Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumThe Suffering Of Sderot: How Its True Inhabitants Were Wiped From Israel's Maps And Memories
I think I found the village of Huj this weekend – but the road sign said “Sederot”. The world knows it as Sderot, the Israeli city where the Hamas rockets fall. Even Barack Obama has been there. But Huj has a lot to do with this little story.
By my map calculations, it lies, long destroyed, across the fields from a scruffy recreation centre near the entrance to Sderot, a series of shabby villas on a little ring road where Israeli children were playing on the Shabat afternoon.
The inhabitants of Huj were all Palestinian Arab Muslims and, irony of ironies, they got on well with the Jews of Palestine. We have to thank the Israeli historian Benny Morris for uncovering their story, which is as grim as it is filled with sorrow.
Huj’s day of destiny came on 31 May 1948, when the Israeli Negev Brigade’s 7th Battalion, facing an advancing Egyptian army, arrived in the village. In Morris’s words, “the brigade expelled the villagers of Huj … to the Gaza Strip”.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-suffering-of-sderot-how-its-true-inhabitants-were-wiped-from-israels-maps-and-memories-8348734.html
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oberliner
(58,724 posts)And an old white man shall lead them!
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)I mean the French and the Germans are no longer fighting over Alsace and Lorraine. 
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)because here one of Israel's greatest DU supporters tells us we should judge Israels action today by those of American military 100 years ago
http://www.democraticunderground.com/113423341
but now we are being told forget about what happened 65 years ago they (Palestinians) need to get over it
interesting indeed
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)K & R 
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... about the million or so Jews, expelled from Arab lands between 1948 and 1972?
While we're on the subject of changing demographics ...
How about the 14 million Hindus and Muslims who were expelled from Pakistan and India (respectively) in 1947.
Shall we discuss how many American Indian villages no longer exist in the USA? Or how many Mexican villages no longer exist in Texas and California?
Populations change -- sometimes naturally and sometimes by political force. If you're not prepared to discuss reparations and an address of grievances for every single one then there has to be something motivating you to only discuss those where it can be insinuated that Jews are to fault.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)who'd say that what was done to Native Americans, Mexicans, the Hindus and Muslims of India/Pakistan in 1948, and the Mizrahim were not great wrongs. The reason they don't get talked about in THIS group isn't because nobody thinks those instances don't matter...it's because this group on DU is dedicated solely to the I/P issue.
It's actually an argument for allowing discussion of I/P issues in other groups, to get a more holistic discussion of global wrongdoing...it isn't, however, any evidence at all that Israel is being singled out.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)mainly because the assertion that a million Jews were expelled from Arab lands is absolutely false.
The largest portion of those Jews (nearly half of around a total of 800 000 or so) were from Morocco, which actually tried to prevent them from leaving.
Behind the Aegis
(53,994 posts)First of all, the Jewish population of Morocco wasn't even 400,000, so your assertion that half were from Morocco is false right out of the gate. Second, progroms really aren't really ways to encourage Jews to stay. 
Read up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_and_Muslim_countries
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)I said "nearly half". Of 800 000 Arab Jews, Moroccans were 285 000, or about 36%. I suppose we could quibble over how nearly "nearly" has to be, but that would be a dull discussion.
Are you suggesting that the fact that there were pogroms in Morocco means that the Jewish population of Morocco was expelled?
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)"In total it is estimated that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Jews were forced out or fled from their homes in Arab countries from 1948 until the early 1970s. Some place the emigration peak to a slightly earlier time window of 1944 to 1964, when some 700,000 Jews moved to Israel from Arab countries and were dispossessed of nearly their entire property."
-- "How Arabs stole Jewish property". Ynet. Retrieved 2011-07-27
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)An unsourced quote from an apparent newspaper article with an ever so slightly lip-curling title. Thou art indeed a modern-day Cicero.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... "The Suffering Of Sderot: How Its True Inhabitants Were Wiped From Israel's Maps And Memories"
But, cite the inaccuracies -- or, better yet -- edit the subject Wikipedia Entry with your own research. It's certainly well within your power to do so if you have documentary information to the contrary.
