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Some facts which contradict the mainstream view that Israel was attacked by its neighbors
...
Typical Argument: "1948 - the nascent Israeli state was attacked by 5 Arab armies from neighboring countries 1 day after its independence declaration."
That is, "the nascent Israeli" state which did not exist because it's citizens owned 6% of the land while the Arabs lived in their homes on 94% of the land...Zionists conducted horrific massacres in around 30-40 Arab villages in order to drive out the Palestinians.
From Israeli Historian Ilan Pappe:
"We have yet to be told the most horrific stories of 1948, although so many of us have been working as professional historians on that. We haven't talked about the rape. We haven't talked about the more than 30 or 40 massacres which popular historiography mentions. We haven't yet decided how to define the systematic killing of several individuals that took place in each and every village in order to create the panic that should produce the exodus. Is this a massacre or not when it is systematically repeated in every village? It is quite possible that some chapters will never be revealed, and many of them do not depend on archives, but rather on the memory of people whom we are loosing each day as vital witnesses. There were not specific orders written, only an atmosphere that has to be reconstructed. A glimpse into that atmosphere can be found on the bookshelves of almost every house in Israel - in the official books that glorify the Israeli army in its activity in 1948. If you know how to read them, you can see how the Palestinians were de-humanized to such a degree that you could rely on the troops, and that they would know what to do."
-Ilan Pappe
http://www.yaledivestmentnews.org/pappeHistory.html
One of the best documented massacres (Deir Yassin) happened on April 9, 1948. A full month before any Arab armies entered into the conflict in the middle of May, 1948.
See:
http://www.ariga.com/peacewatch/dy/dycg.htm
A legitimate question could be posed as to whether the Arabs had any right to defend their neighbors from massacre and ethnic displacement.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Typical Argument: "1956 - Israel attacked Egypt after the latter had refused to open the blockade it imposed on the Tiran Straits against Israeli marine vessels, even though these were international waters."
Israel attacked...so of course, this was an Arab attack. Not only was this a direct attack, it was done with France and England in an imperialist war designed to take over the Suez Canal and allow Israel to settle the Sinai. Eisenhower didn't like it though and told all three to get out. He along with JFK were the last two neutral presidents in this conflict.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Typical Argument: "1967 - Israel had to strike pre-emptively to defend itself from an imminent attack by Egypt, Syria and Jordan (and perhaps by troops of other Arab countries)."
Israel attacked once again...
As to the imminency of an Arab attack, that is not what Israel's leaders thought:
"I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai in May [1967] would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it."
-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
Le Monde, February 29, 1968
"In June, 1967, we again had a choice. the Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him"
-Prime Minister Menachem Begin
New York Times, August 21, 1982
"The former Commander of the Air Force, General Ezer Weitzman, regarded as a hawk, stated that there was 'no threat of destruction' but that the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that Israel could 'exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.' "
Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Typical Argument: "1973 - Egypt and Syria jointly attacked Israel on the same day and caught Israel by total surprise."
What was attacked was Israeli Occupied Territory. Egypt attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and Syria attacked Israeli positions in the Golan Heights.
" As for 1973, no, Israel was not attacked. What was attacked was Israeli occupied territory. Egypt attacked Egyptian territory that was held by Israel under the conditions that I described, after Israel refused a peace treaty. The fact of the matter is, there is not one case in which Israel was attacked."
-Noam Chomsky (from a transcript of a Q&A session during a talk)
http://web.media.mit.edu/~nitin/mideast/chomsky_qa.html
What is disturbing here though is that the reasons for the attacks are unknown and rarely sited. For example, 160,000 Syrian civilians were forced off their land and out of their homes in the Golan Heights where they currently still live in refugee camps in Syria.
In the Sinai, Ariel Sharon in January 1972, " 'drove off some ten thousand farmers...bulldozed or dynamited their houses...destroyed their crops and filled in their wells,' to prepare the ground for the establishment of six Kibbutzim...Subsequently Israeli bulldozers uprooted orchards (what is called in technical terms "making the desert bloom"), CARE aid from the U.S. was withheld to force landowners to sell their lands, mosques and schools were destroyed, and the one school to escape demolition was turned over to a new Kibbutz."
-Noam Chomsky
"The Fateful Triangle," pg. 106
"The 'New York Times' reported that 'local Arab labor is cheap,' not troubling to explain why. Some lived only a few hundred yards away, but they were not even provided with water from the pumping stations..."
-Noam Chomsky
"The Fateful Triangle," pg. 194
"...these events elicited no comment from democratic socialists who were singing hymns of praise to Israel while denouncing anyone who dared raise questions about these policies as anti-Semites, bloody-minded radicals who support terrorism and hate democracy, etc."
-Noam Chomsky
"The Fateful Triangle," pg. 107
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Typical Argument: "1982 - Israel invaded Lebanon to (among other objectives) defeat the PLO which was based in Lebanon and had been terrorizing northern Israel."
"terrorizing northern Israel"
Why would they do that? Could it have something to do with the massive Israeli provocations which killed hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese and which went on for MONTHS before there was even a single reprisal "terrorizing northern Israel"?
