The people of Israel voted Hamas

[bemildred]

In the elections for the 18th Knesset, the people of Israel also determined the future of the Palestinian leadership. The scenario that Mahmoud Abbas and his diplomatic platform will survive and remain viable vis-a-vis Benjamin Netanyahu's government, much like Yasser Arafat in 1996, is highly unlikely. An absence of a diplomatic process, and the expected strengthening of Hamas as a result, will lead to Fatah's abandonment of the diplomatic arena and its linkage with, or replacement by, Hamas.

Arafat was forced to watch Netanyahu, who saw "the PLO state" as an existential danger, put together a right-wing government. The Western Wall Tunnel episode, American pressure, the temporary war against terror, and support of the diplomatic process from a majority of the public yielded few diplomatic fruits - the Hebron Agreement and the Wye River Memorandum - yet kept the process going. The PLO did not lose its superiority to Hamas even while Netanyahu canceled negotiations on a final-status agreement, reduced the scope of Israeli withdrawals as stipulated by the interim agreement, and enabled the doubling of the Israeli population in the territories.

Abbas survived during the Olmert government's term due to the support of moderate Arab states and most of the international community, American aid, and the Israel Defense Forces' presence in the West Bank. A Netanyahu government is tantamount to compounding Abbas' predicament: an Israeli refusal to discuss the Arab initiative; the absence of a binding document in the wake of the Annapolis process; Hamas control of Gaza, which is gaining more legitimacy following Operation Cast Lead; a strengthening of "the Iranian camp;" a limping economy; and a further increase in the number of settlers. If Netanyahu overcomes American pressure and the ostracism of Europe and the Arab states, he will have to carry out the "legacy" of Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak. If Avigdor Lieberman succeeds in limiting the High Court of Justice on security matters, Netanyahu could complete the construction of the security fence along a route that will carve up the West Bank. He could fulfill the National Union's demand to "launder" the outposts in the spirit of the agreements Barak negotiated with the settlers. He will issue tenders for the building of settlements west of the fence, and the troika of leaders who sanctified the fence route as the future border will not be able to utter a sound from the opposition. The simmering tensions in the West Bank will serve as a pretext for Netanyahu to maintain the hundreds of checkpoints that have strangled the Palestinian economy, and Barak can only keep mum.

The response to the Israeli elections was the acceleration of talks between Hamas and Fatah, with Egypt's support, all toward the goal of creating a Palestinian entity to cope with Israel's expected abandonment of the Annapolis process and Lieberman's demand to topple Hamas. This is tantamount to a violation of the renewed cease-fire, if one is attained. If the Palestinian reconciliation process bears fruit, Hamas will renounce its declared goal of establishing a new PLO and will join the existing one, a process that will encourage calls to reintroduce the principle of "resistance" into the PLO platform and condition its adherence to existing agreements on Israel's abiding by those same agreements.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1067572.html

[geek tragedy]

1. The people of Israel voted to kill the two-state solution.

So, why the hell should the Palestinian authorities recognize Israel?

[Idealism]

2. This is the truth many people wish to ignore.

If Israel did not take adopt such hard-line methods of dealing with the Palestinians, Hamas would not have come to power in the first place. If they didn't fund Hamas while suppressing PLO demonstrations and community outreach, Hamas would not be in control of Gaza today. If if if...

[Taitertots]

3. If if if...

If the arab nations would have accepted the original two state solution...

[Idealism]

6. Looking back, I wish they would have

At the time, I would've said no as well. I can't blame them for not wanting to be kicked off their land.

[Taitertots]

20. I wish they would have also

The people who didn't accept it were not the people leaving Israel. The people who should have accepted it were the arab nations around Israel. They were kicking just as many jews off arab land as jews pushed arabs out of Israel. Starting the war with Israel as much to continue Islamic inspired genocide against the jews in the "holy land" as to stop the expulsion of arabs.

