Saul certainly became derelict in his duty, but the problem is even older than the Amalekites. Didn't David or Solomon finish them off anyway?
Posted on 11/16/2001 1:16:15 PM PST by ExiledInTaiwan
Click here for the book: Origin of Conflict
It started when King Saul did not obey GOD and eliminate all the Amalikites. Right!?
Bump
Saul certainly became derelict in his duty, but the problem is even older than the Amalekites. Didn't David or Solomon finish them off anyway?
The Arabs began the cycle in the early 20th century, including the Hebron Massacre of 1929, the Jerusalem Riots of the early 1930's, and their recruiting of 20,000 troops to assist Adolf Hitler in eastern Europe.
Moreover, the overwhelming evidence shows that the Palestinians were not evicted. They mostly fled despite numerous attempts to keep them inside Israel.
Jewish leaders urged the Arabs to remain in Palestine and become citizens of Israel. The Assembly of Palestine Jewry issued this appeal on October 2, 1947:
Israel's Proclamation of Independence, issued May 14, 1948, also invited the Palestinians to remain in their homes and become equal citizens in the new state:
On January 30, 1948, the Jaffa newspaper, Ash Sha'ab, reported: "The first of our fifth column consists of those who abandon their houses and businesses and go to live elsewhere....At the first signs of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle."
Another Jaffa paper, As Sarih (March 30, 1948) excoriated Arab villagers near Tel Aviv for "bringing down disgrace on us all by 'abandoning the villages."
John Bagot Glubb, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion, said: "Villages were frequently abandoned even before they were threatened by the progress of war" (London Daily Mail, August 12, 1948).
Jewish forces seized Tiberias on April 19, 1948, and the entire Arab population of 6,000 was evacuated under British military supervision. The Jewish Community Council issued a statement afterward: "We did not dispossess them; they themselves chose this course....Let no citizen touch their property."
In early April, an estimated 25,000 Arabs left the Haifa area following an offensive by the irregular forces led by Fawzi alQawukji, and rumors that Arab air forces would soon bomb the Jewish areas around Mt. Carmel. On April 23, the Haganah captured Haifa. A British police report from Haifa, dated April 26, explained that "every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe." In fact, David Ben-Gurion had sent Golda Meir to Haifa to try to persuade the Arabs to stay, but she was unable to convince them because of their fear of being judged traitors to the Arab cause. By the end of the battle, more than 50,000 Palestinians had left.
Tens of thousands of Arab men, women and children fled toward the eastern outskirts of the city in cars, trucks, carts, and afoot in a desperate attempt to reach Arab territory until the Jews captured Rushmiya Bridge toward Samaria and Northern Palestine and cut them off. Thousands rushed every available craft, even rowboats, along the waterfront, to escape by sea toward Acre (New York Times, April 23, 1948).
In Tiberias and Haifa, the Haganah issued orders that none of the Arabs' possessions should be touched, and warned that anyone who violated the orders would be severely punished. Despite these efforts, all but about 5,000 or 6,000 Arabs evacuated Haifa, many leaving with the assistance of British military transports.
Syria's UN delegate, Faris el-Khouri, interrupted the UN debate on Palestine to describe the seizure of Haifa as a "massacre" and said this action was "further evidence that the 'Zionist program' is to annihilate Arabs within the Jewish state if partition is effected."
The following day, however, the British representative at the UN, Sir Alexander Cadogan, told the delegates that the fighting in Haifa had been provoked by the continuous attacks by Arabs against Jews a few days before and that reports of massacres and deportations were erroneous. The same day (April 23, 1948), Jamal Husseini, the chairman of the Palestine Higher Committee, told the UN Security Council that instead of accepting the Haganah's truce offer, the Arabs "preferred to abandon their homes, their belongings, and everything they possessed in the world and leave the town."
