My published LTTE in The Day: Series On Israel Offered A Dose Of The Truth

[Larkspur]

It was published today!

http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=6E83DE79-D887-484F-91D8-25003E78195E

“I am astounded The Day would print such one-sided articles without any balance,” wrote Rabbi Carl Astor. (“Day's series on Israel slanted and biased,” April 26.)

Contrary to Rabbi Astor, I found The Day's series on the Israeli trip by the Old Lyme group to be in sync with what my world-traveling, paternal aunt had told me. After taking her last trip to Israel in 1985, my then-78-year-old aunt visited me in Connecticut. When I asked her how her trip to Israel was, the first words out of her mouth were, “It's horrible how the Israelis treat the Palestinians!” That was over a year away from the first intifada.

My late aunt was a conservative Catholic and a moderate Democrat. For her to make that bold statement, conditions must have really been bad for the Palestinians she met.

It's laughable that Rabbi Astor complains about the few “one-sided” articles in The Day that criticize Israel. Unlike Rabbi Astor, Alison Weir, founder and executive director of If Americans Knew, spent two years researching The New York Times' coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her report, “New York Times Distortion Up Close and Personal,” is at www.ifamericansknew.org/media/nyt-misrep.html.
Ms. Weir “found that in 2004, at a time when eight Israeli children and 176 Palestinian children were killed — a ratio of 1 to 22 — Times headlines and lead paragraphs reported on Israeli children's deaths at a rate almost seven times greater than Palestinian children's deaths.”

That is bias.

I wonder how much that pro-Israeli bias has clouded American minds to the truth about Israel and Palestine. The Day's series on the Old Lyme group's trip to Israel was a breath of truth compared to what Americans are normally fed about Israel by the mainstream media.

Here's The Day's Series I and the Rabbi were referring to -- The Holy Landhttp://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/spreports.aspx?srs=The+Holy+Land|4/18/2005|77133987

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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

[Larkspur]

4. When my aunt, who died in 1999, was in Israel in 1985, there were no

suicide bombers.

And Israel kills 5 times more Palestinian children than Palestinian suicide bombers do. Overall, Israel kills 3 times more Palestinians than suicide bombers do Israelis. Israel is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

What I liked about The Day series was that they showed the Palestinians as human beings, not monsters, which is how AIPAC wants them displayed.

And for your information, I was friends with a Palestinian woman during my freshman year in college circa 1979-1980. Contrary to some of the Palestinians that the Old Lyme Congregational Church met, my Palestinian friend supported violence against Israelis because in her view, the Israelis drove off her family and people from their land and Palestinians had a right to fight back. She also said that Israel had no legitamate right to Palestinian lands. The Bible was not a land deed to Palestine. The state of Israel should have been created on German soil, because it was the Germans, not the Palestinians, who perpetrated the Jewish Holocaust. She felt that the Palestinians were being setup as scapegoats for what Europeans did to the Jews.

[DemBoom]

5. Checker anyone?

"And Israel kills 5 times more Palestinian children than Palestinian suicide bombers do. Overall, Israel kills 3 times more Palestinians than suicide bombers do Israelis. Israel is a wolf in sheep's clothing."

It's not a game of checkers. Israel has the capability to kill thousands more, but doesn't. (jordan slaughtered more palestinians in less then a month then those killed by Israelis during the 60 years of war) Suicide bombers target civilians, women and children, in a slow motion genocide.

If the palestinians laid down their weapons today, there'd be peace tomorrow. If the Israelis laid down their weapons today, they'd all be dead tomorrow.

[Larkspur]

8. Israel is playing the "ethnic cleansing game" and it's the same hideous

strategy that the US government used against the Native Americans. Ironically, that US pogrom inspired Adolf Hitler's pogrom against the Jews and other non-German people.

[Jim Sagle]

9. Only on Opposite Day. On every other day, Palestinian population is

rising, not falling.

[Violet_Crumble]

23. That's been explained to you before, Jim...

I think it was either the Magistrate or Jack Rabbit who explained to you that the population rate is no indication of whether or not ethnic cleansing is being carried out. If you promise to read what they said to you back then, I'll go and dig it out of the archives for you...