[Idealism]

23. No, it was an attempt to take back what was stolen

Like I said, I cannot say I blame them for those actions.

[Taitertots]

24. Stolen...

The palestinian exodus takes place mostly after the start of Islamic aggression against Israel. How could they be attempting to take back what hadn't been taken yet?


What about the jews forced from arab lands into Israel and attacked without provocation?

[Idealism]

30. It amazes me that you still think that Israel is the innocent victim here.

But then again, given your indifference to the plight of the Palestinians, why should I be surprised?

[Taitertots]

31. So you have nothing to add?

So how could it be a reaction to something being stolen when the aggression preceded the exodus?

[Idealism]

32. The war happened when?

After nubka

[aranthus]

37. Started before the Nakhba

The Palestinians began attacking the Jews in December, 1947. The Nakhba occurred in 1948, during the war that the Palestinians started, and because of that war. The war was no more about "stolen land" than the bombing of Pearl Harbor was about Hiroshima. You've reversed cause and effect.

[Taitertots]

40. The war started when?

The war started well before the vast majority of Palestinians left. With the exodus beginning as civil war began in 1947 and extending throughout the 1948 war of Islamic aggression.

So how could something be a reaction to stolen land, when the vast majority had not even left yet.

The arab nations expelled just as many jews as Palestinians left Israel. Does Israel have the continued justification for war and terrorism, you seem to believe Palestine has?

[Shaktimaan]

51. very wrong.

it was the war that caused the nakba. most palestinians fled because there was a war going on... not because the israelis expelled them.

the war can be looked at in more than a single act. the beginning was essentially a civil war whereby the palestinians attacked the jews directly after the UN vote on partition. the other arab states became involved following israel's declaration of independence. it was this initial fighting between the palestinians and jews that led to the siege of jerusalem by arabs and subsequently acts like deir yassin, which then accelerated the palestinians' departure.

[Ken Burch]

52. That happened in response to the expulsion of the Palestinians

And it was a truly stupid choice on the part of the "Arab leaders", since the Mizrahim were NOT Zionist and had had no desire whatsoever to leave their homes and move to what became Israel. They weren't responsible for what the Haganah and the Irgun and the Palmach and Lehi did.

And the Palestinians weren't responsible for the expulsion of the Mizrahim or any of the other choices that ultra-apologists for Israeli aggression cite, having no power over anything in the entire situation.
The Palestinians didn't expel indigenous Jews from the West Bank or bar access to Jewish holy sites. Jordan did that. The Palestinians didn't expel indigenous Jews from Gaza. Egypt did that. The last thing the Palestinians would have wanted in those years was to give the Israelis REASONS to inflict collective punishment.

You can't blame Palestinians for the acts of non-Palestinians, anymore than you can cite the crimes of European antisemites to justify expelling Palestinians from their homes and wiping hundreds of Palestinian towns off the map.

The Palestinians never did anything that justified the attempt to erase their presence and their history from the land of Palestine.

[shira]

54. what about Palestinian leadership of that time period

like the Grand Mufti, who had close ties to Hitler and actually had a hand in countless Jewish deaths even as far back as the 1929 Hebron riots?

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php

[Ken Burch]

55. Haj Amin Al-Husanyi, the "Grand Mufti" (the Brits gave him that title, all his predecessors had just

been "the Mufti"), was appointed to his position in defiance of the will of the Palestinian Muslim population(the Mufti was a leader in the Palestinian Muslim religious community, and not intrinsically a political leader). In the vote they had to name their preference, the Palestinians themselves actually voted for a member of the moderate Nashibibi family, but Herbert Samuel, the British colonial official in charge of the Mandate, imposed Al-Husanyi, who'd finished a weak fourth in the balloting.

So the Palestinians aren't even responsible for him, and Hitler just considered him a useful, if mainly irrelevant idiot.

(all of the above is from the book "One Palestine, Complete", by Tom Segev. I strongly recommend you read it.)

