But unfortunately Yasser Arafat's accepting any peace offer wouldn't have played well to the home town crowd.

That extreme popularity of policies that are more or less 'cutting off your own nose to spite your face' is just unbelievable. But that's the reality on the ground.

Sad - but given that hope for peace in the Middle East is pretty forlorn.

Which makes the ultimate goal - just avoiding sparking a major world conflaguration.

"Hamas's success at instigating a full-blown war."

Yeah, Israel's occupation and militarism had nothing whatsoever to do with it. You should be more upfront about your bias, Kevin.

Why should he have had accepted it if Barak refused to confront the settlers?

David makes a good point but I think unfairly characterizes Kevin's argument. Kevin just commented on the public reaction to this incursion.

"How different would the world be if he had accepted Ehud Barak's peace offer six years ago and put his personal reputation behind making it work?"
Yep, Y2K-the beginning of the end, just not because of the lame ass "bad code" fears that everyone ran around in circles over while the real damage was done.

Kevin,

I have tremendous admiration for your blogging, but you're clearly not a Middle East expert, and you should at least do some homework before signing onto the canard that Arafat rejected a dream offer at Camp David. If you'd like, I can put together a reading list for you.

What other response could Israel have to the kidnapping of their soldiers?

"Negotiation" only provides positive reinforcement for such kidnappings.

(they did swap a deal several years ago and now they're having a spate of these....)

a forceful response also gives cover to Olmert for Gaza withdrawal as well as international cover for holding on to the largest West Bank settlements (if you look at a map you can see why holding on to these settlements is a strategic necessity)....

Kevin's right though on Arafat...he was the only one that had a chance at accepting a deal while still surviving with the home audience....

Al nails Hawk!

FREEDOM is on the MARCH!

All Hail George W!

"How different would the world be if he had accepted Ehud Barak's peace offer six years ago and put his personal reputation behind making it work?"

No different at all. Entrenched jihadis compete to control Palestinian society with the iron fist of murder and religious indoctrination, and benefit greatly from Israeli attacks that invariably kill civilians.

Entrenched right wing Israelis insist on controlling and populating all of "greater Israel" with Jews alone (and their "guest workers")- they are likewise enormously benfitted by Hamas and Hezbollah suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and kidnappings.

So the whole thing is quite symbiotic.

One more thing: Might Hezbollah's actions also be related to the other events in the region: the rise of Shia militarism in Iraq and the formulation of a state there friendly to Iran, aas well as Iran's general increasing strength and confidence. All consequences of Bush's policies. And to think there were people, like Joe Lieberman, that thought invading Iraq would make Israel more secure. Oh, those necons. No one's even been more wrong.

If Bill Clinton hadn't thrown chocolates and flowers at Hezbollah with his fantasies of "peace deals", this would never have happened.

If we move Israel to Montana, all these problems go away. Plus Montana gets a population greater than its electoral vote count, which is a bonus.

"How different would the world be if he had accepted Ehud Barak's peace offer six years ago and put his personal reputation behind making it work?"

Yeah, that "peace offer" that split the West Bank in to several noncontiguous cantons representing a loss of a third of Palestinian land was too good to pass up.

Kevin Drum on the Palestinians: "you'll get what you got coming to you. And you'll shut up and take it, bitch."

Perhaps part of the problem in the region is the response of some of the locals.

"I feel like Italy winning the World Cup" is hard to fathom. "I am worried Israel might bomb my house and kill my family" seems a little more prudent and somewhat more likely to garner sympathy from the rest of the world.

Perhaps it is my narrow western worldview that does not see provoking a much stronger military power into invading my country as a net plus to be celebrated with candy and fireworks.

Anthony Greco writes:

"you should at least do some homework before signing onto the canard that Arafat rejected a dream offer at Camp David. If you'd like, I can put together a reading list for you."

Anthony: Apparently Denis Ross, in his recent book, uses a map of the proposed state vastly different from the one I've seen, which clearly puts the lie to the notion that it would have been a sustainaible continguous autonomous state. Can you (or anyone) point me toward the difinitive map?

“There go my people and I must follow for I am their leader . . . ." Yasser Arafat did what his people wanted him to do just as the leaders of Israel do what their people want. Democracy can be schizophrenic and people without a clue will continue to see what they want to see.

Hisbollah is not just about terrorism, just as Israel isn't just about peaceful coexistence.

Cheers,

Alan Tomlinson

P.S. Lest I forget, fuck the US State Department for pretty much everything.

All I can say is thank God [or Allah or Yahweh or Demeter] this blog is finally addressing the Israel-Palestinian situation.

The early posts indicate that its a simple subject that should be cleared up in no time.

'As for Israel, I have no idea what they think their response is going to accomplish. They're retaliating in exactly the way that the most militant members of Hamas and Hezbollah were hoping for, and it's unlikely that there's any exit strategy for them that actually improves their internal security or their strategic position. We've been down this road a dozen times before, after all.'

The destruction of German and Japanese militarism required the decimation of much of their male population and the levelling of their major cities.

Victor Hanson is right. Negotiation gains nothing. To smash a warrior culture requires humiliating it on the field of battle and inflicting on it such pain that its will to fight is broken. There is no soft, nice, way to do this that will not upset Europeans and Episcopalians.

Look at Argentina. Hasn't the Argentine military behaved itself since the Falklands War ? Look at Greece. Since Turkey took northern Cyprus which humiliated and toppled the Greek colonels, hasn't the Greek military behaved itself ? Would Milosevic have fallen if the Serbs had won ?

Sorry, Kevin, but a culture of militarism cannot be toppled without battlefield defeat.

But Arafat can't answer for much these days since he's, like, dead...unless the toe-warming reference was a reference to hell, in which case...uh.

Hamas and Hezbollah:

Aren't elections in the Muslim world grand?

So nice to see democracy on the march ...

Isn't it, Condi?

Bob

"Victor Hanson is right."

No he's not. And whatever topic is under consideration is irrelevant.

CNN is reporting that Olmert is threatening to "...turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years". In other words, to the darkest days of the civil war. How does this differ from Bashar Assad's threat to Hariri, when Hariri refused to accept the gutting of Lebanon's constitution so that his puppet Lahoud could stay in power. Is there really that much difference between the thugs in Damascus and the thugs in Tel Aviv?

Kevin, I don't think Israel has much hope that their response is going to accomplish all that much strategically. Or even, just tactically, that it will get these soldiers back. I think they think of this as managing a chronic problem, not solving it. They can't prevent these things. The best they can do is make them less frequent.

Someone up-thread mentioned the possible relation to other things going on in the region. I'd throw Iran into the mix there, they're very close to Hezbollah.

For the first time in ages, I am disappointed. I have rarely, while reading this blog, had occasion to comment on Kevin's "journalistic objectivity" (dread phrase, let's talk europe and america some other time) but I must raise a flag about this opening statement: "Hamas's success at instigating a full-blown war with Israel has apparently inspired Hezbollah to try and start a full-blown war of its own with Israel...".

Is it not pregnant with assumption, and dismissive of oh-so-much fact?

The conclusion "[Israel is} retaliating in exactly the way that the most militant members of Hamas and Hezbollah were hoping for.." seems perfectly fair, but in the interim there's precious little (read- no) analysis of exactly how Israel has seriously screwed this whole thing up.

I have to ask: why is it the the even the Israeli press, which you would expect to be even more partisan, is actually so much better at analysing this stuff? http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=733427

Is getting elected the same thing as starting a full blown blown war? Will someone tell me what the will of the people really means these days, and does it matter?

Charles Warren:

You can militarily defeat armies and beligerent nations (the Treaty of Versallies, which forced a premature armistice, was probably a mistake in the bigger picture for that reason).

You can't militarily defeat terrorism.

You *can*, however, create more of it with a heavy-handed military response.

Unless, of course, practicing genocide and/or ethnic cleansing fits into your Western moral code.

Bob

The Israeli people have been under assualt by the Palestinians for decades. They have been amazingly restrained in their attempts at self-defense. The conflict prospers because the Palestinians are unable to exeterminate the Jews, and because the Jews are merely unwilling to exterminate the Palestinians. That alone should tell you who's in the right.

Build a security fence. Cut 'Palestine' off. Watch the beast starve. When they're ready to give up terrorism, negotiation can begin again. Europe isn't helping, by propping up the Palestinian regime with food and financial aid....

Charles Warren, what the fuck are you talking about?
Try to focus would you.

This is a complicated subject,
maybe just sit & watch for a while.

No one could have expected this.

Hawk:

"The Beast."

You're so right.

If only we had the moral code of Hitler, it would be *so much easier* for everybody.

Bob

Tony A.:

I don't ever recollect Hezbollah attacking Syria. Do you?

"As for Israel, I have no idea what they think their response is going to accomplish."

They're probably hoping they can kill/capture/incapacitate a bunch of terrorists. "Most militant members of Hamas and Hizbollah" might change their mind about their prefered method of Isreali retaliation after they get Zarqawified.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. The point is that -- with both sides entrenched in their absurdly destuctive positions -- Israel has essentially declared that its individual soldiers are so sacred that every action against them will invoke an utterly hysterical response. Who does that help, exactly?

Moshe Dayan must be rolling in his grave.

Hezbollah's cross-border strike and abduction of two Israeli soldiers is playing well with the hometown crowd

Can I be the first to say, so fucking what? A 10th rate army captures a couple soldiers from a fourth rate army and the natives feel good about sticking it to the man.

Israel invades Gaza over one soldier. reasonable. Israel invades lebanon over two soldiers. reasonable. Israel elects the guy responsible for the death of 14,000 civilians in Lebanon, multiple times. reasonable. Israel builds a very measured and reasonable wall on disputed territory.

So sad they don't have a partner for peace.

Second opinion here

I suppose the liberals on this board would have whined in 1943 that 'bombing will only create more fascists and militarists'.

Nonsense. The Palestinians have been a consistently destabilizing force because of their refusal to accept the reality of their defeat. They have clung to a make believe culture of permanent war and glorious 'martyrdom' because the human and material cost was light for them. Why should they be protected from the consequences of their choice ? If they want permanent war and rejectionism why should they not suffer ?

The only consequence of small Israeli retaliations has been to perpetuate this culture. To bring peace to the region the Palestinians must be smashed without mercy, as the Germans and Japanese were, until their will to fight is completely broken, until Kalashnikov rejectionism is crushed. As in the case of the Axis powers the result wasn't simply the military defeat of Germany and Japan. It was the destruction of the militaristic, authoritarian far right as a major political force in both countries. It was the end of those countries histories as military bullies. And there is no reason why cultural change on that magnitude can't be done here.

Or alternatively, Charles Warren, you could look at the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, where crushing military defeats of Arab armies, the invasion and occupation of Gaza, West Bank, and Southern Lebanon, and aggressive security measures led to peace.

Oh wait, I'm sorry, those policies led to unceasing guerilla warfare. My bad.

Allow me to be blunt. You chose to ignore the relevant history of the conflict in order to draw an equivalence between a South American military junta that overplayed its hand... and a bunch of refugees from an utterly intractable land dispute fueled by religious and historical biases. Plus, you're citing a totalizing philosophy about international relations espoused by Victor Davis Hanson, a man who has spent the past 5 years proving that he knows less about the Arab world than the average American high schooler, and knows less about human nature than the average beagle.

Sweet Jesus, you're an idiot.

Awww c'mon Al, you're just not even trying anymore.

...but a culture of militarism cannot be toppled without battlefield defeat.

Posted by: Charles Warren on July 12, 2006 at 12:11 PM | PERMALINK

So you are suggesting that Israel needs to be defeated, humiliated?

Olmert is reacting to his populace as much as Arafat ever did with his. Olmert has to show himself to be "strong", militarily capable. Of course, longer term this won't help.

The deal for the Palestinians was not one that Arafat could acccept, and the Israelis have always undercut, and will continue to undercut any political cohesion among the Palestinians. It suits them. Not to mention illegal actions under international law as an occupying power.

Until the US is willing to crack both sides heads together along or close to the 1967 lines there will be no settlement. And the aim has to be a functional Palestinian state; again, something Israel stymies at every turn.

This president has taken being the pawn of Israeli policy to new heights.

Well done Kevin. This is not a full-blown war by any stretch of the imagination, but you had to wait for an escalation to the Lebanon border and 2 more soldiers kidnapped/captured before commenting at all. Nothing like recognizing that what happens here matters.

Charles Warren, you're a moron. If they've been defeated, why are we still having all these "Wars" over there.

Are you trying to have it both ways? If they've been defeated, by your logic, there should be no more battles or are you saying they should stop fighting since they've been defeated?

It was said of Arfat that he never missed a chance to miss a chance. That's obviously true for every single side in that damn misery hole.

Charles Warren:

You know what *my* ideal solution is here?

Genocide every human being on the planet who derives his or her morality from the Old Testament.

Including you.

Life would be so much *simpler* that way.

Bob

Anybody seen that roadmap to peace, anywhere??

Is there any area of foreign policy this moronic Administration hasn’t totally failed in??? George W. Bush has to be the biggest failure in the history of this planet…

May I be the first to propose that all pompous idiots hoping for macho kudos by using the word "liberal" as an insult are probably minor league weenies who likely live with mother and would run like hell if the boogeyman (bugis-man) said "boo!" ?

Charles Warren wrote: ... the Palestinians must be smashed without mercy ...

Well, you've got to hand it to Charles Warren. At least he doesn't pussyfoot around; he comes right out and demands the Final Solution to the "Palestinian problem": mass extermination.

The only intelligent comment I've ever heard Tom Friendman make, and the only intelligent comment ever made on Palestine-Israel occurred several years ago. When asked whether the "Road Map" would bring peace to the Middle East, Friedman responded "Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo," to the tune of Twilight Zone.

Charles Warren:

Sorry for the acid sardonicism -- but this kind of crap from armchair historians really tries my patience.

Nazi ideology is in no way comparable to militant jihad -- not historically, not politically, not religiously, not culturally.

Get that idiot, grotesquely facile analogy out of your head.

Bob

Until the US is willing to crack both sides heads together along or close to the 1967 lines there will be no settlement.

I would only add that we are currently dealing with three sides now that Fatah and Hamas are duking it out for control. The fact that our policy is to sit by and let this happen, is a real tragedy.

Hamas's success at instigating a full-blown war with Israel in Gaza

Mr. Drum, you are wrong. Israel started this new war. That family on the beach blown to bits by an American gifted naval shell fired by Israel led to the retaliation that Israel then escalated to full blown invasion. If the US or any other powerful actor in the world treated Israel the way Israel treats Palestine, there would be a cry of anti-semitism loud enough to reach Pluto. And those crying about the inhumanity would be correct. The inhumanity of Israel's treatment of Palestinians is just as dire. I am amazed you think Hamas instigated this new conflict.

