The Birth of a Nation, 1948

[msmcghee]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/opinion/18gruber.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

By RUTH GRUBER
Published: May 18, 2008

IT was Friday, May 14, 1948. I was sitting in the press section of the United Nations General Assembly in its temporary quarters at Flushing Meadow in Queens. I felt my heart thumping. We journalists were waiting impatiently to see who would win a tug of war taking place in Washington.

Free, but Without a Home

On one side was President Harry S. Truman, who had told his aides that, with the last British troops leaving Palestine that day, he believed the Jews had a right to declare their own nation, and that he would make sure that the United States would be the first country to recognize it.

On the other side was the State Department, which wanted the land placed in a trusteeship under the United Nations. Secretary of State George Marshall was so passionate in his opposition to a Jewish state that he threatened to vote against the president in the November election. For Truman, who had come to office with the death of Franklin Roosevelt three years earlier, this was to be one of his first true tests of power.

As I sat waiting for the announcement of the decision in Washington, my mind wandered back to the spring and summer of the year before, which I had spent reporting for The New York Herald Tribune. I had traveled in Germany and Austria with the 11 members of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. There had been many such committees studying the problems of the Holy Land since the Arab riots of the 1920s; this one was distinguished by having no representatives from Britain, which had been universally hostile to the Zionist cause.

<snip>

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

1. Death of a peace activist, June 2003

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA66xdLZXh0

[oberliner]

2. European Zionist colonizers

It's frustrating to hear people refer to the Jews who survived the Holocaust and made their way to Palestine after the war as if they were somehow part of some kind of colonial entity.

Much of Europe did everything in their power to attempt to eradicate (or expel) the Jews from the continent.

One could certainly see why the Jewish people after that experience would feel that without a national homeland, their existence as a people would forever be endangered.

[PDJane]

3. Agreed.

What I don't agree with, however, is simply removing people who were on that land for 2,000 years...approximately 1,740 years longer than the Jews had occupied the land. Moreover, expelling people who had nothing to do with the holocaust makes them colonizers and occupiers....and brutal occupiers.

Becoming the bully to an innocent people does not right the historical wrongs done to the Jews.

[oberliner]

4. Not to keep going round in circles

But there was a partition plan and it was rejected by the Arab side and it could have led to two independent states.

There is plenty of blame to go around for how poorly things turned out for the Palestinian Arabs.

I would note, also, that Jews had been living there for 2,000 years as well (albeit in much smaller numbers).

In any case, things could have turned out much better for everyone in the region had a variety of different choices been made by the various actors in question.

[PDJane]

5. It didn't lead to two independent states,

because Palestine was not given its independence after WWII because of the Balfour Declaration and the difficulty of putting an Israeli nation in a sovereign state. It had very little to do with 'The Arabs.' It was practicality.

The Jews did not have a state in the area, and had not for more than 2,000 years. Moreover, the land was conquered by the Israelis; they didn't manage to hold the land after conquest. That land has never been empty, as long as humans of any sort have been on this earth, that land was occupied. The fossil record shows conquest after conquest and varying kinds of life depending on the rainfall of the area. A land without people for people without a land is a fairy tale.

In this case, the state of Israel was born in terrorism and exists in terrorism. The only reason the state of Israel came into being was the Irgun and various other terrorist groups and their determination to put a state on someone else's land. The original state envisioned by the English, by the way, was a shared state, not the patched-together occupation that is currently the norm.

[msmcghee]

6. Nice fairy tale. n/t

[PDJane]

7. which one?

The Jews are good or the genocidal one?

Get a grip.

[msmcghee]

8. I didn't see anything in your post about . .

. . Jews being good - or about genocide. Get a clue.

[LeftishBrit]

9. The Irgun was not responsible for the existence of the State of Israel

Many think that the Irgun and Stern Gang and their terrorist actions actually acted as an impediment to statehood.

The main military organization involved in the War of Independence and the period leading up to it was the Haganah, which can only be called 'terrorist' if we regard *all* armies as such.

[PDJane]

10. well, see...........

All armies that terrorize civilians are terrorist organizations, and Palestine did not and does not actually have an army. And most armies are terrorist, especially those who fight preventive wars.

