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In the most recent edition of its annual “Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism” released Thursday, the State Department — and hence the U.S. government — moves ever more closely to a long-standing neo-conservative tenet: that criticism of Israel or Israeli policies often, if not always, equals anti-Semitism. The report also suggests that comparing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories to South African apartheid — as former President Jimmy Carter did in his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid — also amounts to anti-Semitism. And it focuses on the United Nations as a breeding ground for anti-Semitism as expressed through criticism of Israel, another major neo-conservative theme that has intensified sharply over the past five years, notably through the efforts of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the National Review Online and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page.
Here’s the argument as laid out in the introductory section of the report entitled Contemporary Forms of Anti-Semitism”:
“Anti-Semitism has proven to be an adaptive phenomenon. New forms of anti-Semitism have evolved. They often incorporate elements of traditional anti-Semitism. However, the distinguishing feature of the new anti-Semitism is criticism of Zionism or Israeli policy that — whether intentionally or unintentionally — has the effect of promoting prejudice against all Jews by demonizing Israel and Israelis and attributing Israel’s perceived faults to its Jewish character.
“The new anti-Semitism is common throughout the Middle East and in Muslim communities in Europe, but it is not confined to these populations. For example, various United Nations bodies are asked each year on multiple occasions to commission investigations of what often are sensationalized reports of alleged atrocities and other violations of human rights by Israel. Various bodies have been set up within the UN system with the sole purpose of reporting on what is assumed to be ongoing, abusive Israeli behavior. The motive for such actions may be to defuse an immediate crisis, to show others in the Middle East that there are credible means of addressing their concerns other than resorting to violence, or to pursue other legitimate ends. But the collective effect of unremitting criticism of Israel, coupled with a failure to pay attention to regimes that are demonstrably guilty of grave violations, has the effect of reinforcing the notion that the Jewish state is one of the sources, if not the greatest source, of abuse of the rights of others, and thus intentionally or not encourages anti-Semitism.
“Comparing contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis is increasingly commonplace. Anti-Semitism couched as criticism of Zionism or Israel often escapes condemnation since it can be more subtle than traditional forms of anti-Semitism, and promoting anti-Semitic attitudes may not be the conscious intent of the purveyor. Israel’s policies and practices must be subject to responsible criticism and scrutiny to the same degree as those of any other country. At the same time, those criticizing Israel have a responsibility to consider the effect their actions may have in prompting hatred of Jews. At times hostility toward Israel has translated into physical violence directed at Jews in general. There was, for example, a sharp upsurge in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide during the conflict between Hizballah and Israel in the summer of 2006.” [Italics added.]
Of course, it would be interesting to apply this analysis to the rhetoric used by senior political figures, neo-conservative groups (such as FDD or the American Enterprise Institute), and media in the U.S. and Europe about Islam, Muslims or about various kinds of Islamic political movements in the Arab and Islamic worlds, particularly with respect to the notion that these actors may have a “responsibility to consider the effects their actions may have in prompting” Islamophobia. [I suspect the report’s author meant “promoting” rather than prompting.]
The report purports to apply a definition of anti-Semitism established by the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) to its own analysis. But it actually goes beyond that by suggesting at various points, particularly in relation to UN conferences, resolutions, and the reports by UN Special Rapporteurs, that any comparison of the treatment by Israel of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories with apartheid amounts to anti-Semitism. Carter, however, goes unmentioned, perhaps because the report’s scope does not cover the anti-Semitism in the United States. If it did, I suppose it would have to also address the anti-Semitism — as opposed to the philo-Zionism — of the Christian Right, and that wouldn’t be good for a Republican administration. That anti-Semites like Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell can be the most zealous supporters of Israel, particularly a Greater Israel, for theological reasons certainly poses some delicate challenges for those disposed to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. So far as the neo-conservatives are concerned, however, that conundrum was settled 25 years ago when Irving Kristol noted that Jews should not be concerned about an alliance with the Christian Right despite its anti-Semitic beliefs. “Why would it be a problem for us?” he wrote back in the early 1980s. ”It is their theology; but it is our Israel.”