My understanding of the new conflict is that Hamas was about to recognize Israel's right to exist, which would lead to a Palestinian state led by independent actors, and since Hamas is too independent of a political force, their leadership of a new Palestine is unacceptable to the rulers of the Middle East.

The recent Gaza invasion with US gifted military hardware only now makes it into a 'liberal' blog, and then only to accuse Hamas of instigating the conflict. Gilliard has not brought it up, nor Firedoglake, nor Crooks and Liars. Is there a liberal blog blackout of discussion on Israel's new militancy?

enozinho:

That's a big 10-4, good buddy.

What a black fucking eye for democracy-promotion.

Bob

'As for Israel, I have no idea what they think their response is going to accomplish.'

Sharon could make piece because it was a Nixon going to China thing. If Olmert (is that his name?) wants to make peace, he's going to have to kick some a** first.

It's simply politics.

And while I hate the Bull Moose, he right that if the democrats would just put up hawks we'd win all the damn time. Unfortunately, it would make things worse for the US, not better.

It is refreshing, I suppose, that the Palestinians have laid bare their intentions.

After years of propaganda spin about how the Palestinian Arabs were fighting the "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza, and after years of pressure from well-meaning pacifists/leftists urging Israel to give up land for a separate Palestinian State in exchange for peace, it is now quite clear that the Palestinian Arabs will not ever live in peace with the State of Israel. How else to explain the war launched by Hamas after Israel completely evacuated Gaza and announced its intentions to do the same to the West Bank? Gaza was free of Jews, an Arab delight to be sure, under the complete control of the Palestinian Arabs, with a open border with Egypt over which Israel had no control, and what does Hamas do? It fires hundreds of rockets over the border into Israel and then sends troops over the border to kill and capture Israeli soldiers. Now, Hezbollah (on orders from its masters in Iran and Syria) is doing the same thing across the border in Northern Israel, several years after Israel completely evacuated its troops from Southern Lebananon. What's their grievance there?

What do the Palestinians want? It's hard to say whether they want to kill all the Jews or just send them back to Morocco, Algeria, Iran, Egypt, Yemen, Poland, Russia or whatever other countries their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents or great-great grandparents fled from, but one thing is absolutely clear beyond the shadow of a doubt: The Palestinian Arabs do not want to live in peace with the State of Israel.

It is also clear that much blame for the current war must be laid at the feet of all the pacifists/leftists who over the years have encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to hold tight to their revanchist dreams.

Whoever these people are, they prove my point about Israel living in a perpetual state of hysteria -- and Americans now know how easy it is to be manipulated through emotions. The arguments from CW and others above are essentially emotional and, like the Israeli army's responses, are much like the proverbial elephant jumping on a chair when it sees a mouse.

Kevin was describing actions, not causes. But there will always be people who give you a whole history of WWII every time the name Israel comes up. All that matters in this situation is that every policy has failed over there, and that usually means (unless you are George W. Bush, of course) that you are doing something very, very wrong. Oh, look: a mouse!

yes, there is a man named olmert involved in this very complex situation. and welcome to the show. what planet did you say you were from? peace. or do i mean piece?

DBL:

As opposed to the Biblically-driven revanchist dreams of Greater Israel.

This is only what happens when you create a colonial enterprise at the dawn of the post-colonial age.

Bob

Yasser Arafat, wherever he might be warming his toes at the moment, has much to answer for. How different would the world be if he had accepted Ehud Barak's peace offer six years ago and put his personal reputation behind making it work?

The world would be about the same.

Yasser Arafat, however, would have left it sooner.

And the administration response is to stand by.

Seven years with no Intifada under Clinton wasn't an accident of fate. Clinton's hard work and struggle at least allowed us to tread water.

It would be easy to imagine this escalating further. Israel assasinates Hamas religious figures in Damascus, resort towns in Sinai have more terror attacks.

"What do the Palestinians want?"

Life? Liberty? Perhaps even a shot at the pursuit of happiness?

Hard to do with no electricity.

Conversations with right-wing war nuts, take 5001.

Exhibit A. Bad World War 2 Analogies
* "As in the case of the Axis powers the result wasn't simply the military defeat of Germany and Japan. It was the destruction of the militaristic, authoritarian far right as a major political force in both countries..."

Germany - A modern, industrial, mostly Christian nation with political diversity. When the far-right is discredited, the left and the center right step up to take their place.

Japan - A modern, industrial nation which had already embraced capitalism. When the emperor renounces his divinity and tells people to stop fighting and accept the US occupation, the corporate bosses are ready to move the country in a new direction.

Palestinians - Refugees and victims, overwhelming Muslim, most of whom believe (Not entirely without cause) that their best land, capital city, and holy shrines have been stolen from them, and many of whom believe that sacrificing their lives for a lost cause will bring them eternal rewards. When Arafat's minions are defeated and discredited, who takes their place? Who? Please tell me.

Exhibit B. A totalizing, unfalsifiable ideology impervious to empirical fact.
* "...And there is no reason why cultural change on that magnitude can't be done here."

No possible reason? None? Just the same certainty with which the Romans destroyed Christianity with their resolve and brutality? Just like the Soviets wiped out the Afghan resistance? No possible reason is occurring to you?

You think maybe a cult of martyrdom in a land that has nothing to lose operates by different rules than a political ideology in a nation where people are accustomed to prosperity? Just maybe?

Hostile:

you mean that Palestinian landmine that killed that family on the beach?

stick to domestic policy kevin... this post is dissapointing.

Bob,

I'm afraid you might not have read any newspapers for the past few years. Israel evacuated Gaza and Prime Minister Olmert announced his intention to do the same for the West Bank. Now the West Bank includes the heart of ancient Israel, so it's a little difficult for me to see how evacuating it would square with a Greater Israel policy, which I've always understood to mean expanding Israel's borders to include all the land that was encompassed by ancient Israel.

In any event, had the Arabs not attacked Israel in 1948, Israel would today be a much smaller state, and had the Arabs not brought on the 1967 war, Jordan would still have the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Egypt would still have Gaza. I'm at a loss as to how you can blame Israel for fighting back, unless, as is apparently the case, you think that Israel should just commit national suicide and cease to exist.

That was my point above, and I thank you for confirming it.

ARGGGGGH!

Repeat after me...

Try TO
Try TO
Try TO

not

Try AND

That is all.

How different would the world be if he had accepted Ehud Barak's peace offer six years ago

No different, because the Palestinians would have lynched him.

Look, as I remember it, that "peace accord" had 3 corridors through the West Bank that were controlled by the Israeli Army. There was no pullback of the settlers. Israel controlled the borders. Israel controlled the water rights.

You'd jump at a deal like that, right Kevin?

The only way to solve this one is for Israel to pull back inside the 1967 border. Palestinians get the West Bank and Gaza. International control of the 1967 part of Jerusalem that was controlled by the Arabs for 20-50 years.

An independent Palestine will be no threat to Israel as a nation. Hardliners on both side will still shoot at each other, but will eventually die off or give up.

Ok, here’s the deal

Fact A: Israel is here to stay, and in fact would like to get bigger.

Fact B: The Palestinians want a place to call home.

Fact C: The place that the Palestinians want to call home is the same place where Israel is planning to stay[and grow].

In 25 words or less, resolve.

"Sharon could make piece because it was a Nixon going to China thing. If Olmert (is that his name?) wants to make peace, he's going to have to kick some a** first."

Olmert is a long standing right wing politician who moderated a bit in the last few years along with Sharon.

I'm not suprised to see him backslide, but I don't think he has to prove he isn't a softie after decades as a prominent right wing politician.

DBL: How else to explain the war launched by Hamas after Israel completely evacuated Gaza and announced its intentions to do the same to the West Bank?

The Israelis announced that they were going to completely remove themselves from the West Bank??

I sure missed that memo. I bet everybody else did too.

george 3rd -

As stupid as it is, bottom line, Olmert won't have credibility with the Isreali public until they see him as a hawk.

So while the situation is complex, this event was simple:

Part of Hamas (the part in "Palestine") was ready to move forward to peace based on the "prisoners document" thingy. Another part of Hamas (more militant and in exile in Syria) didn't like that so they attempted to undermine that by provoking violence with Isreal by kidnapping a soldier. Olmert had to respond with force or look like a wimp who needed to pass a global test before using force. So, complicated, but simple, too. Humans are pretty simple minded.

I come from Uranus.

george 3d - Israel evacuated Gaza. It was the Palestinians to do with as they wished. If they wanted to pursue economic development, build power plants, whatever, they could have chosen that path. Israel wasn't standing in the way. Indeed, if the Palestinian Arabs were by some miracle to decide that they wanted to live in peace side by side with the State of Israel, like the US and Canada, it's likely that the Palestinian state would prosper. But that's not the path they chose.

But, I'm curious: What is your explanation for why Hamas launched hundreds of rockets over the border and sent troops across the border to attack and capture Israeli soldiers? What, exactly, was their goal, in your view? Don't tell it was to force Israel to leave the West Bank, because Israel had already said it was going to do that. So why did Hamas start this war?

Nobodys blamed the Clennis yet?

DBL --
Hard to know where to start with the inaccuracies of your piece.

Israel intends to completely evacuate the West Bank?
Israel doesn't control access to Gaza? Next you'll tell me the West Bank is free-trade zone.
No mention of the ghettoizing of all Palestinians, whether in the West Bank, Gaza, or East Jerusalem.
No mention of the preceeding ethnic cleansing and land grabs?
No idea that Israel has always destabilized any Palestinian political force?

Not to mention, as soon as Hizbollah got voted in, the withholding of all funds, the blocking of all exports, and 4 months of deteriorating conditions within Gaza.

There was never any intention of working towards a political solution. Israel immediately ramped this up. This is what they want. "Look, these are people we can't deal with."

American Hawk --
way to go. Full ghettoization and starvation of the Palestinians. Sort of like a bigger Warsaw. Congratulations.

Oh, wait! That is what Israel is doing. Think it will work?

Kevin: The 2000 deal Arafat refused was far stingier than the deal he refused in the mid-70s, when the Israeli peace movement was very strong and heavily influenced the ruling Labor party, and there were few if any Israeli settlers in the West Bank or Gaza.
And stingier than the deal he refused in 1978 after the Camp David accords, when he could have had virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza, plus East Jerusalem with international control of the Dome of the Rock.
Since 1948, Israel has been trying to offer land for peace, but it's been all or nothing for the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors playing "Let's you and him fight."
I used to think Middle East peace was impossible. Then the Good Friday accords in Ireland gave me hope that a two-millenia-long war over religion and land could end. Now I've lost hope again.

Kevin, I read in several places that it was the Israelis who crossed the border first, and were captured and killed not Hezbollah that made an incursion into Israel.

If GOD has a chosen people, then GOD is a bigot.

RT - Maybe you missed the last election in Israel. Olmert ran on a disengagement platform, promising to do for the West Bank what he did in Gaza. Now to be fair, I believe his intention was to keep the large Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem but the vast majority of the West Bank was to be evacuated and turned over to the Palestinian Arabs.

Nathan wrote: you mean that Palestinian landmine that killed that family on the beach?

All the evidence collected and evaluated by independent observers indicates that that claim is false. The individuals were killed by an Israeli shell, not a Palestinian landmine.

American Hawk says:
The conflict prospers because the Palestinians are unable to exeterminate the Jews, and because the Jews are merely unwilling to exterminate the Palestinians. That alone should tell you who's in the right.

rmck1 replies:
If only we had the moral code of Hitler, it would be *so much easier* for everybody.

Way to twist words, rmck1! Worthy of Karl Rove. AH was talking about who was more right (and therefore more worthy of our support) in this conflict, and you turn it into him advocating that the Israelis lower themselves to the level of the Palestinians. Ironically, there is in fact one side in this conflict that does have the moral code of Hitler and even considers Hitler a hero. Hint, it's not the Israelis.

AH told the simple truth. The Palestinians exist because Israel is NOT genocidal. Israelis live because Palestinians don't yet have enough guns to murder them all. There is a moral difference here, and we should recognize it. Then we can argue about how to deal with the situation. But pretending that those who do recognize it must want to vernichtung the Palestinians is the worst sort of straw man argument.

As for whether the Camp David offer, or the superior one Israel made a year later, was acceptable, let me ask you all -- compared to what? The PA has no actual state, no economy, no hope. ANYTHING would have been an improvement.

Also, where was the PA's counteroffer? It had none than, and it has none now. Fatah might have been willing to take only half of Israel including all of Jerusalem -- but they offered nothing in return. And Hamas won't even go that far. So, fine, Israel didn't offer enough -- why is it completely up to Israel to make compromises and come up with deals? I can see why people think Israel is not doing enough; I can't see why they think it would help if Israel did. Or why Israel should, when the other side shows no interest at all in serious negotiation.

So, if one side absolutely won't make peace, of course you have a war. What else is there to do?

DBL said: "If they wanted to pursue economic development, build power plants, whatever, they could have chosen that path. Israel wasn't standing in the way."

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa.

Build power plants?

hahahahahaha.

Pursue economic growth? When you can't even control your own borders? Great stuff!

ahahahahhahahahahahahahaha

oh. i see. that wasn't a joke, was it?

it really is hard when the child you are teaching is not your own.

notthere - Israel has no control over the border between Gaza and Egypt. Israel gave that up as part of its evacuation from Gaza. Israel has paid a price for that, becuase most of the rockets and other munitions coming into Gaza come across the border with Egypt.

I'm not sure why you would expect Israel to have open borders with a hostile state. Let the Palestinian Arabs leave their revanchist dreams aside and make peace, a real peace, like between the US and Canada, not some "hudna" during which the Arabs re-arm for another war, and then there can be open borders.

Kevin,

Ehud Barak's offer to Arafat was to give him a country that had four disconnected pieces, along with permanent Israeli control of its borders on all sides, with all of Jerusalem going to Israel. Furthermore, there were to be settler highways crossing the three West Bank pieces that Palestinians would not be allowed to use, effectively slicing the Palestinian land into a lot more pieces.

Arafat would have suffered the same fate as Sadat had he signed on to such a deal.

The reason you don't know this is because no American publication other than Harper's published a picture of the actual map.

Maybe someone can explain something to me here.

For years, I've been hearing from my mother and stepfather (big pro-Israel types) that if only the Palestinian terrorists would stop attacking civilians and stick to military targets, at least they'd be a civilized foe. After all, the Israelis committed what might be termed acts of terror when they were fighting for the right to create their nation, but those acts were directed at British soldiers, who were regarded as legitimate targets.

So now, the Palestinians capture Israeli soldiers, and threaten to kill them, just like the protagonist in Elie Weisel's Dawn killed a captured British soldier.

And Israel goes nuts, overreacting in a way that I can't recall their ever having done in reaction to Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians.

