country [Palestine].” But if it is not in the report, where did Shaw “write” it? Actually, the thrust of the “Report of the Commission on the Palestine Disturbances of August, 1929,” which appeared in 1930, is completely contrary to what Pappe asserts (though it does list some non-lethal Jewish provocations-peaceful demonstrations, a newspaper article-as among the immediate triggers of the eruption of the Arab violence). The report states: “The fundamental cause, without which in our opinion disturbances either would not have occurred or would have been little more than a local riot, is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future.” As to the riots themselves, the report states: “The outbreak in Jerusalem on the 23rd of August [the start of the riots] was from the beginning an attack by Arabs on Jews for which no excuse in the form of earlier murders by Jews has been established.” The disturbances “took the form, for the most part, of a vicious attack by Arabs on Jews accompanied by wanton destruction of Jewish property.... In a few instances, Jews attacked Arabs and destroyed Arab property. These attacks, though inexcusable, were in most cases in retaliation for wrongs already committed by Arabs in the neighborhood in which the Jewish attacks occurred.”"
Pappe did not do any decent, required research
"To cover the history of Palestine-a geographically small backwater in the giant Ottoman domain-and the activities of its aristocracy and their interaction with the authorities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, one would have to spend many months in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul. There one would need to locate and pore over reports and correspondence from and about the relevant vilayets (provinces), Syria/Damascus and Beirut, and the relevant sanjaks and mutasarafliks (districts), Jerusalem, Nablus, and Acre, in addition to the central government’s deliberations and decision-making about Jerusalem and its environs. Pappe, who lacks Turkish, has not consulted any Ottoman archives. There is not a single reference to any Ottoman archive, or any Turkish source, in his endnotes."
Pappe presents false history as fact
"Pappe repeatedly refers to “Harry Lock” of the British Mandate government secretariat in the 1920s-but the chief secretary’s name was Harry Luke. Pappe obviously encountered the name in Hebrew or Arabic and transliterated it, with no prior knowledge of Luke against which to check it: if he had consulted British documents, he would have known the correct spelling. Pappe refers to “the Hope Simpson Commission”-there was no such commission, only an investigation by an official named John HopeSimpson. He refers to “twenty-two Muslim... states” in the world in 1931, but by my count there were only about half a dozen. He refers to “the Jewish Intelligence Service”-presumably the Haganah Intelligence Service-and then adds, “whose archive has been opened to Israeli historians but not to Palestinians.” To the best of my knowledge, this is an outright lie. All public archives in Israel, including the Haganah Archive in Tel Aviv, which contains the papers of its intelligence service, are open to all researchers."
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Furthermore, I wish to provide a brief counter to your post containing 'quotes' by famous Rabbis. Aside from the fact that you are committing the association fallacy, there are many instances whereby anti-Semitic propaganda has been spread through the faking of quotes by Jews. There are many quotes going around about which are allegedly taken from the Talmud, tet these 'quotes' comes from so-called Talmudic books which simply do not exist!
Secondly it is clear to me, and to the other religious Jews here, that the Talmud is also something you lack knowledge in. To make the egregious (and completely false) claim that the Talmud sanctions the killing of non-Jews because they are of lesser worth is completely intellectually dishonest. To spread about such virulent anti-Jewish propaganda is seriously a terrible thing to do on your part. Judaism teaches, as a core principle, that all humans are made in God's image and that life is the most valuable thing. The idea of Jews as 'chosen' is simply that Jews are required to follow 613 commandments and to set an example to the rest of the world, who only need to follow the 7 Noahide Laws. This is Jewish law, take it from someone who has studied Halacha extensively. There are three things that Jews must never do, even if it will save their own life. The first of these is to commit adultery. The second is to commit idol worship. The third thing Jews can never, EVER do is to commit an act of premeditated murder of ANY HUMAN BEING. Period.
Your falsified claims come mainly from the spurious fascist propaganda sites (David Duke is a favourite, I've heard) who quote racists such as Shahak. Shahak is not a rabbinical scholar, he's a chemist. He does not study Talmud. He does not know Halacha inside-out. Shahak is a polemicist who left Judaism because of personal issues. He quotes out of context and does not source. He is not a reliable polemicist (which is what he is) at all.
I'll direct you to this site which actually quotes real passages from the Talmud (not the fake ones that circulate on the net, taken from books that don't even exist) and provides evidence to the absurd and completely un-Jewish idea that gentiles are inferiour etc.
This is a good site too.
Oh, and the idea that Israel never wanted peace with the Arabs has been proven false by history. History shows us that Israel gave up the Sinai, which it captured defensively after Egyptian invasion, in the peace treaty. History shows us that Israel offered all of Gaza and 98% of the West Bank in 2000, only to be rejected by the Palestinians. History shows us that Israel pulled out of Gaza, evacuating all settlers, in 2005 for peace, but got Hamas and thousands of rockets in response. Once again, facts counter lies.