Behind the Aegis
(53,994 posts)36% is just above a third.
"Are you suggesting that the fact that there were pogroms in Morocco means that the Jewish population of Morocco was expelled?"
Are you suggesting the progroms were trying to prevent Jews from leaving?
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)and the numbers vary. For example, this wiki article has Moroccan Jews at up to 350 000 prior to 1948:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Morocco
350,000 of 800 000 is obviously close to half.
Was the Deir Yassein massacre meant to prevent Arabs from leaving? Alternatively, does it mean that the Palestinians were expelled, or is this just another one of your double standards?
In any event, the fact that Morocco attempted to prevent Jews from leaving is a matter of simple historical record. If you had read your Wikipedia article further you would have noted the following:-
In June 1948, soon after Israel was established and in the midst of the first Arab-Israeli war, riots against Jews broke out in Oujda and Djerada, killing 44 Jews. In 1948-9, 18,000 Jews left the country for Israel. After this, Jewish emigration continued (to Israel and elsewhere), but slowed to a few thousand a year. Through the early 1950s, Zionist organizations encouraged emigration, particularly in the poorer south of the country, seeing Moroccan Jews as valuable contributors to the Jewish State.
In 1956, Morocco attained independence. Jews occupied several political positions, including three Members of the Parliament of Morocco and a Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. However, emigration to Israel jumped from 8,171 in 1954 to 24,994 in 1955, increasing further in 1956. Beginning in 1956, emigration to Israel was prohibited until 1963, when it resumed.[35] In 1961, the government informally relaxed the laws on emigration to Israel and when Mohammed V died, Jews joined Muslims in a national day of mourning. But over the next three years, more than 80,000 Moroccan Jews emigrated to Israel. By 1967, only 60,000 Jews remained in Morocco.
The Six-Day War in 1967 led to increased Arab-Jewish tensions worldwide including in Morocco. By 1971, its Jewish population was down to 35,000; however, most of this new wave of emigration went to Europe and North America rather than Israel.
An expulsion in which the expelled people took up to thirty years to actually leave? Surely this counts as the most slow-motion "expulsion" of all time.
Behind the Aegis
(53,994 posts)And 250,000 is not. (ETA: See if you can find other sources that demonstrate your inflated 350,000 number.)
In any event, the fact that Morocco attempted to prevent Jews from leaving is a matter of simple historical record. If you had read your Wikipedia article further you would have noted the following:-
Are you avoiding your own remarks? I am guessing the double standards are all yours.
How quaint! You are correct, the king declaring "no! you can't move to Israel!" is in fact PREVENTING Jews from leaving Morocco.
Did you hurt your back moving those goal posts? I said nothing about the Moroccan Jews being expelled. I know they weren't all expelled. But then again, you seem to believe progroms are "encouragement" to stay.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)the Moroccan Jews were not expelled, and the assertion that "a million Jews were expelled from Arab lands" is in fact a lie.
Yes, as a matter of fact I am correct. Of course, I generally am, particularly when the opposition here is so completely inept at framing any sort of argument.
Behind the Aegis
(53,994 posts)No, I don't agree with you that Moroccan Jews were not expelled. I have no proof one way or the other. You are the one making assertions sans proof. Also, let's pretend for a moment you are correct, true, a BIG leap into fantasy world, but...even if they (Moroccan Jews) were not expelled, it does not negate Jews from other Arab nations were not expelled, which is what holdencaufield claimed.
about the million or so Jews, expelled from Arab lands between 1948 and 1972?
From Egypt: Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave the country. They were allowed to take only one suitcase and a small sum of cash, and forced to sign declarations "donating" their property to the Egyptian government.
