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Add an EventAnti-Semitism in San Francisco
In an elevator of an office building in the Financial District of San Francisco today, this writer was alone with a young, six-foot tall, blondish, athletic man in his late 20s or early 30s, who, instead of keeping his mouth shut as most people do, said to me, a very short, middle-aged woman, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" This was obviously the usual opening line of a man who was trying to be fresh with a woman, so I said nothing. He tried to shake my hand, but I refused. When he saw that I would not fall for this rapist line, he stated, "I thought I saw you at some synagogue." He then got off the elevator. I realized then that the hatemongering, perpetrated by George War Bush, his Nazi friends, and the Zionists, has escalated, and it is time we all tell each other about the incidents we experience and provide suggestions on how to cope.
Keep in mind that I said nothing to him in the elevator, so he could only be making such a statement on the basis of his image of what a Jewish person is supposed to be. It may interest the reader that Jews look like all other people of Mediterranean descent, including but not limited to Arabs, Italians, Spaniards, Latin Americans, Greeks, Yugoslavs and others. And since Jews can be all colors from very dark brown to very fair, white skin; have very dark hair to very light blonde or red hair, have very curly to very straight hair, and be any height and any weight, the stereotype of Jewish could easily be misapplied. Thus, everyone should listen up.
If you are alone in the elevator, it is best to say nothing and certainly do not shake this anti-Semite's hand. If you do indeed feel threatened, press a button to get the door to open to a floor, scream rape, or if you think no one will respond to that, then scream fire. If you are out on the street where there are other people around, and are the same height as the anti-Semite, you can slap him so that his face has the red imprint of your hand on his face. I am sure you will have no trouble whipping out such a hard slap as you will be at least as angry as I was. My blood pressure went up to 200 when it is normally 120/70. If you are with a group and the anti-Semites pull this kind of stunt, and you are a similar height, take off a shoe and whack him with your shoe. I am sure the other women in your group will be glad to join with you in the fun lesson to the anti-Semite to never harass women. This is precisely what the drag queens at Stonewall did in 1969 when the police invaded their bar. We commemorate Stonewall every year with the Gay Pride Parade. Anti-Semitic thugs think that gays, women and Jews do not fight back. I have news for all the anti-Semites: We do fight back. Do not ever harass any woman!
It is time everyone get their facts straight on Israel, Zionists and anti-Semitism. Israel exists as a US military base in the Middle East to protect US oil profits. It is paid for with US tax dollars to the tune of $4 billion annually above the table and $4 billion annually below the table. It is a racist, theocratic, militaristic, anti-women, anti-gay, anti-labor capitalist puppet of the United States. Thus, it is the US government that is the Israel Lobby. The twin parties of capitalism, the Democrats & Republicans, that constitute the US government thus have a vested interest in promoting Israel as it exists to promote US imperialism, which they both support. If you do not belong to the Democrat-Republican parties, you can and should speak against Israel. You cannot lose your funding because you never received funding from capitalist organizations in the first place if you spoke out against Israel. As our movement for a secular, socialist state of Palestine grows, we will elect people who do not support US oil imperialism and its lackey, the Zionist state of Israel.
The Zionists in the US are the loyal, anti-communist, anti-labor stooges of the United States government. They have a long history of collaboration with the Nazis and now with the US government in promoting Israel. They do nothing to oppose anti-Semitism in the US and by refusing to enforce the church/state separation mandate of the US Constitution, actively promote anti-Semitism. They refuse to oppose the illegal and despicable loyalty oath, the Pledge of Allegiance; they allow Christmas trees and Christmas parties on government property, and they allow crosses on public property, as is the case with the cross on Mt. Davidson, San Francisco. It is now supposedly on "private" land as an illegal initiative was promoted by all of the good Democrats of San Francisco, and supported by the Zionists, to privatize a piece of public park land so as to circumvent a good Church/State separation ruling by the US Supreme Court, to allow the cross to stay on Mt. Davidson. They cooperated with the anti-communist witchhunts of the 1950s, whose victims were often Jewish, and included Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobel, falsely accused of conspiring to commit atomic espionage. As the labor lawyer, Clarence Darrow stated, conspiracy charges should have been thrown out with the thumbscrew and the rack as they exact a maximum penalty without proving an overt act.
George War Bush, the grandson of a Nazi collaborator, and his Nazi friends are vicious anti-Semites. They do not give a damn about Jews. They only care about profits, as do all capitalists, and in the case of the Middle East, that means oil profits.
Thus, it is the Zionists who are not only anti-Semites (both Jews and Arabs are Semites) but it is they, not the anti-Zionist Jews, who are self-hating Jews. So, when you are called a self-hating Jew by a Zionist, you scream the same epithet in that hoodlum's face loudly and clearly, over and over again, preferably as you point your finger at him. I also suggest that from now on, whenever it seems possible, you tell every supporter of the Zionist state of Israel loudly and clearly that they are a stinking piece of shit. And above all, stop voting for all politicians who support Israel. If you do not know a politician's position, ask. If you cannot find a suitable candidate for a given position, skip that position. That is the only way the message will be received that we do not want any of our representatives at the local, state or federal level to support the Zionist state of Israel and we want the tax dollars going to Israel to be spent right here at home on all of our urgent social needs.
The Zionist organizations receive most of their funding from religious American Jews because anti-Semitism exists in the US, and every single person of Jewish descent, whether we are atheists (the majority of American Jews are atheists) or not, whether we oppose or support Israel, have all experienced anti-Semitism. The Zionists use this 2,000-year history of anti-Semitism as an excuse to promote Israel, but in fact, the existence of Israel as a Zionist, racist state only makes the anti-Semitism worse. One Zionist organization, the Anti-Defamation League, has used a historically correct listing of anti-Semitic false generalities, and thus demonstrates why all anti-Zionists must emphasize the US as the primary perpetrator of the crimes against humanity against the Palestinians. It is not the Jews, it is US oil imperialism, or simply the United States government, that is the problem. That list is as follows:
1) Jews stick together more than other Americans.
2) Jews always like to be at the head of things.
3) Jews are more loyal to Israel than America.
4) Jews have too much power in the U.S. today.
5) Jews have too much control and influence on Wall Street.
6) Jews have too much power in the business world.
7) Jews have a lot of irritating faults.
8) Jews are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want.
9) Jewish businesspeople are so shrewd that others don’t have a fair chance at competition.
10) Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind.
11) Jews are not just as honest as other businesspeople.
First of all, I echo the other comments which mention that perhaps you are going overboard by assuming that the gentleman in the elevator was anti-semitic, and was lying about thinking he recognized you. Perhaps he really did. Isn't that at all possible? And you seem to preach that people shouldn't assume things (like that you are Jewish), yet you are doing exactly that. You are assuming he is an anti-semite.
Also, you comment that "Jews look like all other people of Mediterranean descent." However, Jews, Italians, Arabs, Spaniards, Yugoslavs, and the other groups you mentioned do not all look the same. There are noticeable differences that tend to be characteristic amongst certain ethnic populations. Not in all cases, but in many. And I think your comment to that effect carries racist undertones.
Thirdly, should you ever carry out your call for violence towards those you think (not know) are anti-semitic, I hope you get everything that is coming to you. How can you condone such violence? And if I am ever on the receiving end of your evil, bigoted, and irrational violence, rest assured that I will not only sue you, but I will see to it that you spend a good deal of time in jail. That is assault, my dear. It's illegal. It's wrong. Especially under the context you describe.
And to suggest that someone should stop an elevator, force open the doors, and yell "rape" whenever they think they are in the company of someone who is "anti-semitic" disgraces all of the people who actually have been raped. Shame on you. Ever hear of the little boy who cried wolf? There's a reason that crying "rape" doesn't always attract the needed attention. Because people like you abuse it for needless and selfish reasons.
And by the way, I love how instead of relying on logical discussion and debate to prove your arguments, you choose instead to act like a kindergartner. Cussing, hitting, pointing fingers, and calling people names is something I would expect from an immature and ignorant child. Not from a grown woman, who has presumably been through college. Please, do yourself a favor and grow up.
Your credibility to me has just dropped several notches. I mean, come on! Why must people "keep their mouthes shut" in elevators? God forbid people might be social in social space. "Don't I know you from somewhere?" is now a "rapist line"? Perhaps he a) recognized you, b) thought he recognized you (confused you with someone else), or c) thought you were attractive and wanted to talk. Horrible, horrible, isn't it?
Please tell me you've just been running low on sleep lately.
When antisemitism becomes the norm they will be the ones to instigate it.
Real antisemites are motivated by a search for truth.
They will be appeased if they are given the respect they deserve and not rediculed.
Agents provacatures will stop at nothing as their final goal is to creat a riot not fostering peaceful resolution.
We should make clear to everyone that anti-Semitism is not acceptable but criticism of Israel is in no way anti-Semitic (no more than trying a priest for child abuse could be considered anti-Catholic).
This post was obviously a parody, and shows how much energy socialists go to to divert the many racist attacks they have perpetuated by making it look like it never happened. Criticism of Israel or Zionism isn't racist, the fanatically blind racism of many socialists and communists and the length they will stoop to to try and cover it up is pathetic. The lefty movement has shown itself to contain way too many spineless hypocrits and intellectually bankrupt supporters for me to want to be a part of it. I have spoken to many socialists who think Jews bring it (racism) on themselves, who would hold huge protests if anyone dared say the same think about Muslims and Arabs, although I have met many in this country who condone injustices perpetuated by their "people".
As for the famed non-religious anti-zionists? well, i suspect you'll find most of the on this site (j/k). Seriously, though, many of y'all have no idea that there was such a thing as a non-religious, socialist anti-zionist..... It was a HUGE movement, called the "Bund", and it pretty much died when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. It looks like the folk on this site have some cathing up to do ;)
Also, I have met many Arabs and Muslims in this country who do sympathize with the terrortis groups killing innocent people in India and Kashmir, Russia, US, Europe, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Phillapeans, SIngapore,. Why are leftist groups not outraged over the lack of Muslim response to the attrocities listed above? Many of the above atrocites could be curtailed but they are constantly either ignored or supported by Muslims and Arabs world wide. When the UN tried to pass a resolution condemning "honor killings" the Arab League called it "anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab". So I guess all of us who think womens lives are worthwhile even if their hymens aren't entact are racist according to the Arab League.
Aside from that I will remind you one more time. This case at hand involves Palestine, Palestinian people fighting against a Zionist zealot who is having the Israeli army occupy Palestinian land. Who has killed close to 1800 people in the last two years. Compare that to the 500 or so Israelis and you should be able to do math I hope.
Remember, radical regimes usually arise from severe oppression, economic recession, famine, etc. Colonialization was the subjectivication of large amounts of people to a foreign power. All of the places you have mentioned were victims of that. All of them breed radical responses. Mend the wounds do not make new ones. A good place to start is Palesine, a justification of Anti-west attitudes stems for the rampant support of zionism. That must end. Stop giving aid to rich country like Israel who uses our aid to kill palestinian. When the Palestinian people stop dying from American bullets, then maybe we could work things out. Thats what all of us "damned lefties" see as a problem.
problems are nothing compared to the third world(persions/arabs,blacks/arabs,kurds/arabs etc..)
We've been spoiled,over there its an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".Its a completly diffrant way of thinking there.
1) If you consider this to be a civil war between Palestinians and Israelis why are Palestinians dying from American bullets. Clearly we are not isolationist on this one and did pick sides.
2). You said "over there its an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".Its a completly diffrant way of thinking there." I love how all you people can tap into the heads of all the people in the middle east and tell what they are thinking or are capable of thinking.
3). Let me once again point out to you the agressor in this conflict. Who is occupying whose land? Who has lost over 1700 hundred people and has had over 35000 wounded since Spetember of 2000 compared to numbers that seam so squeamish from the other side? Who has forced curfews on another? Who has destroyed the infastructure of another? Who has killed more civilians? Who has destroyed more homes? Who is starving? Who has bared a UN investigation team? Who has conquered land from the other? Who has settled on that conquered land?
4). Since its impossible to say that the Palestinians are the agressor, than you would have to describe how it could be possible, even in a logical sense because in real life this is almost funny, how an end to conflict can be adminstered by the party which is not the agressor.
That should give you something to think about for a while.
Your humble adversary
Mr T
1) We are living in the year 2002. Yes we all know the history of religious intollerence. If we are going to refer back in time to the middle ages then lets talk about the thousands of years of slavery of Africans in Saudi Arabia and how sexual slavery of African women began what we now romanticize as the harem.
Or we could reach back further in time to when the Egyptians inslaved the Jews and demand reperations.