Al-Husanyi's role does not implicate the Palestinians in the crimes of the Third Reich.

Only Europeans are implicated in that, and only Europeans should have had to suffer for it.

There were pro-Nazi types and factions on every continent and in every country. Al-Husanyi, loathesome and destructive as he was, is not worse than any of the pro-Nazi Latin American dictatorships that tried to hide their crime by presenting themselves as "more pro-Israel than thou."

Besides, Hitler indicated that, if the State of Israel HAD existed during World War II, he'd have simply carpetbombed the place. That's what Schickegruber meant when he said "it would be easier if they were all in one place".

The Zionist movement didn't protect much of anyone from the Holocaust, shira. The way to defeat antisemitism is to wage a global crusade against all bigotry and all forms of injustice, including economic exploitation, not to demand that one 19th Century-style nationalist movement be given unquestioning support.

Zionism(if we define it as the territorial expansion fetish the Israeli has engage in since 1967)hasn't done the world's Jewish communities much good at all, if it's done them any good. A global struggle for justice would do much more for them. As an admirer of Jewish culture, literature, morality and spirituality, I hope more people see that.

[eyl]

56. Ummm....no

The initial fighting was begun by the Palestinians. In the Weset Bank, many of the "Jordanian" troops who participated in expelling the local Jews were in fact local Palestinian auxilleries. The attacks and sieges of many of those communities began before Jordan entered the war.

[Taitertots]

25. Double post

[Ken Burch]

12. In 1948, the Israelis didn't really accept it either.

It's time to admit that the "Israel is the innocent victim" meme was always bogus. That state has as much blood on its hands as the "Arab rejectionists" and has an obligation to admit that most of those it drove away in '48 had done nothing to deserve expulsion.

[aranthus]

19. That's a lie,

Actually several lies. Israel did accept the partition plan. What it did not accept was that the Arabs could attack Jews with impunity. Also, most of the refugees were not "driven away" by the Israelis. They ran from the fighting caused by their leaders. If you've got any proof of your statements I'd really like to see it.

[shira]

28. Jews did a crummy job kicking Arabs out of the 1948 borders, didn't they?

That is, if ejecting Arabs from within the green line was the goal.

[shira]

4. yeah, the Gaza pullout 3 years ago was hardline Israeli policy that brought in Hamas

End of occupation and settlements, ethnic cleansing of all Jews in Gaza. Led directly to Hamas.

:eyes:

What's next? Disengagement from the W.Bank....bringing in worse than Hamas? And of course, such hardline policy would be Israel's fault too.

[Idealism]

5. Hows the growth of settlers in the West Bank been since then, shira?

It was nice how they took away a few settlements in one area, and massively expanded them in another, more fertile one

I guess they tried! :eyes:

[ohio2007]

8. Will the west bank duplicate the "destroy all property" policy of Hamas if Israel removed its people

from the west bank?

Maybe Bill Gates has some info of what happened if you missed the unilateral abandonment.

Then you may know why Arafat was so set against such a unilateral move.


expand the dysfunctional sh!thole. I doubt those Palestinians living in the West bank will want that to happen.

btw
Why so few reports of West Bankers demanding Israel pull out?

oh

Israeli censorship



wouldn't want that now would we

[Idealism]

9. Can you clean that up a bit?

It isn't all that coherent.

[shira]

16. you're moving the goalposts

you say Hamas was elected due to hardline Israeli policy.

But they were elected just months after the Gaza pullout and the "Crossings" agreement negotiated with the PA just weeks before the election.

You're clearly wrong.

If only Gaza stopped firing rockets after summer 2005 and pretended for 1-2 years to run a peaceful state (under a real 1-2 year ceasefire - maybe 1 rocket a month average) think of the enormous pressure against Israel to unilaterally withdraw from the W.Bank.

[Idealism]

17. Gaza was being called an "open-air prison" before Hamas was elected.

Nice try, though.