From Iraq: the Iraqi Government passed legislation that made affiliation with Zionism a felony and ordered, "the expulsion of Jews who refused to sign a statement of anti-Zionism".[6]
From Libya: The Libyan government "urged the Jews to leave the country temporarily", permitting them each to take one suitcase and the equivalent of $50.
Of course, take into account the number of progroms in those and other various countries, and it is understandable why Jews left, and in some cases, an argument could be made they were forced out.
So your claim, Jews were expelled is a lie, is wrong. Just because all dogs are mammals, it doesn't mean that all mammals are dogs.
I find your 'joy' in being correct about the Arab nations preventing Jews from leaving by passing discriminatory laws to be particularly sad and disturbing. This is akin to saying African-Americans had a good thing going with slavery because their basic needs, food, water, clothing, and shelter, were all provided for them! Sadly, there are those who believe that statement too, though they tend to be right-wing nut-jobs. To be clear, I am not saying you said this or think this; it is called an analogy.
Your celebration is premature. I suggest, along with history, you review reading, basic logic, and mathematics. But, it does explain why you are "generally correct" in these situations and it isn't because of poor argument framing, but rather your loose (and that is the nicest word of which I could think) use of "facts" and "logic."
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)At least the other hasbarados on this forum have the guts to stand behind their own argument, even if they're generally wrong. You're not even willing to say whether Moroccan Jews were expelled or not.
As it was, they weren't. You can't claim that it was the official policy of the Moroccan government to both expel the Jews and to prevent them from leaving. Those are two mutually exclusive things.
The claim made was that "a million Jews were expelled from Arab lands". As only a million (or rather less than a million) Jews ever came from Arab lands in the first place, the claim is essentially that all Jews that came from Arab lands (including Moroccan Jews who were the largest component within that group) were expelled.
That claim is patently wrong. Moreover, it is ridiculous. Moroccan Jews gradually left for Israel (and later North America and Europe) over a period of almost thirty years, during which time they were free to sell their property, or indeed retain it and rent their property as absentee landlords as some continue to do. If Morocco was guilty of a "slow motion" expulsion, then equally Israel is guilty of a "slow motion" genocide in the Palestinian territories, although personally I consider both allegations absurd.
As I see it, you either agree with me, or you're not feeling brave enough to disagree with me. Either way, there's not much more that I can do.
Behind the Aegis
(53,994 posts)I can't say if Moroccan Jews were expelled, because, unlike you, I require something commonly referred to as proof. Also, I never claimed the official policy for Morocco was expelling Jews, I only said their official position was preventing Jews from moving to Israel. That is an established fact. As I didn't write the original statement, it isn't mine to take blame for it.
800,000 Jews, possibly more were expelled, fled, or left their homes in Arab nations. That is a FACT. You can't seem to understand that passing laws preventing Jews from banking, owning land, and voting was what led many Jews to leave. Violent riots and progroms forced even more to flee, and as I demonstrated in the post above, which you seemingly disregarded, some were EXPELLED.
Want bravery? Then, I suggest you actually face up to the fact that over decades Jews in various Arab nations, not limited to Morocco, as you are seemingly trying to claim, fled, left and were expelled from their homes and went to Israel, the US, the UK, and France. So, you are correct, there is nothing more you can do because you don't have facts, truth, or logic on your side.
ETA: As for the "slow-motion expulsion", that is YOUR strawman as I never said anything of the sort, but it is good to know you realize your own argument is daft and devoid of reason.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)"Or left" is an important qualification though, isn't it? The Moroccan Jews simply left, they weren't expelled.
You seem to be contorting yourself into all sorts of positions in order to avoid admitting that you agree with me, and that you disagree with the above poster's assertion that "a million Jews were expelled from Arab lands".
Then, I suggest you actually face up to the fact that over decades Jews in various Arab nations, not limited to Morocco, as you are seemingly trying to claim, fled, left and were expelled from their homes and went to Israel, the US, the UK, and France.
I don't disagree with that assertion and never have. I have made it clear from the outset that 800 000 Jews left Arab lands, but to insist that they were all expelled is simply a lie.