[oberliner]

11. One could also argue

That the Palestinian refugee crisis was created by the terrorist armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, who all saw fit to invade rather than accept any kind of partition plan.

Or one could argue that there were many factors and a variety of actions and actors which led impacted the situation.

[rockymountaindem]

13. Yeah, the Haganah was a bunch of terrorists

but all those sovereign Arab states' armies just happened to be there (outside their own borders) :sarcasm:

[LeftishBrit]

27. OK...

at least you're consistent. However, if one considers all armies to be terrorist organizations, then virtually ALL countries must be labelled at terrorist states.

[rockymountaindem]

12. Um, the Balfour Declaration was made after WWI

and Israel came into existence thanks to Haganah, which became the IDF after the war.

[PDJane]

14. I know that the balfour declaration was made

after WWI. What has that got to do with the fact that Palestine wasn't actually given its independence because of that declaration and what it represented? The Balfour Declaration was expressed in November 1917 in a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild who was a leader in the British Jewish community. In it, Balfour explicitly stated the position of the British government that it would support the creation of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine, so long as it did not infringe on the rights of any existing populations. The Balfour declaration was the result of a sustained effort by Theodore Herzl and his zionist movement.

In the meantime, of course, the Churchill white paper supported Arab ownership of the same land.

Palestine was not given its independence because of these varying viewpoints and because the Balfour declaration meant Jew and Palestinian to share the land. The fact that these documents were written after WWI has nothing at all to do with the fact that the promises made in them were the root of the problem.

And yes, there was terrorism on both sides, but the Jews had heavier artillery, and convinced the British that Jew and Palestinian could not live in peace unless they were given separate territories.

The expulsion of the Palestines from their own lands cannot be interpreted to adhere to the Balfour declaration; the Nachbah did most certainly infringe on the rights of the existing populations.

[msmcghee]

15. This fairy tale keeps getting better. n/t

[rockymountaindem]

16. That doesn't make any sense

The Palestinians could have had their state in 1948 regardless of the Balfour declaration. All they had to do was accept the UN partition. What's more, Transjordan was established as an Arab territory by the British on what had previously been a united mandate of Palestine and the Trans-Jordanian territory. In that context, the Arabs already got a significant part of the original post-WWI mandate.

As for the Jews having better artillery, you're not saying that Haganah, Irgun et. al. were better armed than the combined Arab armies, are you?

[PDJane]

17. I'm saying just that, and you would know that

if you actually read something outside of the official US history of the conflict.

Moreover, why would the Palestinians accept the partitioning of their land, with the largest portion, right in the middle, given to the nascent Jewish state....which then began to make the Palestinians who owned the land refugees, and who killed many of their citizens?

No. There is no reason for the Palestinians to accept that they are paying for the shoah. They didn't start it, they didn't kill millions, and they have been paying in blood and tears and land and water and humiliation. If they had been compensated BY THE PEOPLE WHO DEPRIVED THEM OF THEIR LAND, NOT THE 'ARAB STATES' for the land that they lost, if they had been given guarantees of water rights and land, had the Israeli government NOT continued to support settlements and Jews-only roads, maybe. However, you are holding the Palestinians to a standard that you would not follow, yourself.

[Vegasaurus]

18. No "Jews only roads"

before blowing up Israelis became a national pasttime.

[PDJane]

19. But shooting Palestinians and

bulldozing olive groves had been an Israeli habit long before that. No matter how you try, you can't paint the Israelis as innocents, because they aren't. Plucky little Israel against the whole middle east is a myth.

[eyl]

20. Where CAN I find the official US history of the conflict?

The Jewish forces were considerably less well-armed (at least at the beginning of the conflict) than the Arab forces, especially when it came to heavy weapons.

As for the "of their land, with the largest portion, right in the middle, given to the nascent Jewish state", have you bothered to look at a map of the partition? The middle was the narrowest portion of the Jewish state - over half of the territory it was alloted was the southern desert (the Negev).

And you might want to read other histories as well - the creation of Israel (and the idea of partition, in particular) - began long before the Holocaust ocurred.