Gaza and the West Bank are two entirely different entities, you are quick to point out. It is odd how only one area resists through brutality, yet both are being subjugated and oppressed, no?

You brought up the settlers first, shira, how did I move the goalposts?

[shira]

27. so the Gaza disengagement didn't count for anything, right?

Hamas may as well have been elected had Israel never attempted the 2005 pullout. In fact, they may as well have never stopped occupation and settlements, right? That counts for nothing?

The "Crossings" agreement negotiated with the PA was far from an "open air prison".

Let me ask you, had Gaza been managed peacefully, don't you think Israel would be under enormous pressure to hand over the W.Bank in the same manner?

[Idealism]

29. The "Crossings" agreement was a nice symbolic gesture

that meant nothing. Similar to the Wye River agreement, it ultimately did not come to be.

No, because Israel has the trump card of "We won't (openly) negotiate with terrorists." The West Bank is a different manner, under different management, who are being oppressed in a different way. It is a hard thing to tell a people: either face malnourishment and bombing living in Gaza or face having your land that you live on stolen and live under military law in the West Bank. Which is better?

[shira]

35. you're lost......the Crossings Agreement meant nothing?

well, it did mean nothing once Hamas was elected and decided to renege on all past PA agreements, if that's what you meant. Hamas scrapped the Crossings Agreement. That's not Israel's fault.

Had Hamas not been elected, the PA under Fatah could have controlled Rafah for an extended period of time.

No "open air prison".

[Idealism]

36. No, the Rafah crossin was never handed over in the first place.

This happened prior to "Hamas scrapping it."

I suppose the Wye River agreement isn't Bibi's fault either, but he sure didn't do jack shit to follow through with it after the Intifada was quelled.

The prison was in place before Hamas was.

http://www.alternet.org/audits/116855/?page=3

[shira]

44. wrong again

Following implementation of the disengagement plan, the crossing remained closed for about three months and was opened for the first time on 25 November 2005. From then until the abduction of Cpl. Shalit, on 25 June 2006, almost 280,000 persons crossed, an average of about 1,318 a day. From 25 June-12 December 2006, the crossing was open only 24 of the 168 days on which it was scheduled to be open, and an approximate average of only 310 persons crossed daily.

http://www.btselem.org/english/Gaza_Strip/Rafah_Crossing.asp

[Ken Burch]

13. The Gaza pullout was NOT a concession.

The Israeli government pointlessly insulted the PA by refusing to consult or negotiate with them on the pullout process. Sharon was making it clear at the time was that his intention was for Gaza to be ALL that the Palestinian people got for a state, and that the immoral and completely unjustified West Bank settlement project would go on.

It was never reasonable to expect Palestinians to take the Gaza withdrawal as a good faith act. It was a "take it or leave it" act, designed to put the Palestinian leadership in its place and to crush hope for a real Palestinian state.

There was no good reason to build any more West Bank settlements after that, and nobody who supports the construction of more of those settlements has any moral right to claim that she or he is for peace.

[shira]

15. please

The "Crossings" agreement negotiated with the PA just months after the Gaza pullout showed Israeli sincerity and gave the PA control of the Rafah crossing. Greenhouses and LOTS of foreign $$$ was invested so that Palestinians could make a go of Gaza. If the PA did anything worthwhile with Gaza and showed they were interested in making a real go of it, the pressure on Israel to withdraw from the W.Bank would have been ENORMOUS.

Israel put a LOT of money and effort into ethnically cleansing Gaza of all Jews. That was real end to occupation and settlements, and as we can see it made no difference whatsoever.

Of course it makes no difference to you that it happpened at all. The way you describe it, Israel may as well have just kept on with the occupation and settlements. It's also likely that this latest Gaza war wouldn't have happened had there been no disengagement 3 years ago.

Do you wish there had been no disengagement at all?