The Egyptians still aren't willing to acknowledge it happened. Holy shit!
2) While the west has certianly intruded on the Arab countries it is extreamely pertinent to remember that Saudi Arabia has never been a colony of anyone!! Ever. Yet a million ignorant college students give lectures on how 9-11 was partially caused by Imperialism and colonization. Duh. Does not apply to the country whose citizens and culture have done the most to carry out terrorism WORLDWIDE. For some reason their are dozens of countries who were colonies who find it possible to live without blowing people up. Egypt on the other hand would do well to protest our intrusion into their affairs by refusing the 900 million dollars they beg up for (and receive) each year.
Yes, Mr T other religions do naughty things too, but in the year 2002 AD Muslims are the most vehmently hateful worldwide. This isn't said out of malice but for the simple fact that you seem really indiferent to how sad and intolerable it is when innocent people are being killed in the name of Allah, as opposed to in the name of Israel or "US security". Perhaps you live in the Middle Ages which is why it makes sense that you are still battling the inquisition.
Sorry this was actually the person who calls her/himself "z" not "X" although the both of you are so remarkably similar in your ignorance that well I confused you, there is only one letter between you guys. Sorry "X" if I offended you by calling you by a different screen name.
"Or we could reach back further in time to when the Egyptians inslaved the Jews and demand reperations.
The Egyptians still aren't willing to acknowledge it happened. Holy shit!"
This is really funny. Need I remind you when the Egyptian empire enslaved the Jews? Need I remind you about how virtually every civilization at that time had slaves? What I am saying, you imbecile is that this does not justify any of your anti Arab crap. (And if you didnt realize that still holds true for the Saudi woman/African bit too, as you should know the US itslef had African men and women as slaves until the 1860's)
Saudi Arabia was not colonized. No, it was considered a sphere of influence, a land raped and pillaged still, in a similar fashion as Siam/Thailand. No they did not neccesarily get overrun like many of their neighbors, but to say they were a compltely soveriegn nation is idiotic when they had the barrel of a gun pointed down their throats.
Generally, Muslims as whole are a very economically ailing group and have been for a very long time. Muslims were during the middle ages more tolerant in many ways than they are now. We as a rich country need to help them get back on their feet instead of giving Israel a rich country more and more weapons(who if you actually can perform simple arithmatic you will learn over the years has gotten and exponentially higher amount of aid from the US)
"Perhaps you live in the Middle Ages which is why it makes sense that you are still battling the inquisition."
No, not me; thats complete ad homenin shit. But I could make the case for you, in that you want to infringe on the sovereignty of Muslim nations. There was a movement for that in Europe in the Middle Ages. it was called the Crusades. You should read up on that and find out the disastrous consequences Europe faced after that fiasco.
There is also a lack of a democratic mindset in arabs,feeling that a strong leader is the backbone of a nation.Hence their all run by dictators.That why blaming America for backing up middle eastern dictatorships is a hollow arguement.
Also the Isreali thing is just the tip of the iceburg,there are a lot of petty squabbles among the arab nations and the sunni/shiite thing is still a problem.Hating Isreal just keeps thier minds focused on hating one thing a time.
1) If you consider this to be a civil war between Palestinians and Israelis why are Palestinians dying from American bullets. Clearly we are not isolationist on this one and did pick sides.
2). You said "over there its an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".Its a completly diffrant way of thinking there." I love how all you people can tap into the heads of all the people in the middle east and tell what they are thinking or are capable of thinking.
3). Let me once again point out to you the agressor in this conflict. Who is occupying whose land? Who has lost over 1700 hundred people and has had over 35000 wounded since Spetember of 2000 compared to numbers that seam so squeamish from the other side? Who has forced curfews on another? Who has destroyed the infastructure of another? Who has killed more civilians? Who has destroyed more homes? Who is starving? Who has bared a UN investigation team? Who has conquered land from the other? Who has settled on that conquered land?
4). Since its impossible to say that the Palestinians are the agressor, than you would have to describe how it could be possible, even in a logical sense because in real life this is almost funny, how an end to conflict can be adminstered by the party which is not the agressor.
Now I know that anyone who calls themselves Ronny Ray Gun has to be a simpleton, but i hold faith in that you can understand the statments. Now its time for Israelis to elect new leaders who are not gun wielding cowboy jackasses like Sharon and the other militants from the Likud party. Is this simple enough for you my mentally challenged friend?
bring into play the wrongs committed by Arabs or Muslims MUST be anti-Arab!! This is logical in the same way that any negative mention of Israel makes one a Nazi. This is the third time you've pulled out
that tired accusation of racism to try and stifle criticism that you're not bright enough to digest. It is neither
anti arab or anti muslim to refuse to participate in this
black and white "evil US/Israel" vs. good, misuderstood Palestine, Egypt, Saudi, etc.
The fact is Muslims have in the past and in the present kicked "infidels" off their land or used terrorism to try
to form Islamic states in dozens of regions of the world. This has involved trying to drive the natives off their land so a small group of Muslims can have sovernty. The Arab League countries have done nothing to deter their citizens from helping out these
causes, and in some cases have financial supported it- then turned around and raged at Israel. Pure hypocrasy and arrogaunce. This is not racism or anti-Muslim and you're need to label facts as such as pathetic and may account for your inability to do anything but indulge in emotional wishfulthinking along
with cliched accusations and labels. I do not intend to respond to any more of your posts because, as much as I enjoy conversing with people of different opinions and sharing information, anytime you hear anything you don't like you have a temper tantrum and convienantly label it racist. Your definition of racist seems to be any fact or opinion that goes against what you wish were true. Trying to engage in a serious discussion with someone uninterested in knowing anything about what you claim to care sooo
much about is a waste of time.
I don't know. who?
"Who has lost over 1700 hundred people and has had over 35000 wounded since Spetember of 2000 compared to numbers that seam so squeamish from the other side?"
Palestinians started this conflict, how cares how many of them died.
"Who has forced curfews on another?"
The wronged party has forced curfews on the aggressor.
"Who has destroyed the infastructure of another?"
The wronged party has.
"Who has killed more civilians?"
The Palestinians killed more civilians. If one 16 year old Palestinian, without official military training blows up a cafe and killed 12 Israeli teenagers. What makes another 16 year old a civilian? There are no civilians in guerilla warfare.
"Who has destroyed more homes?"
If you mean families - than the Palestinians has. If You mean buildings, than Israel.
"Who is starving?"
Yasser Arafat is starving his people while building massive estates and monuments for himself.
"Who has bared a UN investigation team?"
The UN has never been impartial toward Israel.
"Who has conquered land from the other?"
Conquered from whom? From Jordan? Israel has a peace treaty with Jordan. From Egypt? Israel has 30 year old peace with Egypt as well.
"Who has settled on that conquered land?"
The people of the country that was cowerdly attacked by 3 Arab armies AND the Palestinians in 1967. And thus rightfully captured that land.
Well anyway first for the man from planet X.
"Muslims have in the past and in the present kicked "infidels" off their land or used terrorism to try
to form Islamic states in dozens of regions of the world. "
I am not disagreeing with you here, or condoning this action. I am only asserting criticism of the Israeli regime, which I beleive even you would agree with is in power. WHereas, Palestinians in general do not have a strong governement and all that fun stuff that goes along with it: adequete law enforement, legistlative and judicail bodies, and what I believe is most important: education. And like I have said before, I am for secular states, not religious ones, so I do not support a religious government either, but I think an Islamic state of Palestine would be better than an Israeli occupation.
In terms of that racist thing, well all I can say is that anytime someone makes accusations such as all Jews are...All Arabs think... the comments are racist, the ideology behind them is also racist. Not to say that all these people are Nazis, but there are varying different degrees of racism. I have to agree with you on two accounts first this labeling is horrible in general, what I am doing usually as in the case with you is say that you cannot say that because it is racist, not that you are racist. In the case of Smash the Left I would be like you are a racist. But you can't blame me for that. It is sad that whenever people disagree on certain things and lack the ability to answer intelligently they must respond with you are a racist, teh inability to pin me as a racist has called for some ding bat to write Nazi shit in my name. As for the rest of it, I am sorry I have disappointed you, but I do appreciate the fact that you never called me a Nazi, and did not take that post seriously.
Now for that Rohan fellow. First Israeli is occupying the territory granted to the Palestinian NATIONAL Authority. Clearly making them occupying land. Not the other way around. The people living there, and as well as no traceable relative came in and conquered Jewish land. That is a farce.
"Palestinians started this conflict, how cares how many of them died."
Now X do you see what i mean. Aside from that, how did they start this conflict? i am curious to know how you are going to back that up.
"As far as this "wronged party" crap that some how you feel justifies all of this, lets just say I think otherwise for many many reasons.
The Palestinians killed more civilians. If one 16 year old Palestinian, without official military training blows up a cafe and killed 12 Israeli teenagers. What makes another 16 year old a civilian? There are no civilians in guerilla warfare."
I hope you realize that by your logic you just said the sucicide bomobings were ok. There are no Paelstinian civilians give me a break.
"If you mean families - than the Palestinians has. If You mean buildings, than Israel. "
I meant both.
"Yasser Arafat is starving his people while building massive estates and monuments for himself. "
Read the news about Arafat's current situation, and then talk to me.
"The UN has never been impartial toward Israel."
Them damned antisemitic bastards only helped found the state of Israel. If you want to say this prove it. If Israle breaks international law, the UN which upholds that law is not going to be happy with them.
"Conquered from whom? From Jordan? Israel has a peace treaty with Jordan. From Egypt? Israel has 30 year old peace with Egypt as well."
Peace traeaties wich involve the session of people's land, would be conquering land. yes. What next are you going to say treaties are always fair? Funny.
"The people of the country that was cowerdly attacked by 3 Arab armies AND the Palestinians in 1967. And thus rightfully captured that land."
They took land before that too. Look at a map from 1948, then we will discuss because you could justify 1967 by saying it was an attempt to get that land back. Which of course almost no level headed individual is still trying to get back.
You asked who is occupying who's land? I offer this commentary from another person which makes good sense.
“Palestinians doubt Blair can deliver,” announces the BBC. “Four Palestinians die in West Bank,” reports CNN. “IDF demolishes building used by Palestinian gunmen,” announces Israel’s government run Channel 1 News. The modern media is filled with stories about the Palestinians, their plight, their dilemmas and their struggles. All aspects of their lives seem to have been put under the microscope. Only one question never seems to be addressed: Who are the Palestinians? Who are these people who claim the Holy Land as their own? What is their history? Where did they come from? How did they arrive in the country they call Palestine? Now that both US President George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (in direct opposition to the platform he was elected on) have come out in favor of a Palestinian state, it would be prudent to seek answers to these questions. For all we know, Palestine could be as real as Disneyland.
The general impression given in the media is that Palestinians have lived in the Holy Land for hundreds, if not thousands of years. No wonder, then, that a recent poll of French citizens shows that the majority believe (falsely) that prior to the establishment of the State of Israel an independent Arab Palestinian state existed in its place. Yet curiously, when it comes to giving the history of this “ancient” people most news outlets find it harder to go back more than the early nineteen hundreds. CNN, an agency which has devoted countless hours of airtime to the “plight” of the Palestinians, has a website which features a special section on the Middle East conflict called “Struggle For Peace”. It includes a promising sounding section entitled “Lands Through The Ages” which assures us it will detail the history of the region using maps. Strangely, it turns out, the maps displayed start no earlier than the ancient date of 1917. The CBS News website has a background section called “A Struggle For Middle East Peace.’’ Its history timeline starts no earlier than 1897. The NBC News background section called ‘’Searching for Peace’’ has a timeline which starts in 1916. BBC’s timeline starts in 1948.
Yet, the clincher must certainly be the Palestinian National Authority’s own website. While it is top heavy on such phrases as “Israeli occupation” and “Israeli human rights violations” the site offers practically nothing on the history of the so-called Palestinian people. The only article on the site with any historical content is called “Palestinian History - 20th Century Milestones” which seems only to confirm that prior to 1900 there was no such concept as the Palestinian People.
