Israel pursues relentless debate on ethnic cleansing of Arabs

[Resistance]

by Mustapha Karkouti | Gulf News

A leading Israeli historian recently warned that Palestinian refugees should not be allowed to return to their homeland as groups or as individuals. He also suggested the "transfer" of Israel's Arab citizens, if the country wants to retain its Jewish identity.

You feel uneasy reading this latest revelation by the one-time-liberal Israeli historian Professor Benny Morris of the Ben-Gurion university. One is revolted at what Morris had to say about the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem back in 1940s.

While half-admitting Israel's responsibility for creating the Palestinian refugee problem, he now opposes the recognition of their right to return to their homeland. Morris's recent argument sounds profoundly similar to the arguments used in Apartheid South Africa by advocates of that regime against its abolition.

Many believe Morris's conclusions and a recent study by the Israeli Global Research in International Affairs Centre, Herzliya, form a part of an orchestrated campaign to prepare public opinion for a huge operation of ethnic cleansing of Arabs from historic Palestine.

[GabysPoppy]

1. This from another Israeli writer

In return, the Palestinians must "accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state." This is right. We Israelis can debate among ourselves what our state should be like, whether based on ethnicity or citizenship, a Jewish, Hebrew or Israeli state - but this is an internal debate. It concerns neither America nor Palestine. The Palestinians must recognize the principle of "two states for two peoples" - meaning, an Israeli state representing the personality of the Israeli people. (The national status of the Arab citizens of Israel, too, is a matter for domestic struggle.)

[Resistance]

2. I just hope

during that debate, Israelis don't decide to continue the plan of ethnic cleansing, like what so many influential right-wingnuts are out there pushing for.

[Muddleoftheroad]

3. So many

Yeah, it's shocking that after 55 years of war with your neighbors and terror from the Palestinians, a few Israelis might not want potential enemies living next door.

Especially, when you consider what happened in all the other Arab nations AND the West Bank -- ethnic cleansing of Jews by Arabs.

[tinnypriv]

5. "Potential enemies"?

Please tell me your next line of argument isn't going to be that the Palestinians have no attachment to their land...

[Resistance]

7. well

the national security strategy of the Bush admin is to eliminate any potential challenges to U.S. dominance. It's not surprising that Israel would follow a similar war doctrine.

[Muddleoftheroad]

11. Huh?

How did you jump from "potential enemies?"

[GabysPoppy]

6. Why is this a concept hard for the PA to understand?

"Palestinians must "accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state."

That is hardly a right-wingnut concept.

[tinnypriv]

8. Yeah

That'd make conversations between Israeli Arabs and WB Palestinians pretty interesting.

:dunce:

[GabysPoppy]

10. I know you must have a point there

It escapes me though.

:shrug:

[tinnypriv]

30. That's your problem

I know it may be hard to imagine, but Israeli Arab MK's wouldn't be too fond of WB Palestinians declaring their membership in the Knesset illegitimate, nor would they be too happy at being declared literally illegitimate (since they are not Jews).

And visa versa.

Conversation:

Israeli Arab MK: Hello Mr Ramallah. How's the closure?

Mr Ramallah: Hi Mr Illegitimate! What are you doing in that Jewish State which used to be ours, you non-Jew you? (poke).

Israeli Arab MK: Er, todah....

I presume the "point" is spelled out to your satisfaction now. I hope a diagram won't be required.

Oh, and you'd do well to internalise Aidoneous's point below too, though I doubt I'll live to see that happen.

[Comadreja]

15. Put another way

"Palestinians must accept the theft of their land." there's a concept we all understand.

[GabysPoppy]

16. That's not what the writer was saying

Try reading the entire paragraph

[Aidoneus]

17. no, that's exactly what was said..

[GabysPoppy]

18. Please interpret for us

[Aidoneus]

19. Ok, that's not too terribly difficult

...In return, the Palestinians must "accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state"...The Palestinians must recognize the principle of "two states for two peoples" - meaning, an Israeli state representing the personality of the Israeli people. (The national status of the Arab citizens of Israel, too, is a matter for domestic struggle)...

It takes but an unhealthy dose of denial and obfuscation to not see what that refers to.. I can flesh it out if you'd like (currently on a break between carpet shampooing so I have a few minutes if need be), but I'd rather you stumble upon it yourself without more pointers.

In plain terms, that means that the offer so generously given by their conquerors is that they must accept at least the partial theft of their lands as part of a "two states" swindle/solution. That is, recognition of 78% of the lands of theirs already conquered and colonized in exchange for the other 22% of the lands occupied and partially colonized.

Though as can be seen recently, "two states" can also mean that the rest of Occupied Palestine is annexed into "Israel", with Jordan as the "#2" in the equation--and according to your pal Mike/Stone Deaf (and also to the Elon Peace Initiative), Jordan is already the "Palestinian state", and according to your pal Rini (who doesn't seem to be around anymore, unlike CP who occasionally spends about a day or two here before temporarily disappearing again), the "so-called palestinians" should just go back to "jordon". What are your views on these views (or others)?