The report is being issued in advance of next Wednesday’s a meeting at AEI next week on the subject of “Anti-Semitism and the War on Terror” featuring Germany historian Matthias Kuentzel, the author of the ‘Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11.’ As pointed out in the AEI blurb, the author’s “central thesis is that a great deal of contemporary Islamist anti-Semitism comes directly from the Third Reich, that it was institutionalized in the Middle East during the Second World War, and that is has grown ever since, thanks to organizations and individuals who — in many cases — received direct ideological, political, and financial support from teh Nazis and who are still very active.” AEI fellows Michael Ledeen and Michael Novak (who personally assured me at another AEI seminar back in 1981 that the Argentine military junta could not possibly be considered a neo-Nazi regime as alleged by one its most famous victims, Jacobo Timerman, after his release — as a result of pressure from Jimmy Carter, no less — from one of its secret torture prisons) will comment after the presentation.
Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.
I guesss you better get ready to close down this site.Heaven forbid we should ever say anything bad about israel.
What next……..USA public will be taxed for uttering the word Jews, Israel, Hebrew and Judaism
What ever is related to Israel will be taxed.
US government has become a worldwide laughing stock without any end in sight.
I guess you deserve the slavery US administration is displaying shamelessly
See Obama Hilary and McBush all competing to pleae Israel making the Israel the center of the whole election scenario
One wonder why US public bother to vote.
LMAO.
Some acts of idiocy will stay in the books of history forever and some are simply unforgivable just like history itself.
Capital idea–an “Utterance Tax”!
That might actually work to end meaningful speech codes once and for all, for bureaucrats would likely prefer to target, say, really lucrative words like “and”, “the”, and so forth.
Threats Dehumanize Jews Who Question Israel
by Michael Lerner
http://www.quotes2u.com/archives/052401.htm
Any politican who runs for office in the US or Western Europe has to coddle with zionism. Imagine if a public figure running for office stood against Israeli aggression? The media would destroy him.
That tax is an excellant idea. After all free speech isn’t free.
Selective one sided criticism of Israel doesn’t always mean that one has it in for jews but it is a symptom of it
True to form, the “freedom lovers” of this world are hard at work shutting down dissent.
It’s remarkable how far to the left the right has moved. The concept of a “new” racism (in this case anti-semitism), of “code words” designed to mask hidden racist attitudes, is so laughably Hofstadter. For the left it was talk of “individualism”, for the neo-cons it’s criticism of Israel.
My experience is that sometimes this is true. Antisemites *will* look at Israel’s actions to say “See, I told you so” instead of seeing them as the complex reactions of a newly-formed state which had to fight for it’s survival in the early days against surrounding Arab regimes (and which admittedly does have it’s fair share of ethnocentrism which is understandable if you’re constantly on the brink of being wiped out). They’re not arguing that criticism should be silenced.
At the same time, I think a lot of people really are disappointed with a lot of the rhetoric coming from ‘pro-Israel’ supporters which sounds eerily familiar to the fascism that their fathers/grandfathers fought in WW2. They also look at their domestic problems and start to feel that a little more attention (political and financial) could be paid to those than to overseas commitments. Also, certain factions within the pro-Israel community have become notorious for corruption, and word of that has seeped out into the wider community.
My experience is that sometimes this is true. Antisemites *will* look at Israel’s actions to say “See, I told you so”
So? Anti-semites pointing out Israeli transgression of international law and the Geneva Conventions doesn’t nullify the action.
…instead of seeing them as the complex reactions of a newly-formed state which had to fight for it’s survival in the early days against surrounding Arab regimes
Furthermore, to imply as you do here that Israel has the moral high-ground is ludicrous. When has the aggressor invading and occupying army ever had the moral high-ground?
They’re not arguing that criticism should be silenced.
Oh, yes they are.
The Israelis’ endless fears of being wiped out - despite the fact that they have the largest, best equipped military in the Middle East, despite the fact that they have hundreds of nuclear weapons, despite the fact the U.S. has vowed to use its own military and WMD to defend the Jewish state against any such eventuality - are the most hackneyed, maudlin and propagandistic load of BS that has ever walked onto the stage of world politics. The Israelis have distinguished themselves with continual violations of everything with which they pretend to clothe themselves as being morally better than the rest of us. Example, a minister of the current Israeli government threatens to inflict a Holocaust on the Palestinians in retaliation for scattered rocket and mortar attacks that usually do not even inflict casualties. With this statement alone, the Israelis have convicted themselves of intent to commit genocide. Their brutality and hypocrisy stink to heaven and offend the sensibilities of the world.
