I don't think the complete removal of Israel is realistic. You can stop the land development, but a removal of a state thats been there for 60 years isn't going to happen.
Sounds like you're apart of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Fan Club; any better then Ten Club when it comes to getting tickets?
I never said I wished for the complete removal of Israel. Why are you pretending that I did?
I don't think the complete removal of Israel is realistic. You can stop the land development, but a removal of a state thats been there for 60 years isn't going to happen.
Sounds like you're apart of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Fan Club; any better then Ten Club when it comes to getting tickets?
I never said I wished for the complete removal of Israel. Why are you pretending that I did?
i bet if you did a search for your username and '1967 borders' you'd find an awful lot of posts
or is it '67?
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
To clarify, I'm not saying that you are an anti-semite. .....
.....I am sayingthat perhaps you attack/criticize Israel because you are an anti-semite.
Now, that IS funny!
I guess now we understand how these discussions never go anywhere!
Oh, give me a break. Anyone who can read and think for themselves can see that yosi is not primary reason that these threads go nowhere. I'll ask that you at least attempt to keep this discussion honest.
Oh, give me a break. Anyone who can read and think for themselves can see that yosi is not primary reason that these threads go nowhere. I'll ask that you at least attempt to keep this discussion honest.
+1
I might sometimes stick my head in one of these threads, but for the most part I gave up trying to have a reasoned discussion re: anything Israel on these threads long ago. I get the feeling a lot of people did.
I don't think the complete removal of Israel is realistic. You can stop the land development, but a removal of a state thats been there for 60 years isn't going to happen.
Sounds like you're apart of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Fan Club; any better then Ten Club when it comes to getting tickets?
I never said I wished for the complete removal of Israel. Why are you pretending that I did?
well, it's one way to take the focus away from what we were discussing....
and clearly he fails because you don't need a ticket for anything. you're ninja byrnzie,
Perhaps means maybe, as in "perhaps pepe is an anti-semite." Don't know the guy, don't want to know the guy, have no idea for certain if he's a bigot, just saying that I wouldn't be surprised given the way he talks on this thread. And being called an anti-semite isn't necessarily so bad. Back in the day most people could have been said to have been casually anti-semitic or casually racist. They weren't members of the KKK, they just weren't self-aware and enlightened enough to realize the implications of their unconscious assumptions.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Perhaps means maybe, as in "perhaps pepe is an anti-semite." Don't know the guy, don't want to know the guy, have no idea for certain if he's a bigot, just saying that I wouldn't be surprised given the way he talks on this thread. And being called an anti-semite isn't necessarily so bad. Back in the day most people could have been said to have been casually anti-semitic or casually racist. They weren't members of the KKK, they just weren't self-aware and enlightened enough to realize the implications of their unconscious assumptions.
Perhaps means maybe, as in "perhaps pepe is an anti-semite." Don't know the guy, don't want to know the guy, have no idea for certain if he's a bigot, just saying that I wouldn't be surprised given the way he talks on this thread. And being called an anti-semite isn't necessarily so bad. Back in the day most people could have been said to have been casually anti-semitic or casually racist. They weren't members of the KKK, they just weren't self-aware and enlightened enough to realize the implications of their unconscious assumptions.
Perhaps means maybe, as in "perhaps pepe is an anti-semite." Don't know the guy, don't want to know the guy, have no idea for certain if he's a bigot, just saying that I wouldn't be surprised given the way he talks on this thread. And being called an anti-semite isn't necessarily so bad. Back in the day most people could have been said to have been casually anti-semitic or casually racist. They weren't members of the KKK, they just weren't self-aware and enlightened enough to realize the implications of their unconscious assumptions.
*Yawn*
Way to be respectful
maybe he should've just called him a hysterical, paranoid racist, eh?
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
I am a Zionist. I do not believe that Jews are exceptional, and I don't even really believe in God, so I certainly don't believe that Jews have a God-given right to the land of Israel....I am a Zionist because I believe that Jews have the same right as all other peoples to self-determination in our homeland.
Notice any contradiction here? Yosi doesn't believe that Jews are Exceptional, and that 'they have a God-given right to the land of Israel', and yet he does believe that they have a right of 'self-determination in our homeland.'