My Response to Tartan Pimpernel Part I
Tartan Pimpernel said “You are an incredible liar.” Well I will not answer this ad hominem attack since I like to remain civil in debates. You seem to be getting very emotional here, lighten up it’s just an intellectual debate
In my previous posts I listed four books by four different authors. You chose to pick Benny Morris and to selectively quote him to prove that I am a liar. Well now I am going to let Ilan Pappe tell you with his own words exactly what I said:
I’ll use Ilan Pappe’s book the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine :
The following quotes are from the paperback edition 2010 ISBN 978185168554.
P 40: “The partition Resolution was adopted on 29 November 1947, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine began in early December 1947 with a series of Jewish attacks on Palenstinian villages and neibourhoods in retaliation for the buses and shopping centers that had been vandalized in the Palestinian protest against the UN resolution during the first few days after its adoption. Though sporadic, these early Jewish assaults were severe enough to cause the exodus of a substantial number of people (almost 75,000).
On 9 January, units of the first all-arab volunteer army entered Palestine and engaged with the Jewish forces in small battles over routes and isolated Jewish settlements. Easily winning the upper hand in these skirmishes, the Jewish leadership shifted its tactics from acts of retaliation to cleansing operations (…) About 250,000 Palestinians were uprooted in this phase, which was accompanied by several massacres (…) Aware of these developments the Arab League took the decision, on the last day of April, to intervene militarily, but not until the British Mandate has come to an end.
The British left on 15 May 1948, and the Jewish Agency immediately declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine (…) That same day, regular Arab forces entered Palestine.”
So the timeline here is clear and I challenge you to prove I misquoted Pappe in any way.
Now I want to add a few things:
Here’s what Michael Palumbo, author of The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from Their Homeland, Says about Morris: “Morris' regard for documentation is indeed commendable, were it not for his tendency to choose sources which support his views, while avoiding those document collections which contain information inconsistent with his principal arguments. His decision not to use the testimony of Israeli veterans is unfortunate, since some of them have spoken candidly about Israeli atrocities and expulsion of civilians at Deir Yassein, Lydda-Ramle and Jaffa. From Wikipedia page on Benny Morris (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Morris)
So Morris is accused of the same thing he accuses Pappe of doing, funny isn't it?
Tartan Pimpernel:You are an incredible liar.
Tartan, this is your last warning. Cool it.
I am afraid that it is not an ad hom if it is substantiated. You said that all the authors you listed (Morris included) refute the facts that Arabs initiated the conflict and that Israel's security was in danger. That claim, I'm afraid, was a lie, since Morris has always asserted these to be true.
Now there is no point trying to provide a counter-argument which is based upon Pappe's book, since I've provided evidence to show that,
a) Pappe makes up sources,
b) he takes real history and falsifies it according to his own opinions, and
c) he did not do enough research into the subject (see the Turkish archives part in the wall of text I posted earlier).
I'm also afraid that Benny Morris' political opinions have no bearing on his historical works. That being said, the young Morris refused to serve in the military in the territories and was sent to jail for it. Modern Benny Morris affirms that he is still a voter of left-wing parties and still supports the two-state solution. He has not been "radicalised" as you assert. Morris is quoted by both sides of the divide - Finkelstein and Dershowitz both use him. Chomsky relies on him. Pappe on the other hand has provided a book which has proven to be riddled with errors (again, see my post above, there's no point quoting a book that's incorrect) and therefore unreliable. This is why Morris says, "In the case of Pappe and myself, there was always methodological discord. We both knew that official Zionist historiography was deeply flawed and needed to be reassessed and rewritten on the basis of the evidence that had become available; but we approached history, and the writing of history, from antithetical standpoints. Pappe regarded history through the prism of contemporary politics and consciously wrote history with an eye to serving political ends. My own view was that while historians, as citizens, had political views and aims, their scholarly task was to try to arrive at the truth about a historical event or process, to illuminate the past as objectively and accurately as possible. I believed, and still believe, that there is such a thing as historical truth; that it exists independently of, and can be detached from, the subjectivities of scholars; that it is the historian's duty to try to reach it by using as many and as varied sources as he can. Shlaim once said that he believes historians should not merely describe and analyze but also act as “judge and jury” (or was it “judge, jury, and executioner”?)--that it is their responsibility to pass moral judgment on the actions (and the thinking?) of their protagonists. He has a powerful confidence in his own “moral compass.” He once wrote that I had lost mine. I do not believe that historians should moralize in their historiography: it is a sign of hubris, and it is tedious. My belief is that historians should seek truth, not “justice,” and describe and analyze events, using as wide a range of sources as possible to try and work out why people acted as they did and what were the consequences--and then let the reader judge, using his or her own “moral compass,” whether the protagonists were right or wrong, wise or unwise."