Arab Leaders Provoke Exodus A plethora of evidence exists demonstrating that Palestinians were encouraged to leave their homes to make way for the invading Arab armies. The U.S. ConsulGeneral in Haifa, Aubrey Lippincott, wrote on April 22, 1948, for example, that "local muftidominated Arab leaders" were urging "all Arabs to leave the city, and large numbers did so."
The Economist, a frequent critic of the Zionists, reported on October 2, 1948: "Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit....It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."
Time's report of the battle for Haifa (May 3, 1948) was similar: "The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city....By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa."
Benny Morris, the historian who documented instances where Palestinians were expelled, also found that Arab leaders encouraged their brethren to leave. The Arab National Committee in Jerusalem, following the March 8, 1948, instructions of the Arab Higher Committee, ordered women, children and the elderly in various parts of Jerusalem to leave their homes: "Any opposition to this order...is an obstacle to the holy war...and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts" (Middle Eastern Studies, January 1986).
Morris also said that in early May units of the Arab Legion reportedly ordered the evacuation of all women and children from the town of Beisan. The Arab Liberation Army was also reported to have ordered the evacuation of another village south of Haifa. The departure of the women and children, Morris says, "tended to sap the morale of the menfolk who were left behind to guard the homes and fields, contributing ultimately to the final evacuation of villages. Such two-tier evacuation-women and children first, the men following weeks later-occurred in Qumiya in the Jezreel Valley, among the Awarna bedouin in Haifa Bay and in various other places."
Who gave such orders? Leaders like Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, who declared: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."
The Secretary of the Arab League Office in London, Edward Atiyah, wrote in his book, The Arabs: "This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic Arabic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to reenter and retake possession of their country."
In his memoirs, Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister in 194849, also admitted the Arab role in persuading the refugees to leave:
Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return.
"The refugees were confident their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two," Monsignor George Hakim, a Greek Orthodox Catholic Bishop of Galilee told the Beirut newspaper, Sada alJanub (August 16, 1948). "Their leaders had promised them that the Arab Armies would crush the 'Zionist gangs' very quickly and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile."
On April 3, 1949, the Near East Broadcasting Station (Cyprus) said: "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem."
"The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies," according to the Jordanian newspaper Filastin (February 19, 1949).
One refugee quoted in the Jordan newspaper, Ad Difaa (September 6, 1954), said: "The Arab government told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in."
"The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade," said Habib Issa in the New York Lebanese paper, Al Hoda (June 8, 1951). "He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean....Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down."
Even Jordan's King Abdullah, writing in his memoirs, blamed Palestinian leaders for the refugee problem:
The tragedy of the Palestinians was that most of their leaders had paralyzed them with false and unsubstantiated promises that they were not alone; that 80 million Arabs and 400 million Muslims would instantly and miraculously come to their rescue.
Heh? What it means is that US knows it would not be Israeli who could come here and create havoc. MOST of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudis and Egyptians.
The emphasized words demonstrate that the UN recognized that Israel could not be expected to repatriate a hostile population that might endanger its security. The solution to the problem, like all previous refugee problems, would require at least some Palestinians to be resettled in Arab lands.
The Israeli government was not indifferent to the plight of the refugees; an ordinance was passed creating a Custodian of Abandoned Property "to prevent unlawful occupation of empty houses and business premises, to administer ownerless property, and also to secure tilling of deserted fields, and save the crops...."
The implied danger of repatriation did not prevent Israel from allowing some refugees to return and offering to take back a substantial number as a condition for signing a peace treaty. In 1949, Israel offered to allow families that had been separated during the war to return; agreed to release refugee accounts frozen in Israeli banks (eventually released in 1953); offered to pay compensation for abandoned lands and, finally, agreed to repatriate 100,000 refugees.
The Arabs rejected all the Israeli compromises. They were unwilling to take any action that might be construed as recognition of Israel. They made repatriation a precondition for negotiations, something Israel rejected. The result was the confinement of the refugees in camps.
