Ambulances are hit by Israeli forces (video)

[madthumbs]

Ambulances are hit by Israeli forces (http://opposingdigits.com/vlog/?p=515)

Another challenging report from ITN, this time on ITV. This one on the Israeli attack on ambulances in Tyre Lebanon.

[Gold9472]

You seem to be focused on pointing out the faults of the Israelis. I do that as well, but it seems that you have a vendetta against them. I show both sides of the story, whereas you only post anti-Israel stories... Just out of curiosity... do you hate "the jews"?

[Partridge]

I'm just reading through the "Alex Jones Exposed (http://www.opposingdigits.com/alex/)" section of this person's blog.

Some wonderfully terrible things written there about 'Zionists' - including this seeming endorsement of the Protocols(!).


This is just an example to give you an idea of how long this Zionist conspiracy has been active. Learn more about Zionism from [...] The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (http://opposingdigits.com/protocolszion/) pages and Daryl Bradford Smith (http://www.iamthewitness.com/).

In fact a lot of that page is just copy and pasted from Smith's website. (Compare the two - OD (http://www.opposingdigits.com/alex/) and DBS (http://www.iamthewitness.com/Alex-Jones-summary.html)). I did notice however that left out of the OD page was this ditty from Smith:


Jones is a Zionist Denier

There is a definite and obvious pattern with Alex Jones. He is constantly shifting blame away from Israel, Zionists, and Jews [my emphasis], and onto the goyim or onto mysterious entities, such as "The New World Order".

There is only one explanation for Alex Jones and his Zionist Denial: he is a Zionist, and his organization in Austin, Texas is a Zionist terrorist cell.

I'm not particularly a fan of Alex Jones and his christian-libertarian / anti-socialist philosophy - but to say (without proof no less!) that he is the head of a Zionist terrorist cell is dispicable! But I'm not here to defend Alex Jones or his views.

A brief scan of the forum, revealed the following threads (all posted by madthumbs):

"Who Brought Slaves to America?" (the Jews of course! - See Lenni Brenner on Jewish Involvement in the Slave Trade (http://www.blacksandjews.com/Brenner.letter.html) - In brief: 'Undoubtedly Jews were involved. So were Christians, Muslims, Tribal Africans and others'. Of course, Brenner is both a Jew and a Marxist, and therefore I guess mustn't be trusted - see next entry)

"Martin Luther King" - links to a page with (http://www.jrbooksonline.com/slaves_and_masters.htm) the old MLK, Jews, Communists, Trotskyists united to destory America (or somesuch racist crap from). OMG Max Eastman (Jewish Marxist - who incidently later went on to renounce marxism) knew a black poet! MLK worked with communists during the civil right movement (why? because communists wanted to end racial discrimination the evil bastards!). And an endorsement of McCarthysim (and presumably the other Red Scares of the 20thC) - one would think a truthseeker would be opposed to such politically motivated witch-hunts!

"Wikipedia" - It's a Judeo-communist plot to control information on the internet! The proof - typing Bolshevik into google brings up wikipedia's entry as the first link.

Now I have a question for madthumbs - what does 'Zionism' actually mean to you - in concrete terms? If I was to say "I'm a zionist" (for arguments sake), what would you guess to be my political beliefs?

What do you believe are the longterm aims and goals of the Zionist Movement?

[AuGmENTor]

Yeah cause I wanna know what one is also.

[Gold9472]

This I found interesting...

"Alex Jones promotes Zionist Mike Berger"

[Gold9472]

Hmmmm... a friend of mine is called a "Zionist" by someone posting on this board. I don't know if I condone that.

[Partridge]

Yeah cause I wanna know what one is also.Well I can sorta give you my take on Zionism and its origins - I'm just copying & pasting this from another forum I used to post on. 'Bulldog' was the person I was arguing with, and it should be noted that when using terms like "Jewish role" and so on, I am referring to the actions of immigrant zionist jews in historical Palestine. And the Jewish State (a Jewish supremacist regime), was essentially the goal of many of the early Zionists - and it is certainly was was eventually created in Israel.