I would seriously recommend reading the review of Pappe's work which demonstrates his sloppiness as a historian. How you can continue to quote someone who makes up evidence is beyond me. I mean seriously, just read this and take it in: "Some of Pappe’s “historical” assertions are, quite obviously, politically motivated, but they are mistakes nonetheless. He refers to “statements made by Jewish and Zionist leaders about the need to build the ‘Third Temple.’” Husaynis often leveled that charge against the Jews, in order to incite the Muslim masses. But which important Zionist leader in the 1920s advocated the construction of a Third Temple? None whom I can name. Later Pappe reinforces this lie by remarking that “Palestinian historiography, including recent work that draws on newly revealed materials, suggests that the mufti’s concern was not baseless, and that there really was a Jewish plan to seize the entire Haram [Temple Mount].” Pappe offers no evidence for this extraordinary assertion."
Now Avi Shlaim is at least a decent historian however he didn't present many new things like Morris did. Nonetheless that which has been written by Pappe has been almost completely re-written in a more elegant and accessible fashion by Shlaim. Whilst Pappe makes up things like the expulsions within twelve days of the UN resolution, Shlaim doesn't, whilst remaining at least accepting of the idea of the Palestinians as instigators in a larger, culminative conflict.
Here is more argumentation against Pappe, pointing out his shoddy historiography (or lack thereof): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Shlaim doesn't go uncorrected either.
My Response to Tartan Pimpernel Part II
In his book Defending the Holy Land (here’s the link for the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Defending-Holy-Land-Critical-Analysis/dp/0472033417/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1307493286&sr=1-1) Zeev Maoz says the following:
Zeev Maoz is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. He is the former head of the Graduate School of Government and Policy and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, as well as the former academic director of the M. A. Program at the Israeli Defense Forces’ National Defense college.
PS: 1- Pappe responded to Benny Morris' crticism in an article entitled "Benny Morris's lies about my book" link here: http://www.hnn.us/articles/4482.html
2- Your Benny Morris is no longer credible he is now lamenting the fact that Ben Gurion didn’t finish the job and kicked all the Palestinians out in 1948.
See this Article in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/oct/03/israel2). Here are some excerpts:
“The radical Israeli historian who did more than any other to force his country to face up to its responsibility for the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the 1948 war now believes the Middle East might be at peace if David Ben-Gurion had expelled all the Palestinians.”
In an about-turn that will horrify his former Iiberal allies, Benny Morris argues in the Guardian that "perhaps, had [Ben-Gurion] gone the whole hog, today's Middle East would be a healthier, less violent place, with a Jewish state between Jordan and the Mediterranean and a Palestinian Arab state in Transjordan".
Last night Professor Avi Shlaim, another eminent Israeli historian who challenged the orthodoxy, said: "What Israel carried out in 1948 was ethnic cleansing and what Benny is telling us now is that Ben-Gurion should have been more thorough and comprehensive in his policy of ethnic cleansing. Benny seems to have lost his moral bearings."
Prof Shlaim added: "It is very ironic that Benny Morris, who has done more than any other scholar to reveal the full extent of Israel's expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 has come full circle and is today suggesting that Israel did not expel enough Palestinians in 1948.
Tartan Pimpernel said: “I wish to provide a brief counter to your post containing 'quotes' by famous Rabbis (...)Your falsified claims come mainly from the spurious fascist propaganda sites (David Duke is a favourite, I've heard)”
Well here’s a quote from a Rabbi and it’s not from a “fascist propaganda site”, it’s from Ha’aretz a leading Israeli newspaper:
The United States on Sunday condemned remarks by the spiritual leader of Israel's leading ultra-Orthodox party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who said the Palestinians should "perish".
"We regret and condemn the inflammatory statements by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef," U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley. "These remarks are not only deeply offensive, but incitement such as this hurts the cause of peace."
Yosef had said during his weekly Shabbat sermon that the Palestinians, namely Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, should perish from the world. Yosef, a founder of the Shas Party, also described Palestinians as evil, bitter enemies of Israel.
"All these evil people should perish from this world ... God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians," Yosef had said.
Zeev Maoz is simply wrong. He documents history then presents opinion. It has no real basis. Let's take the 1967 war and prove that Israel didn't initiate it. Israel did not initiate the 1967 war.
You can't understand Israel's other wars without ending back at the first one (since they are all the same war, legally) and Maoz himself asserts that Israel fought that first war out of necessity.
I find it incredible that you can take Morris quotes out of context. There are several things wrong with your analysis:
1) You are inferring that Morris' poltiical opinions have any bearing on his worth as a historian. You are wrong, since Righteous Victims was written totally detached from politics and he doesn't ever mix them (One State, Two State is the most partisan of his works).
2) You quote out of context. I've read the Morris' interview in question many times and I quoted from it earlier. Here are some excerpts:
But, if we're doing character attacks, Shalim and Pappe aren't without criticism. Pappe: "As a youngster he was a Zionist, passing through the routine stations of high school, army, and undergraduate studies in Israel. (He even mentions his service in the Golan Heights during the 1973 war, apparently still a source of pride.) His glissement into militant anti-Zionism began, he recalls, in 1982, at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, where he was supervised in his doctoral studies by Albert Hourani, an Anglo-Lebanese historian who in an earlier life (1945-1947) had served as a spokesman for Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian cause. Hourani went on to become a major historian of the Middle East, and the author of the elegant and acclaimed book A History of the Arab Peoples... While Pappe, as a citizen, was a clear dabbler in radical politics, he still operated within the Zionist camp to the extent that the Israeli Communist Party, to which he belonged, posited the existence of the Jewish state within the framework of a two-state solution-in line with Moscow’s position."
