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Post by carolion on Nov 28, 2006 22:52:31 GMT -5
Joe: //I tend to credit the accounts that say much of the displacement of the Palestinians was actually voluntary on their part under the inducement of the Arab states, which were planning to overrun Israel. And it was Jordan and Egypt which confined them to refugee camps.//
Joe - you'd get a hugely different picture from the Christian Peacemaker Team daily reports from Palestine. The CPTers plus various other international peacemakers, plus Israeli Doves, all assist Palestinian villagers, walking the children to school past Israeli settlers who have been attacking the kids; they film Israeli soldiers breaking into Palestinian houses and trashing them, and also Israeli soldiers allowing the settlers to build on Palestinian farmland, or to plow it up, while they keep the Palestinians away at gunpoint - or lock them up. It's a mess - but at least there are witnesses from many nations. The aggression has increased greatly in the last few weeks - reminding this reader of pre WWII reports from Italy and Germay. Ugh.
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Post by joew on Nov 29, 2006 0:25:06 GMT -5
I would not claim that everything Israel has done in the nearly sixty years of its existence has been justifiable. But it is Israel that was repeatedly attacked fromthe moment of its coming into existence. It is Israel which to this very day has countries denying its right to exist and people dedicated to destroying it. It is Israel which withdrew from southern Lebanon and came under rocket attack from the areas it had left. It is Israel which withdrew from Gaza and promptly came under rocket attack from the territory it had left. And it is NOT Israel which sends suicide bombers into other countries for the sole purpose of killing innocent civilians. For the Palestinians to complain of confiscation of property in the light of their history and present actions is obscene.
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Post by joew on Nov 29, 2006 0:30:39 GMT -5
When the Christian Peacemaker Team persuades Hamas, Fatah, and Hezbollah to live in peace with Israel, they will have done something useful. To nitpick about the sorts of things they are complaining of while war is still being waged against Israel and it is the stated purpose of Israel's enemies to destroy it is to demonstrate a terrible lack of moral intelligence, IMO.
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Post by joew on Nov 29, 2006 9:45:48 GMT -5
c'lion — I realized this morning that your post was directed to the specific question of Israel's having forced the Palestinians out, and I replied at a more general level.
On the specific question, I would distinguish between the events at the founding of the State of Israel and more recent events. What I was speaking about was at the beginning of Israeli independence, when the Arab states attacked, and large numbers of Palestinian Arabs left. That is when I believe that they were encouraged to leave by their fellow Arabs. More recently, there may well be instances of eviction of Palestinians from their property. And certainly such actions tend to harden the opposition of the Palestinians to Israel. The West Bank Israeli settlements have been counterproductive, IMO.
But at its most basic level, the problem remains that the Palestinian leadership and several Muslim states, such as Syria and Iran, are unwilling to live in peace with the State of Israel. The task for Israel and all who seek peace in the region is to move the Palestinians, Syria, and Iran to accept Israel as their neighbor.
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Post by joew on Nov 29, 2006 9:46:14 GMT -5
c'lion — I realized this morning that your post was directed to the specific question of Israel's having forced the Palestinians out, and I replied at a more general level.
On the specific question, I would distinguish between the events at the founding of the State of Israel and more recent events. What I was speaking about was at the beginning of Israeli independence, when the Arab states attacked, and large numbers of Palestinian Arabs left. That is when I believe that they were encouraged to leave by their fellow Arabs. More recently, there may well be instances of eviction of Palestinians from their property. And certainly such actions tend to harden the opposition of the Palestinians to Israel. The West Bank Israeli settlements have been counterproductive, IMO.
But at its most basic level, the problem remains that the Palestinian leadership and several Muslim states, such as Syria and Iran, are unwilling to live in peace with the State of Israel. The task for Israel and all who seek peace in the region is to move the Palestinians, Syria, and Iran to accept Israel as their neighbor.
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Post by doctork on Nov 29, 2006 11:04:51 GMT -5
I don't know, joe; I think the hardline militant leadership of the Palestinians/Syria/Iran et al continue to feel the State of Israel has no business being there, while the majority of the ordinary people (Arab, Israeli, Palestinian) just want to go about their daily lives in peace. Meanwhile the hardline, militant Israeli and some western leaders forge on as determinedly in the opposite direction, ie Israel must be there no matter what (atrocities) it takes.
