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Lyn McKuen
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Lyn commented on the article |
1,3 Since Egypt, Syria and Jordan didn't attack Israel how can you prove they intended to? Prior to June 1967 Nasser made diplomatic moves to resolve the issues. In fact, the USSR had warned Egypt that Israel intended to attack, this was certainly a reason if not the prime reason Egypt moved any troops toward the border. Saber rattling, and more, was done by both sides - Israel had recently shot down some Syrian MIGs in Syrian airspace, at which the Arab states began making lots of verbal threats, signing defense pacts and Egypt announced the closure of its territorial water in the Strait of Tiran. Since Israel attacked Egypt, it seems pretty certain it intended to. In fact Israel had attacked Egypt before, in 1956. In hindsight Egypt was entirely justified in moving some of its troops toward the border as a self-defense measure.
2. I guess you haven't read the UN resolution that supposedly gave Israel land in 1947. It says that the "Jewish state" (actually both states) should respect the rights of the minorities. Allow them to live in their homes as equal citizens regardless of religious affiliation, and so forth. Maybe Israel figures that doesn't apply, because within the pre-1967 armistice line, non-Jewish Palestinians would have been a majority had Israel's founders not conducted an orchestrated campaign to get rid of them? But in fact, it calls for no discrimination on religious grounds. Of which clause, Israel is in flagrant violation, and has been since its inception. Totally legal? There's nothing in UN Resolution 181 that allowed Israel to conduct the ethnic cleansing campaign that the Zionists began conducting from the time the resolution was passed. The opposite, in fact. -
Lyn commented on the article |
I don't think the parallel with the Native Americans is at all ridiculous. Both Palestinians and Native Americans had their land taken by settler-colonists of European origin. There's a whole lot of other parallels too, for example, the American settlers and the Zionist settlers had/have this belief that the land was given to them by God, and held the utterly racist attitude that the "primitive" "savages" inhabiting the land were of no consequence, and must be "civilized." I've no doubt that the native Americans who defended their land from the invasion would today be called terrorists by the invaders.
Well, the Zionist idea was more along the lines of ethnic cleansing, accomplished with mass murder and terror when necessary. And they put more deliberation and planning into taking over the land, I think, than the US settler-colonists, who lived in a time when the dominant paradigm among them was unquestioned racist white/European supremism. While the European settlers rounded up the Native Americans and forced them to live in "reservations," largely unproductive land unwanted by whites, the 19th century equivalent of bantustans, it should be noted that today all of the other land is available to the Native Americans on an equal basis with whites. This is untrue of Israel.
But of course Abdullah is right, since before WWI the world consensus has moved towards international law and against racism. Following WWII anti-racist practices were codified in, for example in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and acquisition of territory by war is outlawed in the UN Charter, a treaty to which Israel is a signatory.
And last time I read a history book, Israel started the 1967 war... well I don't know if I should respond to so many ignorant statements, for example, there are Jewish citizens of Jordan, which never when it was in control outlawed Jews from worshipping in Jerusalem, only Israelis. As for who are the main victims of Israel's deliberate and premeditated ethnic cleansing, there really isn't any argument over the subject among respected historians. Eyewitness accounts from the victims and Israeli military archives are in fair agreement over the subject. Christian and Muslim Palestinians are the main victims of Israel's ethnic cleansing. I've no doubt that Israel preserved some Christian and Muslim "sites," and a small minority of the original inhabitants of Palestine can freely visit them, though it deliberately razed 400+ Christian and Muslim villages, desecrated numerous cemetaries and religious buildings and banned on penalty of death the majority of the indigenous people from living in or even visiting their former homes.
These just are facts, not arguments or propaganda.
As for the propagandist claim that being against Israel is being against self-determination for Jews, good grief that's so inventive. I'm sorry to inform you, self-determination is a right only native peoples of a place have. Today's Jews mostly are not indigenous to where Palestine/Israel is, that's a myth. -
Lyn commented on the article |
Christian and Muslim Palestinians are the main victims of Israel, so it makes entire sense for the Mufti suggest they unite in opposition to that state, in particular when speaking as a member of one of those groups to the leader of the main division of the other. As Abdullah says. I still think he should have called on people of all faiths to unite against Israel. The statement, as reported, is only out of place in a meeting to advance interfaith dialogue if one assumes that opposing Israel means opposing Jews or the Jewish faith. Perhaps believing in the state of Israel is a tenet of the Jewish identity or Jewish faith. I don't know but I do know a lot of anti-Zionist or anti-Israel Jews, so I would oppose that claim myself, on the other hand I've heard a lot of the usual pro-Israel crowd say it is.