What homeland is that Yosi? Would that happen to be the homeland promised to the Jews by God? Or are you referring to another homeland here? As for the right of all other peoples to self-determination in their homeland, this isn't what the Zionists seek.
http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann10142009.html '...For the homeland to *belong* to the Jews is for them to have *sovereignty* there. Thus Article 7(a) of Israel's Basic Law stipulates that "A candidates' list shall not participate in the elections to the Knesset if its objects or actions, expressly or by implication, include... negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people." The Jewish people, in other words, are sovereign, and hold the power of life and death over all non-Jewish inhabitants under state control. Lest this seem overdramatic, note how the Israeli ministry of justice commented on a court case in March 2009: "The State of Israel is at war with the Palestinian people, people against people, collective against collective."(***)
So a miracle appears among us. The very ideology of homelands and peoples under whose auspices the Jews were all but exterminated has become the sustaining ideology of Israel, a state devoted to Jewish ethnic sovereignty. This is why we always hear that Israel - not Israelis - has a right to exist. What matters are not the citizens of a state, but the state itself, the totemic icon of 'the Jewish people'. The fatal confusion that legitimized ethnic nationalism at the Paris Peace Conference now legitimizes Israel itself. When Zionists suggest that the French and Germans have a right to their states, they conveniently forget that this means the *inhabitants* of France and Germany, not those of some French or German *ancestry*, not a 'people' in the sense of an ethnic group. (The world was outraged when it suspected that Britain's 'patrial' immigration laws were designed to favor those of ethnically British ancestry.) But 'the Jewish people' have a right to their state, and this is supposed to be some lofty ideal. Why? Because ethnic nationalism has taken on the cloak of civic nationalism, and we are too stupid to notice...'
Read on...(and pay attention to the part about self-righteousness. I think it may strike a chord)
ZIONISM UNMASKED: A fairy tale that's become a terrifying nightmare
By Alan Hart • Feb 13th, 2010
Most Jews of the world (and probably many Gentiles) believe that Zionism is the return of Jews to the land promised to them by God. At the risk of offending some readers of all faiths for saying so, I must confess, and do so cheerfully, that I don't buy this concept because the Gentile me does not believe in the God of organized, institutional religions. So, I say to myself, no God, no promise to Jews (or anybody else). In my perception of the scheme of things, God is the potential for good inside each and every one of us. God so defined is a prisoner within each of us and our prime task is to liberate this prisoner. But let's put that to one side.
The Jews who "returned" in answer to Zionism's call had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews. They were converts to Judaism long after the end of the Hebrew conquest and short-lived domination of much of Canaan, the name as in the Bible by which Palestine was first known to the world. They therefore had no legitimate claim on the land.
The Jews who did have a legitimate claim, probably not more than about 10,000 at the time of Zionism's first dishonest mission statement in 1897, were the direct descendants of the Israelites who stayed in place on the land through time. They regarded themselves as Palestinians, and they were fiercely opposed to Zionism's colonial enterprise because they feared it would make them as well as the incoming alien Jews enemies of the Palestinian Arabs.
Also true is that prior to the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, most Jews of the world were not at all interested in Zionism's colonial enterprise and many were opposed to it. The most informed and thoughtful of those who did express their opposition believed that Zionism was morally wrong. They also feared that Zionism's colonial enterprise would lead to unending conflict. But most of all they feared that Zionism, if it was allowed by the major powers to have its way, would one day provoke anti-Semitism. Which is precisely what is happening today. (Hence the title of my book, ZIONISM: THE REAL ENEMY OF THE JEWS).
In reality it is how the Zionists created their state – a Zionist not a Jewish state – that best defines what Zionism actually is.
Israel was created, mainly, by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing – a pre-planned process that saw three-quarters of the indigenous Arab inhabitants of Palestine dispossessed of their homes, their land and their rights.
Zionism asserts that its state was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. That is propaganda nonsense. The truth can be summarized as follows.
* In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.
* By the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a recommendation – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.
* The General Assembly's recommendation never went to the Security Council for consideration because the U.S. knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.
* So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away, effectively surrendering to Zionist terrorism – was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favoured and proposed by the U.S. was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence – actually in defiance of the will of the organised international community, including the Truman administration.