What am I missing here?

"Negotiation" only provides positive reinforcement for such kidnappings.

(they did swap a deal several years ago and now they're having a spate of these....)

So let's recap...several years ago Israel did a swap deal, and now they're having a "spate" of capturing their soldiers ("spate", I suppose, being defined as "more than one incident")? What's the shelf life on this so-called "motivation," anyway?

Leaving aside the more proximate motivation, noted upthread, of a Palestinan family blown to bits by the Israelis (not to mention their clumsy attempts to shift the blame), it seems that the second incident in this so-called "spate" is more correctly inspired by Israel's reaction to the first.

A provocative act? Certainly. And Hezbollah -- which, oddly enough, had been realtively quiet since Israel's withdrawal -- seemed to want to provoke exactly the same reaction. Nathan's causal analysis doesn't pass the laugh test.

Urge the US to stop all economic and military aid to Israel until they return to the 1956 borders. Write your Congressperson and Senator. Despite the fact your Congressman and Senator receive a whole lot of financial support from AIPAC and are wholly supportive of the genocide of the Palestinians by Israel, it is our only way to end US involvement in this tragedy for the Palestinians. The US does not support Hamas or the PLO, and should not support Israel or Militant Zionism.

The family on the beach was killed by an American gifted Israeli fired naval shell. It is well documented the wounds were not from a land mine, as the Israeli apologists have tried to assert.

It is funny. The liberal 'blogosphere' is full of anti-Leiberman editorials and comments, but almost nothing about the recent invasion of Israel into Gaza. Liberals, Leftists, and many Democrats blame Leiberman for being pro-war, but it is his support for Israel that should be the reason to support another candidate.

If the US stoped supporting Israel, the conflict would be over very soon, and a two state solution, based on the 1956 borders could be achieved. It is the US subsidy that allows Israel to continue its expansion. The original Zionists would be overjoyed to have the Israel created in 1948, so I hope both parties could be able to compromise and see that letting Israel keep the territory seized in 1956 and all the rest become Palestine, is the best path to peace.

Oh yeah, treat all US citizens who have migrated to the Zionist settlements and walk around with automatic weapons like John Walker Lindh. That goes for Americans serving in the IDF, as well.

"Nathan's causal analysis doesn't pass the laugh test."

Nathan's analysis never does.

DBL: RT - Maybe you missed the last election in Israel.

No, I heard about it.

Olmert ran on a disengagement platform, promising to do for the West Bank what he did in Gaza. Now to be fair, I believe his intention was to keep the large Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem but the vast majority of the West Bank was to be evacuated and turned over to the Palestinian Arabs.

Was he going to force the other West Bank Israeli settlements to disband?

Was he going to rebuild the Wall so that, outside of Jerusalem, it followed the 1967 boundaries?

I hadn't heard that Olmert had promised either of these things. I'd welcome a cite if I'm wrong.

But I note that even you acknowledge that he was planning "to keep the large Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem," most of which have been built on Arab land since 1967.

Well, Kevin reveals himself to be a Zionist dupe by asserting the canard that an intransigent Arafat scuttled a sweetheart peace deal.

Better stick to tennis and cat blogging.

The only reason that the "great powers" of the world are concerned about or involved with the so-called "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" is the presence of vast amounts of oil in the region.

It's all about the oil. The Israelis and the Palestinians are both victims of the Great Game to control the world's oil supplies.

If there were no oil there, then there might very well not be any "Israeli-Palestinian conflict", and if there were, it would just be another one of many ethnic/religious conflicts going on all over the globe, which, while hideous for the people directly affected by them, don't draw the attention of the world's "great powers."

Re: Anthony Greco and Barak's non-"dream offer"

The point is that Arafat made no response at all to what Barak put on the table--not counter-proposal, no nothing. Ask David Ross, the lead U.S. part at the talks, about the seriousness of Arafat's negotiating strategy. It's this episode which made clear that no negotiated two-state solution would ever be acceptable to the PLO, or at least to Arafat. What followed, instead, was the second infitada. And it had precisely the result Arafat wanted: the election of Sharon.

RT, possibly this is the sort of thing that could be settled at the negotiating table, instead of by kidnapping soldiers and holding them for ransom? With the consideration that the 1967 "border," which was simply where the troops happened to be standing when the cease-fire went into effect, is not necessarily the perfect boundary for either side?

Gilal Shalit, by the way, was on the "Israeli" side of the Green Line when he was captured.

Kill em all, and let Jehova sort them out.

Clinton, Barak, and Arafatwere in Camp David when Sharon went up to the Temple Mount with several hundred body guards. Why did Sharon do that? Because he wanted peace? If the Israelis want peace why do they go on building more settlements, steal more land?

What rights have the Palestinian people? Don,t they suffer when their children get killed?

Recommended reading: "The Lemon Tree" by Sandy Tolan.

"What do the Palestinians want?"
Life? Liberty? Perhaps even a shot at the pursuit of happiness?
Hard to do with no electricity.
Posted by: george 3rd on July 12, 2006 at 12:58 PM | PERMALINK

Sorry, I don't buy that.
They voted in Hamas. Enthusiastically.
The Palestinian people want the destruction of Israel.
Now, personally, I don't give a crap about Israel.

But I'm beginning to think that the policies of keeping a permanent palestinian underclass in the occupied territories for the past 40 years has pretty much been a failure towards the end of bringing peace.

I'm beginning to think that the humane thing to do is to send in large numbers of troops, go house to house, eradicate (ie. execute) all terrorism, militants, fighters, religious leaders, resistance, etc. Annex the fucking land, install settlements, scatter the natives, and send them all to college so they can get jobs. Secularize the palestinians, educate them, and once they've all got middle class jobs, they'll wonder why they ever bothered with this suicide bombing crap.

I think that's the humane thing to do, because the only other thing that will stop the fighting will be for all Israelies to migrate to various european countries, and hand it all over to the palestineans.

I really don't think that any middle-road approach will work. They've tried various middle-road approaches for 40 years, producing nothing but generation after generation of hatred, war, violence, and suffering. On both sides.

We may have been down this road a dozen times before, but not since 100,000+ US troops have been deployed to Iraq. I would say US presence in Iraq complicates things considerably.

"Israel evacuated Gaza. It was the Palestinians to do with as they wished. If they wanted to pursue economic development, build power plants, whatever, they could have chosen that path. Israel wasn't standing in the way."

Say what? Israel applied a massive economic embargo on Gaza after the Palestinian elections. Not only is that "standing in their way" - it's also generally considered an act of war.

sorry about saying that it was the Israelis who crossed into Lebanon first. I was mistaken - it was indeed a Hezbollah raid into Israel that triggered this latest escalation of violence.

How different would the world be if he had accepted Ehud Barak's peace offer six years ago and put his personal reputation behind making it work?

No much. Dumb question.

Next.

trilobite: RT, possibly this is the sort of thing that could be settled at the negotiating table, instead of by kidnapping soldiers and holding them for ransom? With the consideration that the 1967 "border," which was simply where the troops happened to be standing when the cease-fire went into effect, is not necessarily the perfect boundary for either side?

How have negotiations worked so far? As others have pointed out here, in 2000, Israel wanted all of their side of the 1967 border, plus some pieces of the other side, and the chopping up of the West Bank into discrete pieces.

And that was the best deal the Palestinians have ever been able to get.

But that wasn't my question. My question was, why have the Israelis reacted far more disproportionately to an attack on a soldier than on civilians?

Gilal Shalit, by the way, was on the "Israeli" side of the Green Line when he was captured.

And many Palestinians have been blown up by Israeli rockets and whatnot while on the Palestinian side of the Green Line.

What I meant:

How different would the world be if he had accepted Ehud Barak's peace offer six years ago and put his personal reputation behind making it work?

NOT much. Dumb question.

Next.

One reason this topic does not get brought up in the blogosphere is that it evokes the kind of nastiness that we see in the posts. There is absolutely no way in hell we can ever sort out the myriad amounts of guilt and responsibility--for both sides. Otherwise decent, reasonable, educated Jewish folk go absolutely irrational on this topic--for them it is always the Arabs fault all the time, no excuses. I once had a conversation with a rather well known Jewish graduate professor from an Eastern university who bitterly excoriated Rachel Corrie as deserving of her death. Any attempt to disagree and discuss was met with accusations of anti-Semitism on my part.

I just finished reading "Night" by Elie Wiesel and it simply astonishes me that a race of people who were so evilly dealt with by the Germans in WW2, after 60 years, are now justifying doing the same thing to another Semitic group of people. How is it that they have become what they were once the victim to?

Osssama Been Forgotten, in fact the Palestinians in the ME are known for their education and secular ways. They basically provide the entire civil service and professional class of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

It's because the Palestinians excel in school and later in the professions that the other Arab nations are afraid of helping the Palestinians too much.

Oh, and by the way, those 2 and even 3rd generation Palestinians in SA and the Emirates, still want to go home and build Palestine.

Israel humiliates Arabs for decades while slowing annexing Palestinian land and you're surprised that the Arabs are cheering for Israeli misfortune?

Israel has made it abundantly clear than in a choice between peace/security and land, it wants land.

Don't whine to me when Israel reaps the harvest it sowed.

Part of the reason that Israel wants land above and beyond the pre-1967 borders is that there is no water in Israel, it's all in the West Bank. That is the major reason for the settlements for most people, apart from the Jewish fundamentalists.

RT, fair point re Palestinian collateral damage. I wasn't saying otherwise, just thought it was worth pointing out that the conflict has not been confined to the border.

Re Israel's 2000 offers, I addressed that upthread, and don't want to try everyone's patience repeating myself. Take a look if you're curious.

chaboard, I don't think Israel embargoed the PA territories, just refused to continue aid. Which seems reasonable to me, why aid people who say they want you dead? Instead, offer to reinstate aid if they choose to stop saying it, which is what Israel did.

There's no choice but to retaliate in a major way when an opposing side kidnaps your soldiers; it's not like retaliating when there is some random act of violence.

"Kill em all, and let Jehova sort them out."
Posted by: Judean People's Front on July 12, 2006 at 2:15 PM

Splitter!

trilobite, the Israelis withheld the tax that belonged to the PA and which they had collected.

It's really a shame that the Palestinian Arabs are so in thrall to revanchism and Jew-hatred that they can't get on with their lives. Michele is correct about the education and entrepreneurship shown by the Palestinian Arabs who have left the refugee camps and moved on with their lives. Is there any reason to doubt that they could create a beautiful prosperous country on the West Bank and Gaza, even if they didn't get back every square inch, so long as they reached a "warm" peace with Israel, with open borders and free trade? Alaska is separated from the continental US by a 1,200-mile road through a foreign country and no one thinks that's a problem because the US and Canada have warm and friendly relations. That's what the Palestians need with Israel, but I have never, not once, read any statement by any Palestinian, or any other Arab for that matter, expressing a dream of open and friendly relations with Israel.

I am at a loss to understand the views expressed above that Israel should have open borders with Gaza even though Gaza is controlled by a hostile Government that seeks the destruction of the State of Israel. What country would ever do anything like that?

leon, do Arabs have a right to respond to Israeli provocation? What are some of the provocative things Israel has done?

Arafat and Rabin signd the Oslo agreement, the Israelis did not honor the agreement, they did not stop building more settelments and roads on the best land.

Arafat and the PLO are so corrupt and the people elected Hamas.

The Israelis would not talk to Arafat after Bush came to power, would not negotiate in good face with Abbu Mazzan, will not talk to Hamas, keeps assasinating elected leaders rejected the road map, has all the military might and uses it killing Palastinian people on a daily basis.

The Palestinian people respond throwing stones at tanks and strapping bombs around their waists and getting 1000 pound bombs dropped on them. What a pathetic selfdefense. And the Kassams, just as pathetic and the Iraelis go balistic and claim they are the victims.

My sympathy is with the Palestian people and the many Iraelis who would like to have peace too. It is not the official Israeli and American administrations. Olmert, Bush and co are the real criminals.

That's an exaggeration, Michele. Israel has water from upstream on the Jordan, the Galilee, and the Golan (despite desultory Syrian attempts to block that flow), plus desalination plants on the Red and Med seas, plus rainfall and aquifer elsewhere (Jerusalem became a local power center in the first place because it had good wells). But true in essence, a lot of the local water is there.

For more, see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/watermap.html

Does anyone know, is Israel actively exploiting the water resources in the West Bank for the use of the rest of Israel?

trilobite you are wrong again. you shouldn't read that propaganda. The Jordan river is now but a trickle. De-salination is very expensive. And you may be talking about Jerusalem 2000 years ago.

A major point in all these accords is Israel's insistence on retaining water rights. That is recorded fact. Check it out.

And in my opinion, yes, Israel uses the water for the entire country. There are many descriptions of how green and verdant the Jewish settlements in the West Bank are compared to the rest of the territories.

One reason this topic does not get brought up in the blogosphere is that it evokes the kind of nastiness that we see in the posts. There is absolutely no way in hell we can ever sort out the myriad amounts of guilt and responsibility--for both sides. Otherwise decent, reasonable, educated Jewish folk go absolutely irrational on this topic--for them it is always the Arabs fault all the time, no excuses. I once had a conversation with a rather well known Jewish graduate professor from an Eastern university who bitterly excoriated Rachel Corrie as deserving of her death. Any attempt to disagree and discuss was met with accusations of anti-Semitism on my part.

Wow...and you're what, the voice of reason?

Some of the responses of the "liberals" on this site re this issue are almost as dumb as the rightwing trolls. The reality is that both sides have plenty of blood on their hands; there are no black hats and white hats at this point.

Carl,

It's very simple, really. If the Palestinian Arabs were to (1) release the Israeli soldiers they are holding hostage, (2) cease all rocket attacks against Israel and (3) cease all terrorist operations against Israeli civilians and all military operations against Israeli soldiers, then Israel would stop military actions against the Palestinians, period. There's nothing to it.

In any event, neither peace nor even a cease fire will come until and unless the PA has its "Altalena" moment and one of the Palestinian factions achieves complete control over all Palestinian security and military forces. for those of you with short memories, the Altalena event was where Prime Minister Ben Gurion ordered the IDF to fire at a ship that the Irgun (Menachim Begin's group) was using to smuggle arms into Israel: Ben Gurion said that there could only be one army in a state and he was willing to, and did, kill Jewish soldiers to enforce this. Begin surrendered, the Irgun disbanded, and he entered parliarmentary politics.

Let me know when something like this happens in the PA. Until then, we can expect endless war.

Which is still not an economic embargo, michelle.

But I agree it sounds like a bad thing. Did the Israelis give any justification for it? I don't know on what terms the collection and handover was agreed.

Renate:

I have no sympathy for Hamas (and the majority of Palestinians who support them) until they stop the deliberate targeting of civilians. None. Not one iota.

