On the theft of indigenous struggles

[shira]

....But why am I telling you this? The short story is that I am so angry right now that I feel I must share something so intensely personal, but first I need for you to understand why I am so angry.

I see people claiming commonalities with my people all the time. They tell me “My people are just like yours,” but the reality is quite different. I hear people telling me “My people have similar experiences to yours,” when the reality is that they have undergone nowhere near the marginalisation or oppression that my people have somehow survived.

When someone invokes the experiences of Native North Americans in order to claim commonalities with us, it’s almost always in order to demonise another country. In the majority of cases I see, it’s Arabs or white people trying to demonise Israel, first by calling them colonisers, and second by inferring that they stole the land on which they built their state. The irony should be obvious.

What I have learned after years of study is that if there is one people in the entire world who can legitimately claim commonalities with us, it is not the descendants of 7th century conquerors who were ascendant for 600 years, until the past century, when the cycle was reversed. The Arab Muslims who dominated the region after conquering it are the furthest thing from my people. Rather, our fraternity here is with the people who only recent underwent a real genocide and who have still managed to maintain their cultural integrity. That people are the Jewish nation. I do not say this lightly; it comes after years of research, years of speaking to and listening to survivors both of residential schools and the Holocaust. It is not a comparison of tragedies, nor is it a contest; rather, it is about empathy and understanding through common experience.

You may wonder why this claim to commonality from Arab Muslims calling themselves Palestinians offends me so much – after all, they are a displaced people, are they not? It bothers me for several reasons but the most important one is that it marginalises my own people’s experiences. While my people were killed in the millions, forced to take on the religion, traditions, and language of the oppressor culture, put in residential schools to further those goals, and made to feel inferior for even daring to want to maintain our culture, the Palestinians have not in any way been treated with such opprobrium by Israel...

Read more: On the theft of indigenous struggles | Ryan Bellerose | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/on-the-the-theft-of-indigenous-struggles/#ixzz2wtIcwogX

[Scootaloo]

1. Sadly, mr. Bellerose is playing to the only crowd that takes him seriously

And he only manages that much by being pretty bad at history;

it is not the descendants of 7th century conquerors who were ascendant for 600 years

I beleive you and i have covered this ground before Shira, so I won't go into the full details again, but fact is this particular argument is mythology, nonsense based out of orientalism. The Palestinians are the descendants of people who were always there, just as are the iraqis, the Algerians, the Yemenis, etc. They're descendants of religious and linguistic converts.

Just as mr. Bellerose is. We notice he takes after the Palestinians for adopting Islam and Arabic.

They were not forced to take the Arab language, nor were they forced to become converts to a religion that is not their own

But notice that this argument is not penned in Cree or even Michif.

You see, Mr. Bellerose has a bad habit. he likes to strip people of their ethnicity when they disagree with him. We see a hint of it in this article;

And yet… I am inundated with white people, Arabs, and the occasional uneducated token Indians who spout off leftist memes denouncing Israel and invoking our situation with invalid comparisons. ... I simply cannot abide when a Native person is convinced to participate in this, because it behooves a Native person to study and understand history before taking a side in these conflicts. I don’t want them to change sides because “Ryan said so.” I want them to change sides because after examining the history and facts, they should see that I am right and agree with me.

And if we go to his blog, we can find more charming nuggets where he derides another Native Activist - Robert Warrior - as not being a "real Indian." He's also gone after Hawaiian activist Kehaulani Kauanui for her partly European ancestry. One might point out that this is a very odd argument coming from a person in the Metis community, but i doubt the average Times of Israel reader can follow that problem.


Now he does have at least a thread of a fair point - The Palestinian situation is not identical to the Native American one. Some comparisons can be drawn, but no, they are not to the same scale. One would have to be ignorant of both situations to make the argument that the two are identical.

He argues that such equivocations lessen and undermine the suffering and tragedy of the democides against the Americans. While i might not wholly agree, I could understand the principle... But then he goes on to draw exactly that equivocation between Indians and Jewish history. If Mr. Bellerose had half as strong a grasp on either subject as he tries to assure us he does, he'd see that his equivocation is - according to his argument - no less belittling or demeaning than the one he is speaking out against. Simple fact is that besides perhaps the democide of Australia, there is nothing in history even slightly comparable to what happened in the Americas over the last five hundred years.