Violet...

[Jim Sagle]

27. Whoever "explained it to" me was explaining that 2+2 = 5.

No it isn't. Your "appeal to authority" is therefore rejected as a logical fallacy.

[Violet_Crumble]

30. Then why doesn't yr rule apply to Israelis?

And it was no "appeal to authority'. It was telling you that it had already been explained to you in the past that population growth or decline are not an indication as to whether ethnic cleansing is happening. Explain with something a bit more convincing than 'because I say so!!!' why it does have a bearing on it. And also why you have in the past called suicide bombers 'genocide bombers' when the Israeli population rate is in the positives? Or doesn't it apply to Israel?

Violet...

[Jim Sagle]

34. I'm not saying "because I say so", I'm saying "by any honest definition."

By any honest definition, ethnic cleansing leads to population reduction. If you don't agree, feel free to tell me why.

If you're right, it shouldn't be hard.

[Violet_Crumble]

38. But yr definition isn't 'any honest definition'...

Darranar gave you an example of where carrying out ethnic cleansing would have no effect on the population numbers and you dismissed it with a rather feeble and pathetic excuse that yr definition only applies to Israelis...

Have you bothered to look at the definition of ethnic cleansing? If yr into making up yr own definition of these terms, just let me know and we'll leave it at that. I might even have a bit of fun and start making up my own definition of things...

Violet...

[Jim Sagle]

53. My definition applies to any people threatened with extermination.

Israel is under that threat, America isn't. Get it?

[Violet_Crumble]

64. Yr definition is wrong...

Get it? It's really simple, Jim. You don't get to make up definitions of terms and expect anyone to give a toss about *yr* definition...

I've already posted a good definition that makes it clear that extermination, or threats of, does not define ethnic cleansing. I'll post it again in the hope that you might read it...

It is the present writer's view that ethnic cleansing is a well-defined policy of a particular group of persons to systematically eliminate another group from a given territory on the basis of religious, ethnic or national origin. Such a policy involves violence and is very often connected with military operations. It is to be achieved by all possible means, from discrimination to extermination, and entails violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

and

E) Ethnic cleansing has different forms, ranging from simple administrative and economic discrimination to the extermination of a target group. Differences of forms, methods and targets of ethnic cleansing seem to depend primarily on the means at the disposal of different parties87 and the global character of their projects.88

http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol5/No3/art3-02.html

Israel's not under any threat of extermination. The only threat Israel faces is whether it can remain a democracy and continue to carry out a defacto annexation of territory that doesn't belong to it...


Violet...

[Jim Sagle]

72. I made nothing up. 2 + 2 = 4, Vi - it's that's simple.

[Darranar]

36. So, say...

if the US invaded Mexico and removed all Mexicans from all territory within fifty miles of the border, but the Mexican birthrate remained high enough that the population still increased despite the resulting deaths, that act wouldn't be ethnic cleansing?

[Jim Sagle]

37. Yes it would. And yes, you've exposed the flaw in my argument.

BUT...the analogy just doesn't hold. America doesn't have an angry horde milling just outside its borders threatening to exterminate every last American...a horde greatly outnumbering us.

Israel does.

Historical context and motive matter.

[Violet_Crumble]

40. Jim, ethnic cleansing can happen without threats of extermination...

btw, Israel also doesn't have angry hordes milling just outside its borders threatening to exterminate every last Israeli - that sort of stuff is chickenshitbullshit...

Ethnic cleansing doesn't need a precendent or a previous threat for it to still be ethnic cleansing..

Here's a useful definition of ethnic cleansing for you:

It is the present writer's view that ethnic cleansing is a well-defined policy of a particular group of persons to systematically eliminate another group from a given territory on the basis of religious, ethnic or national origin. Such a policy involves violence and is very often connected with military operations. It is to be achieved by all possible means, from discrimination to extermination, and entails violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

and

E) Ethnic cleansing has different forms, ranging from simple administrative and economic discrimination to the extermination of a target group. Differences of forms, methods and targets of ethnic cleansing seem to depend primarily on the means at the disposal of different parties87 and the global character of their projects.88

http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol5/No3/art3-02.html

And there are plenty of examples of what is undoubtedly ethnic cleansing where there were no previous threats of extermination, and the population rate didn't fall...

