The Third Way: A Different View of the Middle East

Sun 2 Sep 2007

247 Responses to “New Israel Fund in UK Promotes Free Speech”

1. DrMike Says:
   September 2nd, 2007 at 8:14 pm

   “Other groups, whether pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, pro-occupation, pro-Jewish, pro-Arab or anti-whatever would do well to learn from NIF’s object lesson.”
   Very interesting quote. Mitchell Plitnick himself participated in an event in Marin County CA last year which was billed as a public educational forum on the Middle East. However, by open admission of the moderator at the start of the event, pro-Israel voices who offered to participate (this writer being one of them) were specifically rejected, on the grounds that the organizers wanted the public only to hear the other voices. The other participants were Jess Ghannam, the Bay Area head of al-Awda, a group that completely rejects Israel’s right to exist and calls for it to be demographically overwhelemed with 4th generation descendants of 1948 refugees; and Stephen Zunes, a professor of political science at SFSU and a frequent speaker at anti-Israel events (for the record, Zunes did grant his approval to the existence of a Jewish state, but his other remarks basically objected to any efforts Israel has made to defend itself since 1948).

   The Sabeel conference last month in Berkeley at which Mitchell Plitnick spoke featured NO pro-Israel speakers– and even you, Mitchell, were unpopular for even daring to state that there is a pro-Israel narrative that differs from Sabeel’s one-sided screed. JVP’s own conference earlier this year in Oakland featured NO speakers in support of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, but plenty of those opposed to it. (If I am wrong on these points, I invite clarification).

   One can speak against the occupation and still be pro-Israel. One cannot share the stage only with those who oppose the existence of Israel and claim to be for “open debate.” And you know as well as I do that for many, anti-Zionism is the politically correct screen for raw, naked anti-Semitism–look at many of the people who accompany you at anti-Israel rallies.

   I publicly challenge Mr Plitnick: walk the walk. Invite PRO-Israel speakers to your events. Encourage organizers of events at which you speak to invite pro-Israel speakers. You’ve appeared before in debates with pro-Israel speakers. You know where to find us–we’ll show up!

2. Martin A Says:
   September 2nd, 2007 at 8:36 pm

   Mike nailed it. With all due respect Mitch, your own behavior contradicts your comments and accusations on this matter.
   Martin.

3. Farideh Says:
   September 3rd, 2007 at 1:45 am

   I don’t believe any clarification can change the good points Mike has made. Mr. Plitnik continually speaks to the importance of open debate as long as it agrees with his views. He speaks regularly on Panels that do not believe in the continued existence of Israel and these panels do not constitute a free and open debate as he would have you believe. Mr. Plitnik…do take the suggestions your respondee named Mike offers.

4. Mitchell Plitnick Says:
   September 3rd, 2007 at 3:19 am

   In general, I don’t respond to the comments here…in fact, I usually don’t read them. This is due to time constraints. But i did notice these since they were from new people, so I will respond here, with the caveat that I cannot get into a back-and forth about this, so I’ll comment and leave the subsequent discussion to you.

   As to the incident in Marin that Mike describes, that incident involved a person or persons, apparently including Mike, who, the day of the event demanded to be included on the panel. No event host would ever agree to such a thing, particularly as the people demanding a place on the stage were unknown to anyone there. More important, no one is suggesting that events cannot be put on that are presenting a particular point of view. It is perfectly legitimate to have a single speaker, or to have a group that represents a certain piece of the spectrum. I wonder, indeed, if those who are registering this complaint have ever demanded from a Hillel or a synagogue or a Jewish Community organization that they present an opposing view. Perhaps you have, and that’s great if so, but those groups are well within their rights to put on an event that promotes their message. It is, however, unfortunate when a group wishes to present a certain view or a debate and is prevented from doing so or is too worried about potential backlash. Hence my praise of NIF in this instance.

   As to debates, I most certainly have engaged in them publicly. I have appeared with former US ambassadors to Israel, with pro-government Israelis, with a representative of the SF Jewish Community Relations Council and with a representative from Stand With Us. These were all separate events, and I have never refused such events–on the contrary, I have always sought them out, and I much prefer them to speaking at something like Sabeel (though that serves an important purpose as well in bringing the message referenced in Mike’s comment). Unfortunately, for every such event I have attended, there has been at least one other that has been canceled or gone on absent those sorts of viewpoints because those folks have refused to have a public and open debate. This has happened many times, the most recent having occurred just this past spring, when a JCRC representative and another member of a similar group backed out of a panel discussion that was organized at Golden Gate University by the Law Students and the Jewish Student group at that campus.

   Jewish Voice for Peace puts on very few such events, perhaps one or two a year. They are meant to present our range of viewpoints. JCRC, ADL and other groups generally do the same. There have been speakers I would not appear with, but these have never been supporters of Israel in any sense, but rather people whom I felt were either anti-Semitic or were simply not credible spokespeople. But I am always ready, indeed eager to engage in civilized debate with informed and professional speakers. In general, when these events have occurred, everyone has found we have more in common than in dispute. So, unfortunately, Mike, the sad fact is that all too often the speakers you refer to (and incidentally, I myself am pro-Israel, so that’s not the distinction here) have not shown up when they’ve been sought, and often even after they’ve committed to appear.

5. Art M. Says:
   September 3rd, 2007 at 9:27 am

   Mitch, I attended both the JVP conference (public portion) and the Sabeel conference. It is hard to write a polite response to your note here, which offers reasoning that seems very convoluted. Both the JVP and the Sabeel conferences were clearly designed to undermine the existence of a Jewish state, and excluded other voices. It appears that you applaud NIF’s offering a wider range of voices simply because you approve of Rubinstein’s opinions, other than use of the term “apartheid”.

   When will we see some articles on the behavior of Israel’s neighbors with regard to human rights? rights of women, gays, voting, other religions…. You seem outraged at Israels behavior to the point of supporting efforts to undermine Israel’s existence, yet you ignore other vastly more heinous governments nearby or even just on the border.

   Martin

6. John Baker Says:
   September 3rd, 2007 at 9:44 am

   Martin said,

   You seem outraged at Israels behavior to the point of supporting efforts to undermine Israel’s existence, yet you ignore other vastly more heinous governments nearby or even just on the border.

   Does this excuse Israel’s behavior, or abrogate one’s right and responsibility to criticize Israel for it?

   The claim that Israel is “no worse than…” ultimately amounts to the claim that Israel is “no better than…” Is that the argument you wish to make?

   As you have framed it, is self-criticism even possible as long as others are also deserving of criticism?

   What could be more dangerous for Israel than to be beyond even self-criticism?

7. Art M. Says:
   September 3rd, 2007 at 10:04 am

   John, we are dealing with people that want to demonize and destory Israel.

8. John Baker Says:
   September 3rd, 2007 at 10:13 am

   we are dealing with people that want to demonize and destory Israel.

   I thought you were talking about Mitchell.

9. John Baker Says:
   September 3rd, 2007 at 10:18 am

   Which is more destructive of Israel, to criticize Israel with regard to its human rights and civil rights policies, or to set the bar at the level of Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, so that Israel only has to clear that height to consider itself a moral and just society and beyond criticism?

10. DrMike Says:
    September 3rd, 2007 at 4:27 pm

    John: to address your comments first. Criticism of Israel is legitimate of course; those of us who support Israel can certainly criticize many of the actions taken by the government. Heck, it’s practically a national pastime over there! Similarly, one can be a patriotic American and still strongly oppose many of the things which our government does–WITHOUT calling for the US to be destroyed or cheering on al-Qaeda (and no, there isn’t much difference between Hamas/Hezbollah on the one hand and al-Qaeda on the other, aside form the fact that the former are Shi’ite and the latter are Sunni). Criticism is not legitimate which fits the criteria Natan Sharansky described as “3-D” :demonization of Israel– for example “Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is just like Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jews”, double standards applied only to Israel (i.e. violence on the part of the Arabs is never questioned but any self-defense measure taken by Israel is criticized; holding Israel to human rights standards not required of any other nation in the world; insisting on repatriation of descendants of refugees not demanded from similar conflicts eg India-Pakistan); delegitimization of Israel as a nation (i.e. calling for its replacement by yet another Arab nation, any subgroup of which is recognized as having national rights not granted to the Jewish people).

    As to Mitchell’s statements (and I do appreciate the response) I would like to clarify two points:
    1. The “demand” to participate in the Marin County event was not made on the day of event; several weeks prior to that I spoke face to face with Alan Barnett and suggested that he should have a pro-Israel speaker at the event, volunteered to be that person, and gave my contact information. The event was publicized as an “educational forum” and many members of the audience spoke out critically about the lack of balance at the event.
    2. Events at Hillels, synagogues and Jewish community organizations are indeed different than at colleges, community groups, etc. The first group has as part of their mission statements support for Israel as a Jewish state. Therefore, representatives of groups that oppose Israel’s existence as a Jewish state are no more welcome in those venues than are Messianic Jewish missionaries. Nor would I expect a pro-Israel speaker to be invited by groups who are dedicated to Israel’s elimination.

    However, YOU as an individual and JVP as an organization are the ones promoting your statement about open dialogue. So apply this to your own events first before you criticize others, especially as you claim to be “Pro-Israel” (and I would welcome your definition of that statement) and JVP claims to be neutral on the question of Israel as a Jewish state. Then why are there no pro-Israel voices at JVP’s conference? And why does JVP show up at anti-Israel demonstrations with signs like “Jewish community: Israel demeans your religion”? see the 9th picture at http://www.zombietime.com/stop_the_us_israeli_war_8_12_2006/

11. John Baker Says:
    September 3rd, 2007 at 6:30 pm

    Criticism is not legitimate which fits the criteria Natan Sharansky described as “3-D”: demonization of Israel…double standards applied only to Israel …delegitimization of Israel as a nation …

    Are you claiming that JVP is guilty of these 3-D’s? That seems a stretch to me, but maybe you have some examples.

    These are for the most part reasonable criteria of fairness or legitimacy and should apply to criticism of the Palestinians too. Palestinians are frequently demonized as people and their national aspirations delegitimized by the Israeli right, both of which qualify as illegitimate criticism.

    The alleged double-standards criterion is false, however. For one thing, as I said, you end up making Syria or Saudi Arabia your moral exemplar. Criticism of Israel vis-a-vis human rights is illegitimate because Israel is better on human rights than Syria? It doesn’t follow. It also sets the bar lower than most people who care about Israel would find acceptable.

    This is really a straw-man argument. Who is actually making one-sided criticisms of this nature? The claim is deceptive because the Israeli right generally does not pay attention to and is not even aware of criticism against Palestinians for human rights abuses and war crimes, which in general is even-handed. If you look on the B’Tselem website, for example, three of their articles in June were directed at war crimes or human rights abuses on the Palestinian side.

    http://www.btselem.org/English/OTA/

    Violence on the part of the Arabs is never questioned? That’s simply not true. Palestinian terrorism is universally condemned. There is some asymmetry built in, however, which cannot be overcome by even-handedness of criticism. As the Geneva Convention stated in 2001,
    “Demonstrations against the occupying forces by the civilian population under occupation or stand-offs between them are not acts of war. They should therefore not be dealt with by military methods and means. When faced with the civilian population, Israeli forces must exercise restraint: any use of force must be proportionate, all necessary precautions must be taken to avoid casualties, and the lethal use of firearms must be strictly limited to what is unavoidable as an immediate measure to protect life.”

    When Israel is held to the Fourth Geneva Convention, is it being held unfairly to a standard required of no other nation? To the contrary. It is rather a case of Israel holding itself exempt from standards which it long ago agreed to hold itself to.

    I’m all for fairness and legitimacy in criticism. But it goes both ways.

12. John Baker Says:
    September 3rd, 2007 at 7:49 pm

    link to the 2001 statements by the Geneva Convention (ICRC, the Protecting Power of the Geneva Conventions):

    http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/5FLDPJ#1

13. Isidor Farash {a.k.a. P.M. Cornelius DeBusse Trollstein} Says:
    September 3rd, 2007 at 8:53 pm

    The most shameful tendency the “left” has is its general inability to permit descending views to be heard.
    This specific debate aside.
    The “Left” is the wing of peace. However, often confused is the concept of “Peace” versus discussion. The “discussion” is often seen as the conflict and is therefore shunned.
    Mitch is actually pretty good in this respect — among liberals.
    I once handed out fliers at a leftist symposium and had the show management running around pulling these papers out of the hands of the attendees who were reading them. They were then thrown in my face and the next speaker started out by accusing me of being there to “pick-up women”. This is the more standard scenario then Mitchell’s attitude, which, as I understand, is more one of complacency then hostility.

14. John Baker Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 5:47 am

    He certainly allows all viewpoints to be heard on his blog.

15. Steve Klein Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 11:14 am

    Dr. Mike,
    I have gone round and round with John Baker on the Fourth Geneva Convention as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice — I believe selectively and unfairly — applies it to Israel’s situation. I am not an international lawyer. Yet plenty of international lawyers, US diplomats and scholars have written this Convention is simply not relevant to Israel’s case. Any comments?

16. DrMike Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 2:56 pm

    I’m not a lawyer either (though many of my friends are….). However, as I understand it, there are two issues that make Israel’s situation vis-a-vis the West Bank and Gaza unique, and only one of these issues applies to the Golan Heights. The isasue that applies to all 3 areas is that Israel was fighting a defensive war. The fact that the “first shot” was fired by Israel on June 5 1967 is essentially irrelevant, as the closure of the straits of Tiran by Egypt consituted a casus belli by every standard of international law. The mobilization of troops by Egypt and Syria with the overt promise to destroy Israel, as articulated by the leaders of those countries in the 3 week run-up to the war, also qualifies as a casus belli. In addition, Jordan, whose air force (such as it was) was NOT attacked by Israel on June 5, commenced a massive artillery attack on Jerusalem and thus any Israeli actions against it were clearly in self-defense.
    The principle of land taken in a defensive war belonging to the victor was reaffirmed after WW2 with Russia’s control over the Kaliningrad salient and the westward shifting of both Poland’s and Russia’s borders at the expense of Germany.

    The other issue that applies specifically to the west Banka nd gaza is that they were not part of any nation (at least as far as world recognition). Egypt was the illegal occupying power in gaza and Jordan’s illegal occupation of the West Bank was only recognized by the UK and maybe Pakistan. So these territories did not have the status of being part of a country and thus are treated differently. (The Golan Heights, however, were recognized as Syrian territory). The report cited by John is a perfect example of double standard, in that no similar issue was raised as far as Egyptian and Jordanian occupation from 1948-1967 (if I am wrong, please cite the references).

    As far as John’s comment, I think Israel’s forces exercise great restraint. Most other countries, faced with suicide bombings against women, children and the elderly (sorry John, those aren’t “demonstrations”, they are mass murder) would have levelled most of the West Bank. If the US were being bombed daily from Tijuana, with rockets aimed not at the Navy bases in San Diego but rather at schools and civilian neighborhoods, how long would we tolerate that? (Israel has tolerated it for almost 2 years with responses limited to firing missiles at the exact sites from which the rockets were launched and pinpoint assassinations of the Hamas leadership). The terror groups cynically fire off rockets from the midst of inhabited areas as well,using their own people as human shields– it’s the standard Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Hezbollah tactic.

    And as far as the Palestinians and their national aspirations, the last 3 Israeli Prime Ministers have publicly endorsed those aspirations, regardless of what the right wing in Israel says. NO Palestinian leader has even hinted at giving up the idea of eventually flooding Israel with descendants of 1948 refugees to change its essential character as a Jewish state.

17. John Baker Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 4:54 pm

    DrMike, fine if are not a lawyer, but you also have no idea what the Geneva Conventions are all about. The Fourth Geneva Convention is purely humanitarian law. The GC has zero interest in offense vs. defense or in the legitimacy of either side’s claim to the land. It’s not about land. The Geneva Conventions are solely interested in the protecting civilians caught up in zones of military conflict. All you have to have for the GC to apply are signatory powers in a military conflict. Both Jordan and Israel are signatories to the Geneva Conventions. It is 100% irrelevant whether the fighting was offensive or defensive or whose claim to the land is legitimate. That’s for another set of laws to deal with. You have civilians living in a military occupied zone. Whichever side in the conflict has its military occupying the land and administering it under military law is the Occupying Power. As such, it has certain obligations. These are obligations which Israel committed itself to in 1951. One of those is that the Occupying Power is not allowed to introduce its own population into the zone of occupation. Article 49. It goes on from there. This is legitimate criticism of Israel; not illegitimate. How about if Israel addresses the criticisms instead of the critics, for a change?

18. New Perspective Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 5:04 pm

    I take issue with the basic un-stated premises of such voices as JVP. In order to reach the JVP point of view, one needs to internalize the idea that Palestinian claims to property and soveriegnty justify the taking of Jewish lives. It makes no sense that actual pacifists or anti-war thinkers attempt to make political appologia for a political and real estate dispute escalating into random blood shed. When there is yet another act of barabaric terrorism on the part of the Palestinans, these same thinkers articulate a condescending racism towards the Palestinians’ as if to say,”these simple primitives can’t control their base motions.” Similarly, any news regarding Israel is cherry picked for the negative, and Israel is always demonized when any other entity would not be so treated under the same circumstances. In brief, its time to re -examine the current, and innappropriately,romanticized approach towards the Arab-Israeli conflict as regards the Palestinans,and restore balance. Palestinian actions, claims and demands are not ALWAYS justified and Israel is NOT always wrong.

19. John Baker Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 5:11 pm

    NO Palestinian leader has even hinted at giving up the idea of eventually flooding Israel with descendants of 1948 refugees to change its essential character as a Jewish state.

    So this is what you mean by “recognizing Israel’s right to exist” or legitimizing Israel’s national existence? You mean guaranteeing that it will continue as “a Jewish state” after the return of the refugees? Or perhaps that no more refugees will return than will guarantee a Jewish majority? This may well be what you hope to gain from serious, final stage negotiations as an outcome of a long and difficult process, but expecting any Palestinian leader to publicly announce this at this point is hardly the equivalent of endorsing the Palestinians’ national aspirations. It’s unrealistic in the extreme. Preposterous.

20. "Right of return"? Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 5:39 pm

    Another of those romanticized issues, “the Palestinian right of return of refugees”. In fact,as much as the phrase is thrown around, one would tend to beleive that there was such a right, but that is not the case. In fact, it is only Palestinians that even assert that the status of “refugee” is inheritable. The standard definition is that one is a “refugee” only until such time as one is peaceably re-settled in a new area beyond the dangers of the conflict. Per the usual definition, one’s children and grand children, born beyond the dangers of the conflict are NOT refugees. Simply, there is no legal basis in international law for the “right of return of refugees”, as used in the Palestinian context.
    Similarly, the Geneva Convention is not generally interpreted to prohibit citizens of an occupying nation from moving into occupied territory but rather it bars the occupying nation from ordering its citizens to re-locate to an occupied territory. It would of course be discriminatory and racist to simply bar the citizens of one country from re-locating on the basis of their parent country’s political involvement. Whether the West Bank is “occupied territory’ as so defined is far less clear than a simple “yes or no” There has been no legal soveriegn in the West Bank since the Ottoman Empire, now, no longer existant. The British held only Mandate status, Jordan’s occupation from ‘48-’67 was unrecognized and illegal (and they relinquished all claims) and the charter of the PLO specifically disavows any aspirations to the West Bank. So if the West Bank is “occupied” who else has legal claim to it in order to make Israel’s post-Six Day War defensive involvement an “occupation?”

21. John Baker Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 7:15 pm

    “Similarly, the Geneva Convention is not generally interpreted to prohibit citizens of an occupying nation from moving into occupied territory but rather it bars the occupying nation from ordering its citizens to re-locate to an occupied territory.”

    I don’t know where you are getting this from. A Ouija board maybe? Here in part is what Article 49 actually says:

    “…The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

    http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebList?ReadForm&id=380&t=art

    The Israeli settlements were ruled illegal, in contravention of Article 49, on July 9, 2004 by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
    Discussion of the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention at this point is just sour grapes.

    http://www.miftah.org/Doc/Documents/icj20040709.pdf

22. John Baker Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 7:37 pm

    Got children? Ever taught school? These claims that everyone is unfairly picking on Israel, and that the Arabs started it, and that no one ever blames the others who are the really guilty ones, sound like nothing so much as the whining of third graders when they are caught red-handed and have no legitimate defense except to blame the adult and another child.