The Israelis’ endless fears of being wiped out - despite the fact that they have the largest, best equipped military in the Middle East, despite the fact that they have hundreds of nuclear weapons, despite the fact the U.S. has vowed to use its own military and WMD to defend the Jewish state against any such eventuality - are the most hackneyed, maudlin and propagandistic load of BS that has ever walked onto the stage of world politics. The Israelis have distinguished themselves with continual violations of everything with which they pretend to clothe themselves as being morally better than the rest of us. Example, a minister of the current Israeli government threatens to inflict a Holocaust on the Palestinians in retaliation for scattered rocket and mortar attacks that usually do not even inflict casualties. With this statement alone, the Israelis have convicted themselves of intent to commit genocide. Their brutality and hypocrisy stink to heaven and offend the sensibilities of the world.
What I find most intersesting is the polar shift in rhetoric regarding the entire Isreal/Palestine issue.
We need to first remember there was no Isreal or Palestine, just Southern Syria. The first propoganda that came out was that the Jews had kicked millions of Palestinians from the land they had been living on from time immemorial. This simply isn’t true the Jews settled a very sparsley populated area. Only after a large immigration of Arabs into Southern Syria did the Jews start their terror campaign. And yes they did use terror to secure their homeland.
My point isn’t who is right or wrong but the obvious change in rhetoric. First we were told to believe that the Jews had kicked out millions of Arabs now we are told to believe that the Jews can do no wrong, or at the very least they are justified in their ongoing subjugation of the Arabs living in what is now Palestine.
We are now left believing in two lies. On one side we are to believe that millions of Arabs where forced from the land they had lived on for millenia. This lie was forced down our throats for many years and it was clearly anti Isreali Propoganda. This lie is still believed by most of the world as it was sold to us by the powers that be. It’s also clear that the Arab nations could easily assimilate the refugies from Palestine if they so choose. They won’t becasue it would mean an end to the war against Isreal. The Palestinians are stuck in the middle.
The second lie is that the Jews have an absolute right to Isreal. Yes there were Jews in what is now Isreal and yes Jews flocked to this area after years of persecution around the world and especially in the Arab nations. However, their refusal to live in peace with their neighbors goes both ways. They continue to build on disputed areas and somehow we are expected to believe they have a right to do this. If the Isreali Government actually wants peace this has to end.
So here we have it. The Jews didn’t kick out millions of Arabs but we still believe it. The Jews don’t have an absolute right to the land either but if we say anything agains it we are accused of anti-semitism. All this rhetoric has done is fuel the fires. Unfortunatley I believe that is the whole point. We don’t want peace for Isreal or Justice for the Palestinians. We want this war to continue so we can maintain our influence in the region.
Peace!
Brad Smith wrote:
>Jews flocked to this area after years of persecution around the world and especially in the Arab nations.
Surely that should read: …’not especially in the Arab
nations’…?
My recollection is that it was Europeans of Jewish ancestry who were subjected to especial persecution. You and I read different history books maybe?
You need to read more history obviously. The subjugation of Jews in the Arab lands has gone on for far longer than in Europe. Jews were treated as less than second class citizens. They were slaughtered, given no rights, and could be stolen from at any time. It’s a fact and you can easily look it up.
Having said this I am NOT trying to say that the Government of Isreal is in any way correct for their current treatment of the people of Palestine. I am simply pointing out the change in rhetoric, while asserting that the Arab nations are not blameless either.
The subjugation of Jews in the Arab lands has gone on for far longer than in Europe. Jews were treated as less than second class citizens. They were slaughtered, given no rights, and could be stolen from at any time. It’s a fact and you can easily look it up.
Brad, while I am sure I could easily look it up and find it, I doubt its veracity. I strongly suspect that you’ve been influenced by Zionist propaganda on this point.
I learned in the late 1970’s from a full professor who was a Middle Eastern specialist (and neither an Arab nor a Jew) that before the Zionist movement, the most tolerant place for a Jew to live was in the Middle East. There were a few isolated incidents of religious violence over the course of many centuries, but nothing like the pogroms of Eastern Europe. I’ve seen this same characterization made by other neutral sources.