The truth of the time was that the Zionist state had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist UNLESS … Unless it was recognised and legitimized by those Zionism had dispossessed of their land and their rights. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.
What is a Zionist today?
Short answer: One, not necessarily a Jew, who (to quote Balfour) supports the Zionist state of Israel "right or wrong" and who cannot or will not admit that a terrible wrong was done to the Palestinians by Zionism – a wrong that must be acknowledged and then corrected on terms acceptable to the Palestinians if there is ever to be peace and the countdown to catastrophe for all is to be stopped. The Arab word for the catastrophe of the original dispossession of the Palestinians is Nakba. In my view, Zionism's Nakba denial is as obscene and as evil as denial of the Nazi holocaust.
One thing nobody can deny is the effectiveness of Zionism's propaganda machine. Zionism's spin doctors probably learned from the Nazis that the bigger the lies and the more frequently they are told, the more likely it is that they will be believed in the mainly Gentile, Judeo-Christian or Western world; and all the more so when the mainstream media is terrified of offending Zionism either too much or at all.
The biggest of all of Zionism's propaganda lies is the one which asserts that Israel has lived in constant danger of annihilation, the "driving into the sea" of its Jews. As I document in detail in my book, Israel's existence has never, ever, been in danger from any combination of Arab force. Not in 1948. Not in 1967. And not even in 1973. Zionism's assertion to the contrary was the cover which allowed Israel to get away where it mattered most, in North America and Western Europe, with presenting its aggression (often state terrorism) as self-defense, and itself as the victim when actually it was, and is, the oppressor.
The companion propaganda lie is that Israel never had Arab partners for peace.
Zionism has two hallmarks.
One is self-righteousness of a most extraordinary kind. In 1986 this self-righteousness was described by Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former Director of Israeli Military Intelligence, as "the biggest real danger" to the Jewish state.
The other hallmark is a shocking and awesome arrogance of military and economic power and the influence the latter buys, most critically in the U.S. Congress where what passes for democracy is for sale to the highest bidders.
On the matter of truth as it relates to the making and sustaining of conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, I hope the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) is right: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." If that's true, Zionism not only can be defeated but will be.
* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs on http://www.alanhart.net and tweets on http://www.twitter.com/alanauthor
Homeland...as in historic. We've been through this. If you have questions go reread my previous posts.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/02/1 ... nightmare/ 'The Jews who "returned" in answer to Zionism's call had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews. They were converts to Judaism long after the end of the Hebrew conquest and short-lived domination of much of Canaan, the name as in the Bible by which Palestine was first known to the world. They therefore had no legitimate claim on the land.'
A disputed 2000 year old claim to the land has no validity in todays world.
Again, we've been over this. No reputable scholar "disputes" the historic Jewish connection to the land of Israel. It's like arguing that the sky isn't blue. You can argue that there are practical problems with the Zionist endeavor to return Jews to their homeland (I wouldn't disagree), but you can't deny that Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Again, we've been over this. No reputable scholar "disputes" the historic Jewish connection to the land of Israel.
Michael Neumann:
'In the case of a Jewish claim to Palestine, the claims are themselves dubious. Here it is not necessary to have decided on a truth, which may elude researchers forever. It is enough to show that there is serious controversy, and that is easily done. One account of recent findings can be found in 'The Bible Unearthed: Archeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the origin of It's sacred Texts'. It's authors are Israel Finkelstein, director of an archeological institute at Tel Aviv Uuniversity, and Neil Asher Silberman, director of a Belgian archeological institute and a contributing editor to 'Archeology' magazine. These writers display no political agenda and repeat to the point of saturation their admiration and respect for the Bible. Asher and Silberman introduce their work with the claim that:
"The historical sage contained in the Bible - from Abraham's encounter with God and his journey to Canaan, to Moses's delverance of the children of Israe from bondage, to the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah - was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of the human imagination."