Morris on Shlaim: "Avi Shlaim steadily drifted leftward (if that really is the direction of people expressing understanding and sympathy for the likes of Yasser Arafat and Hamas), largely under the impact of the Second Intifada. I myself, while still believing that a two-state solution is the only just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have moved marginally rightward--and in Israel and Palestine, while mildly praising my historiographic work, Shlaim castigates me for this in an essay called “Benny Morris and the Betrayal of History.” (“Benny is in danger of becoming … ‘a genuine charlatan,’” Shlaim writes, which is a very British way of saying that I am a charlatan. Also “his post-conversion interpretation of history is old history with a vengeance ... indistinguishable from the propaganda of the victors.” Shlaim fails to explain how, precisely, I have “betrayed history,” and his name-calling is motivated solely by political disagreement.)"
PS - Your link is Pappe's 'refutation' of a separate review by Morris. It is not Pappe's response to Morris' review of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, which is the book you quoted and I provided a substantial article against. Nonetheless, it does not cover most of the things Morris brought up in his review of A History of Modern Palestine. For instance, Pappe glosses over major issues with his book by saying things like "My book has in it mistakes of the dates, names and numbers as do his books. We should all try and minimize them to note, I agree." All Pappe does is say "oh Morris is wrong because he's a Zionist and they're all bad."
This particular quote, I accept, and from previous posts most on here accept, is real, although I note that these things come from a very small number of rabbis. For every one of these quotes I could find you ten rabbinical quotes against. By tarring Zionism because of the comments of some you are committing the association fallacy. "Rothbard voiced support for David Duke so all libertarians are white supremacists" is a similar claim which is fallacious.
If you go back and read my post, when I spoke of the "falsified claims from spurious fascist propaganda" I was referring to your so-called Talmudic sources. They do not exist. You quoted false halacha. You tried, in vain (because it's wrong), to dictate to me what halacha is and I know very well what it is. It does not treat the gentiles as non-human (rather, Jews serve gentiles because we're here to teach them God's word through exercising the 613 commandments) nor does it sanction premeditated murder.
Tartan Pimpernel said: “ Zeev Maoz is simply wrong. He documents history then presents opinion. It has no real basis”
Well you can’t just dismiss a serious historian just because you don’t like what he is saying. You need to show that he distorted facts and how he did it. Quoting other authors who contradict him doesn’t prove anything.
This debate reminds me of the Albanian-Serbian debate over Kosovo (and a few other with our neighbors). Now, having seen that debate unfold many times, even in this forum, I can only say this: the past is the past, and it canto be changed. The problem is in the present, and borders need no historical justification to cause all this literary war. Referendum and only referendum can give ‘moral’ (as moral as a state can be, of course) borders.
So, Israel should cut the crap and let the West Bank (or any part of its territory that wants to secede) do as it wishes. On the other hand, the West Bank should not be surprised if bombs start falling form the sky if it seeks to turn itself into a larger Gaza. Being independent does not give you the right to physically attack you neighbor by thousands of rocket a day, which is indeed what I fear many Palestinians would love to do. Anyhow, the solution is far simpler than its made to be: referendum borders.
I don't know of any anti-Semitic libertarians. Many libertarians are anti-Zionist because: 1. The Jews had no "right" to take over the Arab land in Palestine. 2. Jews were already living peacefully side by side with Christian and Muslim Arabs, but the Zionists decided to wage war on them and kick them off of their land, destroy their homes, etc. 3. Zionism is a nationalistic, racist ideology that preaches hate against gentiles.
Many libertarians are anti-Zionist because:
1. The Jews had no "right" to take over the Arab land in Palestine.
2. Jews were already living peacefully side by side with Christian and Muslim Arabs, but the Zionists decided to wage war on them and kick them off of their land, destroy their homes, etc.
3. Zionism is a nationalistic, racist ideology that preaches hate against gentiles.
Er, Zionism isn't exactly flattering towards Judaism either, given that it a) explicitly contradicts orthodox Jewish beliefs on Promised Lands only being given by divine command and not on human intervention, and b) has had a leader who proposed a mass religious conversion of Jewish people in order to save their lives. Strangely, it is involved not so much with religion (for already mentioned reasons), not so much with race (Jews come from many possible races), not so much involved with a nation either (given that there are non-Israeli Jewish people across the world who call themselves "Zionist"). It's just a very very very confusing and complicated body of thought, as far as ideas of Theodor Herzl and its early implementation are concerned.
You know, it's a pretty severe body of thought, in its early form, given its demands for so many people across Central Europe and Eastern Europe to leave their homes and settle on a new land among not so welcoming strangers.
If Zionism is harsh towards gentiles, what is it towards Jewish people and their faith?
