Posted on 08/24/2002 4:42:48 PM PDT by zapiks44
And if you dismiss it as a "Zionist" organization, most of its sources are from the mainstream press (if you consider the NY Times and Washington Post "mainstream")
If you want to say Israel acquired the trans Jordan and gaza lands as a result of winning the war, that's good enough for me. But to argue who has the moral high ground in that one is, well, kinda like manifest destiny vs the injuns.
It tries to disguise the fact that Arabs have lived continuously in the land of Palestine - whether they called it that or not, whether it was an independent country or not - as the dominant culture for more than 1000 years. Whatever the faults of that culture - and we all know there are many - they preferred it to an imposed Zionist culture in which they would be the dhimmis. As early as 1891 they realized the nature of the coming conflict and tried to stem the massive Jewish immigration.
What we have is two incompatible cultures, each with good claims, fighting to control one small piece of land. It's a fight to the death - unless attitudes change far more than anyone believes possible.
Read Jabotinsky's writings, 1913-39, and Boris Shustaff (spelling?) who writes for Gamla (and others).
Why Israel Is The Victim And The Arabs Are The Indefensible Aggressors In the Middle East
The Myth Of The Palestinian People
-Ariel Sharon & Israel-- The myths of Sabra and Shatilla and the war in Lebanon --
-Online book debunking the "Sharon Terror story--
-Israel Arabs Palestinians THE BATTLE FOR TRUTH--
-Crash Course in Middle East History--
-Setting the Historical Record Straight--
Great concise explanation of 67 borders and UN res 242 here.
Read "Israel's roots" carefully. You'll see that the author says that most of the Arab inhabitants in 1882 had arrived within the previous 70 years, then quotes someone who says the population had been static for the previous 40 years, than another who says the ancestors of the Arab population had been there for a thousand years (the author doesn't seem to notice the possible contradictions).
More important, read Jabotinsky's (Zhabotinsky's) 1923 "Wall of Iron".
Not quite.
The injuns were never offered the land but refused it because they wanted the whole enchilada.
The arabs did; too bad for them.
The "occupied" territories are Israeli ad so are the settlements, now.
Losers in war don't get to "change their minds".
According to liberalarry, all the parts of history that he doesn't like...
Of course they do!!!
They get to run to the U.N. and cry about "collective punishment", that charge, somehow, makes them the victims instead of the people they tried to kill en masse...ya gotta love the liberal press 'cause they are always looking for 'the victim de joure.
Too Late for a Peaceable Solution
Shusteff is the best and most knowledgeable modern writer on this subject that I've come across. This is his only article I have ready access to. Do a Google if you want to see more.
Strange, considering that the Falistin or "Philistines" of the Old Testament weren't even Arabs but were from the Greek Islands and the Aegean Sea.
Stranger still, considering that there is no Palestinian language, no history of Palestinian art, no distinct Palestinian culture. The Palestinians, for having such a *long* history, seem to lack any history at all.
And as far as "Palestine" itself, it was invented by Rome.
The Philistines, a sea people, seemed to have arrived in Canaan somewhere around 1200B.C. - almost 2000 years before the Arabs. So what?
There is no Arizona language, no New York language, no Georgia language. Does that mean Americans don't live there?
Your comments make me think you haven't understood anything I've said and certainly haven't understood Shusteff.
Why do you find this comment necessary? It totally demeans any posible legitimate argument you may have.
I have no arguement with that...might makes right.
I was speaking of the moral high ground that one side may have vs the other...as if that really matters.
It's an entirely appropriate reply to your self-important sarcasm.
It totally demeans any posible legitimate argument you may have
Now that's plain stupid. I would think that your interest in the subject is serious and not dependent upon your opinion of me. Thus you would make your own judgement about the value of the works or Shusteff and Zhabotinsky.
Especially the latter given that
a) He was responsible for Jewish entry into WWI on the side of the British and thus largely responsible for the Balfour Declaration
b) He created the Israeli army
c) He predicted the Holocaust and was largely responsible for saving whatever part of East European Jewry that was saved
Yes, and what was the land called before the Romans renamed it as an insult to Jews? It was called Israel. "Palestine" was the name given to Israel by Rome. Palestine, even as a Roman invention, had absolutely nothing to do with Arabs.
"There is no Arizona language, no New York language, no Georgia language. Does that mean Americans don't live there?"
Americans do live there, and since there isn't such a thing as the "Arizonian People" who lay claim to Arizona based upon some historical claim to the land, your analogy makes little sense. After all, Arizonians hardly make the claim that their history goes back 1000 years and that they have the right to Arizona based upon a *historical* claim to the land.
And the "Palestinians" don't have a historical claim to their land, either. Palestine was a Roman invention. There never has been a "Palestinian people," unless you happen to think that the ancient Filistin, who were a displaced tribe from the Aegean Sea, morphed into Arabs in the Middle Ages.
I find it strange indeed that you would try to make the arguments you do.
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