Also remember that when the Moors, who were Muslim, controlled Spain, the Jews there thrived. When the Christians retook control, they started the Inquisition that was primarily about persecuting Jews.
We need to first remember there was no Isreal or Palestine, just Southern Syria. The first propoganda that came out was that the Jews had kicked millions of Palestinians from the land they had been living on from time immemorial. This simply isn’t true the Jews settled a very sparsley populated area. Only after a large immigration of Arabs into Southern Syria did the Jews start their terror campaign. And yes they did use terror to secure their homeland.
Wow, that is some really interesting history. So, you’re saying that Jerusalem, the single most important spot on Earth for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, was “sparsely populated” until the Zionists arrived?
Would you care to provide sources for your information so we can properly direct the derision and laughter?
Your lack of knowledge is really not my problem. Look it up for yourself. It’s a fact. The population of what is now Palestine was decimated by the mid 1800’s. I didn’t say it was non existant but it was sparcely populated in comparison with the current population or it’s past population. Furthermore, I was talking about the whole area not one small part of it.
We must do everything to ensure they (the Palestinian refugees) never do return.
– David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948.1
Let us not today fling accusations at the murderers. Who are we that we should argue against their hatred? For eight years now they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their very eyes, we turn into our homestead the land and the villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.”
– Moshe Dyan (Israeli Defense Minister during the Israeli-Arab war, 1967), 1953.2
“The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000
The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” ” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.” Golda Maier Israeli Prime Minister June 15, 1969
The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war.” Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha’aretz, 19 March 1972.
David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.
Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.” Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969
We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves.” Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.
We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.” David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism,colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.” Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972.
We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or consent.” (Jewish Banker Paul Warburg, February 17, 1950, as he testified before the U.S. Senate).
We will establish ourselves in Palestine whether you like it or not…You can hasten our arrival or you can equally retard it. It is however better for you to help us so as to avoid our constructive powers being turned into a destructive power which will overthrow the world.” (Chaim Weizmann, Published in “Judische Rundschau,” No. 4, 1920)
“I didn’t say it was non existant but it was sparcely populated in comparison with the current population or it’s past population.”
How many places on Earth were not sparsely populated in comparison to their current population?
Note I said current or past population.
Abraham: Have you even studied Islamic history or culture? You think Jerusalem is the most sacred spot for them? That’s funny, I always thought they prayed towards Mecca. I always thought that making a trip to Mecca, not Jerusalem, was one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith. I always thought that Jeruslem was only the third holiest site for Muslims, behind Mecca and Medina.
Hey, when did they start teaching chimpanzees to type?
Hey abraham why didn’t you just say he has stupid hair. It makes about the same point.
Very well.
Not only did they teach chimpanzees to type, but they also gave him bad hair.
You tell us, abraham. When did they teach chimps to write?
AFAICT, this is a lie put out by Joan Peters.
While I will agree that the book FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL; THE ORIGINS OF THE ARAB JEWSISH CONFLICT OVER PALESTINE was terribly written and obviously biased. The majority of her facts have never been contradicted. They are unconfortable facts that most people would like to ignore and her writting style made that easy to do. However, if you actually research the core theory you will find that it does in fact hold up.
From Time Immemorial is work of propaganda, with all the bad connotations that term carries. Peters’ case rests upon distortion and fabrication. Time and again, she misconstrues sources in a tendentious manner. She cribs uncritically from partisan works. She conceals crucial calculations, and draws hard conclusions from tenuous evidence. She speculates wildly and without ground. She exaggerates figures and selects numbers to suit her thesis. She adduces evidence that in no way supports her claims, sometimes even omitting “inconvenient” portions of the citation. She invents contradictions in sources she wishes to discredit by quoting them out of context. She “forgets” undesirable numbers in her calculations. She ignores sources that cast doubt on her conclusions, even when she herself uses those sources for other purposes. She makes baseless insinuations and misleading claims.