[Ken Burch]

18. You say "ethnically cleansing Jews" as if it were bigotry to pull the settlers out.

For the nine hundred millionth time, the objection to the settlements was NEVER that the settlers were Jewish. It was that the settlers were taking land the Palestinians had lived on for centuries or in some cases millenia. The Palestinians would have had the exact same reaction if anyone else had come in and acted towards them as the settlers did. Please stop repeating the absurd claim that this was about European-style antisemitism. If the Ottoman had treated the Palestinians like the Israelis did, there'd have been suicide bombers in Istanbul. You can't force 750,000 people to leave and then complain when their countrywomen and countrymen won't make peace with you. And that is precisely what Israel has done and has expected. Can't you see how arrogant that country's leaders have been about this?

The Gaza disengagement wasn't genuine, because it didn't give the Palestinians sovereignty over Gaza, but made Gaza the only place in the world where the government in power there did not control its own borders, the only place where outside countries forbade people to come in to and leave Gaza. There's no other place on the planet where THAT happens, shira. Plus there was also the economic blockade that Israel has enforced for no good reason, since it wasn't possible for the rank-and-file Gazan population to have stopped Hamas from firing the rockets even if they'd wanted to.

It's not that I wish that there'd been no disengagement. What I wish was that there was also complete disengagement in the West Bank and the removal of all settlements there. What I wish is that collective punishment of Palestinians would end. And I wish that the Israeli government would finally say "we're sorry for likening you guys to Nazis when you never were and we're sorry for implying that no one lived in Palestine before 1948, that the centuries of Arab history there didn't matter, that the people didn't exist, that the place was just a dried-up rathole".

That's what I wish. An end to the lies and the unjust demonization of an entire people.

[shira]

26. wrong on 2 counts

Jews also lived in Gaza and the W.Bank for several millenia prior to 1948. That was their land too.

The PA could control its borders after the pullout. Google the "Crossings" agreement signed around November 2005.

[Ken Burch]

33. Well, I would have preferred that the small pre-1948 inidigenous Jewish population have been allowed

to stay, but it's the Israeli government's fault and the fault of the arrogant, hate-driven settlers that they were made to leave. It's another consequence of the obsessive use of the false "Israel is Jewish and Jewish is Israel" meme that the now-permanently right-wing Zionist movement spread. That meme turned the Palestinians against that original Jewish population. That and the overbearing, strutting attitude of the settlers, few of whom came in a spirit of reconciliation or cooperation and many of whom swaggered in with the toxic "this is our place and not yours" attitude that has done so much damage and provoked so much justified Palestinian anger.

This was the chickens of Ben-Gurion and Begin coming home to roost.

Probably return could be negotiated for those who were indigenous eventually, if it were tied to apologies from the Israeli government for the Occupation.

[shira]

34. you're all over the place

Prior to 1948, there were Jews in Gaza and the W.Bank. Not so from 1948-1967. Do you understand that? Jews weren't even allowed to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem for that period of time and those Jews who were in Hebron for thousands of years and who held titles to property there and elsewhere were kicked out. There were no settlers at the time.

Jews never had a goal of ridding the land of Arabs. If not for the 1947-48 war which the Arabs started, no Arabs would have left the area. Most were told to leave by their Arab leadership. The proof is too easy to see. Those Arabs who stayed within the green line were welcomed to stay and they now make up 20% of Israel's population.

[Ken Burch]

38. The myth that "the Arab leadership" told the Palestinians to leave has long been discredited.

For one thing, no one has ever provided a single transcript of any broadcast on any Arab state radio program that told the Palestinians to leave.

You'd have thought some Western intelligence service, all of whom were monitoring Arab radio broadcasts at the time, would have provided such a transcript. In sixty years, none has ever surfaced.

Karl Sabbagh, by contrast, in his book about the history of Palestine, showed that Arab countries actually encouraged the Palestinians to STAY.