[shira]

2. Do u make all this shit up? You were asked recently what yr sources are....

Must be real embarrassing having to cite far right and extreme left websites, but that's where you must get the vast majority of your bullshit.

1. Here's a Hamas minister on video stating (start around 1:45 into it) half of Palestinians are Egyptian, the other half Saudi. That may very well be an overgeneralization but it's not really that far off:

2. Yasser Arafat was born in Egypt. Saeb Erekat's family is from Saudi Arabia. Hamas' Mahmoud Zahar's mother is from Egypt. The list goes on...

3. Then there's FDR and Churchill:

Attesting to the huge Muslim immigration into the area, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked in 1939 that the immigration of Arabs to Palestine since 1921 was outpacing the immigration of Jews during that same period. Winston Churchill commented on the massive waves of Arab immigration into the country during that time. “Despite the fact that they were never persecuted, masses of Arabs poured into the country and multiplied until the Arab population grew more than what all of world Jewry could add to the Jewish population,” he said. - See more at: http://jcpa.org/article/changing-historical-narrative-saeb-erekats-new-spin/#sthash.2Yu4qYtQ.dpuf

4. Yoram Ettinger writes:

http://www.think-israel.org/ettinger.palestinianarabs.html

The Arab population of Haifa surged from 6,000 in 1880 to 80,000 in 1919, as a result of workforce migration, modernization introduced by the British occupation, and the establishment and expansion of Jewish settlements, which enhanced the infrastructure and employment base. The eruption of World War II accelerated the demand for manpower and the flow of migrants to the area west of the Jordan River.

According to a 1937 report by the British Peel Commission (Palestine Betrayed, Prof. Efraim Karsh, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 12), "The increase in the Arab population is most marked in urban areas, affected by Jewish development. A comparison of the census returns in 1922 and 1931 shows that, six years ago, the increase percent in Haifa was 86, in Jaffa 62, in Jerusalem 37, while in purely Arab towns such as Nablus and Hebron it was only 7, and at Gaza there was a decrease of 2 percent.”

As a result of the substantial 1880-1947Arab immigration – and despite Arab emigration caused by domestic chaos and intra-Arab violence - the Arab population of Jaffa, Haifa and Ramla grew 17, 12 and 5 times respectively.

The (1831-1840) conquest, by Egypt's Mohammed Ali, was solidified by a flow of Egyptian and Sudanese migrants settling empty spaces between Gaza and Tul-Karem up to the Hula Valley. They followed in the footsteps of thousands of Egyptian draft dodgers, who fled Egypt before 1831 and settled in Acre. The British traveler, H.B. Tristram, identified, in his 1865 The Land of Israel: a journal of travels in Palestine (p. 495), Egyptian migrants in the Beit-Shean Valley, Acre, Hadera, Netanya and Jaffa.

The British Palestine Exploration Fund documented that Egyptian neighborhoods proliferated in the Jaffa area: Saknet el-Mussariya, Abu Kebir, Abu Derwish, Sumeil, Sheikh Muwanis, Salame', Fejja, etc. In 1917, the Arabs of Jaffa represented at least 25 nationalities, including Persians, Afghanis, Hindus and Balochis. Hundreds of Egyptian families settled in Ara' Arara', Kafer Qassem, Taiyiba and Qalansawa. In 1908, Yemenite Arab migrants settled in Jaffa, and Arabs from Syria's Huran proliferated in the ports of Haifa and Jaffa.

"30,000-36,000 Syrian migrants (Huranis) entered Palestine during the last few months alone" reported La Syrie daily on August 12, 1934. Az-ed-Din el-Qassam, the role-model of Hamas terrorism, which terrorized Jews in British Mandate Palestine, was Syrian, as were Said el-A'az, a leader of the 1936-38 anti-Jewish pogroms and Kaukji, the commander-in-chief of the Arab mercenaries terrorizing Jews in the 1930s and 1940s.

5. Now you can call bullshit all you want on all the above, but here's Article 1 from the Palestine National Charter of 1964

Article 1. Palestine is an Arab homeland bound by strong Arab national ties to the rest of the Arab Countries and which together form the great Arab homeland.