It's quite long (a series of posts) but I hope its informative.

================

Part 1

To be honest, I'm not sure what Bulldog's point really was. He seemed to dispute that the creation of Israel has been a major factor in antagonism between Jews and Muslims.

You see, there are several Zionist myths about the Creation of Israel, myths that are given creedence for whatever reasons in 'popular culture' (using this term as counterposed to the 'historical record').

One of the main ones used to be that Palestine was a 'land without a people' waiting for a 'people without a land'. And that prior to the creation of Israel, the arab countries sent a load of arabs (and presumably arab-christians) to Palestine with forged lineages. This is of course nonsense. Certainly there was no state of Palestine, not because the Palestinians were 'incapable' of organising a state, but because Palestine had been under various imperial occupations (the last one before 1948 was the British 'mandate'). If one were to apply that logic universally, then one could not speak of a 'Welsh people' or Wales for example.

Another myth is that, the Palestinians were not ethnically cleansed. Some have argued that the Palestinians, instead of being forced to leave, recieved radio broadcasts urging them to leave their lands, at which point the surrounding arab armies would 'drive the Jews into the sea' and then the Palestinians could come back. More nonsense, as proved by Irish scholar Erskine Childers, who made a study of arab radio transmissions, most of which had been recorded by the British and US. He found that "[t]here was not a single order or appeal or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine, from any Arab station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948. There is repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put." (The Spectator (http://www.users.cloud9.net/%7Erecross/israel-watch/ErskinChilders.html))

That Palestinians were ethnically cleansed is now accepted by most scholars. Or as Israeli scholar Benny Morris (one could hardly call him pro-Palestinain) says, they were "partially ethnically cleansed", and indeed he argues that the Israelis didn't go far enough (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,803524,00.html) in murdering/expelling the Palestinians. He might be morally reprehensible, but at least he's honest. Avi Shlaim of Oxford Uni puts it more bluntly: "What Israel carried out in 1948 was ethnic cleansing."

Why are these myths important? Because all are or were integral parts to the justification of the creation of Israel - and some are still widely accepted in 'popular culture'.

Now, we come to the argument that 'the Jews' (or Jewish People) had a right to a 'land of their own'.

Bulldog says something to the effect that 'Belgians have a country, Chinese have a country, Tibetans want one, etc'. Well first, perhaps Belgium was not the best choice to illustrate this, given that Belgium is made of two 'peoples' - the Flems and the Waloons. But whatever, lets leave that aside.

This is essentially a nationalist argument, and while I am generally an opponent of nationalism (bourgeois nationalism at any rate), I will try and address this on its own terms, given that I do believe in the right to national self determination.

First off, I should point out that I am in no way in favour of the destruction of Israel, or expelling/murdering Jews. Neither am I an anti-semite (or rather, anti-Jewish). Common arguments used against critics of Israel. And I am not arguing that today, those who live in Israel have no 'right' to live there. It would be like me arguing that Protestants have no 'right' to live in Ireland, ridiculous. In fact, the very first book I ever read about Zionism was Leon Uris' Mila 18, a novel about the Warsaw Ghetto, which at the tender age of 14 had a deep effect on me.

Nationalism usually arises out of Imperialism (on a macro or micro level), it has to do with things like self government, borders, economic control and so on, and often to do with tensions between different groups in society - Welsh and English in Britain to use an example.

But lets go back to about 1890. What is, for example, a Russian Jew? I'd say its a person of the Jewish faith who lives in Russia. What is an Irish Muslim? A person of the muslim faith that lives in Ireland. So, in most European countries, we have Jews, people who had probably been living there for many generations - and who sometimes suffered attacks, verbal and physical. And it was in these conditions that the idea of Zionism arose. It didn't suddenly arrive on the scene in 1948. In fact, one could draw comparisons with Marcus Garvey's 'back to Africa' ideals and those of the early Rastafarians in Jamacia (a mixture of Christianity, Zionism and Garvism). They were people who by historical accident or design, found themselves in often hostile areas and wished to 'go home'.