Peters’ distortions apply, not simply to minor issues, but to the central pieces of evidence for the principal contentions of her book. Her claim that the majority of Arabs in pre-state Israel were recent arrivals is false, as is her related assertion about the vast majority of Palestinian refugees. Her contention that Arab immigrants were filling the places Jews had cleared for other Jews is untrue. Her view that the League of Nations Mandate was intended to make Palestine into a Jewish state has no valid basis, nor is is true that the British created the Transjordan in violation of the Mandate. Peters’ claim of a nineteenth-century Jewish majority is misleading at best; her thesis that the first Jewish settlements lured significant numbers of Arabs into Palestine is fiction.
As with all successful disinformation, the distortions are placed within a wider context of truth; not everything Peters says is a lie. Palestine was in fact sparsely populated when Jewish colonization began. Arab nationalism did not yet exist, let alone Palestinian nationalism. When the British took over they unjustly restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine while Arabs immigrated into the territory. After the Arab violence of the late 1930s, British appeasement slowed Jewish immigration to a trickle. Ultimately, Jews who sought to escape the Holocaust were turned away from the Jewish National Home, even while “emergency arrangements” were taken to bring in Arab immigrant laborers. Had Peters let the facts speak for themselves, she would have had a dramatic, compelling story to tell.
But Peters wishes to do more; she wants to destroy, definitively, the claims of Palestinian nationalism–and she wishes to do so without rejecting Jewish nationalism. Thus her focus on demography; the essence of her case is: “The Arabs are latecomers to Palestine and so have less right to be there than the Jews.” But torture the numbers as she will, she cannot escape the fact that the Arabs in Palestine in the late nineteenth century outnumbered the Jews. Hence, she contends that those Arabs had no national “identity,” that they considered themselves Ottoman subjects or Southern Syrians, but certainly not Palestinians. And if today’s Arabs wish to live in a Palestinian state, they should move to Jordan.
Peters’ fundamental premise, then, is ethnic nationalism. Why else waste ink trying to show, in essence, that the Palestinians are not the descendants of the Canaanites, who inhabited the land before the Israelites arrived? Such arguments are utterly pointless. Ethnicity entitles no one to a state–not Arabs, and not Jews either. The right of sovereignty does not reside in numerical superiority or “peoplehood” or a “continuous presence in the land” or “ethnic self-determination”; it rests on a government’s respect for individual rights. Once such a government exists, no ethnic separatist has any valid claim against it.
Peters’ book does not simply distort the facts, then; it is a philosophically repugnant enterprise from the start. Ethnic nationalism has produced most of the wars in the last half century; Arab opposition to Israel rests largely on the same foundation. The doctrine of ethnic self-determination has no valid intellectual basis; given the bloodshed it has caused it deserves not respect but unequivocal repudiation.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2140
Yes the book FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL was terribly written and obviosly bias, but the core theory is fact. I understand that it is uncomfortable to read these facts. especially how they were presented, but none the less it is what it is. In it’s presentation and form it is obviously Zionist propoganda. However, facts are facts.
I also find it interesting that the defenders of the Palestinian plight will never allow that the Arab nations played any part in it. Yes the Isreali Government is dispicable in it’s treatment of Palestine but the Arab nations haven’t been doing all they could to help.
By the way I am not pro-Isreal or pro-Palestine. I don’t believe the US Government should have anything to do with either side. Not one more cent of our money should be spent supporting Isreal or Palestine or anyone else in the world for that matter. Private donations are fine and often honorable, but it should not be the policy of the US to pick sides in any conflict.
But the biggest joke is that the Ashkenazi, the Thirteenth Tribe of Twelve-Tribe Israel, aren’t Semites and their educated elite is aware of this. The only Semites in Israel and its occupied territories are Arabs and the ethnically identical minority of Oriental Jews who were allowed in since 1948. So now we have this eastern European Askenazi elite, which also includes some of the most eloquent anti-Zionists, arguing among themselves about who or what is anti-Semitic.
The Africaaners tried to defend their racist and apartheid government of post war South Africa by stating that the original Boers came to an empty land and that the Zulus and Bantus came later. It didn’t work for them and it won’t work for Israel.
Defense of Israel is one of the great moral rottings of our country today. I’ve watched the Presidential candidates be forced to genuflect to Israel (publically renouncing any supporters who weren’t 100% Zionist). Some like Hillary are well trained dogs who jump through the hoops without even being asked to. I will vote for none of these cowards. Let’s see if they can get Ralph Nader to obey.
