Rachel Corrie

yosi

Pepe Silvia wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

yosi wrote:

"There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing."

And that was the situation in 1948?

"That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."

sick fuck

never again! and by that they mean jews only, i guess

I see, so Jews should just roll over and die rather than defend themselves. They were facing genocide, and this was three years after the end of the Holocaust. You have to judge them based on the context at the time. You can't blame them for winning.

Pepe Silvia

yosi wrote:

I see, so Jews should just roll over and die rather than defend themselves. They were facing genocide, and this was three years after the end of the Holocaust. You have to judge them based on the context at the time. You can't blame them for winning.

let's base it on the context of the here and now....attacks against Israel dramatically decreased, even down to a single attack in a whole year and things only got worse, what are they defending other than land that doesn't belong to them.

yosi

Pepe Silvia wrote:

yosi wrote:

I see, so Jews should just roll over and die rather than defend themselves. They were facing genocide, and this was three years after the end of the Holocaust. You have to judge them based on the context at the time. You can't blame them for winning.

let's base it on the context of the here and now....attacks against Israel dramatically decreased, even down to a single attack in a whole year and things only got worse, what are they defending other than land that doesn't belong to them.

For the umpteenth time (why can't you understand the simplest thing?!) what has dramatically decreased are not attacks against Israel, but successful attacks against Israel. What they are protecting is their lives. But let me ask you, what are the Palestinians attacking, the occupation or Israel itself? Because so very many Palestinian attacks have been inside Israel's '67 borders. If the occupation is the issue attack the occupation. The problem is that the occupation is only one issue, the larger issue being the continued Palestinian rejection of Israel's very existence.

Pepe Silvia

yosi wrote:

Pepe Silvia wrote:

yosi wrote:

I see, so Jews should just roll over and die rather than defend themselves. They were facing genocide, and this was three years after the end of the Holocaust. You have to judge them based on the context at the time. You can't blame them for winning.

let's base it on the context of the here and now....attacks against Israel dramatically decreased, even down to a single attack in a whole year and things only got worse, what are they defending other than land that doesn't belong to them.

For the umpteenth time (why can't you understand the simplest thing?!) what has dramatically decreased are not attacks against Israel, but successful attacks against Israel. What they are protecting is their lives. But let me ask you, what are the Palestinians attacking, the occupation or Israel itself? Because so very many Palestinian attacks have been inside Israel's '67 borders. If the occupation is the issue attack the occupation. The problem is that the occupation is only one issue, the larger issue being the continued Palestinian rejection of Israel's very existence.

that doesn't make sense...if it was just security in 2007 that led to a single suicide attack against Israel why dramatically increase security to a catastrophic blockade if what you're doing is obviously working?

fuck

yosi wrote:

I see, so Jews should just roll over and die rather than defend themselves. They were facing genocide, and this was three years after the end of the Holocaust. You have to judge them based on the context at the time. You can't blame them for winning.

You sound like a German circa 1935.

yosi

redrock wrote:

yosi wrote:

They can't move back to Israel, they are already in Israel. And they are Israelis, not Americans, so I don't know why they would want to move "back" to America.

They are in occupied territories. Almost a third of inhabitants are first generation immigrants.
If I wanted to, I could immigrate to Israel and be granted citeizenship under the 'law of return' even if I am not jewish. I have a close relative that is jewish so that's enough.

They aren't in occupied territories. They are in Israel. You may want to go consult a map. Sderot is inside the '67 line. It is not in the West Bank or Gaza. If a third of the inhabitants are immigrants then 2/3 were born in Israel, and by the way I'd like to know where you get your numbers. Also, why is an immigrant who has gotten citizenship any less entitled to live in his home free from fear?