Zionism had been gaining influence in the West (and not just among Jews) in the early part of the century, for a variety of reasons - including anti-semitism ("get them out"), and again, one can see some paralells with Garvey, who iirc was even given money by the Klan to fund his Black Star Liner project. But many, if not a majority of, Jews (both religious and secular) opposed Zionism, some seeing it as blasphemey (only God could bring about teh conditions of the restoration, not humans) and secularists seeing it as pointless, arguing that Jews that should align themselves with progressive movements in their respective adopted states and work to defeat anti-Jewish racism.

It was not until the rise of the Nazis that large numbers of Jews understandably began to align themselves with Zionism, and of these probably most were non-religious Jews. Noam Chomsky for example was (and still considers himself) a secular-zionist. And, it would probably be closer to the truth to call the Zionism of this era socialist or labour-Zionism. However, despite this, Israel was not formed as a secular-socialist (or social democratic) state, with equal rights for all - it was formed as a Jewish state, seized Palestinian lands, expelled vast numbers of Palestinians and so on.

I won't go into the arguments for and against the legitimacy of the principle Israel's creation, only to say the idea that Jews have an inalienable right to land because 'God' gave it to them is patently absurd. As a friend of mine said, "I guess that makes Israel the oldest piece of real estate in the world" - and that whatever my own opinions on it may have been at the time (and who can say what they would have been had I grown up in the 20s or 30s), the idea that Israel can now be 'uncreated' is also absurd. I believe in a two-state democratic secularlist (and preferably socialist) solution, where equal rights for all are ensured ad enforced, and where the Palestinian refugees have the right to return or recieve compensation (according to their own wishes, not those of others).

So does the fact that there was a Jewish Nationalism (comparable to Black Separatism in the US) automatically mean that the right to a state along ethic lines is garaunteed? Well, I guess the answer is yes and no. It's not as simple as holding a plebiscite, because Jewish people were spread all over the world - its a question of first finding a homeland to relocate to. So if you ask me, did the Jews have a right to their own land in 1948, I'd give an equivocal 'yes' - but if you ask me did the Jews have the right to colonise [i]Palestine and create a Jewish State, then the answer is an unequivocal 'no'. Just as the answer would be with relation to Black Muslim separatists - in fact the idea of a state with the supremacy of any race or religion over others is abhorrant to me.

Now we get to another myth of Zionism - 'arab anti-semitism' in the period before the creation and after (lets say 1930 to 1950). It is often represented as this irrational, racist, anti-Jew ideology, that the arabs 'hated Jews' simply becasue they are Jewish.

This is another ridiculous assertation. Did the Irish rise against the British Empire simply because they hated 'the British' and 'Protestants'? Or to use the example of the Palestinians even, was the 1936-7 uprising against the British an example of 'racist arab anti-whiteism' - or was it an anti-colonial struggle against both the British rulers and the immigration of Jewish would-be colonisers (many of whom became the British colonial police and crushed the rising - a telling indicator of what a Zionist state would look like)?

Well, you're free to say anti-semitism if you chose, but that's not what the Peel Commission found - it found the underlying causes to be arab nationalism (on the rise all across the ME), desire for national independence and self government, an end to Zionist colonisation and the end of transfer of Arab lands to Jewish colonisers and eviction of Palestinian peasants. Amazingly enough, those were also the demands of the uprising - nothing about hatred of Jews there. It was Palestinian nationalism, plain and simple. As with the 1948 war, it wasn't anti-semitism that motivated the arab armies - it was pan arab nationalism. This too is recognised by Benny Morris. The fact is that had the immigrant Jews instead been immigrant Romanis, the results would undoubtedly have been the same.

Finally Bulldog says in a sarcastic manner "It was all perfect before then" - a strawman if ever I saw one. I don't think anyone would argue that the Middle East (or anywhere else for that matter) has ever been 'perfect'. How could anything be 'perfect' under Imperialism? Of course, it is worth looking at arab-Jewish relations before 1948. Before 1948 there were about, iirc, 1 million Jews living in the Middle East in arab countries. Most of them lived relatively peacefully alongside their arab neighbours, and it was not until after the creation of Israel that persecutions of these people began. That is not an excuse for persecution, but to understand the reasons behind the actions one has to look them in their historical context - ie, the 'partial ethnic cleansing' to use Morris' term, of Palestinain arabs.