The Zulus are Bantu.
The Dutch, and other other Europeans, and the Zulu arrived in the area at roughly the same time, and both contributed to the extermination of the Hottentot.
The Bushmen, with some others of the same group, anciently in the area, have managed to survive, perhaps in part by virtue of being already autochthonous to what Firesign Theater called, in relation to where many Amerindians were reservationed, the Stinking Desert.
Del one “other”.
You are right - but it does not affect my point - time of arrival was not sufficient reason to institute apartheid and abuse human rights.
“We need to first remember there was no Isreal or Palestine, just Southern Syria.”
More commonly known as the British Mandate of Palesine.
“The first propoganda that came out was that the Jews had kicked millions of Palestinians from the land they had been living on from time immemorial.”
I’ve never heard this “millions” before; it’s a red herring. It was hundreds of thousands, and as far as I know, that’s all it’s ever been. This number of displaced persons has grown to millions over decades, so this can hardly be considered the first “propaganda”.
“This simply isn’t true the Jews settled a very sparsley populated area.”
I guess it may be sparse to western urban dwellers who view average populations over the whole of a piece of land while ignoring sparsely distributed towns and cities. Just look at readily available maps from hundreds of years ago to see the many towns and villages that have been there for ages. A cattle rancher’s land is pretty sparsely populated too. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be criminal to steal it from him.
“Only after a large immigration of Arabs into Southern Syria did the Jews start their terror campaign.”
This is part of the Zionist propaganda.
“And yes they did use terror to [steal the Palestinians'] homeland.”
“This lie…”
…can easily be understood as true simply by reading the quotes of David Ben-Gurion. Yes, the tale is told in extremes on both sides but the fact remains that the Palestinian people were expelled from their homelands in a brutal campaign.
“It’s also clear that the Arab nations could easily assimilate the refugies from Palestine if they so choose.”
You seem to be forgetting the fact that the Palestinians don’t want to move. They’re being forced to move. Even if they did decide they wanted to lose their homes, lands, and history at gunpoint, it would now be up to the other Arab countries to provide for these people at considerable financial and social expense. Funny how quickly people forget — or outright ignore — the same reactions that West Germans had at the thought of assimilating East Germans. Or that Americans have at the social and financial expense of assimilating Mexicans.
“They won’t becasue it would mean an end to the war against Isreal.”
Yeah, dem Ayrabs have been attacking Israel nonstop for decades, haven’t they?
I won’t bother answering your token attempt at balance here.
Many Palestinians would like to move into their neighboring Arab nations but are not allowed to do so.
As for not bothering to answer my token attempt at balance here, you just did.
And anyone can see that the Arab nations are using the Palestinian people in a proxy war against Isreal.
Again I am not justifying the treatment of the Palestinian People be Isreal. I was talking about the rhetoric that has come from both sides.
I don’t know what’s worse: an overt propagandist, or a poorly informed dupe trying to achieve “balance”.
It is quite balanced, both sides are wrong. It seems to me that everyone on this site seems to see things in black and white. Wake up life is grey! Picking one side over the other when they are both being ignorant is Well ignorant.
Excuse me, how are the Palestinians wrong? Their land was taken from them both by force and through political chicanery, and you are calling them wrong for wanting it back?
Not only that, but the majority of them have been living in occupation hell for the past 60 years, and you say they are half to blame?
Ever heard of the Geneva Conventions and the right to resistance?
Did you also call Hitler’s victims wrong? How about Stalin’s? Pol Pot’s? Was every side opposed to their aggressor throughout history half wrong?
I have not said they are wrong for wanting it back. However, if you would like to get into it, what is wrong is their tactics. bombing innocent people is not right no matter how much you wish it to be. If you can explain to me how it is fine for the Palestinian people to kill Israeli children I might change my mind. But don’t hold your breath. I condemn the violence of both sides. Do you? Or do you think it’s OK to kill children.
I say they are half to blame. Where did I say that? Furthermore what percent of blame do you think they have? Zero?
Yes the Jews stole their land and want to keep stealing more. Again this is not new. the Palestinians have been shafted no doubt. But it is not only the Isaelis who have screwed them but also fellow Arabs.
