Weekly Summary of israeli War Crimes

It is shameful that the U.S. subsidizes this terror w/ billions per year. As taxpayers, we fund Israeli terror to the tune of billions in cash/military handouts per year.

Dear Palestinian Arab brethren:

The war with Israel is over.

You have lost. Surrender and negotiate to secure a future for your children.

We, your Arab brothers, may say until we are blue in the face that we stand by you, but the wise among you and most of us know that we are moving on, away from the tired old idea of the Palestinian Arab cause and the “eternal struggle” with Israel.

Dear friends, you and your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years. Struggle means less land and more misery and utter loneliness.

At the moment, brothers, you would be lucky to secure a semblance of a state in that Gaza Strip into which you have all crowded, and a small part of the West Bank of the Jordan. It isn’t going to get better. Time is running out even for this much land, so here are some facts, figures, and sound advice, friends.

You hold keys, which you drag out for television interviews, to houses that do not exist or are inhabited by Israelis who have no intention of leaving Jaffa, Haifa, Tel Aviv, or West Jerusalem. You shoot old guns at modern Israeli tanks and American-made fighter jets, doing virtually no harm to Israel while bringing the wrath of its mighty army down upon you. You fire ridiculously inept Kassam rockets that cause little destruction and delude yourselves into thinking this is a war of liberation. Your government, your social institutions, your schools, and your economy are all in ruins.

Your young people are growing up illiterate, ill, and bent on rites of death and suicide, while you, in effect, are living on the kindness of foreigners, including America and the United Nations. Every day your officials must beg for your daily bread, dependent on relief trucks that carry food and medicine into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, while your criminal Muslim fundamentalist Hamas government continues to fan the flames of a war it can neither fight nor hope to win.

In other words, brothers, you are down, out, and alone in a burnt-out landscape that is shrinking by the day.

What kind of struggle is this? Is it worth waging at all? More important, what kind of miserable future does it portend for your children, the fourth or fifth generation of the Arab world’s have-nots?

We, your Arab brothers, have moved on.

Those of us who have oil money are busy accumulating wealth and building housing, luxury developments, state-of-the-art universities and schools, and new highways and byways. Those of us who share borders with Israel, such as Egypt and Jordan, have signed a peace treaty with it and are not going to war for you any time soon. Those of us who are far away, in places like North Africa and Iraq, frankly could not care less about what happens to you.

Only Syria continues to feed your fantasies that someday it will join you in liberating Palestine, even though a huge chunk of its territory, the entire Golan Heights, was taken by Israel in 1967 and annexed. The Syrians, my friends, will gladly fight down to the last Palestinian Arab.

Before you got stuck with this Hamas crowd, another cheating, conniving, leader of yours,Yasser Arafat, sold you a rotten bill of goods � more pain, greater corruption, and millions stolen by his relatives � while your children played in the sewers of Gaza.

The war is over. Why not let a new future begin?

Come on, what about the treatment of the palestinians by the israelis? they are being walled in, they are not allowed to travel from town to town, they are trapped at checkpoints from days, even when they need urgent medical care (this is why a lot of them are so sickly), children are killed regularly by the IOF, even if they are just walking home from school...

this isn't just about the "brethren-" it's about everyone, the men, women, children, and elders.

Question: The poor Palestinians are still living in refugee camps throughout the Arab world.
When will they be able to go back to their homes?
Better Question:
"What in hell are these people doing in refugee camps more than half a century later!"



The conflict between Israel and the Arab world is not about the borders of the Jewish State. Simply put, the core of the conflict is about Israel's mere existence!

Grab a map and look throughout the Arab NearEast-MiddleEast and much of Africa and Asia. Israel is the ONLY non-Muslim nation. It is also the only democracy! Sure, Lebanon functioned somewhat as a bi-national Christian/Muslim nation until Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] Arab-"Palestinian" thugs set up shop there in 1970. Soon after their arrival, they set up a "state within a state" and instigated a 15 year Muslim-Christian civil war (1970-85). The havoc that Arafat unleashed upon a once civilized Lebanon has been a standard of his long career. As a direct result of this rape of the the once beautiful "Land of the Cedars," Lebanon has essentially become just another Arab-Muslim nation... in fact, a terrorist Muslim nation. If THIS is what happens when Christians try to share power with Muslims, one can only imagine Jews trying the same! And having Arafat and his Palestinian State alongside Israel's belly is also not such a pleasant thought! So much for the "poor suffering Arab-Palestinians!"

Throughout most of the Arab-Muslim world, hatred toward the Jews is preached in mosques where the "Zionist entity" is portrayed as a diabolical threat. This characterization of the Jews is taught in refugee camps where Israelis are known as the "usurpers and barbarians" who have expelled the "poor Palestinian Arabs" from their homes. It is taught in all Arab schools, spoken over the television and radio waves and written in books and newspaper editorials. The latest "fashionable" spread of Arab propaganda and lies is via the Internet. Even a whole new non-Muslim audience is now being brainwashed with patently untrue tales of Arab suffering at the hands of the Jews.

It is important to note that the world has seen hundreds of millions of REFUGEES... more than 135 million during the 20th-century alone. It's a natural and expected end result of wars. The Palestinian refugee problem is rooted in the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War. In 1947, realizing that the Jewish and Arab communities of Palestine could not live together in one state, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, which recommended partitioning Palestine into two states... one Jewish and one Arab [left map]. While the Jews accepted this plan, the Arabs rejected it, claiming that all of Palestine belonged to them. And when Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, seven neighboring Arab states attacked it in an attempt to prevent its creation... and to slaughter every Jewish man, woman and child!

In the wake of this war, approximately 420,000 Arab- Palestinians fled to Arab states from the portion of Palestine that is now Israel. Arabs remaining in Israel numbered 140,000. The total number of Arabs who left could not mathematically have been more than some 420,000This is the number according to the British Mandate's statistics and conforms roughly also to the figure published from Arab sources, and by the UN. Conveniently not mentioned was that only 15% of these fleeing Arab "Palestinians" were actually landowners... the remainder were simply squatters! And practically never acknowledged by the Arab world was that 860,000 Jewish refugees fled from Arab countries to Israel! The latter are the refugees the Arab world seems to forget mentioning when they squawk about refugees! For example, before the Jewish Palestinians declared their State of Israel in 1948, there were 350,000 Jewish people in Iraq alone... fully one-fifth of Baghdad's citizens were Jewish! After the creation of the State of Israel hundreds of thousands of the Iraqi Jews fled for their lives. Most went to Israel. Today, there are 38 Jews left in Baghdad. In Basra, Iraq there is just one old woman. In Mosul, Amarah, and other Iraqi cities where Jews had lived for more than two thousand years, their communities have vanished without trace!

This population exchange mirrored far larger population movements following the end of World War II, which involved millions of Hindus and Muslims in India and Pakistan, as well as Poles, Germans and MANY other nationalities in Central and East Europe. These population exchanges were resolved through the integration of all refugees into host states. While Israel absorbed the Jewish refugees, the Arab states refused to allow such resettlement and integration of their Palestinian brethren, preferring instead to exploit the Arab-"Palestinian" refugees to serve their own political agendas. And now, more than a half century since the Jewish-"Palestinians" became "Israelis," many of the Arab-"Palestinian" refugee camps remain throughout Judea-Samaria (a.k.a. "West Bank"), Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Of course, many of these so-called "refugee camps" include double and triple level homes in which one can find computers and Internet connections! However, they STILL guard their "refugee status" so as appeal to "suckers" around the world! Are you one of them?