This is the authors' exceedingly polite way of saying that the Biblical accounts are sometimes nonsense, sometimes deliberate lies, exaggerations, and distortions. The status of the Biblical Kingdom is particularly relevant to the Jewish claims to Palestine. One of Asher and Silberman's more devastating findings is that:
"The Biblical borders of the land of Israel as outlined in the book of Joshua had seemingly assumed a sacred inviolability...the Bible pictures a stormy but basically continuous Israelite occupation of the land of Israel all the way to the Assyrian conquest. But a reexamination of the archeological evidence...points to a period of a few decades [in which Israel existed], between around 835-800B.C.E..."
In other words, they find that the "Great" Jewish Kingdom existed in something like their fabled extent for a tiny fraction of the period traditionally alleged. Even then, their boundaries never came close to the "Greater Israel" of contemporary Jewish fundamentalism. The rest of the time. Judah and Israel are thought to have been, for the most part, very primitive entities, devoid of literate culture or substantial administrative structure, extending to only a small, landlocked part of what is now called Palestine. The great structures of the Biblical era are, all of them, attributed to Canaanite cultures. Moreover, the inhabitants of Biblical Israel and Judah seem to have, for most of the time and for the most part, practitioners of Canaanite religions rather than Judaism, or of various synthetic cults. These "Israelites" were not, that is, "Jewish" in one important sense of the term. The authors refer to the Biblical Kingdom at it existed as a "a multi-ethnic society." The idea that such a past could validate a Jewish historical claim to Palestine is simply ludicrous, even if it could be shown - which it cannot - that today's Jews are in some legal sense, heirs to the ancient Israelite Kingdoms.'
I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.
No, of course you aren't.
You believe in ethnic Nationalism and the right of the Jews to a homeland in Palestine based on a spurious 2000 year old Biblical reference. You believe the Jews have a right to a Jewish homeland at the expense of it's Arab inhabitants.
You're not an Israeli, you're an American. Why are you asking anybody else - including those of us on this message board - to buy into your religious-racist fantasy?
When have I ever argued that the claim of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is based on religion? I haven't. You are aware that Israel is literally strewn with archeological evidence of Jewish habitation there, and that Judaism (as a cultural legacy) is full of detailed references to the geography and natural environment of Israel (not something that Medieval Europeans living in Ghettos would have known much about), and that the historical record is clear about the roots of Judaism in Israel. 2000 years is a long time, granted, but the Jewish people didn't choose to leave their homeland, they were forced out (by the Romans, who left a record of the event). I really don't understand what you're trying to argue. This is really a perfectly clear historical fact. Israel IS the historical homeland of the Jewish people.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
When have I ever argued that the claim of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is based on religion? I haven't. You are aware that Israel is literally strewn with archeological evidence of Jewish habitation there, and that Judaism (as a cultural legacy) is full of detailed references to the geography and natural environment of Israel (not something that Medieval Europeans living in Ghettos would have known much about), and that the historical record is clear about the roots of Judaism in Israel. 2000 years is a long time, granted, but the Jewish people didn't choose to leave their homeland, they were forced out (by the Romans, who left a record of the event). I really don't understand what you're trying to argue. This is really a perfectly clear historical fact. Israel IS the historical homeland of the Jewish people.
Not according to some historians it isn't. Either way, this spurious 2000 year old Biblical claim gives you no right to ethnically cleanse the present inhabitants of that land.
Why won't you answer my question above? I asked if you believe that the Nazis had a rightful claim to all of Europe based on some bad history which claims that all of Europe was the historical homeland of the Aryan people. It should be pretty easy for you to give me an answer.
First, you know how I'd answer, and second I'm not going to answer because your implicit comparison is vile and insulting.
Your accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being Anti-Semitic is vile and insulting. (Or am I only saying this because I hold you to a higher standard than everyone else? :? )
I haven't accused everyone who disagrees with me of being an antisemite, as is clear from the multiple times I have explicitly said as much. And I have not made accusations of antisemitism BECAUSE anyone disagreed with me. I have made these accusations (and really I've tried to be clear that they are more suspicions than accusations) because I believe them to be (possibly) true.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
I haven't accused everyone who disagrees with me of being an antisemite, as is clear from the multiple times I have explicitly said as much. And I have not made accusations of antisemitism BECAUSE anyone disagreed with me. I have made these accusations (and really I've tried to be clear that they are more suspicions than accusations) because I believe them to be (possibly) true.