Some sympathy for Abbas, yes.

first of all, it's michele not michelle.

secondly, in legal terms that's not an embargo, it's seizure of Palestinians' tax receipts since the agreement between the PA and the Israelis is that the Israelis are to hand over the taxes they collect for the PA at pre-determined intervals. They didn't which amounts legally to seizure of assets.

DBL, I don't believe Israel will make a just peace until it is forced. And I'm pretty sure a large number of Palestinians believe the same thing.

If Israel wants war, then so be it.

Nathan, so do you object to Israel targeting civilians in response to Palestinians capturing a soldier?

I think that's the humane thing to do

Osama_Been_Forgotten, replace the word Israel for Palestine and see that your suggestion is not humane.

If any solution is good enough to make suffer Palestinians it is good enough to make suffer Israelis, too. But screw suffering. End all US involvement of subsidizing Israel and hope that drives an equitable peace settlement, which I think it will. If not, at least I will no longer be a party to the conflict.

trilobyte:

Israel's justification is that Hamas hasn't recognized Israel's right to exist.

Nyberg: in which instances is Israel targeting civilians? (the targeting of bridges and power supplies (in which no one was killed btw...sounds like someone took some care), if done for a legitimate military purpose, is kosher)

I recently had a long conversation with a taxi driver here in Munich. I asked him where he came from because he had a long beard, dressed like a North African but had the bluest eyes I've ever seen. An elderly fellow. He told me he was Palestinian and we got to talking.

We reached our destination but he continued talking to me for a good half hour, until I had to leave because I hate to see a grown man cry. He kept saying "why? why? why? what did we ever do for God to punish us like this? take away our land, starve and kill our children, get treated worse than animals" - it was very moving but I couldn't do anything to make it better for him.

Nyberg:

you are explicitly an apologist for terrorism.
(and unlike some conservative idiots...that's the first time I've ever said that here)

fuck you and your antisemitic ass.

michele:

that's nice. and I had Palestinian friends in grad school. that's nice.

but why didn't you ask him why his parents waved in the invading Arab armies in 1948?

Kevin wrote:

"Yasser Arafat, wherever he might be warming his toes at the moment, has much to answer for. How different would the world be if he had accepted Ehud Barak's peace offer six years ago"

You've got to be kidding.

Check with someone who was in the room. Arafat accepted President Clinton’s "peace offer", it was Barak who refused.
.

Nathan, isn't the last refuge of the scoundrel to say: "I don't hate ______. Some of my best friends are _______". It's kind of ironic that you use this argument as so many people use it to claim they aren't anti-semitic.

The part about being nice and the armies doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Nathan, do you dispute that Israel is killing civilians?

Nathan, namecalling? Yeah, it's people like you that showed me how much Israel's so-called support flows from anti-Arab, anti-Muslim racism.

VJ: that's sure as hell not what Clinton says.

Carl,

What do you consider a just peace? If you were mediating, what would you suggest to the parties? Have you ever seen any Palestinian Arab outline his views of peace that includes friendly, warm relations between Israel and Palestine?

Also, Israel doesn't target civilians.

Palestinian gunmen often hide among civilians, though, which under well established international law makes the gunmen responsible for the deaths of the civilians when Israel attacks the gunmen. A good example occurred today in Gaza where Israel dropped a 500-lb bomb on a house where some Hamas fighters were hiding. A family in the house was killed. Their deaths are solely the responsibility of Hamas.

'Hawk' posted:

"The Israeli people have been under assualt by the Palestinians for decades."

The Palestinians have been under illegal military occupation for decades. Fighting back is not an "assault". Check with Western Europe.
.

It's really a shame that the Palestinian Arabs are so in thrall to revanchism and Jew-hatred that they can't get on with their lives.

You know, if a militarily superior Mexico had invaded the United States in 1946 and managed to carve off 66% of the most productive land I have a hard time imagining Americans just settling down and getting on with their lives.

This stuff is so basic and so well understood, yet because we feel that we owe the israelis a homeland we refuse to see the obvious.

At a minumum we owe it to ourselves to stop seeing this thing through biblical glasses and look to our Western Civilization's 2000 year expeience of war and peace to craft a fair and stable peace settlement. The issue up until now is that every negotiation that has ever occured to settle the 1948 War has always treated the Arabs like unworthy ennemies who can be broken at the negotiating table to accept less.

Well you reap what you sow and by our inaction we are sowning the whirlwind.

BTW - on the kidnapping issue. I find it interesting that the Hamas leadership refers to their captives as "prisoners of war" with all the rights and obligations that entails. In a way I can see how the Palestenians are sending a very specific communication to the Isrealis - treat us like equals, nation to nation. And in essense has this not been the problem with the Palestenian Israeli conflict from the beginning? The Israelis never treated the Palestinians seriously. They did not negotiate a peace the way France would negotiate a peace with Germany in the 19th century. No, the Israelis tried to negotiate a peace the way the United States of America negotiated with the Apache Nation in the 1890s. I guess if you can get all the Palestinians to catch typhus and die, you might have a long term solution there, but short of that as the victorious power you are setting yourself up for endless conflict by not settling. Today of course things are much more difficult since Isreal has also systematically destoyed all the sources of Palestenian leadership that were availble to work with by sytematically having good Palestenian leaders detroyed only to be replaced by poorer ones. The local chieftians of 1948 were far superior to work with than the PLO but they were destroyed. The PLO filled the vaccuume but was in turn destroyed and replaced by a less suitable partner in Hamas. So in response to "we have no one to work with" I say tough. You brought about the partner you have today, deal with it.

Genesis 15:18

In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

------------------------------------------------
If GOD has a chosen people, then GOD is a bigot.

VJ - Could you please clarify what lands, exactly, you consider to be "under illegal military occupation?" Thanks.

Nathan, if you really want to know why there is no peace settlement, I suggest you go read this article at the NY Books Review site:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19062

It will shock you to what extent Israel tries to block any type of concession to the Palestinians. Remember as well, that the NY Books Review had until recently, a Jewish editor, so you can't call this piece anti-semitic.

This will really open your eyes.

Nemisis - I thank you for clarifying that for the Palestinian Arabs the issue is not how to craft a two-state solution, but how to do away with Israel altogether.

Michele:

I patently avoided that "some of my best friends" argument..if you had read closely...I was snorting at that line.

as for 1948, um, you might want to go do a little reading and come back.

Nyberg: the fact that you classify suicide bombings in buses, restaurants and nightclubs as "war" says a lot...

as for the inadvertent deaths of civilians, that happens in any and all military actions...and is always regrettable.
but what I said was "deliberate targeting of civilians"...I noticed that you studiously avoided that one.

as much as I loathe much of the current right...its interesting to see how antisemitism (which was once the province of the right) is now almost exclusive a left-wing phenomenon.

and, yes, holding Israel to standards which one does not hold other countries too, evinces antisemitism. its a strange thing. Michele can be forgiven, cause she's French-Canadian or something...but you Carl....

'Nathan' posted:

"that's sure as hell not what Clinton says."

He didn't want to embarrass his friend Barak.

Check with somebody who was actually involved in the negotiations.
.

I think the two-state solution is a fraud.

I'm for a single secular state that allows Palestinians and Jews to return.

People who can't be part of the scheme get deported to Haiti and Siberia.

Michele:

heh, you're clearly not very familiar with the NY Review of Books. (considering that you can't even get the name right....)

oh, and just cause Chomsky's Jewish doesn't make not anti-Semitic...that's an old canard that doesn't fly.

Michele,

I don't know if you are a New Yorker or even an American, but you should know that the New York Review of Books is and always has been a far left publication, so its anti-Israel slant should come as no surprise. Trust me, there are plenty of left-wing Jews who buy into the left wing analysis of Israel as a Western colonialist plot. See, e.g., Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, et al.

Nemesis:

no one invaded anyone in 1946.

the nascent Jewish state (set up by UN mandate) was invaded in 1948-49.

but I can understand why it might be hard to recall whether it was the Jews (and the Romany) killing the Germans at Auschwitz, or the other way around.

btw, Michele, Renate, VJ, Nyberg:

why don't you take a look at the Hamas Charter and come back. its pretty enlightening.

Israel violates international law in how it administers the occupied territories.

Israel also engages in collective punishment of civilians, including killing civilians, which is also illegal.

If Israel wants to be treated with sympathy it has to follow all the law, not just the parts it finds convenient.

Nathan, your irony is very subtle because that line is exactly what you gave me as a response.

As for 1948, I know exactly what happened but I have no idea why you are telling me that the West Bank being occupied and its water stolen - has anything to do with 1948.

Why doesn't judging me by my background not constitute racism if you are the one doing it, but is anti-semitism if we are the ones who pre-judge you on your Jewish background. Could there be a double standard involved?

Let me guess: you are part of the Chosen People so you get a different set of rights than the rest of us?

Well, here's news for you. You misunderstood what the Burning Bush and the voice in Abraham's head said, and it was actually "You are the Trojan people" and he meant for you to go to Troy.

Okay, I have a question for the Israel apologists, one which I can never get answered.

So Israel kills between 5-10 Palestinian civilians for each Israeli civilian killed. You can look that up, the peak Palestinian effectiveness was during the second intifada, when they achieved one Israeli for every three Palestinians.

So, this is justified by the fact that Israel claims not to be intentionally killing civilians. Although I don't personally accept that reasoning, I'm willing to stipulate that the differing claims about motivation justify the disparate kill ratio. Call that one a moral draw.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing else that the Palestinians do to Israel (even though they probably would if they had the power).

However, Israel is continuing taking land, water, restricting movement, destroying orchards, etc.

As far as I can tell, then, the moral claim for Israel depends on the belief that different claims about motivation are enough to justify the huge difference in death as well as all of the depredations of the occupation and still leave Israel in the moral right. Or that Israeli lives are so much more valuable than Palestinian that the balance is made up that way.

ah, the final giveaway of the antisemite:

if you disagree with them, you must be Jewish.

actually, I'm part Romany and not Jewish.

and yes, I grew up in Europe and Canada, there's little dispute that Europeans (and French Canadians as opposed to the rest of Canada) are often somewhat anti-Semitic.

"So, this is justified by the fact that Israel claims not to be intentionally killing civilians. Although I don't personally accept that reasoning, I'm willing to stipulate that the differing claims about motivation justify the disparate kill ratio. Call that one a moral draw."

PD, um, bullshit. intent is everything.

When Palestinian gunmen hide among civilians and fire rockets from between occupied houses, the deaths of Palestinian civilians are on their heads.

its actually a warcrime to use civilians as cover. look it up.

DBL --

I really object to you drivelling on in ignorance and citing nothing to disabuse us. Read these. If you have a short attention span, read the last 2, but you really need to get basic facts right on an important topic.

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/10/29/isrlpa9577.htm

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/08/09/israel_says_it_will_control_gaza_border_traffic/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08-08-israel-gaza-border_x.htm?csp=34

http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief005-3.htm

http://www.forzion.com/gush_katif.htm

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Security/7034.htm

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/1726623.php

The last thing that Israel ever wants to give up is control, at the borders and by distabilizing the Palestinians. The more divided the Palestinians are, the less reason to negotiate.

Personally, I don't see much difference between the two sides, despite Israels diversity. And how far removed from Judaism is Islam; less than Christianity.

What I do object to is the occupying power/overlord/oppressor being clothed in the shroud of innocence/victim/underdog. That just ain't so. And the disproportionate use of force and the infliction of suffering on the general population are clearly breaches of international law, but methods practised repeatedly.

trilobite, Israel did close the borders and made Gaza's exports rot. Even before Hamas, Israel wasn't exactly helpful at the cargo crossings. And yes, the Israelis reserve a disproportionate amount of water for themselves, and the Jordan is no longer the river it was.

RT, the original Israeli terrorists were not above killing civilians. In 1948, it was arguably policy, if covertly ordered, to practice ethnic cleansing, maybe worse during the war. Nothing much changes.

"the West Bank being occupied"

uh, look at a map. as with the Golan heights, when you've been shelled and attacked daily for years from ground adjoining your own sliver of land....what would you do to protect yourself?

Nathan, your pants are on fire. Nathan is the most Jewish name you can have besides Moses and I don't know anyone by any of these two names who isn't Jewish.

As for French Canadian being anti-Semitic, I am sure there are some, but on average, the French Canadians welcomed Jews long ago when they arrived as French settlers in New France. In Quebec, language is the divider, not colour or religion or race.

And, by the way, I am not French-Canadian in the least.

Carl,

Thank you for your honesty.

I guess my view is that encouraging the Palestinian Arabs to fight to eliminate the Jewish state is a sure way to guarantee that peace will never come to the region. I think a better way to look at it is to compare it to what happened when another British Colony, India, achieved its independence. The Moslem and Hindu parts split apart and over 17 million people either fled or were forced out of one country or the other. That's not dissimilar to what happened when the British Mandate in Palestine was partitioned by the UN. About 500,000-600,000 Arabs either fled or were forced out of Israel, and a somewhat larger number of Jews either fled or were forced out of other Arab nations or Iran. Population shifts in these circumstances are not unusual; what is unusual is keeping millions of people in refugee camps for 50 years instead of resettling them. But instead of encouraging its members to take in the Arab refugees (as Israel took in the Jewish refugees from Arab countries), the Arab League instructed its members not to do so, in order to keep them in camps where they could be used as the League's cat's paw against Israel.

Nathan, the part about YOUR land being shelled every day is the basic issue. It's not your land.

There is far less anti-semitism in North America than prejudice against Arabs and Muslims.

But there are plenty of ethnic groups who hate Muslims and Arabs. Hindus and Serbs often support Israel's repression of Palestinians because of their own ethnic prejudices.

Michele:

wow, cause my first name is "Nathan" I must be Jewish. apparently you don't know too many Americans...especially any with parents with religious backgrounds.

btw, I assume you have never heard of "Moses Malone?"

Nathan is the most Jewish name you can have besides Moses and I don't know anyone by any of these two names who isn't Jewish.

And that nobody regrets that he doesn't have any life to give for his country.

BTW my name is "Joshua" and I'm not Jewish.
Michele you are acting like a bigot. Back off. The strong religious current in America means that many Americans have "Bible names"
and accusing people of being Jewish is just unseemly and why should it matter?

hmm, I thought you were a Canadian Gypsy Nathan, now you are an American? I know lots of Nathan's in Montreal and NYC and they are without exception Jewish.

I am willing to bet 100 Euros that you are Jewish.

so Michele, ready to give Quebec back to the First Peoples?

if you insist on my being Jewish, I'll take it as a compliment. I'll be the first 6'3" blond-blue-eyed Jew in NY.

Michele,

Thank you for your honesty. The issue for you is not what fair and reasonable boundaries might be between the West Bank and Israel. It's that Israel exists. OK.

lurking, I am doing this because he is the one who started it. He assumed I was French-Canadian and according to him, French-Canadians are anti-semitic, didn't you know?