[Gimel]

21. Didn't accept the offer

Sort of reminds me of Bill Gates - "It's MINE all MINE."

[GabysPoppy]

22. I would have thought

you would have been a bit more positive about this author's words.

The writer's name is Uri Avnery.

[Violet_Crumble]

24. They were not his words!

No wonder there wasn't a link to the article provided. Avnery was going through a list of demands by Powell on both sides. All Avnery says is he thinks all the things listed by Powell were fair and reasonable, which they were on reading the entire list...


Here's a link to the article for anyone who wants to read it:

http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article171.html


Violet...

[Aidoneus]

25. I recognize the source

"Torpedoes Against An Aircraft Carrier", from a couple years ago. Incidentally, I was just reading through a few of his semi-older pieces the other day, that one included.

At any rate, Uri was paraphrasing Colin Powell in the section where your quoted bit appears--nay, he was rather prettying up the words of that craven hypocrite, remolding it in his own optimistic outlook. The optimism he projected onto his summary has been disproven by time. I disagree with the core idea of such a line of thought, as noted above.

I respect Uri greatly and find his works most useful, but I also grant myself permission to disagree.

(on edit: revised & edit a few times, reworked sentence structure and such; how neurotic I can be about that sometimes..)

[Muddleoftheroad]

23. Other comments

Wow, you bring up a few random comments from folks who aren't here anymore as if it somehow makes your argument stronger.

Guess what?

It doesn't.

If we brought up the same, it would be far more inflammatory. There would comments about Jews that would offend beyond belief. And if you want to deliberately quite typos, well that would take years to catch them all.

And that would gain us nothing.

Your post is one of many that reminds me why we will not have peace any time soon. You seem unwilling to accept the reality of a Jewish state. It's there, it's about time its enemies did so for their OWN best interests.

What you fail to understand is that two groups lay claim to the same land. Neither group will end up completely happy as a result.

In the Palestinians' case, they have REJECTED peace and didn't even try to make a counter offer. As a result, their position continues to weaken. Perhaps, they should try peace instead of backing or supporting or tolerating terror.

[Gimel]

32. there it is again

"Mine, all mine" Land belongs to G-d and humanity.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gimel]

38. Can't hear you

Your rearrangements fit the playground.

[ex_jew]

9. "Internal debates"

reminds me of the old Russian and Chinese position that no outsider could comment on their "intenal affairs". Unfortunately, this DOES concern America and Palestine (and the rest of humanity as well). Not just because we pay Israel's bills and suffer when her supporters convince the president to attack countries that are not our enemies. But also because the continued existence of our country as some kind of democracy depends in some strange, unexpected way on how people are treated by our only "ally" in the Middle East.

Stating as an a priori principle that certain key matters are off limits to comments by non-Israelis is not a tenable position.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

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[Jackie97]

13. Unfortunately for Israel....

They created their own problems regarding Palestine. So, it's not an internal matter. It's one that involves the Palestinians. It's also one that involves the Americans, since our money might go towards this plan.

[Comadreja]

37. Not to mention our dead

Since the I/P madness is the ultimate dynamo behind all ME terrorism, the 9/11 events should be seen as an extension of the struggle. Israel, shut up and let the U.N. take over before you get us all killed, DAMMIT!

[Jackie97]

39. 911 was not just about Israel.

The media will have you believe that though. Two reasons the media is like that.

1) They want to make us look like good guys for helping another country under terrorism, and it's working.

2) Some real anti-semites (not you, but others) want to spread the idea that the Jews are controlling the world and will cause it to fall.

In reality, the US has been messing with ME countries for years In the Afghanistan/Soviet war, the Iran/Iraq war (we helped provide Iraq with the famous gas in that war), we helped to keep the dictating Shah going in Iran for oil purposes, etc. In South America, we've helped countries on their "war on drugs" and with "stopping communism", which has led to countless people being killed. We're actually accused of genocide in Guatemala. We also overthrew democracies (or at least one) and helped to put in dictatorships over there. I know that we helped dictatorships over there in the name of stopping Communism, but I don't know how many democracies that we overthrew to install dictatorships. Now, Israel has helped us on some of this, so you can blame Israel for this as well. However, the US is still the main player. Oh yeah, have you ever heard of the "School of the Americas"? It's a school in Georgia that trains soldiers to go and assassinate certain people (mostly in South America). As a result, God knows how many civilians have been murdered in South America. We've also done stuff in Asia, but I don't understand the details of what that is. Anyway, the idea that our supporting Israel is the sole thing that caused 911 is way off base. That's just something portrayed by some "pro-Israelis" and "pro-Palestinians" alike for their own political purposes.

[tinnypriv]

4. Yeah I read this before it appeared in the Ha'aretz supplement

More "Judeonazi" style rantings.

And before anybody hits alert, thats a quote from a respected orthodox professor in Israel (since dead).

