Re: July the 4th

On Aug 8, 11:18 am, davi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
In article <1186442318.376946.4...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, AEF <spamsink2...@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
On Aug 6, 11:12 am, davi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
In article <1186363007.921609.27...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, AEF <spamsink2...@xxxxxxxxx> writes:>On Aug 5, 7:55 pm, davi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
In article <1186334184.382451.138...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, AEF <spamsink2...@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

[...]

[...discussion about the document about Israeli "racism" omitted, but
referred to below...]

The document demonstrates its severe one-sideness with this comment:

"However, by means of the 1947-48 war, Israel took over even greater
expanses of land and forcibly expelled about 750,000 Palestinians.
This travesty was the basis for the official founding of the Israeli
state in 1948."

Hello? Israel didn't start this war. And it is by no means a settled
fact of history about these expulsions. Could it be that some P's were
expelled because they were fighting against the Israelis? And why were
so many P's (or Arabs) NOT expelled?

This makes me doubt everything else in the article. It is only one
person's view and it is clearly not a neutral view.

I find this interesting quote from Wikipedia. Yeah, it's Wikipedia,
but it's at least as good at the interview you referecned:

Israel, the US and the Soviets called the Arab states' entry into
Palestine illegal aggression, UN secretary general Trygve Lie
characterized it as "the first armed aggression which the world had
seen since the end of the [Second World] War." China broadly backed
the Arab claims. Both sides increased their manpower over the
following months, but the Israeli advantage grew steadily as a result
of the progressive mobilization of Israeli society and the influx of
an average of 10,300 immigrants each month.

Of course the Arab countries going to war to destroy the newly created Israel
was an agression - at least as defined by the UN charter (they were invading a
sovereign nation).
As far as the Arabs were concerned the very act of creating Israel was an
agression that was perpetrated by the UN.

Well, if the Wikipedia article is right, even the Soviets (not
normally Jew-friendly, BTW) considered the Arab invasion into the
fledgling Israel to be _illegal_ aggression.

Can you not read - I agreed that it was an agression as defined by the UN
charter. If you want I'll say it's an illegal agression as defined by the UN
charter. Any invasion of a sovereign nation is an illegal agression as defined
by the UN charter unless sanctioned by the UN.

OK, maybe I missed it. But you seemed to be saying it was justified.

Apartheid was legal in South Africa.

My point was that even the Soviets thought it was, in their opinion,
unjustified. Why else would they claim it was illegal?

(You may say that OK Apartheid was legal in South Africa but South Africa was
just one country whereas the legal status of Israel was defined by the "
world community" via the UN. However imagine for a minute that Hitler had won
the second world war and along with Japan and Italy and a few others had
setup his own new league of nations. Would you then be arguing that the Jews
outside his immediate control should meekly submit to rulings against them
because those rules were passed legally by that world community ?)

Of course not.

This is patently absurd. First of all, if Hitler had won WWII he
wouldn't have let the Jews live long enough to fight back. And exactly
how would they have fought back? They'd probably all be dead before
the conquest was finished.

You're drawing a parallel between Hitler and the world of 1947?

OK, maybe you're saying that just because "the world" gave a small
piece of land to the Zionists doesn't automatically make it right.
Well, if that's the case, just say so. In fact, I don't think I ever
made that claim. I only claimed it was very wrong for the Arabs to
attack Israel in 1948 (not to forgive all the other attacks!). OK, I
suppose there's some implication there. But your point doesn't
automatically make it wrong, either.

The fact that some party decides something is legal doesn't change the
viewpoint of the other party if it seems grossly unfair to them.
Disputes are based upon viewpoints and justice as perceived
by the parties involved.

(I'm certainly happy to accept that the UN created Israel legally - even if not
being an international lawyer it's assumption of the imperial colonial powers
necessary for such an act seems to sit rather uncomfortably with its
commitments in it's charter to self-determination.
)

As I said before both parties have valid arguments in favour of their viewpoint
- the legality of Israels establishment and the illegality of the agression
against it by the surrounding Arab nations are part of the Israeli viewpoint.

I can just as easily argue the Israeli viewpoint but that would hardly be
much of a discussion since you are propounding that viewpoint.
(I say just as easily - but since one part of the Israeli viewpoint is based on
God having given them this land, as an atheist, I have problems supporting
that view but can understand it as a powerful part of their viewpoint.)