We don't hear about any Jewish refugees who were thrown out of many Arab countries in 1948 for most of them were absorbed by their fellow Jews within Israel. The children and grandchildren of these Jewish refugees are now free and productive citizens. Yet, while the Arabs throughout the Middle East cry crocodile tears for their poor suffering "Palestinian" brothers and sisters, none of the 24 Arab countries has opened their arms to embrace them as new citizens. Instead, these refugees and their descendants were dumped into camps of poverty and degradation for the world to see, further fanning the flames of hatred. Ironically, the Arabs who did not flee and, instead, remained inside Israel became Israeli-Arab citizens have fared far better than those in Arab countries!

The bottom line is that today's Arab "Palestinian" refugees are not now, and never were, the problem or responsibility of Israel. The truth is that nearly 70% of the Arab Palestinians who left in 1948 – perhaps 300,000 of them – never saw an Israeli soldier! The remaining 30% either (1) saw for themselves that these Jews would fight and die for their new nation and decided to pack up and leave or (2) were driven off the land as a normal consequence of war.

The Arab armies did not give up trying to destroy Israel after their initial failure in 1948-9. They tried again in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Once again they lost and another million Arabs... from the (Jordanian) "West Bank," (Egyptian) Gaza Strip and the (Syrian) Golan region.... added to the Arab Palestinian refugee list. It must be stressed that the Palestinian Arabs (abetted and "stirred up" by neighboring Arab nations) started BOTH the 1948 and 1967 wars leading to their refugee status! Talk about "Sore Losers!"

The solicitous attitude toward the Palestinians is a prime example of that most entrenched of international double standards -- one rule for Israel , another for everyone else. Not only the Arabs who left what became Israel , but their children and grandchildren have been granted refugee status in perpetuity by the United Nations. Clearly, most of the five million "Palestinian refugees" have never set eyes on their “homeland!”

SUMMATION...

What makes the Palestinian Arabs stand out among the world's refugees is that they created their own pathetic situation or were misled by their leaders. In 1923, the Arab Palestinians were given 75% of Palestine in which to form their first Arab- Palestinian state of Jordan. The Jewish Palestinians were supposed to be given the remainder. However, the Arabs wanted ALL. So 24 years later in1947 this remaining 25% that remained of the original "Palestine" was to be re-divided again into equal portions... the Arab Palestinians would be given their second nation while the Jewish Palestinians would be given their one and ONLY state. But still, as before and as ALWAYS, the Arabs wanted it all ... "every last inch" and "every last grain of sand" as they said then and as they say now! And so in 1948 they and their fellow Arabs in neighboring states launched an all-out war on the this newly-created Jewish Palestinian nation [Israel] and lost. God blessed the Jewish Nation... the Arabs took a chance and lost. Tough Luck for them! Bur get this... now, more than a half century later, they demand that Israel give them what was first offered in 1947! And, during that same half century, Israelis have build large, thriving communities with roads, hospitals, universities, synagogues, electric grids, communications facilities, post offices and other civil infrastructures within that liberated land. Are they to pack up and "ethnically cleanse" THEMSELVES from this territory so that Arabs can simply move in?

Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews of Israel. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it and surely the Germans did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria tossed out a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese-and no one says a word about refugees. And the Arabs threw out 860,000 Jews just in 1948 alone! But in the case of Israel, the relatively small number of displaced Arabs have become the world's eternal refugees! The only thing that makes them so special is that they helped create their own refugee status!

What was offered to these Arab Palestinians in 1947 can NOT be offered once again. The State of Israel has developed into a first class democracy and sees no reason to dissect and weaken herself to the point where the Arabs can try to destroy her again! NO normal nation can be asked to do that and neither should Israel! The world should have far more important things to concern itself with other than the Arabs' constant belly-aching! As they say, "Get a Life, Already!" "But I Don't Wanna Get a Life!"
Arab Palestinian children are suckled on their mother's milk
which is then blended with large doses of anti-Semitism!

Zionism And Its Impact
By Ann M. Lesch
The Zionist movement has maintained a striking continuity in its aims and methods over the past century. From the start, the movement sought to achieve a Jewish majority in Palestine and to establish a Jewish state on as much of the LAND as possible. The methods included promoting mass Jewish immigration and acquiring tracts of land that would become the inalienable property of the Jewish people. This policy inevitably prevented the indigenous Arab residents from attaining their national goals and establishing a Palestinian state. It also necessitated displacing Palestinians from their lands and jobs when their presence conflicted with Zionist interests.

The Zionist movement—and subsequently the state of ISRAEL—failed to develop a positive approach to the Palestinian presence and aspirations. Although many Israelis recognized the moral dilemma posed by the Palestinians, the majority either tried to ignore the issue or to resolve it by force majeure. Thus, the Palestine problem festered and grew, instead of being resolved.

Historical Background
The British Mandate
The Zionist Movement
Practical Zionism
Policies Toward the Palestinians
Conclusion
Historical Background
The Zionist movement arose in late nineteenth-century Europe, influenced by the nationalist ferment sweeping that continent. Zionism acquired its particular focus from the ancient Jewish longing for the return to Zion and received a strong impetus from the increasingly intolerable conditions facing the large Jewish community in tsarist Russia. The movement also developed at the time of major European territorial acquisitions in Asia and Africa and benefited from the European powers' competition for influence in the shrinking Ottoman Empire.

One result of this involvement with European expansionism, however, was that the leaders of the nascent nationalist movements in the Middle East viewed Zionism as an adjunct of European colonialism. Moreover, Zionist assertions of the contemporary relevance of the Jews' historical ties to Palestine, coupled with their land purchases and immigration, alarmed the indigenous population of the Ottoman districts that Palestine comprised. The Jewish community (yishuv) rose from 6 percent of Palestine's population in 1880 to 10 percent by 1914. Although the numbers were insignificant, the settlers were outspoken enough to arouse the opposition of Arab leaders and induce them to exert counter pressure on the Ottoman regime to prohibit Jewish immigration and land buying.

As early as 1891, a group of Muslim and Christian notables cabled Istanbul, urging the government to prohibit Jewish immigration and land purchase. The resulting edicts radically curtailed land purchases in the sanjak (district) of JERUSALEM for the next decade. When a Zionist Congress resolution in 1905 called for increased colonization, the Ottoman regime suspended all land transfers to Jews in both the sanjak of Jerusalem and the wilayat (province) of Beirut.

After the coup d'etat by the Young Turks in 1908, the Palestinians used their representation in the central parliament and their access to newly opened local newspapers to press their claims and express their concerns. They were particularly vociferous in opposition to discussions that took place between the financially hard-pressed Ottoman regime and Zionist leaders in 1912-13, which would have let the world Zionist Organization purchase crown land (jiftlik) in the Baysan Valley, along the Jordan River.