See this:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1621818.php
That is, "the nascent Israeli" state which did not exist because it's citizens owned 6% of the land while the Arabs lived in their homes on 94% of the land...Zionists conducted horrific massacres in around 30-40 Arab villages in order to drive out the Palestinians.
From Israeli Historian Ilan Pappe:
"We have yet to be told the most horrific stories of 1948, although so many of us have been working as professional historians on that. We haven't talked about the rape. We haven't talked about the more than 30 or 40 massacres which popular historiography mentions. We haven't yet decided how to define the systematic killing of several individuals that took place in each and every village in order to create the panic that should produce the exodus. Is this a massacre or not when it is systematically repeated in every village? It is quite possible that some chapters will never be revealed, and many of them do not depend on archives, but rather on the memory of people whom we are loosing each day as vital witnesses. There were not specific orders written, only an atmosphere that has to be reconstructed. A glimpse into that atmosphere can be found on the bookshelves of almost every house in Israel - in the official books that glorify the Israeli army in its activity in 1948. If you know how to read them, you can see how the Palestinians were de-humanized to such a degree that you could rely on the troops, and that they would know what to do."
-Ilan Pappe
http://www.yaledivestmentnews.org/pappeHistory.html
One of the best documented massacres (Deir Yassin) happened on April 9, 1948. A full month before any Arab armies entered into the conflict in the middle of May, 1948.
See:
http://www.ariga.com/peacewatch/dy/dycg.htm
A legitimate question could be posed as to whether the Arabs had any right to defend their neighbors from massacre and ethnic displacement.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Typical Argument: "1956 - Israel attacked Egypt after the latter had refused to open the blockade it imposed on the Tiran Straits against Israeli marine vessels, even though these were international waters."
Israel attacked...so of course, this was an Arab attack. Not only was this a direct attack, it was done with France and England in an imperialist war designed to take over the Suez Canal and allow Israel to settle the Sinai. Eisenhower didn't like it though and told all three to get out. He along with JFK were the last two neutral presidents in this conflict.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Typical Argument: "1967 - Israel had to strike pre-emptively to defend itself from an imminent attack by Egypt, Syria and Jordan (and perhaps by troops of other Arab countries)."
Israel attacked once again...
As to the imminency of an Arab attack, that is not what Israel's leaders thought:
"I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai in May [1967] would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it."
-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
Le Monde, February 29, 1968
"In June, 1967, we again had a choice. the Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him"
-Prime Minister Menachem Begin
New York Times, August 21, 1982
"The former Commander of the Air Force, General Ezer Weitzman, regarded as a hawk, stated that there was 'no threat of destruction' but that the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that Israel could 'exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.' "
Noam Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Typical Argument: "1973 - Egypt and Syria jointly attacked Israel on the same day and caught Israel by total surprise."
What was attacked was Israeli Occupied Territory. Egypt attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and Syria attacked Israeli positions in the Golan Heights.
" As for 1973, no, Israel was not attacked. What was attacked was Israeli occupied territory. Egypt attacked Egyptian territory that was held by Israel under the conditions that I described, after Israel refused a peace treaty. The fact of the matter is, there is not one case in which Israel was attacked."
-Noam Chomsky (from a transcript of a Q&A session during a talk)
http://web.media.mit.edu/~nitin/mideast/chomsky_qa.html
What is disturbing here though is that the reasons for the attacks are unknown and rarely sited. For example, 160,000 Syrian civilians were forced off their land and out of their homes in the Golan Heights where they currently still live in refugee camps in Syria.
In the Sinai, Ariel Sharon in January 1972, " 'drove off some ten thousand farmers...bulldozed or dynamited their houses...destroyed their crops and filled in their wells,' to prepare the ground for the establishment of six Kibbutzim...Subsequently Israeli bulldozers uprooted orchards (what is called in technical terms "making the desert bloom"), CARE aid from the U.S. was withheld to force landowners to sell their lands, mosques and schools were destroyed, and the one school to escape demolition was turned over to a new Kibbutz."
-Noam Chomsky
"The Fateful Triangle," pg. 106
"The 'New York Times' reported that 'local Arab labor is cheap,' not troubling to explain why. Some lived only a few hundred yards away, but they were not even provided with water from the pumping stations..."
-Noam Chomsky
"The Fateful Triangle," pg. 194
"...these events elicited no comment from democratic socialists who were singing hymns of praise to Israel while denouncing anyone who dared raise questions about these policies as anti-Semites, bloody-minded radicals who support terrorism and hate democracy, etc."
-Noam Chomsky
"The Fateful Triangle," pg. 107
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Typical Argument: "1982 - Israel invaded Lebanon to (among other objectives) defeat the PLO which was based in Lebanon and had been terrorizing northern Israel."
"terrorizing northern Israel"
Why would they do that? Could it have something to do with the massive Israeli provocations which killed hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese and which went on for MONTHS before there was even a single reprisal "terrorizing northern Israel"?
See this:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1621818.php
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