I note that the poster who originally made that claim has gone very quiet and is seemingly unwilling to defend his original assertion. And as I noted previously, you either agree with me or are unwilling to disagree with me. In either case, I don't see that there is any opportunity for advance this discussion, unless you simply enjoy my company for the sake of it.
sabbat hunter
(6,835 posts)I think you need to retake fractional math.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... the view accepted by the majority of historians that the vast majority of Arabs who left Israel in the '48 War were pressured or cajoled by the Arab States to do so with rumours of massacres and promises of Jewish Land when the Arab States destroyed Israel.
Any other view would be considered revisionist history and is only promulgated by a handful of "historians" -- many of whom with less than stellar historical credentials.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)what you're spouting is pretty much the JDL's version of modern history. It certainly isn't what Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim or Tom Segev would consider "history".
kayecy
(1,417 posts)Everyone knows that there are a million Jewish refugees who also want to go back to the land of their ancestors in Iraq, Jordan etc.
We musn't talk about this instance because the perpetrators were trying to form a western-style democracy and western democracies don't do such things.
We musn't talk about this instance because there are many such instances of ethnic cleansing like India-Pakistan, the Sinhalese and Tamils of Sri Lanka and the many instances in Africa, and everyone knows that in the 20th Century, only backward peoples indulge in ethnic cleansing.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)that the people of Huj didn't deserve to be driven away? That a wrong was done in that time?
It's not as though Israel would be less secure if the original residents of Huj were had been allowed to stay on there...and if they got along with Jews in the pre-Mandate situation, who's to say they wouldn't have got on with them AFTER the creation of Israel?
All in all, the decision to drive the people of Huj out does help explain(though not justify)the targeting of Sderot today. Perhaps the rockets wouldn't ever have fallen on Sderot if the residents of Huj had been left alone. It's something to consider.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)Most people know that the reason Sderot (as well as Ashkelon) is under constant attack is because of the limited range of Qassam Rockets. Sderot is the closest urban centre to the attacks from Gaza. Please don't pretend to rationalize attacks on Jewish civilians.
Mosby
(16,371 posts)And huj was not "all palestinian arab muslims" as the article claims, the village consisted of about 750 arabs and 250 jews.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Still proves there was no reason to destroy the place.
cali
(114,904 posts)What are they then, Mr Fisk? Filthy usurpers? dirty interlopers?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Victims of the Hamas decision to target their city-the rockets are wrong and need to stop, since they aren't achieving anything.
VIctims of the original Israeli government decision to put a city(originally a temporary refugee camp)near a volatile border. It was reckless to put those people in that kind of danger...they should have been housed in the middle of Israeli territory, where they'd have been safe.
Mosby
(16,371 posts)That more than 50 years after the cities founding terrorists in Gaza would start shooting rockets at them?
Hell in 1951 Gaza was still part of Egypt.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)and Egypt was still extremely hostile(whether they should have been or not)to Israel's existence.
Therefore, the new state should have known better than to keep a large refugee camp-evolving in to a city on Egypt's border.
They should have housed the people they had there near Tel Aviv for safety's sake.
henank
(800 posts)And you really are a piece of work.
They should have housed the people they had there near Tel Aviv for safety's sake.
So it's not the terrorists' fault for shooting into Sderot. It's the Israeli government's fault for putting them there.
How about putting them in Ashkelon? Whoops, no good. Ashkelon's getting rocketed now.
How about putting them in Ashdod? Whoops, no good. Ashdod's getting rocketed now.
What's that you say? Tel Aviv? But Whoops, Tel Aviv is getting rocketed now too. And it was bombed by Scuds in 1990/91 by Iraq.
How's about Haifa? Whoops. Those sweet little playmates, Hezbollah, were rocketing it in 2006.
Do you have ANY idea how tiny Israel is? That the whole country is almost completely within missile range of one psychopathic murderous regime or another?