While the modern media maybe short on information about the history of the “Palestinian people” the historical record is not. Books, such as Battleground by Samuel Katz and From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters long ago detailed the history of the region. Far from being settled by Palestinians for hundreds, if not thousands of years, the Land of Israel, according to dozens of visitors to the land, was, until the beginning of the last century, practically empty. Alphonse de Lamartine visited the land in 1835. In his book, Recollections of the East, he writes "Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw no living object, heard no living sound…." None other than the famous American author Mark Twain, who visited the Land of Israel in 1867, confirms this. In his book Innocents Abroad he writes, “A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely…. We never saw a human being on the whole journey.” Even the British Consul in Palestine reported, in 1857, “The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population…”
In fact, according to official Ottoman Turk census figures of 1882, in the entire Land of Israel, there were only 141,000 Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab. This number was to skyrocket to 650,000 Arabs by 1922, a 450% increase in only 40 years. By 1938 that number would become over 1 million or an 800% increase in only 56 years. Population growth was especially high in areas where Jews lived. Where did all these Arabs come from? According to the Arabs the huge increase in their numbers was due to natural childbirth. In 1944, for example, they alleged that the natural increase (births minus deaths) of Arabs in the Land of Israel was the astounding figure of 334 per 1000. That would make it roughly three times the corresponding rate for the same year of Lebanon and Syria and almost four times that of Egypt, considered amongst the highest in the world. Unlikely, to say the least. If the massive increase was not due to natural births, then were did all these Arabs come from?
All the evidence points to the neighboring Arab states of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. In 1922 the British Governor of the Sinai noted that “illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria.” In 1930, the British Mandate -sponsored Hope-Simpson Report noted that “unemployment lists are being swollen by immigrants from Trans-Jordania” and “illicit immigration through Syria and across the northern frontier of Palestine is material.” The Arabs themselves bare witness to this trend. For example, the governor of the Syrian district of Hauran, Tewfik Bey el Hurani, admitted in 1934 that in a single period of only a few months over 30,000 Syrians from Hauran had moved to the Land of Israel. Even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill noted the Arab influx. Churchill, a veteran of the early years of the British mandate in the Land of Israel, noted in 1939 that “far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied.”
Far from displacing the Arabs, as they claimed, the Jews were the very reason the Arabs chose to settle in the Land of Israel. Jobs provided by newly established Zionist industry and agriculture lured them there, just as Israeli construction and industry provides most Arabs in the Land of Israel with their main source of income today. Malcolm MacDonald, one of the principal authors of the British White Paper of 1939, which restricted Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel, admitted (conservatively) that were it not for a Jewish presence the Arab population would have been little more than half of what it actually was. Today, when due to the latest “intifada” Arabs from the territories under 35 are no longer allowed into pre-1967 Israel to work, unemployment has skyrocketed to over 40% and most rely on European aid packages to survive.
Not only pre-state Arabs lied about being indigenous. Even today, many prominent so-called Palestinians, it turns out, are foreign born. Edward Said, an Ivy League Professor of Literature and a major Palestinian propagandist, long claimed to have been raised in Jerusalem. However, in an article in the September 1999 issue of Commentary Magazine Justus Reid Weiner revealed that Said actually grew up in Cairo, Egypt, a fact which Said himself was later forced to admit. But why bother with Said? PLO chief Yasir Arafat himself, self declared “leader of the Palestinian people”, has always claimed to have been born and raised in “Palestine”. In fact, according to his official biographer Richard Hart, as well as the BBC, Arafat was born in Cairo on August 24, 1929 and that’s where he grew up.
To maintain the charade of being an indigenous population, Arab propagandists have had to do more than a little rewriting of history. A major part of this rewriting involves the renaming of geography. For two thousand years the central mountainous region of Israel was known as Judea and Samaria, as any medieval map of the area testifies. However, the state of Jordan occupied the area in 1948 and renamed it the West Bank. This is a funny name for a region that actually lies in the eastern portion of the land and can only be called “West” in reference to Jordan. This does not seem to bother the majority of news outlets covering the region, which universally refer to the region by its recent Jordanian name.
The term “Palestinian" is itself a masterful twisting of history. To portray themselves as indigenous, Arab settlers adopted the name of an ancient Canaanite tribe, the Phillistines, that died out almost 3000 years ago. The connection between this tribe and modern day Arabs is nil. Who is to know the difference? Given the absence of any historical record, one can understand why Yasser Arafat claims that Jesus Christ, a Jewish carpenter from the Galilee, was a Palestinian. Every year, at Christmas time, Arafat goes to Bethlehem and tells worshippers that Jesus was in fact “the first Palestinian”.
If the Palestinians are indeed a myth, then the real question becomes “Why?” Why invent a fictitious people? The answer is that the myth of the Palestinian People serves as the justification for Arab occupation of the Land of Israel. While the Arabs already possess 21 sovereign countries of their own (more than any other single people on earth) and control a land mass 800 times the size of the Land of Israel, this is apparently not enough for them. They therefore feel the need to rob the Jews of their one and only country, one of the smallest on the planet. Unfortunately, many people ignorant of the history of the region, including much of the world media, are only too willing to help.
It is interesting to note that the Bible makes reference to a fictitious nation confronting Israel. “They have provoked me to jealously by worshipping a non-god, angered me with their vanities. I will provoke them with a non-nation; anger them with a foolish nation (Deuteronomy 32:21).”
On second thought, it may be unfair to compare Palestine to Disneyland. After all, Disneyland really exists.
So, Mr. T go do your homework and then ask yourself who is occupying who's land.
has a good timeline for the history of jerusalem. To say that to find out what the area was like before the nineteenth centruy is pretty silly. I have no idea where you got this article from. But as you can say the Arabs, aside from the Crusader period, controled the land for quite some time. The Assyrians, Persians and Babylonians would later be the Arabs which we know of. The amnesia that affects some of you people I find scary.
"To portray themselves as indigenous, Arab settlers adopted the name of an ancient Canaanite tribe, the Phillistines, that died out almost 3000 years ago. The connection between this tribe and modern day Arabs is nil. Who is to know the difference? Given the absence of any historical record"
This is the problem I have with Zionism, stated pretty clearly. The only difference between the two groups is that bit of history that says the Arabs controled that land six the 7th Century, and were building there living there (with a small indigenous jewish population)
"A major part of this rewriting involves the renaming of geography. For two thousand years the central mountainous region of Israel was known as Judea and Samaria, as any medieval map of the area testifies."
The Romans I believe referred to the land as Palestine for one. Secondly, what medievil maps are you speaking of? Certainly not ones drwan by scribes in Bagdad which put Arabic names for the region.
And there are a couple of quotes from people like Churchhill the description from Mark Twain, but clearly you cannot take this seriously. To take this seriously, is to say the Ottomans did not exist, the Crusades did not exist, Saladin, mameluks, etc...
Clearly Ally this arguement is as botched as one can get.
You have offered no proof of the Palestinian claim to the land to which they recently immigrated. Why should they be given ALL the land that recently belonged to Jordan and Egypt?
As far as lineage to the land is concerned, how do you explain that Islam built a great big mosque right over top of the ruins of the first and second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem? - Destroyed last in 70 AD by General Cestus Gallus of the Roman Empire. Jerusalem was founded and built by Jews. Bethlehem was a Jewish town when Jesus was born but now it seems to be in the hands of Arabs. Yasser Arafat has been known to go to Bethlehem on Christmas and publicly declare the Jesus was a Palestinian rather than a Jew - no doubt with links to the Great Chairman Arafat himself. To bad Arafat is really Egyptian.
Egypt and Jordan never really controlled Palestine recently; it was under Ottomon rule like the rest of the Middle East for most of the last 1000 years.
If nobody was in Palestine before the Zionists showed up, why did their first attempts to colonize Palestine fail due to the large amount of cheap nonJewish local labour.
As for religion and land control; most of the Palestinians (even those that may have moved from other Middle Eastern countries in the last 1000 years) have more ancestors who were Jews in Israel at the time of the Romans than do Ashkenazi European Jews(even without conversion this is true since Judaism only requires one parent to be Jewish and 2000 years allows for alot of intermarriage).
I just had proved that the Arabs had been in Palestine for quite some time, learn how to read. Who were the Babylonians and their empire, the Assyrians, the Persians, Saladin, the mamelukes, the Ottomans, they were all Arabs. This basically proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt that there has always been a Arabic presence there for quite some time, for about what 3500 years. Ok, what is your problem, can't you read a history book, or just click on the link I posted. That whole egypt Jordan concept you have was adequetaly tossed out by the last guy, so I feel no need to really comment on it further.
" As far as lineage to the land is concerned, how do you explain that Islam built a great big mosque right over top of the ruins of the first and second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem?"
What do you want me to say? The Collusus of Rhodes was destroyed too, the Sphinx, and most importantly the Library of Alexandria was also burned down. All are lamentable losses, yes. What can you do about it? Go to Alexandria and destroy what has been built over it?
Please, I beg of you, if youdecide to criticize me please just make sense. Is that too much to ask from you people?
Because the site is seen as holy by Muslims and Jews for the exact same reason. Islam and Judaism are very similar religions and are based off most of the same myths.
"The Temple Mount (Heb., Har Habayit; Arabic, Haram esh-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary),is identified in both Jewish and Islamic tradition as the area of Mount Moriah where Abraham offered up his son in sacrifice (Genesis 22:1-18; the Koran, Sura Al-Saffat 37:102-110).
Here King Solomon built the First Temple almost 3,000 years ago. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, but 70 years later Jews returning from exile built the Second Temple on the same site. King Herod refashioned it into an edifice of great splendor.
In Muslim tradition, the place is also identified as the "furthermost sanctuary" (Arabic, masjid al-aksa) from which the Prophet Mohammed, accompanied by the Angel Gabriel, made the Night Journey to the Throne of God (The Koran, Sura Al-Isra’ 17:1).
Following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70, the area of the Temple was deliberately left in ruins (first by the Romans, then by the Byzantines). This desecration was not redressed until the Muslim conquest of the city by the Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab in 638. He ordered the clearing of the site and the building of a "house of prayer".
Some 50 years later, the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock to enshrine the outcrop of bedrock believed to be the "place of the sacrifice" on Mount Moriah. He (or his son, the Caliph al-Walid I) also built the large mosque at the southern end of the Haram, which came to be called al-Aksa after the Koranic name attributed to the entire area
"
Orderly government, until the death (1566) of Sultan Suleiman the Magificent, brought improvements and stimulated Jewish immigration. Some newcomers settled in Jerusalem, but the majority went to Safad where, by mid-16th century, the Jewish population had risen to about 10,000, and the town had become a thriving textile center as well as the focus of intense intellectual activity. During this period, the study of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) flourished, and contemporary clarifications of Jewish law, as codified in the Shulhan Arukh, spread throughout the Diaspora from the study houses in Safad.
With a gradual decline in the quality of Ottoman rule, the country was brought to a state of widespread neglect. By the end of the 18th century, much of the land was owned by absentee landlords and leased to impoverished tenant farmers, and taxation was as crippling as it was capricious. The great forests of Galilee and the Carmel mountain range were denuded of trees; swamp and desert encroached on agricultural land.
The 19th century saw medieval backwardness gradually give way to the first signs of progress, with various Western powers jockeyed for position, often through missionary activities. British, French and American scholars launched studies of biblical geography and archeology; Britain, France, Russia, Austria and the United States opened consulates in Jerusalem. Steamships began to ply regular routes between the Land and Europe; postal and telegraphic connections were installed; the first road was built connecting Jerusalem and Jaffa. The Land's rebirth as a crossroads for commerce of three continents was accelerated by the opening of the Suez Canal.
Consequently, the condition of the country's Jews slowly improved, and their numbers increased substantially. By mid-century, overcrowded conditions within the walled city of Jerusalem motivated the Jews to build the first neighborhood outside the walls (1860) and, in the next quarter century, to add seven more, forming the nucleus of the New City. By 1880, Jerusalem had an overall Jewish majority. Land for farming was purchased throughout the country; new rural settlements were set up; and the Hebrew language, long restricted to liturgy and literature, was revived. The stage was being set for the founding of the Zionist movement.
Source: Israeli Foreign Ministry
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/Ottoman.html
Total Population
The Problem of Identity
The evaluation of Palestinian population presents unique difficulties. Foremost of these is a lack of data. However, a more fundamental problem is one of defining the Palestinians. The ultimate definition of nationality is personal. Those who consider themselves to be Palestinians are Palestinians. The only real measure of "national identity" is self-identification, not legal citizenship.
Unfortunately, self-identification seldom is reflected in population statistics. Instead, demographers have information on categories such as place of birth, citizenship, and mother tongue. No population registrar in the Ottoman Empire, the Palestine
Mandate, Jordan, or Israel ever asked a census question on national self-identification. The Ottomans did not even consider the possibility of such a question; the others did not want to know.