yosi

For the umpteenth time (why can't you understand the simplest thing?!) what has dramatically decreased are not attacks against Israel, but successful attacks against Israel. What they are protecting is their lives. But let me ask you, what are the Palestinians attacking, the occupation or Israel itself? Because so very many Palestinian attacks have been inside Israel's '67 borders. If the occupation is the issue attack the occupation. The problem is that the occupation is only one issue, the larger issue being the continued Palestinian rejection of Israel's very existence.[/quote]


that doesn't make sense...if it was just security in 2007 that led to a single suicide attack against Israel why dramatically increase security to a catastrophic blockade if what you're doing is obviously working?[/quote]

Yeah I agree. I don't support the degree to which they've taken things in Gaza. That said they are in a difficult position because they can't let Hamas just bring in all the weaponry they want, because they know eventually those weapons would be turned on them. Here I just found this earlier today in my reading:

Benny Morris: "As far as I know, no Gazan has died of thirst or starvation. There are no African-style bloated bellies there. It is true that Israel has barred the importation of iron and steel and other materials needed for reconstructing houses destroyed or damaged in the December 2008–January 2009 campaign (and, in my view mistakenly, also barred the entry into Gaza of various other goods). But Israel argues, with solid logic, that Hamas would immediately use these materials to rebuild bunkers, munitions storage facilities, trenchworks, and the other institutions and instruments of its aggression."

yosi

_outlaw wrote:

yosi wrote:

I see, so Jews should just roll over and die rather than defend themselves. They were facing genocide, and this was three years after the end of the Holocaust. You have to judge them based on the context at the time. You can't blame them for winning.

You sound like a German circa 1935.

You do so much to contribute to a civil discussion. I would recommend that you go read about the war in 1947-48, and not just from sources with a bias against Israel. Go see what they were up against. They were already fighting for their lives against the local Palestinian population when they declared the Independence of Israel. They were then immediately invaded by five fully mechanized Arab armies. At the time the Arabs were talking about "driving the Jews into the sea" and throwing around other such delightfully genocidal rhetoric, not to mention that the leader of the Palestinians at the time, Haj Amin al Husseini, had just spent the Second World War in Berlin helping the Nazis sell their propaganda in the Arab world, and recruiting Balkan Muslims for the Wermacht. Israel lost fully one percent of its population fighting the '48 war, which would be like America losing between 20 and 30 million people fighting a war today. Israel has real enemies who have tried repeatedly to destroy her. That is nothing like Nazi Germany in 1935, all of whose enemies were in their imaginations.

On a personal note, what you just said to me is disgusting and revolting and just totally and simply wrong. You should really be ashamed of yourself.

Commy

yosi wrote:

the larger issue being the continued Palestinian rejection of Israel's very existence.

the reverse of this statement is also true

Pepe Silvia

yosi wrote:

Yeah I agree. I don't support the degree to which they've taken things in Gaza. That said they are in a difficult position because they can't let Hamas just bring in all the weaponry they want, because they know eventually those weapons would be turned on them. Here I just found this earlier today in my reading:

Benny Morris: "As far as I know, no Gazan has died of thirst or starvation. There are no African-style bloated bellies there. It is true that Israel has barred the importation of iron and steel and other materials needed for reconstructing houses destroyed or damaged in the December 2008–January 2009 campaign (and, in my view mistakenly, also barred the entry into Gaza of various other goods). But Israel argues, with solid logic, that Hamas would immediately use these materials to rebuild bunkers, munitions storage facilities, trenchworks, and the other institutions and instruments of its aggression."

how odd....in another thread you say the 80's is too long ago, give you something current....when did Benny Morris die????

i am talking about now, present day, groups like UNICEF to the World Health Organization say because of the blockade the majority of Palestinian children suffer from acute malnutrition

fuck

yosi wrote:

Yeah I agree. I don't support the degree to which they've taken things in Gaza. That said they are in a difficult position because they can't let Hamas just bring in all the weaponry they want, because they know eventually those weapons would be turned on them. Here I just found this earlier today in my reading:

Benny Morris: "As far as I know, no Gazan has died of thirst or starvation. There are no African-style bloated bellies there. It is true that Israel has barred the importation of iron and steel and other materials needed for reconstructing houses destroyed or damaged in the December 2008–January 2009 campaign (and, in my view mistakenly, also barred the entry into Gaza of various other goods). But Israel argues, with solid logic, that Hamas would immediately use these materials to rebuild bunkers, munitions storage facilities, trenchworks, and the other institutions and instruments of its aggression."

wow, brilliant. you even find ways to justify the blockade. Watch this video and I dare you to try to say otherwise:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSviZs1g ... annel_page

fuck

from Dec 2009:
http://www.israel-palestinenews.org/200 ... ue-to.html

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

The most important contextual piece of information in the quote you just provided is when he said that the nascent Jewish state was facing genocide if they didn't take whatever actions were necessary, no matter how harsh, to win the war they were being forced to fight.

Except that isn't true.

'The truth is that by May 1948 Zionist forces had already invaded and occupied large parts of the land which had been allocated to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan. In January 1948 Israel did not yet exist.

The evidence that Israel started the 1948 war comes from Zionist sources. The History of the Palmach which was released in portions in the 1950s (and in full in 1972) details the efforts made to attack the Palestinian Arabs and secure more territory than alloted to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan (Kibbutz Menchad Archive, Palmach Archive, Efal, Israel).

Already, Zionist forces were implementing their "Plan Dalet" to "control the area given to us [the Zionists] by the U.N. in addition to areas occupied by Arabs which were outside these borders and the setting up of forces to counter the possible invasion of Arab armies after May 15" (Qurvot 1948, p. 16, which covers the operations of Haganah and Palmach, see also Ha Sepher Ha Palmach, The Book of Palmach).

1. Operation Nachson, 1 April 1948
2. Operation Harel, 15 April 1948
3. Operation Misparayim, 21 April 1948
4. Operation Chametz, 27 April 1948
5. Operation Jevuss, 27 April 1948
6. Operation Yiftach, 28 April 1948
7. Operation Matateh, 3 May 1948
8. Operation Maccabi, 7 May 1948

9. Operation Gideon, 11 May 1948
10. Operation Barak, 12 May 1948
11. Operation Ben Ami, 14 May 1948
12. Operation Pitchfork, 14 May 1948
13. Operation Schfifon, 14 May 1948

The operations 1-8 indicate operations carried out before the entry of the Arab forces inside the areas allotted by the UN to the Arab state. It has to be noted that of thirteen specific full-scale operations under Plan Dalet eight were carried out outside the area "given" by the UN to the Zionists.

Following is a list drawn from the New York Times of the major military operations the Zionists mounted before the British evacuated Palestine and before the Arab forces entered Palestine:

· Qazaza (21 Dec. 1947)
· Sa'sa (16 Feb. 1948)
· Haifa (21 Feb. 1948)
· Salameh (1 March 1948)
· Biyar Adas (6 March 1948)
· Qana (13 March 1948)
· Qastal (4 April 1948)
· Deir Yassin (9 April 1948)
· Lajjun (15 April 1948)
· Saris (17 April 1948)
· Tiberias (20 April 1948)
· Haifa (22 April 1948)
· Jerusalem (25 April 1948)
· Jaffa (26 April 1948)
· Acre (27 April 1948)
· Jerusalem (1 May 1948)
· Safad (7 May 1948)
· Beisan (9 May 1948).

David Ben-Gurion confirms this in an address delivered to American Zionists in Jerusalem on 3 September 1950:

"Until the British left, no Jewish settlement, however remote, was entered or seized by the Arabs, while the Haganah, under severe and frequent attack, captured many Arab positions and liberated Tiberias and Haifa, Jaffa and Safad" (Ben-Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 530).

Although late PM Ben-Gurion speaks of "liberating" Jaffa it was alloted to the Palestinians by the UN Partition Plan.