And, if he is Jewish, what is wrong with that? You are acting like I called him a serial killer or something. It's not a bad thing to be Jewish, and calling someone Jewish isn't an insult, except maybe in your head.

One should be proud of who one is, that's all, not lie about being Romany, then European, then Canadian, then American while unwaveringly supporting Israel and calling anyone who doesn't anti-semitic.

Got it?

...Have you ever seen any Palestinian Arab outline his views of peace that includes friendly, warm relations between Israel and Palestine?...

Posted by: DBL on July 12, 2006 at 3:25 PM | PERMALINK

Ah, DBL, the true giveaway. Yes, there are peaceniks on both sides. Everybody knows that.

Well not quite everybody. Get out of here you ignorant, prejudiced #*&^!

Okay, Nathan. So you're argument is that the different claims about motivation justify everything. Thanks for saying it clearly.

However, using a reductio ad absurdum, I can show that is likely not what you think. Were Israel to firebomb Gaza, killing say half the population there, 500K or more, in order to kill the guys shooting the rockets, would intent still be everything?

Also then, when Palestinians kill Israeli soldiers, is this then just as morally correct? How about if they kill civilians inadvertently while doing it?

And finally, I understand you to be saying that Palestinian militants are committing a war crime by going to their homes. Catch me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it is also a war crime to attack militants in such a way as to inevitably kill civilians unless it is during actual battle. (That is, they are currently shooting at you.)

Israel apologists love to play the game of accusing others of anti-semitism while ignoring their own anti-Palestinian racism.

Michele:

I'll take you up on that. seriously.

for the record (since you're incapable of understanding American ethnic identities--why do you post here again?), my father is Swedish and Czech (3rd generation), my mother is Irish and Romany (3rd and 8th generations). I was born in MN and when I was 2 we moved to Norway (Oslo, Trondheim and Stavanger).

I realize that to you homogenous xenophobes, American ethnicities must be bewildering.

I'll also bet you another 100 Euros that there are more non-Jewish Nathan's in the U.S. then Jewish ones. you might want to go meet a few Southern Baptists or take a stroll through the Bible belt.

Nathan, you'll be the first 6 foot 3 blond blue eyed Romany I have seen and there are a lot of them around here.

As for 6 foot 3 blond blue eyed Jew, there are a lot of those. Very nice looking ones too.

And, the issue isn't that Israel exists, it's that the Golan heights abutt (spelling?) the West Bank.

Don't try playing the guilt card with me. It doesn't work.

"However, using a reductio ad absurdum, I can show that is likely not what you think. Were Israel to firebomb Gaza, killing say half the population there, 500K or more, in order to kill the guys shooting the rockets, would intent still be everything?"

the rules of war dictate that the use of force must consider the presence of civilians and the significance of the military target and then use commensurate force.

for example, you don't wipe out a civilian neighborhood to kill a couple footsoldiers. if the enemy command and control center is there...well, you try to be as precise as possible, but the significance of the target is enough that ultimately you can use as much force as is necessary. in other words, its a sliding scale.

Nathan, I still bet you that:

- you are Jewish

- that there are more Jewish Nathan's in the USA than non-Jewish

And, didn't you mention something about growing up in Canada earlier? that's nowhere near Norway...

and yes, I grew up in Europe and Canada, there's little dispute that Europeans (and French Canadians as opposed to the rest of Canada) are often somewhat anti-semitic.

Nathan, you're not being truthful...

You really shouldn't be ashamed of who you are. The Jews are wonderful and intelligent people. You should embrace your identity.

since Michele is clearly functionally illiterate:

this is what I posted above:

"actually, I'm part Romany and not Jewish.

and yes, I grew up in Europe and Canada,"
(in the late 80's I lived in Vancouver)

oh, and Michele, if you're willing to seriously put those 100 euros up...I'm more than willing to place that bet and have mutually acceptable third party adjudicate it (are birth certificates or DNA tests acceptable?).

oh, and after Norway, we lived in London, Genoa and Munich. then Vancouver.

now you have my entire biography.

this is so fucking juvenile...

Nathan, there is no such thing as a DNA test that will prove you are Jewish. It's not a genetic thing, contrary to the Nazis' theories.

It's very interesting that so many people consider the appellation "Jewish" to be an anti-Semitic smear of some kind. I don't think so at all. I just disagree with some of Israel's policies.

I think that people who think that have some issues they need to resolve, like having interiorized some of that anti-semitism they are trying to prevent. Calling someone Jewish is no different than calling someone Italian, or Roman Catholic or Muslim or Arab - if there are no adjectives attached.

I still don't get why Hezbollah and Hamas can only "kidnap" Israel's soldiers, but Israel invariably "captures" theirs.

Something just doesn't seem totally fair about that dynamic.

...there's little dispute that Europeans (and French Canadians as opposed to the rest of Canada) are often somewhat anti-Semitic.

Posted by: Nathan on July 12, 2006 at 3:42 PM | PERMALINK

And I'll bet you they often somewhat are not.

What do you mean? There's racism throughout humanity from all angles, in all directions. A lot of us (I hope) manage to overcome it.

And we're getting far too casual about "collateral damage".

On Another TacK:
News Flash. The Shot Heard Around the World.

Israel considers the capture of 2 of its soldiers to be an "act of war". They've already held Lebanon's government responsible. Now the US is including Syria and Iran.

Talk about a group of hysterical pussies. The trouble is they don't know where to stop.

"Going to turn back the clock in Lebanon 20 years" -- an Israeli general. Of course they've already said they going to make all Gaza really suffer.

This is getting out of proportion and out of hand.

STOP IT, EVERYONE!

Nathan, there is no such thing as a DNA test that will prove you are Jewish.

Uh, Michele, remember the Lemba

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F03E4DC173FF93AA35756C0A96F958260&sec=health&pagewanted=print

May 9, 1999
DNA Backs a Tribe's Tradition Of Early Descent From the Jews

By NICHOLAS WADE

The Lemba, a Bantu-speaking people of southern Africa, have a tradition that they were led out of Judea by a man named Buba. They practice circumcision, keep one day a week holy and avoid eating pork or piglike animals, such as the hippopotamus.

Several groups around the world practice Judaic rites or claim to be descended from biblical tribes without having any ancestral Jewish connection. And there is no Buba in the records of Jewish history.

But the remarkable thing about the Lemba tradition is that it may be exactly right. A team of geneticists has found that many Lemba men carry in their male chromosome a set of DNA sequences that is distinctive of the cohanim, the Jewish priests believed to be the descendants of Aaron. The genetic signature of priests -- a hereditary caste, different from rabbis but with certain ritual roles -- is particularly common among Lemba men who belong to the senior of their 12 groups, known as the Buba clan.

The discovery of the Lemba's Jewish ancestry has come about through the intertwining of two unusual strands of inquiry. One was developed by geneticists in the United States, Israel and England who wondered what truth there might be to the Jewish tradition that priests are the descendants of Aaron, the elder brother of Moses.

The other strand was provided by Dr. Tudor Parfitt, director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Dr. Parfitt, who has done research among the Lemba for 10 years, says that he has discovered Senna -- Lemba tradition maintains they came from that mysterious northern city -- and that he can retrace their steps from Senna to Africa, maybe a thousand years ago.

The genetic side of the story began when Dr. Karl Skorecki, a kidney expert at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, was sitting in a synagogue in Toronto. Dr. Skorecki, who is a priest, wondered if a fellow cohen who was being called to attend the first Torah reading might be distantly related to him, as the tradition of priestly descent from Aaron implied.

He called Dr. Michael F. Hammer of the University of Arizona, an expert who studies the genetics of human populations through the male or Y chromosome. Unlike the genetic material of the other chromosomes, the genetic material on the Y chromosome is not shuffled every generation, obscuring the lines of individual descent. Y chromosomes are bequeathed from father to son, more or less unchanged apart from the occasional mutation.

The mutations are particularly helpful for reconstructing population history because each lineage of men has its own distinctive pattern of mutations. It was a Y chromosome study last year that confirmed the oral tradition among the descendants of the slave Sally Hemings that their ancestor was Thomas Jefferson.

Dr. Hammer, Dr. Skorecki and their colleagues reported in 1997 that they had analyzed the Y chromosomes of priests and lay Jews. They found that a particular pattern of DNA changes was much more common among the priests than among laymen. The pattern was equally recognizable in Ashkenazic and Sephardic priests, even though these two branches of the Jewish population have long been geographically separated.

A colleague in Dr. Hammer's and Dr. Skorecki's research was Neil Bradman, a businessman who is now chairman of the Center for Genetic Anthropology at University College, London. Mr. Bradman set about making a wider study of Jewish populations around the world through the lens of the Y chromosome technique.

One recruit to Mr. Bradman's project is David B. Goldstein, a population geneticist at Oxford University in England. Dr. Goldstein set about refining Dr. Hammer's work so as to develop a better genetic signature of Jewish populations.

''The problem is there has been intermingling with host populations, and that has obscured their common ancestry,'' Dr. Goldstein said.

He looked at a set of three Y chromosome sites with stable genetic mutations and six sites at which mutations occur quite often, a mix designed to give good resolution between similar Y chromosomes during historical times. The mutations are all at sites on the DNA strand that lie outside the genes, and thus do not contribute in any way to the individual's physical makeup.

He found a particular set of genetic mutations at these nine sites that was strongly associated with the priestly caste, not so common among lay Jews, and very rare in non-Jewish populations. Unlike forensic DNA markers, which are chosen to be almost wholly specific to individuals, this cohen-associated genetic signature cannot be used to say who is or who is not a priest. But it is highly diagnostic of whether a population has Jewish ancestry, Dr. Goldstein said.

He finds that 45 percent of Ashkenazi priests and 56 percent of Sephardic priests have the cohen genetic signature, while in Jewish populations in general the frequency is 3 to 5 percent.

Some of his subjects had the cohen genetic signature but with slight variations caused by mutations. From the pattern and number of mutations, Dr. Goldstein was able to calculate when the present-day bearers of the cohen genetic signature and its variations last shared a common ancestor. This date, when all the branches of the family tree coalesce into a single trunk, has a wide range of uncertainty and depends on several assumptions, like the number of years in a human generation and the rate of mutation. But assuming 25 years to a generation on average, Dr. Goldstein calculated the coalescence time as 2,650 years ago, or 3,180 years with a 30-year generation time.

Though they are only rough, these dates make an evocative match with the Jewish tradition that Moses assigned the priesthood to the male descendants of his brother Aaron after the Exodus from Egypt, believed to have occurred some 3,000 years ago. Dr. Goldstein and colleagues published this conclusion last July.

''In studying the priesthood, we happened into this tool for distinguishing Jewish from non-Jewish populations,'' Dr. Goldstein said. As part of Mr. Bradman's project on the relationship of Jewish populations, he then tested DNA samples collected from the Lemba. And last month, at a conference on human evolution held at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, Dr. Goldstein reported that 9 percent of Lemba men carried the cohen genetic signature, and of those who said they belonged to the Buba clan, 53 percent had the distinctive sequences. These proportions are similar to those found among the major Jewish populations.

Because the cohen genetic signature is rare or absent in all non-Jewish populations tested so far, the findings strongly support the Lemba tradition of Jewish ancestry. Dr. Goldstein said his findings had been submitted to the American Journal of Human Genetics.

How did a Jewish priestly male chromosome come to be found in a black, Bantu-speaking people that looks very much like its southern African neighbors? Dr. Parfitt, who says he believes he has found the answer, first came across the Lemba while giving a lecture in Johannesburg about Ethiopian Jews. Some people in the audience wearing yarmulkes told him they, too, were Jewish.

Dr. Parfitt visited their homes, which are in northern South Africa and Zimbabwe. Many of the Lemba, who number more than 50,000 people, are Christians, but they see no contradiction in professing Judaism, too. He learned that they had an enigmatic tradition about their origin: ''We came from the north, from a place called Senna. We left Senna, we crossed Pusela, we came to Africa and there we rebuilt Senna.''

Dr. Parfitt said that he was later traveling in the Hadramawt region, a former site of Jewish communities in Yemen, and mentioned the Lemba tradition of Senna to the religious leader of the holy city of Tarim. The leader was surprised to hear it because, he told Dr. Parfitt, there was a nearby village called Senna.

''So I went off to find Senna,'' Dr. Parfitt said. ''It's very remote and had never been visited by anyone before. The local tradition is that centuries ago the valley had been very fertile, irrigated by a dam, the ruins of which are still there. And then the dam burst, they think about a thousand years ago, and the people fled.''

There is a valley that leads from Senna to a port on the Yemeni coast called Sayhut. If the winds are right, a ship from Sayhut could reach southern Africa in nine days, Dr. Parfitt said. And the valley that leads from Senna to Sayhut is called the Wadi al-Masilah. Dr. Parfitt believes that Masilah may be the ''Pusela'' of the Lemba oral tradition.

The Lemba have clan names like Sadiqui and Hamisi that are ''clearly Semitic'' and that are also found in the eastern Hadramawt, Dr. Parfitt said.

Dr. Parfitt, who has described his work on the Lemba in a recent book, ''Journey to the Vanished City'' (Phoenix, London), said he had been excited to hear of Dr. Goldstein's genetic results confirming the Lemba tradition.

''I was soundly criticized by a number of colleagues for listening to this nonsense because they assumed the sense of a different origin had been imposed on the Lemba by missionaries,'' he said. ''As an anthropologist, I had a sense one should listen to what people say about themselves and shouldn't be too arrogant. It turned out that what they are saying about themselves is substantially correct.''

Dr. Parfitt said that in collecting samples from the Lemba -- a swab of cells scraped from inside the cheek -- he had first explained the purpose of the research to local chiefs and obtained their permission. He then told each individual what was involved, sometimes saying ''your blood carries important history, the footprints of your ancestors,'' if he could not explain the genetics.

Being very keen to know where they came from, the Lemba lined up to give samples, Dr. Parfitt said. They were so pleased to learn the results that Dr. Parfitt was made an honorary Lemba.

Dr. Parfitt said he was particularly appreciative of the honor because Lemba tradition prohibits outside men from becoming Lembas. Women may join but only after undergoing ritual purification that includes trials by fire, water, and being drawn through a hole in a large ants' nest.

This exclusion of outside males, Dr. Parfitt said, would explain why the cohen genetic signature has been preserved at high frequency among the Lemba for so many centuries.

Correction: May 15, 1999, Saturday A front-page article on Sunday about genetic research suggesting that some members of the Lemba, a group of South African blacks, have Jewish ancestry, omitted attribution for two points. While The Times's account was gathered independently, The Jerusalem Report was the source of the fact that one researcher was in Toronto when he began thinking about ways of tracing Jewish lineage, and the fact that the Lemba number more than 50,000.