Violet...

[Jim Sagle]

60. Self-defense isn't ethnic cleansing. You can dance around that all you

want, but it's still true.

[Darranar]

41. But that isn't the point. Ethnic cleansing can occur...

even when that is present.

In fact, I would say it is probably more likely to happen that way.

Which is not to say that your analysis of the situation is right.

[Jim Sagle]

61. Self-defense isn't ethnic cleansing. You can dance around that all you

want, just as Vi does, but it just isn't.

[Violet_Crumble]

26. Why doesn't that apply to the Israeli population?

After all, in the past you've referred to suicide bombers as 'genocide bombers'...

Violet...

[Jim Sagle]

28. Good name for them - even if it offends yer "sensibilities."

[Violet_Crumble]

31. Why is it a good name?

Sheez, you just said that there was no ethnic cleansing of Palestinians because of a positive population growth rate, yet despite there being population growth in Israel, you still insist that's genocide. There's absolutely no logic at all to what yr trying to say, Jimbo. Yr trying to use different standards on the different people based on nothing more than who you think are the Good Guys and the Evil Guys...

Violet...

[Jim Sagle]

33. I'm on my side. I plead guilty to that.

:beer:

Besides, I never used the term myself. But it fits their intentions if not their capabilities.

[Violet_Crumble]

39. Yes, you did use that term...

I found it when I was going back through the archives to locate the post I was talking about. I'll go grab the link to you using the term 'genocide bombers' if you deny using it..

Here's why yr attempt to defend that abuse of the term genocide is wrong. Genocide against the Palestinian people would fit the intentions of some Israelis, and some Palestinians have been murdered by them. Using yr 'logic' that is also genocide, because it fits their intentions if not their capabilities. And personally I think any excuse trotted out that it applies to Israelis but not Palestinians is verging on being a bigoted point of view...

Violet...

[Jim Sagle]

54. Wrong!!!!!!!!!

Genocide against the Palestinian people would fit the intentions of some Israelis,"

But not many. Therefore it's your logic, not mine. Bbbbbzzzzztt!!!!!!

[Violet_Crumble]

65. Therefore yr also wrong!!!!!!!!

"But not many. Therefore it's your logic, not mine. Bbbbbzzzzztt!!!!!!"

How is it my logic, Jim?? I'm showing you how selective and inconsistent yr argument is, not arguing that anything more than the radical fringe of Israel advocate genocide against Palestinians. Unless yr saying that genocide against Israelis would fit the intention of many Palestinians (an nasty generalising sort of attitude I hope I would be safe in assuming would be unwelcome at DU), then it's also incorrect to use that term in regard to Israelis. Got it? Good...

Violet...

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

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

[Englander]

12. !!!!!

I think that site (Masada2000)is the most
venomous,& worst designed,I've ever seen.

And topped with a quote from Kahane,no less.

Found via Google;

"Masada2000.org, subtitled “Israel 101: A Survival Kit for Dummies,” is a web site that claims to reveal the true history of Israel and Palestine. Graced by quotes from infamous extremist militant Zionist Meir Kahane, its homepage includes historical information from the suicides on Masada through the modern state of Israel, testimony about Palestinian atrocities, and unabashed fantasies about a greater Israel. It also includes images of Yasser Arafat wrapped in a full-body suit of bacon, and, as its main comment on the Road Map, a video of a monkey sniffing its butt.

But what sets Masada2000.org apart from any other extreme pro-Israel web site is its S.H.I.T.-List, an index of approximately seven thousand “Self-Hating/Israel-Threatening” Jews compiled in alphabetical order by last name. They range from Thomas Friedman of the New York Times to Adam Shapiro of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement. The list also includes my parents—presumably because they are active in Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, an American Jewish group that supports Israel and seeks a two-state solution to the conflict. It includes several of my friends and colleagues, and after this article it will probably include me. Jews on the S.H.I.T.-List are referred to as “Judenrats” and explicitly compared to those who sold out other members of the Tribe during the Holocaust. “Call it a sickness or call it madness,” says the introduction. “It makes no difference. Israel pays the price for these traitors’ actions.”