Late PM Menachem Begin adds:

"In the months preceding the Arab invasion, and while the five Arab states were conducting preparations, we continued to make sallies into Arab territory. The conquest of Jaffa stands out as an event of first-rate importance in the struggle for Hebrew independence early in May, on the eve [that is, before the alleged Arab invasion] of the invasion by the five Arab states" (Menachem Begin, The Revolt, Nash, 1972, p. 348)

On 12 December 1948 David Ben Gurion confirmed the fact that the Zionists started the war in 1948:

"As April began, our War of Independence swung decisively from defense to attack. Operation 'Nachson'...was launched with the capture of Arab Hulda near where we stand today and of Deir Muheisin and culminated in the storming of Qastel, the great hill fortress near Jerusalem" (Ben Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1954, p. 106).

Israeli historians have themselves refuted the claim that the Arabs started the 1948 war. Benny Morris uncovered a report from the Israeli Defense Force Intelligence Branch (30 June 1948) that shows a deliberate Israeli policy to attack the Arabs should they resist and expel the Palestinians (Benny Morris, "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948", Middle Eastern Studies, XXII, January
1986, pp. 5-19).

Conclusion:

In sum, it is not true that the Arabs "invaded Israel" in 1948.
First, Israel did not exist at the time of the alleged invasion as an established state with recognised bounderies. When the Zionist leaders established Israel on 15 May 1948 they purposely declined to declare the bounderies of the new state in order to allow for future expansion.

Secondly, the only territory to which the new state of Israel had even a remote claim was that alloted to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan. But the Zionists had already attacked areas that were alloted to the Palestinian Arab state.

Thirdly, those areas which the Arab states purportedly "invaded" were, in fact, exclusively areas alloted to the Palestinian Arab state proposed by the UN Partition Plan. The so-called Arab invasion was a defensive attempt to hold on to the areas alloted by the Partition Plan for the Palestinian state.

Finally, the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion, was under orders not to enter the areas alloted to the Jewish state (Sir John Bagot Glubb, "The Battle for Jerusalem", Middle East International, May 1973).

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

The most important contextual piece of information in the quote you just provided is when he said that the nascent Jewish state was facing genocide if they didn't take whatever actions were necessary, no matter how harsh, to win the war they were being forced to fight.

The Deir Yassin Massacre occurred before the Arab army's invaded in 1948. Who do you think was more concerned with facing extinction through genocide? The Palestinians, or the Zionists?

http://www.counterpunch.org/martin05132004.html

"We Created Terror Among the Arabs"
The Deir Yassin Massacre

By WILLIAM MARTIN - May 13, 2004

On April 9, 1948, members of the underground Jewish terrorist group, the Irgun, or IZL, led by Menachem Begin, who was to become the Israeli prime minister in 1977, entered the peaceful Arab village of Deir Yassin, massacred 250 men, women, children and the elderly, and stuffed many of the bodies down wells. There were also reports of rapes and mutilations. The Irgun was joined by the Jewish terrorist group, the Stern Gang, led by Yitzhak Shamir, who subsequently succeeded Begin as prime minister of Israel in the early '80s, and also by the Haganah, the militia under the control of David Ben Gurian. The Irgun, the Stern Gang and the Haganah later joined to form the Israeli Defense Force. Their tactics have not changed.

The massacre at Deir Yassin was widely publicized by the terrorists and the numerous heaped corpses displayed to the media. In Jaffe, which was at the time 98 percent Arab, as well as in other Arab communities, speaker trucks drove through the streets warning the population to flee and threatening another Deir Yassin. Begin said at the time, "We created terror among the Arabs and all the villages around. In one blow, we changed the strategic situation."

From about 1938 on to the founding of Israel, Begin was the leader of the Irgun. That group regularly assassinated English soldiers in Palestine and frequently hung their booby-trapped bodies in public places. Under Begin, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, killing 97 British civil servants. The Stern Gang, under Shamir, also assassinated the U.N. representative to Palestine, Count Bernadotte, in 1948.