The Zionists did not try to quell Palestinian fears, since their concern was to encourage colonization from Europe and to minimize the obstacles in their path. The only effort to meet to discuss their aspirations occurred in the spring of 1914. Its difficulties illustrated the incompatibility in their aspirations. The Palestinians wanted the Zionists to present them with a document that would state their precise political ambitions, their willingness to open their schools to Palestinians, and their intentions of learning Arabic and integrating with the local population. The Zionists rejected this proposal.

The British Mandate
The proclamation of the BALFOUR DECLARATION on November 2, 1917, and the arrival of British troops in Palestine soon after, transformed the political situation. The declaration gave the Zionist movement its long-sought legal status. The qualification that: nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine seemed a relatively insignificant obstacle to the Zionists, especially since it referred only to those communities': civil and religious rights, not to political or national rights. The subsequent British occupation gave Britain the ability to carry out that pledge and provide the protection necessary for the Zionists to realize their aims.

In fact, the British had contracted three mutually contradictory promises for the future of Palestine. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 with the French and Russian governments proposed that Palestine be placed under international administration. The HUSAYN-MCMAHON CORRESPONDENCE, 1915-1916, on whose basis the Arab revolt was launched, implied that Palestine would be included in the zone of Arab independence. In contrast, the Balfour Declaration encouraged the colonization of Palestine by Jews, under British protection. British officials recognized the irreconcilability of these pledges but hoped that a modus vivendi could be achieved, both between the competing imperial powers, France and Britain, and between the Palestinians and the Jews. Instead, these contradictions set the stage for the three decades of conflict-ridden British rule in Palestine.

Initially, many British politicians shared the Zionists' assumption that gradual, regulated Jewish immigration and settlement would lead to a Jewish majority in Palestine, whereupon it would become independent, with legal protection for the Arab minority. The assumption that this could be accomplished without serious resistance was shattered at the outset of British rule. Britain thereafter was caught in an increasingly untenable position, unable to persuade either Palestinians or Zionists to alter their demands and forced to station substantial military forces in Palestine to maintain security.

The Palestinians had assumed that they would gain some form of independence when Ottoman rule disintegrated, whether through a separate state or integration with neighboring Arab lands. These hopes were bolstered by the Arab revolt, the entry of Faysal Ibn Husayn into Damascus in 1918, and the proclamation of Syrian independence in 1920. Their hopes were dashed, however, when Britain imposed direct colonial rule and elevated the yishuv to a special status. Moreover, the French ousted Faysal from Damascus in July 1920, and British compensation—in the form of thrones in Transjordan and Iraq for Abdullah and Faysal, respectively—had no positive impact on the Arabs in Palestine. In fact, the action underlined the different treatment accorded Palestine and its disadvantageous political situation. These concerns were exacerbated by Jewish immigration: the yishuv comprised 28 percent of the population by 1936 and reached 32 percent by 1947 (click here for Palestine's population distribution per district in 1946).

The British umbrella was CRITICALLY important to the growth and consolidation of the yishuv, enabling it to root itself firmly despite Palestinian opposition. Although British support diminished in the late 1930s, the yishuv was strong enough by then to withstand the Palestinians on its own. After World War II, the Zionist movement also was able to turn to the emerging superpower, the UNITED STATES, for diplomatic support and legitimization.

The Palestinians' responses to Jewish immigration, land purchases, and political demands were remarkably consistent. They insisted that Palestine remain an Arab country, with the same right of self-determination and independence as Egypt, Transjordan, and Iraq. Britain granted those countries independence without a violent struggle since their claims to self-determination were not contested by European settlers. The Palestinians argued that Palestinian territory COULD NOT AND SHOULD NOT be used to solve the plight of the Jews in Europe, and that Jewish national aspirations should not override their own rights.

Palestinian opposition peaked in the late 1930s: the six-month general strike in 1936 was followed the next year by a widespread rural revolt. This rebellion welled up from the bottom of Palestinian society—unemployed urban workers, displaced peasants crowded into towns, and debt-ridden villagers. It was supported by most merchants and professionals in the towns, who feared competition from the yishuv. Members of the elite families acted as spokesmen before the British administration through the ARAB HIGHER COMMITTEE, which was formed during the 1936 strike. However, the British banned the committee in October 1937 and arrested its members, on the eve of the revolt.

Only one of the Palestinian political parties was willing to limit its aims and accept the principle of territorial partition: The NATIONAL DEFENSE PARTY, led by RAGHIB AL-NASHASHIBI (mayor of JERUSALEM from 1920 to 1934), was willing to accept partition in 1937 so long as the Palestinians obtained sufficient land and could merge with Transjordan to form a larger political entity. However, the British PEEL COMMISSION's plan, announced in July 1937, would have forced the Palestinians to leave the olive- and grain- growing areas of Galilee, the orange groves on the Mediterranean coast, and the urban port cities of HAIFA and ACRE. That was too great a loss for even the National Defense Party to accept, and so it joined in the general denunciations of partition.

During the PALESTINE MANDATE period the Palestinian community was 70 percent rural, 75 to 80 percent illiterate, and divided internally between town and countryside and between elite families and villagers. Despite broad support for the national aims, the Palestinians could not achieve the unity and strength necessary to withstand the combined pressure of the British forces and the Zionist movement. In fact, the political structure was decapitated in the late 1930s when the British banned the Arab Higher Committee and arrested hundreds of local politicians. When efforts were made in the 1940s to rebuild the political structure, the impetus came largely from outside, from Arab rulers who were disturbed by the deteriorating conditions in Palestine and feared their repercussions on their own newly acquired independence.

The Arab rulers gave priority to their own national considerations and provided limited diplomatic and military support to the Palestinians. The Palestinian Arabs continued to demand a state that would reflect the Arab majority's weight—diminished to 68 percent by 1947. They rejected the UNITED NATIONS (U.N.) partition plan of November 1947, which granted the Jews statehood in 55 percent of Palestine, an area that included as many Arab residents as Jews. However, the Palestinian Arabs lacked the political strength and military force to back up their claim. Once Britain withdrew its forces in 1948 and the Jews proclaimed the state of Israel, the Arab rulers used their armed forces to protect those zones that the partition plans had ALLOCATED to the Arab state. By the time armistice agreements were signed in 1949, the Arab areas had shrunk to only 23 percent of Palestine. The Egyptian army held the GAZA STRIP, and Transjordanian forces dominated the hills of central Palestine. At least 726,000 of the 1.3 million Palestinian Arabs fled from the area held by Israel. Emir Abdullah subsequently annexed the zone that his army occupied, renaming it the WEST BANK.

The Zionist Movement
The dispossession and expulsion of a majority of Palestinians were the result of Zionist policies planned over a thirty-year period. Fundamentally, Zionism focused on two needs:

to attain a Jewish majority in Palestine;



to acquire statehood irrespective of the wishes of the indigenous population. Non-recognition of the political and national rights of the Palestinian people was a KEY Zionist policy.

Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, placed maximalist demands before the Paris Peace Conference in February 1919. He stated that he expected 70,000 to 80,000 Jewish immigrants to arrive each year in Palestine. When they became the majority, they would form an independent government and Palestine and would become: "as Jewish as England is English". Weizmann proposed that the boundaries should be the Mediterranean Sea on the west; Sidon, the Litani River, and Mount Hermon on the north; all of Transjordan west of the Hijaz railway on the east; and a line across Sinai from Aqaba to al-Arish on the south. He argued that: "the boundaries above outlined are what we consider essential for the economic foundation of the country. Palestine must have its natural outlet to the sea and control of its rivers and their headwaters. The boundaries are sketched with the general economic needs and historic traditions of the country in mind." Weizmann offered the Arab countries a free zone in Haifa and a joint port at Aqaba.