    You complain endlessly about “illegitimate criticism of Israel” and all by way of evading responsibility for the policies that are criticized, never addressing them directly. Israel is in flagrant and long-standing violation of international law, law which was partly drafted because of what happened to European Jewry during WW II, and all you can do is point to the “Egyptian and Jordanian occupation from 1948-1967″? Is your conscience not troubled in the least that Israel has for so long been such a scofflaw? This is shameful, really.

    I hesitate to say that, because I am quite confident that this will cause you to engage in more of this third-grader’s defense, picking on you, unfair, never scolding the others, unfair, the others are really guilty, etc., etc. How about something new this time? Surprise me. Admit the truth and take responsibility for the policies.

23. John Baker Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    If the US were being bombed daily from Tijuana, with rockets aimed not at the Navy bases in San Diego but rather at schools and civilian neighborhoods, how long would we tolerate that?

    Mexico is a foreign, sovereign state. Gaza and the West Bank are occupied territories under Israeli military administration. If Mexico were similarly occupied by the United States military and under U.S. military administration, the Fourth Geneva Convention would apply and would also limit our response, which could not be military in nature.

24. John Baker Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 8:05 pm

    “There has been no legal soveriegn in the West Bank since the Ottoman Empire, now, no longer existant. The British held only Mandate status, Jordan’s occupation from ‘48-’67 was unrecognized and illegal (and they relinquished all claims) and the charter of the PLO specifically disavows any aspirations to the West Bank. So if the West Bank is “occupied” who else has legal claim to it in order to make Israel’s post-Six Day War defensive involvement an “occupation?”

    Again, all completely irrelevant. The Geneva Conventions are humanitarian law, are concerned about civilians (”protected persons”) in zones of conflict, and not about land or anyone’s claim or title to land. The articles are worded so as to define who “protected persons” are and what protections are to be afforded them.

    Article 2:

    “In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peacetime, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.

    The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.

    Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.”

25. John Baker Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 8:51 pm

    As to how Article 49 is “generally interpreted” we should begin with the Commentaries attached to the Fourth Geneva Conventions by the ICRC, the Protecting Power of the Conventions.

    “[ARTICLE 49]PARAGRAPH 6. — DEPORTATION AND TRANSFER OF PERSONS INTO OCCUPIED TERRITORY

    This clause was adopted after some hesitation, by the XVIIth International Red Cross Conference (13). It is intended to prevent a practice adopted during the Second World War by certain Powers, which transferred portions of their own population to occupied territory for political and racial reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those territories. Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race.

    The paragraph provides protected persons with a valuable safeguard. It should be noted, however, that in this paragraph the meaning of the words “transfer” and “deport” is rather different from that in which they are used in the other paragraphs of Article 49, since they do not refer to the movement of protected persons but to that of nationals of the occupying Power.

    It would therefore appear to have been more logical — and this was pointed out at the Diplomatic Conference (14) — to have made the clause in question into a separate provision distinct from Article 49, so that the concepts of “deportations” and “transfers” in that Article could have kept throughout the meaning given them in paragraph 1, i.e. the compulsory movement of protected persons from occupied territory.”

    http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebList?ReadForm&id=380&t=com

26. John Baker Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 9:21 pm

    It would of course be discriminatory and racist to simply bar the citizens of one country from re-locating on the basis of their parent country’s political involvement.

    That is of course completely false. “Political involvement” here means military occupation and military administration. Citizens do not simply “move into” zones of military occupation and under military administration. Your statement is shameful considering the historical background of this provision. Surely you know who the “certain powers” were during the Second World War who transferred their own nationals into occupied zones for racial purposes?

27. DrMike Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 12:12 am

    John, it might be that you are correct in those interpretations of the Geneva Convention. As stated, I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. Let’s even grant for the moment that you are correct, and that Israel withdraws 100% of its citizens from the West Bank, just as it did from Gaza. Your remarks make entirely clear that this will in no way stop the conflict, because the Palestinians will have some justification (not based in any type of international law) to continue fighting until Israel is eliminated, over the issue of 4th, 5th, 6th, nth generations of refugees, the primary responsibility for whom lies with their fellow Arabs. You claim that Israel’s recognition of Palestinian national aspirations can’t be matched by Palestinian foreswearance of their goal to destroy Israel. By doing so, you have highlighted the great unresolved cause of the conflict– the fact that too many Palestinians, and too many supporters of their national aspirations, believe that those aspirations can only be achieved by the denial of the national aspirations of the Jewish people and by the destruction of the accomplishment of those aspirations, the JEWISH state of Israel. The Irish had their national aspirations– but they didn’t insist on the dismantlement of the United Kingdom. Many Quebecois have their own national aspirations for a French-Canadian nation– but they don’t insist on the elimination of the rest of Canada as a nation. Only the Palestinians and their fellow rejectionist Arabs insist that Palestinian national aspirations can only be achieved at the expense of Jewish national aspirations. And you blithely echo that, thereby promoting the cause of war and undermining the cause of peace and co-existence.

    Which party is willing to share the land and which insists on eliminating another antiona from it?

    Which party has made concessions only to be met with rejectionism, violence, and calls for further jihad?

    Which party has shown it is willing to give up land for peace and which party has refused all calls for coexistence?

    Now it may be that the average Palestinian would be happy to live in peace alongside Israel, although the one well-regarded pollster in the West Bank has shown that this is not the case. But as long as the people with the guns, the Katyushas and the suicide belts are not (and the “government” there won’t take action against them), then why will they suddenly go all peaceful once they have Tel Aviv and Ben0Gurion Airport within rocket range?

28. Fred Schlomka Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 7:57 am

    Dr.Mike -
    As you correctly stated. National aspirations do not necessarily go hand in hand with full sovereignty. Thus the Northern Irish and the Quebecois are willing to settle for less than a nation state within which to express their nationality. The Palestinians may also accept what is being created around them if Israel too concedes that the two nations have equal claims to the land.

    It is possible to share the land entirely without necessarily defining different areas as ‘Jewish’ or ‘Palestinian Arab’. This is why a growing number of people on boith sides are exploring options of confederation or a condominium arrangement. Two discrete states seems like a fantasy to many who are intimate with the facts on the ground - over 500,000 Jewish Israelis living East of the Green line (and growing at over 5%/year) and over 1.2 million Palestinian Arabs living as citizens in Israel.

29. Steve Klein Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 9:33 am

    John wrote: “Again, all completely irrelevant. The Geneva Conventions are humanitarian law, are concerned about civilians (”protected persons”) in zones of conflict, and not about land or anyone’s claim or title to land. The articles are worded so as to define who “protected persons” are and what protections are to be afforded them.”

    John, I am fairly certain, though Israel rejects the Fourth Geneva Convention as applicable to Israel’s situation, they nevertheless have agreed to abide by the humanitarian provisions of the Convention — something which I believe could be an immense mistake.

    Beyond that, the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the occupation of one High Contracting Party (sovereign state) occupying land that belongs to another High Contracting Party (sovereign state). As Dr. Mike and others have pointed out, the West Bank did not belong to Jordan (and Jordan has renounced any claims to the territory) and Gaza did not belong to Egypt. The last High Contracting Party in the region was the Ottoman Turks who were defeated in the first world war. The Fourth Geneva Convention is simply irrelevant to Israel’s situation, Jew-haters in the United Nations and on the International Court of Justice notwithstanding.

30. Steve Klein Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 9:43 am

    Fred wrote: “It is possible to share the land entirely without necessarily defining different areas as ‘Jewish’ or ‘Palestinian Arab’. This is why a growing number of people on both sides are exploring options of confederation or a condominium arrangement.>>>>

    Sorry, this is pure fantasy Fred. A prescription for a more immediate annihilation of the Jews than a two state
    ’solution’ to the Jewish question.

31. Steve Klein Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 9:50 am

    Dr. Mike wrote: “Only the Palestinians and their fellow rejectionist Arabs insist that Palestinian national aspirations can only be achieved at the expense of Jewish national aspirations. And you blithely echo that, thereby promoting the cause of war and undermining the cause of peace and co-existence.”

    The better part of the Muslim world led today by Mr. Ahmadinejad have consistently declared their intent to destroy the Jewish presence in the Middle East, then to take on the rest of the non-Muslim world.

    I take them at their word. As was the case with Adolf Hitler, I believe wisdom dictates taking
    Mr. Ahmadinejad, in his stated objective to wipe Israel off the map, at his word.

32. "One State" Ruse Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 12:53 pm

    The “One State” Ruse? From the same folks that brought us the “phased plan” to conquer Israel a slice at a time? A “One State” binational state is a rather tranparent Arab attempt to have Israel agree to drop all of its defenses. Ina best case scenario, “democractic binational State” would shortly have the “democractic” aspect, and presumably any Jewish aspect voted out. In a more realistic scenario, think about the binational state of Ruanda.

33. John Baker Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

    Beyond that, the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the occupation of one High Contracting Party (sovereign state) occupying land that belongs to another High Contracting Party (sovereign state).

    Quote me the passage that says that, Steve.

    The last High Contracting Party in the region was the Ottoman Turks who were defeated in the first world war.

    This is silly, Steve. You really have no idea what you are talking about. Article 2 says the Conventions apply when there is a military conflict between two or more High Contracting Parties. Read my lips: it has nothing to do with land. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. The Conventions apply when there is a military conflict between two Parties, in this case between Israel and Jordan, both of which became High Contracting Parties in 1951, sixteen years before the conflict!

    ARTICLE 2

    In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peacetime, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.

    The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.
    Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

    Give it up, Steve. This is ridiculous.

34. John Baker Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 5:14 pm

    land that belongs to another High Contracting Party

    It says “territory of a High Contracting Party.” Following the 1948 War, the West Bank was ruled by, occupied by, and annexed by Jordan. The Conventions do not speak to the legitimacy or illegitimacy of any territorial claim. So, that was the state of affairs at the outbreak of the 1967 War. Jordan and Israel are both High Contracting Parties. Israel is occupying territory which up until the outbreak of the 1967 War was Jordanian territory. Therefore the Fourth Geneva Conventions apply. Even the Israeli Supreme Court admits that.

    What part of Article 2 do you still not understand?

35. Did you read your post? Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

    Did you read your post? As Jordan (formerly “Transjordan”, representing 2/3 of the Britiash Mandate of Palestine) legally relinquished all claim to the West Bank, what “Power” is it that you beleive you are referring to? It seems to be a “boot strapping” of the PLO into the status of a soveriegn power without any of the pre-requisite legalities or obligations. In essence, your desire is that Israel immediately cease all security based operations in the West Bank, all Jews are forced to leave, and the Palestinian Authority is simply handed the proverbial keys? Is the Palestinian Authority without any governmental type obligations to i.e. restore order,rein in illegal Palestinian terrorist organizations, etc? “End the Occupation” without further thought is simply a boneheaded recipe that would guarentee continued conflict andthousands of Palestinian and israeli deaths.

36. John Baker Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 8:33 pm

    #35 please read Article 2. Nothing is said therein about the legitimacy of anyone’s claim. It is understood of course that if two militaries are fighting over a piece of land that they in fact disagree as to who owns rightful title to it. The West Bank was Jordanian territory at the outset of the 1967 War, being represented in the Jordanian Parliament with equal seats as the East Bank. It was thus “the territory of a High Contracting Party.”

    Next question. Was there “an armed conflict…betweeen two or more High Contracting Parties”? Obviously. That’s what the 1967 War was.

    The West Bank is thus a military occupied zone under Israeli military administration and the Palestinians living there are “protected persons.”

    Does it make any difference that Jordan ceded its claims to the West Bank in 1988? None whatsoever. Why not? Read the last paragraph:

    The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance. Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

    Jordan ceded its claim to the West Bank to the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Jordan did not cede its claim to the West Bank to Israel, which is what you seem to be thinking.

    Israel is a High Contracting Party. As such, Israel is bound to the Fourth Geneva Conventions in its mutual relations with the other Party/Parties to the conflict, whether they are High Contracting Parties or not, whether they are recognized as “sovereign powers” or not. Read the last paragraph quoted above. Nothing is said about sovereignty. And in fact the Fourth Geneva Conventions apply even if the occupation is “met with no armed resistance” and “even if the state of war is not recognized by one of” the parties.

    The Fourth Geneva Conventions are not about land or about claims to land. They are humanitarian law and are all about protecting civilians in zones of armed conflict. You keep trying to make this about land, the legitimate title to the land, or about who is a “Power” or who is a High Contracting Party. That’s all complete nonsense. There was an armed conflict. The territory of one of the parties was and is occupied. Therefore, the civilians - Jordanian citizens, btw - were and are “protected persons.” One of the protections afforded them by the Fourth Geneva Conventions is that the demographic-ethnic mix of that zone of occupation is not to be diluted by the introduction of nationals of the Occupying Power for purposes of colonization, as was done by “certain powers” during World War II and adversely affecting Jews, btw.

37. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    Geneva Convention-
    “International Law” . . .
    If so called “international law” can not be manipulated for political gains (by a world hostile to Jews and Israel) it will be creatively and selectively applied and if that can’t be done, the circumstances themselves will be doctored to subject Israel to a no-win paradox.
    Does this come as a shock to anyone?

38. John Baker Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 10:08 pm

    “Does this come as a shock to anyone? “

    It does not come as a surprise to me that you would interpret a situation in which Israel has victimized another people for forty years, and was held responsible for honoring its earlier committments in that regard, as somehow representing the victimization of Israel.

39. Steve Klein Says:
    September 6th, 2007 at 4:59 pm

    John wrote: Quote me the passage that says that, Steve.>>>>

    This is what it says in Clause Two:

    “The present Convention shall apply to cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party.”

    The territory wrested from Jordan by Israel (in a war of defense) was not territory of a High Contracting Party. Transjordan, Eastern Palestine, which was renamed Jordan after its invasion of Western Palestine and its illegal occupation of the provinces of Samaria and Judea, including the Old City of Jerusalem, did not thereby become their sovereign possessor — it was not a High Contracting Party at all, but an illegal occupier as a result of its aggressive war in 1948. It had no title whatsoever to land across the River Jordan.”

40. John Baker Says:
    September 6th, 2007 at 6:29 pm

    The terms “wrested from” and “illegal occupation”" and “invasion” and “illegal occupier” are completely irrelevant and pointless.

    Jordan signed the Fourth Geneva Conventions in 1951 along with Israel. The territory in question was thus “the territory of a High Contracting Party” from 1948-1967, title or no title.

    Whenever there is an armed conflict over a piece of land, it goes without saying that there are competing claims to the title of the land, each side claiming the other side has no legal claim. That’s what the 1967 War was about.

    How many times do I have to say it, Steve? This is humanitarian law. It was written without regard to the legitimacy of either side’s claim to title or even to their own sovereignty or even with regard to whether there was armed resistance to the occupation. The sole object was to protect the civilians. One of the protections afforded civilians is that the Occupying Power is forbidden from introducing its own nationals into the occupied zone and thus ethnically diluting the original population.

    “it was not a High Contracting Party at all, but an illegal occupier “

    Jordan became a High Contracting Party in 1951. Jordan held, ruled, and administered the territory from 1948-1967, giving the refugees Jordanian citizenship and representation in the Jordanian Parliament in equal numbers to those of the East Bank. The territory was without question “territory of a High Contracting Party.”

    It makes absolutely no difference, zero, zip, nada whether Jordan had legal title. The Conventions were written to protect people and not land. They apply. Get over it.

41. John Baker Says:
    September 6th, 2007 at 10:55 pm

    Steve, please read paragraphs 89-101:

    http://www.miftah.org/Doc/Documents/icj20040709.pdf

    The Court deals there with the objections raised by Israel relative to the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

    The question since the ICJ ruling is, on what basis does Israel maintain its settlement policy, the settlements having been declared illegal in July, 2004? And furthermore, on what basis do the supporters of Israel still claim the moral high ground vis-a-vis the illegal settlements?

    So far, the only argument I have heard has been to reject the Court itself, its make-up, its jurisdiction, its ruling, etc. The Geneva Conventions were written following WW II to prevent the abuses of the Third Reich ever happening again. Article 49, for example, was written partly to prevent a recurrence of the colonization of Bohemia and Moravia by the Nazis in 1939 following occupation of the Sudetenland. Israel has mimicked that colonization for forty years by introducing its own nationals into the Occupied Territories. The International Committee of the Red Cross is the Protecting Power of the Geneva Conventions. The International Court of Justice in the Hague is the court with jurisdiction over the Geneva Conventions. In attacking the ICRC and the ICJ, the supporters of Israel ultimately are attacking the Conventions themselves and ironically are aligning themselves with the Nazis and their policies.

42. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 5:36 am

    and ironically are aligning themselves with the Nazis and their policies.
    

    No genocide in the West Bank, of course. The policies do however involve concentrating the native population in military occupied enclaves with separate, more restrictive “security” laws with no freedom of movement (ghettos, if you will) and colonizing the occupied zone with their own nationals introduced to dilute the racial-ethnic character of the occupied zone. It’s pretty much the Sudetenland without the genocide. This was what the Fourth Geneva Convention was supposed to keep from ever happening again.

43. Steve Klein Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 6:12 am

    John,
    I removed the following from a website. I believe it is essentially accurate according to my recollection:

    “The Emirate of Transjordan was an autonomous political division of the Mandate for Palestine, created as an administrative entity in April 1921 before the Mandate came into effect in September 1923.

    “In September 1922, the British government presented a memorandum to the League of Nations stating that Transjordan would be excluded from all the provisions dealing with Jewish settlement, and this memorandum was approved by the League on 11 September.

    “From that point onwards, Britain administered the part west of the Jordan as Palestine, and the part east of the Jordan as Transjordan. Technically they remained one mandate but most official documents referred to them as if they were two separate mandates. Transjordan remained under British control until 1946.”

    Some say what the British did was illegal because Jordan was to be a part of the Mandate for the Jewish national home. Let’s accept however that Jordan is a legitimate sovereign state.

    The West Bank was never a part of Jordanian territory. The November 1947 partition plan did not envision the West Bank as a part of Jordanian territory. Therefore the West Bank was not the territory of a High Contracting Party at the time Israel took possession of it. This is why we call the West Bank “disputed” not occupied.

44. Steve Klein Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 7:04 am

    John, you wrote: “So far, the only argument I have heard has been to reject the Court itself, its make-up, its jurisdiction, its ruling, etc. The Geneva Conventions were written following WW II to prevent the abuses of the Third Reich ever happening again. Article 49, for example, was written partly to prevent a recurrence of the colonization of Bohemia and Moravia by the Nazis in 1939 following occupation of the Sudetenland. Israel has mimicked that colonization for forty years by introducing its own nationals into the Occupied Territories. The International Committee of the Red Cross is the Protecting Power of the Geneva Conventions. The International Court of Justice in the Hague is the court with jurisdiction over the Geneva Conventions. In attacking the ICRC and the ICJ, the supporters of Israel ultimately are attacking the Conventions themselves and ironically are aligning themselves with the Nazis and their policies.”

    I think it unfair to compare Israel to the Nazi occupation of the Sudetenland or Poland or Russia. Israel is not committing mass-genocide against the Arabs in the territories by means of mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) in order to eliminate the Arab race. After Israel conquered the West Bank, Israel did not deport Arabs to the west to slave labor camps and concentration camps where they were systematically starved, and gassed. If I thought Israel resembled Nazi Germany, I would not defend Israel. The Nazi comparison fails. The Nazi attribution is used by many Europeans I believe because of their personal shame of complicity in the Final Solution. It helps to vindicate them of the part they played in a terrible crime.

45. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 8:02 am

    John’s evil twin wrote:
    ” . . . a situation in which Israel has victimized another people for forty years, and was held responsible for honoring its earlier commitments in that regard, as somehow representing the victimization of Israel. ”
    No, its the ongoing victimization of JEWS worldwide. Israel is merely the staging point, just as Paul Wolfowitz was the focal point for those who accused Jews and Israel of being ‘puppet-masters’ of world politics.
    A significant (and generally angry) portion of the world remains perpetually frustrated and annoyed because Jews maintain a standard of living about twice as high as the next most affluent group. Since this can not be attributed to any virtues the Jews have, it is consequently written-off as being the result of Jews being sleazy, greedy, engaging in unethical businesses and so forth. Israel is no different. Since it is the home of the Jews, it must therefore be a criminal headquarters. The exact circumstances are then manipulated and massaged to fit the alleged crime. The rules naturally change as the game is played, such as the fact that so called Palestinian refugees get to bequeath their refugee status on their offspring. Or, that the UNHCR is politically prohibited from resettling these people.
    The Israelis are the best thing that ever happened to the Arabs. Israel’s perceived crimes give the Arabs leave to do whatever they like with impunity, such as support a world-wide ‘jihad’ against the “West”, support suicide attacks and claim that they are the ‘downtrodden’ and oppressed population with a valid score to settle. If some fellow Arabs (Palestinian) have to be sacrificed in the process, hey, more to blame on the Jews.
    The fact is that never in the history of the entire world has a dispute over a few hundred square miles of land become the epicenter of an ongoing, eternal and ever-expanding war. And there is a reason for this. Because its all bullsh*t. The conflict has focused on Jerusalem because the Arabs know that this is the only place that Jews will not vacate. If the ‘line-in-the-sand’ happended to be in Brooklyn, NY, that is where the Arabs would demand the capitol of their (all important) new state.

46. Steve Klein Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 10:56 am

    From my perspective here, it looks like Israel IS going to go suicidal this November at Bush’s peace summit and commit herself to withdraw from the West Bank, giving the Palestinians all but about 5 or 6 percent of the larger settlement blocks surrounding Jerusalem, but this will be compensated with additional land that now belongs to Israel.

    Additionally, I am reading that Olmert is willing to give the Palestinians large parts of Arab occupied Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital and full sovereignty over the Temple mount. Much of this is consistent with the Clinton - Barak offer to Yasser Arafat but with additional incentives.

    To me this is suicidal and will ultimately bring war upon the Jewish state, waged not only by an external enemy but an internal one and one from the Judean mountains overlooking Israel’s vulnerable cities, from Gaza to the south and from the north (Hezbollah and Syria) and from the east, perahaps from Iran.

    I wonder if John will give his own life as surety in the event the Arabs do in fact use this strategic advantage to wage a large-scale massacre upon the Jews as I and others believe they will.

    Will John Baker give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc., since he is so sure these massive concessions by the Jews will satisfy and not wet the Arab appetite?

47. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 3:49 pm

    Steve said,

    “The West Bank was never a part of Jordanian territory.”

    Too funny.

48. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

    Steve said,

    “I think it unfair to compare Israel to the Nazi occupation of the Sudetenland or Poland or Russia. Israel is not committing mass-genocide against the Arabs in the territories by means of mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) in order to eliminate the Arab race. “

    Gee, why didn’t I think of that? (John wrote, “No genocide in the West Bank, of course.”) You’re a case, Steve.

    Israel has the Palestinians penned-up in all-Arab enclaves, from which they have no freedom of movement or uncontrolled access or right to leave to the outside world and return. Israel allocates water to the Jewish settlements in a per person usage rate that is many times that allocated to Arabs. Palestinian women and children are killed by IDF soldiers on a daily basis. Homes are demolished. Orchards are uprooted. Access to fields is blocked. Food and medicine are cut off. Unemployment is at a deadly level. Two thirds of families subsist on one meal per day. Access to medical facilities is blocked so that people die waiting to clear checkpoints. Now, I realize you have zero sympathy for what I just described, but I would appreciate it if you could tell me why such living conditions are not called ghettos? No, there are no death camps as yet. But there are ghettos in the West Bank and Gaza. You say you would not support Israel if you thought it resembled Nazi Germany. I am asking you now to explain why these enclaves under military occupation and military administration with these deplorable and life-threatening conditions with soaring populations should not be called ghettos. This is going on in land that you consider part of Israel, so please explain why you are so proud of this, Steve. I thought ghettos were supposed to be never again.

49. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 4:07 pm

    The Israelis are the best thing that ever happened to the Arabs.

    Yeah, just like slavery was the best thing that ever happened to the poor Africans. After all, it brought those ignorant primitives to the land of opportunity, right? Why even the poorest slave in the South lived in a far better shack…er shed, than his cousins back in Africa, who lived in grass huts stuck together with cow dung. Those people never would have amounted to a think if we had left them there in their misery. And are they grateful? Not a bit. Imagine that.

50. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

    Steve said,

    “John, I removed the following from a website.”

    Dayum, Steve. How about reading something I post for a change? I’ve already spoken to these garbage arguments till I am blue in the face. What part of “It’s not about the legitimacy of the claims on the land” do you not understand??? Jordan took possession of the West Bank after 1948 and held it, ruled it, administered it until 1967. Jordan gave the refugees Jordanian citizenship. Jordan gave the refugees seats in the Jordanian parliament. Guess what. It was Jordanian territory. It was recognized as such, but it doesn’t matter if it was nor not, because that has nothing to do with the Geneva Conventions. Now if you don’t show some evidence that you have read this after posting it for you four or five times, people are going to start to wonder about you, Steve. The lights are on but nobody is answering the door. Know what I mean?

51. Steve Klein Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

    If there are ghettos, they are self-imposed John. Jews did not send out suicide bombers to kill German women and children like Palestinians do.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=M0wYfGhDigI

    Not even when the German forced us into the ghettos John.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=sudhVm22DRM&mode=related&search=

    Not even at the lowest point in our existence John did we cry out to God to take our children as martyrs.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=IGzlo7B09o0&mode=related&search=

52. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 4:56 pm

    If there are ghettos, they are self-imposed John.

    I am appalled that you would say this as a Jew, Steve. Do you have any idea how cruel you sound? The Palestinians do not selectively impose Israeli military law upon themselves. They do not selectively restrict their own freedom of movement so that they cannot get to their jobs or farms or orchards for harvest. They do not selectively impose curfews on themselves. They do not selectively impose checkpoints on themselves where they die in ambulances waiting to be allowed to pass. They do not selectively impose water restrictions on themselves. They do not selectively limit their own food and medicine supplies. Did you think the Jews of Poland got together and decided to hole themselves up in the Warsaw Ghetto? People have to be forced into ghettos and kept there by force, and as a Jew you should be ashamed to claim otherwise.

53. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 4:58 pm

    They are ghettos, all right. And there is colonization for racial purposes. There’s no concentration camps. But other than that, it’s just like the Sudetenland. Just like the settlement policies of the Third Reich. Congratulations.

54. Steve Klein Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 5:23 pm

    Once more John, since you swear by these people and say it is all the Jew’s fault:

    From my perspective here, it looks like Israel IS going to go suicidal this November at Bush’s peace summit and commit herself to withdraw from the West Bank, giving the Palestinians all but about 5 or 6 percent of the larger settlement blocks surrounding Jerusalem, but this will be compensated with additional land that now belongs to Israel.

    Additionally, I am reading that Olmert is willing to give the Palestinians large parts of Arab occupied Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital and full sovereignty over the Temple mount. Much of this is consistent with the Clinton - Barak offer to Yasser Arafat but with additional incentives.

    To me this is suicidal and will ultimately bring war upon the Jewish state, waged not only by an external enemy but an internal one and one from the Judean mountains overlooking Israel’s vulnerable cities, from Gaza to the south and from the north (Hezbollah and Syria) and from the east, perahaps from Iran.

    I wonder John, as God is our witness, will you give your own life as surety in the event the Arabs do in fact use this strategic advantage to wage a large-scale massacre upon the Jews as I and others believe they will.

    Will John Baker give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc., since he is so sure these massive concessions by the Jews will satisfy and not wet the Arab appetite?

55. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 6:27 pm

    Once more, Steve. I have never said “It’s all the Jews’ fault.” I have also never said “These massive concessions by the Jews will satisfy and not wet the Arab appetite.” Why don’t you stop trying to put words in my mouth and just explain why you are so proud of the way the Israelis have put the Palestinians in squalid ghettos and kept them there for forty years? Why don’t you explain why the Nazi Germany had more regard for the Geneva Conventions than Israel? The Nazis were actually worried about whether their interrogation camps would satisfy the Geneva Conventions. The Israelis aren’t even that good. Maybe you can explain that instead of putting words in my mouth.

56. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 8:05 pm

    ” . . . Yeah, just like slavery was the best thing that ever happened to the poor Africans.”
    Another in your vast collection of false moral equivalents.
    There were Black Africans who were themselves slave traders. Slavery WAS the best thing that happened to them. That is the truer equivalent analogy to my earlier point.
    Of course the Palestinian-Arabs are NOT better off as a result of the conflict, but then again, neither are the Israelis. The Israelis may seem better off then the Palestinian-Arabs but that’s only because Jews don’t permit their cousins to suffer, helpless, hopeless and miserable.
    Nonetheless, for the OTHER Arabs, (including some affluent and/or politically powerful Palestinian-Arabs) the Israelis were a blessing not even in disguise. There are literally hundreds of Palestinian-Arab leaders with Swiss bank accounts courtesy of the Israeli conflict. the bigger winners are the neighboring Arabs who get to hate Jews with absolute impunity and demand penance and financial support from the rest of the world.
    I would ask you to grow up but it just occurred to me that you may already be too old.

57. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 8:15 pm

    I am making no serious claim of moral equivalency, just letting you know how you sound.

58. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 9:10 pm

    “I wonder John, as God is our witness, will you give your own life as surety…”

    Here is what I would give my own life as surety for. I will tell you a secret. If you want to see more chesed in the world, start putting out more chesed into the world.

    Quit blaming everyone else for the shitty world you live in, and become an ahavath chesed.

    Quit seeing yourself as a victim, and look instead for small acts of charity you can do every day wherever you are, gemilut chasadim.

    Quit complaining about everything, and start practicing simple decency in everything you do, derekh eretz.

    You will be amazed to discover how much of the sunshine (or the shit) that you see is coming from you. Output determines outlook. And it is not just a matter of altered perceptions; but of real changes in events, people, situations, and conditions. The face that life is showing you is really your own face. I would stake my life on it.

    Shalom aleikhem.

59. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 9:49 pm

    “The face that life is showing you is really your own face.”
    Impossible though catchy.
    Because I have been both very lucky and very unlucky.
    For example, who gets hit by a runaway ski, other then the Trollmeister? Do you know anyone else John? Perhaps someone who lost their own ski on the previous run?
    Life is more precisely like “a box of chocolates”. It makes no difference what your face is . . when it comes to biting into the one you get.
    People should not blame others for their own problems and shortcomings. On the other hand, even clinical paranoids have real enemies. This distinction, like everything else in life is a judgment call. Those with keen and sharp judgment can draw more precise and realistic cause/effect relationships.

60. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 9:58 pm

    BTW:
    To continue from a previous subject, you wrote:

    “90%? Sounds like a stereotype to me.
    To answer the question, I would say that there are a number of unfortunate souls whose thinking is atavistic, a throwback to a more primitive, tribal stage. These people, as all humans did at an earlier stage, see the world as made up of A’s and B’s. A’s are members of one’s own group, like self. B’s are the others, not like self, and by definition A-haters. For these people, all that is necessary to recognize whether someone is an A-hater is to determine whether they are non-A.”
    By this I take it that you do NOT believe a Black person can intutively spot a racist. Well, you are wrong. 90% may be a stereotype but suppose we say 82%? You will find that of all their respective beliefs, (which can vary from person to person) the one belief that is nearly universal and transcends most political influences is this example. A Black believer in this concept will get right in your fact and defend their skill, like they will defend no other point. And for good reason, it is a basic human survival tool which has been mainly lost on populations who do not face the effects of racism and bigotry.

61. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 10:17 pm

    …and become an ahavath chesed.

    gramm. corr:…and become an ohev chesed (a lover of mercy and loving kindness).

    A runaway ski. Ouch. Rare, but don’t take it personally, Isidor. Things happen. Really the world is fairly neutral. Output determines outloook. When you give only chesed, chesed is all you will see.

62. John Baker Says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 10:28 pm

    populations who do not face the effects of racism and bigotry.

    Take gays, however. They suffer these effects more than Jews or Blacks nowadays. They can usually spot non-gays in about two seconds, just as Jews and Blacks can usually identify their own. You would think gays would also be able to spot gay-haters in the same amount of time. They can’t. The reason? Few gays believe that all non-gays are by definition gay-haters.

63. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 2:41 am

    John:
    Your example is a non-sequiter.
    Gays may have the ability (A.K.A. “gaydar”) to spot each other and therefore in the converse, to intuitively identify non-gays. But that does not speak to the non-gays ability to spot the gays. Since non-gays have little if any ability to identify gays, they therefore can not be superficially bigoted and the gays then can’t spot the superficial bigots because they do not exist.
    Blacks on the other hand broadcast their racial identity by skin color. While some Jews are indistinguishable from other whites, most are within notice and besides, if someone really hates Jews, they will err on the side of caution and assume that anyone with even slight Jewish physical characteristics must be Jewish. It then becomes the responsibility of the non-Jewish to deny they are Jewish (guilty until proven innocent). This compensates for any physical confusion and is exactly the way it was in pre WW2 Europe and even in parts of pre WW2 USA.

64. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 3:14 am

    “Really the world is fairly neutral.”
    Maybe for you. I will not speak in your place and I would again hope that you might refrain from speaking in my place.
    From my perspective, the world is NOT neutral.
    It is a constantly churning set of cycles, some are positive and others are quite negative. For example, the USA has not been a kindly place for Arabs and Muslims to live since 9-11-2001. The world is therefore NOT neutral to them. I have similar feelings about being Jewish during the same time-frame although the effects are more clearly masked behind a false benevolence. The average American, while they blame Muslims for the present problems, do not completely absolve Jews either. Generally, its like the two guys who regularly fight at the local pub. One may clearly be the less aggressive and clearly more of the victim but to the general public in the neighborhood, it’s a matter of which is the ‘leper with the most fingers.’
    On a larger scale, humans make the world a NOT neutral place. Of course, a runaway ski is nothing personal. Here is an example that is quite personal:
    As you may recall, I have been involved in major litigation. During the deposition phase, one (adversary) witness was testifying and the opponent’s lawyer asked him about another (adversary) witness.
    Q- Do you know what Ms. ’so-and-so’ did before she came to work with your company?
    A- She was a nun.
    Q- Does that mean that God is on our side?
    A- Yes.
    When the transcript was delivered, the second part of the question was missing from the record. I then questioned the stenographer who actually found the exact wording I remembered, verbatim on her electronic ‘tape’ record but explained that it was part of her job to know which things not to publish.
    Annoyed by this I asked my lawyer to do a motion to have the published record revised. His answer was that the Judge had been a Catholic School boy and therefore “had no great admiration for nuns.”
    This is NOT a neutral event and required the participation of lets see:, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Catholics in concert, not even counting the stenographer who was Italian and I assume also a Catholic. This event was NOT governed by the “face” I showed it. And this is but one (albeit dramatic) example where perhaps hundreds of such examples exist in my day-to-day life and could be dredged up for posterity.
    So my final question to you is:
    Q- Was God on their side?

65. John Baker Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 5:14 am

    Was God on their side?

    I wouldn’t say so, no.

    Bad things do happen. Litigation, for example. There are bad people. Bad people are not neutral. There is a great deal of evil in the world, most of it caused by people. Also a lot of good. When I say the world is fairly neutral, what I mean is that most of the evil that happens does not really have your name on it and so doesn’t happen to you specifically. The entire world is not really coming directly AT YOU. Sometimes is sure seems so. Mostly it is Isidor-neutral and John-neutral. Obviously we all want to dodge whatever bad stuff is out there to the extent possible. And when something bad does happen we all hope to respond to it in the best way possible for us. Both of those things are possible because the evil mostly does not have our name on it. In that regard, output determines outlook. More than we realize.

66. John Baker Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 6:44 am

    I’ve got a good friend who is unjustly accused of a serious crime in a kind of witchhunt situation. This is a good guy who puts out nothing but good into the world. I have no idea why this has happened, why this evil has come along with his name on it. I do know that he has lots of friends who are coming to his support and trying to help in all kinds of ways. I believe all his acts of chesed, all of his deeds of derekh eretz, all his kindnesses and gemilut chasadim, all of that good will is coming back to him now multiplied. Good happens.

67. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 8:36 am

    John wrote: Once more, Steve. I have never said “It’s all the Jews’ fault.” I have also never said “These massive concessions by the Jews will satisfy and not wet the Arab appetite.”>>>>

    I firmly believe Jews genuinely wish to live in peace with their neighbors in the Middle East. I am not so sure about Israel’s neighbors however.

    You are honest enough John to admit that Israel’s Arab neighbors — many of them — may indeed continue to desire the destruction of the Jewish state.

    You understand that they “may” see a two state solution, as the original PLO charter called it, part of the Phased Plan whereby the PLO would at first establish its “state of Palestine” on any territory which would be “evacuated by the Zionist enemy.” This new Arab state would then align itself with other “confrontation states” and prepare for the second stage — the eradication of Israel in a renewed onslaught.

    You have enough good sense not to be guarantor for the good will or the good intentions of these peoples. Am I wrong?

68. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 8:48 am

    John,
    I am sure you are aware, when Mahmoud Abbas is campaigning or is speaking directly to his people in Arabic, he refers to the Jews as the Zionist enemy or what have you and calls for killing the Jews and turning their guns against the occupation instead of killing one another. Abbas: “We have a legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation. It is forbidden to use these guns against Palestinians. … Our rifles, all our rifles are aimed at the occupation.”

    I’ve seen some of his speeches over the years. Now we can try to rationalize these statements in the context of the overwhelming negative opinion Palestinian Muslims have of the Jews but let us not dismiss these words outright as meangless.

    On the other hand, I’ve never seen a speech or a statement referring to the Palestinian people as the enemy — though you know I believe the vast majority are — nor have I heard the prime minister calling for the death of Palestinians.

    Abbas did his doctoral dissertation on some manifestation of Holocaust denial. He is believed to have financed the Munich massacre in Germany and has been Yasser Arafat’s right hand man for many decades.

    Still, Bush and Olmert refer to Abbas as a “moderate” and a man dedicated to peace, etc.

69. John Baker Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 9:46 am

    Am I wrong?

    I don’t guarantee anything. There are no guarantees. Deal with your own fears. Hint: it will help if you will stop frightening yourself.

    Your argument about Abbas is an argument based on a symmetry which does not exist. This goes to our fundamental differences about whether the West Bank are “occupied territories” or “disputed territories.” Your argument assumes that Abbas and Olmert are equals, as though both were heads of two sovereign states, that Israel and the Palestinian Authority are on a par. This is absolutely not true and is the reason the symmetry you are appealing to does not exist. It is also for that reason that you have confused cause and effect.

    The West Bank and Gaza are occupied territories under the Geneva Conventions and administered by the IDF under Israeli military law. Abbas is the spokesman for a people living under miitary occupation in ghettos, natives who are “protected persons” under international law, and who are also guaranteed the right of self-determination. The Palestinians are permitted to say all kinds of bad things about their occupiers. In fact, it is entirely predictable that they do so and would be surprising if they didn’t. They are entitled to resist by all means available, including force of arms (as long as they do not attack innocent civilians, which is a war crime under the same Geneva Conventions). They are entitled to make hateful speeches about their occupiers, to demonize them if they like.

    On the other hand, I’ve never seen a speech or a statement referring to the Palestinian people as the enemy — though you know I believe the vast majority are — nor have I heard the prime minister calling for the death of Palestinians.

    That’s because Israel is the Occupying Power. Under the Geneva Conventions the Occupying Power is responsible for the protection of the native population (”protected persons”), for their food, medicine, sanitation, education, free movement, etc. So, of course no Israeli PM is going to call for the death of the Palestinians in general. He would soon be sitting in jail in The Hague if he did that. It’s amazing that Sharon and Olmert (?) have gotten away with “targeted assassinations” of Palestinian leaders.

    Abbas and Olmert are not both heads of sovereign states. Abbas and his people are under the bootheels of Olmert and the Israeli Defense Force. Abbas is not expected to lick the boots. The role of Abbas is fundamentally different from the role of Olmert. Abbas does not have to join the World Zionist Organization, you know. But it is not a contradiction that he is a moderate and a man dedicated to peace and also maintains the right of his people to resist the occupation by all means necessary including force of arms. But as long as you think Gaza and the West Bank are “disputed territories” (as though disputed by two sovereign states) instead of “occupied territories” (under the Geneva Conventions), you will never, ever understand that. Good luck.

70. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 10:25 am

    The Palestinians are permitted to say all kinds of bad things about their occupiers.>>>>

    Why did the prophet say all kinds of bad things about the Jews?

    Jews are the malevolent enemies of Islam (5:82 disobedient slayers of our own prophets who suffered justifiable abasement (2:61), including, for some, transformation into apes and swine (5:60).

    In the canonical hadith (Sahih Muslim Book 026, Number 5431) the Jews caused Muhammad’s protracted, excruciating death from poisoning.

    Islam teaches ‘The Last Hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: `Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him’.

    Muhammad was not under occupation, was he?

71. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 10:41 am

    But as long as you think Gaza and the West Bank are “disputed territories” (as though disputed by two sovereign states) instead of “occupied territories” (under the Geneva Conventions), you will never, ever understand that. Good luck. >>>>

    I use the term “disputed” from the standpoint of many of Israel’s defenders. I’m sure you understand that for me, there is no dispute. The land clearly belongs to the Jews. The Arabs are squatters.

72. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 10:53 am

    John wrote: “They are entitled to resist by all means available, including force of arms >>>>

    Are you asserting the Muslim Arabs did not commit acts of violence and terrorism against Jews before Israel came into existence? Before there was an “occupation?”

    No Muslim terror against Jews in cities like Hebron and Safed before Israel became an “occupier?”

    What about Muslim terror against the brutal occupations and oppressions by Jordan and Egypt between 1948 to 1967? Gaza was brutally occupied by Egyptian military forces and the West Bank was occupied by Jordan. How much terrorism was directed against these occupiers?

73. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 11:11 am

    John wrote: Abbas… is a moderate and a man dedicated to peace and also maintains the right of his people to resist the occupation by all means necessary including force of arms.>>>>

    So, by this standard of measure, you defend Menahem Begin.

74. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 11:20 am

    John wrote: “They are entitled to resist by all means available, including force of arms (as long as they do not attack innocent civilians, which is a war crime under the same Geneva Conventions).”

    But you know they make no distinction between military targets and civilian targets since the Palestinians say all Jews are conscripted at one point or another into the military. Therefore all Jews are military targets and combatants and therefore are not innocent.

    Why do Palestinians massacre Jews on buses, in discos, restaurants and market places?

    Bin Laden asserts much the same about Americans. If you listened to his speech yesterday, he said all Americans are culpable because the American people re-elected Bush.

    The civilians in the World Trade Center towers were not innocent but guilty according to this and similar logic.

    Official policy of al-Qaeda and Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Mahmoud Abbas’ Tanzim, etc., is the mass murder of innocent civilians.

75. fschlomka Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 11:36 am

    Steve -
    Muslim violence against other Muslims is well documented, whether by Palestinians against Jordanians or Lebanese, or the current craziness in Iraq.

76. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 11:41 am

    “What is the irredeemable, eternal meaning of Palestinian sovereignty?

    When Israel liberated Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza in the Six Day War, she didn’t conquer land that belonged to any sovereign power.

    Neither Jordan in Judea and Samaria nor Egypt in Gaza had any sovereign rights in those territories. Both had invaded those territories in 1948 in order to frustrate the League of Nations decision of November 29, 1947 recognizing Israel.

    Egypt never claimed sovereignty over Gaza and established military rule there from the beginning. Jordan, in contravention of international law, attempted to establish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, but renounced this aspiration on its own initiative in 1988.

    Only because of this vacuum in sovereignty was Israel authorized to utilize state lands to settle Jews in Yesha or to settle the lands in any way. Had there been a legal sovereign before Israel’s takeover of those territories, the Hague Convention would have forbidden Israel from making fundamental changes to the status quo, including the utilization of state lands.

    International law views the conquering military administration as custodian
    over the occupied territories until they are returned to the original sovereign
    in a future peace agreement. Until then, the conquered lands are held in trust
    by the occupying power. In the same way, the conqueror is forbidden from
    excavating antiquities located in occupied territories. They too are held in
    trust for the conquered power that will eventually regain sovereignty.

    Elyakim Haetzni
    August 20th, 2007

77. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 11:44 am

    “Muslim violence against other Muslims is well documented, whether by Palestinians against Jordanians or Lebanese, or the current craziness in Iraq.”

    Yes I know. You’re right.

78. fschlomka Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    Steve: So when you asked
    “Gaza was brutally occupied by Egyptian military forces and the West Bank was occupied by Jordan. How much terrorism was directed against these occupiers?”
    The answer was quite simple. There was a great deal of violence against these occupiers. Remember Black September?

    However Islamic dogma stipulates that under no conditions can ‘Muslim Lands’ be occupied by non-Muslims.

    Lets face it. If the ‘Christian’ countries of Europe or North America were to be conquered and occupied by aliens, Muslim or otherwise, then I’m pretty sure that their civilian settlers would be considered fair game by the patriotic insurgents.

79. John Baker Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 4:31 pm

    Why did the prophet say all kinds of bad things about the Jews?

    I guess he thought they were bad? Are you sure about the ones he was talking about? Weren’t they trying to kill him and stuff? Your quotations from the Quran and the Hadith are not trustworthy. You have too often posted quotes here that turned out to be bogus. I refuse to even look up any more. They never turn out to say what you claim they say and always say something completely reasonable instead. They are all bullsh*t as far as I’m concerned. You are the boy who cried wolf. I don’t believe you when it comes to Islam. Sorry. You’ve tried to hoodwink me too many times. There’s a limit.

80. John Baker Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 4:37 pm

    So, by this standard of measure, you defend Menahem Begin.

    Is this a question or a statement?

    The question I’d like an answer to still is why you defend the Nazis. The Israeli settlement policy is one the Israelis evidently learned from the Nazis in WW II, in the Sudetenland for example. They were apt pupils, because it’s the same policy. Occupy a disputed territory and settle it with your own nationals to shift the racial balance to enhance your claim to the land. I can’t understand why you defend a Nazi policy and also the settlers they put into the Sudetenland to colonize it for racial puposes.

81. John Baker Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 4:44 pm

    Therefore all Jews are military targets and combatants and therefore are not innocent.

    Not according to international law, the same law you would tear down. Palestinian terrorism affecting civilians (the vast majority of it) has been universally condemned.

82. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    I wrote: “Gaza was brutally occupied by Egyptian military forces and the West Bank was occupied by Jordan. How much terrorism was directed against these occupiers?”

    fschlomka: The answer was quite simple. There was a great deal of violence against these occupiers. Remember Black September?>>>>

    Good example. But wasn’t this a rebellion for control of the state of Jordan itself, with in Jordan and not the West Bank. King Hussein put down the PLO rebellion, killing some 5,000 Palestinians, driving them out where they sought refuge in Lebanon?

83. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 5:04 pm

    I guess he thought they were bad? Are you sure about the ones he was talking about? Weren’t they trying to kill him and stuff? >>>>

    This seems to be the deal John according to what I’ve read. Muhammad, like Paul before him and Martin Luther after him, turned “Jew lover” into “Jew hater.” Paul, Muhammad and Luther all went to the Jews with their own personal vision, gospel, reform whatever, “in love.” You may know, before Luther wrote his pamphlet “The Jews and Their Lies” he loved the Jews and he reached out to the Jews in Christian love.

    See: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html

    When the Jews did not accept the new vision or gospel or reform these Jew-lovers turned into Jew-haters with a vengeance.

    Muhammad wanted the Jews of Mecca to accept his status as a true prophet of God in the long line of Jewish prophets. When the Jews did not embrace him as a true prophet of God he killed them. Then he said all kinds of terrible things against the Jews, told his followers to discontinue facing Jerusalem in prayer and instead face Mecca, etc.

    It’s all in your history books.

84. John Baker Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

    Why do Palestinians massacre Jews on buses, in discos, restaurants and market places?

    Why do heavily armed IDF soldiers fire stun grenades and tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at unarmed, peaceful, non-violent Palestinian and Israeli protesters week after week at Bel’in, so that young boys have to put themselves in the way of jeeps and get wounded and arrested?

85. John Baker Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 5:17 pm

    It’s all in your history books.

    So far I’ve not found any of these lies in the history books. Only in the trash you post from anti-Islamic websites. Now you are attacking Christians too. No one escapes the Wrath of Steve.

86. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 5:27 pm

    John: Now you are attacking Christians too.”
    >>>>

    Come on John. You think Luther was a good Christian? Jesus the Jew would love Luther?!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jews_and_Their_Lies

    On the Jews and their Lies (German: Von den Jüden und iren Lügen; in modern spelling Von den Juden und ihren Lügen) is a 65,000-word treatise written by the German monk and church reformer Martin Luther in 1543, three years before his death……

    The Nazis

    The line of “anti-Semitic descent” from Luther to Hitler is “easy to draw,” [44] according to American historian Lucy Dawidowicz. In her The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945, she writes that both Luther and Hitler were obsessed by the “demonologized universe” inhabited by Jews, with Hitler asserting that the later Luther, the author of On the Jews and Their Lies was the real Luther. [44]

    Dawidowicz writes that the similarities between Luther’s anti-Jewish writings and modern anti-Semitism are no coincidence, because they derived from a common history of Judenhass, which can be traced to Haman’s advice to Ahasuerus. Although modern German anti-Semitism also has its roots in German nationalism and Christian anti-Semitism, she argues that a foundation for this was laid by the Roman Catholic Church, “upon which Luther built.” [44]

    Professor Robert Michael, Professor Emeritus of European History at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, has argued that Luther scholars who try to tone down Luther’s views on the Jews ignore the murderous implications of his antisemitism. Michael argues that there is a “strong parallel” between Luther’s ideas and the anti-Semitism of most German Lutherans throughout the Holocaust. [45] Like the Nazis, Luther mythologized the Jews as evil, he writes. They could be saved only if they converted to Christianity, but their hostility to the idea made it inconceivable. [45]

    Luther’s sentiments were widely echoed in the Germany of the 1930s, particularly within the Nazi party. Hitler’s Education Minister, Bernhard Rust, was quoted by the Völkischer Beobachter as saying that: “Since Martin Luther closed his eyes, no such son of our people has appeared again. It has been decided that we shall be the first to witness his reappearance … I think the time is past when one may not say the names of Hitler and Luther in the same breath. They belong together; they are of the same old stamp [Schrot und Korn]”….

87. Steve Klein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 5:31 pm

    John. I have a Lutheran neighbour. We talk on the phone from time to time.

    When I told her Luther wrote this pamphlet, “The Jews and their Lies,” she said, “OH NO! NO! You are wrong! OH NO! NO!”

    John. You are much too educated for this nonsense. I hope? I think? Aren’t you?

88. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 5:40 pm

    John wrote:
    “The question I’d like an answer to still is why you defend the Nazis. The Israeli settlement policy is one the Israelis evidently learned from the Nazis in WW II, in the Sudetenland for example. They were apt pupils, because it’s the same policy. Occupy a disputed territory and settle it with your own nationals to shift the racial balance to enhance your claim to the land. I can’t understand why you defend a Nazi policy and also the settlers they put into the Sudetenland to colonize it for racial puposes.”
    I did not read all above but this is not a fair comparison.
    Of course, any land which someone else wants–they will call “disputed”. That does not make all land disputes equal.
    The Jews hold legal title to 45,000 sq. miles of former Palestine, according to international treaties ending WW1.
    Where was the Nazi’s legal mandate in Sudetenland or elsewhere? Calling Jews ‘Nazis’ is one of the highest intellectual crimes I know of.

89. John Baker Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 7:21 pm

    Calling Jews ‘Nazis’ is one of the highest intellectual crimes I know of.

    Didn’t do that. I said they were apt pupils. They followed the settlement policy of the Nazis. Occupied the territory which had been in dispute for years. They felt entitled because they needed room to grow (Lebensraum). Then they introduced German nationals into the area to dilute the racial make-up of the territory. There are no death camps in the West Bank. Otherwise, it’s the same policy. So why do you defend the Nazis?

90. John Baker Says:
    September 8th, 2007 at 7:38 pm

    this nonsense.

    It’s nonsense to be talking about a pamphlet written in 1543 in order to avoid talking about defending Nazi occupation policies in the West Bank. While you were reading history books cherry-picking them for anti-Semitic remarks by Christians, did you by any chance run across the Lutheran pastor and theologian who was hanged by the Nazis for his role in the plot to assassinate Hitler? No doubt he was a Jew-hater too? I’m tired of talking to you, Steve. You are all about hate and little else. You hate Muslims. You hate Roman Catholics. You hate Lutherans. You hate Brits. You hate Israeli “appeasers.” Go peddle your hate to somebody else. I’m tired of hearing about it. Get a life.

91. John Baker Says:
    September 9th, 2007 at 6:28 am

    “Bonhoeffer, the Jewish People, and Post-Holocaust Theology”

    http://escholarship.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=scjr

92. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
    September 9th, 2007 at 7:49 am

    “They felt entitled because they needed room to grow (Lebensraum).”
    They may have felt entitled because they believe the Old Testament and Qur’an titles this land to them, although as you know, I do not ascribe to “Biblical rights”. Which monotheistic Bible gives Germans the right to expand into neighboring nations?
    The previous owner of the nation of Palestine, Turkey, titled the land to the Jews. Which owner of the Sudetenland give title over to the Germans?
    These Jews are having children, as all people do. These children are what you refer to as “expansion” or “Lebensraum”.
    “I said they were apt pupils.”
    Semantics and as thin as baloney-skin.
    “Then they introduced German nationals into the area to dilute the racial make-up of the territory.”
    You call it a “dilution” while they might call it a “reinforcement”.
    Nazis wanted worldwide conquest and there were Nazi branches actively working anywhere in the world where there were significant German populations, such as Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit. Show me where the Jews you reference are engaged in a world-wide conquest? Show me where they are engaged in a regional conquest?
    They want to be left alone with their bibles and wait for the messiah to arrive in peace.
    Show me where the Germans merely wanted peaceful borders? Perhaps with the Russians? Hungarians? Polish?
    Your minor semantic distinctions do not reverse your underlying statements. You believe the Jews living in the “disputed” areas to be fledgling Nazis, less the death camps. This is a cruel, callus, uninformed and immature notion, not deserving of someone who’s career was spent teaching college. They are in fact “anti-Nazis” and in many respects, the outcropping of the Nazis, who themselves were influenced by oil politics and therefore by the Arab pan-national movement of the time. I quiver when I think of how many young minds you may have polluted with your alphabetic power-base (A-F).

93. John Baker Says:
    September 9th, 2007 at 8:25 am

    You believe the Jews living in the “disputed” areas to be fledgling Nazis, less the death camps.

    No, that’s not true. The settler themselves are sadly pawns. I also do not even claim that the Israelis who put the policies in place are Nazis. I said they were apt pupils of the Nazis. The policy of introducing Jewish settlements into the zone of occupation for the purpose of shifting the racial balance of the zone toward Jewish and away from Arab, is a technique “learned” from the Nazis. It was the practice of the Nazis in WW II. The irony of this is staggering.

    as you know, I do not ascribe to “Biblical rights”.

    Yes, the old saw about the Zionistis, most of whom were atheists: “God does not exist, and He gave us the land forever in the Bible (which we don’t believe in) and so we are taking the land back.” I’ll leave it for you to figure that one out. I can’t make sense of it. I happen to believe in God and in the Bible, though I disagree with the identification of the biblical Israel and the modern State of Israel. Be that as it may, it really doesn’t matter why Germany or Israel thought they had a rightful claim to the land. They took possession the land by force of arms and occupied it, albeit under different circumstances. Having once occupied the land, to enhance their claim to it they introduced their own nationals into it to the detriment of the native population under separate laws, colonizing the zone of occupation for the purpose of diluting the numbers of the previous inhabitants. To prevent this ever happening again to the Jews or anyone else, the Fourth Geneva Convention was written. If one wants the protection of the law, imperfect though they be, one agrees to live by the law and to uphold respect for it. This Israel has not done, except to say that it intends to apply the Fourth Geneva Conventions to “the territories” on a de facto rather than de jure basis, which is at least more than I’m hearing hereabouts.

94. John Baker Says:
    September 9th, 2007 at 8:42 am

    They want to be left alone with their bibles and wait for the messiah to arrive in peace.

    Isidor, I blush for you that you would make such a statement. I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.

    from Uri Avnery’s latest column on the decision by the Israeli Supreme Court that a two-kilometer stretch of The Wall must come down as it was erected in its current location to steal land:

    “In a second decision this week, the Supreme Court, for the sake of a spurious “balance”, decided that the housing project that is already standing in Matityahu, also on Bil’in land, can remain there and may now be populated, in spite of the fact that the same court has in the past forbidden this.

    And who built Matityahu?

    Some weeks ago, a huge scandal was exposed. The culprit is a building company called Heftsiba. It collapsed, taking with it the apartments that its clients had already paid for. Many of them have lost their entire savings.

    The owner of the company fled and was tracked down in Italy. The company’s debts come close to a billion dollars. The police suspects that the fugitive has stolen immense sums.

    And lo and behold: this is the same company that built the original Matityahu neighborhood, and that intended to build the new Matityahu project on land stolen by means of the “Security Fence”. It also built the monstrous Har Homa housing project and other neighborhoods in the occupied territories.

    Who can now deny what we have been saying for years, that the settlements are a huge business of billions upon billions of dollars, which is entirely based on stolen property?

    Everybody knows the hard core of settlers, nationalist-messianic fanatics, who are ready to drive out, kill and rob, because their God told them so. But around this core has gathered a large group of gangsters, real estate operators, who conduct their dirty and hugely profitable business behind the screen of patriotism. In this case, patriotism is indeed the refuge of scoundrels.

    Talia Sasson, a lawyer appointed at the time by the government to investigate the setting up of “illegal” settlement outposts, has concluded that most of the ministries and army commands have violated the law and secretly cooperated with the settlers. It may appear that they acted out of patriotic sentiments. I have my doubts. I dare to guess that there must be hundreds of politicians, officials and officers who have received large bribes from businessmen who made billions from these “patriotic” transactions.”

95. John Baker Says:
    September 9th, 2007 at 8:55 am

    Semantics and as thin as baloney-skin.

    It wasn’t “semantics” when a senior Israeli officer recommended (reported in Haaretz) that the IDF study the methods the Nazis used in the Warsaw Ghetto:

    “To repress Palestinian resistance, a senior Israeli officer earlier this year urged the army to “analyze and internalize the lessons of…how the German army fought in the Warsaw ghetto.” (Haaretz, 25 January 2002, 1 February 2002) Judging by the recent Israeli carnage in the West Bank - the targeting of Palestinian ambulances and medical personnel, the targeting of journalists, the killing of Palestinian children “for sport” (Chris Hedges, New York Times former Cairo bureau chief), the rounding up, handcuffing and blindfolding of all Palestinian males between the ages 15 and 50, and affixing of numbers on their wrists, the indiscriminate torture of Palestinian detainees, the denial of food, water, electricity, and medical assistance to the Palestinian civilian population, the indiscriminate air assaults on Palestinian neighborhoods, the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, the bulldozing of Palestinian homes with the occupants huddled inside - it appears that the Israeli army is following the officer’s advice.”

    http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=12

96. Steve Klein Says:
    September 9th, 2007 at 10:31 am

    John: #91 “Bonhoeffer, the Jewish People, and Post-Holocaust Theology”

    John,
    Professor Stephen Haynes you cite and link to wrote: “The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon: Portraits of a Protestant Saint.” It is available on Amazon.com.

    I read the review from Publisher’s Weekly. You may find the book of interest. Also, I am reading that Bonhoeffer’s 1943 initiative was called the “Freiburg Circle,” consisting of leading Protestant theologians and university professors. They wrote (with the knowledge of Carl Goerdeler) a document which contained an appendix called “Proposals to a Solution to the Jewish Problem in Germany.” It affirmed that the post-Nazi state would be justified in taking steps “to ward off the calamitous influence of one race on the national community [Voksgemeinschaft]. The document accepted that the “Jewish Problem” existed, that the Jews had harmed Germany, and that a “solution” was necessary that would prevent future harm to Germans.