But Deir Yassin was not the only massacre by the Israeli Defense Force. That army, under Moshe Dayan, took the unarmed and undefended village of al-Dawazyma, located in the Hebron hills, massacred 80 to 100 of its residents, and threw their bodies into pits. "The children were killed by breaking their heads with sticks ... The remaining Arabs were then sealed in houses, as the village was systematically razed ..." (Nur Masalha, The Historical Roots of the Palestinian Refugee Question).

We read further. According to Yitzhak Rabin's biography:

We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Alon repeated his question: "What is to be done with the population?" BG waved his hand in a gesture, which said: Drive them out! ... I agreed that it was essential to drive the inhabitants out.

Continuing the narrative, Ben-Gurion University historian Benny Morris writes in "Operation Dani and the Palestinian Exodus from Lydda and Ramle in 1948", Middle East Journal, 40

At 13.30 hours on 12 July [1948]... Lieutenant-Colonel Yitzhak Rabin, operation Dani head Operation, issued the following order: '1. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age. They should be directed to Beit Nabala,... Implement Immediately.' A similar order was issued at the same time to the Kiryati Brigade concerning the inhabitants of the neighboring town of Ramle, occupied by Kiryati troops that morning... On 12 and 13 July, the Yaftah brigades carried out their orders, expelling the 50-60,000 remaining inhabitants of and refugees camped in and around the two towns....

About noon on 13 July, Operation Dani HQ informed IDF General Staff/Operations: 'Lydda police fort has been captured. [The troops] are busy expelling the inhabitants.... Lydda's inhabitants were forced to walk eastward to the Arab legion lines; many of Ramle's inhabitants were ferried in trucks or buses. Clogging the roads... the tens of thousands of refugees marched, gradually shedding their worldly goods along the way. It was a hot summer day. The Arab chroniclers, such as Sheikh Muhammed Nimr al Khatib, claimed that hundreds of children died in the march, from dehydration and disease. One Israeli witness described the spoor: the refugee column 'to begin with [jettisoned] utensils and furniture and, in the end, bodies of men, women, and children.

There were many other such villages with Arabic names that have almost been expunged from memory--but not quite. These facts have always been known to some historians, however they have been consistently denied by the official Israeli histories, as, indeed, Israel has never taken any responsibility for the exodus of Palestinians from the land of the present state of Israel.

Within the last 10 to 20 years, however, there has been an exponential increase in historical studies of the origins of the state of Israel which have coincided with the release by Israel of many, but not all, of the historical and military archives. Ben-Gurion University historian Benny Morris, as well as others, have systematically mined these documents and found numerous instances of massacres, and, by the way, not one shred of evidence for the frequently repeated official Israeli lie that the Palestinians fled Palestine because the surrounding Arab states told them to.

In fact, according to UN estimates, which some say are conservative, 750,000 Palestinians fled the site of the present Jewish state in 1948. Those refugees and their descendents now number about 4.5 million and constitute the largest and longest standing refugee population in the world. Many live in squalid refugee camps distributed in the surrounding Arab states or in the West Bank or Gaza, many retain the titles to their land, recognized by the British before 1948 or the Ottomans before that , and many retain the keys to their front doors of their former homes in what is now Israel, whether or not those doors still exists.

The '67 War generated a second wave of about 300,000 refugees from the West Bank and Gaza who were either expelled through direct or psychological methods or fled the Israel aerial attacks on the territories which included the extensive use of napalm.

The reader is invited to read the Hagana's Plan D , which has been available in English since the 1960s and was a military strategy of 1948 that entailed the evacuation of the Palestinian population from the areas of a future Jewish state.

Those who invoke the suicide bombings against mostly Israeli civilians to infer the righteousness of the Israeli cause live in a twilight of psychic denial of an otherwise unambiguous historical record: the state of Israel was founded on terrorism and ethnic cleansing.