For the Ottoman period, the answer to the question of Palestinian identity is, statistically at least, fairly simple. The Ottomans kept records only by religious affiliation. Although they did not use "national" distinctions such as Syrian, Iraqi, or Palestinian, one can consider as Palestinians those Ottoman subject Muslims and Christians who lived in Palestine (defined as the area that would become the Palestine Mandate) between 1517 and 1917. This includes very few whose descendants would not consider themselves Palestinians. The same criteria can be applied to the British Mandate Palestinian citizen Christians and Muslims (including Druzes, who were registered as Muslims by the Ottomans and thus must be included as Muslims in any comparisons to Ottoman data).
After the Palestinian expulsion and flight in 1948, identification becomes particularly difficult. In the absence of detailed surveys, demographers cannot know certainly whether the children of intermarriages of Palestinians and non-Palestinians are Palestinians. Also, what proportion of the children of Palestinians who came to the Americas or western Europe consider themselves to be Palestinians? Anecdotal evidence and what is known from political activity indicate that Palestinians have kept their national identification in whichever country they live. Therefore, Muslims and
Christians who either live in Palestine or whose ancestors did so until 1948 are considered here to be Palestinians. This surely includes some who do not consider themselves to be Palestinians and excludes some who do, but
there is no statistical option. It also should be noted that when Palestinians married non-Palestinians, demographic statistics in effect count one-half of the children as Palestinians.
The Quality of the Data
Population data on the Ottoman Palestinians are limited, but they are sufficient to provide reasonable approximations of total population. There are scant Ottoman data on important statistics, such as age of marriage, fertility, and mortality, although mortality and fertility rates have been estimated through the use of demographic techniques. Mandate figures, although often imprecise, are much better, because they are much more detailed. They allow accurate estimations of mortality, fertility, migration, and other demographic variables. The most valuable data on population in the Mandate period come from the census taken by the British in 1931. Not only does it provide the sort of data needed for accurate demographic calculation (such as, population by single ages), but the statistics are more reliable than any others taken in Ottoman or Mandate times. The breadth of statistics in the 1931 census approaches that of censuses taken in Western Europe or the United States during the same period, even if it is not quite as accurate. Another Mandate census, that of 1922, is both less accurate and less detailed, and thus is of less value.
The quality of Mandate statistics declined after the 1931 census. Civil unrest, followed by World War II, made it impossible for the British to take another census. They were forced to adopt unreliable statistical procedures, such as estimating the total population by adding registered births and subtracting registered deaths. Because neither births nor deaths were properly recorded, the results were unsatisfactory .After 1948, the statistical situation deteriorated even further in the WEST BANK and the GAZA STRIP. The Jordanians took censuses of the West Bank in 1952 and 1961. The second was more complete than the first, but neither was complete. Gaza's citizens were not enumerated between 1931 and 1967, when the Israelis made a census of both Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli census provided the most valuable data yet collected. No census was taken after 1967. However, Israeli demographers have made valuable surveys and studies of demography and fertility in Palestine. Israeli counts of Palestinians within the 1948 borders are accurate, given the
usual limitation of any census taking.
Enumerating Palestinian numbers after 1948 is a difficult proposition. In order to know the numbers of any population accurately, the population must be counted, and the Palestinians outside Israel's borders were counted poorly and sporadically. Often, Palestinians arrived in countries, including most of those in the Middle East immediately after 1948, which did not take accurate censuses. Political situations made the picture all the more obscure. Some countries that did count their population fairly accurately did not wish to distinguish between native and Palestinian populations.
Some who estimated the Palestinian population greatly over- or underestimated numbers in accordance with the estimators' political intentions.
All of these points must be kept in mind when any statistics on Palestinians are presented, including those presented here. All figures on Palestinian population are estimations. By making different assumptions on fertility and mortality rates, demographers may arrive at slightly different conclusions. It is nevertheless possible to arrive at reasonable estimates of the Palestinian population.
Table 1 presents the population of the Palestinians in the world from 1860 to 2000.
Figures for 1860 to 1914 in Table 1 include Muslim and Christian legal residents of Ottoman Palestine. Aliens and Ottoman subjects legally resident elsewhere, such as soldiers, government officials, and merchants, are excluded. The figures for the Mandate Period (1918, 1931, 1940, and 1946) include the Muslim, Christian, and Druze citizens of Palestine;
non-citizens are excluded. After 1931, British statistics did not list the Druze separately, but included them in the "other" category with Samaritans, Baha'is, and others. For post-1931 data the Druze have been assumed to be the same proportion of the "other" category as they were in 1931. Bedouin are included in all the figures. All the data for the Ottoman and Mandate periods have been adjusted for undercounting of women and children, using the calculations in The Population of Palestine (McCarthy, 1990).
Statistics for the period 1950 to 2000 have been drawn from a number of sources, including censuses, when available, and estimations of Palestinian population in the Arab countries in 1990 made by the U .S. Census Bureau (U .S. Census Bureau, 1991 ). The Census Bureau calculations, which consider available data from censuses and population surveys, are the best available estimation of the Palestinian population in the Arab countries and Israel in 1990. Information on known fertility and mortality rates has been combined to create model projections of the Palestinian population at ten year intervals. Insufficient data make it impossible to provide much information on subpopulations of the Palestinians. Ethnically and linguistically they are Arabs. Levels of linguistic assimilation among migrants to Europe and America are unknown. The major statistical division among Palestinians is religious. In Ottoman times, 11 to 12 percent of the Palestinians were Christians, the rest Muslims (a category in which the Ottomans included Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Druze). As a result of a lower birth rate, emigration, and a higher mortality rate in World War I, the Christian population steadily dropped from 1914 to 1967 (11 percent in 1914, 9 percent in 1931, 8 percent in 1967) within the borders of Palestine. The religious breakdown of the Palestinians after 1967 is unknown.
The Palestinian population has experienced sustained growth since the latter half of the nineteenth century .The one exception to this pattern occurred during World War I. As a result of the conditions of war, and particularly the fact that Palestine was a major battlefield of the war, 6 percent of the Muslims, and 13 percent of the Christians, of Palestine emigrated or died during the war. Growth during the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ottoman period was similar to that experienced in most of the Ottoman Empire and remained at a moderate level before World War II. During the period before 1945, a relatively high mortality rate slowed growth. After the war, high fertility and decrease in mortality made the Palestinian population one of the fastest growing in history.
Table 1
Palestinian Population, 1860-2000 (thousands)
| YEAR | WITHIN PALESTINE | ISRAEL | WEST BANK* | GAZA | INSIDE PALESTINE | TOTAL | |
| 1860 | 411 | 411 | |||||
| 1890 | 553 | 533 | |||||
| 1914 | 738 | 738 | |||||
| 1918 | 689 | ** | 689 | ||||
| 1931 | 860 | 860 | |||||
| 1940 | 1,086 | 1,086 | |||||
| 1946 | 1,308 | 1,308 | |||||
| 1950 | 1,170 | of which | 165 | 765 | 240 | 304 | 1,474 |
| 1960 | 1,340 | 239 | 799 | 302 | 647 | 1,987 | |
| 1970 | 1,412 | 367 | 677 | 368 | 1,289 | 2,701 | |
| 1980 | 1,992 | 531 | 964 | 497 | 2,100 | 4,092 | |
| 1990 | 2,731 | 687 | 1,373 | 671 | 3,302 | 6,033 | |
| 2000 | 3,787 | 919 | 1,836 | 1,032 | 4,667 | 8,454 | |
* including East Jerusalem
** population drop was caused by WW I and the famine which followed
Fertility
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, and probably long before, the proportion of
children born to the Palestinian Arabs-their fertility-has been among the highest recorded for any population. The average number of children born to a Palestinian woman who lived through her childbearing years (the total fertility rate [TFR]) was slightly more than 7. The high fertility of Palestinians living in Palestine remained constant from Ottoman times until the late 1970s, when it began to diverge by regions. In the late 1970s, fertility among residents of the Gaza Strip actually began to rise, reaching more than an average of 7.6 children (TFR of 7.62) in 1979 before it decreased slightly. On the West Bank, fertility declined more rapidly. The Palestine Demographic Survey of 1995, found that the Gaza
TFR. was 7.41, that of the West Bank, 5.44. In Israel, Palestinian fertility remained high until the 1970s, when it began to drop quickly, reaching a TFR
of 4.9 in 1983 and 4.6 in 1989. The fertility of Palestinians in Israel remained at approximately that level in 2000.
There was considerable difference in the fertility of Muslim and Christian Palestinians during the British Mandate and particularly after 1948. During the Mandate period, the average Christian woman had two-thirds as many children as the average Muslim woman. In Israel, that figure was even lower. In the 1960s and 1970s, Christian Palestinian women in Israel had on average less than half as many children as Muslim Palestinian women. This differential was most likely due to cultural and economic variation. Christian women tended to marry later, thus leaving less time for childbearing. In 1931, for example, Mandate statistics show that 75 percent of the Muslim women aged fifteen to forty-four were married, but only 65 percent of the Christians. Whereas one-third of the Muslim women aged fifteen to nineteen were married, one-fifth of the Christians were. Christians were better educated and more urban: in 1931, 76 percent of Christians were urban, 25 percent of Muslims; 70 percent of Christian males over age twenty-one were literate, 18 percent of Muslim males). Both these factors traditionally reduce fertility .Christians, at least from the 1960s on, were also more likely to use methods of artificial birth control.
Conversely, Muslim women married and began to have children early. In the 1970s, the average Palestinian Muslim woman had already had two or more children by age twenty-four, and an average of nearly six children by age thirty-four. Very few Muslim women used contraceptive techniques.
Muslims were a large majority of the Palestinians, so their fertility set the pattern. Fertility decline, never great, was affected by a change in Muslim marriage practices. In 1931, three-fourths of Muslim women twenty to forty-four were married, slightly more than half in 1967. Change in patterns of early marriage was particularly marked: 45 percent of the females fifteen to nineteen (Muslims and Christians) were married in 1931; by 1967 the number of married females in this age group had fallen to 19 percent on the West Bank and 14 percent in Gaza. By 1990, the number of married fifteen- to nineteen-year-old females had dropped to approximately 10 percent (Ennab, 1994). The 1995 Palestine Demographic Survey found a median age of marriage of twenty-three for males and eighteen for females.
Outside Palestine, Palestinian fertility generally remained high. Palestinian women in Syria, for example, had on average two to three more children than native Syrian women. Palestinians in Jordan experienced even higher fertility than Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza, a TFR of 7.6 in 1979 and 7.4 in 1989. In other regions, however, Palestinian fertility declined. The reasons for this varied
by country. To a large extent, the fertility of Palestinians has declined when their economic status has risen, a phenomenon seen worldwide in most cultures. Palestinian fertility in Egypt was two-thirds of that in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian fertility in Kuwait initially was high (6.4 TFR in 1970), but was below 4.5 by the mid-1970s. Little is known of the demographic picture of Palestinians outside the Middle East. If they follow the pattern of other Arab migrants to Europe and the United States, their fertility probably slowly adjusted to that of their countries of residence. By 1990, their fertility would have been more similar to that of those countries than that of the West Bank or Gaza, though still higher than the European standard.
Despite changes in factors such as age of marriage, the Palestinian population will increase rapidly for generations. Even if Palestinians immediately and precipitously lowered their fertility, the population would still greatly increase.' This is due to the effect of past years of high fertility on the age structure. So many children were born in the past thirty years that the population necessarily will increase as these children have children themselves. In fact, there is little to indicate that the fertility of these children will drop precipitously. Even if Palestinian fertility in Gaza and on the West Bank were to fall very rapidly, the population would still double in less than thirty years.
Mortality
As indicated in Table 2, the mortality rate (defined as the proportion of deaths to the total population) among the Palestinians diminished greatly from 1860 to 2000, with the greatest, decrease in modern times.
Table 2 displays a standard measure of mortality, expectancy of life at birth: the average number of years a
Palestinian male or female could expect to live from birth. The statistic is heavily affected by deaths among children. For example, 29 percent of the children born in 1914 could be expected to die before reaching age one and 43 percent would die between birth and age five. Those who reached age five could expect to live quite a bit longer-on average to slightly past age fifty.
In the Ottoman period, Palestinians experienced the same general increase in life expectancy as inhabitants of the other Ottoman Mediterranean coastal regions. Mortality decline in the latter half of the nineteenth century was similar to that seen in other parts of the Ottoman Empire. The decline was not due to medicine or doctors. The cause was an improvement in public security, trade, and production-changes resulting from the increased power of the central government. There were enough to eat, a bit more money, and relative peace from internal conflicts and Bedouin raids.
The end of major epidemic diseases was statistically less significant, but still important. By 1870, the great cholera epidemics were over. Plague, traditionally the worst epidemic killer, effectively disappeared in the 1840s.