Weizmann's policy was basically in accord with that of the leaders of the yishuv, who held a conference in December 1918 in which they formulated their own demands for the peace conference. The yishuv plan stressed that they must control appointments to the administrative services and that the British must actively assist their program to transform Palestine into a democratic Jewish state in which the Arabs would have minority rights. Although the peace conference did not explicitly allocate such extensive territories to the Jewish national home and did not support the goal of transforming all of Palestine into a Jewish state, it opened the door to such a possibility. More important, Weizmann's presentation stated clearly and forcefully the long-term aims of the movement. These aims were based on certain fundamental tenets of Zionism:

The movement was seen not only as inherently righteous, but also as meeting an overwhelming need among European Jews.



European culture was superior to indigenous Arab culture; the Zionists could help civilize the East.



External support was needed from a major power; relations with the Arab world were a secondary matter.



Arab nationalism was a legitimate political movement, but Palestinian nationalism was either illegitimate or nonexistent.



Finally, if the Palestinians would not reconcile themselves to Zionism, force majeure, not compromise, was the only feasible response.

First
Adherents of Zionism believed that the Jewish people had an inherent and inalienable right to Palestine. Religious Zionists stated this in biblical terms, referring to the divine promise of the land to the tribes of Israel. Secular Zionists relied more on the argument that Palestine alone could solve the problem of Jewish dispersion and virulent anti-Semitism. Weizmann stated in 1930 that the needs of 16 million Jews had to be balanced against those of 1 million Palestinian Arabs: "The Balfour Declaration and the Mandate have definitely lifted [Palestine] out of the context of the Middle East and linked it up with the world-wide Jewish problem....The rights which the Jewish people has been adjudged in Palestine do not depend on the consent, and cannot be subjected to the will, of the majority of its present inhabitants."

This perspective took its most extreme form with the Revisionist movement. Its founder, Vladimir Jabotinsky, was so self-righteous about the Zionist cause that he justified any actions taken against the Arabs in order to realize Zionist goals.

Second
Zionists generally felt that European civilization was superior to Arab culture and values. Theodor Herzl, the founder of the World Zionist Organization, wrote in the Jewish State (1886) that the Jewish community could serve as: "part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism."

Weizmann also believed that he was engaged in a fight of civilization against the desert. The Zionists would bring enlightenment and economic development to the backward Arabs. Similarly, David Ben-Gurion, the leading labor Zionist, could not understand why Arabs rejected his offer to use Jewish finance, scientific knowledge, and technical expertise to modernize the Middle East. He attributed this rejection to backwardness rather than to the affront that Zionism posed to the Arabs' pride and to their aspirations for independence.

Third
Zionist leaders recognized that they needed an external patron to legitimize their presence in the international arena and to provide them legal and military protection in Palestine. Great Britain played that role in the 1920s and 1930s, and the United States became the mentor in the mid-1940s. Zionist leaders realized that they needed to make tactical accommodations to that patron—such as downplaying their public statements about their political aspirations or accepting a state on a limited territory—while continuing to work toward their long-term goals. The presence and needs of the Arabs were viewed as secondary. The Zionist leadership never considered allying with the Arab world against the British and Americans. Rather, Weizmann, in particular, felt that the yishuv should bolster the British Empire and guard its strategic interests in the region. Later, the leaders of Israel perceived the Jewish state as a strategic asset to the United States in the Middle East.

Fourth
Zionist politicians accepted the idea of an Arab nation but rejected the concept of a Palestinian nation. They considered the Arab residents of Palestine as comprising a minute fraction of the land and people of the Arab world, and as lacking any separate identity and aspirations (click here, to read our response to this myth). Weizmann and Ben-Gurion were willing to negotiate with Arab rulers in order to gain those rulers' recognition of Jewish statehood in Palestine in return for the Zionists' recognition of Arab independence elsewhere, but they would not negotiate with the Arab politicians in Palestine for a political settlement in their common homeland. As early as 1918, Weizmann wrote to a prominent British politician: "The real Arab movement is developing in Damascus and Mecca...the so-called Arab question in Palestine would therefore assume only a purely local character, and in fact is not considered a serious factor."

In line with that thinking, Weizmann met with Emir Faysal in the same year, in an attempt to win his agreement to Jewish statehood in Palestine in return for Jewish financial support for Faysal as ruler of Syria and Arabia.

Ben-Gurion, Weizmann, and other Zionist leaders met with prominent Arab officials during the 1939 LONDON CONFERENCE, which was convened by Britain to seek a compromise settlement in Palestine. The Arab diplomats from Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia criticized the exceptional position that the Balfour Declaration had granted the Jewish community and emphasized the estrangement between the Arab and Jewish residents that large scale Jewish immigration had caused. In response, Weizmann insisted that Palestine remain open to all Jews who wanted to immigrate, and Ben-Gurion suggested that all of Palestine should become a Jewish state, federated with the surrounding Arab states. The Arab participants criticized these demands for exacerbating the conflict, rather than contributing to the search for peace. The Zionists' premise that Arab statehood could be recognized while ignoring the Palestinians was thus rejected by the Arab rulers themselves.

Fifth
Finally, Zionist leaders argued that if the Palestinians could not reconcile themselves to Zionism, then force majeure, not a compromise of goals, was the only possible response. By the early 1920s, after violent Arab protests broke out in Jaffa and Jerusalem, leaders of the yishuv recognized that it might be impossible to bridge the gap between the aims of the two peoples. Building the national home would lead to an unavoidable clash, since the Arab majority would not agree to become a minority. In fact, as early as 1919 Ben-Gurion stated bluntly: "Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question. No solution! There is a gulf, and nothing can fill this gulf....I do not know what Arab will agree that Palestine should belong to the Jews....We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs."

As tensions increased in the 1920s and the 1930s Zionist leaders realized that they had to coerce the Arabs to acquiesce to a diminished status. Ben-Gurion stated in 1937, during the Arab revolt:

"This is a national war declared upon us by the Arabs....This is an active resistance by the Palestinians to what they regard as a usurpation of their homeland by the Jews....But the fighting is only one aspect of the conflict, which is in its essence a political one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves."

This sober conclusion did not lead Ben-Gurion to negotiate with the Palestinian Arabs: instead he became more determined to strengthen the Jewish military forces so that they could compel the Arabs to relinquish their claims.

Practical Zionism
In order to realize the aims of Zionism and build the Jewish national home, the Zionist movement undertook the following practical steps in many different realms:

They built political structures that could assume state functions



Created a military force.



Promoted large-scale immigration.



Acquired land as the inalienable property of the Jewish people



Established and monopolistic concessions. The labor federation, Histadrut, tried to force Jewish enterprises to hire only Jewish labor



Setting up an autonomous Hebrew-language educational system.


These measures created a self-contained national entity on Palestinian soil that was ENTIRELY SEPARATE from the Arab community.