The suicide bombings inside Israel, the first of which only occurred in 1994, after 25 years of occupation, is only a side show. That is a symptom and long way from the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There will never be a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until Israel takes responsibility, under U.N. Resolution 194, calling for reparation of the Palestinian refugees, and recognizes the immense suffering it caused at that time. We need also to recognize the US is giving unqualified moral support to a state that is based on racial purity and one that is intrinsically expansionist.'

rebornFixer

Its worth noting that Israel is not a "racially pure" society by any real stretch of the imagination. 9.6% of Jews in Israel were born in Africa or Asia, and Arabs form another 20% of the population. Individuals who identify themselves as Muslim represent 16% of the population. 2-3% are Christians, many of these are of Arab decent. The annual growth rate of the Arab population in fact exceeds that of the Jews (2.6% vs. 1.7%), despite the crap laid out in the Koenig Memorandum. There are smaller groups native to the Levant and other nearby areas that make up another small but nevertheless noteworthy chunk of the population(Armenians, Circassians, Druze, and Samartians). Israel is in fact described as one of the most multicultural and multilingual societies in the world, largely as a result of immigration by Jews from numerous other states across the world. If Israel's policies are indeed driven by a desire for "racial purity", said purity is in practice one pretty fucked up weaksauce patchwork quilt not worthy of the name. I'd be inclined to look for other motives.

rebornFixer

Byrnzie wrote:

The Deir Yassin Massacre occurred before the Arab army's invaded in 1948. Who do you think was more concerned with facing extinction through genocide? The Palestinians, or the Zionists?

The easy answer is that both groups were facing such concerns, with the Israelis facing a threat from five mechanized national armies and the Palestinians facing the threat of Zionist extremists. How can you argue that the magnitude of one threat outstrips the other? How would you even quantify such a thing?

Byrnzie

rebornFixer wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

The Deir Yassin Massacre occurred before the Arab army's invaded in 1948. Who do you think was more concerned with facing extinction through genocide? The Palestinians, or the Zionists?

The easy answer is that both groups were facing such concerns, with the Israelis facing a threat from five mechanized national armies and the Palestinians facing the threat of Zionist extremists. How can you argue that the magnitude of one threat outstrips the other? How would you even quantify such a thing?

Just take a look at what happened in that war. Who was victorious? The Jewish army was already a formidable force. There was no fear of genocide amongst the Jews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab% ... sraeli_War
'On the eve of the war the number of Arab troops likely to be committed to the war was about 23,000 (10,000 Egyptians, 4,500 Jordanians, 3,000 Iraqis, 3,000 Syrians, 2,000 ALA volunteers, 1,000 Lebanese and some Saudi Arabians), in addition to the irregular Palestinians already present. The Yishuv had 35,000 troops of the Haganah, 3,000 of Stern and Irgun and a few thousand armed settlers.[60]'

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/is ... 48_war.htm
'Though the attack on Israel was a surprise one, Israel was surprisingly well equipped at a military level. The country had a navy and many in her army were experienced in combat as a result of World War Two. Israel had also bought three B-17 bombers in America on the black market. In July 1948, these were used to bomb the Egyptian capital, Cairo.'


The Arab armies were simply seeking to reclaim the land that had been alloted to the Palestinians by the British Mandate. They weren't seeking to annihilate the Jews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab% ... sraeli_War
Five of the seven countries of the Arab League at that time, namely Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, backed by Saudi Arabian and Yemenite contingents invaded[96] the territory of the former British Mandate of Palestine on the night of 14–15 May 1948. However, only the forces of Syria and Egypt invaded territory outside of the Arab section of the Partition Plan[97]. The official motives for their intervention were set out in a statement[98] of 15 May 1948 :

the only solution of the Palestine problem is the establishment of a unitary Palestinian State, in accordance with democratic principles, whereby its inhabitants will enjoy complete equality before the law, [and whereby] minorities will be assured of all the guarantees recognised in democratic constitutional countries ....