So back to the orginal point, to which Bulldog appears to have taken his initial offence - I would say that the single main reason for the huge animosity between arabs and jews (and lest we think it otherwise, many Jews are now racist against arabs just as many arabs are now racist against Jews) was the creation of Israel and all that it entailed. There was no anti-Jewish gene in arabs, but as always with nationalism, easy scapegaots eventually end up being made.

And I don't think this ultranationalism/mutal racism is insurmountable. Not at all. It is my belief that the ordinary citizens of Israel and of the arab countries - as with the working people of all nations - have far more in common with each other than with their own establishment elites, and that united in struggle they can overcome both their exploitative leaderships and their own differences with each other. That is my fundamental belief on the Irish question, as it is with the Israeli-Palestinain question.

[Partridge]

Part 2 (All quotes by Mr. 'Bulldog')


So where would you grant the jews a nation of their own then?

This is where we reach the predicament of early 20th Century Zionism - does the 'right to a land' include the right to steal from, murder and expel any other people - historical connection with the land or not?

I say no. It's that simple. The ethnic cleansing of Jews did not justify the (partial or attempted or whatever way you want to phrase it) ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.


You're dodging the question about the logic in the existance of a jewish nation by hinting that jews had lived dispersed for centuries in various countries. Ie. I think you're trying to use that as a proof that they were not a nation, but simply people of different nationality with the same religion.

No, I'm not denying the existence of Jewish Nationalism - which is why I drew the paralells with Black Nationalism. The question again, is not whether the Jews constitute a 'nation' (which they do in the same sense as Black Nationalists - that is they, or sections of them, believe they do and therefore one has to accept that as their position and work from there) - the question is, should this have given them basically carte blanche in Palestine. Again, I say no.


Eg. how the jews left Egypt to form their own nation.

I really didn't want to get into the ancient history arguments here - but over the last two decades ro so, a new historiography has been developing in Israel, primarily to do with archaeology and its relation to Bible History. Ze'ev Herzog an archaeologist from Tel Aviv Uni argues that "This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom." He goes further to argue that in fact the 'Israelites' were just Canaanites. (Haaretz, quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education (http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/hwc22/Rome/Archaeology_vs._the_Bible.html))

Of course, there is much criticism and debate of this by other scholars - and not being an expert in, or even having an opinion on this era, I certainly cannot argue for its validity or otherwise. But my point is that a) even the most cherished legends of Zionism (and indeed all those who take the Bible as a literal or semi-literal history) are open to question with advances in historical techniques and b) it doesn't really matter if the Jews had a Kingdom or state even a 1000 years ago - that still did not give them the right to steal the land of the Palestinians in 1948. Ancient history is just that, ancient history. My interest lies in the recent past - namely in what we have been discussing - the creation of Israel.


1948 when the former colonypowers had to devise a way to calm down things in the Middle East.

What exactly did they have to 'calm down' then? Arab nationalism? Yes, obviously the way to calm down arab nationalism was to establish a Jewish state at the expense of arabs. As I've already said, before the mass Zionist migrations of the 30s - there was no major systematic destructive antagonism between arabs and jews (certainly there were occassional incidents in which Jews were killed, injured or their property destroyed). During the 1940's however this began to change. The question is why? Did it just happen in a vacuum - a sudden rise of anti-Jewishism among arabs? Or was it because, as George Gruen professor of Middle Eastern studies in Columbia Uni argues: "Local Arab nationalism developed in part as a reaction to foreign rule [especially after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the ensuing Western control]. Since Jews were visibly associated in trading and administrative relationships with the hated foreign rulers, especially in Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, it was simple for Arab nationalists to scapegoat Jews as tools of the imperialists." As I said, invariably nationalism will reach a point of crude stereotype - but given the Jewish role in putting down the '36 uprising, such stereotypes could be said to have had something of a base, certainly in Palestine. He goes on to say "Zionist efforts increasingly clashed with Palestinian and pan-Arab nationalism [...] Pro-Palestinian sympathy in Arab countries led to demonstrations which sometimes spilled over into attacks on local Jews, as in Syria in 1936."