Let the terrorists control their murderous impulses for a change.
delrem
(9,688 posts)As accords with international law.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... to their own state just as soon as go over the trying to destroy Israel and get on with building their own state.
There are nearly 3 million Palestinians living abroad these days -- they can all live in the Palestinian State, if they choose.
delrem
(9,688 posts)And obnoxious.
I'm repelled by the fact that Israel is systematically erasing Palestine and the Palestinian people from the map and the pages of history. I'm repelled by ethnic cleansing. I was repelled when Netanyahu announced yet more racist Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory. I'm repelled by the fact that Israel considers the Palestinian war refugees to be a "demographic and existential threat" to the existence of Israel, and for that reason refuses their right of return. I've yet to hear even one argument from moral principle that justifies the Zionist project in Israel/Palestine.
In contrast, international law w.r.t. right of return for refugees in war torn regions is well founded in moral/ethical principle. Your response did not address this law.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)There are roughly four times as many Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza today than in 1967 -- when they were occupied by Jordan and Egypt.
Are you unfamiliar with the term "ethnic cleansing"?
Don't you mean the exact opposite of ethnic cleansing?
delrem
(9,688 posts)But quite evidentially you prefer playing games of semantics to addressing the moral/ethical issue.
This doesn't say good things about the cause you believe in.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... because I'm a native English speaker.
How moral is it to lie about "ethnic cleansing" when it isn't actually happening?
delrem
(9,688 posts)The principle of a war refugee's right of return is inscribed in international law, as based on the soundest moral/ethical principle the world now universally recognizes. It is you are both avoiding the issue and lying.
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)"Right of return" is not a right that's guaranteed under international law at all. If there was such a law, it would allow for a return to Palestine anyway, not Israel, which never counted the Palestinian refugees as Israeli citizens in the first place. But the point is academic as no such law exists anyway.
delrem
(9,688 posts)You're wrong in principle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return
But you're right in letter, in that it'd be very hard to enforce such a law in the mixed up circumstances where a military force ethnically cleanses a population, annexes the land, destroys all history of prior ownership, etc., and fights like the dickens to keep the ethnically undesirable out. I guess Israel should congratulate itself on what it has done.
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)As far as your accusation goes, what is the deal with people specifically accusing Israel of acts that they not only never committed, but often seem to be drawn from examples of Arab crimes against Jews? It's SO weird. Just look at this:
Ok, in 1948-49 Israel's military did not ethnically cleanse Palestine at all, except for a few, specific, limited areas, like around Jaffa. The vast majority of Arab refugees left of their own accord and were prevented from returning later on via legal action. That obviously doesn't include all the Arabs who didn't leave and still make up a sizable percentage of Israel's population.
And the land wasn't "annexed." The rules of the 49 truce specifically say that final borders are up to future negotiations. Regardless, the land was as much Israel's as Palestine's. Israel had every right to the land it exerted sovereignty over.
And not only did Israel not "destroy all history of prior ownership," it left many prior owners there. But look at cases like al Aqsa mosque. The holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem was built on top of the holiest Jewish site in the world. Some Jewish extremists wanted to demolish it and rebuild the temple. But Israel outlawed Jewish worship there, structurally kept it fully intact and even handed over control over the site to a Muslim authority.
Compare this to Jordan's behavior in 49.
It's military COMPLETELY ethnically cleansed the West Bank and east Jerusalem of ALL it's Jewish inhabitants. Then it actually tried to annex that entire area, despite having no legal claim to it whatsoever; regardless of the fact that doing so meant preventing Palestinian self-determination. Then Jordanian forces in east Jerusalem demolished dozens of ancient synagogues as well as the cemetery on the mt of olives, the oldest Jewish cemetery on earth, using the tombstones to build latrines and other random structures. And this is but ONE example out of many of this sort of hypocrisy.