The article also referred imprecisely to an earlier historic reconstruction using Y chromosomes -- the case of Thomas Jefferson, and whether he fathered a child or children by his slave Sally Hemings. The chromosome study in that case corroborated an oral tradition, short of confirming it.

"Nathan, there is no such thing as a DNA test that will prove you are Jewish. It's not a genetic thing, contrary to the Nazis' theories."

uh, both Ashkenazim and Sephardic Jews have distinct genetic signatures.

If Arafat is warming his toes surely Sharon is in purgatory.

I think if there was a way of tracking amunition inventories, back-orders, and contracts on both sides we'd have a more accurate predicting tool for flare-ups.

This discussion has touched on the issue of water supplies in the Middle East. Those attentive to the importance of that issue may be interested in this upcoming conference:

Climate Change and the Middle East:
Past, Present and Future
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
November 20-23, 2006

Conference Objectives:

Global warming is now generally agreed to be inevitable, though there many differing assessments as to how much temperatures will rise and at what speed. All countries are now urgently examining the potential impact of climate change on their water situation and on society as a whole. The Middle East, like other regions, needs to urgently examine the way in which potential change may affect its future water supply and this in turn means examining the inter-relationship between climate variations, water supply, land use, economic planning and demographic change. Such questions cannot be dealt with on the basis of national interest only but demand cross-border and cross-disciplinary cooperation.

This symposium aims to achieve this goal by inviting researchers from a broad range of related disciplines and by encouraging those most directly concerned, decision makers and stakeholders, to work together on long term cooperative solutions to the problems which will have to be faced.

New developments in technology, sharing of data effectively, facilitating cooperation between national and local authorities, all will have a part to play in helping to meet the challenge to be faced. Assessment of the present water scarcity of the Middle East leads to the question how long this problem exists, how it is related to climate and land use, how it was addressed by ancient societies, and what can be learned from this. Additionally, knowledge of the environmental history allows for better predictions of future developments and helps to clarify the interrelationship of climate, water systems and land use. The conference targets hydrologists, geologists, meteorologists, soil scientists and land use specialists, but also archaeologists and historians investigating landscape archaeology and the environmental history.

Solutions for the problems which climate change may cause in relation to water can best be achieved by integrated management plans, focusing not only on technical matters but on the interrelationship of water systems with land use, climate and the environment. The conference invites researchers to contribute to an assessment of the likely impact of climate change on water supply and identify synergies in their approach to the problems to be faced. Significant decisions have to be taken which require well based interdisciplinary research, the results of which must be made available to decision makers in time for them to act effectively.

did they ever catch that anti-semitic bastard of a palestinian that killed rabin?

That's a significant problem and misconception among anti-Zionists.

Although there is no way to be certain, I would bet that less than a majority of American Jews are militant Zionists. Granted that I have a seriously skewed sample, but I've probably known a hundred Jews, including my half-brother, and only a few were. Even my Israeli girlfriend just wanted it all to end.

The real power in this country behind that movement is centered in other places. We shouldn't be asking about Jews, but trying to figure exactly why our government acts the way it does, a government that is not exactly loaded with Jews.

Although I know people don't intend to, equating Judaism and Zionism is not only factually, but also morally, wrong.

One time, I was talking on a street corner in Chicago with a bunch of Arabs, and they were complaining about how the Jews were running the media to the detriment of Palestinians. I jumped on that one. Who owns the newspapers in Chicago? They had to back down, because what they were saying was so obviously stupid.

Equating American support for Zionism with Jewish political power is just as stupid.

Nathan -- You probably want to be careful equating criticism of Isreal (even vehement opposition to Israeli policy) to antisemitism. Being a pacifist doesn't make one a bigot.

I still don't get why Hezbollah and Hamas can only "kidnap" Israel's soldiers, but Israel invariably "captures" theirs.

Something just doesn't seem totally fair about that dynamic.

Posted by: Pete on July 12, 2006 at 4:23 PM | PERMALINK

Actually it makes total sense.

Israel is an occupying power fighting an insurgency that is civilian based. It would be better if the Israelis used the word "arrest", but "capture" helps signify their overuse of military force.

We have made the same mistake to a larger extent in Iraq. We followed the Israeli example of ignoring the law. Looked where that got us in 3 years!

Now make it 50 years!

PD:

true enough.
Michele is making the standard non-American mistake of assuming that someone who supports Israel (generally, not always, Sharon's standing aside while the Phalangists massacred Palestinian civilians in 1982 was shameful) must be Jewish.

mjk:

oh certainly there can be legitimate criticism of Israel.

I would say that Michele and Nyberg have exposed themselves as bigots, while others have been more tempered.

I will say that holding Israel to a different standard than other countries evinces antisemitism, albeit not dispositively so.

Nathan, no they don't. they may have mitochondrial DNA that is more specific to certain groups of people, which include Sephardic Jews, for example, but the people they share these with are the Arab populations they lived with and the ME region they sprang from.

here's another example, some genetic "experts" try to give African-Americans their ancestors' countries of origin from DNA but this is considered to be bogus for several reasons - most African Americans are a mixture of various African peoples, and there is no reliable genetic distinction between a Ghanaian and an Angolan or a Zulu and a Bushman.

some genetic diseases are specific to some Jewish populations, but that has to do with inter-breeding

and, you really are all over the place in your arguments. statistically speaking, there is no more genetic difference between a Jew and a gentile than there is between two Jews or two gentiles, like there is no genetic difference between an Italian and a German.

Posted by: CursedBeHam on July 12, 2006 at 4:27 PM | PERMALINK

Good luck, if anyone reads al that. But the trouble is there are plenty of people who count themselves as Jewish who have no semitic hereditary or anything else. They could be white, yellow, brown or black. They're still Jewish. Or you might show the DNA trace and not feel or believe yourself in the least Jewish. This is sort of like Ghengis Khan's genes.

So, Michele is right. No test.

Michele:

that was muddled mixture of irrelevant truisms (your last paragraph) and complete ignorance...(btw, the prevalence of Tay-Sachs etc. among the Ashkenazim was due to their not mixing with other populations as opposed to your contention of the obverse).

check Steven Pinker's article in the New Republic the other week for a summary of some of the basic research....

Au contraire, Nathan, you are the bigot.

Firstly, you are the one who holds Israel to a different standard because you defend a country that has refused to comply with hundreds of UN resolutions. When Iraq was marginally in non-compliance, it got invaded.

Israel has undeclared weapons of mass destruction which it refuses to do anything about, yet you defend it. This is holding Israel to a different standard than other countries, ergo you are an anti-semite.

Secondly, you consider the appellation "Jewish" to be an insult. Also anti-semitic.

Thirdly, you believe that Jews are different genetically than the rest of humans, the same theory that Dr Mengele had. So, not only anti-Semitic, but positively Nazi.

Since you are Jewish and anti-semitic to boot, you must be one of these self-hating Jews!

Final point for my fellow anti-Zionists:

You often hear calls for America to withdraw its support from Israel. This is stupid as well.

Israel is a paranoid state for good historical reasons. The fact that most of the world doesn't sympathize with it makes it more paranoid. The fact that America keeps it in a protective embrace ameliorates that paranoia. This has the paradoxical effect of moderating Israeli actions. For example, they let Saddam shoot Scud missiles at them without any response in 1991. If they truly felt that it was them against the world, do you think they would act worse or better? What would you do in their situation?

The real question for America is getting more in exchange from Israel for the support it provides, not withdrawing that support. It is in our strong interest to force them to moderate their actions, but it is also in our strong interest to help them. We just need to figure out how to get the political will to do both.

pd: your last post makes a lot of sense, but this bit "Although I know people don't intend to, equating Judaism and Zionism is not only factually, but also morally, wrong" kind of sticks in my craw. wrong, absolutely. morally wrong? is it any more morally wrong than failing to distinguish between palestinians and palestinian political movements? why do i have a special moral obligation to parse out the differences between zionism and judaism that i don't have in the case of other peoples and beliefs?

it's an unfortunate part of most debates about this issue that the word "anti-semitic" gets thrown around like confetti. for the sake of not having to reevaluate my expectations about how these arguments always go i'm glad to see it's in full effect here. at least we haven't seen "self-hating jew" yet. that one really makes me want to kick someone in the crotch.

Nathan, you get your scientific facts from the New Republic!!!! No wonder your logic is so messed up!!!

notthere:

actually, if you read cursedbeham's post in its entirety you might learn that there are genetic markers in black Jewish populations (they've also been identified in Ethiopian Jews possibly Indian Jews)...

its really fascinating stuff...

as for the Romany (not that I feel any sense of Gypsy identity...its so far removed)...they have some fascinating genetic markers as well....

Nathan, your use of "antisemitism" shows you are either lazy, stupid or a bigot yourself.

Guess what? If Israel is going to make peace, it will do so with some people who are antisemitic. And the Palestinians will have to make peace with people who are racist against Palestians.

So, avoiding the discussion by calling the other side anti-semitic is kinda irrelevant. Basically, you don't want to engage in discussion because... (prob cuz your losing).

Nathan,

There are genetic markers more common amongst european jews and remarkably recent choke points demonstrated in the mitochondrial DNA of some european jews but neither really takes us back past the middle ages. Outside of certain functional genes european jews look very european. The former appear to indicate the action of some relatively recent selective forces and not some continuous connection back to Abraham or David. When discussing 100's of generations you'd have to have an exceedingly low gene influx rate to preserve a "DNA signature" by chance.

Michele:

uh, no. Do you know who Steven Pinker is? this isn't Martin Peretz we're talking about.

Nathan wrote: I will say that holding Israel to a different standard than other countries evinces antisemitism, albeit not dispositively so.

Some supporters of Israel "hold Israel to a different standard than other countries", for example by railing against Iraq's violations of UN Security Council resolutions, and indeed offering such violations as justification for invading and occupying Iraq and overthrowing its government, while never complaining about Israel's violations of such resolutions; or by railing against Iran's entirely legal civilian nuclear program (which could, possibly, at some future time, be redirected to a nuclear weapons program) while never complaining about Israel's stockpile of nuclear weapons and Israel's non-compliance with the NPT. Do those double standards "evince antisemitism", in your opinion?

Steven Pinker is an authority. Michele, you are outdated on this subject.

Nathan, the genetic markers you discuss are not specific to the groups you mention - they are mitochondrial DNA markers that basically trace which African group of prehistoric humans one's ancestors came from. They are all shared by Ethiopian Jews but also by other groups who came from the same roots. They are not specific to any ethnic group as we now know them. Most Europeans and white North Americans probably all have the same mitochondrial DNA and might share it with the Turks, for example, or with the Indians.

B:

I never said they did. (although the cohanim appear to be another matter.) I have no stake in the matter. I only said that they are genetically identifiable populations. A fact that Michele seems to be entirely ignorant of.

Michele:

oh, gosh, you are ignorant.

why don't you read Ham's cut and paste above? you might learn something.

Nathan, you're out of your league here. They are not more genetically identifiable than my little sister is to that Matarazzi character who insulted Zidane.

For many years, the Jews have argued that they are no different than any other European or Arab (depending on which country they originate from) and you're arguing the contrary. At least until it suits you and you'll be arguing the obverse soon enough.

I don't think you understand the implications of what you are saying.

tomwashere:
"at least we haven't seen "self-hating jew" yet. that one really makes me want to kick someone in the crotch."

you might want to talk to Michele above.

tomwashere

It's morally wrong, because, despite possibly good intentions, it's a very slippery slope from there to the Arabs on the street claiming the Jews control everything, and from there to the Protocols, and from there, to we all know what.

Those kinds of mistakes are thus particularly dangerous and have a particular historical context.

Without a doubt, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian prejudice is just as morally wrong, especially as western societies seem to be ramping up anti-Muslim feelings in ways similar to anti-Semitism. However, in makng my point towards anti-Zionists, I didn't figure that was necessary to mention.

Nathan, the part about YOUR land being shelled every day is the basic issue. It's not your land.

And this is exactly where you lose the ability to sound fair to Israel.

What you just said, michele (sory for my earlier mispeling), was that Israel has no right to any of its land. Or did I misunderstand you?

The thing is, I hear this from a lot of people, and it's implicit in arguments made by a lot more, arguments that amount to, it's all Israel's responsibility because they started the fight by barging in there, they are colonialists, they are imperialists just by existing, etc. These arguments ignore some basic facts:

There never was a Palestinian state.
Jordan, the prior ruler of the West Bank territory, has made peace with Israel and accepted its occupation.
Turkey and Britain, the prior rulers of Israel proper, are fine with Israel's existence.
Virtually every nation that exists now displaced somebody else. In many cases, this happened within living memory at least as to some of the territory.

Despite this, the idea persists that somehow, Israel has less right to exist where it is than other nations have. Israel does not accept that notion, however, and any reasoning about what terms it should offer or accept, or how placid it should be in the face of attacks, that is based on that idea, is not going to lead to peace.

If anything, the question that should be asked is why the Palestinians particularly deserve a state. They never had one, they are indistinguishable from other local Arabs by history, language, and other aspects of culture, and the borders of the province known to history as Palestine have been extremely fluid and much of that territory is now part of other Arab states. Why does the world need yet another Arab state, and why do these people need their own state? It seems like they're doing well to get a state at all, so they could stand to be more flexible about its exact borders.

Nathan, you ARE Jewish!!!

"the Jews"

oh, Jews are a monolithic group now? there are plenty of Jewish groups that assert the opposite.

most of my Jewish friends here in NY are ambivalent as to whether its an ethnic as opposed to a religious or cultural identity...

and yes, we could discuss the Founder effect or the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium until we were blue in the face, but then you wouldn't know what we were talking about....

and if you can't see the difference between Iran and Israel having nukes...

but by your definition, treating Israel differently than other nations is anti-semitic. so by stating that Iran possessing nuclear weapons and Israel doing the same are different, you are being anti-semitic!

as for the cultural or religious identity, you yourself said it was a genetic identity.

my, my. such anti-semitism is not acceptable on such a forum.

Michele,

I don't know why you keep persisting in insisting that I must be of one ethnicity or another...but once again, just because my first name is Nathan (like I said, go to talk to Moses Malone (hint: he's black)) and because I support Israel's right to exist, doesn't mean that I'm Jewish.

that would be news to my Swedish, Czech, Romany and Irish grandparents, and to my Baptist parents.

nathan: yeah, i jumped the gun on that one
pd: fair enough. just wanted to be clear on that. i think it's a bit problematic to have one word for bias against jews and one word (racism) for bias against every other group of people, but i do understand the history of bad treatment of jews is a long, long one. how do you feel about trilobite's comment "Why does the world need yet another Arab state, and why do these people need their own state?"