    “The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon: Portraits of a Protestant Saint” by Stephen R. Haynes

    Editorial Reviews

    From Publishers Weekly

    In the last 20 years, various groups have petitioned Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance authority in Jerusalem, to award Dietrich Bonhoeffer the designation of “Righteous Gentile,” but so far all such requests have been denied. Many of these petitioners view Bonhoeffer as a model of the Christian church’s resistance to the Nazi effort to rid Europe of Jewish people, and as a theologian for a post-Holocaust era. But Haynes, associate professor of religion at Rhodes College, argues effectively that the truth is more complicated than the simple and appealing image that scholars and the media have presented. Despite Bonhoeffer’s deeds, which Haynes finds exemplary, his theology, when read as a whole, is troubling. At best, Haynes claims, it reveals a deep ambivalence about Jews, and at worst, the traditional Christian belief that the Jews, as “killers” of God, must suffer for that deed until they are, en masse, converted. Haynes concludes that a careful analysis of Bonhoeffer’s praxis and theology does have significance for post-Holocaust Christians, but too many contemporary portraits of him are the result of “superficial reading, hopeful interpretation, and overactive speculation.” Haynes’s book, largely a review of Bonhoeffer scholarship, will find an audience primarily among academics and clergy.

97. fschlomka Says:
    September 9th, 2007 at 12:17 pm

    In #88 Cornelius wrote:
    “The Jews hold legal title to 45,000 sq. miles of former Palestine, according to international treaties ending WW1.
    Where was the Nazi’s legal mandate in Sudetenland or elsewhere? Calling Jews ‘Nazis’ is one of the highest intellectual crimes I know of.”

    I agree. While the IDF and the “Civil Administration” may use repressive measures against Palestinians, and conduct ethnic cleansing through a variety of methods, we do not herd people into ovens. Thus the beastiality of the Nazi crimes can not be applied to Israel.

    Call us fascist of you like, or cousins of late Serb autocrat Slobodan Milosevic, but don’t call us Nazis. The nerve is still too raw. The ghosts of the six million still haunt us.

    However Cornelius: Try comparing the Nazi’s legal mandate in Sudetenland to Israel’s legal mandate in the West Bank, the Golan and East Jerusalem. In all three places Israel has settled large numbers of Israeli Jews in order to tip the demographic balance more in it’s favor. The parallel certainly does not make us Nazis, but it does show similar tactics in land acquisition.

98. John Baker Says:
    September 9th, 2007 at 12:17 pm

    This (20 page) article reviews all the literature on the topic of Bonhoeffer and the Jews which has been written by both Jewish and Christian theologians.

    “Bonhoeffer, the Jewish People, and Post-Holocaust Theology: Eight Perspectives, Eight Theses”

    http://escholarship.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=scjr

    Bonhoeffer had left Germany and was safe in England and New York. He wrestled with the ethics of sitting in safety in the face of so great an evil as Hitler. He returned to Germany at risk to himself to work on a plot to assassinate Hitler and to support colleagues who were then being persecuted for their anti-Nazi stance. As you will see in this article, there is documented evidence that he helped Jews to escape by arranging identity papers for them. When the plot failed, Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo and after staying in prison was hanged. Whether he said the right words or not, and that is debatable, he did walk the walk.

99. John Baker Says:
    September 9th, 2007 at 12:21 pm

    Fred wrote,

    The parallel certainly does not make us Nazis, but it does show similar tactics in land acquisition.

    I agree fully with both statements. That was in fact my point.

100. Steve Klein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 1:03 pm

     fschlomka: The parallel certainly does not make us Nazis, but it does show similar tactics in land acquisition.

     John: I agree fully with both statements. That was in fact my point.

     fschlomka is wrong. Come on fschlomka, who are you?

101. Steve Klein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 1:05 pm

     fschlomka wrote: Call us fascist of you like, or cousins of late Serb autocrat Slobodan Milosevic, but don’t call us Nazis. The nerve is still too raw.>>>

     What is wrong with you? If we are fascits, then we are fascists. What difference does is make if the nerve is still too raw. What nonsense!

102. Steve Klein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 1:06 pm

     With “friends” like you fschlomka, who needs enemas?

103. Steve Klein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 1:15 pm

     John: Whether Bonhoeffer said the right words or not, and that is debatable, he did walk the walk.>>>>

     He apparently did not like Hitler and was willing to risk his life to do away with the monster. Fine. Does this make him my friend? He wrote that I am a killer of God. Jews were persecuted, tortured and murdered for centuries by Christians because of this libel. What do you think the Jewish messiah will say to this hater when he meets him in the world to come?

104. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

     When Messiah comes, everyone will have some questions to answer. Steve, you obviously don’t even read your own posts very carefully before pasting them in, so I suppose it is pointless to expect that you would read a twenty page paper that I posted, but if you did it might change your perspective just a tiny bit. Of course, that’s the risk you take. But in not reading it you run the risk of spouting off in ignorance and making a complete fool of yourself because you chose not to look at something. Your choice, either way.

105. Steve Klein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 2:03 pm

     John, at the moment I am reading Dore Gold’s “The Fight For Jerusalem, Radical Islam, The West, And the Future of the Holy City.”

     We must have priorities, don’t you think? I cannot read and study everything all at once. Maybe I will get to Bonhoeffer eventually. I notice Bonhoeffer’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is considering boycotting or disinvesting Israel.

     http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557457886&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

     Wonder what Bonhoeffer would say about this?

106. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 2:18 pm

     “He apparently did not like Hitler and was willing to risk his life to do away with the monster.”

     Did not like him? And for that reason he risked his life to go back into Germany to kill the moster? Let’s be fair. It takes a lot more than not liking someone to drive a man to do that, don’t you think? He must have come to the conclusion that Hitler was evil and that he had to be stopped, wouldn’t you agree? The next question. On what basis did he think Hitler was evil? Presumably, he was just at that time learning about the death camps, as he reported his findings to his fellow conspirators. I believe one would not be amiss in saying that he justified the killing of Hitler on the basis of saving mostly Jewish lives. He is a flawed hero, because his writings had not caught up with his actions, though in his final letters (Letters From Prison) there is evidence that he was rethinking and abandoning the traditional (though unofficial) interpretation of Jewish history known as “the witness-people myth.” At that point his life was cut short.

107. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 2:21 pm

     You’ll get a lot of good ammunition from Dore Gold’s book, I’m sure. But you’ll have to fire it at somebody besides me. Good luck.

108. Steve Klein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 3:03 pm

     If you were reading his book, you’d probably say:

     “This man is a liar! After seizing East Jerusalem in 1948, Jordan’s Arab Legion did not completely evict the Jewish population from the Old City. Gold is making this up. The Jewish Quarter was not set aflame, its homes looted and dozens of synagogues destroyed. Bush says “Islam is peace” and that it is tolerant. Tombstones from the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives were not converted into latrines! The Jews were not prevented from praying at their holy sites, including the Western Wall for nineteen years! The Jordanians did not bar Christian institutions from buying land or restrict the rights of Jerusalem’s Christian population, which then dropped by over 50%.

     “Upon capturing the Old City in 1967, Israel did not adopt a law protecting the holy sites of all religions and guarantee their free access to all worshipers. Again Gold is lying!

     “Palestinians did not loot and demolish Joseph’s tomb, October 7, 2000.

     “On April 2, 2002, Yasser Arafat’s Tanzim militia, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists did not seize the Church of the Nativity in order to escape capture by Israeli troops! The gunman did not set fire to the Orthodox Christian and Franciscan sections of the compound! Gold is lying! The attackers did not steal icons, candelabra and other religious objects that looked like gold. They did not tear up Bibles and use the pages as toilet paper! Gold is a Zionist liar!

     “The Palestinian Authority is perfectly able to take control over Jerusalem’s holy sites as Bush, Olmert and Abbas are seeking! Ambassador Gold is an alarmist!”

109. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 3:03 pm

     John:
     In the very first paragraph of Finkelstein’s linked web article, I counted seven misstatements of fact. I stopped reading there.
     Example: “During the June 1967 war, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, completing the Zionist conquest of British-mandated Palestine.” >Finkelstein
     British mandated Palestine was 45,000 Sq. miles whereas 2007 Israel is about 8,000 sq. miles.
     When I write, I will often rephrase an assertion if I feel that it may be misleading or unfair or otherwise not completely accurate. I do this not because I expect to get caught. Those such blatant misstatements do not make it into my first draft. I further correct myself because I like to be treated the same way by others. Sadly, authors like Finkelstein and yes, you too, take the opposite position. Namely, if it sounds good on a bumper-sticker, its worth attesting to.
     To repeat:
     I do not agree with all of Israel’s policies. Simply by throwing the least admirable ones in my face is not solving anything. This is especially so when you rely on hyped and grotesquely over-stated accusations.

110. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 4:06 pm

     This is especially so when you rely on hyped and grotesquely over-stated accusations.
     

     If Finkelstein had said “British-mandated Palestine west of the Jordan” would that have made you happy? You are technically correct, but everyone knows that the Mandate east of the Jordan was organized by the British as an independent region in 1922, and so never had anything to do with the UN Partition of 1947.

     Why do you want to make a big deal out of it by calling it “hyped and grotesquely over=stated” when it’s simply a reasonable shorthand that everyone (but you apparently) understands?

111. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 4:10 pm

     some maps (although I don’t stand by the David-Solomon map):

     http://z.about.com/d/ancienthistory/1/7/x/P/2/israel_hist_1973.jpg

112. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 4:27 pm

     John is back to asserting what everyone else believes.

113. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 4:42 pm

     Finkelstein is a hype-meister.
     The original mandate for Palestine arose out of the post WW1 treaties that ended the war and also created the independent Arab nations.
     http://english.katif.net/index.php?sub=2&id=1824
     This plot of land was 45,000 square miles and it was neither a shock, or an affront to the various Arab potentates, since they were getting what they wanted in the same transaction. Control of the oil, control of the Islamic holy sites in Mecca and Medina and independence.
     Finkelstein’s quoted statement (in his first sentence) was therefore false and intended to be misleading. It sounds from his statement as if the Jews, unhappy with 9/10ths of a loaf went to war to steal the other 1/10th.
     “ . . . completing the Zionist conquest of British-mandated Palestine.”
     How can they conquest that which already belongs to them?
     In reality, 2007 Israel is a settling for 1/10 of a loaf. While Jews were denied Jordanian citizenship, Arabs were not denied citizenship in Israel and today constitute a significant voting-block.
     The Hebrews, while far from perfect, have been relatively reasonable in their expectations and demands as compared with the Arab side, who speaks with (at least) two disparate voices and has never seriously contemplated a permanent end to hostilities.

114. Steve Klein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 5:22 pm

     John wrote: “If Finkelstein had said “British-mandated Palestine west of the Jordan” would that have made you happy?”

     Everytime I read Finkelstein’s material, I think, this is a man who has it in for the Jews. Finkelstein would like nothing more than to see another mass-slaughter of the Jews. This time by the Arabs.

115. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 6:37 pm

     Everyone in attendance should read the full text of the latest Bin Laden speech.
     http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=7403
     In his half-hour presentation, he mentions the Israel/Palestine dispute exactly ZERO times.
     (Maybe John should argue with him in that Professor Baker believes that the entire Mid East and therefore the world is on the verge of “erupting in flames”, as direct result of the ongoing procession of high Israeli crimes.)
     Equally interesting, Bin Laden asserts that Muslims would have protected Jews during WW2 as part of their religious duty.
     He comes out of the closet as an ecologist and is fervently anti-Wall Street.
     So John, it seems that there are only two differences between Bin Laden and yourself:
     1. You fixate and obsess on the Israeli/Palestinian Dispute
     2. Bin Laden attacked the USA on 09-11-01.

116. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 6:37 pm

     In reality, 2007 Israel is a settling for 1/10 of a loaf.

     As always, the question is “Compared to what?” (”How’s your wife?”)

     Look at the maps in # 111. In particular, look at the Jewish settlements in Palestine in 1947, i.e. the British Mandate of Palestine (as opposed to the British Mandate of Transjordan). The orange spots.

     Now look at the Jewish State (orange area) in the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan. Much, much, much bigger than the previous map, right?

     Now look at the State of Israel (orange area) 1949-1967. Bigger than the previous map, right?

     [Is there a pattern here?]

     Next map, Israel and Occupied Territories since the 1967 War. Israel is now occupying or controlling the entirety of the area of the British Mandate of Palestine (as opposed to the British Mandate of Transjordan) described in the first map.

     Hey, whaddya know! Finkelstein was right. “During the June 1967 war, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, completing the Zionist conquest of British-mandated Palestine.”

     And complaining about it because they didn’t get the British Mandate of Transjordan along with Palestine!

     I know you don’t like me to say the word chutzpah. It is now an English word, although I will agree with you that the word was originally invented by Jews, probably to describe Israelis.

     Good evening.

117. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 6:51 pm

     (repost, sorry if this duplicates)

     Look at the maps in #111, in particular the orange areas:

     http://z.about.com/d/ancienthistory/1/7/x/P/2/israel_hist_1973.jpg

     1. The Brit. Mandate of Palestine, Jewish settlements.

     2. The U.N. Partition Plan of 1947. Much, much larger orange area.

     3. Israel 1948-1967, Even larger orange area as result of the 1948 War.

     [Is there a pattern here?]

     4. Israel and Occupied Territories after 1967. Israel (orange) plus OT now covers entirety of area of Map 1.

     Finkelstein was right! “During the June 1967 war, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, completing the Zionist conquest of British-mandated Palestine.”

     And is complaining about it because they didn’t get all of the Brit. Mandate of Transjordan as well.

     I know you don’t like for me to say chutzpah, even though it is now an English word. I do agree with you that chutzpah was a word originally invented by Jews. My bet is that it was first used by them to describe Israelis.

118. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

     Finkelstein’s quoted statement (in his first sentence) was therefore false and intended to be misleading.

     No, your representation of his statement is false and intended to be misleading.

119. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 7:52 pm

     It sounds from his statement as if the Jews, unhappy with 9/10ths of a loaf went to war to steal the other 1/10th.

     Look at Map 1 above. They started with 1/10 and ended up with all of it through a series of humiliating victories over the Arabs. In fact, in 1967, starting from borders they now claim are “indefensible” Israel rocked and socked the entire Arab world with the IDF defeating the Arabs in a matter of six days like David against Goliath.

     The Israeli rightwing rhetoric is so far off from reality, it really helps to look at something concrete like a map once in a while doesn’t it?

120. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 7:59 pm

     John:
     What in the world are you talking about with your silly maps???
     http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/mandate2.html
     This is the map of what legally belongs to the Jews.

121. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 8:00 pm

     Here is the entire collection of pre-48 maps:
     http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/pre48maptoc.html

122. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 8:01 pm

     30-BCE to 70-CE
     http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/herodmap.html

123. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 8:03 pm

     Israel as of 2002
     http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/israelmap2002.html
     As of 2007, the Gaza strip abandoned in totality by Israel.

124. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 8:13 pm

     This is the map of what legally belongs to the Jews.

     Palestine and Transjordan? Or do you also claim Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia?

125. John Baker Says:
     September 9th, 2007 at 8:18 pm

     As of 2007, the Gaza strip abandoned in totality by Israel.

     Yeah, that’s why Israel is now contemplating cutting off the electricity to Gaza as a collective punishment for the rocket attacks on Sderot:

     “This week [Haim] Ramon [the inventor of The Separation Wall] proposed cutting off the electricity that Israel supplies to the Gaza Strip, as punishment for the Qassam rockets fired at Sderot. It must be remembered that from the beginning of the occupation, Israeli governments have prevented the setting up of independent water and electricity works there, so as to make sure that the Strip would be completely dependent on Israel in matters of life and death.

     Now Ramon proposes cutting off this lifeline, to plunge Gaza into darkness, to stop electricity for hospitals and refrigerators, as a collective punishment - which constitutes a war crime. His government has accepted the proposal in principle.” - Uri Avnery

126. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 1:24 am

     John asked:
     “Palestine and Transjordan? Or do you also claim Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia?”
     Not even clever.
     Obviously, you did not read my earlier link to katif.net:
     http://english.katif.net/index.php?sub=2&id=1824
     The article starts out:
     “The objective of this paper is to set down in a brief, yet clear and precise manner the legal rights and title of sovereignty of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and Palestine under international law. These rights originated in the global political and legal settlement, conceived during World War I and carried into execution in the post-war years between 1919 and 1923. Insofar as the Ottoman Turkish Empire was concerned, the settlement embraced the claims of the Zionist Organization, the Arab National movement, the Kurds, the Assyrians and the Armenians.
     As part of the settlement in which the Arabs received most of the lands formerly under Turkish sovereignty in the Middle East, the whole of Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan, was reserved exclusively for the Jewish people as their national home and future independent state.”
     This is also what is shown in the map I had earlier referenced in posting no. 119.
     What debate have you been attending for the past few months?
     The claim under international law is both sides of the Jordan River. Of course, few sane people expect that such a claim is practical given that millions of Arabs now inhabit the established nation of Jordan. That is not the point and I do not ascribe to that notion either. What I do repeat now is that the Hebrews have paid in oceans of blood and in millions of acres for their present day claim of 8,000 sq-miles of shared international nationhood.
     Finkelstein wrongly and disingenuously stated (in his first sentence)
     “ . . . completing the Zionist conquest of British-mandated Palestine.”
     How rude and blatantly backwards.
     The land being referenced by Finkelstein is in two categories:
     The majority of this land, about 5,500 sq. miles, was BOTH part of the Jewish National Home under international Law following WW1 (what he calls the “British Mandate”) AND part of the U.N. 1947 partition. How does that area qualify as an Israeli or “Zionist”) “conquest”?? Of course, such a characterization is both ridiculous and I would assert, borne of anti-Semitism.
     The remaining approximate 2,500 sq. miles was not part of the 1947 partition but WAS part of the post WW1 land trust, earmarked by international law as part of the Jewish National Home. Therefore, this segment was ALSO part of the so called “British Mandate” and hence, is presently DISPUTED, not “occupied” (regardless of what the Israeli government may refer to it as – from time-to-time). The word “conquest” is also inappropriate and false, albeit slightly less so then the earlier category and may not constitute overt anti-Semitism.

127. John Baker Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 5:37 am

     No I didn’t even see your earlier link. Sorry I missed it. This is not a statement of legal entitlements, but a wish-list. Common parlance when using the term “Brit Mandate of Palestine” is reference to “Palestine” proper; not to the status quo ante 1922. In fact, the Mandate of Palestine which you refer to was actually subdivided into Palestine and Transjordan before it became legal. So, from the outset the “legal entitlement” of the Jews was confined to Palestine-proper. And so that’s what (almost!) everyone refers to when they use the term. I had not realized anyone was still hung up and stuck in time back in 1922. So your claim that Finkelstein’s use of the term was malicious in meaning the land west of the Jordan - which is the usual sense of the term! - is unreasonable and misleading. It’s also a cheesy, small-minded criticism. Good grief, Isidor.

128. John Baker Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 5:46 am

     ““ . . . completing the Zionist conquest of British-mandated Palestine.””

     The Zionists wanted all of British-mandated Palestine and used the term “conquest” from the earliest days. They got all of former British-mandated Palestine (apart from Transjordan!) in 1967. They got everything.

     Why be offended when someone points that out? Are you saying they didn’t want it all? Are you saying they didn’t take possession of all of it through force of arms (”fair and square”)? Are you saying the Arabs insisted on giving all of Palestine to them? What in the samhill are you complaining about?

129. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 10:03 am

     First of all, who is “sam hill”?
     People use the term “Palestine” as if to exclude the Jewish National Home when in fact, all of what was known as “Palestine” in 1918 was mandated to become an independant Jewish state. The fact that such never occured is one thing. History speaks for itself.

130. fschlomka Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 12:03 pm

     This is a weird blog. a couple of posts ago I was shut out and forced to re-register. I inadvertently did so with my first initial ‘F’ and my family name ‘Schlomka’. This is Fred!

     Cornelius is correct, but so is much of what John has been writing. Various versions of the ‘truth’ can actually exist together, if not in harmony.

     FYI, the Jewish National Fund still owns substantial tracts of land in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan which they purchased quite legally back in the early 20th century when it was assumed by many Zionists that most, if not all, of the territory then known as Palestine would become the Jewish National Home.

