How I Regard Israel Today

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

How I regard Israel today: it's an oppressive and ruthless entity that broke & is breaking several of the 10 commandments in its formation and continuation of oppression (e.g. stealing, lying, killing, coveting neighbors' houses).

[youtube]m9mkRiGbgZg[/youtube]

 

[Lukaris]

How I regard Israel today: it's an oppressive and ruthless entity that broke & is breaking several of the 10 commandments in its formation and continuation of oppression (e.g. stealing, lying, killing, coveting neighbors' houses).

[youtube]m9mkRiGbgZg[/youtube]

Its curious over the amount of time that is spent on Israel's negatives vs. the negatives opposing movements within Arabic nations like Egypt & Syria inflict on their own people. Thousands of people have been killed, maimed, etc. and this will be largely forgotten as time goes on but every brutal Israeli act since 1948 is remembered, every injustice they incurred is considered deserved, such are the standards of justice used by the jihadist vs. the "zionist" oppression.

 

[smaneck]

You know very well this does not account for MOST of what was paid, just under that one fund. You also know payment was made both for land and to tenants just to move away, over and above this specific fund. Why does your response not account for any of this?

BECAUSE IT SIMPLY ISN'T TRUE. The fund they contributed to (really paid dues) was a UN charity to assist refugees, period. It was not a reparation for the loss of their land nor was it a payment for them moving away.

My point is, who's standards do we use? Everyone's involved is different.

If you are going to use the UN partition as your standard then you also have to use the UN insistence that these refugees be allowed to return to their homes once the hostilities were over.

"Did you see all the archival records which I referred to previously which described plans to cleanse the land of Palestinians long before hostilities began?"

No I did not.

Three days ago I stated the following:

"Sorry but the minutes of Israel's cabinet meetings, the Haganah Archive in Tel Aviv, and the IDF and Israel Defense Ministry Archive in Givatayim, establish that around half the Palestinians who became refugees were evicted by the Israeli army. I personally knew an old man who was living in Palestine at the time of the 1948 war. He was a Baha'i whose ancestors had accompanied Baha'u'llah to Akka in 1868. Even though these Baha'is had taken no sides whatsoever in the Arab-Israeli dispute all of his brothers were rounded up and imprisoned? Their crime? Being of military age!"

"the Jews didn't accept it because it didn't give them defensible borders."

I'm not at all convinced the Jews "didn't accept it."

Show me the evidence, they did then.

I have no idea how we would even know. It seems the leadership over them has never been interested in representing them, or their rights.

Read the Oslo Accords which the PLO signed. The problem is that then MOSSAD began to fund HAMAS in order to make is a competitor for the PLO, so the Palestinians can no longer speak with a single voice.

"since I've learned that Jews made up the majority of the inhabitants of Jerusalem even during the Ottoman Empire, I no longer think they should."

Jews don't think they should give up their Promised Land.

Judah was given the area around Gaza along with Jerusalem. Most of the rest belonged to the Samaritans who the Palestinians probably descend from. So maybe the Jews and Palestinians should switch places.

"The question was rhetorical, like why shouldn't I be serious about justice being better served if the Jews were given Germany rather than Palestine? It was the Germans who had wronged the Jews, not Palestinians."

I really don't expect such an insensitive comment from you.

And how is that insensitive?

Neither does the Trail of Tears have any bearing on what I said.

Sure it does. You were making the ridiculous argument that Native Americans were not displaced. You are accusing me of emotionalism but the arguments you are making have nothing to do with logic.

 

[smaneck]

"
The figures on record that can be checked demonstrate that out of 700,000 Arabs, just over 3,300 were classed as having been dispossessed, which as a % works out at less than one half of one %, and this was not blamed on Jewish land purchases, but on a combination of factors including Landowners who were uninterested in the welfare of their tenants and worsening economic conditions.

Uh, no. The 700,000 represents the number of Palestinians who ended up in the refugee camps as a result of the 1948 conflict.

You fail to make the distinction between the Arabs farming the land and the Bedouin who used to attack the Arabs farming the land...they wiped out whole villages...here is an example of how they operated.