The Masada2000 list has become a phenomenon in left-wing Jewish circles: activists compare their status, those who are left out wondering whether they should submit themselves. But what no one seems to know is, who’s making the list—and why? Are my parents being secretly surveilled? Are they going to wake up one morning and find the FBI at their door? There was only one way to find out: I emailed the Yahoo address printed in tiny type on the site, and after a bit of negotiation (the organization’s membership apparently required some serious coaxing before agreeing to an interview), I got some answers. The site’s creator, Rockwell Lazareth, who emails using the moniker “Big Al,” informed me first of the good news: Masada2000 won’t be making any use of the list beyond publishing it on their site. Rather, he said, “The purpose of the list is to expose Jews who genuinely despise Israel and the Jewishness it represents, ‘progressive’ Jews who are into ‘social justice’ causes for everyone EXCEPT Israel’s Jewish population.” He explained that the index is compiled through web searches in which the staff ferret out anyone “who says or does anything that places Israel at risk or has a smell of collusion with the enemies of Israel.” Further, Rocky stipulated, Masada2000 considers any self-hating Jew—not just a famous one—to be a risk to Israel. "

http://www.newvoices.org/cgi-bin/articlepage.cgi?id=332


And the correct spelling is integrity

[drdon326]

13. Big Surprise.

Please feel free to ignore every point made in the article contradicting the absurd and insulting claim made by a poster above that blatently accuses Israel of "ethnic cleansing".

Go for it, englander.......Do YOU believe israel engages in "ethnic cleansing" ?

Or better yet ,do YOU believe israel engages in genocde ?


I await you response with abated breath.

[drdon326]

14. Nothing ??

I tried to make the questions as easy and as straightfoward as possible.I'm not sure I can make it any easier.


Do YOU believe israel engages in "ethnic cleansing" ?

And do YOU believe israel engages in genocde ?

[Englander]

15. Bigger surprise?

I have a feeling that there won't be any
undeleted messages in this thread,that they'll
all heading for the memory hole.

Considering that I think yer posted "article" is from
the worst website,ever,you know what I think about it.

If it helps;

"Ethnic cleansing" - possibly,though I wouldn't use the phrase.

"Genocide" - No.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

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

[number6]

47. I'd call it slow motion Ethnic cleansing

Good points Englander, Violet, Larkspur ...

[Jim Sagle]

55. "Slow" as in "reverse."

[Englander]

66. Population growth is not the only indicator of whether..

ethnic cleansing is occuring;

how about the destruction/confiscation of property,
& increased settlement growth in the OT?

That doesn't effect the population rate.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

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

[Jim Sagle]

29. Chickenshit bullshit.

[Colorado Blue]

17. Oh, this is ridiculous. What ethnic cleansing? If anything

it is the entire middle east outside of Israel, which has been rendered practically Judenrein since 1947.

What happened was in fact not a "cleansing" but a population transfer, which has made a LOT of people unhappy, including the hundreds of thousands of Sephardic Jews who lost their homes, their property, their jobs, their communities and who often wound up living in tent cities on the bare plain.

And I might add this: although hundreds of thousands of people fled during the Naqba, it is not the Israelis who have kept them locked in prison camps all these long decades. Why haven't the Arab states helped these people to get new lives? Instead, generations have been born in cages.

Reparations have been offered and refused. Statehood for the Palestinian people has been offered and refused.

And moreover, and most importantly, they have their LIVES. This most certainly wouldn't have been the case for the citizens of Israel, had the many wars against her succeeded. If you doubt me of this, do some reading of what has actually been said by the Israel's enemies, what is being taught and broadcast on TV.

Meanwhile, the security fence is being built far to the west of where the hardliners would like it to be, out of respect for the existing Arab populations. They are not trying to KILL the Arabs, they are trying to accomodate them while protecting Israel, and figure out the best way for the two peoples to live in the same small area.