The yishuv established an elected community council, executive body, administrative departments, and religious courts soon after the British assumed control over Palestine. When the PALESTINE MANDATE was ratified by the League of Nations in 1922, the World Zionist Organization gained the responsibility to advise and cooperate with the British administration not only on economic and social matters affecting the Jewish national home but also on issues involving the general development of the country. Although the British rejected pressure to give the World Zionist Organization an equal share in administration and control over immigration and land transfers, the yishuv did gain a privileged advisory position.

The Zionists were strongly critical of British efforts to establish a LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL in 1923, 1930, and 1936. They realized that Palestinians' demands for a legislature with a Palestinian majority ran counter to their own need to delay establishing representative bodies until the Jewish community was much larger. In 1923, the Jewish residents did participate in the elections for a Legislative Council, but they were relieved that the Palestinians' boycott compelled the British to cancel the results. In 1930 and 1936 the World Zionist Organization vigorously opposed British proposals for a legislature, fearing that, if the Palestinians received the majority status that proportional representation would require, then they would try to block Jewish immigration and the purchase of land by Zionist companies. Zionist opposition was couched indirectly in the assertion that Palestine was not ripe for self-rule, a code for not until there's a Jewish majority.

To bolster this position, the yishuv formed defense forces (Haganah) in March 1920. They were preceded by the establishment of guards (hashomer) in Jewish rural settlements in the 1900s and the formation of a Jewish Legion in World War I. However, the British disbanded the Jewish Legion and allowed only sealed armories in the settlements and mixed Jewish-British area defense committees.

Despite its illegal status, the Haganah expanded to number 10,000 trained and mobilized men, and 40,000 reservists by 1936. During the 1937-38 Arab revolt, the Haganah engaged in active defense against Arab insurgents and cooperated with the British to guard railway lines, the oil pipeline to Haifa, and border fences. This cooperation deepened during World War II, when 18,800 Jewish volunteers joined the British forces. Haganah's special Palmach units served as scouts and sappers for the British army in Lebanon in 1941-42. This wartime experience helped to transform the Haganah into a regular fighting force. When Ben-Gurion became the World Zionist Organization's secretary of defense in June 1947, he accelerated mobilization as well as arms buying in the United States and Europe. As a result, mobilization leaped to 30,000 by May 1948, when statehood was proclaimed, and then doubled to 60,000 by mid-July—twice the number serving in the Arab forces arrayed against Israel.

A principal means for building up the national home was the promotion of large-scale immigration from Europe. Estimates of the Palestinian population demonstrate the dramatic impact of immigration. The first British census (December 31, 1922) counted 757,182 residents, of whom 83,794 were Jewish. The second census (December 31, 1931) enumerated 1,035,821, including 174,006 Jews. Thus, the absolute number of Jews had doubled and the relative number had increased from 11 percent to 17 percent. Two-thirds of this growth could be attributed to net immigration, and one third to natural increase. Two-thirds of the yishuv was concentrated in Jerusalem and Jaffa and Tel Aviv, with most of the remainder in the north, including the towns of HAIFA, SAFAD, and Tiberias.

The Mandate specified that the rate of immigration should accord with the economic capacity of the country to absorb the immigrants. In 1931, the British government reinterpreted this to take into account only the Jewish sector of the economy, excluding the Palestinian sector, which was suffering from heavy unemployment. As a result, the pace of immigration accelerated in 1932 and peaked in 1935-36. In other words, the absolute number of Jewish residents doubled in the five years from 1931 to 1936 to 370,000, so that they constituted 28 percent of the total population. Not until 1939 did the British impose a severe quota on Jewish immigrants. That restriction was resisted by the yishuv with a sense of desperation, since it blocked access to a key haven for the Jews whom Hitler was persecuting and exterminating in Germany and the rest of Nazi-occupied Europe. Net immigration was limited during the war years in the 1940s, but the government estimated in 1946 that there were about 583,000 Jews of nearly 1,888,000 residents, or 31 percent of the total Seventy percent of them were urban, and they continued to be overwhelmingly concentrated in Jerusalem (100,000) the Haifa area (119,000), and the JAFFA and RAMLA districts (327,000) (click here for a map illustrating Palestine's population distribution in 1946). The remaining 43,000 were largely in Galilee, with a scattering in the Negev and almost none in the central highlands.

The World Zionist Organization purchasing agencies launched large-scale land purchases in order to found rural settlements and stake territorial claims. In 1920 the Zionists held about 650,000 dunums (one dunum equals approximately one-quarter of an acre). By 1930, the amount had expanded to 1,164,000 dunums and by 1936 to 1,400,000 dunums. The major purchasing agent (the Palestine Land Development Company) estimated that, by 1936, 89 percent had been bought from large landowners (primarily absentee owners from Beirut) and only 11 percent from peasants. By 1947, the yishuv held 1.9 million dunums. Nevertheless, this represented only 7 percent of the total land surface or 10 to 12 percent of the cultivable land (click here for a map illustrating Palestine's land ownership distribution in 1946)

According to Article 3 of the Constitution of the Jewish Agency, the land was held by the Jewish National Fund as the inalienable property of the Jewish people; ONLY Jewish labor could be employed in the settlements, Palestinians protested bitterly against this inalienability clause. The moderate National Defense Party, for example, petitioned the British in 1935 to prevent further land sales, arguing that it was a: life and death [matter] to the Arabs, in that it results in the transfer of their country to other hands and the loss of their nationality.

The placement of Jewish settlements was often based on political considerations. The Palestine Land Development Company had four criteria for land purchase:

The economic suitability of the tract



Its contribution to forming a solid block of Jewish territory.



The prevention of isolation of settlements



The impact of the purchase on the political-territorial claims of the Zionists.


The stockade and watchtower settlements constructed in 1937, for example, were designed to secure control over key parts of Galilee for the yishuv in case the British implemented the PEEL PARTITION PLAN. Similarly, eleven settlements were hastily erected in the Negev in late 1946 in an attempt to stake a political claim in that entirely Palestinian-populated territory.

In addition to making these land purchases, prominent Jewish businessmen won monopolistic concessions from the British government that gave the Zionist movement an important role in the development of Palestine's natural resources. In 1921, Pinhas Rutenberg's Palestine Electric Company acquired the right to electrify all of Palestine except Jerusalem. Moshe Novomeysky received the concession to develop the minerals in the Dead Sea in 1927. And the Palestine Land Development Company gained the concession to drain the Hula marshes, north of the Sea of Galilee, in 1934. In each case, the concession was contested by other serious non-Jewish claimants; Palestinian politicians argued that the government should retain control itself in order to develop the resources for the benefit of the entire country.

The inalienability clause in the Jewish National Fund contracts included provision that ONLY JEWS could work on Jewish agricultural settlements. The concepts of manual labor and the return to the soil were key to the Zionist enterprise. This Jewish labor policy was enforced by the General Foundation of Jewish Labor (Histadrut), founded in 1920 and headed by David Ben-Gurion. Since some Jewish builders and citrus growers hired Arabs, who worked for lower wages than Jews, the Histadrut launched a campaign in 1933 to remove those Arab workers. Histadrut organizers picketed citrus groves and evicted Arab workers from construction sites and factories in the cities. The strident propaganda by the Histradut increased the Arabs' fears for the future. George Mansur, a Palestinian labor leader, wrote angrily in 1937:

"The Histadrut's fundamental aim is 'the conquest of labor'...No matter how many Arab workers are unemployed, they have no right to take any job which a possible immigrant might occupy. No Arab has the right to work in Jewish undertakings."