Yet somehow it is usually only Israel who stands accused of the crimes outlined above. Why do you suppose that is?
delrem
(9,688 posts)You see, I have no problem with relating the history as it actually occurred, not as I'd wish it to be. There WAS ethnic cleansing that took place at gunpoint just as there were massacres on either side. I'm not embracing those actions, but I won't shy away from acknowledging their existence either.
That said, it bears noting that the extent of direct expulsion was extremely limited. There's not really a dispute as to the areas where it occurred. We KNOW where it happened. It was not a widespread phenomenon by any measure.
Couldn't help but notice that you only chose to remark on that part of my post!
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)The law you're invoking reads:
Considering that the vast majority of "refugees" claiming a right of return to Israel are actually descendants of the original individuals who fled Palestine, how would Israel, a state neither they nor their parents had ever set foot in, qualify as their "country of origin"?
delrem
(9,688 posts)The problem with your argument is that it is precisely the argument that someone who agrees with the objective of ethnic cleansing would imagine to be valid. Conspicuously missing is any regard for the universal principles of human rights. In place of these fundamental principles you substitute sophistry to the effect that laws enacted by the ethnic cleansers after the fact can trump all rights.
This is why Palestine should and ought to appeal immediately and directly to the international criminal courts, because only such an overarching body could be objective.
shira
(30,109 posts)The vast majority of refugees are descendants of the original refugees. They're not refugees by any law. No other descendants, grandkids, and great grandkids of elderly refugees are considered refugees. Nowhere else on earth. Only in this situation.
These kids, grandkids, and great grandkids of refugees should be citizens of the nations they were born in. And yet, they're not. And no one, like yourself, is advocating for their rights not to live under apartheid conditions in Syria, Lebanon, etc. You only advocate that these descendants be allowed into Israel.
Let's face it. This isn't about human rights to you. You favor millions of Palestinians flooding Israel in order to ignite another civil war (the same thing happened leading to the big 1948 war). Not a very humane point of view....
delrem
(9,688 posts)You're on record as supporting ethnic cleansing when your faction does it, but being against ethnic cleansing when your faction is victim. When your faction does it you quibble about the term "ethnic cleansing", since according to you it's sufficient that some guy wrote an article explaining that it wasn't ethnic cleansing because it was war. As though war weren't the means to that end!
You claim that my defense of universal human rights isn't actually about human rights just because, as you have shown, *you* don't give a damn about the rights of Palestinian refugees - except to vehemently deny them. So you have to project, you have to fling shit. But flinging shit isn't an argument.
I'll say it again, and I'll keep saying it shira: ethnic cleansing is an abomination. It is recognized as an abomination under international law - and even if it weren't, it is an abomination because it contradicts the very principles of ethics that make a modern democracy possible. The ethnic cleansing that you support is an abomination, it is a crime against humanity.
And yes, just as the refugees themselves should be allowed to exercise that right, the children of refugees should certainly be allowed to exercise their RoR. It *doubles* the abomination to say otherwise. I suppose you figure that under your magnanimous plan (which no Israeli gov't would voluntarily undertake anyway!) those surviving refugees conveniently now beyond childbearing years could be allowed back, to live out their lives maybe in a tent city in a desert - because I can't see you being willing to return their actual property - there to die out and leave you safe from what several of Israel's knesset members consider to be monkeys. Millions of monkeys.
Meanwhile the Israel that *you* support is swinging totally to the extreme right. As if it weren't already extreme. The excesses of Netanyahu/Lieberman are not enough for a substantial number of Israelis. The expansions of settlements that have happened in the past and continue to the present day and that make a Palestinian state impossible are not enough for them, and Israeli political debate highlights despicable bastards declaring that they want to outright annex even the leavings, their contempt for the indigenous Palestinian population palpable. You speak as if *that* weren't the pressing issue for Israel, as if your nightmares about millions of Palestinian refugees flooding Israel weren't the kind of fevered dream of a Bill O'Reilly doped to the max, as if your fevered dreams weren't part and parcel of the racially centered extremist problem.
shira, I'm not going to continue replying to your posts, tho' they respond to me, because your posts have no reasoned argument - they merely express how you detest, and fear, all Palestinians.
shira
(30,109 posts)You say you're for International Law, but you insist on Israel taking in at least 5x the number of the original refugees.