If "ethnic cleansing" was in play, there wouldn't BE any Palestinians. Instead, the Arab population of the area has grown. The population of Israeli Arabs, full citizens, has grown and is growing. Instead of ethnic cleansing, we have the exact OPPOSITE.

The Jewish population of the ENTIRE PLANET, on the other hand, is two million LESS than before WWII.

The Palestinians, for all their problems, are among the most literate and best-educated of any group in the entire region. With peace and reasonable leadership there is no reason why they shouldn't enjoy a bright future.

If there are troubles here you MIGHT want to take a look at Palestinian leadership, especially Arafat, and at the terrorists which have infiltrated the population. Vladimir Putin said just the other day that Arafat was a revolutionary, NOT interested in making a state. With Abbas, the people of Palestine and the people of Israel have a chance to live in peace.

What is HIDEOUS is this blathering about a connection between the I/P situation and Hitler, or trying to make a connection with the disenfranchisement of the Native Americans. It reflects great ignorance of the situation at the very least.

[drdon326]

18. Gee CB.....You seem pissed off.........

almost as much as I was when I read it.

[Colorado Blue]

19. Oh, I am. I do not like getting this angry, especially at my

fellow "liberals".

[Coastie for Truth]

71. You have chosen to use a term that is synonymous with a specific

term in international law, i.e., "ethnic cleansing."

Most scholars regard "ethnic cleansing" as a precursor to actual "genocide".

You will find a definition of "genocide" in , Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948, and as defined with links to academic and scholarly journals in , citing S D Stein. "Genocide." In E Cashmore (ed.). Dictionary of Race and Ethnic Relations. Fourth Edition. London: Routledge, 1996.

The Convention defines "genocide" as

Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:


* (a) Killing members of the group;
* (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
* (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
* (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

As Stein points out , the legally relevant clause is "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such" where "intent to destroy" is the defining element.

Do you find the defining element of "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such" on the part of either side. I have my opinion, but I am asking you.

So let me ask the "N' word or "H" word question - are you accusing the Israelis of contemplating genocide - as that term in generally understood in the context of, e.g., the Armenians or the Romani?

[Colorado Blue]

20. Anybody who doubts this should get on the 'net and do some

research.

There were instances also, back in '48, when Jewish prisoners were murdered, wholesale - as opposed to Palestinians, who were unmolested.

This is ticking me off.

[drdon326]

21. I must say.......

that I was pretty much seething when I read the poster above accuse Israel of "Ethnic Cleansing".....

I really am amazed that that not too thinly veiled accusation , without any proof and markedly inflammatory to boot , has been posted here.


Takes alot to make me speechless.

[Violet_Crumble]

22. But it's okay to accuse the Palestinians of genocide?

btw, there's nothing inflammatory in saying that Israel has committed ethnic cleansing. Proof? The expulsion of Palestinians both before, during, and after the war of 1948..

Violet...

[drdon326]

6. Really ? .........Keep talking.

"The state of Israel should have been created on German soil, because it was the Germans, not the Palestinians, who perpetrated the Jewish Holocaust."

So YOU too deny the existance of israel where it is.

UN.BELIEVE.ABLE.


Bummer they werent pushed into the sea.Sheesh.

[Violet_Crumble]

7. That's a complete misrepresentation of what was said...

Pointing out that it should have been the German people rather than the Palestinians made to pay for the Holocaust is NOT in any way shape or form denying the existance of Israel. But then again, there's some folk who think support of even the tiniest of Palestinian 'states' is denying the existance of Israel...

Violet...

[Jim Sagle]

10. Supporting violence against Israel EXPRESSLY for the reason that it should

have been established somewhere else? Why, yes that IS "denying the existance of Israel...". No misrepresentation whatever.

[Violet_Crumble]

24. Just misreading, apparently...

I went back and checked and nowhere in the post was there a support of violence against Israel. Unless yr defining violence as any sort of resistance to the occupation, in which case I'd be wondering why you support violence against the Palestinian people...

Saying that the Zionists had no legitimate right to land inhabited by another people isn't 'denying the existence of Israel'. In fact, the argument made that as the Palestinians weren't responsible for the Holocaust, they shouldn't have been made to suffer for the wrongdoings of the West, is a pretty interesting argument, and only someone who tends to misrepresent what others say could construe it as meaning that Israel shouldn't exist...