     It’s amazing that the JNF lands in Arab countries have not been nationalized by the respective governments. Apparently the JNF in the UK manages the lands through various front companies. They don’t like to talk about it. I’ve tried.

     All the best,
     Fred

131. Steve Klein Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 3:42 pm

     http://youtube.com:80/watch?v=0RiBwxpmXeY

132. John Baker Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 5:06 pm

     Very disturbing, Steve. Part of what was disturbing about it was wondering how many times you have watched that pornography of hate and carnage. How many times would you say? More than once or twice, right?

133. Steve Klein Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

     http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3251982,00.html

     Former Arafat aide: He purchased arms with Israeli money

     Former PA security funds manager Fuad Shubaki says during interrogation that PA funded terrorist cells that operated against Israel; also revealed: Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hizbullah coordinated Karine A arms ship with senior PA senior

     Efrat Weiss Published: 05.17.06, 13:17 / Israel News

     Former PA chairman Yasser Arafat purchased arms worth millions of dollars transferred to the PA by Israel and the international community, an interrogation of a PA security funds manager, Fuad Shubaki, has found.

     Shubaki was taken for questioning by the Shin Bet on March 14 after being apprehended in an IDF operation in the Jericho prison, where he was imprisoned under international supervision since May 2002.

     In his interrogation Shubaki admitted that money received by Israel was used by the PA to fund terrorist cells which operated against Israel. He also admitted that under Arafat’s instructions, the Palestinian Authority was involved in smuggling and producing weapons, and funding terrorist cells which operated against Israel.

     According to Shubaki, with the outbreak of the intifada in 2000, he received an order from Arafat to purchase the largest possible quantity of weapons from different sources…….

134. Steve Klein Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 5:45 pm

     Here’s more John. What do you think the Arabs will do to us when we divide Jerusalem?

     http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vekgtr-I0PM

135. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 6:42 pm

     Fred:

     I like you bud but you wrote:
     “Various versions of the ‘truth’ can actually exist together, if not in harmony.”
     If only this were correct. I would LOVE it to be correct but here’s a news-flash. Completely opposite from reality.
     Competing versions of reality will eventually clash and consume each other, until only one remains. The one that remains is not always the correct one.
     Diplomacy is generally the postponement of disaster, often with usury rates of interest.

136. John Baker Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 8:50 pm

     What do you think the Arabs will do to us when we divide Jerusalem?

     Seriously, how many times have you watched these videos?

137. John Baker Says:
     September 10th, 2007 at 9:39 pm

     http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=903125

     “In their 1995 discussions, Abbas and Beilin agreed that all settlements would be allowed to stay inside a Palestinian state but would not be described as communities in which only Jews lived. For their part, the settlers were expected to retain their Israeli citizenship.”

     Interesting

138. John Baker Says:
     September 11th, 2007 at 5:42 am

     Competing versions of reality will eventually clash and consume each other, until only one remains.

     Atavistic. You make the truth sound like a piece of meat over which dogs are fighting. It’s also unrealistic. This is not how human beings work.

     The truth is distributed. No one has more than a piece of it. Through dialectic, it emerges. Each person’s “version” is remade in the process. The truth that emerges is always different and larger than what anyone thought.

     You see this in the courtroom in cross-examination. You also see it in the physician’s diagnostic conversation with the patient. In the end, something more is known than anyone knew. Where did it come from?

     So, that’s what we are trying to do here by talking. Our versions of the truth are not so much “competing” amd
     “winning” as - hopefully - opening themselves up to become larger, along with our understanding of one another. Without the dialogue we are locked into our own version of truth, like the patient and the doctor neither of whom knows what is wrong.

139. Steve Klein Says:
     September 11th, 2007 at 10:27 am

     http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/middleeast/05jerusalem.html?ex=1280894400&en=3c435bc7bd0cd531&ei=5088

     King David’s Palace Is Found, Archaeologist Says

     By STEVEN ERLANGER
     Published: August 5, 2005
     JERUSALEM, Aug. 4 - An Israeli archaeologist says she has uncovered in East Jerusalem what may be the fabled palace of the biblical King David. Her work has been sponsored by a conservative Israeli research institute and financed by an American Jewish investment banker who would like to prove that Jerusalem was indeed the capital of the Jewish kingdom described in the Bible.

     Skip to next paragraph
     Enlarge This Image

     Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times
     Eilat Mazar, an Israeli archaeologist, stood amid the ruins of a huge public building of the 10th century B.C. that she believes may be the remains of King David’s palace in a biblical Jewish capital.
     Other scholars are skeptical that the foundation walls discovered by the archaeologist, Eilat Mazar, are David’s palace. But they acknowledge that what she has uncovered is rare and important: a major public building from around the 10th century B.C., with pottery shards that date to the time of David and Solomon and a government seal of an official mentioned in the book of Jeremiah.

     The discovery is likely to be a new salvo in a major dispute in biblical archaeology: whether the kingdom of David was of some historical magnitude, or whether the kings were more like small tribal chieftains, reigning over another dusty hilltop…..

140. John Baker Says:
     September 11th, 2007 at 4:13 pm

     Competing versions of reality will eventually clash and consume each other, until only one remains.

     Kind of a Darwinian view. This makes it sound like the truth is a piece of meat that dogs are fighting over. Atavistic, for one thing. For another, this is not really the way it works, at least in my observation.

     The nature of the truth is that it is distributed. Each of us has a piece of it, what you call “versions” of the truth. When we talk, the truth emerges. The result is always a little unexpected in that it differs from what any one of us knows to begin with. Another way to look at it is that the separate pieces join and are also reshaped in the process. Even the deepest truth is to some extent contingent on the perspective of the people who by their discussing things “make” the truth, their life experiences.

     So, what happens is not really a competition between “versions” in a survival-of-the-fittest contest to the death. Without discussion, each of us is locked into his own partial truth. But through talking (”diplomacy” as you put it) the truth emerges, or is actually constructed. Nobody wins; nobody loses. The truth such as it is, just comes out. This happens in the dialectic of the courtroom, the cross-examination process. It happens in the dialectic of physician’s office, in the diagnostic interview. When the process is done, something (”the truth”) is known that was not known before. Where did it come from?

141. Steve Klein Says:
     September 11th, 2007 at 7:07 pm

     John, we are the brothers of apes and pigs, in case you did not know>

     http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1553.htm

142. John Baker Says:
     September 11th, 2007 at 9:36 pm

     Steve, you are so silly! And as usual not reliable when it comes to Islam. No, Muhammad did not believe Allah turned anybody into a monkey or a pig or that anybody is the brother of a monkey or a pig. Good grief.

     Such a thing would be…well, completely un-Islamic, because it is an affront to the status of mankind in the eyes of Allah. (In the Quran, Iblis, the Fallen Angel, is cast out of heaven because he will not acknowledge the new creature, Man).

     Are you really so metaphorically-challenged, or simply so juiced-up on hate that you can’t think straight? The Quranic verse on which the statement is based refers to those who reject the Quran as moral apes and moral pigs. There’s no there there, Steve.

     How many times have you watched these videos, Steve? You still haven’t answered that. This one was not really all that impressive. I know you can do better than this. It’s not even anti-Semitic.

143. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 2:53 am

     I’m not sure what the Qur’an says because there are varied and numerous translations and interpretations. But one thing is for certain. A variety of high-profile spokes-persons, politicians and ‘community leaders’ have publicly asserted that: “Jews are the offspring of apes and pigs”. They have based this conclusion on their reading of the Qur’an.
     For my money, given the shortcomings and violent tendencies of humans, such a comment may actually work-out to be a complement.
     One other thing is pretty-much a certitude: John’s reading of just about anything should be questioned for literal accuracy. Had the Soviet-Union had John as a prop. minister, they might well have won the cold war. I have yet to hear him once just come out and say: “a duck is a duck”. Its always (at best) “a ‘pheasant’ vicariously living as a rooster – with freedom and justice for all, amen and pass the cottage-cheese.”

144. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 3:07 am

     “ . . . But through talking (”diplomacy” as you put it) the truth emerges, . . .”
     Diplomacy is diplomacy and discussion is discussion. This is your first false reality of this post.
     Discussion tends to reveal truth while diplomacy tends to evade truth.
     When Ben Franklin agreed to cast the deciding vote in favor of a confederation which included legal slavery, this was “diplomacy” and a false hope that everything would naturally work itself out in time. When U.N.S.C. 242 was scribed and ratified with each party deliberately having its own disparate understanding of its legal consequences, this was diplomacy and the utterly false notion that given some “cooling-off” time, everyone would make-up and be friends.
     God is truth. Humans are peddlers of self-serving bull-jive. Of course, it would serve ourselves to assert that “truth” comes in a selection of compatible varieties, just as it serves ourselves to assert that God also comes in a selection of varieties, the blond Jesus, the Black Jesus, Vishnu, Elvis, etc..

145. John Baker Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 5:19 am

     God is truth. Humans are peddlers of self-serving bull-jive. Of course, it would serve ourselves to assert that “truth” comes in a selection of compatible varieties…

     At first, as I scrolled up, I thought Steve had written it. You are speaking here from the perspective of the person who thinks in his “version” he is in possession of the only truth worth having. My way or the highway. With this attitude - fundamentalism, whether religious or political - there can be no discussion or diplomacy. The other side whatever or whoever it is, is always wrong.

146. Steve Klein Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 5:22 am

     John, this article was written for you:

     http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=6B82343B-8200-4579-B388-D1AA22442CC3

147. Steve Klein Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 5:33 am

     John, will you be guarantor for us? You seem to believe in the goodness and the righteousness of these people. If the Arabs turn this into a pretext for a huge war against the Jews, will you give your life for our lives?

     http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123663

148. John Baker Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 5:37 am

     A variety of high-profile spokes-persons, politicians and ‘community leaders’ have publicly asserted that: “Jews are the offspring of apes and pigs”. They have based this conclusion on their reading of the Qur’an.

     Now there I would agree with you completely. I would even stipulate that some of those, perhaps all, understand that phrase in the literal (non-metaphorical) sense. In that case, the words are rank anti-Semitism. But such an interpretation of the verse in that sense is wrong, un-Islamic in fact. In any case, even in the Quran the words are a demonization of people who were quite literally trying to kill Muhammad and his followers. Today they are used by Muslims who want to demonize their enemies using (to them) religious-sounding rhetoric.

     I am chiding Steve about “going up and down carrying evil reports” because he is taken by fits of indignation at Arab demonizing of Israelis / Jews, but evidently takes great delight at demonizing Arabs / Muslims.

149. John Baker Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 5:42 am

     A variety of high-profile spokes-persons, politicians and ‘community leaders’ have publicly asserted that: “Jews are the offspring of apes and pigs”. They have based this conclusion on their reading of the Qur’an.

     I agree completely. Probably they take it literally, in which case it is rank anti-Semitism. They are using what is to them a religious-sounding phrase (it alludes to a Quranic verse) as rhetoric to demonize their enemies. The literal interpretation however is un-Islamic for the reasons given.

150. John Baker Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 5:52 am

     Steve, you are taken by these fits of indignation at Arab/Muslim demonizing of Israelis/Jews, which you find inexcusable, yet you evidently take great delight yourself in demonizing Arabs/Muslims by constantly bringing us evil reports about them. It’s this hate-wallowing I find disturbing.

151. John Baker Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 3:52 pm

     #147

     http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123663

     Sounds good. Is this being widely reported?

152. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 7:00 pm

     “At first, as I scrolled up, I thought Steve had written it. You are speaking here from the perspective of the person who thinks in his “version” he is in possession of the only truth worth having. My way or the highway. With this attitude - fundamentalism, whether religious or political - there can be no discussion or diplomacy. The other side whatever or whoever it is, is always wrong.”
     You have said this. I have not said this.
     You have said it yet you do not believe it.
     I am not the sole arbiter of truth and I have never claimed to be such. You may have your version of facts and truth and I shall have my own. However, it does neither of us any good to pretext that (if conflicted) both versions can be correct and/or accurate. This is a really simple concept to understand and even though I do not demand you believe it, your lack of ability to even comprehend it tells volumes. You can’t even operate with the truth when discussing the nature of truth.

153. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 9:28 pm

     Testing. My last post did not psot

154. John Baker Says:
     September 12th, 2007 at 10:16 pm

     A couple of mine wound up in the spam filter too. Intermittent problem, I think.

155. John Baker Says:
     September 13th, 2007 at 5:56 am

     You can’t even operate with the truth when discussing the nature of truth.

     Do you doubt I am giving you my true opinion??? Why be gratuitously nasty?

     However, it does neither of us any good to pretext that (if conflicted) both versions can be correct and/or accurate. This is a really simple concept to understand and even though I do not demand you believe it, your lack of ability to even comprehend it tells volumes.

     I understand it fine. I don’t fully agree or disagree with it. Two conflicting versions will co-exist and persist if there is no dialogue. If there is dialogue, hopefully each version will change somewhat. Now where we really disagree, Isador, is that you see the truth as something fixed and unchangeable, so that one version of it is correct and another incorrect, like a witness’s memory of what happened at a crime scene for example.

     My opinion is that truth is not like that. You are welcome to agree or disagree, but there is no need to accuse me of dishonesty about it. It’s my opinion. My idea of the truth is like the famous old story of the blind men and the elephant. Each had a different report of what the elephant was like. One felt the tail. One felt the ear. One felt the trunk. One felt the foot. ALL were accurate or correct, but EACH was incomplete and partial. In another sense, NONE of the blind men were correct. The truth would be the picture that emerged if they put their separate “pieces” of the truth TOGETHER and managed through dialogue to construct the whole picture.

     L’shanah tovah!

156. John Baker Says:
     September 14th, 2007 at 5:43 am

     You seem to believe in the goodness and the righteousness of these people.

     Israel’s security is not dependent on “the goodness and righteousness” of the Arabs. I don’t believe there are any Arab states who are really anxious or willing to go to war with Israel over the Palestinians. Same goes for Iran, despite the rhetoric. Since 1967 Arab support for the Palestinians has mostly been lip-service. Be that as it may, in such an eventuality there is every reason to think that the IDF (plus Israel’s allies) would quickly convince the Arabs (who?) that that was the biggest mistake they had ever made. They may not be righteous, but they are not stupid, and so doubtless they realize this already. It would be the absolute end of hopes for a Palestinian state, and I thik they know that. Have they ever prevailed against Israel? No.

157. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 14th, 2007 at 7:12 am

     John:
     You wrote:
     “Do you doubt I am giving you my true opinion??? Why be gratuitously nasty?”
     Because you persist (for months) in misquoting me, i.e. assigning meanings or variations to my words that do not exist.
     For example: You wrote:
     “But through talking (”diplomacy” as you put it) the truth emerges, . . ”
     I had said nothing of the sort and this is but one in a long, long list of such similar examples.
     When I propose an analogy, I will say:
     ‘that’s like saying . . . ‘
     or, in extreme cases I’ll say-
     ‘that’s the same as saying. . .’
     You, by contrast will assert:
     ” . . .as you put it. . . ”
     But I never put it that way. You put it that way. You make factual assertions (rather then opinion points) which are blatantly and patently false. I am a grown adult. If I wanted to say that “discussion” was a bad or harmful concept, I am perfectly capable of saying it for myself.
     Happy Festivus-

158. John Baker Says:
     September 15th, 2007 at 6:22 am

     My apologies Isidor, I had not realized I was doing that. It wasn’t / has not ever been my intention to miquote or twist your meanings.

     In the present case, regarding “diplomacy,” I misunderstood. To me, diplomacy is just a type of discussion, a formal discussion between or among nations. You see diplomacy and discussion as two separate things. (”Diplomacy is generally the postponement of disaster” - “Discussion tends to reveal truth while diplomacy tends to evade truth.”) I would say that through diplomacy, as well as through discussion, truth emerges; you would not. But I wasn’t (intentionally) misquoting you. I did not understand you correctly regarding “discussion,” partly because I see it as a general category of which “diplomacy” is a specific example, and partly because of your statement “God is truth. Humans are peddlers of self-serving bull-jive,” which sounded like a fundamentalist position. Maybe I just don’t understand what you mean by the last one.

     So, I’m wrong, and it turns out that you do believe in the value of discussion in getting at the truth that is larger than any of the versions, but you believe it’s only diplomacy that is “generally the postponement of disaster.” And your examples are Ben Franklin’s vote and 242. Fair enough. Though maybe one can say that diplomacy did not fail but that it remains to be done and a lot of it.

     I will be careful not to put words in your mouth.

159. John Baker Says:
     September 15th, 2007 at 6:29 am

     I would say that through diplomacy, as well as through discussion, truth emerges; you would not.

     Aack. I should not have put commas after “diplomacy”. The commas could result in another misrepresentation of your views. You clearly stated that you believe truth emerges from discussion but not from diplomacy. What I was trying to say here is that I believe it emerges (can emerge) through BOTH discussion AND diplomacy.

160. John Baker Says:
     September 15th, 2007 at 6:59 am

     Happy Festivus

     OK we’ve done the Airing of Grievances. Now it’s on to Feats of Strength wherein we try to pin Mitchell to the floor. )

161. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 15th, 2007 at 10:33 am

     John:
     Thanks for the note. By way of reward, please find below another in the ongoing series of briefs on the state of the city:

     In times of crisis, which I think we are into, there is a certain general form of mechanics that, by human nature, becomes prevalent and dominant. Compare this to a microbe infection. The exact type of bacteria is not completely relevant. Nor it is important to consider the exact person who is infected. To understand the infection, one must first and foremost keep track of the mechanics surrounding infections in general.
     How bacteria multiply.
     What the body does to combat the infection.
     What the bacteria does to combat the body’s natural resistance.
     And, what is required as medication to externally combat the infection.
     During crisis times, humans have a mechanical set of emotional and intellectual reactions.
     One of the sequences now in play is that there is a dumming-down of peoples reasoning and cognitive skills. If you will, a mental anesthesia, which blurs the vision and therefore dulls the perception, allowing us to slowly degenerate collectively, without noticing. In “Nineteen-eighty-four”, the government reduces the ration of chocolate by 20% but the newspaper reports a 20% increase in the chocolate rations. Not believing this is a crime equivalent to treason.
     Those who pay close attention to details and question the common explanation become a danger and are dealt with like a bacteria, infecting the bloodstream. Sometimes (perhaps often times) there is no conscious connection involved with the ‘anti-bodies’ attacking what they perceive as a potentially dangerous alien invader. As we know from simple biology, sometimes the body will attack its own normal cells, such as the case with arthritis. Sometimes, cancer patients will crave the very same foods which are specifically known to be harmful to cancer patients.
     Jews historically have always taken a severe pounding during such times of shortage and crisis because we/they are the “Winston Smiths” of the world, the essential ‘thought criminals’ who remind everyone else that the chocolate ration has in fact just gone down, not up. They can be compelled to lie. It is far harder to convince the Hebrew to believe even his own lies.
     Where we are headed:
     The sharp-sighted will become the natural enemies of the state, as will the habitually honest. Those who are sharp-sighted and habitually honest will be viewed as the worst of all.
     This is a VERY dangerous condition. It is the fertilizer for poison-ivy. If this trend is not abated, we may slide into yet another profound calamity or holocaust. Whether it is reversible is yet unknowable. Nonetheless, I (for one) will not relent in my quest to (if not stop) at least slow-down the proverbial windmill.

162. John Baker Says:
     September 15th, 2007 at 10:56 am

     Very dangerous for anyone to point out that the Emperor has no clothes, because it is of course Lèse-majesté, a crime against His Majesty.

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se_majest%C3%A9

     As Shakespeare said it through Julius Caesar,

     “Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men and, such as sleep o’nights. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.” — Julius Caesar, Act I, scene ii

163. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 17th, 2007 at 7:26 pm

     “Palestinian Authority celebrates
     9-11 terror attacks–”
     http://pmw.org.il/bulletins_sep2007.htm#b170907
     “The Palestinian Authority continues a long tradition of celebrating the 2001 World Trade Center terror attacks by publishing cartoons in its official daily that glorify Osama Bin Laden and the attacks, or mock the suffering of the U.S. This year’s cartoon shows Bin Laden smiling while making the “V” for victory sign with two fingers in the shape of the burning Twin Towers. The PA daily that published the cartoon, Al Hayat Al Jadida, is owned by the PA and controlled by the office of Mahmoud Abbas. The only text on this cartoon is “Exclusive to Al Hayat Al Jadida,” which means it was prepared specifically for the official Palestinian Authority daily.”