Finally, the establishment of an all-Jewish, Hebrew-language educational system was an essential component of building the Jewish national home. It helped to create a cohesive national ethos and a lingua franca among the diverse immigrants. However, it also entirely separated Jewish children from Palestinian children, who attended the governmental schools. The policy widened the linguistic and cultural gap between the two peoples. In addition, there was a stark contrast in their literacy levels (in 1931):

93 percent of Jewish males (above age seven) were literate



71 percent of Christian males



but only 25 percent of Muslim males were literate.


Overall, Palestinian literacy increased from 19 percent in 1931 to 27 percent by 1940, but only 30 percent of Palestinian children could be accommodated in government and private schools.

The practical policies of the Zionist movement created a compact and well-rooted community by the late 1940s. The yishuv had its own political, educational, economic, and military institutions, parallel to the governmental system. Jews minimized their contact with the Arab community and outnumbered the Arabs in certain key respects. Jewish urban dwellers, for example, greatly exceeded Arab urbanites, even though Jews constituted but one-third of the population. Many more Jewish children attended school than did Arab children, and Jewish firms employed seven times as many workers as Arab firms.

Thus the relative weight and autonomy of the yishuv were much greater than sheer numbers would suggest. The transition to statehood was facilitated by the existence of the proto state institutions and a mobilized, literate public. But the separation from the Palestinian residents will exacerbated by these autarchic policies.

Policies Toward the Palestinians
The main view point within the Zionist movement was that the Arab problem would be solved by first solving the Jewish problem. In time, the Palestinians would be presented with the fait accompli of a Jewish majority. Settlements, land purchases, industries, and military forces were developed gradually and systematically so that the yishuv would become too strong to uproot. In a letter to his son, Weizmann compared the Arabs to the rocks of Judea, obstacles that had to be cleared to make the path smooth. When the Palestinians mounted violent protests in 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-39, and the late 1940s, the yishuv sought to curb them by force, rather than seek a political accommodation with the indigenous people. Any concessions made to the Palestinians by the British government concerning immigration, land sales, or labor were strongly contested by the Zionist leaders. In fact, in 1936, Ben-Gurion stated that the Palestinians will only acquiesce in a Jewish Eretz Israel after they are in a state of total despair.

Zionists viewed their acceptance of territorial partition as a temporary measure; they did not give up the idea of the Jewish community's right to all of Palestine. Weizmann commented in 1937: "In the course of time we shall expand to the whole country...this is only an arrangement for the next 15-30 years."

Ben-Gurion stated in 1938, "After we become a strong force, as a result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine." A FEW EFFORTS were made to reduce Arab opposition. For example in the 1920s, Zionist organizations provided financial support to Palestinian political parties, newspapers, and individuals. This was most evident in the establishment and support of the National Muslim Societies (1921-23) and Agricultural Parties (1924-26). These parties were expected to be neutral or positive toward the Zionist movement, in return for which they would receive financial subventions and their members would be helped to obtain jobs and loans. This policy was backed by Weizmann, who commented that: "extremists and moderates alike were susceptible to the influence of money and honors."

However, Leonard Stein, a member of the London office of the World Zionist Organization, denounced this practice. He argued that Zionists must seek a permanent modus vivendi with the Palestinians by hiring them in Jewish firms and admitting them to Jewish universities. He maintained that political parties in which Arab moderates are merely Arab gramophones playing Zionist records would collapse as soon as the Zionist financial support ended. In any event, the World Zionist Organization terminated the policy by 1927, as it was in the midst of a financial crisis and as most of the leaders felt that the policy was ineffective.

Some Zionist leaders argued that the Arab community had to be involved in the practical efforts of the Zionist movement. Chaim Kalvarisky, who initiated the policy of buying support, articulated in 1923 the gap between that ideal and the reality: "Some people say...that only by common work in the field of commerce, industry and agriculture mutual understanding between Jews and Arabs will ultimately be attained....This is, however, merely a theory. In practice we have not done and we are doing nothing for any work in common.

How many Arab officials have we installed in our banks? Not even one.



How many Arabs have we brought into our schools? Not even one.



What commercial houses have we established in company with Arabs? Not even one."


Two years later, Kalvarisky lamented: "We all admit the importance of drawing closer to the Arabs, but in fact we are growing more distant like a drawn bow. We have no contact: two separate worlds, each living its own life and fighting the other."

Some members of the yishuv emphasized the need for political relations with the Palestinian Arabs, to achieve either a peacefully negotiated territorial partition (as Nahum Goldmann sought) or a binational state (as Brit Shalom and Hashomer Ha-tzair proposed). But few went as far as Dr. Judah L. Magnes, chancellor of The Hebrew University, who argued that Zionism meant merely the creation of a Jewish cultural center in Palestine rather than an independent state. In any case, the binationalists had little impact politically and were strongly opposed by the leadership of the Zionist movement.

Zionist leaders felt they did not harm the Palestinians by blocking them from working in Jewish settlements and industries or even by undermining their majority status. The Palestinians were considered a small part of the large Arab nation; their economic and political needs could be met in that wider context, Zionists felt, rather than in Palestine. They could move elsewhere if they sought land and could merge with Transjordan if they sought political independence.

This thinking led logically to the concept of population TRANSFER. In 1930 Weizmann suggested that the problems of insufficient land resources within Palestine and of the dispossession of peasants could be solved by moving them to Transjordan and Iraq. He urged the Jewish Agency to provide a loan of £1 million to help move Palestinian farmers to Transjordan. The issue was discussed at length in the Jewish Agency debates of 1936-37 on partition. At first, the majority proposed a voluntary transfer of Palestinians from the Jewish state, but later they realized that the Palestinians would never leave voluntarily. Therefore, key leaders such as Ben-Gurion insisted that compulsory transfer was essential. The Jewish Agency then voted that the British government should pay for the removal of the Palestinian Arabs from the territory allotted to the Jewish state.

The fighting from 1947 to 1949 resulted in a far larger transfer than had been envisioned in 1937. It solved the Arab problem by removing most of the Arabs and was the ultimate expression of the policy of force majeure.

Conclusion
The land and people of Palestine were transformed during the thirty years of British rule. The systematic colonization undertaken by the Zionist movement enabled the Jewish community to establish separate and virtually autonomous political, economic, social, cultural, and military institutions. A state within a state was in place by the time the movement launched its drive for independence. The legal underpinnings for the autonomous Jewish community were provided by the British Mandate. The establishment of a Jewish state was first proposed by the British Royal Commission in July 1937 and then endorsed by the UNITED NATIONS in November 1947.

That drive for statehood IGNORED the presence of a Palestinian majority with its own national aspirations. The right to create a Jewish state—and the overwhelming need for such a state—were perceived as overriding Palestinian counterclaims. Few members of the yishuv supported the idea of binationalism. Rather, territorial partition was seen by most Zionist leaders as the way to gain statehood while according certain national rights to the Palestinians. TRANSFER of Palestinians to neighboring Arab states was also envisaged as a means to ensure the formation of a homogeneous Jewish territory. The implementation of those approaches led to the formation of independent Israel, at the cost of dismembering the Palestinian community and fostering long-term hostility with the Arab world.