Despite the troubles of1929 and 1936-39, the situation of civic calm and increased trade and industry generally continued and improved during the Mandate years. In addition, the Mandate period saw the advent of modem medicine. However, the effect of medical science on population growth in Palestine was slight until after World War II, when antibiotics diminished mortality. More important were improvements in sanitation, water supplies, and
government-sponsored public health works. Consequently, dysentery and malaria both began to decrease markedly as causes of death.
The spread of modern medicine in Israel, prenatal and postnatal care, and the continuation of Mandate policies such as vaccination and draining of malarial swamps gradually lowered the Palestinian mortality rate in Israel. In 1950, the life expectancy at birth of Palestinian Arabs in Israel was more than twenty years lower than that of Jews, but in 198.0, it had improved to six years lower than Jewish life expectancy. Greatly decreased infant mortality obviously had great effect. In Gaza and the West Bank, mortality rate decline was much slower. This is not surprising, given the miserable health conditions of REFUGEES, who began their refugee status living in tents with limited food and little clean water. The wonder is that the mortality rate was not much worse. The credit for this and much of the subsequent improvement in mortality goes to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)-which drained swamps, vaccinated children, and provided pure water and health clinics-and to the cooperation of the Palestinians themselves.
Table 2 presents only data from Palestine proper.
However, there seems to have been considerable variation in mortality rate among the Palestinians outside Palestine. Countries to which Palestinians emigrated seldom kept mortality statistics that separated Palestinian deaths from others. Demographers agree that after the 1960s Palestinian mortality generally followed the mortality level of the country in which they resided. In some countries, such as Kuwait, it may have been slightly worse; in others, such as Egypt, slightly better. This reflected the fact that the Palestinians generally had a lower standard of living than the Kuwaitis and a better standard than the average Egyptian.
Palestinian mortality rate followed the general pattern seen among populations in the same geographic region. The mortality rate in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria in the 1980s was virtually the same as that in the West Bank and Gaza.
Table 2 combines mortality rates for the West Bank and Gaza into one set of data. There is some evidence from Israeli statistics that mortality rate in Gaza may have been slightly lower than that of the West Bank. This is disputed by some demographers. Were it true, the life expectancy as shown in the
Table 2 would change by only approximately one year.
Infant mortality rate among the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank remained relatively high until 1990. The pattern there resembled that of surrounding Arab countries, what might be called Middle Eastern standard mortality decline, in which adult mortality rate decreases much more quickly than infant mortality rate. The infant mortality rate of Palestinians in Israel resembles that of Kuwait or some European countries. It may be noted that infant deaths in Gaza and the West Bank always have been poorly reported, so the infant mortality rates given here are drawn from standard demographic tables.
Table 2
Palestinian Mortality, 1860-2000
| MALE LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH (YEARS) |
FEMALE LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH (YEARS) |
INFANT MORTALITY RATE* (/1,000) |
CRUSE DEATH RATE(/1,000) |
|
| Palestine | ||||
| 1860 | 22 | 24 | 380 | 42 |
| 1914 | 30 | 32 | 290 | 32 |
| 1931 | 35 | 37 | 240 | 30 |
| 1940 | 37 | 39 | 220 | 28 |
| Israel | ||||
| 1950 | 42 | 45 | 200 | 21 |
| 1960 | 58 | 62 | 50 | 9 |
| 1970 | 63 | 67 | 45 | 6 |
| 1980 | 65 | 70 | 40 | 5 |
| 1990 | 68 | 72 | 36 | 4 |
| 2000 | 76 | 78 | 10 | 3 |
| West Bank & Gaza |
||||
| 1950 | 42 | 45 | 200 | 21 |
| 1960 | 43 | 46 | 190 | 20 |
| 1970 | 44 | 46 | 170 | 19 |
| 1980 | 56 | 60 | 100 | 10 |
| 1990 | 63 | 67 | 60 | 6 |
| 2000 | 70 | 74 | 27 | 4 |
* in one year, death of children under one divided by births
Migration
In the Ottoman and Mandate periods, migration was a minor factor in the demographic makeup of the Muslim and Christian (though obviously not the Jewish) population of Palestine.
Although there was a certain amount of seasonal labor migration to and from Palestine, analysis of Ottoman statistics (McCarthy, 1990) yields evidence of little permanent migration of Arabs into or out of Palestine from 1860 to 1914. The number of Arabs who left Palestine on the Ottoman defeat in World War I was negligible.
Mandate authorities did not record migration properly before 1932; non-Jewish immigration was recorded fairly well, but not emigration. Statistics indicate that only 838 more Muslims entered Palestine than left from 1932 to 1946. Numbers of both Muslim immigrants and Muslim emigrants were relatively small. For example, from 1937 to 1939, a yearly average of only 305 Arab residents of Palestine was registered as leaving Palestine permanently. Christian immigration was much greater than emigration, a net surplus of 20,051, but the statistics do not discriminate between Arab and other Christians, and many of the Christian migrants were not Arabs. Arab immigrants emigrated
primarily from Lebanon and Syria. A large majority of Arab emigrants from Mandatory Palestine went to the United Kingdom, the next largest group to other Arab countries, and some to Latin America.
The 1948 Expulsion and Flight
The 1948 expulsion and flight of Palestinians were, by proportion of the population affected, among the largest forced migrations in modern Middle Eastern history. It affected approximately 53 percent of the Arab population of Palestine, 82 percent of the Arabs who resided in the portion of Palestine that became Israel.
Because no count of the refugees could have been taken during their exodus, analysts necessarily must look at the populations before and after the events to arrive at the numbers of refugees.
Subtracting the numbers who remained within the armistice borders of Israel from the number who were in the same area before the war would yield approximately the number who emigrated or died in the war. The numbers of Arabs in Palestine at the end of the Mandate and inside and out of Israel after the war are known
(Table 1), but ascertaining the numbers who lived within and without the 1948 armistice borders is difficult. It has proved impossible to trace exactly the population of Palestine by
district in 1947-48, which would be essential to a complete accurate analysis. Therefore, this study has taken the best analysis of the division of population numbers inside and out of the 1948 borders before the war, that of Janet Abu-Lughod (Abu-Lughod, 1971), as abase. (It is not possible to accept all of the Abu-Lughod thesis, because she assumes that the official Mandate statistics were accurate, when in fact they were undercounts of population and erroneous on fertility and mortality [see McCarthy, 1990]. She also counts all those not listed as Jews as Palestinian Arabs, whereas all
non-citizens, as well as non-Druze listed along with the Druze under the category "Other" in the British data, should be excluded. For example, a Syrian Arab in Palestine in 1948 may have been forced to flee, but he was a Syrian expelled from Palestine, not a Palestinian. )
Of the 1,358,000 Palestinian Arab 9itizens of Palestine in 1948, approximately 873;600 resided within what. would become the Israeli borders, 485,000 without. The Israelis recorded 156,000 non-Jews in 1948, a number that included perhaps 1,000 non-Arabs, leaving 155,000 Palestinians in Israel. This means that 718,000 Palestinians either were refugees or died during the war. Note that this number depends on the somewhat imprecise estimation of the numbers who lived on both sides of the border before the war, and so should be taken as a mean estimate. However, statistically it cannot be wrong by more than 5 to 10 percent (for other analyses, see Khalidi, 1992; Bachi, 1977).
Of the Palestinian religious groups, Muslims had the highest proportion of their numbers as refugees, Christians somewhat less. Relatively few of the Druze became refugees.
Table 3
Refugees Registered with UNRWA.
| REGISTERED REFUGEES 1950 |
REGISTERED REFUGEES 1959 |
REGISTERED REFUGEES 1979 |
REGISTERED REFUGEES 1992 |
REGISTERED REFUGEES 1999 |
IN CAMPS 1999 |
IN CAMPS 1999 |
IN CAMPS 1999 |
|
| Jordan* | 506,200 | 586,706 | 699,553 | 1,042,123 | 1,512,742 | 182,000 | 237,677 | 274,816 |
| West Bank | 321,722 | 472,473 | 569,741 | 82,299 | 124,307 | 153,380 | ||
| Gaza | 198,227 | 245,343 | 358,898 | 582,863 | 798,444 | 201,672 | 320,467 | 437,650 |
| Lebanon | 127,600 | 129,228 | 219,561 | 324,219 | 370,144 | 103,661 | 169,321 | 204,999 |
| Syria | 82,194 | 109,596 | 203,830 | 306,042 | 374,521 | 57,924 | 88,924 | 109,315 |
| Israel ** | 45,800 | |||||||
| Total | 960,021 | 1,070,783 | 1,803,564 | 2,727,820 | 3,625,592 | 627,956 | 904,696 | 1,118,160 |
* including West Bank in 1950 and 1959
** Jewish refugees
Sources: UNRWA, 1959; UNRWA, 1979; UNRWA, 1999; Peretz, 1958; Peretz, 1993;
UNRWA Statistics
Statistics compiled by UNRWA are often applied to estimates of Palestinian population, particularly for the 1948 period. However, demographic use of the figures of the UNRWA presents insurmountable problems.
The UNRWA figures are in essence not records of population but records of distributed rations. In the chaotic time immediately after the Palestinian exodus, families naturally maximized their benefits whenever possible by claiming extra members and not registering deaths so that extra rations could be claimed. Hungry refugees cannot be faulted for this, but it does confuse statistical data. In addition, as the UNRWA recognized, large numbers in Gaza and on the West Bank who were not refugees, but whose livelihoods had been disrupted or were simply malnourished, managed to claim UNRWA rations. Thus the number of those whom the UNRWA called "alleged relief recipients" in 1949 when added to the non-refugee population was considerably more than the actual population (Peretz, 1958), although the numbers the UNRWA estimated for actual refugees, 726,000 in 1949, are very close to the 718,000 figure given above.
Ironically, as the social situation calmed and the UNRWA was able to take better statistics, the data became less valuable for estimation of total Palestinian numbers because it excluded so many Palestinians-those who were not recipients.
Nevertheless, the record of those supported by UNRWA has value in itself, and a representative set of statistics is given in
Table 3. Note what may be a progressively larger over count of actual refugees.
The 1997 Palestine Census listed 393,375 in the West Bank and 640,140 in Gaza who identified themselves as "registered refugees," considerably fewer than the UNRWA figures.
Migration After 1948
After 1948, Palestinian high fertility and the limited economic potential of the land led to out migration. The West Bank, in particular, had sizable out-migration from 1948 to 1967. The population of the West Bank from 1950 to 1960
(Table 1) demonstrates this phenomenon: If all the 765,000 residents in 1950 had remained in the West Bank, their high fertility would have meant a population of 1 million in 1960, but the population was actually 799,000. The "missing" Palestinians were out-migrants.
The nature of Palestinian migration changed radically after 1948. No longer a small-scale migration to Europe and the Americas, emigration was now large-scale and directed mainly to the Arab world. Emigration usually involved two steps: First refugees went to the West Bank or Gaza, then on to other regions for economic reasons. Most migrants from the West Bank went to the East Bank. Improving economic conditions on the East Bank and Jordanian citizenship made the East Bank an attractive target area for the migration of unskilled labor. While the West Bank had a higher standard of living than the East Bank until 1948, Jordanian development policies, which overwhelmingly favored the East Bank, ensured that the West Bank became relatively impoverished. High levels of .population growth could only be supported by industrialization, and what industrialization existed was directed to the East Bank. The unemployed from the West Bank naturally went East. Palestinian skilled labor went all over the Arab world and on to Europe and the Americas, taking advantage of opportunities that were unavailable to the unskilled. Kuwait is the most well-known example ofpost-1948 migration.
Approximately 40,000 Palestinians resided in Kuwait in 1960, more than 300,000 in 1990. Figures from Saudi Arabia are imprecise, but they indicate an even faster growth of Palestinian population, from very few in the early 1960s to more than 200,000 in 1990. The nature of this out migration, the quest for work, is demonstrated by the sex ratio of the populations both in Palestine and in the target countries. Women outnumbered men by approximately 2 percent in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian males outnumbered Palestinian females by 10-15 percent in Arabian Peninsula countries.
Migration rates from Gaza were much lower than from the West Bank. Until the 1960s the Egyptian government restricted immigration. During the 1948 war, Egypt initially had accepted Palestinian refugees in Egypt proper, but soon changed its policy. Palestinians in Egypt were encouraged to go to the West Bank and emigration from Gaza was restricted. In effect, only those Gazans who possessed marketable skills, a very limited number, were allowed to work in Egypt.
