Posted on 11/16/2001 1:16:15 PM PST by ExiledInTaiwan
Click here for the book: Origin of Conflict
I have no idea what percentage of Jews left voluntarily. More important I don't know what percentage lost their property. Neither do you. But it is obviously true that some people have claims. And these claims are against Arab governments and Arab citizens. They have nothing to do with claims that Palestinians have against the Israeli government and Israeli citizens. She is wrong when she say that the one is related to the other.
Did you forget the small detail of Egypt's prefaced pact with Jordan AND then Jordan shelling into sovereign Israeli territory after Israel told Jordan not to involve itself in the war? I guess you did.
Err, no.
How one can write post after post of unadulterated garbage on an issue of which they know absolutely nothing is one of FR enduring mysteries.
If you had a clue about any facet of Middle East history maybe your opinion would have even a minimal value.
Israel did not preemptively attack Jordan in the 1967 war. Israel did attack Egypt and Syria(after their acts of war). Israel begged Jordan to stay out of the war. Egypt tricked Jordan into believing that they were winning and Jordan joined the war by attacking Israel first.
In 1973, Jordan did not join in the attack on Israel and Israel did not fire one shot at Jordan.
Get a clue and stop embarrassing yourself.
Here is the answer for what is/was "Palestine"?
"Palestine is simply a term for a state that might exist for the Palestinian people," Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "What the president was doing was to lay out a vision of where we might be, should we be able to encourage the parties to get back into a process that leads to a permanent peace in the Middle East."
Rice said that vision also includes the right for "our good friend Israel" to exist safely within its borders, "where terrorism has been wiped out as a factor in the Middle East."
Not any independent national entity from the past but a mirage for the future.
"Ideal world?" Read Resolutions 242 and 338. It's a legal obligation.
(1) Recognition of Israel's righ to exist
(2) An end to the state of war maintained by the Arab world against Israel
(3) Secure and recognized boundaries for Israel
Presumably after the Oslo I was well on its way to Oslo II Arafat finally acknowledged (1). And yet no where on PLO insignia and other materials plus in repeated speeches by official PA sources including Arafat was there ever a genuine acknowledgement of this requirement and indeed Arafat's infamous "Hudaybiya" speech betrayed his real intentions. Furthermore, although Jordan and Egypt have concluded treaties with Israel neither Iraq nor Syria (and Lebanon as Syria's proxy puppet state) have done so. Both participated in wars against Israel. Neither have agreed to recognize Israel nor of course conclude peace treaties and recogntion pursuant to (1) and (2). Keep in mind that several Arab League countries, most particularly Saudi Arabia are still technically at war with Israel.
The notion of "secure" in (3) therefore is prefaced on the Arab States' concluding agreements based on (1) and (2). If you were the attorney for Israel you would be derelict to your client if you did not mandate this as a necessary condition to enter into an agreement or more exactly, advised your client to enter into the agreement absent (1) and (2) (given the fact of course if your client said go ahead without (1) and (2) you would follow your client's instructions). This is not some run-of-the-mill contract, this concerns the territorial integrity of a nation-state.
In any event if the Palestinians, and the rest of the Pan Arabs don't clean house of their terrorism and renounce it and if this is to hard a requirement, then Israel should never be under an obligation to negotiate its sovereignty away.
Ditto for me and Ireland. But Jewish identity is somewhat different, it can't really be compared to an identity based purely on location. It's based on a combination of location, bloodline, faith, and tradition. If this means nothing to you, fine, but ignoring this puts us in the position of having to say, "Okay, whoever had the land when I came upon the situation is the one who has rightful claim." It's an ahistorical approach, and tempting because it's more simple, but not necessarily right.
(The Jews didn't steal the land, they bought it rightfully.)
This statement is simply false. Most of Israel is land which was stolen from the Arabs.
When exactly, and how? Did Israeli armies steal it from the Ottoman Empire? No, the Brits won it. Did Israeli armies steal it from the Brits? No, the Brits and the UN gave it to them. Where along this process EXACTLY, and HOW was it stolen?
Less than 10% was actually paid for.
Well, I've heard up to 80% of the land is uninhabitable desert anyway. So if only about 20% is arable, and the Jews bought 10%.... see where I'm going?