And if there was no goal to make Palestine Arabrein, explain Plan Dalet.

My point is this, shira:

There was a great lie at the heart of the Zionist project: the lie that Palestine was "a land without people". If the present-day Israeli government were to admit that it was wrong to spread this lie, wrong to imply that Arabs did not have any real history in Palestine, did not cultivate the land, did nothing to educate themselves, and just showed up on the express bus from Cairo in December of '47(the last is a slight exaggeration of the case, but really not by much)this would make a huge difference.

Palestine had an Arab majority. That majority always had a national conscience and a deep connection to the land. They weren't and AREN'T Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians or any other foreign nationality. They were and are indigenous to Palestine This needs to be admitted.

It also needs to be admitted that for much of the time Palestine had an Arab majority, that majority coexisted more or less peacefully with the indigenous Jewish minority. The hostility that emerged in the 20th Century was NOT European-style antisemitism(and the Palestinians were not the successors to the Romans, the Inquisition, the tsars and Schickelgruber in villainy)was a result of a huge European-based community coming in and acting like the place was theirs and NOT the Palestinians. The arrogance of this on the part of the Zionist leadership(I exempt rank-and-file arrivals and displaced peoples from the charge of arrogance, because they truly did not know what they were walking into) needs to be acknowleged.

The world's Jewish communities have a right to safety. But that never justified displacing another people who had nothing to do with the historic suffering of those communities.

Palestine is home to Jews AND Arabs. The connection both peoples have is equally deep and valid. Thus, much more humility on the part of the Israeli government and a lot of apologies and compensation for the Nakba, the great injustice of 1948, are essential if any sort of a compromise is to be reached.

[shira]

39. not a myth at all

http://www.pmw.org.il/Bulletins_may2008.html#b200508

Now will this make any difference at all with respect to your views?

[Ken Burch]

41. Read Tom Segev. Also read Benny Morris(who you should be able to stand because he degenerated into

a raging anti-Palestinite like you are). They both showed that there was no call from any Arab state radio frequency for Palestinians to leave in order to facilitate a pan-Arab attack on Israel.

And Plan Dalet has been documented as an intentional campaign to drive Palestinians out of their homes through terror. The Deir Yassin massacre, a completely unprovoked slaughter of over 150 Arab civilians(mostly children and the elderly, thus making it comparable to the My Lai massacre the U.S. staged 20 years later)was part of it. There were no Arab combatants in Deir Yassin and everyone in the village was prepared to live in peace with the new state.


I'll be researching the link you sent, but I sincerely doubt its accuracy given what I already scanned.

There's no reason to avoid admitting it: the expulsions were unjustified. And they endangered the inhabitants of the new state, by provoking rage that did not need to be provoked.

[shira]

43. again, EPIC FAIL

Here's another link, quoting Benny Morris too:

http://www.ujc.org/page.aspx?id=121275

It's odd that you accuse me of being a "raging anti-Palestinite". I've noticed that people like yourself who claim to be pro-Palestinian always fail to speak up for the majority of Palestinians who are victims of their own backwards Jihadist leadership. With friends like you who trivialize or completely ignore the suffering they endure under Hamas or Fatah leadership, these Palestinians do not need enemies like Israel. You're fooling noone with your pretend concern for Palestinians. Racist rightwing haters like David Duke and Pat Buchanon also claim to care and be "pro-Palestinian".

[Ken Burch]

45. I don't like Hamas. But you and I both know that Hamas doesn't justify everything

And "the rockets" don't justify everything.

For one thing, the rockets didn't happen out of nowhere. They were a horrible choice, but they were a choice that was taken in response to bad choices the IDF made.