Is this another example of the 'nuance' that you love so much?
I haven't accused everyone who disagrees with me of being an antisemite, as is clear from the multiple times I have explicitly said as much. And I have not made accusations of antisemitism BECAUSE anyone disagreed with me. I have made these accusations (and really I've tried to be clear that they are more suspicions than accusations) because I believe them to be (possibly) true.
In the various threads, you more than 'strongly implied' that those who actually see Israel without blinkers are jew haters, anti-semite and bigots (veiled accusations: "I wouldn't be suprised if some on this thread are [antisemitic]"). Don't try to back track now. It seems that once you have been round and round (and round once again) with your arguments with nothing coming out of them, the 'hater' card comes out. Your accusations are disgusting.
Comments
Now, that IS funny!
I guess now we understand how these discussions never go anywhere!
I never said I wished for the complete removal of Israel. Why are you pretending that I did?
i bet if you did a search for your username and '1967 borders' you'd find an awful lot of posts
or is it '67?
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
Oh, give me a break. Anyone who can read and think for themselves can see that yosi is not primary reason that these threads go nowhere. I'll ask that you at least attempt to keep this discussion honest.
+1
I might sometimes stick my head in one of these threads, but for the most part I gave up trying to have a reasoned discussion re: anything Israel on these threads long ago. I get the feeling a lot of people did.
and clearly he fails because you don't need a ticket for anything. you're ninja byrnzie,
jeez. pay attention people.
*Yawn*
Way to be respectful
maybe he should've just called him a hysterical, paranoid racist, eh?
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
Notice any contradiction here? Yosi doesn't believe that Jews are Exceptional, and that 'they have a God-given right to the land of Israel', and yet he does believe that they have a right of 'self-determination in our homeland.'
What homeland is that Yosi? Would that happen to be the homeland promised to the Jews by God? Or are you referring to another homeland here? As for the right of all other peoples to self-determination in their homeland, this isn't what the Zionists seek.
http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann10142009.html
'...For the homeland to *belong* to the Jews is for them to have *sovereignty* there. Thus Article 7(a) of Israel's Basic Law stipulates that "A candidates' list shall not participate in the elections to the Knesset if its objects or actions, expressly or by implication, include... negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people." The Jewish people, in other words, are sovereign, and hold the power of life and death over all non-Jewish inhabitants under state control. Lest this seem overdramatic, note how the Israeli ministry of justice commented on a court case in March 2009: "The State of Israel is at war with the Palestinian people, people against people, collective against collective."(***)
So a miracle appears among us. The very ideology of homelands and peoples under whose auspices the Jews were all but exterminated has become the sustaining ideology of Israel, a state devoted to Jewish ethnic sovereignty. This is why we always hear that Israel - not Israelis - has a right to exist. What matters are not the citizens of a state, but the state itself, the totemic icon of 'the Jewish people'. The fatal confusion that legitimized ethnic nationalism at the Paris Peace Conference now legitimizes Israel itself. When Zionists suggest that the French and Germans have a right to their states, they conveniently forget that this means the *inhabitants* of France and Germany, not those of some French or German *ancestry*, not a 'people' in the sense of an ethnic group. (The world was outraged when it suspected that Britain's 'patrial' immigration laws were designed to favor those of ethnically British ancestry.) But 'the Jewish people' have a right to their state, and this is supposed to be some lofty ideal. Why? Because ethnic nationalism has taken on the cloak of civic nationalism, and we are too stupid to notice...'
Read on...(and pay attention to the part about self-righteousness. I think it may strike a chord)
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/02/1 ... nightmare/
ZIONISM UNMASKED: A fairy tale that's become a terrifying nightmare
By Alan Hart • Feb 13th, 2010
Most Jews of the world (and probably many Gentiles) believe that Zionism is the return of Jews to the land promised to them by God. At the risk of offending some readers of all faiths for saying so, I must confess, and do so cheerfully, that I don't buy this concept because the Gentile me does not believe in the God of organized, institutional religions. So, I say to myself, no God, no promise to Jews (or anybody else). In my perception of the scheme of things, God is the potential for good inside each and every one of us. God so defined is a prisoner within each of us and our prime task is to liberate this prisoner. But let's put that to one side.