Why do you think this is International Law?
Exploding the myths: UNRWA, UNHCR and the Palestine refugees
http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=1029
shira
(30,109 posts)Really? Point to where I said I support ethnic cleansing.
Just as many Jews were ethnically cleansed from Arab lands, so where's the humanitarian concern for their Internationally recognized rights? Did I miss you writing about it?
It's not. That was proven unquestionably in the last few posts.
And your solution to it is 10x more abominable.
Of course I don't hear you or your fellow minions calling the ethnic cleansing of all Jews from Arab lands abominable. Why? And FTR, I'm not sure I've ever brought that issue up in over 4 years here.
Why? Point me to this IHL, please.
I support Israel whether Meretz/Labour is in charge or Likud. Tell me, did you support Israel when they had a very dovish, progressive government just 12 years ago? Do you support America only when the proper liberals are in charge?
Of course you won't. You guys dish it out, but can't take it in return.
shira: "Point to where I said I support ethnic cleansing."
my response:
your posts, esp. here - both preceding and succeeding:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=27159
moreover, in the very post I'm now responding to you quote then respond to me
delrem: "I'll say it again, and I'll keep saying it shira: ethnic cleansing is an abomination."
shira: "And your solution to it is 10x more abominable."
my response:
No, allowing Palestinian refugees the R0R that they are entitled to according as international law is the right thing to do. The contradiction to this, that is - denying Palestinian refugees their RoR is ethnic cleansing by definition, and it is an abomination.
In other words, you are saying that ethnic cleansing is good, compared to denying it - yet you also deny that you support ethnic cleansing! Ah, the twisted web they weave, when they cannot admit to the truth!
shira: "Just as many Jews were ethnically cleansed from Arab lands, so where's the humanitarian concern for their Internationally recognized rights? Did I miss you writing about it?"
response:
Not only do you not agree with the sentence "Ethnic cleansing is an abomination", but you fail to comprehend the universal scope that it *necessarily* entails.
shira
(30,109 posts)1. I want specific sentences where I state I support ethnic cleansing. You failed to provide anything.
2. Your solution is not only abominable but also contrary to International Law. The "law" you're referring to is a UNGA resolution (not law, but a recommendation) stating clearly:
Forgetting that most left on their own accord or at the behest of Arab leadership (Mahmoud Abbas even admits this) and despite the fact most have been internally displaced throughout what was once Palestine (which isn't ethnic cleansing by any standard) this "law" states that the refugees must willing to live at peace with their neighbors. Considering that polls show the vast majority of Palestinians do not wish to live at peace within Israel, this "law" cannot be practically carried out. Maybe you think they fill out a YES/NO survey where they check off they'll live in peace once there? Get real.
UNHCR handbooks are not International Law. But that's all you have?
And I never said ethnic cleansing is good. Yet another dishonest straw-man you create and knock down.
I asked about Jewish refugees from Arab lands; greater in numbers than the Arabs. Where is this great humanitarian concern for them? Show me where people like yourself are advocating equally for their rights. Are there any? Any at all? From your anti-zionist friends? From the UN? Name a few if you can.
delrem
(9,688 posts)and every sentence you write shows that you're a gung-ho supporter of it, when done to Palestinian refugees.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Sat Jan 5, 2013, 09:25 PM - Edit history (3)
Good talk!
===================
Just a fun fact for you, post demolition:
UNRWA says there are about 5 million Palestinian refugees today. Around 3.9 million live in Jordan *, Gaza, and the W.Bank combined. According to those refugees, they're already living in Palestine.
Repeat: They're already living in Palestine!
By no definition ever concocted in the history of mankind can they be considered refugees.