—Ann M. Lesch

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abu Lughod, Janet L. "The Demographic Transformation of Palestine." In The Tansformation of Palestine, ed. by Ibrahim Abu-Lughod. Evanston, Ill.: Northestern University Press, 1971.

Caplan, Neil. Palestine Jew1Y and the Arab Question, 1917-25. London: Frank Cass, 1978.

Farsoun, Samih K., and Christina Zacharia. Palestine and the Palestinians. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996.

Flapan, Simha. Zionism and the Palestinians. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1979.
Granott (Granovsky), Avraham. The Land System in Palestine. London: Frank CaBs, 1978.

Hadawi, Sami. Bitter Harvest Palestine 1914-1979. Rev. ed. Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books, 1979.

Hattis, Susan Lee. The Bi-National Idea in Palestine during Mandato1Y Times. Haifa: Shikmona Publishing Co., 1970.

Hertzberg, Arthur, ed. The Zionist Idea. New York: Atheneum, 1969.

Hurewitz, J. C. The Struggle for Palestine. Reprint. New York: Schocken Books, 1976.

Lesch, Ann Mosely. Arab Politics in Palestine, 1917-1939. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1979.

Mandel, Neville. "Attempts at an Arab-Zionist Entente, 1913-1914," Middle Eastern Studies 1 (1965).

----."Turks, Arabs, and Jewish Immigration into Palestine, 1882-1914," St. Antony's Papers 17 (1965).

Mansur, George. The Arab Worker under the Palestine Mandate. Jerusalem: Commercial Press, 1937.

Porath, Yehoshua. The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement 1918-1929. London: Frank Cass, 1974.

----.Palestinian Arab National Movement, 1929-1939. London: Frank CaBs, 1977.

Ro'i, Yaacov. "The Zionist Attitude to the Arabs, 1908-1914." Middle Eastern Studies 4 (1968).

Ruedy, John. "Dynamics of Land Alienation." In The Transformation of Palestine, ed. by Ibrahim Abu- Lughod. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press 1071

The Above article was quoted from Encyclopedia Of The Palestinians, edited by Philip Mattar.


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Home > Shington-report.org > Html > Zionism And Its Impact

Good question. At the same time the palestinians left Israel, over 850,000 Jews living in Arab lands were expelled from their homes. These are the forgotten refugees of this conflict. How many of them are still languishing in refugee camps? How many of them are receiving international support?

Why do Palestinians seek to destroy Israel's 'Jewish Character' by insisting on their return to their homes in Israel? (this is the absurd myth propagated by the "Israel is always right loons)

If the implementation of UN GA Resolution 194 (which called for the return of the refugees) would make Israel a just and a fair state for all its citizens, regardless of their faith or race, then why should it be unacceptable? When South Africa abolished its Apartheid regime, the country became a just and fair country for all its citizens, and few people cared about the destruction of the "White character" of Pretoria. The questions which should be asked are:

Are Israelis above the law?
Is it right for Israelis to be an exception to the rule?
Many Israelis and Zionists claim that there has to be an exception granted to the "Jewish people" based on the Biblical and historical Jewish background in Palestine . However, Zionists disapprove the conduct of other countries when they exercise similar policies to empower a specific ethnic or religious group solely based on racial, religious, and historical backgrounds, especially when Jews are put at a disadvantage.

The core issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are the collective dispossession and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people over the past five decades. It should be emphasized that the conflict would have been at the same level of intensity, even if both warring parties had been Muslims, Christians, or even Jewish.

The UN GA resolution 194 granted all Palestinian refugees the right to either return to their homes and receive compensation, or to be resettled in another country and receive compensation for their looted properties. Such a Right was granted by the international community to each and every single Palestinian refugee, and no politician has the right to make (or even waive) such a decision on their behalf. Some refugees may prefer to go back and live in peace among Israelis with full political rights (similar to the ones granted to black South Africans in Pretoria), and other refugees may happily prefer to put their lives together in places other than Palestine or Israel; again that is their decision, which no politician has the right to make on the refugees' behalf.

One fact that is usually not mentioned in the Right of Return debate is that Israel was accepted in the United Nations conditionally, based on its implementation of all preceding UN resolutions concerning Palestine, including UN GA resolution 194 that called for the immediate return of all Palestinian refugees to their homes in Israel. This right is based on the same UN GA resolution which partitioned Palestine in November 1947 into two independent states, Palestinian and Israeli.

It's often envisioned by many Israelis and Jews that the Right of Return would require many Israelis to be displaced. This could not be farther from the truth. The majority of Israelis are urban dwellers who are mostly concentrated in or near Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Haifa. Actually, Israel has the highest rate of urban dwellers of all industrial counties, click here for a graph illustration. If we look at Israel's demographic distribution we see that 78% of Israelis live in 14% of Israel, while 86% of Israel is being utilized by mostly bankrupt Kibbutz communal farms, click here for a detailed study of the subject. Many of the Palestinian refugees come from rural areas which are being utilized by under 200,000 Israelis, especially the areas in the Galilee and Negev. It's utterly unfair to cram 3.7 million Palestinian refugees (out of 5.9 million refugees) in deplorable conditions, while an Israeli minority utilizes the land which the Palestinian refugees owned and farmed for centuries. It's ironic that refugees are often separated only by barbed wire from their homes, farms, businesses in Israel.

It's hypocritical when many Israelis and Zionists speak from both sides of their mouths. From one side, they tell European Jewry that they can immigrate to the "Promised Land" after 2,000 years of "exile", while the ethnically cleansed Palestinians, who STILL possess the keys and the deeds to their homes in Jaffa or Haifa, cannot return after only 56 years of forcible exile. It's very sad that similar UN resolutions were forcibly enforced by military action against other countries, such as in the cases of Serbia and Iraq, while Israel was given the green light to loot Palestine and ethnically cleanse it of its indigenous people. Click here for a sample of what has been looted and usurped from the Palestinian refugees.

What does this cut and paste dribble have to do with the 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands?

And by the way, in 2003 the Palestinian center for Policy and survey research published an opinion poll of Palestinians and found that only 10% of them were interested in the right to return to Israel.

Read this website. Israel is an apartheid state. Israel is horrible to its non-Jewish residents. Why on earth would the Palestinians want move to Israel , that the entire peace process depends on it?
Maybe its not as bad as they claim? Or maybe they have other motives?

1. The topic was israeli war crimes. If you want to do what the rest of the mainstream, right wing pro-war, pro-israel media does and blame the Palestinian victims, then there are plenty of sites for you.
2. You've spammed this propaganda before. Let's test this ONE poll that you cite over and over and let the Palestinians back into their stolen land and see how many want to come....shall we?

SF Chronicle A12, July 18, 2003

This survey was well publicized- especially beacuse the Palestinian PHD who published it had his life threatened for disclosing the truth

The problem with your premise is that if only 10% of the people are interested in this, it is pointless to make it a pre-condition to peace.