Far be it for me to say what another person's faith should be. It's when they use that belief to justify murder and ethnic cleansing that I have a quarrel with it. You may think of fundamentalists as fanatic believers that biblical texts are the literal truth, but belief in other myths are also used to justify mass murder. Zionism isn't a fundamentalist creed, but murder and ethnic cleansing were required to fulfill its objectives, they were always part of the thought process, murder and ethnic cleansing continue to this date as policies and practices of the state of Israel. It may be true that today the vanguard of Zionism are the fundamentalist settlers and their Christian Zionist supporters, but that wasn't true in 1948, when it was the secular Zionists who were doing the mass murders.
The proposition that the that the mufti was opposing fundamentalism of only one type (Jewish) doesn't appear warranted from the statements he made, the implication of bad PR resulting from it is therefore rather specious. -
Lyn commented on the article |
"The first Arab news service I came across in a google search (appears to be Syrian) mentions the call for Christians and Muslims to unite
http://www.arabmonitor.info/news/dettaglio.php?idnews=27102&lang=en
So does the next one - I think it might be Hezbollah's?
http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=85241&language=en
imemc, which is one of the first in Palestinian news web sites, also mentions the call for Christians and Muslims to unite
http://www.imemc.org/article/60342
Don't think your logic follows, when you say "Whatever logic it is that would compel 'Muslims and Christians to unite against Israel' would surely be applicable to calls for 'Christians and Jews to unite against Palestinians.'" Israel is a state, Palestinians are a people. Jews are a people, the sheik didn't say unite against them, like you imply. Furthermore, Palestinians are the victims of Israel. The logic is for members of the two religions to unite against the main perpetrator of ethnic cleansing in the locale. You are saying the logic is the same as calling for members of two religions to unite against the victims of ethnic cleansing. Yeah, I think he should have added Jews, Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, followers of Native American religions and all people of good conscience should unite against Israel, not to discriminate. Much better than the pro-Israel calls for Israel and the US to unite against Palestinians. Or pro-Israel calls for Jews and fundamentalist Christians to unite against Muslims. You should suggest it to him. -
Lyn commented on the article |Traditionally, the Zionist "left" favored expulsion of Palestinians from what's now Israel just as much as the right. David Ben Gurion, who orchestrated the mass terror of 1948, started out in the "leftist" labor party, for example. Settlements in the occupied territories were supported by the labor and likud parties. The main Zionist left is and always has been quintissentially zionist, favoring racism, as much as the right.
There's nothing I can see to stop Israeli Jews from joining Arab parties, but I think they really would have to give up being zionists. Offering them an "equal partnership?" Since zionist ideology doesn't accord equal citizenship or rights to Palestinians, this is good, a step up. However well-meaning this Daniel Gavoron is (and I don't mean to disparage his proposal), zionists have too long a record of lies, whitewashes and coverups of mass murder and fake peace offers (with respect to Palestinians) for any believable offer of genuine partnership from them. -
Lyn commented on the article |
Yes, the comment I quoted previously, that immediately follows Hijab's statement:
'"The idea of one state cannot fly without a Palestinian wing and a Jewish wing."
This cannot be overestimated. One of the most significant problems within the Palestinian national movement is the sense that Israelis are only the enemy, the opposition to be overcome.'
I don't disagree with Hijab's statement whatsoever, exept maybe that I don't really see there needs to be sufficient separation between Jews and Palestinians to call them separate wings. -
Lyn commented on the article |
Well, here's an article on Bishara:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0103/p01s02-wome.html
Jewish leftists may be fairly safe from prosecution for speech, but Israeli Arab protesters of Israeli policy are fairly often arrested or shot. Israel has heavy censorship. Prior to the advent of the internet it was applied to political speech as well.
You're right, 'Jewish' and 'Israel' are conflated all the time. I'd dispute it that when West Bankers say 'the Jews,' it necessarily means all Jews everywhere. In context, it's 'the Jews' that they deal with, meaning the occupation forces who of course include settlers and all Israeli Jews. Islamic supporters of Palestinian resistance in this country make a clear distinction between Jews and Zionists. On the other hand, the conflation is deliberate on the part of zionists. I absolutely expect better out of peace advocates. -
Lyn commented on the article |
"The idea of one state cannot fly without a Palestinian wing and a Jewish wing."
Here you are in the next sentence, conflating Israel, the embodiment of zionism, with Jews and Judaism:
"This cannot be overestimated. One of the most significant problems within the Palestinian national movement is the sense that Israelis are only the enemy, the opposition to be overcome."
I admit I have no sympathy for zionist history, or Israel, the state.