The main objection the Arab League had to the division of Palestine in UN Resolution 181 was that it did not respect the rights of its Arab inhabitants

in accordance with the provisions of the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Charter of the United Nations.
(...)
Security and order in Palestine have become disrupted. The Zionist aggression resulted in the exodus of more than a quarter of a million of its Arab inhabitants from their homes and in their taking refuge in the neighbouring Arab countries.

rebornFixer

Byrnzie wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab% ... sraeli_War
'On the eve of the war the number of Arab troops likely to be committed to the war was about 23,000 (10,000 Egyptians, 4,500 Jordanians, 3,000 Iraqis, 3,000 Syrians, 2,000 ALA volunteers, 1,000 Lebanese and some Saudi Arabians), in addition to the irregular Palestinians already present. The Yishuv had 35,000 troops of the Haganah, 3,000 of Stern and Irgun and a few thousand armed settlers.[60]'

The Haganah figure likely includes the total number of personnel available, combat and non-combat (e.g., logistics) troops, at least according to Wikipedia. The Isrealis forces had minimal armor and far fewer aircraft than the Arabs. Anyhow, I agree that use of the term genocide is highly debatable in this context ... Of course, the same is likely to be true of terrorism carried out by Irgun irregulars, who realistically had NO chance of coming anywhere close to wiping out the Palestinian population in the area at the time (which included a huge figure of 711,000 displaced from Israel, nevermind those that stayed). Saying that Irgun and related groups were commiting atrocities at a rate anywhere near genocide is not that different from arguing that the Isrealis faced genocide at the hands of the Arab coalition.

rebornFixer

This position (that the Arab leaders were largely responsible for the Palestinian exodus) is not above criticism, but it is worth some consideration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_ ... xplanation

---

Claims by Arab sources that support that the flight was instigated by Arab leaders
Former Prime Minister of Syria Khalid al-Azm recalled in his memoirs, "We brought disaster upon one million Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave their land, their homes, their work and their industry."[139] Abu Iyad made similar observations in his own memoirs.[140]

After the war, a few Arab leaders tried to present the Palestinian exodus as a victory by claiming to have planned it. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Said was later quoted as saying: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."[141]

Contemporary Jordanian politician Anwar Nusseibeh believed that the fault for the exodus and military loss was with the Arab commanders: "the commanders of the local army thought in terms of the revolt against the British in the 1930s. The rebels had often retreated to the mountains .... But the Jews were fighting for complete domination, so the fighters had erred in withdrawing from the villages instead of defending them […]."[142]

The Arab National Committee of Haifa, the Arab leadership in Haifa in 1948, wrote and delivered a report on the flight of roughly 60,000 Arabs from Haifa. The report said, "[T]he removal of the Arab inhabitants from the town was voluntary and carried out at our request."[143]

"Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring, brotherly states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down," wrote Habab Issa of Al-Hoda, the leading newspaper for Lebanese Maronites in the United States.[144] A Muslim weekly newspaper in Beirut similarly reported, "Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders […]? The Arab States [sp], and Lebanon amongst them, did it!"[145]

Mahmoud Abbas, at the time Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, would later recall: "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live."[146]

Jamal Husseini, the brother of Palestinian military and religious leader Hajj Amin Husseini, wrote to the Syrian UN representative, "The regular [Arab] aremies did not enable the [Arab] inhabitants of [Palestine] to defend themselves, but merely facilitated their escape from Palestine."[147] Palestinian military leader Emile Ghoury expressed similar views. Furthermore, Palestinian Arab protesters in the West Bank took to the streets on the occasion of "the first anniversary of Israel's establishment" to place blame on "the Arab states for the creation of the refugee problem."[148]

yosi

Commy wrote:

yosi wrote:

the larger issue being the continued Palestinian rejection of Israel's very existence.

the reverse of this statement is also true

I agree entirely that Israel must accept the right of the Palestinians to a state of their own. They are much further along this road than the Palestinians are. Even the Israeli right wing, such as Netanyahu, has publicly endorsed the two-state solution. Hamas, however, still talks about Israel's destruction, and Fatah, though more moderate, still refuses to publicly accept Israel's legitimate existence.