Gazans who wished to emigrate to other Arab countries had to both pay an exit tax and obtain a residence visa from the Arab country to which they wished to emigrate, neither of which was often possible. The situation eased considerably in the 1960s, but emigration remained under West Bank levels. Neither the Gaza Palestinians nor the Egyptians wished Egypt to formally annex the Gaza Strip, as Jordan had annexed the West Bank. Therefore, unskilled workers did not possess an open market for their labor, one of the few benefits afforded the West Bank Palestinians by Jordan.
The Israeli government has published statistics on emigration from the West Bank and Gaza. However, there is confusion over questions such as who was an emigrant and whether the emigration was "permanent." The Israeli authorities registered a yearly average of 12,934 more emigrants than immigrants from the West Bank and Gaza from 1967 to 1986. The excess of emigrants was much larger in some years; the highest figures were 25,200 in 1967, 48,200 in 1968, 23,880 in 1980, and 23,376 in 1981. These figures obviously have omitted many migrants, in particular large numbers of refugees in 1967, and their reliability must be questioned.
The extent of Palestinian emigration is perhaps best understood from the numbers of Palestinians inside and outside Palestine in
Table 1 and Table 4, Until the 1948 war, almost 100 percent of the Palestinians lived in Palestine. Only 67 percent lived in Palestine in 1960, 52 percent in 1970, and 45 percent in 1990.
The second major Palestinian migration came as a result of Israeli conquest of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. From the Israeli occupation to 1970, nearly 50,000 Palestinians left Gaza. Judged on the basis
of the emigration rates from 1960 to 1967, 35,000 would normally have emigrated for economic reasons from June 1967 to 1970. This leaves 15,000 who can be considered to be "extra migrants" or forced refugees. (Larger numbers are often given for forced migration from Gaza, but these usually include both the economic migrants who would normally have left in any case and many who had already migrated from Gaza before the 1967 war and were unable to return because of the Israeli presence.)
The West Bank suffered much worse from tQe
,~
Israeli occupation. Approximately 825,000 Palestinians lived in the West Bank in June 1967. When the Israeli government took a census of the West Bank in
September 1967, it recorded 664,000 (including East Jerusalem); 161,000 Palestinians, 20 percent of the population, had gone. Perhaps 20,000 more migrated between September 1967 and 1970. As was the case with the 1948 refugees, these figures are approximate. The actual number of refugees may have been slightly higher or lower.
As a result of events surrounding the Gulf crisis and war, the major part of the Palestinian population of Lebanon migrated, mainly to Jordan. Only approximately 30,000 Palestinians remained in Kuwait in 2000.
Palestinians in the World
Because of their high fertility and emigration, Palestinians have become a more sizable population outside of Palestine than within. The proportion of Palestinians outside of the borders of Mandate Palestine has been increasing since 1948. After the mid-1970s, most Palestinians lived outside of Palestine. By 1990, almost 60 percent resided elsewhere.
Many of the figures in Table 4 are necessarily estimates. For the year 2000, figures for Lebanon, the Gulf States, and "other" are less reliable than others, because of lack of accurate census counts and high migration. For the Arab world outside of Palestine in 1990 and 2000, the figures are primarily drawn from the detailed analysis made by the U .S. Census Center for International Research in 1991. Figures for the West Bank and Gaza for 1990 and 2000 are projected from the 1997 Palestinian census (see
Table 5).
"Economic" migration continued at a high level through the 1970s, then declined in the 1980s. The decrease was primarily due to worsened economic conditions in the Gulf countries and Jordanian laws restricting immigration. Emigration thus no longer functioned as a safety valve for high fertility .Low emigration conditions continued into the 1990s.
There is debate over Israeli statistics that showed greatly lessened emigration, but there is no doubt that emigration is much lower than at earlier times.
Indeed, after the Gulf War, an unknown amount of reverse migration to Palestine has occurred. Palestinian numbers outside of Palestine will continue to increase rapidly due to the effects of high fertility, but the relative proportion of Palestinians outside of Palestine probably will not continue to increase.
Beset by their own problems with overpopulation, the countries surrounding Palestine are unlikely to accept renewed immigration. Unless political and economic conditions change drastically, it is also unlikely that the Gulf States will much increase their draw of skilled Palestinian labor.
Within the West Bank and particularly in Gaza diminished migration has exacerbated an already bad demographic situation. It is difficult to see how the agricultural or industrial base of Palestine can cope with the increased numbers that will result from high Palestinian fertility .Population density in the West Bank went from 52 per square mile (135 per square kilometer) in 1950 to 73 per square mile (190 per square kilometer) in 1990. The population density of Gaza, already great at 255 per square mile (660 per square kilometer) in 1950, was 660 per square mile (1,710 per square kilometer) in 1990. By comparison, the population densities of the Netherlands and England in 1990 were approximately 139 persons per square mile (360 per square kilometer). Possessing neither the agricultural potential nor the economic base of either the Netherlands or England, Palestine can expect a demographic crisis.
The census taken by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics was partially a de jure enumeration. It included students and others who had been away from Palestine for a year or less, as reported by other members of their households. About 325,253 nonresident Palestinians were included. It is thus not strictly comparable with the other data in the article, which are de
jure counts of only those actually in residence on the date of the census or estimate.
From the early stages of Zionism, it maintained its position that the indigenous Palestinian population are naive, nomadic, and non-existent until the development of Palestine by the Zionist movement. To facilitate such disinformation, the Zionist movement adopted the following slogan to entice European Jewry to immigrate to Palestine:
"A land with no people is for a people with no land".
Had the Zionist leaders admitted the existence of such an indigenous population, then these leaders would have been obliged to explain to their followers how they intended to make this indigenous population leave their homeland. To contradict this baseless and concocted myth, it is worth quoting Ben-Gurion who stated in 1918 that "Palestine is not an empty country." According to Shabtai Teveth (who is one of Ben-Gurion's official biographers), Ben-Gurion stated in an article published in 1918 that:
"Palestine is not an empty country . . . on no account must we injure the rights of the inhabitants." Ben-Gurion often returned to this point, emphasizing that Palestinian Arabs had "the full right" to an independent economic, cultural, and communal life, but not political. (Shabtai Teveth, p. 37-38)
Based on Ottoman census records in the late 19th and early 20th century, Palestine was widely inhabited at the time especially in the rural areas where agriculture was the main profession. According to Justine McCarthy (p. 26) the population of Palestine in the early 19th century was 350,000 people, and in 1914 , just before the outbreak of WWI, Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslims Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews (including many European Jews from the first and second Aliyah). So the Jewish population of Palestine in 1914 made up under 8% of the total population, which was much smaller than the Palestinian Christian population. It should be noted that our source, Justine McCarthy, is an authority on the Ottoman Turks who was quoted by many Israeli Jewish scholars like Benny Morris and Tom Segev. In that regard, it is worth quoting one of the most zealous Zionist leaders, Israel Zangwill, who stated as early as 1905 that Palestine was twice as thickly populated as the United States:
"Palestine proper has already its inhabitants. The pashalik of Jerusalem is already twice as thickly populated as the United States, having fifty-two souls to the square mile, and not 25% of them Jews ..... [We] must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the [Arab] tribes in possession as our forefathers did or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population, mostly Mohammedan and accustomed for centuries to despise us." (Righteous Victims, p. 140 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 7-10)
In other words, Palestinians were recognized by the Zionist leaders as "humans" who populated Palestine, however, that was not a good reason to grant them the same political rights as Jews, who mostly live outside of Palestine. Consequently, such understanding became the prelude to the wholesale DISPOSSESSION and ETHNIC CLEANSING of the Palestinian people during the 1948 war.
Soon after the first Zionist Congress in 1897, Basel (Switzerland), a Zionist delegation was sent to Palestine for a fact finding mission and to explore the viability of settling Palestine by persecuted European Jews. The delegation replied back from Palestine with a cable that stated:
"The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man." (Iron Wall, p. 3)
It is sad that although the Zionists were aware of this happy marriage as early as 1897, they deliberately chose to abort this relationship since Jewish justice is much greater than Palestinian justice. The forcible divorce of Palestine away from its indigenous population was eloquently articulated by Ze'ev Jabotinsky in 1926, who stated:
" ... the tragedy lies in the fact the there is a collision here between two truths .... but our justice is greater. The Arabs is culturally backward, but his instinctive patriotism is just as pure and noble as our own; it cannot be bought, it can only be curbed ... force majeure." (Righteous Victims, p. 108)
The questions which begs to be asked:
- Are two wrongs make a right?
- Is it justice to solve an injustice by perpetrating another injustice?
- If at one point, Palestinian injustice becomes greater than Jewish injustice, does that justify perpetrating war crimes to solve their injustice?
What makes many Zionists dangerous is that over time they start believing their own propaganda. For example, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister between 1996-1998, proposed lately that Israel should never relinquish control over the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since the local population are descendents of non-indigenous Palestinians. He also alleged that these people came to look for employment which was generated by the influx of new European Jewish capital. Yehoshua Porat, a Hebrew University professor, enjoyed answering the late Prime Minister in an article published in Ha'aretz Daily, click here to read his rebuttal. It should be noted the Professor Porat worked for the campaign to elect Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, so calling him a Netanyahu hater may not be a good idea.
It is really amusing that many Israelis and Zionists believe that Hawaii, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Tahiti, and Iraq were all populated by indigenous populations prior to WW I, however, they find it extremely difficult to imagine that the "Promised Land" (one of the most strategic areas in the world) had any indigenous population whatsoever. It is like the "Promised Land" was waiting for over 2,000 years for Israelis and Zionists to settle it so it blooms, click here to read our response to this argument.
Finally, it is not only that Palestine enjoyed a strategic commercial location (for being the land bridge between Asia and Africa), its lands are also fertile and planted with all sorts of trees (most prominently olive and almond trees in the hilly areas, and citrus trees in the coastal plains) a long time before the Zionists came to its shorelines. So to claim that Palestine was with no people until the Zionists came to settle it is an absurd claim. Sadly, many Israelis and Zionists hate the idea of any indigenous Palestinian population to the point that they've created a fictitious world based on illusions and no facts. Palestinians have a simple message to most Israelis and Zionists: 8.5 million Palestinians are going no where. The sooner the majority of Israelis and Zionists understand this simple message, the faster they shall wake up from their delusional coma.
At the same time, it appears that you are spreading falsehood and libels in an attempt to reduce your own personal safety. I'm confident that your tactics will only serve to increase antisemitism. More importantly, your descent into falsehood will deprive you of peace and well-being. Please consider the following ideas. Have the courage to seek truth and justice, and you will find that your personal safety will increase while at the same time community ethics will be improved.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
The idea that Israel the *cause* of antisemitism is simply backward.
The TRUTH is that antisemitism created Israel.
It is true that Big Lies and Blood Libels have increased antisemitism. It is also true that telling Big Lies about Israel in order to appease the bigots is simply nonproductive. More importantly, it is morally and ethically wrong.
'Combatting the International Zionist Conspiracy' by committing violence against *random* Jews is simple ignorant bigotry. Excusing antisemitism as viable method of 'fighting zionism' has as much basis as excusing the KKK for lynching African-American men in order to defend the sanctity of white womanhood. It's all of the same fabric; simple racist nonsense.
It is impossible to placate bigots by giving in to them. The best method of fighting bigotry is to answer the Big Lies and Blood Libels with TRUTH.
Your fear of bigotry prompts you to engage in Big Lies, e.g.: Israel exists for the benefit of Bush, Cheney, or the others; if Israel disappears, then antisemitism will diminish.
These are pitiful Big Lies, and they demand a TRUTHFUL answer.
You cannot placate bigots by accepting some of their worst lies about Israel. This will only serve to increase antisemitism among the plurality who don't know much about history. If all they hear is the Big Lies, then it will not help if American Jews attempt to 'save' themselves by accepting certain 'politically corrrect' Big Lies (e.g. Israel only exists because it is useful as a US military forward position in the Mid-East). One Big Lie leads to another. When the plurality accepts the Blood Libels along with the other lies, then antisemitic violence will bloom.
For instance, Kevin Spvorak published flat-out lies in Indymedia about Israel massacring ~500 civilians in Jenin in April, 2002 ( http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=22676&group=webcast). This Blood Libel led to a rash of synagogue arson, jew-beatings, and (in Europe) actual murders of random Jews.
Every investigation of Jenin has exposed Spvorak story as a complete falsification. Reports from defacto anti-zionist organizations, such as the UN (http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/) and the Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/05/jenin0503.htm ) conclude that the Israelis told the truth, that 52 Palestinians died, the vast majority were armed combatants who killed 23 Israeli soldiers in fierce fighting, that the Palestinian Jihadi set ~2000 booby-traps and mines in the Jenin Refugee Camp, that there was no Israeli massacre of Palestinian civilians. Skvorak and Indymedia spread a very inflammatory lie, one that soon had a life of its own and spread throughout the world as a Blood Libel.