The Solution for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The only possible solution the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a bi-national state where Israelis and Palestinians live side by side with equal rights. The two-state solution is no longer possible. The Israelis should give up the unrealistic dream of living in an ethnically pure state of Israel. In historical Palestine there are now about as many Israelis as there are Palestinians. In pre-1967 Israel Palestinians who live peacefully next to Jews (proving that given equal rights Palestinians have no problem living side by side with Jews) represent already 20% of the population and growing. In a few decades due to an important birth differential, Palestinians will be the overwhelming majority in the Holy Land.
In a world where mass exterminations or ethnic cleansing are no longer acceptable, and with the US empire overstretched and crumbling under debt (thanks to clueless keynesians like Krugman), Israel will increasingly become isolated and will have no choice but to give Palestinians equal rights or face total isolation.
For Israelis who live with the traumatic memory of the Holocaust this is difficult to accept. But reality has a way of imposing itself.
The truth is that Israel is an island of 6 million Jews in a sea of over 200 million Arabs in an ocean of 1.5 million Muslims. It cannot permanently count on military might to force its will on its neighbours. Sooner or later its adversaries will acquire nuclear weapons and at that moment the whole strategic balance in the middle east will shift.
Israel has maybe a decade or two ahead when it will still enjoy a military qualitative edge over its neighbours but the gap is narrowing. Israel’s experience in Lebanon shows Israel’s enemies are getting tougher.
The Crusader states lasted almost 200 years before they were swept away because they lost their military superiority. Israel has been around for only 63 years.
I hope for the sake of the region and the world that a solution to this conflict will be found before it’s too late. It's time for these quarrelsome semitic tribes (Arab and Jews) to come to terms. The world is getting tired of this endless feuding over a tiny piece of barren desert and rocks, the size of New Jersey.
In peace there will be an end to violence and there will be prosperity. And who knows? If there are enough Rothbardians in the area they could convince the rest to get rid of the borders and give security to private firms. The holy sites in Jerusalem would be managed by a private trust and accessible to all. And we will all live happily ever after in complete anarchical bliss. Dare I say:"I have a dream"?
Being independent does not give you the right to physically attack you neighbor by thousands of rocket a day, which is indeed what I fear many Palestinians would love to do.
I don't know what real indepence Gaza really has, its an outright lie to pretend as if Israel has ever left them alone. I also look at it as highly suspicious the old story that Gazans are aggressors and israel is just defending its territory with retaliation- and not the other way around. The IDF is always given higher moral superiority for absolutely no reason at all.
Prateek Sanjay: You have come out with some of the worst clichés and myths about the conflict.
''Jews were already living peacefully side by side with Christian and Muslim Arabs, but the Zionists decided to wage war on them and kick them off of their land, destroy their homes, etc.''
''To begin with, it is important to note that well before the mass organised immigration (or aliyah) of Jews to the corner of the Ottoman Empire often known as ‘Palestine’ (from the Roman name Syria-Palestina, given after 135 CE) there were religiously inspired pogroms and blatant discrimination towards a long-established Jewish community. Interestingly Karl Marx was one of the people who observed this, and after a visit to the Holy Land in 1852 he published an article in which claimed the following:
Firstly, the Jews were in a majority in the city of Jerusalem (this has been confirmed in every census since they began in the 1840s).
Secondly, Jews were the most oppressed even in areas where they were a majority.
Finally, the Jews were living in a situation of constant insult from the Muslim population, who were ethnically Arab and Turk amongst others. Contrary to modern claims that today’s Palestinians have been living in Israel and the Palestinian territories for thousands of years, the Muslim population of the area was disparate, with many arriving in the 19th Century from Egypt and the Ottoman Empire in general. There were settlements full of Armenians, Circassians and many others. Certain sections of academia have gone to great pains to cover this up and ruin the careers of those who don’t follow the official line, but in Marx’s time it was not controversial in the least, as there was no conflict in which many people had a proverbial dog.
There were during periods such as the Egyptian occupation of Palestine in the 1830s, when the native Jews were intensely persecuted for no other reason than Muslim zealotry. According to De Haas’s ‘History of Palestine’ in 1934, Jewish households systematically ‘were sacked and their women violated’ and later in the year the Jews of Hebron were victims of a large-scale massacre. The most interesting writing I have found comes from the British consul in Jerusalem in the early to mid 1800s, decades before Herzl organised a Zionist movement. His name was William Young and he sent fairly chilling report to the British Foreign Office in 1839 on the condition of Jews in the city of Jerusalem in at that time:
‘‘I think it my duty to inform you that there has been a Proclamation issued this week by the Governor in the Jewish quarter — that no Jew is to be permitted to pray in his own house under pain of being severely punished — such as want to pray are to go into the Synagogue…. There has also been a punishment inflicted on a Jew and Jewess — most revolting to human nature which I think it my duty to relate. In the early part of this week, a House was entered in the Jewish Quarter, and a robbery was committed — the House was in quarantine — and the guardian was a Jew — he was taken before the Governor-he denied having any knowledge of the thief or the circumstances. In order to compel him to confess, he was laid down and beaten, and afterwards imprisoned. The following day he was again brought before the Governor, when he still declared his innocence. He was then burned with a hot iron over his face, and in various parts of the body — and beaten on the lower parts of his body to that extent that the flesh hung in pieces from him. The following day the poor creature died. He was a young Jew of Salonica about 28 years of age — who had been here but a very short time, he had only the week before been applying to enter my service. A young man-a Jew — having a French passport — was also suspected — he fled — his character was known to be an indifferent one — his mother an aged woman was taken under the suspicion of concealing her son — She was tied up and beaten in the most brutal way… I must say I am sorry and am surprised that the Governor could have acted so savage a part-for certainly what I have seen of him, I should have thought him superior to such wanton inhumanity — but it was a Jew — without friends or protection-it serves well to show, that it is not without reason that the poor Jew, even in the nineteenth century, lives from day to day in terror of his life’’.