The Jews who "returned" in answer to Zionism's call had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews. They were converts to Judaism long after the end of the Hebrew conquest and short-lived domination of much of Canaan, the name as in the Bible by which Palestine was first known to the world. They therefore had no legitimate claim on the land.
The Jews who did have a legitimate claim, probably not more than about 10,000 at the time of Zionism's first dishonest mission statement in 1897, were the direct descendants of the Israelites who stayed in place on the land through time. They regarded themselves as Palestinians, and they were fiercely opposed to Zionism's colonial enterprise because they feared it would make them as well as the incoming alien Jews enemies of the Palestinian Arabs.
Also true is that prior to the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, most Jews of the world were not at all interested in Zionism's colonial enterprise and many were opposed to it. The most informed and thoughtful of those who did express their opposition believed that Zionism was morally wrong. They also feared that Zionism's colonial enterprise would lead to unending conflict. But most of all they feared that Zionism, if it was allowed by the major powers to have its way, would one day provoke anti-Semitism. Which is precisely what is happening today. (Hence the title of my book, ZIONISM: THE REAL ENEMY OF THE JEWS).
In reality it is how the Zionists created their state – a Zionist not a Jewish state – that best defines what Zionism actually is.
Israel was created, mainly, by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing – a pre-planned process that saw three-quarters of the indigenous Arab inhabitants of Palestine dispossessed of their homes, their land and their rights.
Zionism asserts that its state was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. That is propaganda nonsense. The truth can be summarized as follows.
* In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.
* By the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a recommendation – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.
* The General Assembly's recommendation never went to the Security Council for consideration because the U.S. knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.
* So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away, effectively surrendering to Zionist terrorism – was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favoured and proposed by the U.S. was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence – actually in defiance of the will of the organised international community, including the Truman administration.
The truth of the time was that the Zionist state had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist UNLESS … Unless it was recognised and legitimized by those Zionism had dispossessed of their land and their rights. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.
What is a Zionist today?
Short answer: One, not necessarily a Jew, who (to quote Balfour) supports the Zionist state of Israel "right or wrong" and who cannot or will not admit that a terrible wrong was done to the Palestinians by Zionism – a wrong that must be acknowledged and then corrected on terms acceptable to the Palestinians if there is ever to be peace and the countdown to catastrophe for all is to be stopped. The Arab word for the catastrophe of the original dispossession of the Palestinians is Nakba. In my view, Zionism's Nakba denial is as obscene and as evil as denial of the Nazi holocaust.
One thing nobody can deny is the effectiveness of Zionism's propaganda machine. Zionism's spin doctors probably learned from the Nazis that the bigger the lies and the more frequently they are told, the more likely it is that they will be believed in the mainly Gentile, Judeo-Christian or Western world; and all the more so when the mainstream media is terrified of offending Zionism either too much or at all.
The biggest of all of Zionism's propaganda lies is the one which asserts that Israel has lived in constant danger of annihilation, the "driving into the sea" of its Jews. As I document in detail in my book, Israel's existence has never, ever, been in danger from any combination of Arab force. Not in 1948. Not in 1967. And not even in 1973. Zionism's assertion to the contrary was the cover which allowed Israel to get away where it mattered most, in North America and Western Europe, with presenting its aggression (often state terrorism) as self-defense, and itself as the victim when actually it was, and is, the oppressor.
The companion propaganda lie is that Israel never had Arab partners for peace.
Zionism has two hallmarks.
One is self-righteousness of a most extraordinary kind. In 1986 this self-righteousness was described by Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former Director of Israeli Military Intelligence, as "the biggest real danger" to the Jewish state.
The other hallmark is a shocking and awesome arrogance of military and economic power and the influence the latter buys, most critically in the U.S. Congress where what passes for democracy is for sale to the highest bidders.
On the matter of truth as it relates to the making and sustaining of conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, I hope the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) is right: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." If that's true, Zionism not only can be defeated but will be.
* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs on http://www.alanhart.net and tweets on http://www.twitter.com/alanauthor
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/02/1 ... nightmare/
'The Jews who "returned" in answer to Zionism's call had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews. They were converts to Judaism long after the end of the Hebrew conquest and short-lived domination of much of Canaan, the name as in the Bible by which Palestine was first known to the world. They therefore had no legitimate claim on the land.'