The conflicts between settled peoples and pastoral nomads are as old as the Cain and Abel story. It is not really relevant to the question of who was disinherited by the European Jewish settlements. However, you are right about one thing. The Ottoman Land Registry Law of 1858 is what made it possible for them to be dispossessed.

Well I'm not going to argue the toss with you...fact is Palestine was a district, mostly the name was used during the Mandate, and prior to that it was considered as the region of southern Syria and part of the Ottoman province and prior to that part of the Arab Caliphate...never a sovereign Country or State....never had a monarch, specific currency, language etc...

Again, a country need not be a sovereign state. The idea that people have to belong to a nation-state in order to be entitled to the land where they live has been the excuse for colonialism since the discovery and conquest of the Americas.

I have already demonstrated that the Jews did not generally try and ride rough-shod over the local inhabitants and steal their land, which is once again the precariously unhistorical position you are retreating to.

If we are talking about the period prior to WWII I would agree that Jews did not do this deliberately. As I mentioned earlier in my response to LoAmmi, we are talking about very different concepts of land tenure and much of the damage had already been done by the Ottomans. What happened after 1947 is an entirely different matter.

.but the majority of people fled because of rumours, because of some events like Deir Yassin, because of Arab leaders telling them to leave and so on...it was war and unfortunately by its very nature unlawful, harsh and unjustifiable acts take place.

I would agree. But it was also the case that virtually all Palestinians of military age were being rounded up and imprisoned whether they were participating in the hostilities or not.

 

[Zeek]

How I regard Israel today: it's an oppressive and ruthless entity that broke & is breaking several of the 10 commandments in its formation and continuation of oppression (e.g. stealing, lying, killing, coveting neighbors' houses).

If only Israel could be more like some of the Islamic democracies in the Middle-East...maybe she needs to take a lead from Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, or Sudan or Syria.

Personally I think part of the reason the Islamic nations hate Israel so much is that they are a successful State, they go from strength to strength, they lead the world in so much ground-breaking Technology, they make amazing breakthroughs in Science, Medicine and Agriculture. They norw produce over 30% of their water needs through desalination plants, and just the other day I heard they are investigating the possibility of extracting water from air.

I look forward to the day when they discover a truly remarkable alternative fuel source to oil and when the rest of the world will no longer be held to ransom by exorbitant oil prices.

A quick mention for the IDF by quoting our friend Colonel Richard Kemp who said they were the most moral army on the planet, and he should know having been the commanding officer in Afghanistan.

Am Yisrael Chai.

 

[Zeek]

Uh, no. The 700,000 represents the number of Palestinians who ended up in the refugee camps as a result of the 1948 conflict.

I already showed you the figure was far lower at well under 500,000 and possibly as low as 375,000. The 700,000 was a reference to the amount of Arabs in Palestine around 1900.

The conflicts between settled peoples and pastoral nomads are as old as the Cain and Abel story. It is not really relevant to the question of who was disinherited by the European Jewish settlements. However, you are right about one thing. The Ottoman Land Registry Law of 1858 is what made it possible for them to be dispossessed.

You are jumping all over the place...I made mention of what the Bedouin in those times were really like and you claimed I was stereo-typing them, then you equated them with the Arab farmers...a point could also be made that they drove a number of Arabs from the land by totally wiping out some of their small villages and communities.

You also fail to understand that a good number of the tenants were happy to accept a pay-off either of cash , relocation or both in order to ditch their potential claims to land or free-holdings...this was well documented by the Mandate who double checked exactly how things were panning out with both the influx of Jews who had restricted immigration, and Arabs from all over who were largely unchecked in their immigration...a factor that later made it hard for the British to uphold what had been entrusted to them, which was to actively encourage Jewish immigration to change the demography in order to build a Jewish nation.

I would agree. But it was also the case that virtually all Palestinians of military age were being rounded up and imprisoned whether they were participating in the hostilities or not.

And just how could the Jewish people work out who was neutral in such a situation? Again being imprisoned was a cautionary measure and although it might seem unfair, no army can risk having a potential 5th column inside their own ranks.

 

[smaneck]

Personally I think part of the reason the Islamic nations hate Israel so much is that they are a successful State, they go from strength to strength, they lead the world in so much ground-breaking Technology, they make amazing breakthroughs in Science, Medicine and Agriculture. They norw produce over 30% of their water needs through desalination plants, and just the other day I heard they are investigating the possibility of extracting water from air.