History is replete with Blood Libels, as as result the Blood Libel phenomenon is well understood. It is used to incite and excuse prejudicial hatred and inspire violence. Documented history records many bigots and their blood libels (e.g. 'they spread the plague', 'they poisoned the well', 'they teach witchcraft', 'they use non-jewish children's blood to make matzah', etc.), which caused awful hate-crimes. Blood libels have led to arson and murder throughout European history. Skvorak's 'Jenin Massacre' blood libel was classically effective.
If Mr. Skvorak's intention was to incite racist violence against Jews, he succeeded. Synagogues and other assorted Jewish Centers were torched throughout Europe in late April and early May, as the accusations of the 'Jenin Massacre' spread, and several European Jews were killed.
Even well intentioned folks who normally avoid bigoted positions ended up excusing this racist violence. Perhaps you remember the argument: assaulting random Jews may halt Israeli's slaughter of Palestinians. What slaughter? Well, look at the 'Jenin Massacre'....
If Hamas, Fatah, and the other other Jihadi ever *DID* win a decisive victory, it is likely many would attempt do exactly what they've repeatedly and openly promised to do: remove every Jew from Palestine, into the sea if necessary. Phillip Roth calls this 'the second Holocaust'. If such crimes ever did come to pass, I have no doubt that indymedia activists would portray the slaughter as a triumph of 21st justice, and history be damned.
So what's the proper course of action in the face of these libels?
Seek Justice and Truth. Do not be afraid of the facts.
Here are the relevant facts (in precis):
Zionism's core value is CIVIL RIGHTS. Any discussion of Israel that ignores the basic CIVIL RIGHTS issues is mortally wounded by ignoring the most important single motivating force behind the Zionist Movement.
Early Christianity was profoundly affected by St. Augustine's formulation that Jews are guilty of deicide (killing Christ), and they compound the guilt by continuing to reject Christianity. Because Jews are not 'reborn' via 'G-d's only begotten son', Jews are condemned to Eternal Damnation. St. Augustine recognizes that it is improper to slaughter or eliminate the Jews. Augustine says they must be humiliated and kept in a depraved state to serve as an object lesson to the Christian community on the fate that befalls people who reject Christ.
The Augustinian formulation gave birth to the Ghetto system and the other atrocities that tormented Jews in Christian Europe. The Jew was, at best, 'property' of the aristocracy or the Church. The Jews never had equal civil rights with Christians in Europe until the Enlightenment. In the late 1700s the Jews began to be 'emancipated'. The last Ghetto was lifted in 1870, i.e. Jews achieved emancipation in Europe at about the same time that African-Americans were emancipated in the U.S. The results of the two emancipations were startling different.
In Europe, fear of the *Emancipated* Jew was apparently greater than fear of the Ghetto Jew. By the late 1800s there were political parties all over Europe that proposed the roll-back of civil rights for Jews, and failing that, ELIMINATION of Jews from Europe.
'Antisemitism' was the name the Christian Jew-Haters gave to their political philosophy of depriving emancipated Jews of their civil rights. This term was always reserved for Jews, never applied to Arabs. The notion that it applies to Arabs occurred after WWII in order to obscure the original meaning, and more importantly to suppress the factual history. Luckily, late 19th century European history is well-documented, and these facts are easy to confirm through independent research.
Many Jewish thinkers in the late 1800s realistically (and prophetically) appraised the situation and concluded that it was only a matter of time before the core group of antisemites (always a small minority) used the well-understood tactics of 'Big Lie' and 'Blood Libel' to motivate the European plurality into a sense of 'justifiable' violence against random Jews in order to overcome the Jewish Menace.
For many Jews, the solution was to go to America, to the country with constitutional Freedom of Religion.
For other 19th Century Jews, the solution was to first recognize that Europeans may one day attempt to violently ELIMINATE the Jews altogether, and the best way to prevent the slaughter of millions of Jews involved the establishment of Jewish Homeland. The Jewish Homeland could defend Jews via diplomacy; failing that it could intervene militarily to combat the bigots, and failing all else it could provide a port of refuge for Jews running from European violence.
THE PRIMARY FORCE BEHIND THE CREATION OF ISRAEL IS ELIMINATIONIST ANTISEMITISM.
ANY DISCUSSION OF ZIONISM THAT SUPPRESSES THIS FACT IS A "BIG LIE" OF OMISSION.
Israel was created because it was obvious in the 1890s that many European movements were converging on an ELIMINATION of European Jewry. This realization was not confined to Jews. It underlay the numerous international attempts to set up a Jewish Homeland in Palestine (in 1917, 1920, 1921, 1937) before it was finally established via UN agreement in 1947.
FACT: When the British offered Uganda as the location of the Jewish Homeland to the Jews in 1901, Herzl (and the other Zionists) rejected the proposal. Why? Because, as Herzl explained at the time, if Zionists were not occupied with attempting to establish their own homeland, they would be working to free Africa from the clutches of Imperialist Europe. In fact, Israelis were active throughout the continent in the '50s and '60s supporting all sorts of liberation movements. Why? Because African Liberation was completely congruent with the civil rights foundation of Zionism.
This history has been suppressed by bigots who portray Israelis as inherently racist, an extension of the libel that Judaism is a white racist sect that attempts to subjugate all the other peoples in the world. The suppression of the contributions of Zionism to African Liberation is another 'Big Lie' of omission, as egregious as the nefarious lies about apartheid within modern Israel.
In fact, there are Jews among all the races of the world. There were lots of Black African Jews (Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ethiopia, etc.), just as there were Chinese Jews in Khai Feng, and Indian Jews (especially in the Malabar Coast). All these racial groups, along with Arab Jews, and 'Aryan' Jews (from Iran & Afghanistan :-) walk the streets of Israel. Racially, the Jews are as diverse as NYC itself. Is this reality ever featured in Indymedia? How many African-Americans realize there are 1/4 million African-Israelis?
What lessons do we draw? Well, it is not reasonable to think that antisemitism will disappear if we cater to the racist liars. It will not go away if we refrain from identifying bigots as what they are: bigots. This may not be politically correct (e.g. the indymedia crowd get positively violent when they are confronted with their own bigotry) nor comfortable (no one likes to point out someone else's prejudice nor ignorance). Yet at the same time there is really no other moral nor ethical alternative. The discomfort of pursuing and speaking Truth is a prerequisite for the pursuit of Justice.
And let us never forget the primary Jewish Commandmants: Choose Life, Avoid False 'gods', and Pursue Justice.
There really is no other viable alternative.
I really wish you all the best, and hope that you will find the courage to confront these problems with the integrity that will lead you to serenity and peace.
At the same time, it appears that you are spreading falsehood and libels in an attempt to reduce your own personal safety. I'm confident that your tactics will only serve to increase antisemitism. More importantly, your descent into falsehood will deprive you of peace and well-being. Please consider the following ideas. Have the courage to seek truth and justice, and you will find that your personal safety will increase while at the same time community ethics will be improved.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
The idea that Israel the *cause* of antisemitism is simply backward.
The TRUTH is that antisemitism created Israel.
It is true that Big Lies and Blood Libels have increased antisemitism. It is also true that telling Big Lies about Israel in order to appease the bigots is simply nonproductive. More importantly, it is morally and ethically wrong.
'Combatting the International Zionist Conspiracy' by committing violence against *random* Jews is simple ignorant bigotry. Excusing antisemitism as viable method of 'fighting zionism' has as much basis as excusing the KKK for lynching African-American men in order to defend the sanctity of white womanhood. It's all of the same fabric; simple racist nonsense.
It is impossible to placate bigots by giving in to them. The best method of fighting bigotry is to answer the Big Lies and Blood Libels with TRUTH.
Your fear of bigotry prompts you to engage in Big Lies, e.g.: Israel exists for the benefit of Bush, Cheney, or the others; if Israel disappears, then antisemitism will diminish.
These are pitiful Big Lies, and they demand a TRUTHFUL answer.
You cannot placate bigots by accepting some of their worst lies about Israel. This will only serve to increase antisemitism among the plurality who don't know much about history. If all they hear is the Big Lies, then it will not help if American Jews attempt to 'save' themselves by accepting certain 'politically corrrect' Big Lies (e.g. Israel only exists because it is useful as a US military forward position in the Mid-East). One Big Lie leads to another. When the plurality accepts the Blood Libels along with the other lies, then antisemitic violence will bloom.
For instance, Kevin Spvorak published flat-out lies in Indymedia about Israel massacring ~500 civilians in Jenin in April, 2002 ( http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=22676&group=webcast). This Blood Libel led to a rash of synagogue arson, jew-beatings, and (in Europe) actual murders of random Jews.
Every investigation of Jenin has exposed Spvorak story as a complete falsification. Reports from defacto anti-zionist organizations, such as the UN (http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/) and the Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/05/jenin0503.htm ) conclude that the Israelis told the truth, that 52 Palestinians died, the vast majority were armed combatants who killed 23 Israeli soldiers in fierce fighting, that the Palestinian Jihadi set ~2000 booby-traps and mines in the Jenin Refugee Camp, that there was no Israeli massacre of Palestinian civilians. Skvorak and Indymedia spread a very inflammatory lie, one that soon had a life of its own and spread throughout the world as a Blood Libel.
History is replete with Blood Libels, as as result the Blood Libel phenomenon is well understood. It is used to incite and excuse prejudicial hatred and inspire violence. Documented history records many bigots and their blood libels (e.g. 'they spread the plague', 'they poisoned the well', 'they teach witchcraft', 'they use non-jewish children's blood to make matzah', etc.), which caused awful hate-crimes. Blood libels have led to arson and murder throughout European history. Skvorak's 'Jenin Massacre' blood libel was classically effective.
If Mr. Skvorak's intention was to incite racist violence against Jews, he succeeded. Synagogues and other assorted Jewish Centers were torched throughout Europe in late April and early May, as the accusations of the 'Jenin Massacre' spread, and several European Jews were killed.
Even well intentioned folks who normally avoid bigoted positions ended up excusing this racist violence. Perhaps you remember the argument: assaulting random Jews may halt Israeli's slaughter of Palestinians. What slaughter? Well, look at the 'Jenin Massacre'....
If Hamas, Fatah, and the other other Jihadi ever *DID* win a decisive victory, it is likely many would attempt do exactly what they've repeatedly and openly promised to do: remove every Jew from Palestine, into the sea if necessary. Phillip Roth calls this 'the second Holocaust'. If such crimes ever did come to pass, I have no doubt that indymedia activists would portray the slaughter as a triumph of 21st justice, and history be damned.
So what's the proper course of action in the face of these libels?
Seek Justice and Truth. Do not be afraid of the facts.
Here are the relevant facts (in precis):
Zionism's core value is CIVIL RIGHTS. Any discussion of Israel that ignores the basic CIVIL RIGHTS issues is mortally wounded by ignoring the most important single motivating force behind the Zionist Movement.
Early Christianity was profoundly affected by St. Augustine's formulation that Jews are guilty of deicide (killing Christ), and they compound the guilt by continuing to reject Christianity. Because Jews are not 'reborn' via 'G-d's only begotten son', Jews are condemned to Eternal Damnation. St. Augustine recognizes that it is improper to slaughter or eliminate the Jews. Augustine says they must be humiliated and kept in a depraved state to serve as an object lesson to the Christian community on the fate that befalls people who reject Christ.
The Augustinian formulation gave birth to the Ghetto system and the other atrocities that tormented Jews in Christian Europe. The Jew was, at best, 'property' of the aristocracy or the Church. The Jews never had equal civil rights with Christians in Europe until the Enlightenment. In the late 1700s the Jews began to be 'emancipated'. The last Ghetto was lifted in 1870, i.e. Jews achieved emancipation in Europe at about the same time that African-Americans were emancipated in the U.S. The results of the two emancipations were startling different.
In Europe, fear of the *Emancipated* Jew was apparently greater than fear of the Ghetto Jew. By the late 1800s there were political parties all over Europe that proposed the roll-back of civil rights for Jews, and failing that, ELIMINATION of Jews from Europe.
'Antisemitism' was the name the Christian Jew-Haters gave to their political philosophy of depriving emancipated Jews of their civil rights. This term was always reserved for Jews, never applied to Arabs. The notion that it applies to Arabs occurred after WWII in order to obscure the original meaning, and more importantly to suppress the factual history. Luckily, late 19th century European history is well-documented, and these facts are easy to confirm through independent research.
