Israel: asset or liability?

[SeminiferousButtNoid]

Hell, I agree with Hitch on lots of things.

Why am I not surprised...

I love reading Hitchens, though I do disagree with him on a few things.

Like what, his favorite color?

[upinsmoke]

All I see from upinsmokeandmirrors is a bunch of "I know you are but what am I" retorts, failing to respond to Israel's historical, religious, and civic claim to the land and making the assertion that I'm using "evangelical talking points". I can honestly say I've never been accused of that before. I wonder if Alan Dershowitz gets accused of that too? Basically your position is that Israel doesn't have the right to exist. In which case your "both sides need to lose their pride and their will be peace" crap is rendered meaningless.

No, you just dismiss the fact that there is a different side to the story that has been largely ignored, because it is difficult to confront an uncomfortable truth. The fact is, if Jews from Europe have any claim at all, so do the descendants of the people who have been there the whole time. As vlad stated before, they are brothers, genetically, for the most part. Palestinians have a small amount of arab genetics, but are still more closely related to jews.

"Basically your position is that Israel doesn't have the right to exist."

No country on the planet would have the right to exist in that case. Highlight some text where I said that. Smoke and mirrors, indeed.

[Hames Jetfield]

Hell, I agree with Hitch on lots of things.

Why am I not surprised...

I love reading Hitchens, though I do disagree with him on a few things.

Like what, his favorite color?

You're an imbecile. I said I agreed with a leading intellectual on the Palestinian problem and a few other things--what's the big deal?

[lerxstcat]

No, you just dismiss the fact that there is a different side to the story that has been largely ignored, because it is difficult to confront an uncomfortable truth. The fact is, if Jews from Europe have any claim at all, so do the descendants of the people who have been there the whole time. As vlad stated before, they are brothers, genetically, for the most part. Palestinians have a small amount of arab genetics, but are still more closely related to jews.

Arabs and Jews are genetically pretty much the same, period - both are of the Semitic family of peoples. So you can't say they have a "small amount of Arab genetics" and separate them from other Arabs. Same people racially, the differences are all religious and cultural - kind of like the Ulstermen Protestants and the Catholic Irish in Nortrhern Ireland. The Catholics are Irish and the Scots-Irish are descended from Scottish mercenaries. The Scots and Irish are both Gaelic Kelts and are genetically the same people. With slightly different cultures and religious differences that make them enemies. It's the same thing.

And in both cases it makes no difference as to who is the rightful owner of the land.

[vlad]

I just wanted to add this liitle fact to those who think that Jordan should just take in all the Palestinians...not counting those living outside of Israel or the occupied territories...the number of Palestinains that would have to booted from their homes or refugee camps In this territory is over 5 million.

And the "invasion" of Arabs after Jews started immigrating is another nationalist myth...it is absolute jinogistic bullshit. Really..absolute bullshit. The empty land myth.

You are aware that the "construct" is much older ...they tried to revolt against the Ottomans in the 1830s....long before the Zionists showed up. In the 19th century, the Zionist movement became a great concern to the inhabitants of the region,,,,because they lived there and rightly, as it turned out, saw it as a threat. A very clear Palestinian national movement existed by 1920, separate from Syria or any other state..

Please tell me you aren't basing your knowledge on the "From Time Immemorial" book. You do realise that that book has been discredited, right? It just occurred to me that all the memes you are saying are straight out of Peter's book. Even Jewish and Israeli reviewers have blasted it.

For example:

"Readers of her book should be warned not to accept its factual claims without checking their sources. Judging by the interest that the book aroused and the prestige of some who have endorsed it, I thought it would present some new interpretation of the historical facts. I found none. Everyone familiar with the writing of the extreme nationalists of Zeev Jabotinsky's Revisionist party (the forerunner of the Herut party) would immediately recognize the tired and discredited arguments in Mrs. Peters's book. I had mistakenly thought them long forgotten. It is a pity that they have been given new life."

Yehoshua Porath is a Professor Emeritus of Middle East History (formerly Associate Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies), and a lecturer in the History of Muslim Countries at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also called it a "sheer forgery".

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... palestine/

I would recommend reading his rebuttal of this book and these very ideas you talk about. Here's an excerpt.

Again, he is an Israeli historian and in this article he also discusses Arab myths as well...I find it a remarkably even-handed review.