Congratulations to Israel! But their success has nothing to do with why its presence is resented in the Middle East. In any case, we are not just talking about "Islamic nations." The most militant wings of the PLO used to be its Christian wings. The Baath Party was founded by a Palestinian Christian. They resent Israel because it represents to them the vestige of western imperialism.

 

[smaneck]

I already showed you the figure was far lower at well under 500,000 and possibly as low as 375,000. The 700,000 was a reference to the amount of Arabs in Palestine around 1900.

What you showed was a pro-Zionist assertion that this was so, no real evidence.

You are jumping all over the place...I made mention of what the Bedouin in those times were really like and you claimed I was stereo-typing them, then you equated them with the Arab farmers...

I made no such equations. I simply pointed out that they too had usefruct rights. The only answer you can give to this is 'well, they were nasty people to begin with.'

You also fail to understand that a good number of the tenants were happy to accept a pay-off either of cash , relocation or both in order to ditch their potential claims to land or free-holdings...

Only a minority were given the opportunity to do this.

this was well documented by the Mandate who double checked exactly how things were panning out with both the influx of Jews who had restricted immigration,

Evidence? And by evidence I don't mean some Zionist article which merely asserts this to be the case. It is certainly not what Gershon Shafir argues in Land, labor and the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Have you read the book?

and Arabs from all over who were largely unchecked in their immigration...a factor that later made it hard for the British to uphold what had been entrusted to them, which was to actively encourage Jewish immigration to change the demography in order to build a Jewish nation.

There was never supposed to be a Jewish 'nation' in the sense of a Jewish nation-state. What the British claimed to be supporting was a Jewish homeland. Not the same thing.

And just how could the Jewish people work out who was neutral in such a situation? Again being imprisoned was a cautionary measure and although it might seem unfair, no army can risk having a potential 5th column inside their own ranks.

And then you question why the Palestinians fled?

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

Its curious over the amount of time that is spent on Israel's negatives vs. the negatives opposing movements within Arabic nations like Egypt & Syria inflict on their own people. Thousands of people have been killed, maimed, etc. and this will be largely forgotten as time goes on

You're preaching to the wrong person. I have spent more time on Egypt and Syria than Israel here, particularly for the past year. I despise Bashar more than anyone else.

but every brutal Israeli act since 1948 is remembered,

Good.

every injustice they incurred is considered deserved,

Who says?

such are the standards of justice used by the jihadist vs. the "zionist" oppression.

Who are these "jihadists" you speak of?

If only Israel could be more like some of the Islamic democracies in the Middle-East...maybe she needs to take a lead from Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, or Sudan or Syria.

Egypt took a page out of Israel's book. Pretend you want democracy but when the "wrong" person is chosen, make life a living hell for the people who voted for them/do as much as you feasibly can to remove those people from the leadership position/try to discredit them. For Palestinians, it was Hamas. For Egyptians, it was Morsi and his government. More than 1,000 Gazans were killed by Israelis in 23 days for essentially voting for Hamas, more than 1,000 anti-coup protesters were killed by the illegal Egyptian government in the month or two following the coup.

Personally I think part of the reason the Islamic nations hate Israel so much is that they are a successful State,

Or Captain Obvious might pipe in here and mention it could be because of all the crimes committed by the Israelis against the Muslims/Palestinians/those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause (for instance, the crap they pulled in 2008/9 and then again with Mavi Marmara).

Oh, and there aren't any Islaamic nations today.

They norw produce over 30% of their water needs through desalination plants, and just the other day I heard they are investigating the possibility of extracting water from air.

Great, maybe now they can stop hogging clean water for things like their swimming pools and allow those in Gaza and the West Bank (who they impose all sorts of restrictions on for digging wells and such) access to water for things like drinking clean water.

A quick mention for the IDF by quoting our friend Colonel Richard Kemp who said they were the most moral army on the planet, and he should know having been the commanding officer in Afghanistan.

lol, good one.

 

[TG123]

How I regard Israel today: Israel is one of many countries today that is engaged in human rights abuses and occupation of another peoples. Like Russia, China, Indonesia, the United States, Canada, and Turkey; the Israeli government occupies land of another people group, and engages in beatings, torture, killings, home demolitions, and land grabs.