Despite the position taken by the Arab states, Israel did release the Arab refugees' blocked bank accounts, which totaled more than $10 million. In addition, through 1975, the Israeli government paid to more than 11,000 claimants more than 23 million Israeli pounds in cash and granted more than 20,000 acres as alternative holdings. Payments were made by land value between 1948 and 1953, plus 6 percent for every year following the claim submission.
After the Six-Day War, Israel allowed some West Bank Arabs to return. In 1967, more than 9,000 families were reunited and, by 1971, Israel had readmitted 40,000 refugees. By contrast, in July 1968, Jordan prohibited persons intending to remain in the East Bank from emigrating from the West Bank and Gaza.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E. the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 C.E. lasted no more than 22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish refugees in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier!
10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.
13. The Arab - Israeli Conflict; The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one 'Jewish' nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.
14. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them with weapons.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.
18. The UN was silent while the Jordanians destroyed 58 Jerusalem Synagogues.
19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
I don't know, I don't think so. Anybody out there know??!!
We need to go back in a time machine and finish the job!!
Yeah you sound very neutral. LOL.
You volunteering your machine, timestax?
I agree with you. The Arabs won't be satisfied until all the foreigners are removed from their land.
That is why there will not be a solution in the near future. Jews ain't leaving Israel, and all the surrounding Arab states, as well as Palestinians, are not militarily capable of removing them by force. The Arab states know this through lessons learned the hard way, so they will continue to terrorize the unsuspecting "foreigners" occupying "their" land. The Israeli government will continue to respond militarily to these attacks on their citizens.
The only way this cycle of violence will end is if Arabs (Palestinians) stop first. I believe this because I believe if Palestinians stopped their violence, Israel WOULD stop the violence on their part. If Israel stopped their violent acts, the Palestinians would continue with their attacks. I believe this because I believe your comment ...
"Having an outside power, European - England and France, give away your land, and allow foreigners come in and take your land, might make you mad too."
... is absolutely correct, and can only be corrected by the illumination of the Jewish state from Arab land. And that isn't gonna happen.
Israel must abide by the consensus of world opinion and withdraw to its 1967 borders, as demanded in numerous UN votes.
If the Jews ever listened to 'world opinion' in the past they would be dead. This group fails to recognize the legitimate fears of Jews. I don't blame Jews for not trusting "world opinion". No other group in the history of the world has suffered as much for as long as the Jews.
Furthermore, someone should prove that the UN resolutions say that Israel should withdraw to the 1967 borders. I don't believe it says that at all. So the premise of their conclusion is wrong.
American Jews in particular have a special responsibility to acknowledge the Palestinian point of view in order to help move the debate forward. As Chomsky writes in his Peace in the Middle East?, "In the American Jewish community, there is little willingness to face the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have suffered a monstrous historical injustice, whatever one may think of the competing claims. Until this is recognized, discussion of the Middle East crisis cannot even begin."
Why do American Jews have a special responsibility? What about French Jews, Morroccan Jews, British Jews? Do all Jews have a 'special responsibility' in this regard? And what about Arabs? Do Palestinians have a special responsibility at all? The other Arabs?
While some Palestinians have suffered an injustice, on whole it was largely of their own doing, after making a calculated decision to cause a (failed) injustice to the Jews in Palestine in 1947-1948. They left hoping that someone else would kill off the Jews so that they could return. How cynical can you get? Yes, their plight is a terrible condition, but as I amply demonstrated above with at least a score of pieces of evidence, they fled hoping the Jews would be destroyed by the Arab armies at the urging of the Arab leaders. In that regard, they deserved their fate.
Next time you talk to ExiledInTaiwan tell him to update his bump list, about a quarter of those visible are "No current Freeper by that name". He could save a little bandwidth.
If the Jews ever listened to 'world opinion' in the past they would be dead. This group fails to recognize the legitimate fears of Jews. I don't blame Jews for not trusting "world opinion".
They also fail to recognize that Israel was once at its 1967 borders, in 1967. The result, an Arab attack.
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