And even this was obtained through the process of feudal clearances - ethnic cleansing. Jewish agencies would buy feudal holdings from the landlord and run the peasants off the land.
Why should squatters have more rights than those who rightfully own the land and pay taxes on it?
The tension between Arab and Jew before partition was directly attributable to this process.
"Tension"? When Arabs kill Jews, it's "tension" and when Jews kill Arabs, it's "ethnic cleansing."
The Arabs were told that their homeland would be partitioned. Jews represented one third of the population and owned about 7% of the land. Despite this, the Arabs were offered a state consisting of 43% of the area of Mandate Palestine. Wouldn't you reject this "offer"?
Again, the majority of this land is uninhabitable. Otherwise, doesn't it seem strange that 33% of the population would be stacked up on 7% of the land? This presentation is very misleading.
When the smoke finally cleared Israel consisted of 78% of the land and 700,000 Arabs were refugees.
They went to Jordan. When they came back, presumably there was no way of knowing who really had lost land and who was simply pouring into Israel because the laws there are less restrictive than laws in Muslim theocracies. As a matter of fact, they can submit claims and those claims are investigated. I've heard up to 20,000 have been settled with Arabs getting land or money to compensate for it.
this has caused some tension between Israelis and Arabs. In 1967, Israel used this tension as a pretext to invade and conquer the rest of Mandate Palestine.
"Tension" again. Yes, I suppose Egyptian blockades cutting off their shipping could be called "tension." Most countries call it an act of war, though.
(Not all Palestinians are refugees, about 1,000,000 have Israeli citizenship.)
Who cares? Israeli treatment of those Arabs who have citizenship is decent (although not perfect). But the question is about the 4,000,000 who are refugees or who live under military rule.
Well, I care! It shows me that despite what you say, Jews are NOT pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing. It shows me that Israelis are indeed willing to coexist with Palestinians, even allow them to participate in the country they have built for themselves. It shows a great deal of trust, good will, and good intentions toward people who have demonstrated such a willingness to annihilate them. I mean, toward people who have financed so much "tension."
Wrong. The land they were expelled from was Isreal, not Jordan. The state which stole their land was Israel, not Jordan.
Well, it was all considered one chunk pre-1948, and the West Bank was Jordan's territory, if I remember correctly.
AND quoting Hoffer.
I'm still waiting for you Muslimphiles to tell me which country into which Islam has spread is full of happy , well nourished, top medical facilities, even plumbing and electricity. You can't the FACT is wherever it goes, death and destruction follow. Look at the West bank and Gaza. Do they work to make their lives better,no ofcourse not. The preaching of hatred has them to busy killing their neighbors. Face it, Islam is a dangerous DOCTRINE, certainly not anything God would be happy to claim as his.
Save your venom for Friday Prayers. I'm not interested.
"The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine never included the area that is now Jordan."
Oh yes it did - in 1921 the British cut off 78% of Palestine so as to give the Hashemites a Kingdom. This was to solve a little problem they had with Saudi Arabia (where the oil was/is) as there were 2 claimants to the throne.
They arbitrarily created Trans-Jordan which was considered an illegal act by the League of Nations. But then of course nothing could be done about it because Britain was the superpower of the region.
Any map of the area prior to 1921 will show Trans-Jordan as part of Palestine.
No, you're wromg. The League of Nations Mandate came into effect after Jordan became a separate entity. Even Israel partisan Daniel Pipes admits your Zionist myth is untrue in one of his articles, Is Jordan Palestine - Middle East analysis article by Daniel PipesIt's high time all the Israeli propagandists gave up their losing battle on this bit of misinformation.
Its you who is propagandising and misinforming as can be seen by your bold statement at the top of this post.
Now I will show you conclusively why that first statement of your's is wrong.
Historically from the time of the Romans through to the Ottomans the province of Palestine always included both sides of the Jordan River. During the Ottoman period there were 5 administrative districts (sanjuks) 2 of which were in what is now called Jordan.
When the British took over from Turkey during WW1 they considered the whole of the area of trans-Jordan as part of Palestine.
From AN INTERIM REPORT ON THE CIVIL ADMINISTRATION OF PALESTINE." July 1921 to the League of Nations.