====================
*Jordan's Palestinians are almost all Jordanian citizens. At least they were prior to 1967 due to Jordan annexing the area. Jordanian citizens are not refugees.
delrem
(9,688 posts)Read it all, as objectively as possible and as it would apply to all - in the spirit in which it is written. Understand that it is a work in progress, because we humans are an intransigent warlike people.
Re. Palestinian refugees, of course no right to return matters to those who don't want to claim it, who are happy where they are. The notion of a right to return doesn't include an article *forcing* a refugee to return. It's only when the claim is made that it becomes important to honor it - and of course to demand that the returnee honors conditions of peaceful integration. But then, civil law should intervene.
According as this idea the villagers of Najd who were forcibly expelled from their homes, their property, their land, ought to be granted a right to return by Israel, and ought to be given their land back, since that expulsion, if meant to be permanent, was just plain wrong according as every international norm. Then, of course "jus sanguinis" ought to apply, if Israeli norms of citizenship aren't explicitly racist.
Your argument seems to be: it shouldn't happen, they (non-Jews) would be enemies within, one couldn't believe them if they said otherwise, and most important of all, they'd contribute to a demographic threat to the preeminence of Jews.
This discussion isn't about some *Jordanian*, it's about exactly those Palestinians in villages, hamlets, cities, ... who fled or were expelled in the wars leading to the Nakba.
Let me say something about Nakba denial. The arguments that I've seen denying the Nakba, such as they are, remind me of the kind of holocaust denying shyte peddled by goons like Clifford Irving (an infamous Canadian anti-Semite). To say the least, his arguments *avoided* discussion about universal principles of ethics. Instead, he quibbled about numbers, about petty details, and he flooded the discourse with toxic calumny about his specially hated people, pointing fingers "over there", the whole works, but in the end the guy was seen by most everyone to be... well... to be a hater who denied the consequences of his hate. That kind of racism is just terrible - a waste of time, energy, human spirit, and it's just plain ugly.
shira
(30,109 posts)Refugees are those...
That's the UN. The UN has never once explicitly claimed that children of refugees are also refugees.
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)Just curious, but do you see anything wrong with thinking like that?
And just so you know, you don't get to decide where anyone lives. I'm pretty sure everyone reading would realise that, but you seem to think you can decide what happens...
shira
(30,109 posts)Those who are still in camps to be specific. Individuals do not get to choose whether they wish to be a part of RoR.
Arab leadership throughout the region believe it's a collective choice (in reality, the leadership's choice). That's why they've been in camps for 64 years. Even if individuals got to choose, they'd be pressured and threatened to exercise their RoR. They live in fear societies, not free societies.
So yeah, all refugees in camps would go to Israel.
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)I know what you think already when it comes to negative broadbrushing applied to the Palestinian people. Thanks for the outrage of 'not exactly'.
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)Did you read past the headline?
shira
(30,109 posts)The Jews there aren't the true inhabitants.
F*ck Fisk and his minions.
Violet_Crumble
(35,977 posts)I asked her about her comment. If I was interested in what someone who insists that the West Bank and gaza is part of Israel thought about Robert Fisk or anyone else detested by the Right wing, I'd ask you.
delrem
(9,688 posts)I don't think it's possible to wipe history clean from objective historical memory.
This is the insurmountable problem that a policy of 'creating a fact on the ground, then denying that any contrary fact existed' confronts. Creating a "fact on the ground" certainly does present an argument that such and such thing exists. But in the longer term such a "fact on the ground" must be exhibited in terms of a prehistory which is "eternal" in the sense that by its nature history once was and forever will be so. Unlike the future, past history is immutable.
This is why people, all good people, look for justification for "facts on the ground" when those facts are political/ethical/moral.
"Town Today
According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, the village remaining structures on the village land are:
"Only one dilapidated building remains, a concrete structure with rectangular doors and windows and a flat roof. Its former function is not clear; it now serves as a farm storehouse. One can also identify the remnants of a watering trough.""
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)