Those zionists who admitted to the existance of Palestinians as native people with a legitimate national movement traditionally offered the narrative of the two national movements (zionism and Arab nationalism) as destined to conflict. "We and they want the same thing: We both want Palestine. And that is the fundamental conflict." - David Ben Gurion, 1936. Sometimes, they note the conflict as a great tragedy. It's also traditional for zionists to claim moral superiority because when they attack and kill innocent people they apologize and cry and weep over it.
Other zionists, of course, didn't and still don't admit Palestinians are the native people of land. In other words, zionism as an ideology excludes Palestinians.
To be fair to the Palestinian national movement, they never specificaly excluded Jews. It's true they regarded zionists who came from Europe as foreign settlers. In fact the zionists were foreign settlers, and furthermore came with the specific intent of excluding and expelling the native people.
That isn't to say that I don't fully approve of the one-stater's belief in working with Israeli Jews. The problem isn't the Israeli Jews who have rights to stay whether or not they settled in Palestine with racist intent, or were enticed there by false myths deliberately propagated by zionists. There is also the premise that being born in a country gives one rights to live there (a premise zionists and Israel never granted to Palestinians). The traditional Palestinian national movement perhaps didn't go far enough in accepting Jewish settlers, however every Israeli Jew I'm aware of who goes among Palestinians with the intent of furthering reconciliation, human rights and freedom speaks of the great welcome they recieve.
The real problem IMHO is the zionist ideology of exclusion deprivation of rights to anyone but Jews in the land. This zionism permeates the Israeli state. I believe it's still illegal in Israel to question the supremacy of Jewish political "rights" there. Azmi Bishara was prosecuted not to long ago for saying Israel should be a state for all its people. -
Lyn commented on the article |"But the Israeli case is different. It was born in 1948 in a neighborhood calling loudly for the infant nation to be strangled immediately."
Here you are, giving us the standard "Israel is (uniquely) being picked on" line. Similar to the "Jews are (uniquely) being picked on. Can't you get beyond it? Jews are not the only people to suffer from genocide.
As for the above statement, it is your perpective, but may I respectfully say that:
a) as an account of history, it's decidedly mushy and rather distorts the facts of the case
b) from the point of view of the people in whose land Israel was established, why would you ever expect them to approve of mass murder and expulsion of themselves from what was up to then their land? You keep repeating the Israeli wording, which (as I said) is a distortion and furthermore imputes evil motives to the Palestinians who defended their land in 1948 as well as the neighboring Arab states who failed in their attempted humanitarian intervention. Why is ethnic cleansing OK in your book?
c) from my perspective, Israel is unique in that it was the only nation founded in the modern era (since WWII and the foundation of the UN) on the basis of ethnic cleansing, mass murder and terrorism. Deliberate mass murder, terror and ethnic cleansing for that matter. While there have certainly been greater atrocities and ethnic cleansings committed by other nations, all other nations that came into being since WWII (probably even WWI) that I'm aware of are pretty much composed of mostly pre-existing people as their body of citizenship. Some kicking out of colonists in some cases, and there's a whole slew of governments that are horrible, but Israel is really the only state founded on deliberate, premeditated ethnic cleansing. This establishes a precedent, that ethnic cleansing and murder based on race is OK.
I admit I don't accept Israel's validity for the very reason that it was founded on ethnic cleansing, and I will accept it's validity when Israel agrees to rectify that ethnic cleansing in a way accepted without coercion by the victims, that is, the direct victims or their descendants. The atrocities recently committed in Gaza are just one of a series. -
Lyn commented on the article |There's an interesting book out by Zeev Moaz, "Defending the Holy Land." I've only read a review, but apparently it documents that most of the breaks in "truces" were broken by Israel, and in fact some targeted assassinations were specifically intended to escalate the conflict. In other words, Israeli violence was deliberately intended to provoke the Palestinians into violence against Israelis - which as we all know resulted in the deaths of many "innocent civilians."
Reading between the lines, the poll shows that your 34% believe in attacking Palestinians purely for racist reasons. What else can it be if these people are knowledgeable of the fact that that standard Israeli propaganda that it only kills people in self-defense was a lie, in the case of the attack on Gaza? The bottom line is, they want to crush the Palestinians to show Israel's superiority, because Hamas doesn't accede to Israel's "right" to have ethnically cleansed the non-Jews from what's now Israel. The other 41% are probably racists as well, but either more fooled by the propaganda or just less willing to admit it.
In fact, a truly unbiased person might notice that the difference between those we call civilized (typically, ourselves) and those we call uncivilized, savage, or irrational (typically a perjoritive for some other group), is not that we differ in any way in our human characteristics. Like you say. We all share love, laughter, loyalty to our people, the will to survive, we are all capable of anger and hate - irrational or not. The main difference I can observe between those called "civilized" and those called "savage" is the level of technology such as that used for killing people.
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