He also argues that "It must be noted that although a limited amount of Zionist activity -- usually clandestine -- took place among Middle Eastern Jewries in those years, it was neither widespread nor prevalent enough to warrant being called 'Jewish provocation'."

Well whatever about 'provocation' - I do think that a sevenfold increase in the Jewish population from 1920 (83,000) to 1946 (600,000) constitutes a pretty widespread and visible immigration. Or even a quadrupling in the 16 years from 1920 to the period of the uprising in 1936 (385,000). Unless these people were invisible, they undoubtedly would have had an impact on the politics of the period.

One could argue that ultimately the problems we face today in the Middle East are a result of Western Imperialism in the region - and that's a view I'd pretty much subscribe to. But as I said, I think to dismiss the creation of Israel (and I don't just mean the declaration of independence, I mean the whole process, which accellerated throught the 20s and 30s) as some kind of irellevancy in arab/jew nationalism/antagonism, is as you put it - "to ignore history".


This is where this discussion originated because H2O indicated that that was his view. I think it's far too onesided to blame the israelis for everything that happened there.

Let me ask you a simple question. Do you think that if Zionism had not existed (or at any rate become a mass movement), if Israel had not been created, that we would be facing the same problems between arabs and jews we see today?

Of course, in the period after its creation, various arab (and Western) regimes have played their part in the hostilities. To suggest otherwise would be insane. But the point H20 made was that the creation of Israel laid the basis for much, if not all, of this hostility. At least that's how I percieved his comment. This doesn't nullify the fact that arab regime have cynically used the 'the Jews' as propaganda tools, often to prop up their own unpopular and despotic regimes.

"Us" and "Them" creates nice, easily repeatable, often racist histories and justifications - and crucially, with such ideologies, it provides a percieved 'common ground' between elites and the general population. Divide and rule is one of the oldest propagandic methods of social control in the book. Anyone who's ever been down the Falls (Catholic) or Shankill (Protestant) roads in Belfast can attest to the levels of poverty obvious in both areas - in fact the roads are only several hundred metres apart. Yet, generally, the people of these areas see each other as the 'problem' - and not the people who are actually responsible for these conditions - political, religious and economic elites. And on the rare occassions when the Falls and the Shankill have united - perhaps most famously during the ODR Strikes of the early 30's, but also to a certain extend during the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s - it has been these elites that have cynically whipped up religious sectarianism (on both sides) in order (thusfar successfully) to break these movements apart, and get people back to their simple histories and bigotry. In the 60s, Paisley's 'christians' - echoing their christian brethern in the osuthern US, where incidently Paisley recieved his religious eduction - beat down the protestors, while the state apparatus looked on (literally) and sometimes got stuck in themselves. Loyalist mobs, with at least the tacit supported of the Orange state, also developed and tried pogroms. Meanwhile, the Irish government (or sections of it - I fear the full truth will never emerge) armed and funded the militant Provisional faction of the IRA. What was a genuine - if only embryonic - chance for cross community unity and struggle against both the Orange and Green states (the civil righst movement was having an effect down south too) descended into the tragedy that was the Troubles. And today, despite the 'peace process', Northern Irish society is probably more shaply divided along sectarian lines that ever before - reflected by the fact that the extremes of Sinn Fein and Paisley's DUP are the two largest parties in the region, and are slowly approaching political hegemony.

To stay with the probably more complicated and not fully analogous example of Ireland - the partition of Ireland in 1921 laid the basis for both the Civil War (1921-23) the Troubles (1970 - 1997), and indeed the continued sectarian tensions in the society. Without partition, there would have been no IRA - there may have been a Loyalist reaction comparable to the IRA campaign at some point - in fact it may have been inevitable given that the Catholic Church had a guiding hand on the levers of state. But those were not the historical conditions that emerged, but I feel safe in saying that without Partition there would be no IRA - just as I feel safe in saying that without the creation of Israel, the arab-jew tensions would not exist in the form they now do.