‘‘I think it my duty to inform you that there has been a Proclamation issued this week by the Governor in the Jewish quarter — that no Jew is to be permitted to pray in his own house under pain of being severely punished — such as want to pray are to go into the Synagogue….
There has also been a punishment inflicted on a Jew and Jewess — most revolting to human nature which I think it my duty to relate. In the early part of this week, a House was entered in the Jewish Quarter, and a robbery was committed — the House was in quarantine — and the guardian was a Jew — he was taken before the Governor-he denied having any knowledge of the thief or the circumstances. In order to compel him to confess, he was laid down and beaten, and afterwards imprisoned. The following day he was again brought before the Governor, when he still declared his innocence. He was then burned with a hot iron over his face, and in various parts of the body — and beaten on the lower parts of his body to that extent that the flesh hung in pieces from him. The following day the poor creature died. He was a young Jew of Salonica about 28 years of age — who had been here but a very short time, he had only the week before been applying to enter my service.
A young man-a Jew — having a French passport — was also suspected — he fled — his character was known to be an indifferent one — his mother an aged woman was taken under the suspicion of concealing her son — She was tied up and beaten in the most brutal way…
I must say I am sorry and am surprised that the Governor could have acted so savage a part-for certainly what I have seen of him, I should have thought him superior to such wanton inhumanity — but it was a Jew — without friends or protection-it serves well to show, that it is not without reason that the poor Jew, even in the nineteenth century, lives from day to day in terror of his life’’.
As a persecuted minority, Jews had no legal redress, as the report observed:
”Like the miserable dog without an owner he is kicked by one because he crosses his path, and cuffed by another because he cries out – to seek redress he is afraid, lest it bring worse upon him; he thinks it better to endure than to live in the expectation of his complaint being revenged upon him. Scarcely a day passes that I do not hear of some act of Tyranny and oppression against a Jew — chiefly by the soldiers, who enter their Houses and borrow whatever they require without asking any permission-sometimes they return the article, but more frequently not. In two instances, I have succeeded in obtaining justice for Jews against Turks-But it is quite a new thing in the eyes of these people to claim justice for a Jew-and I have good reason to think that my endeavors to protect the Jews, have been — and may be for some little time to come, detrimental to influence with other classes — Christians as well as Turks….”
”Like the miserable dog without an owner he is kicked by one because he crosses his path, and cuffed by another because he cries out – to seek redress he is afraid, lest it bring worse upon him; he thinks it better to endure than to live in the expectation of his complaint being revenged upon him.
Scarcely a day passes that I do not hear of some act of Tyranny and oppression against a Jew — chiefly by the soldiers, who enter their Houses and borrow whatever they require without asking any permission-sometimes they return the article, but more frequently not. In two instances, I have succeeded in obtaining justice for Jews against Turks-But it is quite a new thing in the eyes of these people to claim justice for a Jew-and I have good reason to think that my endeavors to protect the Jews, have been — and may be for some little time to come, detrimental to influence with other classes — Christians as well as Turks….”
In 1842, in a message to Viscount Palmerston, Mr. Young noted how defenceless the Jewish population was against such onslaughts, which had no cause other than ‘’the blind hatred and ignorant prejudice of a fanatic population’’. This was well before a Jewish state, before Herzl, before any occupation, before any Western power came into control of the area. Reports from other writers who visited the Holy Land, such as A.W. Kinglake, abound with similar stories – Kinglake, Winston Churchill’s favourite writer, witnessed and wrote about anti-Jewish riots and looting in Safed, though in holding anti-Semitic views he was not as sympathetic as men like William Young. So how did the myth swallowed by The Promise get started? My guess is it originally came from Islamic apologetics, where Muslim writers contrasted their historic relations with the Jews with that of Christendom, which were historically worse. The radical left in the West seems to have adopted this defence of Islam and the Orientals and warped it for their own needs. The left-of-centre public broadcasters then use our tax money to give these opinions a platform. I can’t imagine The Promise being brave enough to declare that for centuries Jews lived in ‘mostly-peaceful subservience’ to their Muslim rulers, which would be more accurate''.
auctionguy10: Being independent does not give you the right to physically attack you neighbor by thousands of rocket a day, which is indeed what I fear many Palestinians would love to do. I don't know what real indepence Gaza really has, its an outright lie to pretend as if Israel has ever left them alone. I also look at it as highly suspicious the old story that Gazans are aggressors and israel is just defending its territory with retaliation- and not the other way around. The IDF is always given higher moral superiority for absolutely no reason at all.