[Scootaloo]

3. Oh, Shira...

Yasser Arafat was born in Egypt. Saeb Erekat's family is from Saudi Arabia. Hamas' Mahmoud Zahar's mother is from Egypt. The list goes on...

Yasser Arafat was indeed born in Egypt... to a man from Gaza and a woman from Jerusalem. The list goes on ? Well, you've named three Palestinians out of several million. Let's see the remainder.

Also, do explain how 7th-century Arabia managed to support hundreds of millions of people needed for this Gellarism to function, please.

[shira]

4. Way to ignore most of the evidence, including Art. 1 of the Palestine National Charter. n/t

[Scootaloo]

5. Well, seems only fair, since you tend to ignore everything you come across

But since you're running around quoting Hamas and engaging in some sort of Ziontologist variety of birtherism (ZOMG ARAFAT WAS BORN IN CAIRO?!?!?! - are you serious? Sheesh) I don't figure you actually have much of an argument to present.

I was actually puzzled by your inclusion of the Palestinian National Charter there, because I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. That Palestinans are Arabs? Kiiiiinda obvious, if so. Perhaps you just don't understand the argument that I'm making, and are instead reflexively arguing against something you wish I were saying instead?

[shira]

6. The point is most Palestinians were recent migrants prior to 1948. Arabs originate from....

....you ready for this?

Arabia. Think 7th century conquest. Imperialism, colonialism. At best they have rights of longstanding presence.

Again, sorry to say but most Palestinians are not descendants of people who were always there.

[Scootaloo]

7. I see

The point is most Palestinians were recent migrants prior to 1948.

So claim people who have a vested interest in the concept of "a land without a people," I've noticed. I wonder then, who was tilling hte fields and tending the orchards and fishing the waters that made the territory so desirable for so very long. Hmmmm. Genies?

Arabs originate from....

....you ready for this?

Arabia. Think 7th century conquest. Imperialism, colonialism. At best they have rights of longstanding presence.

Yeah, this exactly the argument I was pointing out the bullshit of. It's reliant on hundreds of millions of people sweeping out of Hejaz, and completely replacing everyone between Persia and southwestern France. In about forty years' time.

Genies again, I suppose?

[azurnoir]

11. actually ......

In recent years, many genetic studies have demonstrated that, at least paternally, most of the various Jewish ethnic divisions and the Palestinians – and in some cases other Levantines – are genetically closer to each other than the Palestinians or European Jews to non-Jewish Europeans.[111]

One DNA study by Nebel found genetic evidence in support of historical records that "part, or perhaps the majority" of Muslim Palestinians descend from "local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century AD".[111] They also found substantial genetic overlap between Muslim Palestinians and Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, though with some significant differences that might be explainable by the geographical isolation of the Jews and by immigration of Arab tribes in the first millennium.[111]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people

seems a tad more realistic than what we're being sold here

[Scootaloo]

12. Oh, anyone with a basic grasp of history should be aware of this

People just didn't move that far from where they were born, back in the day. Pair that with the reality that even today, with modern medicine, agriculture, and water treatment, Saudi Arabia has the population of Texas, and we have to assume it was far smaller back then...

there's no way the "Invading Arabs replaced everyone" idea could work. Islam spread. To practice Islam back then you had to know Arabic, since that's the language the Koran was in. so Arabic spread with the religion.

I wonder if Shira imagines that Islamic Iberia was peopled by people from the Red Sea coast, too?

[shira]

28. The problem is that you say most or all Arabs in Palestine 1948....

...had lived there for many centuries. You have no evidence for this but it's what you so desperately want to believe, despite the Palestinian Charter, despite Yoram Ettinger's research, and despite FDR and Churchill acknowledging mass immigration from neighboring countries. The Hamas spokesman even said half of Palestinians are Egyptian, the other half Saudi.

What evidence do u have that the vast majority or most Arabs in Palestine (not including Jordan) have families going back more than a century there?

[Scootaloo]

34. I find it intriguing that you feel hamas is a reliable source, Shira

Yes, most pf the Arabs living there then - and now - are descended from people who had been there for ages and ages.