A disputed 2000 year old claim to the land has no validity in todays world.
Michael Neumann:
'In the case of a Jewish claim to Palestine, the claims are themselves dubious. Here it is not necessary to have decided on a truth, which may elude researchers forever. It is enough to show that there is serious controversy, and that is easily done. One account of recent findings can be found in 'The Bible Unearthed: Archeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the origin of It's sacred Texts'. It's authors are Israel Finkelstein, director of an archeological institute at Tel Aviv Uuniversity, and Neil Asher Silberman, director of a Belgian archeological institute and a contributing editor to 'Archeology' magazine. These writers display no political agenda and repeat to the point of saturation their admiration and respect for the Bible. Asher and Silberman introduce their work with the claim that:
"The historical sage contained in the Bible - from Abraham's encounter with God and his journey to Canaan, to Moses's delverance of the children of Israe from bondage, to the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah - was not a miraculous revelation, but a brilliant product of the human imagination."
This is the authors' exceedingly polite way of saying that the Biblical accounts are sometimes nonsense, sometimes deliberate lies, exaggerations, and distortions. The status of the Biblical Kingdom is particularly relevant to the Jewish claims to Palestine. One of Asher and Silberman's more devastating findings is that:
"The Biblical borders of the land of Israel as outlined in the book of Joshua had seemingly assumed a sacred inviolability...the Bible pictures a stormy but basically continuous Israelite occupation of the land of Israel all the way to the Assyrian conquest. But a reexamination of the archeological evidence...points to a period of a few decades [in which Israel existed], between around 835-800B.C.E..."
In other words, they find that the "Great" Jewish Kingdom existed in something like their fabled extent for a tiny fraction of the period traditionally alleged. Even then, their boundaries never came close to the "Greater Israel" of contemporary Jewish fundamentalism. The rest of the time. Judah and Israel are thought to have been, for the most part, very primitive entities, devoid of literate culture or substantial administrative structure, extending to only a small, landlocked part of what is now called Palestine. The great structures of the Biblical era are, all of them, attributed to Canaanite cultures. Moreover, the inhabitants of Biblical Israel and Judah seem to have, for most of the time and for the most part, practitioners of Canaanite religions rather than Judaism, or of various synthetic cults. These "Israelites" were not, that is, "Jewish" in one important sense of the term. The authors refer to the Biblical Kingdom at it existed as a "a multi-ethnic society." The idea that such a past could validate a Jewish historical claim to Palestine is simply ludicrous, even if it could be shown - which it cannot - that today's Jews are in some legal sense, heirs to the ancient Israelite Kingdoms.'
Let me ask you a question: Do you think that Hitlers claim to all of Europe as the homeland of the Aryan people was right, or wrong?
No, of course you aren't.
You believe in ethnic Nationalism and the right of the Jews to a homeland in Palestine based on a spurious 2000 year old Biblical reference. You believe the Jews have a right to a Jewish homeland at the expense of it's Arab inhabitants.
You're not an Israeli, you're an American. Why are you asking anybody else - including those of us on this message board - to buy into your religious-racist fantasy?
Not according to some historians it isn't. Either way, this spurious 2000 year old Biblical claim gives you no right to ethnically cleanse the present inhabitants of that land.
Why won't you answer my question above? I asked if you believe that the Nazis had a rightful claim to all of Europe based on some bad history which claims that all of Europe was the historical homeland of the Aryan people. It should be pretty easy for you to give me an answer.
Your accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being Anti-Semitic is vile and insulting. (Or am I only saying this because I hold you to a higher standard than everyone else? :? )
Is this another example of the 'nuance' that you love so much?
It's actually not a word I have much use for, especially when applied to historical facts.
In the various threads, you more than 'strongly implied' that those who actually see Israel without blinkers are jew haters, anti-semite and bigots (veiled accusations: "I wouldn't be suprised if some on this thread are [antisemitic]"). Don't try to back track now. It seems that once you have been round and round (and round once again) with your arguments with nothing coming out of them, the 'hater' card comes out. Your accusations are disgusting.