I certainly would not give the IDF the mantle of all-wise protectors. But the fact remains and is uncontested: every day hundreds of rockets are fired at Israel form Gaza. Is this retaliation? Is it acceptable by our standard to retaliate against Israelis in general? Is the IDF perfectly right when blasting the houses form which those rockets are launched, and killing in land incursions those responsible?
Whatever Israel did in the past, palestinians have no right at all to bomb civilians. I think it’s a rather straightforward situation, at least regarding IDF incursions/air strikes in Gaza. They are even showing great colleens under fire. I can tell you that if any other nation would see civilians subjected to bombing, it would eradicate the perpetrator. We got to give the IDF its due when it deserves it.
A few things:
Mark R. Cohen, winner of the 2010 Goldziher Prize from The Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College National Jewish Honor Book in Jewish History
Here’s a summary of the ideas he presents:
“Did Muslims and Jews in the Middle Ages cohabit in a peaceful "interfaith utopia"? Or were Jews under Muslim rule persecuted, much as they were in Christian lands? Rejecting both polemically charged ideas as myths, Mark Cohen offers a systematic comparison of Jewish life in medieval Islam and Christendom--and the first in-depth explanation of why medieval Islamic-Jewish relations, though not utopic, were less confrontational and violent than those between Christians and Jews in the West.”
2-The Palestinians in Gaza are under siege by Israel. Do you remember Israel’s storming and killing of activists on the Mavi Marmara? So they respond by the only weapon they have, home made rockets which most of the time fall in the desert. How many Israelis have been killed by Gazan rockets? And how many Gazans have been killed by Israelis?
Since 2000 the Israelis have killed 1463 palestinian children while Palestinians have killed 124 Israeli children. The numbers speek for themselves.
See the excellent graphs on the site If Americans Knew, What every American needs to Know About Israel/Palestine: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
I don't think the formation of a state is the solution. It may in fact make matters worse than it already is. If Zionism is pro state, then it's not part of the solution. The same would go for radical Islam if it adheres to the same pro state position.
Recognizing individual property rights would be the first logical step in the right direction regardless of how that society would choose to organize itself.
No individual should be able to impose their will upon another - i.e., there should be a voluntary social order and free trade. This is why I believe minarchists have a much more difficult challenge in keeping their limited government from getting out of hand. In time, or even immediately, individuals with political power will impose their will upon others. Perhaps Jefferson's view of generational revolutions is the way that works, but I have doubts as this seems more like tit-for-tat than justice. While I believe anarchy would work, I don't believe the people would easily embrace the idea let alone make it work constructively - at least not at this time.
Differences between individuals need to be worked out and settled between the affected parties. Killing people, bulldozing homes, driving people from their lands, etc. does nothing to resolve the situation.
I think it's pretty clear there are some who are too heavily invested in revenge or hate to even begin to attempt the difficult task of settling their differences. Perhaps the solution involves time where a younger generation accepts the challege while the older generation dies out.
I think in general folks tend to get caught up in labels and also tend to group individuals into clusters of similar ideologies (or what they believe others believe regardless of accuracy). Zionism, whatever is really meant by the term, probably has a broad range of people with different ideas and beliefs. Just as libertarians have a broad range of people with different ideas and beliefs. Even in their most basic definitions there are disagreements.
About Israeli mistreatment of its minorities here's an article from the leading Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz:
A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman in Israel attended a meeting at a government office in Jerusalem's Givat Shaul quarter. When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came and knocked on the window. When the clergyman let the window down, the passerby spat in his face.
On Sunday, a fracas developed when a yeshiva student spat at the cross being carried by the Armenian Archbishop during a procession near the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. The archbishop's 17th-century cross was broken during the brawl and he slapped the yeshiva student.
Evyatar says he himself was spat at while walking with a Serbian bishop in the Jewish quarter, near his home. "A group of yeshiva students spat at us and their teacher just stood by and watched."
To read the whole article go to:
[ View : http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/christians-in-jerusalem-want-jews-to-stop-spitting-on-them-1.137099]
I certainly would not give the IDF the mantle of all-wise protectors. But the fact remains and is uncontested: every day hundreds of rockets are fired at Israel form Gaza. Is this retaliation? Is it acceptable by our standard to retaliate against Israelis in general? Is the IDF perfectly right when blasting the houses form which those rockets are launched, and killing in land incursions those responsible? Whatever Israel did in the past, palestinians have no right at all to bomb civilians. I think it’s a rather straightforward situation, at least regarding IDF incursions/air strikes in Gaza. They are even showing great colleens under fire. I can tell you that if any other nation would see civilians subjected to bombing, it would eradicate the perpetrator. We got to give the IDF its due when it deserves it.