Even debating this sort of thing from Morris (otherwise a decent historian) would add a veneer of legitimacy the views he espouses.

The equivalent would be debating the plans of the Nazis, pre-Holocaust. I don't see any point going into that gutter, FWIW.

[GabysPoppy]

41. Then why did you find it important to cite the quote?

[Jackie97]

12. That's sick, but I need to point out something.

"In 1928, the chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Frederick Kisch, told Weizmann he had "always been hoping and waiting for" a solution of "the racial problem of Palestine" by way of a transfer of its Arabs to Mesopotamia."

Notice that "by way of a transfer" is not in quotation marks.

"And, in 1930, he wrote that "it should not be impossible to come to an arrangement with Faisal by which he would take the initiative in offering good openings for Arab immigrants...There can be no conceivable hardship for Palestinian Arabs - a nomadic and semi-nomadic people - to move to another Arab country where there are better opportunities for an agricultural life.'"

Nowhere in this comment does he mention forced transfer. His idea is racist, but it's still not sounding like he is advocating a forced transfer.

But Morris is sick.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Violet_Crumble]

20. I see. So it would have been completely voluntary?

Does make me wonder why anyone thinks that all those Palestinians would have upped and moved somewhere else. Why would an entire population agree to up and move voluntarily because suddenly they're not wanted there because they're not a certain ethnic group? Why would the Zionists of the time be talking about voluntary transfer when they were well aware that the people they wanted to get rid of wouldn't agree to it? The knowledge that a transfer would be a forced one did trouble some of them, and of course they would have preferred any transfer to be voluntary, but many were of the opinion that it had to be done, whether voluntarily or forced...

One of the recommendations of the Peel Commission was partition and transfer of populations, and if the populations didn't want to move, the British would force them to. Ben-Gurion even said: 'With compulsory transfer we have a vast area ...I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral about it.' (page 144 of Righteous Victims by Benny Morris)

And speaking of Morris. I don't think he's sick at all. What he's said is shocking and racist, but he himself isn't sick...

Violet...

[Jackie97]

34. I guess what set me off....

was the fact that author couldn't directly quote certain things, but let them out of quotation marks.

From the paragraph that I was pointing out, it sounds like the person talking either thought or lied about the idea of the Palestinians being a semi-nomadic people (meaning that they don't have a home, and that they move around). That would have been the logic behind why the Palestinians would supposedly leave on their own (which was of course bull).

About the Ben-Gurion quote, what was Morris quoting? Ben-Gurion is also known for supposedly saying that if he could save all of the German Jews in Germany by having them sent to England or to save only half of them by having them come to Palestine, then he would prefer the later. Oddly enough, there's *never* a direct source for that. He supposedly said that to a reporter or something, but nobody can ever say what news source that was. I guess I need to try to find the book myself and look it up, or google it. Thanks for giving me the page number and the book title. That will make it easier.

I'm not saying that Ben-Gurion or certain others were good guys. I'm sure that they were not. I'm just noticing odd things about certain quotes supposedly said by certain people such as the fact that the person giving the information can't directly quote the person, but puts it outside of quotation marks and that people don't seem to know where Ben-Gurion and certain others supposedly said stuff.

[Jackie97]

35. Okay.

I found the information that I wanted on Ben-Gurion and that quote that you gave me. Thanks.

[Gimel]

26. Drawing conclusions

Those who see an orchestrated campaign in Morris's conclusions also apparently scan the personal letters of such leaders as Ben Gurion try to find phrases to highlight here and there, and thereby fabricating the "orchestrated campaign". If their diligence were not so corrupt it would be funny.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian NGO, MIFTAH, chaired by Hanan Ashrawi recently published quotes of historic significance by Zionist and Israeli politicians. One quote is from a letter Ben Gurion wrote to his son in 1937, well before the UN's partition plan of Palestine.

He says: "A partial Jewish state is not the end, but only the beginning. I am certain that we cannot be prevented from settling in the other parts of the country and the region."

From the posted article from the UAE paper.

This statement is not damning unless you think that Jews should be ethnically cleansed from the area. The "ALL OURS" attitude persists.

[bluesoul]

27. You don't find this

"I am certain that we cannot be prevented from settling in the other parts of the country and the region." troubling?!?

These are extremist views. Do you know what REGION means?

[Gimel]

28. Of course

And it is not necessarily a comment meaning that Israel would expand it's boarders. Can Canadians settle in the US or Mexico if they wish? Can the French emigrate to Spain or vise versa? Hundreds of thousands of Jews were ethnically cleansed from the region. Do you know what that means?

[bluesoul]

29. I know what that means

But i have a problem with ANY ethnic cleansing or "transfer" as some like to sugar coat the term. Including the "transfer" of Palestinians...

[Gimel]

31. Genocide

It can happen to people on their own land as well.

[Jackie97]

40. Continuing....

Ben-Gurion specifically said that he would be for transferring the Palestinians, which is ethnic cleansing. Do you not have a problem with this?