Just to be clear, I don't make the God argument. Also, the religious
Jews strongly fought the creation of Israel. "We have to wait for the
Messiah" they cried. It was secular Jews who pushed for the creation
of the state. (Of course it is the religious right wing who wants to
build more and more settlements in the WB and wanted to stay in Gaza,
etc. Ironic, huh?)

That doesn't alter the Arabs view that the UN action in creating Israel was
also an agression.

Why? It was under British rule at the time. That didn't bother them.
ALL of it was under British rule. But if half of it is under Jewish
rule, suddenly it's a problem.

As I said before how would you react if an outside power such as the UN
suddenly gave your home to foreign refugees ?

Again a gross oversimplification. The US now has millions of illegal
immigrants and many in our gov't want to give them amnesty which will
only encourage millions more to come. But I certainly don't advocate
killing any of them.

First of all, this is a gross oversimplification of what happened. I
don't know all of what happened, but I know there is a lot more to it
than you mention in your question.

The only simplification is that I did not mention - as I have in another post -
the mass migration of Jewish refugees which started, in relatively few
numbers and peacefully , in the 1880s under the ottoman empire. This then
continued but turned into a flood under the British Mandate - particularly in
the 30s and illegally during the second world war - which severely upset the
local arab population.

So for your benefit I will rephrase the question :-

How would you react if your government allowed in tons of refugees to your home
state and then when their numbers had grown sufficiently high the UN decided
that your home state should now be split in two with half being given as a
homeland for these refugees and any of their distant relatives who wished to
come in the future ?

It wasn't their home state. It was under British rule. And if I were
an Arab or Palestinian under such a situation I'd be thrilled just to
have a state. Remember, the P's NEVER had their own state. If they
would have accepted the partition, then they would have had their
"home state".

Until the British carved up the ottoman empire they were citizens of the
empire. The Arabs wanted the British out but they probably didn't really want
a Palestinian state as such - what they wanted and what lots of Arabs still
want is a single united Arab state, of which Palestine would have been a
province, comprising pretty much all of the Middle East ie the territory of
the ottoman empire. Before the first world war the whole of the Middle East was
the Arab's state as you put it.
Saying the Palestinians didn't have a state is like saying that Yorkshiremen
(those coming from the English county of Yorkshire) don't have a state. It's
true in the sense that Yorkshire is not a state but untrue in that it is part
of a larger entity - England and the UK.
Given the character of Yorkshiremen I can assure you that they would definitely
fight if someone gave half their county away.

And at the same time given them the other half all to themselves, and
the other non-parallel is that I think Yorkshirites have a lot more in
common with Britons than the P's or Arabs do. And why are Yorkshireman
supposed to be the gold standard for what to do in this type of
situation?

Regardless, I seriously doubt I'd call for an invasion if I were in
that position.

I already told you what I would expect with my picture of what Britain and
the republic of ireland would have done if the UN had planted a refugee
nation in Northern Ireland. Damn right I would have expected them to invade.
I cannot seriously imagine that the US population would allow some
international body or collection of nations to just setup a nation state on
US mainland territory.

Again, the big difference is that your analogies refer to people who
already had their own soverign nations. The P's did not. They would
have if they would have accepted the partition. The P's in Israel
proper today are probably far better off than the P's in the WB and
Gaza.

The fact that following the first world war the British and French had carved
up the ottoman empire and the British were ruling as an occupying power had
little bearing upon how the Arabs viewed their ownership of land they had lived
on for uncounted generations.

But when Palestine was split between the Jews and Arabs, suddenly it
was a big deal.

And why didn't the Arabs invade Palestine to capture it back from
Britain?

Britain was an imperial power still pretty much at the height of it's power
after world war I. The other arab nations were themselves newly created by the
British and French by their carving up of the ottoman empire. The new rulers of
these arab states were handpicked by the British and French.
In some cases the populations in these countries were beginning to form
nationalist movements aiming to kick the british and french out of their
countries and topple handpicked rulers but achieving those aims was far in the
future - and by then Britain's imperial power would be fading fast.

I think it would have been a net gain for all involved if the P's and
neighboring Arab states had accepted the partition.

So you admit it's an illegal aggression yet you continue to try to
justify it.