"you yourself said it was a genetic identity."

No, I didn't. I said that Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews have identifiable genetic signatures. This is well documented. (I'll grant that if you haven't taken a course on the subject in the last few years, or kept up to date you might not be aware of this.)

as for the rest of your post...its just childish

Nathan, I am only echoing your words back at you.

trilobite, I never said such a thing. Israel should withdraw to its pre-1967 borders is what I said and believe.

The attempt to deny Palestinians a national identity is, I think, a nasty colonial kind of thing to say. That somehow, we can decide that our feelings as groups are more legitimate than the natives.

If millions of people claim that they are part of a nation, then they are, by definition. That's what a nation is. It's a sense of kinship, and it arises in many different historical ways. That's why we're different than other English speaking peoples. What is the difference between an American and a Canadian?

I would say that that attitude towards the Palestinians is probably similar to the one that King George III had towards America.

Ehud Barak's peace offer, I don't know Kevin. I heard some pretty smart observers say that there was no way Arafat could accept a solution that included parts of his country being separated by Israeli wall and checkpoints.

But two points:

- As Juan Cole pointed out, most Palestinians think that the incident that provoked this latest violence was the Israeli artillery shell that killed several members of that Palestinian family on the beach. The film of that little girl who survived going crazy with grief got lots of play in their world, but not in Israel.
- If I remember the numbers correctly, UN resolutions 242 and 338, passed decades ago have never been enforced. They say Israel cannot keep the territory occupied win the wake of that war so long ago in the 60s. And every Arab, every Muslim, every Palestinian knows this.

PD, I agree that Palestinians today have developed a national identity (its also true that they did not have one in not too distant past). of course, with the exception of the monarchy, Jordan is pretty much a Palestinian state. I tend to think that a Palestinian state composed of Jordan, Gaza and much of the West Bank would be a fair outcome.

trilobite --
a little bit of revisionism here in your history lessson. And a signal disregard to anyones common rights.

Whether the Caliphate, Ottoman's or British ruled there, they didn't move the indigenous people out and replace them. That is the definintion of ethnic cleansing.

Until 60-odd years ago, the majority of people in this space called Israel were Palestinians who have been forcibly removed. The Jews (Zionists) who honestly feel it is a god-given right to reclaim this land after an absence of almost 2000 years open the door to all sorts of legal and extra-legal arguments, not least the violent colonialism and broken treaties here in the US, who so generously supports Israel.

Israel's sole purpose towards the Palestinians has been to displace them; planned before 1948 and pursued since. The longer they can keep the Palestinians disorganized, the more, they believe, their land grab beyong their internationally accepted borders becomes a fait accompli. Their objective of excluding Palestinians from Jerusalem seems particularly pernicious.

The policy on the Israeli side is as much madness in the longer term as the Palestinians' is at present. The only credit I would give the Palestinians is that they have fallen foul of Israel acting as agent provocateur.

At the moment, to a point, each is acting as some faction of the other wants them to do.

The fact that the US ties itself so closely to Israel is acting and will increasingly act to our detriment.

Nathan, I think you should figure out the problems with your identity before projecting those problems onto the Palestinians. They have suffered enough.

I think Israel and Greenland should join into a greater Israel so that the Israelis will have plenty of drinking water and since Israelis really have no identity, theycan pick up the Innu identity.

I tend to think that a Palestinian state composed of Jordan, Gaza and much of the West Bank would be a fair outcome.

Unfortunately for that pla, one major stumbling block is that the people of Jordan, Gaza, and much of the West Bank seem to disagree.

notthere,

Semitic was originally a linguistic classification for Afro-Asiatic languages; languages that were 85% plus Hamitic i.e., African and less than 14% Indo-European.

To paraphrase former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, Arabs are Semites too.

The most widely spoken Semitic language today is Arabic (206 million speakers), followed by Amharic (27 million speakers), Hebrew (7 million speakers), and Tigrinya (6.75 million speakers). Semitic languages were among the earliest to attain a written form, with Akkadian writing beginning in the middle of the third millennium BC. The term "Semitic" for these languages, after Shem son of Noah, is etymologically a misnomer in some ways (see Semitic), but is nonetheless standard.
http://www.answers.com/Semitic%20languages

Semitic later was used as a racial classification for middle eastern peoples of black-white genetic lineage.

Semitic, later came to be used as a racial classification for Middle Eastern peoples of black-white genetic lineage.

Anwar al-Sadat proudly stated that he was the first Black man to lead Egypt since the ancient Pharaohs.

cbh

...actually, if you read cursedbeham's post in its entirety you might learn that there are genetic markers in black Jewish populations...

Posted by: Nathan on July 12, 2006 at 4:47 PM | PERMALINK

In short, my point was: you don't have to be genetically Jewish to consider yourself so; similarly, you might show a genetic marker and not consider yourself so -- you might consider yourself something else entirely. And that is what counts.

All us Euros, Chinese, etc. do not consider ourselves Mongols.

But what is it about the mindset of some folks who, apparently seriously, will spout out solutions like Jordan-Gaza-West Bank? I remember George Will, 20 years ago, with irritation, saying: “The Palestinians already have a country: Jordan.” And all the right-thinking, super-educated conservatives nod their heads in agreement. For some reason, they just want to believe. The Israelis are the good guys and the others are the bad guys.

Because of idiot racists like Nathan, the term "antisemite" has almost become a compliment, pretty much becoming, in the context of the Middle East, synonymous with "someone who believes that Palestinians are human beings on par with Jews".

People like Nathan who advance the racist theory of Jewish exceptionalism and conflate Zionism with Judiasm will continue to throw out that slur with increasing regularity as their worldview continues to get exposed for the hideous pre-enlightenment bag of rubbish that it is.

I'm not sure what exactly to think about the Jordan-Gaza-West Bank argument.

First, you can't make those kinds of decisions for other people, they have to do it themselves. Outsiders cannot create nation-states, they have to come from the population. Any idea of changing borders in the Middle East runs immediately aground on that principle.

Second, that would require overthrowing the Hashemites. In general, I would tend to react well towards overthrowing monarchies, but I'm not convinced another form of government could be established there very easily. Although the Hashemites are clearly opressing a majority Palestinan population, it's not obvious to me that there is another better option for that area right now. More or less, I just wouldn't pretend to know whether nation-states would work well there, and I tend to doubt whether nation-state is the best political organization to be forcing the entire world into.

pd: amen. well said.

an israeli friend made the argument that the palestinians weren't a real people once. i found his argument somewhat undercut by the fact that his family had moved to israel from the former soviet union maybe 15 years before. it takes some contortions in my view to say that a group of people who've lived on the land for hundreds of years as no right to it but groups of people who have moved there within the last 10 years, whatever the urgency of such moves, do have a right to it.

PD:

I agree. I only stated (as several here have missed) is that it would be a "fair outcome." How to get there is an altogether different question.

the fact that Jordan is a majority Palestinian state is the part that people want to avoid.

the only reason the Palestinians are a majority in Jordan is that they were forced to leave their homeland. The Palestinians are also a large group in the Emirates. Maybe we should give them the United Arab Emirates too.

CursedBeham --
Thanks for the discourse. I was using it in the older sense, to the period from which we are talking that the tribes arose. Given the movement and the various wars and monarchies, I have to believe there was a fair amount of interbreeding and cannot really imagine great distinctions between Phoenicians, Punics, Aramaians, Hebrew, and Arabs, etc. Which would lead one to believe that Palestinians are at least close cousins to the Jews.

Personally, I'm not sure what you mean by "black-white genetic lineage".

Michele, you might want to look at the history of Transjordan etc...there aren't separate Palestinian ancestral homelands and Hashemite homelands....its all a muddle actually.

I agree. I only stated (as several here have missed) is that it would be a "fair outcome."

I don't see how people that pretty much all don't want to be in a common polity being smooshed into one is a "fair outcome" under any principle of fairness and, further, pragmatically, if the history shows anything, it shows that such situations, only tenable at all when imposed by outside force, are inherently unstable and prone to violent dissolution and tend to provoke conflicts embroiling neighboring, and sometimes even remote, states.

In sum, I think it is, in every conceivable way, a Bad Idea™.

Trans Jordan only dates back from the Balfour declaration.

the original population of Jordan was Bedouin. quite different from Palestinians

I see you like to re-arrange history to suit your purposes.

Come on, Michele, that's not true. There were always Palestinians on both sides of the river, and there is a pretty clear ethnic and linguistic distinction. The Hashemites ruled various countries through Arab history, kind of like the Bourbons. Currently, they are overlording with a majority Palestinian population, although there are granted many peninsular Arabs there as well.

no Pd you are quite wrong on this

it's been fun but it's 1 a.m. here so tschuess!

Mr Drum says:

"Yasser Arafat, wherever he might be warming his toes at the moment, has much to answer for. How different would the world be if he had accepted Ehud Barak's peace offer six years ago and put his personal reputation behind making it work?"

OY VEY!

Good guys and bad guys? Why does everybody plunge right in to the deep end whenever a Palestinian pops up?

In politics it's the shallow end that holds the stick, and Hezbollah is controlled by Iran.

Apparently they see their present conflict with the US as the ideal excuse to try to cause as much chaos as they can.

Michele:

there was no Jordan before Transjordan.
further, Bedouin tribes have indeed moved throughout the region...and people today known as Palestinians have been settled throughout the Israel, West Bank, Gaza and Jordan area for hundreds of years. The Hashemites were an imported monarchy (brought in by the British for their created state of Transjordan).

I don't know where you're getting your info (maybe from your cabdriver the other day -- did he provide you with all your knowledge of genetics as well?) but its certainly not from any academic history.

little ole jim from red country
PD
notthere

For those who believe, and I mean truly believe.
Jesus will not return unless YS RA EL is restored to its Biblical boundaries.
Meaning everything west of the Euphrates to the Mediterranean.

Genesis 15:18

In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:
__________________________________________________

For some reason, they just want to believe. The Israelis are the good guys and the others are the bad guys.
little ole jim from red country
Equating American support for Zionism with Jewish political power is just as stupid.

You often hear calls for America to withdraw its support from Israel. This is stupid as well.

The real question for America is getting more in exchange from Israel for the support it provides, not withdrawing that support. It is in our strong interest to force them to moderate their actions, but it is also in our strong interest to help them.
PD

The fact that the US ties itself so closely to Israel is acting and will increasingly act to our detriment.
Posted by: notthere

cmdicely:

insofar as a considerable number (i.e. a majority) of the people we're discussing would consider anything less than the extinction of Israel to be unfair....

funny how the Israelis and their supporters will admit to their being Palestinians in Jordan, but none in Israel before 1945. According to them, the place was deserted±

Nathan, take advantage of the fact that I'm leaving to continue making a fool of yourself.

michele:

are you illiterate?

I stated above that there were Palestinians in Israel for centuries.

Okay, Michele, I'm willing to listen about that.

Here's what I understood -

Palestinians (villagers) living on both sides of the Jordan.
Peninsular Arabs living farther east in the less hospitable parts of Jordan.
Bedouins living everywhere where nobody else could survive.

Transjordan first acts as a refuge to Palestinians being driven from present day Israel. It is already a majotiy Palestinian state because it includes the West Bank. That increases. Land is lost in the 1967 war, making the new Jordan less Palestinian because no more West Bank, and then a flow of more refugees making the society even more Palestinian. Perhaps some number of Bedouins comes also fleeing the formation of Israel, but small relative to the Palestinians.

So, the Jordan/Transjordan political entity would have always been majority Palestinian.

But, I admit I might be wrong, I'm not a historian.

PD, you're certainly more of one than Michele.

who's a geneticist (unfamiliar with the Y Chromosome, the Founder Effect or the provenance of Tay-Sachs), middle-eastern historian, and psychologist able to diagnose self-hating Jews in denial of their own identity (despite the fact that their parents named them "Nathan" so they must be Jewish)....
and you're going to give her credence?

btw Michele,

transjordan did not date to the Balfour Declaration. It was created pursuant to the Sykes-Picot agreement as an entity under the British Mandate of Palestine.

or is the Encyclopedia Britannica a Zionist tool?

Interesting posts. Kudos to Kevin for blogging on the issue.

I would like to see some future discussion of the EU expansion might reframe the issue, plus how domestic politics in the EU and the US will reframe the issue.

Thanks to the posters, for I find I learn more in these discussions than I do in the MSM.

My 2 cents is off-topic: I thought the Israeli Supreme Court decided that Judaism was a religion, not a race. Did I have it right?

From Article Fifteen of the Charter of Hamas,

It is important that basic changes be made in the school curriculum, to cleanse it of the traces of ideological invasion that affected it as a result of the orientalists and missionaries who infiltrated the region following the defeat of the Crusaders at the hands of Salah el-Din (Saladin). The Crusaders realised that it was impossible to defeat the Moslems without first having ideological invasion pave the way by upsetting their thoughts, disfiguring their heritage and violating their ideals. Only then could they invade with soldiers. This, in its turn, paved the way for the imperialistic invasion that made Allenby declare on entering Jerusalem: "Only now have the Crusades ended." General Guru stood at Salah el-Din's grave and said: "We have returned, O Salah el-Din." Imperialism has helped towards the strengthening of ideological invasion, deepening, and still does, its roots. All this has paved the way towards the loss of Palestine.

It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Moslem generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis. Palestine contains Islamic holy sites. In it there is al- Aqsa Mosque which is bound to the great Mosque in Mecca in an inseparable bond as long as heaven and earth speak of Isra` (Mohammed's midnight journey to the seven heavens) and Mi'raj (Mohammed's ascension to the seven heavens from Jerusalem).

"The bond of one day for the sake of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it. The place of one's whip in Paradise is far better than the world and whatever there is on it. A worshipper's going and coming in the service of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it." (As related by al-Bukhari, Moslem, al-Tarmdhi and Ibn Maja).

"I swear by the holder of Mohammed's soul that I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and be killed, and then invade again and be killed." (As related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm

There were Palestinians in Palestine for centuries.

from Article Twenty-Eight of the Charter of Hamas,

http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm

The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion. It does not refrain from resorting to all methods, using all evil and contemptible ways to achieve its end. It relies greatly in its infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations it gave rise to, such as the Freemasons, The Rotary and Lions clubs, and other sabotage groups. All these organizations, whether secret or open, work in the interest of Zionism and according to its instructions. They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion.

From Article Thirty-One of the Charter of Hamas,

The Islamic Resistance Movement is a humanistic movement. It takes care of human rights and is guided by Islamic tolerance when dealing with the followers of other religions. It does not antagonize anyone of them except if it is antagonized by it or stands in its way to hamper its moves and waste its efforts.

Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam. Past and present history are the best witness to that.