IMO the problem is bascially that most of the cultures in the Middle East are too hotheaded to work out a working solution.

I find that racist. I mean would you similarly argue that WWI happened becasue of 'hotheadedness'? C'mon. There's far more to this than simple 'temprament'.

On the refugees issue, I should have clarified - refugees should have teh right of return - but not necessarilly to their original pre-48 homes and lands. This is a complicated issue, that I feel any genuine peace process would have to resolve. Of course if one accpets that a Palestinian State is established, then this could absorb those wishing to return (there are about 3.5million refugees outside the Occupied Territories). But of course, these people should be compensated for their losses. As to this being as complicated as you seem to think, if the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust can get compensation (World Claims Council, and CRT I & II), so too can those of the Palestinan diaspora.


it would look like a swiss cheese

Its interesting that you should say that, becasue that is basically what Palestine looks like now.

[Partridge]

Part Three - Again, all quotes by 'Bulldog'


There's nowhere else in the world that you could point to location where the jewish culture is more heavily rooted.

In 1890, around about the beginning of the Zionist project, there were about 24,000 jews in Palestine. At the same time, there were some 35,000 jews in Moscow alone. This fluctuated, but by 1940 there were 400,000 jews in Moscow (at this point there were 470,000 in Palestine thanks to the emigrations of the 30s and 40s). As Hadassah Magazine writes: "World War I brought a stream of Jewish refugees from German-occupied regions and Moscow became a vibrant center of Jewish learning and culture, with Hebrew printing presses, a yeshiva and a Hebrew-language theater. After the 1917 revolution, all restrictions placed on Jews during the czarist years were abolished." So y'know, one could plausibly argue that jewish culture was 'heavily rooted' in Moscow, or Russia in general. Or I'm sure many other big cities of the period.

Of course, I'm not arguing that jews should have forcibly carved out a state in Russia or wherever else. My point is, no-one would argue for such a move in Russia - so why is it ok to argue for such a move in Palestine?

'Because of the historical connection'?

Well, I've already made my position on this clear. Historical connection or no, it does not give one the right to colonise* another people's land.

*Shall I use this rather vague term instead of 'steal, murder and expel'?


And if there's anything the middle east and Israel conflict isn't, then it's simple.

I used simple in relation to the initial colonisation of Palestine, and why I see it as wrong.

To quote myself: "It's that simple. The ethnic cleansing of Jews did not justify the (partial or attempted or whatever way you want to phrase it) ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. "

Are you serioulsy arguing that it was not that simple, that there was justification for the colonisation of other people's land? Would you similarly argue that in 1921, instead of signing the Treaty, the (original) Irish Republican Army should have 're-colonised' all the Protestant areas of Northern Ireland, to restore our 'historical connection to the land' - afterall the Protestants had only been there since the 1600s. (I'd argue against both options actually, but thats another matter for another time).


Black nationalists do not have a common religion, cultural background or language.

This is a joke surely. Christianity/variants (or in the case of the NoI - Black Islam), most were slave descendants and at the time of its prominence (say the 20's to 60's) racial discrimination was probably the defining aspect of a Black American's life, and they spoke English.


It's understandable that there will be contradictions among experts on this historical subject as on virtually any other.

That was my point - one shouldn't rely on the Bible as an accurate historical source. It was part of my point, that this isn't about ancient history - its about Zionism in the late 19th to mid 20th century. Yes, Bible History (so-called) undoubtedly played a huge role in the development of Zionist/Jewish Nationalist consciousness - but my concern lies, as I said, not in what happened 1000s of years ago, but in this period. If what Herzog says is correct or incorrect is largely irellevant to the colonisation of Palestine.


But, my friend, steal??? You seem to define 'Palestine' as a given thing. A nation that had been there since ancient times. That is not true and you know that ofc.