Seems to me all this either/or and black/white is a false dichotomy, with no attempt to reach an agreeable middle ground which most people want, due to political axe grinding by the "leadership."
I have no idea what the "answer" is. But I stand by my original observation that there is/was widespread resentment of the US in the Muslim world (which was a surprise to me at that time), based on our perceived uncritical support of Israel in its oppression of Palestinians, and our leadership doesn't seem to "get" this. Just as they didn't get that Iraq as a piece of cake, being greeted as liberators, no need to worry about occupation and subsequent civil war, was not reality.
A better understanding of the situation and "the enemy" is necessary. Our armed forces are paying with their lives for this resistance to facing reality and giving up an exclusively US-centric worldview. We don't have to agree with others' viewpoints, but a better understanding would have been wiser.
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Post by joew on Nov 29, 2006 20:14:17 GMT -5
I don't know, joe; I think the hardline militant leadership of the Palestinians/Syria/Iran et al continue to feel the State of Israel has no business being there, while the majority of the ordinary people (Arab, Israeli, Palestinian) just want to go about their daily lives in peace. Meanwhile the hardline, militant Israeli and some western leaders forge on as determinedly in the opposite direction, ie Israel must be there no matter what (atrocities) it takes. Seems to me all this either/or and black/white is a false dichotomy, with no attempt to reach an agreeable middle ground which most people want, due to political axe grinding by the "leadership." I have no idea what the "answer" is. But I stand by my original observation that there is/was widespread resentment of the US in the Muslim world (which was a surprise to me at that time), based on our perceived uncritical support of Israel in its oppression of Palestinians, and our leadership doesn't seem to "get" this. Just as they didn't get that Iraq as a piece of cake, being greeted as liberators, no need to worry about occupation and subsequent civil war, was not reality. A better understanding of the situation and "the enemy" is necessary. Our armed forces are paying with their lives for this resistance to facing reality and giving up an exclusively US-centric worldview. We don't have to agree with others' viewpoints, but a better understanding would have been wiser. Well I don't know either. But the regrettable thing is that while the ordinary Israelis vote for governments which make serious moves toward peace (while also making moves in self-defense) the ordinary Palestinians vote for Fatah and Hamas. And certainly either the State of Israel continues to exist / or it doesn't. Apart from the actual instances of excessive actions by Israel, there has been sixty years of anti-Israeli brainwashing propaganda — vicious cartoons in the press, publication of the blood libel, stories of atrocities which never happened — going on in the Arab world. It's no wonder they hate Israel, and us for insisting that Israel continue to exist. But it is a conundrum: is it possible for Israel to stop people who hate them from destroying them without furthering the hatred, when every attack on Israeli territory and citizens is considered fully justified and every response and every defensive measure is considered an outrage which must be avenged. I don't know what the way out is, but somehow the militants have to be persuaded to give up the fight so the ordinary people can have peace.
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Post by carolion on Nov 29, 2006 22:42:37 GMT -5
Joe, there are very simple,true stories of Palestinian Christians and Muslims, and Israeli Jews, neighbors for many years - some of whom cared for each others' children, sick, and elders...As in the case of a Palestinian Muslim family which saved beloved Jewish Israeli neighbors during the dangerous times around the founding of Israel - the Palestinian mother nursed the Israeli baby because his mother had no milk - and then the Israeli state came in and drove the Palestinians from their home, put up a wall........There are many of these small, personal, deeply meaningful stories. The Israeli Doves are a peacemaking team doing very responsible good work on behalf of the Palestinian herders and farmers who are being persecuted by Israeli settlers, army, and police - they work alongside the CPTers.
There are also groups of Israeli and Palestinian mothers who meet together on behalf of their communities and especially the children and youth.
So, as Dr K says, it is NOT all that black-white political stuff our news media feeds us. Not by any means. And the way things work, it's often the tiniest Very Good Simple Thing that beats out all the big guns in the end. But it's a hard row to hoe for those Palestinian kids having to walk to school past rock-throwing cursing-and-worse Israeli settlers. I wish for them a Gandhi, a Martin Luther King....Perhaps these days in the form of a female, even a child.
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Post by joew on Nov 29, 2006 22:55:00 GMT -5
A Palestinian Gandhi may be just what is needed, so I join you in that wish, c'lion.
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