Rocket and mortar attacks have not been as numerous as "hundreds a day" since the simultaneous conflict with Hezbollah back in 2006, I think? It should also be remembered that reprissal attacks affect, harm and even kill people who had nothing to do with the rockets or mortars. I don't quite know how collective punishment can be justified within a libertarian framework.
In any case, there are sporadic rockets and mortars fired into the most desolate part of Israel. Sure, perhaps an attack in response could be justified but I do not see how imposing a unilateral blockade upon the place is.
The final point I'd like to make is that the idea that Gaza is a national threat to Israel is just ridiculous. These people are using Soviet-era and homemade armaments against the most powerful military in the region. What I don't get it is how reprissal attacks could be cheered on when you could probably bribe most of the people in Gaza for the price of one cruise missile. You'd think a group of people who survived a time where many avoided certain death by bribery would at least recognize the irony of their State's actions...
Israeli hatred for the Palestinians
Let Israelis speak for themselves, see this video on you tube:
[ View : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t_ZjetcSMQ&feature=player_embedded]
Scary!
It should also be remembered that reprissal attacks affect, harm and even kill people who had nothing to do with the rockets or mortars. I don't quite know how collective punishment can be justified within a libertarian framework.
They can’t and that’s why I find the IDF policy of targeting the houses form which rockets are launched laudable. I’ll not illude myself that no innocents are killed, but in the crazy situation over there, its indeed a very ‘clean’ operation.
Sure, perhaps an attack in response could be justified but I do not see how imposing a unilateral blockade upon the place is.
If we accept states for now, which is what we must do in order to avoid closing the debate with “call me back when there’s anarchy”, than we must see that they exert authority over what they consider as their boundaries. And the ‘blockade’ is just an instance of Israel closing its borders to Gaza, which is cool for us. No one owes the Palestinians, or anyone else for that matter, open borders. So the blockade can only be attacked for the Israeli point of view, not the Palestinian.
People tend to break under pressure, and all considered the IDF is keeping its cool, as I said. Now I myself find the whole Gaza policy in need of a fine-tuning, but that’s it, a fine tuning. Employ Mosad to kill known terrorists, post bounties, go on with precise air strikes and so on. All of these techniques are being used, though I’d do away with ground incursions.
So, to me Gaza is the most sensible Israeli policy right now. When attack stop form Gaza, in time the blockade will crumble under pressure. But with rocket being fired daily, even if they hit the dessert most of the time, ‘forgiveness’ and ‘peace’ is unthinkable. It took 12 years of noncontact between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo for a negotiated political truce to even be considered.
According to Israeli Human Rights Organization B'Tselem:
following the abduction of the soldier Gilad Shalit on 26 June 2006, Israel initiated an extensive operation, which was given the name Summer Rains. In the operation, the army bombed civilian infrastructure and made incursions into crowded population centers. Since then, Israel has attacked the Gaza Strip several times.
In all these actions (until 26 December 2008), Israel killed 522 Palestinians who were not taking part in the hostilities. This number included 195 minors, 49 women, and 25 men over age 50.
On 27 December 2008, Israel began its most extensive operation, which it called Cast Lead. Operation Cast Lead continued until 18 January 2009 and caused unprecedented harm to the civilian population - 1,389 Palestinians were killed, including 759 civilians who did not take part in the hostilities, and thousands were wounded. Israel also caused enormous damage to buildings and infrastructure, causing electricity, water, and sewage facilities, which were on the verge of collapse before the operation, to cease functioning completely. According to UN figures, Israel destroyed over 3,500 residential dwellings, leaving large numbers of persons homeless.
Source:
[ View : http://www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/]
And the ‘blockade’ is just an instance of Israel closing its borders to Gaza, which is cool for us.
Negative. They blockade the seas and the airspace and put pressure on the Egyptians via the U.S. to keep their border closed. As Bastiat noted, if goods don't cross borders eventually armies do.
Well again, if we go through this issue in a strict anarchist way, than we cannot discuss anything: both sides are wrong, call us when there are no states in that region.
If we insist on discussing even if we acknowledge that states exist, than me must take a proxy view that states in this conflict have a ‘right’ to ‘their’ land. So Israel has a ‘right’ to blockade goods passing through its territory. I do not get why everyone is so outraged at the ‘blockade’ of Israel and says nothing at all about the blockage of Egypt! The famous flotilla could have made port to Egypt and no one would have stooped them. So why does Israel get all the blame?
So Israel has a ‘right’ to blockade goods passing through its territory.
So the airspace above Gaza and the ocean it borders is Israel's "territory"?
You also missed the point where I stated that Egypt would maintain a blockade of Gaza at the behest of Israel and the United States.
In the flotilla case the ships where heading for an Israeli port. Again, if they had wanted to ‘run the blockade’ they could have headed to Egypt.
As for Egypt, political pressure is all right form our perspective. Israel has any right to pressure whichever country it likes into anything, as long as they can pull it off without aggression. Even instigating revolts is all right as a form of non-aggressive competition. Rothbard wrote on such things.
So, in both cases, if you seek a guilty party, look to Egypt.