I use Palestine and Palestinians, in case this wasn't for some reason clear, to talk about the people living in the area of Palestine. As in, the people who lived on that land - the people who had their land colonised. Forcing people from their land, is 'stealing' no matter what way you cut the butter. Its matters not if there was or wasn't a recognisable nation-state, or even a nationalism (which there was).


Looking at history, which you seem to prefer to cut off at before 1945, we see that there's no coherent line in the national presence or control of that area.

Yeah, except for all those references I made to the 20s, 30s, even 1800's. And also, I'm not going to requote the stuff I've already posted - but its quite evident that at the time there was a coherent Palestinian nationalism of people who lived in Palestine (there was even a Communist Party of Palestine - now why would they call themselves that if they didn't identify themselves as Palestinians?).


It would be like looking at the history of the Soviet Union, but only after WWII.

Yes, in order to properly study the the USSR and its ideology one has to go back to the 1800s. But there has to be a cut off point - its not necessary to delve 1000 years back in order to study Russian Communism - or must one look at the historical conditions and ideas of late Czarism. Just as with Zionism, it is only really necessary to go back to Herzl's day and the historical conditions and ideas that gave rise to that ideology (and indeed the late Czarist period also played a role in that ideology's development).

But really how far back do you want to go? How long does a 'historical ownership' last? Do the Welsh have a right to re-colonise England, because they were there before the Anglos Saxons? Or indeed, do the so-called Celtic nations have the right to re-colonise those areas of Europe that the Celts used to live in? If a pagan-nationalism develops, do they have the right to take over the whole world? The simple fact is that in 1890 there were 24,000 jews in the region (5% of the population, mostly living in cities - owing less than 1% of the land) - in 1946 that increased to around 30% through immigration, with less than 7% of land ownership. How anyone can see a mandate there for a Jewish state at the expense of the arabs (Muslim, Christian and Druze) is beyond me. A multi-ethnic secular democratic state maybe, but thats not what the Zionist project was about, and thats certainly not what was created.

In fact, the Palestinians, and indeed basically all of the arab regions, had been promised national self determination by the British if they helped defeat the Ottomans. They did, but were shafted (surprise surprise - they did the same thing in Ireland: "come fight for us and we'll give you Home Rule, we swear!").

On so-called hotheadedness, you provide some examples of reciprocal violence, and something aboutr a peaceful solution in Germany/Denmark. This is not evidence of anything. I mean, there was a low scale war in Ireland for 30 years (well one could argue for 600 years, but I'm talking about the Troubles). Now there is a peace process. Were Irish and British-Irish people hotheaded then, but now magically they are not? Or is this change of strategy something to do with historical conditions? Have all postwar US Presidents been hotheaded because the usual US response to something they don't like is to start a war or proxy-war? Or is this to do with historical conditions? So is the conflict in the middle east because of this hotheadedness, or because of historical conditions. Maybe because English is not your first language, you don't exactly mean hotheadedness, maybe you mean something like intransigence - in which case I would agree that there is a whole load of intransigence on political issues on all sides for various reasons - but to argue some kind of irrational hotheadedness is to apply a pyschological generalisation to millions of people because of their race, which is as I said, racist. And indeed, there may well be hotheaded people in positions of power and so on - but being a socialist I tend to see such developments as a reflection or a derivative of the historical conditions in society, and not the other way round. As Marx said, 'men make their own history, but not in conditions of their own choosing'.


Please explain me, why a good socialist has to be a stern opponent of Israel? AFAIK there are socialists in Israel too. They must have a real hard time with world socialism?