Violet...

[DemBoom]

32. Trans Jordanian Occupation

"Saying that the Zionists had no legitimate right to land inhabited by another people isn't 'denying the existence of Israel'."

Trans Jordan was created in the same manner. 80% of the population is palestinian...ruled by the Hashemites.
Kurdistan has been occupied by Arabs since the end of WWI..where's the angst for Kurdish self determination?

[Colorado Blue]

35. Or the murders and repression of other minority groups in

the region, including Assyrians, Armenians, Copts, Bahai, Kurds, even minority Islamic sects.

Shall we move to Africa, and discuss the Sudan? The suppression of the Berber? What about Ethiopia? No?

What is needed for people who feel qualified to write about Israel, is to see this situation in the context of the entire region. It is all part of the same dynamic.

If it were ONLY a land struggle, there would never have been the kind of hatred that we are seeing generated today, in schools, on TV, and which has been fueling this conflict since the '20's. Land struggles can be settled RATIONALLY.

This is something else and people really need to get a grip on that.

And meanwhile, it would be wise to think twice before publishing stuff that is likely to harden positions and result in more anger. We are trying, SOME OF US, anyway, to find ways to make peace, withdraw safely from the OT, and help the Palestinian people.

Throwing mud at Israel and buying wholesale into the "Jews are anti-semitic" bullshit, and so forth, is NOT helping matters. Nor is throwing terms like "ethnic cleansing" around, when the settlements are in fact about 2% of the OT, and what happened in 1948 to the Arabs ALSO happened to the Middle Eastern Jews. There is MUTUAL responsibility here.

Attempts to portray EITHER side as angels just will not fly.

[Larkspur]

42. I support Mahatma Gandhi's view of the state of Israel...

Gandhi said, "My sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?"
Mahatma Gandhi Rejected Zionism http://www.twf.org/News/Y2001/0815-GandhiZionism.html

Gandhi rejected 4 times the Zionists' overt attempts to get Gandhi to support the creation of the state of Israel in Palestine.

[Colorado Blue]

43. Right. Gandhi ALSO said, the Jews in Germany should

attempt civil disobediance against Hitler.

"Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though, as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep."

This was written in 1938.

I submit, advice like this we don't need. Nor do we need to be scolded now for trying to save our physical lives. For alas, the Jews of Europe did more or less as Gandhi said, and challenged them to "shoot...or cast...in the dungeon." And guess what. They DID.

No doubt, the Jews of Europe experienced great joy as they were driven into the ovens.

Whatever Gandhi's well-intentioned sermon proposed in 1938 was rendered completely ridiculous by the war, the holocaust, and subsequent events. And even he does not excuse the "excesses" of the Arabs.

I'm sorry, but this whole point of view amounts to complete denial, both of realities on the ground, of Jewish history and Jewish rights IN THE MIDDLE EAST, where even the Koran promises the land of Israel to the Jewish people; as well as to the situation of Jews in diaspora, and of the incredibly bigoted local leadership of people like Haj Amin al Husayni, who, after causing incalculable damage in Palestine, fomented a coup against the moderate government of Iraq and spent the rest of the war in Berlin.

Gandhi ALSO refuses to aknowledge the necessity of the allies to go to war against Hitler.

Right.

Gimme a break.

http://die_meistersinger.tripod.com/gandhi9.html

[Behind the Aegis]

44. And now?

Israel exists. What do you think should happen to the state now?

[drdon326]

45. You dont want to know.

brace yourself.

[Larkspur]

46. Israel needs to obey international law...

withdraw to the pre-1967 borders and allow the international community to help Palestinians build their own state. If Israel continues to flaunt international law, then they have become a "rogue" state, a la South Africa under apartheid. What happened to South Africa's apartheid regeime would need to happen to Israel's apartheid regime.

[Behind the Aegis]

48. OK

From what I have read, had the Palestinians accepted the 1948 Partition, they would have much more land than they do now. However, the attitude demonstrated at the idea of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which it was felt that "...the very presence of a Jewish homeland would, Arabs insisted, infringe on those rights" (source) really hasn't changed. Not then, not in 1948, not even now.