How did the British use fallow land as their eastern breadbasket?
How did the Ottomans collect taxes from an empty territory?
Who were the Dominicans preaching to in the 15th century in Jerusalem?
Who were the fellahim the Mamluks freed from Crusader rule?
For that matter, who were the Crusaders ruling, anyway?
where did all those converts come from, in the 7th century?
How were the Byzantines extracting taxes and wheat and olives from an empty territory?

The Levant has been continuously inhabited since the Early Pleistocene, Shira.

[shira]

38. Strawman. No one is arguing the area was empty of inhabitants. n/t

[Scootaloo]

42. You're making an argument that is reliant on such a claim, Shira.

As I say, the place has been inhabited by humans since before our fucking species arose. Your argument is that Palestinian Arabs are all immigrants, foreigners who have no ties to the place. You even try to hang your argument on some terrorist dumbfuck claiming they're all Egyptians and Saudis, is how low you're going.

Now that the idiocy if your argument is exposed, you're trying to hedge your bets by changing the argument and using vaguer wording. Nuh-uh. You're claiming that Palestinians have no valid claim to the territory other than, in your words, "long-term residency." Which i'm sure means something in your head, but is abjectly meaningless anywhere else.

You're peddling the same ignorant trash that we could all find on youtube comments. As Azur points out, "land without a people" horse shit.

[shira]

44. I never said Palestinian Arabs are all immigrants.

I'm also not claiming that Palestinians have no valid claim to the territory other than "long term residency". There are indigenous non-Jews in that area. They're just not as numerous as you claim.

The problem is that you see the vast majority, if not all, as indigenous and going back BEFORE the Arab invasions of the 7th century.

[shira]

30. Blood quantum alone doesn't make people indigenous....

There are other factors like a shared history, culture, folklore, customs, religion, and language.

No such Palestinian culture, folklore, or customs existed prior to 100 years before 1948.

[Scootaloo]

35. That's funny...

Seeing as the person you source in your OP assaults indigenous persons for not being "pure-blooded" enough for his standards.

I find it fascinating that you think that you - as someone who very clearly hates and loathes Palestinians - are more qualified to define Palestinians than Palestinians are.

That's like taking Don Black's word about what makes Jews Jewish.

[shira]

40. Pot calling Kettle? It's impossible to hate & loathe Palestinians more....

....than you guys who support and defend Palestinian misery.

An example being the refugees...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=60600

It's funny to see you getting all bent out of shape, mistaking my arguments for an attack against Palestinians....when you're the one here calling 1948 era Holocaust survivors and Pogrom Refugees "invaders", colonists, and the equivalent of white nationalist supremacists. There's no one here on this forum who would ever stoop so low in a similarly ugly attack vs. Palestinians.

[Scootaloo]

41. Oh Shira, I'm hardly "bent out of shape."

But if you want to make some arguments about blood quantums, it might help of you weren't citing an OP by someone who very definitely holds them to be important - enough to attack a Hawaiian native activist for having European ancestors.

And yes, you hate and loathe Palestinians. And even if you didn't, you have no place to define "Palestinian" for them, which is whatyou are trying to do when you say there was no such thing as Palestinians, by criteria you yourself have set and determined.

You might as well be telling me Jews are really Khazars, while you're at it.

[shira]

43. No one's defining Palestinian...

It's a fact that prior to 1948 when people mentioned Palestinians, it was the Jews who were considered Palestinians, not the Arabs of the area. No Palestinian culture existed at that time as the Arabs of the area considered themselves part of southern Syria. Palestinian nationalism came into being as a counter to Zionism. Without Zionism, there'd be no Palestinian nationalism whatsoever. This isn't even debatable.

Now this doesn't mean there aren't any indigenous non-Jews in the area that go back more than 100 years before 1948. In fact, I don't have a problem with the following statement. Do you?

"The Jewish people around the world and Palestinian people around the world are both indigenous to the Land of Israel/Palestine and therefore have an equal and legitimate right to settle and live anywhere in the Land of Israel/Palestine, but given the desire of both peoples to a sovereign state that would reflect their unique culture and history, we believe in sharing the land between a Jewish state, Israel, and an Arab state, Palestine, that would allow them each to enjoy dignity and sovereignty in their own national home. Neither Israel nor Palestine should be exclusively for the Jewish and Palestinian people respectively and both should accommodate minorities of the other people."