And Hamas would not be in the position it's in now if the Israeli government hadn't spent much of the Nineties humiliating the non-Hamas Palestinian leadership of the day. If one side's leadership does everything the other side demands and gets basically nothing for it, it's just to be expected that that leadership will be discredited in the eyes of those it is supposed to represent and will be replaced. The Israeli government KNEW that the way it treated Arafat and his negotiators, refusing to stop building settlements, taking more and more land, creating more and more obstacles to disengagement from the West Bank, was going to make Fatah look like impotent fools for trying to negotiate.

It really calls into question whether the Israeli leadership actually wanted peace, or simply wanted to buy time while it continued to eat up more and more of the West Bank and created "facts on the ground" that would lead to permanent Israeli control of the West Bank and permanent subjugation of the Palestinian people(who can't go anywhere else, since nowhere else is their home, they being indigenous Palestinians and not "generic Arabs").

By the way, I am going to alert the mods for your thinly veiled implication that I'm an antisemite. That's against DU rules and you know it.

I love the world's Jewish communities and traditions, value the spiritual and ethical traditions of Judaism and have Jewish relatives. Implying that I am an enemy of the Jewish people because I criticize Israeli policies and the moral consequences of the Zionist project(a project you and I both know is not in jeopardy of destruction by any standard)is vile. You should be ashamed to stoop to such a tactic.

If you truly cared about the Israeli people, you would be denouncing the Wall, the blockade of Gaza, and the continued building of what the entire world knows are illegal settlements in the West Bank. You would call for justice for the Palestinian people and an apology for their suffering, because such a call would ultimately be to the good of the Jewish population of Israel, none of whom are protected by Operation Cast Lead, or the settlements, or any of the sickeningly repressive policies the IDF has carried out against the Palestinian people.

Don't call me an antisemite again.

[shira]

47. you were wrong about Arab leadership not calling on Palestinians to leave in 1948

so like I expected, this huge blow to your view on all that is I/P doesn't even make a dent in your opinion. You even think the PA under Arafat did all it could but got nothing out of it. What did they do to stop inciting calls to genocide and terrorist actions? They did nothing and claimed in a bullshit shell game that other splinter groups were attacking Israel, not them.

And now you have the nerve to report me after first accusing me of being a "raving anti-Palestinite"?

We're done.

[Ken Burch]

48. Palestinian Media Watch is an Israeli propaganda site

It was given its name in an attempt to confuse people that might be looking for the Palestine Media Watch site.

Palestinian Media Watch is devoted to stoking insane anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rage.

On this issue, it's about as credible as the Yisroel Beitenyu homepage.

[Mosby]

42. The "Great Lie" is a MYTH

Not surprised you bring it up though, since it's a key piece of the Palestinian narrative.

"A land without a people for a people without a land" is one of the most oft-cited phrases in the literature of Zionism—and perhaps also the most problematic. Anti-Zionists cite the phrase as a perfect encapsulation of the fundamental injustice of Zionism: that early Zionists believed Palestine was uninhabited,<1> that they denied—and continue to reject—the existence of a distinct Palestinian culture,<2> and even as evidence that Zionists always planned on an ethnic cleansing of the Arab population.<3> Such assertions are without basis in fact: They both deny awareness on the part of early Zionists of the presence of Arabs in Palestine and exaggerate the coalescence of a Palestinian national identity, which in reality only developed in reaction to Zionist immigration.<4> Nor is it true, as many anti-Zionists still assert, that early Zionists widely employed the phrase.

http://www.meforum.org/1877/a-land-without-a-people-for-a-people-without

[Ken Burch]

49. This lie endangered Palestinians AND Jews.

It caused the expulsion of the Palestinians in '48, which caused the equally unjust retaliatory expulsion of the Mizrahim(North African Jews)from Arab countries, a particularly stupid act since the Mizrahim had nothing to do with what the Haganah, the Palmach and the Irgun had done and few of them even considered themselves Zionists(they did embrace that cause after the expulsions because, unlike the Askenazim, they had nowhere to go if Israel were to be defeated).