Israel's crimes get a lot of notice in the Muslim and Arab world and many other countries, whereas the crimes of Indonesia are barely mentioned. In some media, like FOX News, Israel is regularly praised and supported, in spite of the crimes they commit.

Like Indonesia, Russia, China, the US, Canada, and Turkey; Israel also does some good and positive things in the world. An example would have been health care provided to some Syrian refugees.

Like most of the countries mentioned above, Israel is a target of armed attacks- both its civilians and soldiers are attacked by some Palestinian groups, who lash at the government that is treating their people like dirt, and in the process sometimes kill innocent civilians as well as soldiers. Similarly, bombs sometimes go off in Turkey that are planted by Kurdish separatists, and Chinese and Russian civilians and soldiers and police alike have been targets of attacks by Chechen and Uighur separatists. Indonesian soldiers and settlers in West Papua have been targeted by West Papuan independence fighters. There are sometimes attacks abroad on Americans, as well as terrorist strikes in the US. Canadian soldiers are attacked in Afghanistan. Such attacks also are a response to these nations' foreign policy.

Attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, as well as against soldiers and civilians from Canada, USA, Russia, China, Turkey and Indonesia- are denounced by these nations as "terrorism"... and when these attacks target civilians, that is very much true. However, the governments of these nations rarely consider the fact that the way they treat others whose land they are occupying, contributes to the resentment and hatred that if felt towards them and to the violence- as wrong as it is- that often targets their people.

Israel needs to end its occupation and mistreatment of the Palestinian people. Likewise, Russia needs to end its occupation of Chechnya. Turkey needs to end its occupation of Kurdistan. Indonesia needs to end its occupation of West Papua. Canada and has ended its occupation of Afghanistan. The US needs to do the same thing.

When these nations do this, they will be less of a target for extremists and armed groups. Occupation and injustice goes a long way in breeding and fostering hatred and violent resistance.

I would also like to add that although the government of Israel- as well as the governments of Russia and Canada and China and the US and Indonesia and Turkey- are engaged in occupation and human rights violations, armed attacks against their civilians are immoral and unjustified. The average Israeli, like the average Russian and Chinese and Canadian and American and Indonesian and Turk- are people like you and me, and many of them are opposed to what is being done in their name. Their children are no less innocent than Palestinian, Chechen, Tibetan, Uighur, Afghan, Iraqi and West Papuan children. Just as the children of occupied peoples should not face military oppression, children of the occupiers don't deserve to be paying for the crimes of their leaders by suicide bombings, shootings, rocket attacks.

 

[smaneck]

How I regard Israel today: Israel is one of many countries today that is engaged in human rights abuses and occupation of another peoples.

Thanks for dropping by TG. As someone who unlike Colonel Kemp has actually been to Palestine and seen the IDF first hand, how would you respond to this statement?

"A quick mention for the IDF by quoting our friend Colonel Richard Kemp who said they were the most moral army on the planet, and he should know having been the commanding officer in Afghanistan."

How being the commanding officer in Afghanistan informs Colonel Kemp of what was going on in the Gaza War, I'm not sure. He's never been to Gaza. But hey, you seen one Afghan you've seen all Arabs, right?

 

[TG123]

Thanks for dropping by TG. As someone who unlike Colonel Kemp has actually been to Palestine and seen the IDF first hand, how would you respond to this statement?

"A quick mention for the IDF by quoting our friend Colonel Richard Kemp who said they were the most moral army on the planet, and he should know having been the commanding officer in Afghanistan."

How being the commanding officer in Afghanistan informs Colonel Kemp of what was going on in the Gaza War, I'm not sure. He's never been to Gaza. But hey, you seen one Afghan you've seen all Arabs, right?

Well, as a Christian pacifist, I don't believe there is such a thing as "a moral army" to begin with.

However, even if we were to set the Bible's teachings aside, soldiers who allow extremists to beat up people in their homes, assault elderly men, close down shops and enforce collective punishment on a community in retaliation for peaceful protests, throw sound bombs at peaceful demonstrators, beat up and arrest peaceful protesters, and harrass people at checkpoints for no other reason just because they can show how tough they are, are showing a very interesting standard of morality. And this is just based on what I have personally seen in a 5 week period.