A good socialist is critical of Israeli capitalism just as they are of Arab capitalism, or European capitalism or US capitalism etc. A good socialist opposes (for example) Iranian State's oppression of Jews just as they oppose the Israeli State's oppression of the Palestinians and so on. I have many more interests outside the Israel-Palestine question, this just happens to be what we are talking about here. If you haven't noticed, I'll generally give my tuppence worth on any political thread here. And yes, there are several good socialist groups in Israel, and generally they demand an end to the occupation, and end to and repeal of the settlements (with a one for one land transfer if and where agreed), the creation of a viable Palestinian state (not a series of Bantustans), compensation for those displaced, withdrawal to the 1967 borders, and decommissioning of Israeli nukes (among other things like workers rights, ethnic equality, an end to compulsary military service and so on). One such group is the small Ma'avak Sotzyalisti (http://www.maavak.org.il/maavak/index.php?newlang=english) (Socialist Struggle) party which is basically where my political sympathies lie in Israel - but there are others (http://www.broadleft.org/il.htm) with similar ideologies.

Finally



Let me ask you a simple question. Do you think that if Zionism had not existed (or at any rate become a mass movement), if Israel had not been created, that we would be facing the same problems between arabs and jews we see today?

Of course not. The arabs would be pleased to have no jewish nation. Jews would be much easier to supress without a nation of their own. Just as palestinians are much easier to supress now. That is a leading question and it does not move anything.

Well, had there been no Zionism, no move to create a Jewish state in Palestine, the thought of a Jewish State would not have crossed the minds of arabs - becasue there would have been no conditions for it to do so. Y'see, you seem to think that arabs are somehow naturally anti-semitic - when I believe (and I'm open to correction on this), that even pre-holocaust, jews were treated far more harshly in most of Europe than in the arab world. The historical record would indicate that arabs, jews and christians were getting along relatively peacefully before the immigrations to Palestine (as I said, there were exceptions, but show me a country anywhere that didn't have at least some internal racial tension with the potential to boil over into attacks).

[Partridge]

Part Four


OK, let's take your definition for a moment. Is it not true then, that land was 'stolen' from jews - ia. from jews that were driven of their lands when the roman empire lost control? Or later? I do suppose this definition goes for anyone and not just the palestinian landowners?

As I said before, how far back do you want to take the issue of 'historical ownership'? To be honest I know little to nothing about the Roman Empire - something I am trying to rectify at the present moment - so I really can't comment on who did what a 1000, or even 500 years ago. So let me ask you a question - does you're theory of 'historical ownership over 100s of years' give one group the right to ethnically cleanse another?


I note, btw. that a large share of land was actually bought by jews BEFORE 1948. I wouldn't consider that 'stealing', would you?

6% in 1946. I wouldn't call that large. And iirc there is debate about whether such sales were legal as many were done by the British Empire or by people who claimed they owned the land but in fact did not. But either way, 6% is not a lot when compared to 94%.

Maps (http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/maps.html) and demographics (http://www.col.fr/judeotheque/images/Palestine1946DistributionOfPopulation.gif)

[PhilosophyGenius]

Hey Partridge, you must be white as a ghost being in Europe and staying in doors all day. hehe. Just kidding bro, that was good stuff you wrote.

[madthumbs]

You seem to be focused on pointing out the faults of the Israelis. I do that as well, but it seems that you have a vendetta against them. I show both sides of the story, whereas you only post anti-Israel stories... Just out of curiosity... do you hate "the jews"?

Wow.. I'm getting really tired of the constant allegations of racism interspersed throughout this forum from you. I don't read all posts and just happened to see this.

I HATE racism! I also hate how mainstream news censors and spins information. Judaism and Christianity are relgions that are used as a tool to incite racism. "Jews" are not a race.

Keep implying that I'm racist or a Jew hater. You're just pissing me off. Why don't you learn what Zionism is? These people know:

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/9225/2wp3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
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http://img477.imageshack.us/img477/8808/200pxzionismprotest11zh0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
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http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/4809/jewsagainstmilitaryaidtoisraeltt7.jpg[/img] (http://imageshack.us)
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Videos:

Anti-Zionist Jewish Protestors (http://opposingdigits.com/vlog/?p=84)
Hasidic Jewish Protest in Washington DC 1980 (http://opposingdigits.com/vlog/?p=338)
Jews Against Zionist Occupation of Palestine (http://opposingdigits.com/vlog/?p=242)
Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land (http://opposingdigits.com/vlog/?p=128)