Let's see if only 10% return to their homeland....

The right of return isn't to the newly established Palestinian state- its to Israel.

If the Palestinians want to return to Israel then maybe Israel isn't as bad as its been described?

But you have to wonder why the Palestinians would chose to live in Israel instead of Palestine.

If they are gay, it makes sense- homosexuality is a capital offense under Islam. The estimate is that 10 % of the world is gay. Perhaps it was only the gays who wanted to return to Israel.

Why else would the Palestinians chose to live in an apartheid state, when one of their own is right next door?

We don't come here for the anti-Palestinian or anti-arab propaganda-we get that everywhere else.
We all know that many arab states don't have good human rights records.
The reason that Israel and the U.S. are held to higher standards is that they claim to be "democracies" while engaging in state sponsored terror.

" The reason that Israel and the U.S. are held to higher standards...."

This is from Natan Sharansky on recognizing the new antisemitism:

Recognizing the "New Anti-Semitism"

Moreover, the so-called "new anti-Semitism" poses a unique challenge. Whereas classical anti-Semitism is aimed at the Jewish people or the Jewish religion, "new anti-Semitism" is aimed at the Jewish state. Since this anti-Semitism can hide behind the veneer of legitimate criticism of Israel, it is more difficult to expose. Making the task even harder is that this hatred is advanced in the name of values most of us would consider unimpeachable, such as human rights.

Nevertheless, we must be clear and outspoken in exposing the new anti-Semitism. I believe that we can apply a simple test - I call it the "3D" test - to help us distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism.

The first "D" is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel's actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz - this is anti- Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel.

The second "D" is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel's Magen David Adom, alone among the world's ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross - this is anti-Semitism.

The third "D" is the test of delegitimization: when Israel's fundamental right to exist is denied - alone among all peoples in the world - this too is anti-Semitism.

Well, sweetpea, holding Israel to a different standard than other nations meets the Sharansky test.
Shall i forward you some info on 12 step groups for anti-Semites?

You are way off the mark and while I dont doubt you believe that the reason Israel is held to a higher standard than Egypt is antiSemitism it seems like you border on the main flaw in this line of thought in your intro.... the US, Canada, EU, Japan, S Korea, Australia, Israel and other rich democracies are held to a higher standard than countries that people already know to have significant problems and I doubt you would argue the reason that people are focusing more on EU complicity in renditions than in the actual countries performing the torture is antiSemitism...

Talk, of the "new antiSemitism" really took off after 9/11 and strangely logical reasons for Americans and Europeans to care about their image in the Islamic world took off at exactly the same time.

The Midle East largely cares about the Palestinian plight for three reasons. One reason is that most neighboring countries have huge refugee populations that care about Palestinians for the same reason many Irish Americans care about N Ireland. Another is that Israel actions towards Palestinians represents a European like culture oppressing an Arab Muslim one so beyond the actual oppression (which also exists in most other neighboring countries) there is the humiliation of feeling dehumanized for being oppressed because one is Arab or Muslim (which is why the racism or aparthed bothered people more than oppression in other Afrrican countries where oppression wasnt base on race). And finally there is the issue of Jerusalem and its importance in Islam (as well as Judaism and Christianity). While antiSemitism is strong in most Middle Eastern countries these three reasons are not in themselves antiSemitism and would result in hatred of Israel in the complete absense of antiSemitism (although as with US antiGerman and antiJapanese images during WWII hatred does tend to lead to bigotry)

In the US after 9/11 Israel became more important since the new US war was defined in some sense to be one between the US and Islam where even the stated goals of the Bush administration is to win over the hearts and minds of the Arab and Muslim worlds. US support for Israel runs up against popular view in the Middle East and thus Israel is focused upon by just about everyone now more than it was before 9/11. Do antiSemitic conspiracy theories exist? Of course but one has to ask if its a result of something unrealted to antiSemitism or really a new form of antiSemitism. At the time that the US was going into Iraq Republicans were going on about how awful the French was at least as antiFrench as the antiISrael stuff is antiSemitic (with the focus having been equally on French culture as on the French government's actions). Hatred of a country does tend to spill over into bigotry but woudl one classify Republican hatred of the French in 2003-2004 in the same category as early 20th century antiSemitism? Of course not and one shouldnt classify hatred of Israel that boils over into even inappropriate statements by angry kids in the same way as one would real antiSemitism either.

Its a little mind boggling how discussions about Israel and antiSemitism degenerate so quickly when there are very easy answers to most of the questions:

1. Q: why the focus on Israel A: The Israel-Palestine conflict is very important in the Middle East and the US is now in the middle of a war in the Middle East

2. Q: why do people in the Middle East hate Israel A: Israel is at war with the Palestinians and many Palestinians live in all Middle Eastern countries due to being forced out at various points. Plus the West Bank and Gaza's not quite state status seems apartheid like and humiliates Arabs and Muslisms who see peopel like themselves treated as second class citizens (or really noncitizens living under occupation).

3. Q: why dont people care as much about conflicts in neighboring countries A: Opposition to the governments in most neighboring countries was mainly Communist/Socialist and was detroyed near the end of the Cold War leaving a vacuum that was fileld by Islamic fundamentalists. The choice in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt is presented as one between more fundamentalists states and what exists now and especially now that the US is in a war with fundamentalist Islam that complicates the politics of opposition to such states (since nobody wants to be seen as sympathetic to AL Qaeda even if they may be the strongest opposition group in Saudi Arabia which is a very oppressive state)

4. Q: why does hatred for Israel result ina rise in antiSemitism A: for the same reason people generalize their hatred with any conflict and antiArab and antiMuslim bigotry in the US went through the roof after 9/11

Talk of a "new antiSemitism" is not really crying wolf but it is manipulative in a way that is very counterproductive. It is wrong when people who care about the plight of the Palestinians say things that are antiSemitic but that doesn't mean that one should ignore the plight of Palestinians any more than one should ignore the plight of those in Darfur just because it is often talked about in very antiIslamic terms (which is weird when the people of Darfur are Muslims)

Another is that Israel actions towards Palestinians represents a European like culture oppressing an Arab Muslim one so beyond the actual oppression

Were you aware that the majority of Israelis are NOT of European background? Over 57 % have their origins in the peoples of North Africa.

. And fInally there is the issue of Jerusalem and its importance in Islam (as well as Judaism and Christianity)

Jerusalem is mention once in the Koran (and not even by name) Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Bible, and much of Jewish liturgy is peppered with "next year in Jerusalem"

I guess it's hard to blame them...it's worked well--at least in mainstream circles--but not here sweetie, not in independent media. We are a bit more courageous and less dependent on profit, therefore you will not shout us down with false accusations of antisemitism spammed from the nathan (no matter how much its spammed).
See, what you failed to address, was that I said U.S. and Israel---see, Israel isn't 'singled out' here. Any powerful country that abuses that power, while calling itself a 'democracy' WILL be held to very high standards---as that is consistent with the ideals of democracy--transparency and accountability. If you don't like it, tough.
We will continue to be critical of U.S. and Israel--both terror states with lots of money to influence global policy.

Why are you not telling what the hamas does every day to israeli citizens?
you are 1 side story.

this is an alternative to the pro-war, pro-israel, right wing slop that we are inundated with all day.