The IDF in Hebron and many other parts of the West Bank is an occupying army that treats the Palestinians with brutality, and punishes Palestinian violence while allowing the settlers to burn down people's farmland, break windows, and break their bones with clubs and pipes.


To be fair, they have probably killed less civilians than Russian forces in Chechnya or Indonesian forces in West Papua. Their violence, in the West Bank at least, is usually non-lethal. The purpose of it seems to be to humiliate and degrade the Palestinians, and get them to leave their homes. I would call the IDF and settler actions a very slow yet determined act of ethnic cleansing. It isn't genocide like some other occupations, but to call it "moral" is a terrible and false thing to say.

It would be like saying that the Crips are "moral" because they cause a lot less havoc than the Medellin Cartel. Pure nonsense.

 

[Zeek]

Zeek said...Personally I think part of the reason the Islamic nations hate Israel so much is that they are a successful State.

Or Captain Obvious might pipe in here and mention it could be because of all the crimes committed by the Israelis against the Muslims/Palestinians/those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause (for instance, the crap they pulled in 2008/9 and then again with Mavi Marmara).

What came first the chicken or the egg?

Crimes...the crime of retaliating against Hamas in 'Operation Cast Lead' in 2008/9 for sending over thousands of rockets after every diplomatic effort was rejected.

Oh, and there aren't any Islaamic nations today.

Semantics...for all intent and purpose the Moslem majority nations are ruled by Islamists....(that's when they aren't hell bent on butchering one another.)

They (Israel) now produce over 30% of their water needs through desalination plants, and just the other day I heard they are investigating the possibility of extracting water from air.

Great, maybe now they can stop hogging clean water for things like their swimming pools and allow those in Gaza and the West Bank (who they impose all sorts of restrictions on for digging wells and such) access to water for things like drinking clean water.

Arabs in Judea and Samaria have neglected to implement a decent sewage system (even though they were funded by the European Union), they have been so slow in recycling water and using it for crops and people constantly try to take water illegally from the Israeli water board. Israel gives over and above what was agreed on water distribution and to some degree subsidizes the Arabs by charging them less than Israelis. Talking about swimming pools...there are loads in Gaza, including a huge water park called 'Crazy Water'....

 

[Zeek]

Thanks for dropping by TG. As someone who unlike Colonel Kemp has actually been to Palestine and seen the IDF first hand, how would you respond to this statement?

For a start Colonel Kemp has been to Israel, and is an expert on military conflict, but you want advice from dear ol' TG because he is the sort of source you can trust....you couldn't make this stuff up it is hilarious in a 'bash your head against a brick wall' sort of way

How being the commanding officer in Afghanistan informs Colonel Kemp of what was going on in the Gaza War, I'm not sure. He's never been to Gaza. But hey, you seen one Afghan you've seen all Arabs, right?

Come on...you cannot be serious man.

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

What came first the chicken or the egg?

Crimes...the crime of retaliating against Hamas in 'Operation Cast Lead' in 2008/9 for sending over thousands of rockets after every diplomatic effort was rejected.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza came first. And as Rick Sanchez pointed out, Israel broke the ceasefire agreement first:

[youtube]3wPOfi_iFnI[/youtube]

In June of 2006, Israelis were already practicing invading small models of Gaza so they'd be prepared to do the real thing. A year later, Israel enforces a stupid blockade that prevents supplies from getting in or out. Because of this, Palestinians blow a hole into the apartheid wall so that they can get into Egypt for food and medical supplies. Israelis kill more than 100 Palestinians a few months later.

Then a ceasefire agreement is reached and one of the agreements is that Israel will lift some of the blockade. It is Israel that broke the ceasefire agreement in various ways. For one, the blockade wasn't lifted. Secondly, in November of 2008 when the ceasefire agreement was still supposed to be in effect, Israel raided Gaza & killed some Palestinians (i.e. broke the truce). Then Hamas retaliated by launching rockets that didn't kill anyone and only caused minor damage to infrastructure (and this retaliation apparently was the reason Israel went on to kill more than 1,000 Palestinians).

Semantics...for all intent and purpose the Moslem majority nations are ruled by Islamists....(that's when they aren't hell bent on butchering one another.)