Many Jewish thinkers in the late 1800s realistically (and prophetically) appraised the situation and concluded that it was only a matter of time before the core group of antisemites (always a small minority) used the well-understood tactics of 'Big Lie' and 'Blood Libel' to motivate the European plurality into a sense of 'justifiable' violence against random Jews in order to overcome the Jewish Menace.
For many Jews, the solution was to go to America, to the country with constitutional Freedom of Religion.
For other 19th Century Jews, the solution was to first recognize that Europeans may one day attempt to violently ELIMINATE the Jews altogether, and the best way to prevent the slaughter of millions of Jews involved the establishment of Jewish Homeland. The Jewish Homeland could defend Jews via diplomacy; failing that it could intervene militarily to combat the bigots, and failing all else it could provide a port of refuge for Jews running from European violence.
THE PRIMARY FORCE BEHIND THE CREATION OF ISRAEL IS ELIMINATIONIST ANTISEMITISM.
ANY DISCUSSION OF ZIONISM THAT SUPPRESSES THIS FACT IS A "BIG LIE" OF OMISSION.
Israel was created because it was obvious in the 1890s that many European movements were converging on an ELIMINATION of European Jewry. This realization was not confined to Jews. It underlay the numerous international attempts to set up a Jewish Homeland in Palestine (in 1917, 1920, 1921, 1937) before it was finally established via UN agreement in 1947.
FACT: When the British offered Uganda as the location of the Jewish Homeland to the Jews in 1901, Herzl (and the other Zionists) rejected the proposal. Why? Because, as Herzl explained at the time, if Zionists were not occupied with attempting to establish their own homeland, they would be working to free Africa from the clutches of Imperialist Europe. In fact, Israelis were active throughout the continent in the '50s and '60s supporting all sorts of liberation movements. Why? Because African Liberation was completely congruent with the civil rights foundation of Zionism.
This history has been suppressed by bigots who portray Israelis as inherently racist, an extension of the libel that Judaism is a white racist sect that attempts to subjugate all the other peoples in the world. The suppression of the contributions of Zionism to African Liberation is another 'Big Lie' of omission, as egregious as the nefarious lies about apartheid within modern Israel.
In fact, there are Jews among all the races of the world. There were lots of Black African Jews (Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ethiopia, etc.), just as there were Chinese Jews in Khai Feng, and Indian Jews (especially in the Malabar Coast). All these racial groups, along with Arab Jews, and 'Aryan' Jews (from Iran & Afghanistan :-) walk the streets of Israel. Racially, the Jews are as diverse as NYC itself. Is this reality ever featured in Indymedia? How many African-Americans realize there are 1/4 million African-Israelis?
What lessons do we draw? Well, it is not reasonable to think that antisemitism will disappear if we cater to the racist liars. It will not go away if we refrain from identifying bigots as what they are: bigots. This may not be politically correct (e.g. the indymedia crowd get positively violent when they are confronted with their own bigotry) nor comfortable (no one likes to point out someone else's prejudice nor ignorance). Yet at the same time there is really no other moral nor ethical alternative. The discomfort of pursuing and speaking Truth is a prerequisite for the pursuit of Justice.
And let us never forget the primary Jewish Commandmants: Choose Life, Avoid False 'gods', and Pursue Justice.
There really is no other viable alternative.
I really wish you all the best, and hope that you will find the courage to confront these problems with the integrity that will lead you to serenity and peace.
I wonder why he even bothers? He ought to find somewhere else to shovel his shit. Honestly...
The Jew hater crowd could learn something from him. Or they would if they could learn anything.
-Someone
Despite my disagreement with that term on the list I do like the spin on the self-hating Jews. When you think of Nazi collaboration on the part of grand daddy Bush and the money the Bush family has made from investments on evil Nazi companies you do wonder whether the Jews who bend over for America are justified in judging anyone else.
In reiteration, I will say that, Jews, much like Christians have more money and power than they should in the big picture today. Eventually this empire will crumble and another will form making this point obsolete. I do hope that when this happens, we can learn from apartheid mistakes of history.
Despite my disagreement with that term on the list I do like the spin on the self-hating Jews. When you think of Nazi collaboration on the part of grand daddy Bush and the money the Bush family has made from investments on evil Nazi companies you do wonder whether the Jews who bend over for America are justified in judging anyone else.
In reiteration, I will say that, Jews, much like Christians have more money and power than they should in the big picture today. Eventually this empire will crumble and another will form making this point obsolete. I do hope that when this happens, we can learn from apartheid mistakes of history.
Despite my disagreement with that term on the list I do like the spin on the self-hating Jews. When you think of Nazi collaboration on the part of grand daddy Bush and the money the Bush family has made from investments on evil Nazi companies you do wonder whether the Jews who bend over for America are justified in judging anyone else.
In reiteration, I will say that, Jews, much like Christians have more money and power than they should in the big picture today. Eventually this empire will crumble and another will form making this point obsolete. I do hope that when this happens, we can learn from apartheid mistakes of history.
assclown.
Are you out of any new argument ?
Illiterate and vulgar people.
this is astounding how jew-haters sickly fixed in the term "anti-semitism"..
This is astounding how the left racists have exactly the same hitler-argumentation as the right wings racists .
To make you disappointed and confused, stupid stalinist-"socialist" I never used term "anti-semitism".
You just a jew-hater. Sounds better ?
Makes sense to me.
Nessie - what's he said that's not accurate?
Justin McCarthy defines Palestinians as those who identify as such, and then re-defines it as non-Jewish inhabitants of Israel. WTF? So a Christian Palestinian who marries a Jew and converts to Judaism is no longer a Palestinian. Fascinating. And this person's statistics are supposed to be reliable and unbiased? Whatever...
"THE UN REPORT ON JENIN
"The report was written without a visit to Jenin or the other Palestinian cities in question ... Israeli military retaliation for terrorist attacks was often carried out against Palestinian Authority security forces and installations. This had the effect of severely weakening the Authority's capacity to take effective action against militant groups that launched attacks on Israelis. Militant groups stepped into this growing vacuum and increased their attacks ... completely barring, the movement of international personnel, including at times humanitarian and medical personnel as well as human rights monitors and journalists. As a result of these restrictions on movement, including the round-the-clock curfews that lasted with periodic liftings throughout the incursions, the civilian populations of the cities suffered severe hardships ... It was not only the Palestinian people whose movement was restricted during Operation Defensive Shield. In many instances, humanitarian workers were not able to reach people in need ... There were also cases of Israeli forces not respecting the neutrality of medical and humanitarian workers and attacking ambulances ... As a result of the severe restrictions on movement, human rights workers and journalists were unable to observe the conduct of the parties and provide independent reporting on that conduct. Some journalists reported being fired at by members of IDF ... There were numerous reports of IDF compelling Palestinian civilians to accompany them during house searches, check suspicious subjects, stand in the line of fire from militants and in other ways protect soldiers from danger ... IDF followed a pattern of using loudspeakers to summon males between 15 and 45. According to human rights reports, significant numbers of the men arrested were blindfolded and handcuffed, not allowed to use a lavatory, and deprived of food or blankets during their first day in detention ... damage included the destruction of office equipment, such as computers and photocopying machines, that did not appear to be related to military objectives. While denying that such destruction was systematic, the Israeli Defence Forces have admitted that their personnel engaged in some acts of vandalism ... utilities (electricity, water and telephone) were cut ... humanitarian agencies reported shortages of food and other basic supplies ... restrictions had a devastating economic impact, virtually shutting down the economy of the Palestinian Authority by impeding normal business activity and preventing Palestinians from going to work ... A total of 497 Palestinians were killed in the course of the IDF reoccupation of Palestinian area A ... Palestinian health authorities and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported approximately 1,447 wounded with some 538 live-ammunition injuries ... over 630,000 persons or roughly 20 per cent of the resident population were considered food security vulnerable ... Over 2,800 refugee housing units were damaged and 878 homes were demolished or destroyed during the reporting period, leaving more than 17,000 people homeless ... Fifty Palestinian schools were damaged by Israeli military action, of which 11 were totally destroyed, 9 were vandalized, 15 used as military outposts and another 15 as mass arrest and detention centres ... in the conduct of their operations in the refugee camp the Israeli Defence Forces engaged in unlawful killings, the use of human shields, disproportionate use of force, arbitrary arrests and torture and denial of medical treatment and access ... According to Israeli sources, in their incursion into the camp IDF relied primarily on infantry rather than airpower and artillery in an effort to minimize civilian casualties, but other accounts of the battle suggest that as many as 60 tanks may have been used even in the first days ... IDF increased missile strikes from helicopters and the use of bulldozers - including their use to demolish homes and allegedly bury beneath them those who refused to surrender - and engaged in "indiscriminate" firing ... It is impossible to determine with precision how many civilians were among the Palestinian dead ... Physicians for Human Rights noted that "children under the age of 15 years, women and men over the age of 50 years accounted for nearly 38 per cent of all reported fatalities" ... IDF appeared to have shifted tactics from house-to-house searches and destruction of the homes of known militants to wider bombardment with tanks and missiles. IDF also used armoured bulldozers, supported by tanks, to demolish portions of the camp ... IDF "had complete and detailed knowledge of what was happening in the camp through the use of drones and cameras attached to balloons … [and] none of the atrocities committed were unintentional" ... the use of "helicopter gunships to fire TOW missiles against such a densely populated area … anti-aircraft guns, able to fire 3,000 rounds a minute … scores of tanks and armoured vehicles equipped with machine guns … [and] bulldozers to raze homes and to burrow wide lanes". Other sources point to an extensive use of armoured bulldozers and helicopter gunships on 9 and 10 April, possibly even after the fighting had begun to subside. During this stage, much of the physical damage was done, particularly in the central Hawashin district of the camp, which was effectively levelled. Many civilian dwellings were completely destroyed and many more were severely damaged. Several UNRWA facilities in the camp, including its health centre and sanitation office, were badly damaged ... United Nations personnel requested similar escorted access to assess the humanitarian condition of people in the camp, but were unsuccessful, despite assurances from senior IDF officials that such access would be possible ..."
Two key statements in the report:
"The report was written without a visit to Jenin or the other Palestinian cities in question"
"It is impossible to determine with precision how many civilians were among the Palestinian dead"
Saudi Arabia, Quatar, UAE, Syria, - 100% Arab Muslim dominated media- protest that hypocrites.
no, silly self ritcheous activists don't "think" at all or they wouldn't be such hypocrits. All they do is expound dogma. And FYI- I am not "right wing" I am a liberal who would be embarressed to be associated with such hypocrites and facists as the new "lefties"
Radio Free Europe - the propaganda outfit that used to make Lord Haw-Haw like broadcasts into the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War - now focuses extensively on the Middle East, with broadcast services for the entire region, and also Radio Free Iraq with which it is affiliated.
If you don't believe me go have a look for yourself:
http://www.rferl.org/
http://www.rferl.org/bd/iq/
A little paranoid are we? Other than that, your writing sounds just a little bit wacky, to say the least.
A little paranoid are we? Other than that, your writing sounds just a little bit wacky, to say the least.
". . . You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth.
"Anti-Semitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently anti-Semitic, and ever will be so.
"Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. From this they were expelled by the Roman tyrant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered Our Lord. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them.
"The Negro people, my friend, know what it is to suffer the torment of tyranny under rulers not of our choosing. Our brothers in Africa have begged, pleaded, requested -- DEMANDED -- the recognition and realization of our inborn right to live in peace under our own sovereignty in our own country.
"How easy it should be, for anyone who holds dear this inalienable right of all mankind, to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of God's promise, that his People should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land. This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less.
"And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism.
"The anti-Semite rejoices at any opportunity to vent his malice. The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the anti-Semite must constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist'!
"My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate anti-Semitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and a revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you have been misled--as others have been--into thinking you can be 'anti-Zionist' and yet remain true to these heartfelt principles that you and I share. Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--make no mistake about it."
(From M.L. King Jr., "Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend," Saturday Review XLVII (Aug. 1967), p. 76. Reprinted in M.L. King Jr., "This I Believe: Selections from the Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.")
One type is someone who hangs out with a bunch of liberals like Indymedia, learns to hate his own people or himself, and doesn't bother to verify the story with another source.
The second is a heavily orthodox type who believes that the Jews should only return to Israel under divine intervention, i.e. a direct act of God. These people have their religious interpretations, to which they are completely free; Jews are known to debate the scripture. After all, that's much of how the Talmud was written.
So how do you explain Christian Zionists? And Arab supporters of Israel? Or the Iraqi opposition against Saddam Hussein?
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