Furthermore, at this point it is just as unrealistic to think they will get back all their land as it is to think the Native Americans will get back all their land. The time has come to draw a line and enter into a two state solution. Nothing else will work. Short of this you will see Israel continue to steal more land and continue to subjugate the Palestinian people. Every time a bomb kills even one Israeli they have yet another excuse to kill, steal, and oppress.
The failure of people to see the facts as they are not as how they wish them to be is the problem. Israel has the ability to destroy the entire Arab world. Face it it’s a fact. The Arab nations will not drive them from what they now have. The only realistic solution is concession. If the Palestinian people truly want the world support they deserve they need to stop killing Innocent people. With peacefull resistance they can gain what they have failed to achieve with decades of violence.
Peace!
Funny how no other race, on the entire planet, has a special word for racism directed at them.
Actually there’s a special word for racism against gypsies too… I can’t remember what it is offhand… which I guess we can attribute to the lack of people condemning you as an anti-gypsy racist for criticizing the policies of any given government.
Anti-Ziganism… it came to me just as I was hitting reply.
Two thirds of the population of Palistine was Arab in 1948.About 850,000 Arab Palistinians were expelled from their homes and about 100,000 Arabs were allowed to stay in Israel as very second class citizens.This has multiplied to well over 6 million Palistinans with second class citizenship or no civil rights at all.This can’t go on forever,something has to break somewhere.The USA is almost bankrupt, we can’t keep carrying the albatross Israel on our backs much longer.
Those who cannot win the argument try to silence the debate.
Criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism? Oh bulls*#t! The U.S. State Department has been soiled and rolling in disgraceful treason for so long, even the south bound business end of a skunk headed north, seems like the “logical” conclusion to insanity. Dear State Department and Condo ‘the queen of diplomatic cannibalism’, blow it out your arse!!!
You didn’t get it, ah ?Systematic bias, lies and unfounded propaganda, wich is “routine” now against Israel can lead to Antisemitism.
Not to mention the appropriation by some Arab countries of a fascist, Communist or Nazi rethoric as well as propagating in libraries the notorious fake “The Elders of Zion” and others.
Basta ! Ciao..
Well, that’s a can of horses**t. What we do know for certain is that Israel has appropriated the tactics of the Nazis with its ghettoization of the Palestinians, not to mention the wholesale slaughtered inflicted upon them day after day, week after week.
I’m always amazed how it’s somehow wrong to even suggest that isrial can be wrong on many topics. In 2005 I sent over $5K to help feed children who had no families in the nation of Isrial yet when I vistied I could not find the address. I then asked for help withthe local police and they didn’t seem to care that a organisation to help feed orphan children in Isrial never made it to the correct people…..
What about the USS Liberty? Should we never discuss the fact that Isrial tried to sink our ship?
Should we not hold Isrial accountable for the muder of people enjoying the beach while they simply drove a boat down the beach and open fire?
How far has our own nation fallen when we try to limit free speech?
Well, I will not in anyway agree to refrain from open talk about such issues when Isrial has been at fault for many issues.
Why is it that our elected officals seem to be more concerned wiith Isrial then our own nation?
Why is it that our leadreship says they support Isrial and provide all these stupid suggestion yet provide more cash and arms to Isrial’s enemies? Such actions need to be discussed in an open forum before the people of the US.
For god sakes people since when should we treat anyone different and if we do are’t we guiltiy of showing favor to one group over another?
We must repect the Jews and we must repect our nation and now bow to any nation. I have friends who are Jews and they are wonderful people and we even talk about these issues but I have never had a single one of my Jewish friends imply that I was an anti-semite…..
I suppose the Neocon agenda will never follow reason so why try to understand it…. Let’s just take over congress and the Senate and kick out all nations who want to lobby our nation to do there evil work…
Let’s get ride of the ADL or at the very least remove them from the pocket of congress, etc. We when have just and fair leaders as Christ calls for then we will see real peace…. In fact the peace plans that Bush has proposed will only lead to death of more Jews and the Jewish people realize the leadership of Isrial as just as dishonest as our leadership.
I suppose a good question to consider would be why allow any laws to be passed by our presidnet who has the lowest rating of any aside from Nixon?
I love the people of Isrial but I also have friends who oppose Isrial and oddly my Jewish friends are also frrinds with many of Isrial enemies? I wonder why?