[PDJane]

21. I have read them..............

And I am not denying that the idea of partition happened long before the Holocaust. I've said so, up there somewhere. The idea of partition, however, did not have much credibility with the British, who were very careful, even after WWII, to try not to "unbalance" the population of the region. The Balfour Declaration says exactly what I have quoted, and Lord Balfour envisaged one state. He did not see the Jews kicking the Palestinians off the land; that was contrary to his ideals.

The Official story is the one you've quoted, but the reality is that quite truthfully, the Israelis had the backing of the US and Britain, and enough Zionist fund raisers to buy the weaponry that was needed. The Egyptian air force consisted of some old spitfires at the time; Battle of Britain vintage. Plucky little Israel was never the downtrodden and put upon little nation that is the common myth. The six day war was instigated by Israel; they wanted that war, in order to annex the land, and they have continued to annex whatever they can get their hands on.

[Vegasaurus]

22. A little revistionist history, I see

Do you actually know anything about the origins of Israel, or only what you read on anti-Israel sites (that are so prevalent)?

[PDJane]

23. Just because I don't agree with you,

doesn't mean that I don't read or that I'm anti-semitic.

My views of the six day war came from a man who was on the ground. An Israeli man...and his sister, who no longer lives there and has no urge to do so. Those views were fleshed out by John Pilger and a UN observer.

My views on the Balfour Declaration came from....surprise.....reading the declaration and the correspondence of Lord Balfour, along with documents from Churchill.

I know the origins of Zionism, the origins of Israel, and some of the realities "on the ground," a phrase that came from the Zionist leadership of Israel. I understand how the Israelis have taken over large parts of Palestine, and how the checkpoints remain even if the settlers don't...and how the settlers are supported by the government, and the government gets a great deal of money for those things from the US. I understand that the violence perpetrated by the Palestinians kills Israeli civilians. I also understand that the Israeli army kills dozens of innocent civilians for every civilian killed by rockets and suicide bombers. I understand that suicide bombings are the weapons of the Palestinians, simply because they are unable to earn a living....I also understand that the habit of absurd retaliation isn't working and won't work.

Because my people wrote a work of fiction that "gave" them an inhabited land that they couldn't keep, doesn't mean that I believe that they have the right, 2000 years later, to come back and remove the inhabitants by violence and stealth. Enough, already.

[msmcghee]

24. There is a wide range of opinions on what the history is . .

. . of this conflict. There is an especially large number of anti-israel opinions and thousands of websites devoted to de-legitimizing israel - some even run by people "who were there" - and many of them Jews. Some of these sites offer very fanciful interpretations of events to say the least.

Every event in this conflict (like any event in history) has many layers of complexity which lends it to different interpretations - that can seem to be accurate to non-academics - and even to some academics who would prefer a particular spin on it. You can find a plausible narrative to fit whatever beliefs you hold as to who is right or wrong in the matter. Just because you talked to a man "who was there" gives you no truer perspective on the history than anyone else. In most cases those "who were there" are particularly unreliable witnesses because of the emotions of being involved in or near the actual fighting at the time and the limited perspective that any one person could have had.

I'd say it's unlikely that anyone who expresses their opinions on this in such emotional and absolutist terms could have anything like an objective view on it. I see little effort in your comments aimed at objectively separating the facts from the fiction - and in fact, many of the "facts" you do quote are quite far from most commonly accepted versions of this history.

[eyl]

25. Partition didn't have British support?

It was the British who initially proposed partition (see the Peel Commission).

And if US and Britian backed Israel, they sure had a funny way of showing it. The US declared an arms embargo (nominally on all the participants, but the Arabs weren't trying to get weapons from America anyway) and as for Britian, not only did British Mandatory forces actively hamper Jewish deefnse efforts before they pulled out, the British were actively supporting the Arab armies - the Jordanian Arab Legion was equipped by Britian and was trained and led by British officers. I've also seen an account of RAF forces flying on Egypt's side toward the end of the war, though I haven't gotten around to checking the source. And the Israeli AF was een more threadbare than the Egyptian one.

You also seem to not be very familiar with the events leading to the Six-Day War, but I have to leave now; mayber I'll get to it later.

[Vegasaurus]

26. Thank you, Eyl.

Please provide these revisionist historians with some truth,

I will try to do the same later.