But, here we are in 2005, and "(T)he principle of land-for-peace that has formed the basis of Arab-Israeli negotiations is based on Israel giving up land won in the 1967 war in return for peace deals recognising Israeli borders and its right to security. The Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace deal with Israel." (emphasis mine)(source)

So, Israel withdraws to her 1967 borders, then what? Do you think all will be well? It seems that even if this does take place, some will never be happy until Israel is no longer a state.

[Coastie for Truth]

49. What do you mean by "Israel needs to obey international law..

and what is the international law basis for your statement

"Israel needs to obey international law...withdraw to the pre-1967 borders and allow the international community to help Palestinians build their own state. If Israel continues to flaunt international law, then they have become a "rogue" state, a la South Africa under apartheid. What happened to South Africa's apartheid regeime would need to happen to Israel's apartheid regime."

Some points

1. The 1948 "Partition" boundaries - which would have established a Palestinian state, were never accepted and therefore are void.

2. The 1948 "Armistice Lines" ("pre-1967 borders") are just that, "Armistice Lies", pending a final Peace Treaty with mutual recognition of juristic statehood. They are a basis for negotiation - and not final boundaries.

3. So, there are no "pre-1967 borders" - just "Armistice Lines."

The arguments you are making do not correspond to my personal copies of Burdick Brittin, International Law for Seagoing Officers or FM 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare, which I guess would be at the level of elementary texts in International Law.

I do not understand your use of the the word "flaunt", see--

Q. What is the difference between flaunt and flout?

A.: Flaunt and flout are sometimes confused because of their superficial similarities. To flaunt is "to show off; to display ostentatiously"; as, "If you've got it, flaunt it." To flout is "to treat with contempt or to show contempt for," as, "Nevertheless, don't flout the rules." Got it? Flaunt it!"

I assume you meant "flout"

[Colorado Blue]

63. I think, an apartheid state would be a state that exercises

apartheid, not a democracy which, unfortunately, is connected to occupied territories, the whole of which constitute a WAR ZONE.

An apartheid state by definition is 1) not a democracy 2) a single entity, not a state plus territories which are at war with it; and 3) NOT A WAR ZONE.

I'm curious, also, since you seem to respect Gandhi's idea of civil disobedience, at least when it comes to Jews, if you don't perhaps believe that civil disobedience in the OT might not be a better way of dealing with the occupation than terrorism?

Or, is it just Jews who are supposed to be civil, even in the face of extermination; whereas it's OK for people to blow them up? Or what?

Just asking for some clarification:)

In fact, perhaps you should write to your Palestinian friends and tell THEM about Gandhi. It would probably end the occupation and the oppression forthwith, if nonviolence should break out all over, a democratic government be elected, and the Hamasniks disarmed.

Imagine what could be wrought, should the peace dove arrive in Jerusalem, instead of a flight of missiles or a little kid draped in explosives.

So indeed, I think it's worth a try. I'll be looking forward to hearing what they say.

After all, a peace treaty is what the territories have been held for all these long years. Just, peace.

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

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

[bemildred]

51. "Gandhi". nt

[drdon326]

52. Well.....its the thought that counts. lol

[Name removed]

56. Deleted message

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

[Name removed]

57. Deleted message

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

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

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

[bemildred]

62. So good spelling is anti-semitic now? nt

[Behind the Aegis]

67. Perplexed

I have to admit, as someone who read the posts yesterday, I am confused as to why they were deleted. :shrug:

[bemildred]

68. Eh, I suppose. It's not like they added much to the conversation either.

[drdon326]

69. I was right about "FCUK"

"French Connection United Kingdom"

its a trendy clothing company.....very popular amoung the social elite. lol

[bemildred]

70. Now we just need something for Ghandi.

But we better stop.

[Jim Sagle]

59. Diz Lexia...it's a beeyootieful thing.

[Lithos]

73. Locking

This seems to have gone way off course.

Lithos
I/P Moderator
Democratic Underground