Who else will join us in our journey to find true partners on both sides?

[shira]

14. You do know what "most" means, I take it? It doesn't mean "all".

Sorry to confuse you with facts.

[azurnoir]

8. so there really are no Palestinian people?

some American politician made the same claim too-his name slips my mind at moment.........

[shira]

15. I didn't say that.

Facts show most Palestinians migrated to the area shortly before 1948 (within 100 years). And that means most are not descendants of people who were always there.

Why is this so hard for you to grasp?

[azurnoir]

16. really? migrated from where ? so there were almost no Arabs living in Palestine prior to when?

who do you think believes that bunkum?

[shira]

25. See post #2 above (Yoram Ettinger) to see where they migrated from. n/t

[azurnoir]

26. saw it yesterday again it's a rehash of "a land without a people for a people without a land"

tell me is this the 'new' really very old talking point being recycled? Has it gotten that desperate?

and once again DNA does not lie

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113460624#post11

[shira]

31. LOL @ your denial of facts.

Also, blood quantum alone does not confer indigenous status.

[azurnoir]

33. you have presented us no facts only cherry picked opinion to support a land without people for

a people without land

that someone would try to sell us a rehash of Newt Gingrich's claims on a Democratic Party board is offensive but then again so is promoting Itamar Marcus and Richard Landes both antiObama Rightists one of which told us in 2012 if you can't vote for Romney don't vote for Obama

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=47864

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=59572

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

39. Shira loves to cherry pick, and has admited it freely on DU. I'll find it and post it later.

[aranthus]

18. You're wasting your time.

Anti-Israel Leftists live in their own universe. Your evidence doesn't count as evidence to them. Your morality isn't their morality. Your logic isn't their logic.

[shira]

19. Some Leftists are "religious" fanatics. No amount of evidence will do. n/t

[Scootaloo]

36. Well, you've got two things right...

I am a leftist. I'm happy with that. it helps me distinguish myself from right-wing nutjobs like you or Shira.

Second, you're right. Your morality is not my morality.I practice ethics, and understand that "morals" primarily exist as exceptions to ethical behavior. Ethics say "It's bad to kill someone" while morals say "it's okay to kill these people, for these reasons."

And no, citing a goober from Hamas saying that half of Palestinians are Saudis does not serve as evidence. But don't let me stop the Zionist ass-licking of Hamas evident in this thread.

[azurnoir]

9. we've seen this one before-years ago that it's being belched up again -now

well what can I say except it could seem the OP here was run as a segue to this claim

[shira]

13. What have u seen before? What's bothering you about this? n/t

[azurnoir]

17. so we're back to the old "a land without a people for a people without a land"

I take it you've run out of vids? so now simply deny there was a Palestinian people long prior to the first Aliyah?

[shira]

20. Just saying, most (emphasis: most) Palestinians migrated 100 years prior to 1948....

That leaves less than half who were there longer than 100 years.

Less than half is not zero, so no one is claiming the land was empty of non-Jews prior to 100 years before 1948.

[azurnoir]

21. ahha still selling us "a land without a people for a people without a land"

no surprise in that none at all

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113460624#post11

[shira]

22. Facts are facts. Sorry they're a nuisance to you. n/t

[azurnoir]

23. facts are not a nuisance to me at all especially not those written in DNA

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113460624#post11

buh bye

[shira]

24. No one disputes DNA similarities. But that doesn't mean most or all Palestinians....

...always lived there.

[azurnoir]

27. considering that the Palestinian refugee population growing from 700,00 to 5 million in 68 years

I find little dispairity in the so called numbers we're being given for population growth

[shira]

29. So you deny there was mass Arab immigration into Israel within 100 years prior to 1948? n/t

[azurnoir]

32. exactly what percentage of the Palestinian population emmigrated?

you say most meaning there were virtually no Palestinian Arabs prior to the first Aliyah or a land without a people for a people without a land no matter how you try to dress it up that is exactly what you're trying to sell here

[Scootaloo]

37. I absolutely deny it.

There was no Israel prior to 1948, Shira.