From Article Thirty-Two of the Charter of Hamas,

The Islamic Resistance Movement calls on Arab and Islamic nations to take up the line of serious and persevering action to prevent the success of this horrendous plan, to warn the people of the danger eminating from leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism. Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.

Leaving the circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason, and cursed be he who does that. "for whoso shall turn his back unto them on that day, unless he turneth aside to fight, or retreateth to another party of the faithful, shall draw on himself the indignation of Allah, and his abode shall be hell; an ill journey shall it be thither." (The Spoils - verse 16). There is no way out except by concentrating all powers and energies to face this Nazi, vicious Tatar invasion.

Article Thirty-Three:

The Islamic Resistance Movement, being based on the common coordinated and interdependent conceptions of the laws of the universe, and flowing in the stream of destiny in confronting and fighting the enemies in defence of the Moslems and Islamic civilization and sacred sites, the first among which is the Aqsa Mosque, urges the Arab and Islamic peoples, their governments, popular and official groupings, to fear Allah where their view of the Islamic Resistance Movement and their dealings with it are concerned. They should back and support it, as Allah wants them to, extending to it more and more funds till Allah's purpose is achieved when ranks will close up, fighters join other fighters and masses everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty while loudly proclaiming: Hail to Jihad. Their cry will reach the heavens and will go on being resounded until liberation is achieved, the invaders vanquished and Allah's victory comes about.

"And Allah will certainly assist him who shall be on his side: for Allah is strong and mighty." (The Pilgrimage - verse 40).

Um, can we move that, as the link as been provided, the entire Hamas charter be taken as read rather than being entered into this comment thread article by article?

设计 - 设计, 设计 - 设计, 设计 - 设计, 设计 - 设计, 机械 - 机械, 机械 - 机械, 机械 - 机械, 机械 - 机械, 泵阀 - 泵阀, 泵阀 - 泵阀, 泵阀 - 泵阀, 泵阀 - 泵阀, 彩票 - 彩票, 彩票 - 彩票, 彩票 - 彩票, 彩票 - 彩票, 旅游 - 旅游, 旅游 - 旅游, 旅游 - 旅游, 旅游 - 旅游, 仪器 - 仪器, 仪器 - 仪器, 仪器 - 仪器, 仪器 - 仪器, 医疗 - 医疗, 医疗 - 医疗, 医疗 - 医疗, 医疗 - 医疗, 数码 - 数码, 数码 - 数码, 数码 - 数码, 数码 - 数码, 培训 - 培训, 培训 - 培训, 培训 - 培训, 培训 - 培训, 租车 - 租车, 租车 - 租车, 租车 - 租车, 租车 - 租车, 注册 - 注册, 注册 - 注册, 注册 - 注册, 注册 - 注册, 名录 - 名录, 名录 - 名录, 名录 - 名录, 名录 - 名录, 民品 - 民品, 民品 - 民品, 民品 - 民品, 民品 - 民品, 机票 - 机票, 机票 - 机票, 机票 - 机票, 机票 - 机票, 化工 - 化工, 化工 - 化工, 化工 - 化工, 化工 - 化工, 工业 - 工业, 工业 - 工业, 工业 - 工业, 工业 - 工业, 服务 - 服务, 服务 - 服务, 服务 - 服务, 服务 - 服务, ENGLISH - ENGLISH, ENGLISH - ENGLISH, ENGLISH - ENGLISH, ENGLISH - ENGLISH, 安防 - 安防, 安防 - 安防, 安防 - 安防, 安防 - 安防

Yeah, Ok. I'm good.

(But none of that reads like nationalism to me. Its' arguments reference Muslims and are meant to be read universally. It's religious mania and gangsterism).

so does israel anywhere recognize palestine's right to exist?

"I'm beginning to think that the humane thing to do is to send in large numbers of troops, go house to house, eradicate (ie. execute) all terrorism, militants, fighters, religious leaders, resistance, etc."

Why is it that America produces so many armchair warriors? Has Iraq taught you guys nothing? Do you really belive that you can just march into any country you choose, clear away its population, and impose your will? Only the truly ignorant can be so glibe.

notthere:
No, Israel is not trying to kick out or kill all its Palestinians. If it were, it would not now have a 20% (and growing) Palestinian population inside the Green Line, Palestinian members of the Knesset, Palestinian landowners, etc. It would look more like, oh, any Arab state in the world, in which Jews are denied basic civil rights, not allowed to enter as tourists, not allowed to own land, killed, and/or exiled. But thank you for playing.

Israel did kick out _some_ Palestinians in the first rush of statehood, at a time when they were facing an invasion by several Arab armies. The U.S. interned its Japanese for far less reason. Both were shameful acts, but neither were exceptionally bad as national acts of panic go. The problem has been that the Palestinians who were kicked out have remained at war with Israel instead of either moving elsewhere or reconciling to the new government. Imagine that the Nisei had taken to the hills and continued to fight a guerilla war with high explosives and aid from Japan to this day, and you see the nature of the problem.

Michele, do the math. A few hundred thousand displaced persons and their descendants, most of whom have stayed in the West Bank and Gaza, cannot possibly now make up the majority of Jordan's population. You don't even have to know history to see how silly your idea that Jordan was not historically "Palestinian" is. Although that would also help.

Calling them "Palestinian," however, is a relatively new phenomenon. Mostly, they were just "Arabs." Arabs who lived in the old south-Syrian province of the Ottoman Empire, in the Trans-Jordanian protectorate of the British Empire, in Lebanon, in "the Holy Land," whatever. It is only lately that some of them have decided they are a separate people, apparently on the basis of having been displaced.

And this, tomwashere, may have been your friend's point. He, a Jew in Russia, had (I presume) a long family history of being Jewish, a member of a group well-recognized and very distinctive for millennia. The Palestinian Arabs lived in the region, but had no distinct history or culture and had never been considered by themselves or anyone else to be a separate group.

hostile, there were also Jews living in Palestine for centuries (at least). Your point is?

tomwashere: Israel stands ready to accept a Palestinian state if the Palestinians ever deign to declare one, that's been clear at least since Camp David in 2000, maybe since Oslo in 1992. So far the PA has refused to take that step. I think they have said they don't want to endorse their current borders, but IMO it's also because they would have to start acting like a state -- you know, controlling their resident terrorists, making at least a token effort to find an economic base other than charity, not being at permanent war with their next-door neighbor, that sort of thing. They get more mileage out of calling their cities "refugee camps" and their state an "occupied territory." If I were them, I would find it embarrasing to act like that, but that famed Palestinian sense of national honor is not always keyed to anything I can recognize.

Hamas's success at instigating a full-blown war with Israel in Gaza has apparently inspired Hezbollah to try and start a full-blown war of its own with Israel in southern Lebanon.

Kevin, you're pretty fucking ignorant if you think that's what's going on here. You seem to be regurgitating the line that all of the hostility started with the Gaza soldier kidnapping, which is a rather jaundiced reading of the situation. For your benefit, a review of June is here.

You're nearly always silent when massive crimes are perpetuated against Palestinians, as has been the case in particular for the past month+. Judging from your posting habits, your ears perk up only when those people living with the boot on their neck respond by doing something provocative. Your blindness on this front is more than telling.

Israel stands ready to accept a Palestinian state… trilobite 11:09 PM |

Nifty move, bombing the Beirut international airport. Seems that the Israelis never miss a chance to inflame world opinion against them.

notthere:
...It would look more like, oh, any Arab state in the world, in which Jews are denied basic civil rights, not allowed to enter as tourists, not allowed to own land, killed, and/or exiled. But thank you for playing.

Israel did kick out _some_ Palestinians in the first rush of statehood...Imagine that the Nisei had taken to the hills and continued to fight a guerilla war....

Posted by: trilobite on July 12, 2006 at 11:09 PM | PERMALINK

Thank you for playing yourself, trilobite!

No! Israel does not grant equal rights to Arabs within Israel. More particularly, they are extremely restrictive of Arab rights, including voting, within East Jeruslaem. Wonder why? Quite a number of Western peace activists have been killed by the IDF in Palestinian territory,(thanks for being an humanitarian tourist), over and above resident women and children (the majority not as "collateral damage" in extra-judicial assassination). And all Palestinian Arabs within the power of Israeli occupier jurisdiction are very restricted in all rights. Israel has been very particular about not extending equal property or water rights to all Arabs as to Jews.

Spin again, trilobite.

The Zionists kicked out more than "some_ Palestinians" in 1948-49 and never sought any fair resolution with them over that. Hence Palestinians claim to return (even if the don't ever).

If you were thrown violently out of your home with your wife and kids without compensation, would you fight for it. If you, or your relations and friends were killed in the process, might your children fight the same cause.

Spin again. Don't play the game. Break the circle!

You're the one who did'n't seem to know that Israel has controlled the Gaza borders and restricted Palestinian trade. You're the one who doesn't seem to know the true nature of water distribution in the West Bank.

Thanks for playing yourself!

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uh, both Ashkenazim and Sephardic Jews have distinct genetic signatures.

As did Sammy Davis Jr.

And Elizabeth Taylor.

notthere, Arabs in Israel (not in the PA-held territories) can vote in Israeli elections. This is why there are Arabs on the Knesset. The ballyhooed Israeli interference with voting was with voting in the PA's internal elections, by Arabs living in East Jerusalem, outside that territory. Talk about spin!

Your vague talk of denial of civil rights is not informative, and from what I have heard, including from one Moslem tourist, not accurate.

And yes, I might fight for my land. I believe I said that stealing land was a bad thing to do. The question is what to do about the problem after it happened. War is one answer, or I might accept that the government has changed and try to get the land back legally. Land ownership and sovereignty are not the same thing, but the Palestinians act as though they are. This may have something to do with the fact that most of those Palestinians who did try the legal route discovered, and I have a great deal of sympathy for them as to this point, that they could not prove title to the land. For three reasons: they had little or no documentation, there were often multiple claimants to the same land, and it generally turned out that at best they "owned" the land under a tenant-farmer arrangement that has no precise analogy in Israeli (Western) law but is not like title as we usually understand it.

Under the circumstances, compensation and resettlement seem like the fairest available solution. But they won't take it. I don't know how the heck they think they're going to sort out ownership if they ever actually DO annihilate Israel and take the land back; I suspect there would be a whole lot of homicides.

Quite a number of Western peace activists have been killed by the IDF in Palestinian territory
Got statistics? I can recall a handful, unsurprising in a war zone.

You're the one who did'n't seem to know that Israel has controlled the Gaza borders and restricted Palestinian trade. You're the one who doesn't seem to know the true nature of water distribution in the West Bank.

What "seem"? I SAID I didn't know and asked for information. Is there a problem with that?

trilobite,

You might also have pointed out that Israel did not, by any means, control all of Gaza's international borders. For some reason the Palestinian Arabs and their pacifist/leftist supporters in the West think that Israel should have had maintained open borders with a state that was devoted to Israel's destruction. I still don't get that. But in any event, Israel had no, that is, zero, zip, zilch, nada, nil, control over the border between Gaza and Egypt. Israel paid a price for giving up that control, too, because that's how most of the rockets and other munitions have entered Gaza. So when the Arabs cry how they were locked into a "prison" with no access to the outside world, well, I guess I say, what about Egypt?

trilobite on July 13, 2006 at 2:40 PM:

try to get the land back legally.
That is not possible when Israel denies the Arab's legal claims, bulldozes Arab dwellings, orchards, and businesses, denies Arab legitimacy and moves settlers into Arab land.

Under the circumstances, compensation and resettlement seem like the fairest available solution.
Fair to Israeli thieves.

I can recall a handful, unsurprising in a war zone.
Israeli assassination squads have killed hundreds of people. The murder of Western journalists, Rachel Corrie, and the disgusting use of snipers to shoot people in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was a crime against humanity.

Israel had no, that is, zero, zip, zilch, nada, nil, control over the border between Gaza and Egypt. …DBLat 9:55 PM

Israel closed Rafah just before the withdrawal, and the terminal has opened only sporadically since then to allow passage of hardship cases….
A key issue at Monday's meeting will be Israel's demand to monitor Rafah long-distance, via computer hookup and closed-circuit TV, Erekat said. The Palestinians reject the demand, saying the presence of European inspectors should be sufficient.

It's extraordinary the way the supporters of Israeli terrorism lie in their pathetic attempts to make Israeli atrocities acceptable.

>

The Palestinians are responsible for their own lot in life. Just as the Germans elected to give their vote to Hitler, so did the Palestinians and Arabs give their support to Fatah, Arafat, Hezzbollah, and Hamas. You side with garbage, you'll sleep with garbage.

AIPAC is powerful because Americans support Israel, not the other way around.

Arabs and Palestinians (?) rejected the 1948 Partition Plan. They gambled and lost. End of story.

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Yeah, we should be neutral between Israel and Arab/Islamic terrorists like we were neutral between England and Nazi Germany. lol

Zionism is a religon of peace and democracy. Hamas and the PLO are terrorists. One of the POS they want released is Samir Kuntar, who in 1979 killed a husband and 2 of his daughters. They slit the man's throat and then bashed his 4-year old girl's head against rocks.

Real toughies, these Arab punks. No wonder when the IDF comes calling they drop their rifles and hide. Hezzbollah isn't talking today about how they 'liberated ' South Lebanon. Because Israel wasn't forced out, and now that Hezzbollah awakened a sleeping giant, they're getting their asses kicked.

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Sorry, fool...it was an Arab landmine or shell. Another lie, just like the so-called Jenin "massacre."

>

Right, we should support Arab terrorists and other losers in the region. You want a Palestinian state ? You got it -- it's called Jordan and it comprises the bulk of the Palestinian Mandate.

.

More ignornance. The US didn't support Israel military and economically until AFTER 1973 Yom Kippur War, clown. Israel mopped up the Arabs in 1967 and was about to seize Cairo and Damascus when the hostilities ended in 1973. If you think Israel needs the U.S. to mop up Hamas and Hezzbollah, you're alot dumber than your post indicates.

>

Sorry, but Israel is an ally, just like England was in the 1940's. Arab and Islamic terrorists are the enemy, just like Nazi Germany and Tojo's Japan were.

Mike, Rachel Corrie wasn't murdered....she killed herself when she allowed a bulldozer to run over her.

What was she doing trying to prevent the IDF from blowing up Palestinian smuggling tunnels?

What was she doing burning an American flag?

What was she doing preaching 'jihad, jihad' along with American's enemies?

I'm sorry anybody has to die, but better a misinformed arrogant college snob than innocent Israelis who would face the same plight as Christians in Lebanon.

"the disgusting use of snipers to shoot people in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was a crime against humanity."

Why were Arab terrorists in a Christian church, desecrating it, and then leaving it like drunks leave a cesspool?

Arab and Islamic punks act like thugs like they did in Jenin and then they cry when Israel targets them. I'm glad Israeli snipers nailed them, take them out with the Friday garbage.