"Included in the area of the Palestine Mandate is the territory of Trans-Jordania. It is bounded on the north by the frontier of Syria, placed under the mandate of France; on the south by the kingdom of the Hejaz; and on the west by the line of the Jordan and the Dead Sea; while on the east it stretches into the desert and ends--the boundary is not yet defined--where Mesopotamia begins....."
The League did not create the mandate. Britain became the Mandatory Power over Palestine pursuant to the Sykes-Picot agreement of May 1916. This was ratified by further agreements betweeen the allies at war's end when the Levant was split between Britain and France and Britain became the Mandatory as right of conqueror. (Maybe Israel should have assumed a similar role after 1967).
The LON's duties "were confined to seeing that the specific and detailed terms of the mandates were in accordance with the decisions taken by the Allied and Associated Powers,..." (see below) and so your statement above about when the LON Mandate came into effect is not only irrelevant but wrong in fact as it wasn't the LON's Mandate in the first instance.
Excerpts from League of Nations Official Journal dated June 1922]pp.546-549
"....The public mind, he thought, might have misunderstood the powers of the League of Nations and of its Council regarding mandates. Mandates were not the creation of the League, and they could not in substance be altered by the League. The League's duties were confined to seeing that the specific and detailed terms of the mandates were in accordance with the decisions taken by the Allied and Associated Powers, and that in carrying out these mandates the Mandatory Powers should be under the supervision--not under the control--of the League. The League possessed the necessary organisation for obtaining the fullest information as to the method in which each Mandatory Power was carrying out its duties.
A mandate was a self-imposed limitation by the conquerors on the sovereignty which they exercised over the conquered territory. In the general interests of mankind, the Allied and Associated Powers had imposed this limitation upon themselves, and had asked the League to assist them in seeing that this general policy was carried out, but the League was not the author of it; the duty of the League, which was a most responsible and difficult one, was first to see that the terms of the mandates were in conformity with the principles of the Covenant and, secondly, that these terms would, in fact, regulate the policy of the Mandatory Powers in the mandated territories.....".
What Daniel Pipes has written and your interpretation thereof is irrelevant in this instance because this is about historical facts not an opnion piece.
I trust that now you will be better informed.
Yes - more so geographers call it a stony desert but the unihabitable is in parts reversible if you can get water there. Agriculture is limited to things like hi-tech fish farming and flower and vegetable growing in hothouses. Very little field agriculture or livestock. In 1947 when the UN divided it up between the Jews and Arabs this Negev area was just about worthless.
So ... does this mean that the famed "6%" of land bought by Jews is arable and that only the remaining 14% was owned by private Arab citizens?
Of the remaing 14% a lot was classified as State Lands by the Ottomans and the British - (roughly 10% of the 14%) so by extrapolation it is probable that the most held by Arabs privately was 4% and that is still held by those same Arabs.
The seldom mentioned truth is that most (not all) of the so called refugees did not own any property and why they so easily picked themselves up and moved thinking they they would return after the Arab armies wiped out the Jews.
Those Arabs who did in fact own land or property very often made every effort to stay and many did so.Today they make up about 20% of Israels population. I'm not sure if I've got this right because these numbers might be from different times, where there were different borders, and it doesn't work out... but if it does, we are looking at pre WW1 breakdown as:
The above figures are post WWII. When figures are brought into the discussion one must be careful to place them in a time-frame. In particular comparing the situation before and after WWI as in the period pre WW1 population and land area figures may or may not include the area of Trans-Jordan. For example if you want to inflate the Arab numbers viz a viz Jews you include those on the East Bank which prior to WWI had about half the Arab population.
Jews owned 6%, and the other 94% was owned by either Arab private citizens or the Ottoman Empire. Now, private citizens rarely buy uninhabitable land, so presumably that 80% was under the control of the OE. Leaving 14% AT MOST to be owned by private Arab owners... so of the arable land, private Arab citizens owned about 72% at most....and in 1922, the land was split giving the Arabs 77%. Well, that seems very fair.
I don't wnat to rehash your figures which I hope will be somewhat clearer to you now. However, another point to consider though is that the Arabs had already received 78% of Palestine in 1922 when the British separated the East Bank from Palestine and didn't allow any Jews to live there.
Looks to me like the Arabs spit on a fair deal and have only themselves to blame for the ensuing mess.
You got it.
Mail me privately if you wish to discuss anything outside of the forum.
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