Much of Mrs. Peters’s book argues that at the same time that Jewish immigration to Palestine was rising, Arab immigration to the parts of Palestine where Jews had settled also increased. Therefore, in her view, the Arab claim that an indigenous Arab population was displaced by Jewish immigrants must be false, since many Arabs only arrived with the Jews. The precise demographic history of modern Palestine cannot be summed up briefly, but its main features are clear enough and they are very different from the fanciful description Mrs. Peters gives. It is true that in the middle of the nineteenth century there was neither a “Palestinian nation” nor a “Palestinian identity.” But about four hundred thousand Arabs—the great majority of whom were Muslims—lived in Palestine, which was divided by the Ottomans into three districts. Some of these people were the descendants of the pre-Islamic population that had adopted Islam and the Arabic language; others were members of Bedouin tribes, although the penetration of Bedouins was drastically curtailed after the mid-nineteenth century, when the Ottoman authorities became stronger and more efficient.

As all the research by historians and geographers of modern Palestine shows, the Arab population began to grow again in the middle of the nineteenth century. That growth resulted from a new factor: the demographic revolution. Until the 1850s there was no “natural” increase of the population, but this began to change when modern medical treatment was introduced and modern hospitals were established, both by the the Ottoman authorities and by the foreign Christian missionaries. The number of births remained steady but infant mortality decreased. This was the main reason for Arab population growth, not incursions into the country by the wandering tribes who by then had become afraid of the much more efficient Ottoman troops. Toward the end of Ottoman rule the various contemporary sources no longer lament the outbreak of widespread epidemics. This contrasts with the Arabic chronicles of previous periods in which we find horrible descriptions of recurrent epidemics—typhoid, cholera, bubonic plague—decimating the population. Under the British Mandate, with still better sanitary conditions, more hospitals, and further improvements in medical treatment, the Arab population continued to grow.

[lerxstcat]

Never heard of that book, Vlad. I read a book called "The Middle East" and i couldn't tell you the author... got it from the library just before Katrina and lost it in the storm. I also read a biography of Bin Laden around the same time that presented the same historical background for Israel/Palestine.

My point is that the Palestinians who want to live in their own country should move to Jordan. Those who live within the borders of Israel should become law-abiding citizens of Israel. Or if they want their Palestinian state they should disarm as Israel demands. Just as we don't let the Indian reservations have tanks and advanced military weaponry. They're sovereign within their own lands but they don't commit military incursions into US territory.

[choppersauce]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/m ... line/html/

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[SeminiferousButtNoid]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/m ... line/html/

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When I saw a BBC link I knew it would be biased against Israel and I was right. It's practically a rite of passage to shit on Israel in British academia so it was no surprise. I like how their description of the Six Day War is as if Israel attacked Egypt and Jordan to increase their land. There is of course no mention of the fact that the reason Israel made a pre-emptive strike on Egypt because the Egyptians had mobilized 100,000 troops in the Sinai and planned to invade Israel first.

[SmokingGun]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/m ... line/html/

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When I saw a BBC link I knew it would be biased against Israel and I was right. It's practically a rite of passage to shit on Israel in British academia .

Very, very true. They call themselves 'anti-zionists' but they are really anti-jew/anti-semite. Cliffbyford is a good example of an anti-semite hiding behind the anti-zionist facade.

[thejuggernaut]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/m ... line/html/

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When I saw a BBC link I knew it would be biased against Israel and I was right. It's practically a rite of passage to shit on Israel in British academia .

Very, very true. They call themselves 'anti-zionists' but they are really anti-jew/anti-semite.

". . . You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth.

"Antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently antisemitic, and ever will be so.

"Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. From this they were expelled by the Roman tyrant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered Our Lord. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them.

"The Negro people, my friend, know what it is to suffer the torment of tyranny under rulers not of our choosing. Our brothers in Africa have begged, pleaded, requested--DEMANDED the recognition and realization of our inborn right to live in peace under our own sovereignty in our own country.

"How easy it should be, for anyone who holds dear this inalienable right of all mankind, to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfilment of God's promise, that his People should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land.

This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less.

"And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is antisemitism.

"The antisemite rejoices at any opportunity to vent his malice. The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the antisemite must constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist'!

"My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate antisemitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and a revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you have been misled--as others have been--into thinking you can be 'anti-Zionist' and yet remain true to these heartfelt principles that you and I share.

Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--make no mistake about it."

[choppersauce]

religious poo poo