You seem to think that somebody laying down a law irrespective of the effect of
that law on particular people means that those people should just meekly accept
it. Laws are man made. The history of civilisation is the fight against what
groups of people see as unjust laws.

Then what's the point of laws? In the international arena, who is
decide how just they are? Yes, people should fight against "unjust"
laws. So they thought the creation of Israel was unjust. That's their
opinion. Doesn't make it right.

If you had setup Israel almost anywhere in the world without the explicit
consent of the local population you would have had the same reaction.

Anywhere else in the world would lose the parallel in that the
inhabitants in the rest of the world have their own country. And I'm
not convinced it would be the same reaction everywhere. Also, I'd like
to point out that perhaps you don't give the S. African blacks enough
credit for not slaughtering all the S. African whites. Many have been
killed "in the spotlight of world attention".

However there were "good" reasons for setting it up in Palestine.

The Jews were being persecuted in Europe and saw settling in Palestine as a
way to escape that persecution. From their point of view Palestine was the
chosen land given to them by God.

Again, it was the SECULAR Jews who fought for the creation of Israel
and the RELIGIOUS ones who fought very hard against it.

The world Zionist Organisations original strategy was to obtain the permission
of the Ottaman Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II to allow systematic settlement in
Palestine. The good offices of the German emperor, Willhelm II, were sought but
nothing came of this. Instead the WZO pursued a strategy of building a homeland
through small-scale immigration.
Chaim Weizmann's invention of cordite was critical for the allies during world
war 1 and he gained influence with the British government and as leader of the
Zionist movement was instrumental in getting British government support in
the form of the Balfour declaration.

From

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration%2C_1917#Text_develop...

During the first meeting between Weizmann and Balfour in 1906, Balfour asked
what payment Weizmann would accept for use of his process and was told, "There
is only one thing I want: A national home for my people." Balfour asked
Weizmann why Palestine ? and Palestine alone ? should be the Zionist homeland.
"Anything else would be idolatry", Weizmann protested, adding: "Mr. Balfour,
supposing I was to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?" "But
Dr. Weizmann", Balfour retorted, "we have London", to which Weizmann rejoined,
"That is true, but we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh."

Weizmann eventually received both monetary compensation for his discovery and
his place in history as first President of the state of Israel.

[End of Wikipeida quote]

The declaration used the word home rather than state and specified that it's
establishment must not "prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing
non-jewish communities in Palestine".

I believe, in Israel, all religions are allowed freedom to worship as
they wish, as long as it doesn't involve unreasonable things like
killing all the infidels. This was not the case when Jerusalem was
under Arab control. Only Islam was allowed.

The limited settlement already begun in Palestine under the WZO plus the
Balfour declaration thus ensured where any contemplated Jewish homeland would
be setup.
The Nazis during the 1930s and the holocaust during the second world war then
made the setting up of such a homeland pretty much inevitable.

(Whether the existence of Israel would really provide much protection to Jews
around the world against a future holocaust is somewhat open to debate since
just moving all the Jews in the US to Israel would double the size of Israel's
population.)

At least there'd be a place for non-Israeli Jews to go if anti-
Semitism starts rearing its ugly head and at least there'd be a state
Jews could always depend upon for support. No, it doesn't guarantee
the protection of each and every Jew in the world, but it's certainly
better than not having a state. If Israel existed during WWII it could
have joined the Allies.

Hence from the point of view of the Jews a Jewish homeland in Palestine had
been promised them both by God and by the British (and through their influence

It was the SECULAR ....

the other main world powers - culminating in promises by the league of Nations
and UN). This homeland was from their viewpoint a necessity because of the
persecution they had been suffering especially later because of the holocaust.
From the Jewish point of view since the UN had promised them a homeland
it was setup legally.

However since they did not agree to it but just had this nation forced upon
them the Palestinians had a rather different point of view and reacted
accordingly.

You conveniently omit the fact that they were offered half for
themselves and turned it down. If all of Palestine were given to the
Jews, you'd have a better case. But you repeatedly keep ignoring that.

Both points of view are valid points of view. Noone is going to convince the
Israelis that their point of view is wrong - neither is anyone going to convince
the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab populations.
But to solve the problem both sides need to recognise the others point of view
and work towards a compromise position.

The 1947 partition plan was such a compromise.


David Webb
Security team leader
CCSS
Middlesex University

AEF

.

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