No, just no. And it's not just semantics. There are no Islaamic countries in the world because no country rules purely by God's laws today.

people constantly try to take water illegally from the Israeli water board. Israel gives over and above what was agreed on water distribution and to some degree subsidizes the Arabs by charging them less than Israelis. Talking about swimming pools...there are loads in Gaza, including a huge water park called 'Crazy Water'....

For the original source & a bigger, easier to read version of this picture:

Not Enough Water in the West Bank? | Visualizing Palestine

Yes, very moral people.

 

[Zeek]

Well, as a Christian pacifist, I don't believe there is such a thing as "a moral army" to begin with.


To be fair, they have probably killed less civilians than Russian forces in Chechnya or Indonesian forces in West Papua. Their violence, in the West Bank at least, is usually non-lethal. The purpose of it seems to be to humiliate and degrade the Palestinians, and get them to leave their homes. I would call the IDF and settler actions a very slow yet determined act of ethnic cleansing. It isn't genocide like some other occupations, but to call it "moral" is a terrible and false thing to say.

You are arguing against something without understanding why Colonel Kemp believes that the ethics used in combat by the IDF are more moral than any other fighting force in history.

It is also an insidious bit of wording to say, 'To be fair, they (Israelis) have probably killed less civilians than Russian forces in Chechnya or Indonesian forces in West Papua....' Whereas that might sound very decent and even handed of you to make such a concession, there is no comparison and as usual there is no accompanying context, ....that is what is 'false and a terrible thing to say'...but hey, I'm as used to this sort of nonsense as breathing air and Christians seem as willing to spew it out as anyone else.

Just an hour ago I supplied a courtroom with a photograph of a BDS pro-Palestinian supporter holding up a sign saying 'Israelis really really love killing Palestinian children'...she totally denied it in court, and unfortunately my photo arrived too late for the charge of perjury...but my experience both in Israel (which has extended to years, not mere weeks) and in the UK shows me that the anti-Israel narrative that is so widely consumed by an ignorant and largely uninformed public is more in line with an ideology than anything else, and is aligned with fundamentalist Islamic theology and terrorist aspirations carefully concealed under the guise of human rights issues.

 

[Zeek]

For the original source & a bigger, easier to read version of this picture:

Not Enough Water in the West Bank? | Visualizing Palestine

Yes, very moral people.

By coincidence the best refutation to this claim that Israel steals water from the Palestinian Arabs can be found in an article posted today in the Jerusalem Post. Palestinian lies like water | JPost | Israel News

For them water is a weapon to attack Israel with...no surprise that they have done virtually nothing to improve things, and the Fat Cats like Abbas have probably squirreled away millions of foreign aid to swell their huge Swiss bank accounts, instead of actually doing something....the easiest option is to accuse Israel which takes the heat off them...in fact just about the only thing that seems to unify many Arabs is hatred for Israel...oh and the possibility of 72 virgins for all wannabe martyrs.

 

[theophilus777]

Zeek, shabbat shalom, and a question:

The figures on record that can be checked demonstrate that out of 700,000 Arabs, just over 3,300 were classed as having been dispossessed, which as a % works out at less than one half of one %, and this was not blamed on Jewish land purchases, but on a combination of factors including Landowners who were uninterested in the welfare of their tenants and worsening economic conditions.

Middle East Piece - How Many Palestinian Arabs were Dispossessed?

I already showed you the figure was far lower at well under 500,000 and possibly as low as 375,000. The 700,000 was a reference to the amount of Arabs in Palestine around 1900.

What? 3,330, to 375,000?

 

[Zeek]

Zeek, shabbat shalom, and a question:

What? 3,330, to 375,000?

Hi...you are misunderstanding.

The 1st figure of 3,330 was a reference to those dispossessed by the trading of land in the late 19th and early 20th century in Palestine.

The second figure, was one of a number of figures that attempt to estimate the number of Arab refugees that left in 1948.

What people often make the mistake in doing is adding the figures for 1948 and 1967 together, and using that as the base for the 1948 exodus.

Hope that clarifies.

 

[theophilus777]

Hi...you are misunderstanding.

Yes, certainly. Thanks for your answer.

If only a solution to the present problem were so easy ...