I find it bizarre that “Anti-Semite” has any credibilty as an epithet from supporters of Israel, as Jews make up maybe ten percent of the world’s Semites, the rest being Arabs and Ethiopians. It’s even more ironic when ninety percent of the Israeli population itself is Caucasian. Don’t get sucked in by such manipulative semantics, and call it out whenever you hear it being used.
This joke of a policy document was certainly written by Benjamin Netanyahoo. If it was truly written by an “objective” State Department then they just out-zionized the Zionists. Surely the House of Representatives will have to respond with an even more strongly worded resolution condemning the Palestinians for not submitting to Israeli occupation and praising the Israelis and expressing solidarity with them for being so brave and so Jewish.
Why don’t we just declare Israel the 51st state already? At least that way we can collect taxes from the bastards instead of the other way around.
Well, Israel does have a star on its flag. Recently I realized that there is widespread tendency (not here) to refer to Israel as the ‘State of Israel’. Does anyone ever say the ‘State of France’ or whatever country?
Why don’t we just declare Israel the 51st state already? At least that way we can collect taxes from the bastards instead of the other way around.
Sorry, but it’s too late. Israel has already annexed the U.S. and is now collecting taxes from us.
Tenth Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly on the Item”Illegal Israeli Actions in the Occupied East Jerusalem and the Rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory”, 7 April 2002
……..Mr. President,
The Security Council has passed a number of important resolutions on Palestine. Two of these resolutions, 1402 and 1403, call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Palestinian territory without delay. However, Israel has yet to withdraw its forces from Palestine. Instead, the Israeli army has invaded more Palestinian towns. Resolution 1405 welcomed the Secretary-General’s initiative to send a fact-finding mission to investigate the events in Jenin. But after many days of prevarication and obstruction, Israel eventually forced the Secretary-General to disband his high-profile fact-finding team. The problem is that the Security Council still does not seem to know what to do when the Israeli Government chooses to ignore the Security Council’s authority.
To people throughout the world it makes little difference whether the Security Council has met virtually everyday on Palestine or whether the Security Council authorised, mandated or merely welcomed the deployment of the fact-finding team. The point is that the Security Council unanimously agreed that it is in the best interest of both parties, the Israelis and the Palestinians, and indeed the entire international community, that the truth behind the events in Jenin be established. The accusations, suspicions and controversy behind what actually happened in Jenin have not died down, nor are they likely to do so. As the Secretary-General said in his letter to the President of the Security Council on the disbanding of the Jenin fact-finding team dated 1 May 2002, “I regret being unable to provide the information requested by the Council in resolution 1405, and especially that the long shadow cast by recent events in the Jenin refugee camp will remain in the absence of such a fact-finding exercise”.
Through its own actions, the Israeli Government has led us to the perception that the truth is something that they would wish to hide. But as we all know, the truth will ultimately prevail.
Mr. President,
The people of Palestine look to the General Assembly as their last recourse. Every Member State has an obligation to take a stand on the crisis in the Middle East. This is no time for moral ambivalence and double standards. The time has come to allow the wider international community to articulate its views and to send a clear and unambiguous message to the Government of Israel that international law and human rights are non-negotiable. This resolution before you seeks to do precisely that. We wish to leave the Government of Israel in no doubt that its recent military incursions far exceeded the boundaries of the right to self-defence.
Furthermore, we want it to be known that Israel’s actions cannot be justified on the grounds of counter-terrorism. Combating terrorism does not license any State to disregard international laws and humanitarian norms. There can be no valid comparison drawn between the fight against international terrorism and fighting against the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people to end foreign occupation…………………..
http://www.nam.gov.za/media/020705is.htm
Israel rules USA. and USA uses all its weight to shield whatever Israel wishes to do
Even the Security councils is powerless to do anything. how stupid does it look in the light of Israel ignoring 69 UN resolution without a threat of an embargo or else.
UN and security Council are simple a useless body as far as Israel is concerned.
But when it comes to Iraq Libya and other small states the UN uses all the resources to crush them
Palestine is a stark and continuous reminder of what Security council and UN means to these small states.
Thanks to Jim Lobe once more for an excellent and succinct analysis.
The mention of Jimmy Carter is a key connection.
It is als