And it endangered those who arrived in Israel from the displaced persons' camps of Europe, all of whom were told they were coming to an empty land and then, after having suffered through a genocidal war, found themselves forced to take up arms in ANOTHER war, a war for a cause few of them had supported prior to 1945.

A huge apology to all these groups is owed by the Zionist movement, and by the gentile European and North American countries who enabled that movement because they didn't want Jews in THEIR countries.

[Ken Burch]

46. It was King Abdullah who expelled the indigenous Jewish population in the West Bank,

NOT THE PALESTINIANS. You have no right to blame the victims of the Nakba for that.

BTW, while I agree that the Palestinians shouldn't have been kept in the camps, it goes without saying that they would have been just as passionate and militant about returning to their homes if they'd been relocated to Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon or Syria, or anyplace else.

Exile doesn't make people give up on return. An Israeli shoudl recognize that more clearly than anyone else.

It's time to admit it:

Those expelled in 1948 had just as deep a connection to Palestine as the Jews did. And just as much right to stay.

If Ben-Gurion and Begin and the rest had been willing to accept a non-sectarian democratic state, the displaced of Europe would have been much safer than they ever were under the state that was created instead. This could have been handled through compromise and negotiation, and through real compensation and real equality. It never had to be a takeover by one group and the dispersal of another.
And it was never just to compare the resistance the Palestinians staged, a resistance that would have been equally fierce no matter who was trying to drive them out, even other Arabs, to Nazism.
The Palestinians weren't evil.

[ohio2007]

7. Israel and Iran both funded Hamas? gotta link to that $ knesset connection?

The People of Gaza voted for change. Arafats "do nothing" party was replaced.

Will Hamas allow free and open elections in the strip ?

(No graphic video of Hamas beating down Palestians allowed on the board)

[Ken Burch]

14. You still sound like you're supporting and mocking Hamas and all other Palestinians at the same time

(and are you as indignant about bans on footage of the IDF persecuting Gazans as you are about "Hamas beating down Palestians(whoever the heck "Palestians" are)"?

[ohio2007]

21. I mock your freedom fighters for being thugs What about the Israel funds Hamas link you promised

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e42_1231416294

Hamas is scum you can buy into their bullshit but they are a cancer to the hearts and minds of "The Palestinian" public.

I bet you wish Israel never built that wall. Hamas has a tough time blowing up Israeli children in public places ever since they went up :eyes:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1204546422275&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

but but I know,
Israel regularly targets palestinian children
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTGbP55HGi8&feature=related

Burch, why do you suffer from cranium rectumitus ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTu-AUE9ycs&NR=1

forgetaboutit
You'll never accept that your heroes are brain dead

eom

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1d6_1234539823

[Ken Burch]

22. Hamas are not MY heroes.

But you have to accept that they didn't gain the support they now hold for no reason. In the Nineties, the Palestinians did everything the Israeli government demanded and the settlements kept being built, the land kept being stolen, and the Fatah-led PA kept being treated like a junior rather than equal partner.

The way to stop Hamas is to stop trying to prevent the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Very likely

If Israel did not adopt such hard-line methods of dealing with the Palestinians, Hamas probably *wouldn't* have come to power, or at any rate their position would probably be untenable by now.

Also - if Hamas and IJ did not threaten Israeli civilians, it's very likely that Netanyahu wouldn't be on the brink of regaining power.

Hawkish right-wing actions on one side breed hawkish right-wing actions on the other. Someone will have to break the cycle!

[Idealism]

11. Very true.

I suppose I hold Israel more to account simply because they have the power to change both landscapes peacefully, whereas Palestinians, no matter what they try to do, can only influence Israel through violence (and obviously, that isn't a good influence when it bears such fruits as Bibi).

[iconicgnom]

50. A very good article.

[bemildred]

53. Well, I think Abbas is toast.

But he has been toast for a while now. Not that he isn't a nice person or anything, but politically he is toast, nobody will vote for him, if they ever allow another vote.