     Trollstein says:
     I do not fully agree with the above caption. I think there is a dual message conveyed by the last two Bin Laden tapes. The first, the video seemed almost reconsiliatory while the second (audio only) was violent and far more hateful.
     Nonetheless, the cartoons were in patently bad taste — as while somewhat ‘ironic’, nothing remotely funny should be connected to the Al Queida terror network.

164. John Baker Says:
     September 17th, 2007 at 10:09 pm

     nothing remotely funny should be connected to the Al Queida terror network.

     Ever watch Letterman? Though he mocks OBL; not America. I do agree the cartoons are in bad taste. Or put it this way, I can’t see what’s funny about them.

165. Steve Klein Says:
     September 18th, 2007 at 5:32 am

     http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F97AB80B-87A2-46A1-974A-4A9265821EC0

166. John Baker Says:
     September 18th, 2007 at 6:12 am

     The video is a ludicrous collection of distortions and misrepresentations. Two or three minutes into it, I’ve yet to find one of Carter’s alleged “false accusations” that he actually said. He certainly didn’t say “Israel is the problem.” He certainly didn’t say “Israel is an apartheid state.” This should be called “Laskin’s War on Jimmy Carter.” If he’s really that bad, why make up stuff about him?

167. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 18th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

     I viewed the Carter video. It is somewhat over the top. I discerned certain repetitive liberties being taken on strict facts. Not that horrible however. Obviously biased in places but overall about 85% accurate, which is a fairly good score on this subject –wherein ultra leftists (including Carter himself) often score below 50% overall accuracy.

     BTW: Gotta love those French. Either they are going down on the Muslims or (on a different day – possibly a ‘hangover’ morning-after) threatening them with war.
     http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=173210&version=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17
     “PARIS: The world should brace for a possible war over the Iranian nuclear crisis but seeking a solution through talks should take priority, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said yesterday. “We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war,””

168. John Baker Says:
     September 19th, 2007 at 5:08 am

     Meanwhile John Bolton is saying the US would back a pre-emptive strike on Iran by Israel.

     http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/104192.html

169. John Baker Says:
     September 19th, 2007 at 5:43 am

     about 85% accurate

     The facts are arguable at least. What I’m saying is they have no connection to Carter. Can you find anything there that he actually said? “False accusations” is correct.

170. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 19th, 2007 at 7:08 pm

     John:
     Among other over-statements contained in the video, whenever the author quotes Carter without actual quotations (about 8 times) I assume he is embellishing. Where quotation markers are used, I do recall reading most of those quotes before, so I assume most are accurate. Even where embellishment is present, that does not make the accusation completely false. When Carter is accused of one-sidedly blaming Israel, this is only slightly short of true. Carter generally adds a small token comment to try to seem magnanimous. These qualifiers are watered-down, conditional and transparent.

171. John Baker Says:
     September 19th, 2007 at 7:37 pm

     Carter generally adds a small token comment to try to seem magnanimous.

     Here’s a quote from his book. For one thing, he is quite specific about who in Israel he is criticizing, and it is not Israel as a whole or even the entire government. For another, his criticism of the Palestinians is hardly “a small token comment to try to seem magnanimous.”:

     There are two interrelated obstacles to permanent peace in the Middle East:

     1) Some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians, and;

     2) Some Palestinians react by honoring suicide bombers as martyrs to be rewarded in heaven and consider the killing of Israelis as victories

     The statement is not only not one-sided, it is fair and truthful. The video is just more unfair, knee-jerk criticism of Carter based on imagined slights and insults. The quotes may be “accurate” but provide me one and let’s look at it in context and you’ll probably find Carter didn’t exactly say what Laskin purported.

     There is plenty of hostility and venom in evidence; it’s not coming from Carter.

172. John Baker Says:
     September 19th, 2007 at 7:40 pm

     Even where embellishment is present, that does not make the accusation completely false.

     A very dangerous statement. Spoken like one of Stalin’s air-brush artists.

173. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 19th, 2007 at 9:00 pm

     “Stalin’s air-brush artists.”
     Insulting, false and rediculous.
     “Embellishment” is not “invention”.
     ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     American Heritage Dictionary - em·bel·lish (ěm-běl’ĭsh) Pronunciation Key
     tr.v. em·bel·lished, em·bel·lish·ing, em·bel·lish·es
     1. To make beautiful, as by ornamentation; decorate.
     2. To add ornamental or fictitious details to: a fanciful account that embellishes the true story.
     +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     “the true story”.
     By your assertion, you seem to be submiting that Stallin was really in the habit of truth-telling and his “air-brush artists” who were so “dangerous” simply were in the beautification business. Now I understand the key to your thinking.

174. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 19th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

     “Some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians, and; . . . ”
     This above statement applies a matrix of false notions, that you John, no doubt agree with.
     It falsely implies that some undefined quotient of Israelis are somehow forcing the balance to submit themselves to never-ending war. It falsely states that if not for this rogue band of land usurpers, peace and tranquility would not only overtake the countless sworn enemies of Jews and Israel but such peace would naturally be “permanent”.
     “. . .confiscate and colonize Palestinian land . . “
     This falsely asserts that the land belongs to the Palestinian-Arabs when that issue remains disputed and Carter is in no position to speak from on-high and declare (essentially) that the League of Nations was a fable.

     “2) Some Palestinians react by honoring suicide bombers as martyrs to be rewarded in heaven and consider the killing of Israelis as victories “
     He does not say that suicide attacks on civilians can not and would not be tolerated by any modern democracy (except maybe France and the white portion of Georgia, where it was co-invented).
     You picked one of the few places where Carter even approaches equilibrium. You might be able to pull one or maybe two other such quotes out of your collection. However, for each statement Carter ever made that casts responsibility on the Arabs, there are ten to twenty that harshly (often unfairly) paint the Israelis as the net aggressors and disturbers of regional and of world peace, and you know it.

175. John Baker Says:
     September 19th, 2007 at 9:37 pm

     However, for each statement Carter ever made that casts responsibility on the Arabs, there are ten to twenty that harshly (often unfairly) paint the Israelis as the net aggressors and disturbers of regional and of world peace, and you know it.

     OK find ten or twenty, then. Put up or shut up.

     ““. . .confiscate and colonize Palestinian land . .

     This is a very good example of one of Laskin’s distortions and misrepresentations. Carter did not say as Laskin purported, “Israel has confiscated and colonized Palestinian land.” I have given you the quote in full in #171. As you can see he did not say “Israel” he said “Some Israelis.” The title of Laskin’s Stalinist airbrush propaganda tactics on Carter is “Jimmy Carter’s War Against the Jews,” i.e. alleging anti-Semitism. Yet there is not one accurate quote from Carter in the entire film which is remotely anti-Semitic or an attack on Jews. It speaks volumes more about Laskin and Horowitz than it does about Carter. Same goes for your sorry defense of Stalinist “embellishment.”

176. John Baker Says:
     September 19th, 2007 at 9:52 pm

     the League of Nations was a fable

     Your (and Laskin’s) understanding of Britain’s role in the Mandate is a fable. Laskin says in the video that Britain “violated the Mandate” in giving Transjordan to the Arabs. That is completely false. That part of the Mandate was always in reserve and not a part of the Jewish homeland. Before the Mandate ever went into effect it was withheld at Britain’s discretion, per Lord Balfour, and Britain was so entitled by Article 25 of the Mandate (below). There certainly was no specific promise regarding territorial boundaries in the original Balfour Letter either. So Laskin is playing fast and loose with the truth here in calling it a violation, as are those who subscribe to that line of rhetoric.

     Article 25.

     In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.

     Article 26.

     The Mandatory agrees that, if any dispute whatever should arise between the Mandatory and another Member of the League of Nations relating to the interpretation or the application of the provisions of the mandate, such dispute, if it cannot be settled by negotiation, shall be submitted to the Permanent Court of International Justice provided for by Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.

177. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 4:20 am

     John:
     On my other computer contains a full text copy of Carter’s 2002 Op ed, NY Times article, which was a filthy rat’s-nest of lies and slander.
     Stay tuned.
     Carter mentions nothing to balance his venom for Israel and at points, for its Jews, except to say that Chairman Arafat (paraphrase) ‘might feel that terrorism is his only alternative to combat the suffering and disgrace of his people.’
     In that article alone — consists at least 10 and probably closer to 15 partly or fully false statements directed against Israel with hardly a molecule of balance in the other direction.
     Of course, you wont see it that way because your job and proficiency is to dress the proverbial rat up in Armani and call it a cat.
     You wrote:
     “This is a very good example of one of Laskin’s distortions and misrepresentations. Carter did not say as Laskin purported, “Israel has confiscated and colonized Palestinian land.” I have given you the quote in full in #171. As you can see he did not say “Israel” he said “Some Israelis.”
     Are you kidding???
     Firstly, this is quite similar to saying:
     “SOME African Americans love fried chicken” and then claiming no stereotype because of the provisional use of the word “some”.
     Moreover, is the underlying accusation true? Even with reference to this undefined qty. (”some Israelis”). Are there no Arabs who believe that the disputed land belongs to Israel? Are there no Arabs who believe that the land in question is “disputed” rather then belonging (title and deed) to the Palestinian-Arabs? Is there any other group of defined (or undefined) persons (Australians, South Koreans, South Baptists, Lesbians, or other), who believe that this land in question is of “DISPUTED” ownership (or completely belongs to Israel)? Carter cleverly quadruple-speaks his way into multiple erroneous assumptions simultaniously. When he makes per-se statements such as that: every American Administration since the 1967 war has affirmed its understanding that all land Israel got in that war must be returned, to comply with U.N.S.C. 242, Carter flat-out lies. Both the Johnson and Reagan administration spoke in contravention of this notion. Most other U.S. administrations have simply avoided the subject entirely.
     When Carter lists in his 2002 Times Op-Ed, among all the things that Israel has wrongly done and includes: “. . . the destruction of Jenin . . ”
     He should have said: ‘ . . the destruction of camps within Jenin’ . . .
     He fails to make the necessary distinction and thereby falsely asserts that an entire town on a map was destroyed, when he well knows that only a few sq. blocks (maybe 3%) was damaged and also knows that most people (readers) will naturally assume the former. He also knows that as a previous U.S. President, such an assumption will take the form of a surrogate for reality and he constantly milks this point-of-leverage for any and all dramatic license in, the guise of experience and scholarship.
     As for your continued wrong explanation of international law:
     The documents governing the status and therefore the ownership of “Palestine” form a series. One doc. can not be accurately reviewed without examining others which pertain directly to it (especially previous drafts). The chronology is of utmost importance.
     +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     “The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory, to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 8, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” –San Remo Resolution: April 25, 1920.
     ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     On June 3, 1922 (more then two years AFTER San Remo) the British “White Paper” was published and created “Transjordan” in response to political pressure. However, legal title had already passed, not only of Palestine to the Jews but also, equally, of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kurdistan, etc. to its local (Muslim) residents. And this title/deed did NOT pass to England, as you so erroneously assert.

     Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 June 1919 (which established and defined the “Mandates” system)
     “Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory.”
     To repeat:
     “ . . rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory.”
     That was the role defined for the Mandate (Brittan). It was NOT that of a “surrogate Justice or substitute owner” which your wrongly continue to assert.
     Also from Article 22:
     “The character of the mandate must differ according to the stage of the development of the people, the geographical situation of the territory, its economic conditions and other similar circumstances.”
     Obviously, if the above criteria was used, then the Jews might well have claimed to be more civilized and socially developed then the British. Certainly more so then the bulk of the newly independent Arabs, who mainly lived in tents (along with their livestock) and wiped their butts with sand.
     The article concludes:
     “The degree of authority, control or administration to be exercised by the Mandatory shall, if not previously agreed upon by the Members of the League, be explicitly defined in each case by the Council.”
     Needless to say this provision was usurped by the British.
     To reiterate from San Remo resolution (above):
     “ . . within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers . . “
     Therefore, on Nov. 2, 1917, when the Balfore Declaration was rendered, Palestine’s boundaries (east and west of the Jordan river) were considered part of the legally mandated Jewish National Home. By 1920 at San Remo, it was outside the authority of England to alter or modify the “boundaries” of the ‘Mandate’ state of Palestine, without approval from the “Principle Allied Powers” wherein such approval was never granted.
     Also from San Remo (April 24, 1920):
     Article 2.
     “The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.”
     After the 1922 “White Paper”, According to British representative Sir Alec Kirkbride, “Transjordan” was:
     “… intended to serve as a reserve of land for use in the resettlement of Arabs once the National Home for the Jews in Palestine, which [Britain was] pledged to support, became an accomplished fact. There was no intention at that stage of forming the territory east of the River Jordan into an independent Arab state.”
     The Jews got shafted, same as before a few hundred times.

178. John Baker Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 5:57 am

     “SOME African Americans love fried chicken” and then claiming no stereotype because of the provisional use of the word “some”.

     False analogy. The fried chicken bit is a racist stereotype. This is not a stereotype. Not all Israelis agree with or support the settlers or the settlement policy. Not by a long shot. He’s right, some Israelis believe such and such…and that is a major obstacle to peace in the ME.

179. John Baker Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 6:05 am

     Of course, you wont see it that way because your job and proficiency is to dress the proverbial rat up in Armani and call it a cat.

     No “embellishing” is your/Laskin’s department; not mine, the term being used as a euphemism for smearing through misquoting of course, and not according to the dictionary definition of the word you have cited. Taking a man in a suit and making him look like a rat, you know.

180. John Baker Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 6:12 am

     The Jews got shafted, same as before a few hundred times.

     No, it was just a case of counting chickens before they had actually hatched. That was more than eighty years ago. Lots of water under the bridge since then. Time to scratch it off the grievance-list.

181. John Baker Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 6:30 am

     And this title/deed did NOT pass to England, as you so erroneously assert.

     What part of this do you not understand?

     Article 25.

     In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory [Britain] shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.

182. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 8:01 am

     “with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations . . ”
     Where is such “consent” granted? Without the explicit further written “consent” mentioned, the Mandate has no such arbitrary discretion. Moreover, the discretion mentioned in this provision (Art. 25) is NOT to alter the boundaries or to alter the mandate itself. To alter the boundaries, England would require the consent of the Principle Allied Powers. Where is that consent? Not in Art. 25. Do you have such a citation?
     Article 25 goes as far as providing partial (incomplete) permission ” . . to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate . . ”
     “Postpone” means to delay or put off for another day.
     “Withhold” is slightly stronger. It means to indefinitely block. But again the League of Nations would have to have approved either change and what England did was not to “delay” or “block” anyway. It was to sell settled rights — already granted to the Jewish population of the region and of the world, in return for favor with the Arabs their oil and specifically, for military strategic advantage with the yet to be formed state of Jordan.
     Lastly, Article 25 (you quoted) mentions earlier articles 15, 16 and 18. Article 15 ends with:
     ” . . No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief.”
     Of course, the Jordanian citizenship laws of 1967 specifically exclude Jews which families were inherited with the Palestinian land the Kingdom acquired from the Mandate, governed under Article 15. No problem there John? Get over it? Move on? Old water? Its not up to the outside 3rd party (you or Carter) to decide what rights other peoples families, tribes and ethnic groups should consider antiquated.

183. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 3:48 pm

     PS> FREE..FREE KURDISTAN!

184. John Baker Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

     Isidor, your basic problem is that you don’t know the difference between the San Remo Resolution and the UN Mandate of Palestine. The San Remo Conference did not create the Mandate. It produced what in effect was a draft document which was then used in creating the Mandate. That did not happen until 1922. When it went into effect, it did so sub-divided into Palestine (proper) and Transjordan. Whatever was said or implied in the Balfour Resolution, the League of Nations Covenants, and the San Remo Resolution became moot at that point.

185. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 5:59 pm

     John:
     You are just flat-out wrong and numerous legal scholars agree with me, including your buddy prof. Dershowitz. Of course, the thing about lawyers is that they get paid to argue. Every time they appear on TV, two supposed experts have opposite positions on the same legal question. Can you imagine if doctors did that? No one would ever get operated on. But I digress.
     You are wrong. The Title and deed to “Palestine” passed out of the hands of its original (400 year) owner (Turkey) upon the treaties which ended WW1 (namely Versailles and San Remo). This is the way such transactions have always occurred and wars have always ended. The beaten country sues for peace with whatever concessions the victor(s) demands. If the looser does not forfeit something, they can not be considered in any way the looser. If not for the land in question, including the various Arab countries created simultaneously, what did Turkey actually loose when it “lost” WW1? Please answer. I know you like to skip difficult questions.
     Also, ask any history pro when Syria and Iraq were created and they will not answer 1922. They will assert that these same treaties created those countries, as right they should.
     Land borders do not simply change at the whim of successive power structures and treaty organizations and that is where you are most wrong. Once Jewish property, if not actually under Zionist control, Palestine was no longer a negotiable asset of the Principle Allied Powers and certainly not at the whim of the UK.
     For a smart and highly educated guy, you are wrong A LOT.

186. John Baker Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 6:25 pm

     Palestine was no longer a negotiable asset of the Principle Allied Powers and certainly not at the whim of the UK.

     This is just nuts. It’s like an heir claiming someone “stole” his inheritance because he wasn’t granted what he had been expecting from grandfather when the will was read. Where was the alleged title to Transjordan written down prior to the UN Mandate, Isidor? Seriously. Show me where it says this.

187. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 6:57 pm

     What a profound surprize . .
     You did not answer my question.
     I wish I had started counting about 100 times ago you did this.
     I have already laid out a celar and cogent time-line of reference materials. Which conversation were you taking part in??
     Start here:
     http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_transjordan.php

188. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 6:58 pm

     See this:
     http://www.think-israel.org/grief.occupationmyth.html

189. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 6:59 pm

     Here ya go
     http://www.therightroadtopeace.com/infocenter/Heb/SamRemoRes.html

190. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 7:01 pm

     Here too:
     http://www.therightroadtopeace.com/infocenter/Heb/FrancoBritishConv.html

191. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 7:02 pm

     Again:
     http://www.therightroadtopeace.com/infocenter/Heb/HowardGriefE.html

192. John Baker Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 7:26 pm

     You did not answer my question.

     What question?

193. John Baker Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 7:35 pm

     I’m not going to read all that verbage. The point is that there was no legal deed / title to the area east of the Jordan. Maybe it was intended. I’m sure it was wished for and even expected. But it never got put on paper and it never happened. It was gone from the git-go as far as the Mandate was concerned. When the Mandate was put into effect in 1922 the area east of the Jordan was separate. It was Britain’s legal right to do that with the consent of the Allied Powers. One has to assume that the issuance of the UN Mandate with Article 25 included means the Allied Powers consented:

     “Article 25.

     In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.”

     Apart from that document, the Mandate did not exist.

194. John Baker Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 8:06 pm

     what did Turkey actually loose when it “lost” WW1?

     Oh, that question. OK, the Ottoman Empire was dissolved. Turkey lost sovereignty over the lands it formerly controlled. Five years later, said lands were placed under British Mandate. The Balfour Declaration says His Majesty’s Governement “will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of” a national home for the Jewish people. They did that. That’s all it said. The rest that you are talking about was just good intentions, as the road to hell is paved with. Everyone knows you can’t take good intentions to the bank. It didn’t happen. The Allied Powers of Europe were the big boys. They always do whatever they want. One is entitled to exactly as much as they decide to give you. Maybe not fair, but they make the rules. Move on.

195. John Baker Says:
     September 20th, 2007 at 9:02 pm

     Now maybe you can answer a question for me. What did Britain actually win when it “won” WW I?

196. John Baker Says:
     September 21st, 2007 at 5:43 am

     Once Jewish property, if not actually under Zionist control, Palestine was no longer a negotiable asset of the Principle Allied Powers.

     Owning property in Arizona doesn’t mean you hold title to the State of Arizona. You seem to be suggesting that Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) lost WW I (and therefore sovereignty over Arz-i Filastin) to the Zionists, which is about the most absurd thing I’ve heard yet.

     (Arz-i Filastin referred in 19th century Ottoman parlance to the land west of the Jordan.)

197. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 22nd, 2007 at 9:06 am

     John:
     First you post the League of Nations Articles not once but twice and upon the second posting, accompany the reference with a snooty sarcastic comment, e.g.: “what part do I not understand?”.
     Then when confronted with its weekness, you say:
     “Whatever was said or implied in the Balfour Resolution, the League of Nations Covenants, and the San Remo Resolution became moot at that point. .”
     You now seem to have reconsidered your earlier conclusion, because you have re-posted the League of Nations Articles again, only this time you have unilatterally concluded that it says what you and only you wish it to say, not what it actually does say:
     ” . . . the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, . . ”
     The ARTICLE itself is the consent for everything contained in the Article EXCEPT the specific further consent required by the article. Unless this were true, why bother including the words:
     ” . . with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations . .” As the same would be redundant, according to your explanation. The extra (un-needed) words can only indicate the legal necessity for advice and consent, the same way that such wording appears in other governing political documents.
     Do you know of one credible expert or legal reference that agrees with you that ” . . with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations . .” is merely reiterating the fact that this article (25) is offered with such consent, as opposed to “in contravention with”? According to your creative understanding, had Art. 25 NOT said: ” . . with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations . .” then, this would have naturally indicated that Article 25 was IN DIRECT CONTRAVENTION to the wishes of the Council of the League of Nations.
     The Balfore Declaration was therefore after the fact and was merely an acceptance of England’s role as caretaker, not of the ownership of the parcel, which had already been disposed of in San Remo and by the League of Nations.
     “What did Britain actually win when it “won” WW I? ”
     More rethoric. Britan was only one of the countries which won WW1. Collectively, they all got something for their troubles. But in all cases, the victory took place upon the conclusion of WW1. This is the standard practice for conclusions of wars. Loosing countries do NOT say: “OK, OK, we loose, now please go away and come back in a few years when we will have decided what to give you (the winners). Whatever Turkey gave up, it gave up when WW1 concluded. Whatever the Allied Powers (and others) won, was won not in 1922 but when WW1 ended. If England had won Palestine, why did they not keep it? When is the last time England ever gave up 1 inch of land on their own valition? A- Never.
     Are you claiming that upon the end of WW1, Palestine belonged to no one? That every OTHER country given up by Turkey gained its permanant identity then, EXCEPT Palestine?
     Your position is not even remotely close to sounding logical or even mature. You will obviously say (and have done so on numerous occaisions) anything which agrees with your desires, regardless of how far-fetched.
     Example:
     ” . . Owning property in Arizona doesn’t mean you hold title to the State of Arizona. . . ”
     That is true, but that does not address the subject. The much closer comparison would be if Native American Indians were granted a parcel of land in say, Nevada, but did not take instant possession upon the signing of the title.
     “is about the most absurd thing I’ve heard yet. ”
     The Princible Allied Powers divided up their collective winnings according to their own interests. The oil was their primary concern, which they hoped to reserve for themselves through the appointment of friendly Arabs as heads of state. This all took place in the Treaties of Versalies and San Remo.
     As I have numerous times repeated, the Kurds also gained independance in the same transaction. They are exactly in the same legal boat with the Hebrews. The fact that the Kurds have since been denied this independance does not reverse the earlier transaction.
     Your comments continue to be cheep and petty.

198. John Baker Says:
     September 22nd, 2007 at 1:05 pm

     Whatever Turkey gave up, it gave up when WW1 concluded.

     And to whom did they give “it” up, Isidor? You seem to think Israel won WW I, or that the Old Yeshuv won title to the entirety of the Ottoman district of Palestine when the Ottomans lost WW I. This is absurd.

     You have yet to show a single line written before the UN Mandate of Palestine in 1922 which described title to any specific territorial boundaries. It was nothing but intentions and perhaps oral agreements prior to that. One can hardly say the British “violated” any terms because there weren’t any terms. There literally was no Mandate until 1922 and from the time it first saw the light of day Transjordan was not part of it.

     I really like your comments too, btw.

199. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 22nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm

     John:
     You can continue to change the subject. I am running low on energy to continue changing it back where it belongs. Neither the Zionists or the Kurds per-se won WW1. However, both had a part in the victory as did various elements of the Arab tribes, yet to be emancipated from Turkey. Which is partly why the various Arab leaders initially had no problems with the Jews getting Palestine back, because they were all recent allies. The notion that these other countries, such as Syria and Iraq and Saudi Arabia commenced as legal entities in before Palestine and Kurdistan is the abserd notion. The rest is purely your emagination in hyper-drive (as usual).

200. John Baker Says:
     September 22nd, 2007 at 5:08 pm

     The intent of the British as to how to carve up the Ottoman Empire after WW I can be seen in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Transjordan (together with some territory to the west of the Jordan) formed “Zone B” which was to be placed under British control for the purpose of organizing a future Arab State or Confederation of Arab States, as was the case with “Zone A” under French control. Map below.

     The idea that Transjordan was intended by the British to have the same “fate” as the land west of the Jordan is a fiction, perhaps originating and existing at the time only in the head of Zeev Jabotinsky.

     As WW I progressed there were changes of course, including the desire of the British to help create a Jewish homeland. The San Remo Conference attempted to iron out the differences and incorporating the Balfour Document, but in essence San Remo confirmed Sykes-Picot. The San Remo Resolution was the draft document on which the UN Mandate of Palestine under Britain was constructed. The San Remo Resolution was not itself the Mandate.

     http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gov46/pal-sykes-picot.gif

201. John Baker Says:
     September 22nd, 2007 at 5:19 pm

     Sykes-Picot Map - Zones

     http://www.p4pd.org/settlements/popups/map_sykes-picot-1916.gif

     Before WW I ended, the Ottoman Empire and with it the Ottoman District of Filastin was already being carved up by the Allied Powers into Zones of Influence. By war’s end, Palestine no longer existed as it had under the Ottomans. Only zones existed. The Zionists were not one of the Allied Powers, Isidor.

202. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 2:37 am

     John:
     You wrote:
     “The intent of the British as to how to carve up the Ottoman Empire after WW I can be seen in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.”
     Not long ago your position was that anything which happened PRIOR to 1922 became legally “mooted” thereafter. Now you try to preempt the actual legal documents with “Sykes-Picot”, which took place BEFORE the end of the war and only involved two of the Allied Powers and did NOT occur with the consent of the land-looser (Turkey).
     The only word I can think of is: contemptible.
     Lets (again) review:
     “Under the terms of the settlement that were made by the Principal Allied Powers consisting of Britain, France, Italy and Japan, there would be no annexation of the conquered Turkish territories by any of the Powers, as had been planned in the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 9 and 16, 1916. Instead, these territories, including the peoples for whom they were designated, would be placed under the Mandates System and administered by an advanced nation until they were ready to stand by themselves. The Mandates System was established and governed by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, contained in the Treaty of Versailles and all the other peace treaties made with the Central Powers - Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. The Covenant was the idea of US President Woodrow Wilson and contained in it his program of Fourteen Points of January 8, 1918, while Article 22 which established the Mandates System, was largely the work of Jan Christiaan Smuts who formulated the details in a memorandum that became known as the Smuts Resolution, officially endorsed by the Council of Ten on January 30, 1919, in which Palestine as envisaged in the Balfour Declaration was named as one of the mandated states to be created. The official creation of the country took place at the San Remo Peace Conference where the Balfour Declaration was adopted by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers as the basis for the future administration of Palestine which would henceforth be recognized as the Jewish National Home.”
     You wishfully wrote:
     “Before WW I ended, the Ottoman Empire and with it the Ottoman District of Filastin was already being carved up by the Allied Powers into Zones of Influence. By war’s end, Palestine no longer existed as it had under the Ottomans. Only zones existed. The Zionists were not one of the Allied Powers, Isidor.”
     The above is FALSE.
     The “Allied Powers” consisted of: Britain, France, Italy, Japan and perhaps most importantly, the USA, your own home. “Sykes-Picot” by contrast, only was between Britain and France, NOT “the Allied Powers” as you fallaciously insist.
     Furthermore, “Palestine” was never a nation, not before and not after WW1. Therefore, your second sentence is also FALSE because (both before and after 1916), “Palestine” was a geographic zone, similar for example to “The Corn Belt” or “The Bible Belt”, not a nation with settled boundaries. For a great deal of time prior to WW1, many people referred to “Palestine” inclusive of Syria. However, few if anyone would now assert that Syria was intended to be part of the Jewish National Home since its disposition was disposed of in the same set of legal documents that dealt with Palestine itself, FOLLOWING WW1.
     The key to understanding the legal (not wishful) ramifications Mr. John “Brick-Wall” Baker, relates to the documents which relieved the previous owner, TURKEY from its possession. These did NOT take place before the end of WW1. Your final sentence is likewise FALSE because “Zion” had no need to be one of the “Allied Powers” in order to be a beneficiary of their treaties. Was Saudi Arabia one of the “Principle Allied Powers”? Was Syria? Was Jordan? Ridiculous and indicative of your overall attitude that some set of (generally undefined) circumstances — renders Jews somehow separate and apart from Muslims, under tradition and/or international law. Moreover, you can’t seem to ever recognize that Jews have traditionally been victimized and Arabs have not. Therefore, you can’t compel yourself to understand that the Jews were screwed out of their legal independence after WW! and the Arabs have been the illegal beneficiary. This attitude is steadfast throughout all your postings, from your calling Joan Peters and her book “fraudulent” to your assertion that Jewish authors (such as Princeton Prof. Lewis) are unreliable and must be supplemented by non-Jewish authors (for objectivity — with the exclusion of course of Joan Peters).
     You live in a perpetual fairy-tale, a couple of pages away from Jimmy “Mother Goose” Carter. This is true in almost every example. You rarely answer questions and when you do, you answer them with other questions.
     The difference between a smart person who is truthful and a smart person who is not:
     The former avoids answering questions, especially important ones. Sound like anyone we know? Woops . . I almost forgot, you don’t like to answer key questions.

203. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 7:19 am

     The only word I can think of is: contemptible.

     Probably it is. No pre-emption intended. Sykes-Picot shows that Britain and France were already in agreement in 1916 as to how the Ottoman Empire was to be carved up and already at that date Palestine proper (west of the Jordan) was a separate entity from Transjordan, the area east of the Jordan all the way to Iraq. Your / Laskin’s claim is that the British “violated” the Mandate. They did no such thing. Britain exercised its legal prerogative under the terms of the Mandate to withhold Transjordan and administer it separately, which it did following the goal of creating an Arab State or Confederation of Arab States in that area. You have yet to show any document which the British agreed to in which they said they would do otherwise. And to the contrary I have shown you that even before the war ended they had other plans than that. I do not claim that Britain and France were the only Allied Powers. Sykes-Picot was a secret agreement in fact. But it shows that Britain, which ended up as the Mandatory, never intended that Transjordan and Palestine be administered as one unit. In fact in 1916 the thinking was that Palestine was to be administered by a consortium of France, Britain, and Russia. After Red October 1917, Russia was dropped. And of course nothing became official regarding the Mandate until 1922, so again there was nothing for Britain to “violate.” Did they separate Transjordan without the consent of the other Allied Powers? When did the other Allied Powers including the United States raise an objection to the separation of Transjordan and Palestine? Of course the Zionists did not have to have a country to benefit from the treaties of the Allied Powers, but unless you live in a fairy tale world you must realize that they were in no position to negotiate those treaties at the table with the Powers because they were not one of them! They didn’t get everything they wanted and apparently some of them expected unrealisitically. No doubt this was disappointing. It is not reasonable to charge it against Britain as an injustice committed against the Jews because they disappointed these unrealistic, unfounded expectations. It’s enough for us to debate the territory west of the Jordan, I should think. This is boring and stupid.

204. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 7:45 am

     Smuts Resolution, officially endorsed by the Council of Ten on January 30, 1919, in which Palestine as envisaged in the Balfour Declaration was named as one of the mandated states to be created.

     And what does the Balfour Declaration say? It only says that His Majesty’s Government will endeavor to help create a Jewish national home in Palestine. And that’s exactly what they did! It doesn’t say the entirety of Palestine. It doesn’t say the territory from the Mediterranean all the way to the Persian Gulf. In the talks between the French and British at least the Ottoman district of Palestine was already subdivided by the end of the war. The Balfour Declaration is a statement of general intent, like when a rich person says to his servant, “I am going to see you are taken care of in my will.” Unfortunately, you can’t take that to the bank, Isidor. No specific amount is mentioned. It’s up to the employer’s discretion. The wording of the will may not match the servant’s full expectations. That doesn’t mean the rich employer stabbed him in the back or lied or that he always liked the chauffeur and the maid better and always gave them all the big tips and bonuses and that this was just one more example how he screwed the employee in question. This is very childish.

     The Smuts Resolution and the San Remo Resolution were draft documents. The discussion behind the scenes at that point as Sykes-Picot shows clearly was in terms of Zones of Influence. Before the Mandate was put on paper in 1922, the Allied Powers had already moved down the road from the Ottoman map in their discussions. In 1916 Britain already had other plans than what you are claiming. There is no document saying otherwise because they would not have agreed to any document saying otherwise, having already decided otherwise. Although Sykes-Picot was a secret agreement, Lenin had made it public because the Russians were cut out after the Revolution of 1917. Everyone who could read a newspaper would have known that the Middle East was about to be carved up into Zones when the Mandate went into effect.

     Peters’ book is a propaganda tract. If misinformation and disinformation and misrepresentation is what you are after in support of an extreme rightwing position, I highly recommend it.

205. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 8:15 am

     from your link to art. by Howard Grief,

     “The phrase “in Palestine”, another expression found in the Balfour Declaration that generated much controversy, referred to the whole country, including both Cisjordan and Transjordan. It was absurd to imagine that this phrase could be used to indicate that only a part of Palestine was reserved for the future Jewish National Home, since both were created simultaneously and used interchangeably, with the term “Palestine” pointing out the geographical location of the future independent Jewish state. Had “Palestine” meant a partitioned country with certain areas of it set aside for Jews and others for Arabs, that intention would have been stated explicitly at the time the Balfour Declaration was drafted and approved and later adopted by the Principal Allied Powers. No such allusion was ever made in the prolonged discussions that took place in fashioning the Declaration and ensuring it international approval.”

     Sheer nonsense. It is absurd to imagine that Transjordan was intended to be included since one year before the Balfour Declaration (1917) the Sykes-Picot agreement (1916) shows conclusively that Britain was already planning separately for Cisjordan and Transjordan. To make claims on the basis of something not actually stated in the Balfour Declaration (”If they had meant…they would have said.”) is an argument from silence, a common fallacy. The Balfour Declaration is a general statement of support. Period.

206. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 8:39 am

     Foreign Office,
     November 2nd, 1917.

     Dear Lord Rothschild,

     I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:

     “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”.

     I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

     Yours sincerely
     Arthur James Balfour

     Note:

     “An early draft used the word that in referring to Palestine as a Jewish homeland, which was changed to in Palestine to avoid committing to it being the whole of Palestine. Similarly, an early draft did not include the commitment to not prejudicing the rights of the non-Jewish communities. These changes came about partly as the result of the urgings of Edwin Samuel Montagu, an influential anti-Zionist Jew and Secretary of State for India, who, among others, was concerned that the declaration without those changes could result in increased anti-Semitic persecution.”

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917

207. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 9:31 am

     from the wikipedia article on Palestine:

     “In April 1920 the Allied Supreme Council (the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan) met at Sanremo and formal decisions were taken on the allocation of mandate territories. The United Kingdom accepted a mandate for Palestine, but the boundaries of the mandate and the conditions under which it was to be held were not decided.

     The Zionist Organization’s representative at Sanremo, Chaim Weizmann, subsequently reported to his colleagues in London:

     “There are still important details outstanding, such as the actual terms of the mandate and the question of the boundaries in Palestine. There is the delimitation of the boundary between French Syria and Palestine, which will constitute the northern frontier and the eastern line of demarcation, adjoining Arab Syria. The latter is not likely to be fixed until the Emir Feisal attends the Peace Conference, probably in Paris.”[93]”

     Further:

     “During the 19th century, the “Ottoman Government employed the term Arz-i Filistin (the ‘Land of Palestine’) in official correspondence, meaning for all intents and purposes the area to the west of the River Jordan which became ‘Palestine’ under the British in 1922″.[88]”

     and:

     “Even before the Mandate came into legal effect in 1923 (text), British terminology sometimes used “Palestine” for the part west of the Jordan River and “Trans-Jordan” (or Transjordania) for the part east of the Jordan River.[97][98]”

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

208. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 11:17 am

     “Britain, which ended up as the Mandatory, never intended that Transjordan and Palestine be administered as one unit.”
     Irrelevant. What if England had lost WW1?
     How do we know that Turkey would have agreed to the same treaties which ended WW1 if its previous holdings were NOT being carved up as specifically specified in the treaties themselves?
     A– We don’t and such is patently unknowable. The transfer of land took place between Turkey and the Principle Allied Powers, according to the treaties which ended WW1, period. What may have been intended by some of those parties prior to the end of the war is of no legal moment. Your position is similar in character to highlighting the dating segment of a relationship and the divorce stage, and ignoring the marriage ceremony. There can only be one legal joining of a couple and that is the marriage. What the couple’s parents may wish for, is interesting discussion but has no legal ramifications. The divorce stage is a legal severing but what we are discussing is the marriage. There can be no divorce without a marriage. You continue to draw attention away from the marriage. Now, in the case under discussion, what took place was a GROUP marriage, similar to one of those Moonite ceremonies seen in Soul S. Korea. This makes it even harder for you (or anyone) to seriously claim that no marriage took place because it sure happened for each and every other couple in attendance. The Saudis got married and the Iraqis got married and so did the Syrians and many others, all at the same exact ceremony. The only two who failed to become legally tied (according to your legal interpretation) were the Hebrews and the Kurds.
     “This is boring and stupid.”
     Because your argument is such. Whomever smelt it dealt it.
     “The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers” — San Remo Resolution - April 25, 1920 (Section “B”)
     “PRINCIPAL ALLIED POWERS”
     “The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval.
     Turkey hereby undertakes, in accordance with the provisions of Article [132 of the Treaty of Sevres] to accept any decisions which may be taken in this connection.”
     Britain was merely a caretaker and had no authority to act unilaterally or even bi-laterally with France. Turkey agrees to such surrender but not to Britain. Only to the Council of the League of Nations who represented the Principal Allies Powers.
     The above was the marriage license.
     “in Palestine –vs- of Palestine. This John, is your only cogent point to date on the subject.
     The difference between you and myself is that I will admit such points and you will argue until Prince Saud gets circumcised. What then is to be made of this point? It certainly does not give England any unilateral authority to decide what fraction of “Palestine” was being referenced. That was the sole and exclusive job of the Council of the League of Nations and The Principal Allied Powers, which such decision is absent from the record. The wording (like many diplomatic documents) is ambiguous. Why does it not say:
     “in a minor part” of Palestine?
     The inference is that if it does not mean Palestine, per-se, it certainly means a significant (perhaps majority) portion thereof. But even if it meant a minority portion, which as I say is ambiguous, the legal mandate included a provision that:
     A) No population’s rights shall be compromised in the process (including Jews)
     B) No one shall be EXCLUDED from ALL of (1917) Palestine as the sole result of their religious belief.
     If the legal wording meant that Israel would be “a city within a state”, so to speak, then the remaining Jews, those NOT included in that “city” were entitled to the same protections afforded Christians in the Muslim zones and Muslims and Christians within the Jewish zones.
     Your position completely overlooks this. We now have a situation wherein:
     1) The British unlawfully took authority to permanently dispose of the territory, lacking the needed permissions.
     2) The rights of the INDIGIONOUS JEWS were violated within the total boundaries of Palestine, in contravention to the legal mandates.
     3) ” ” ” Including the exclusion of Jews from living on their historical family homes in the portion of Palestine given over to Jordan.
     Why is the above completely meaningless to you in your conclusion that 2007 Israel is already too large and must accept massive qtys of Arab immigrants?
     A—Because your position is unfair and does not really care about international law. It cares only about ‘Baker convention.’

209. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 12:20 pm

     1) The British unlawfully took authority to permanently dispose of the territory, lacking the needed permissions.

     No, they accepted the Mandate as given to them which included provision for their treating Transjordan separately from Cisjordan as they deemed appropriate.

     2) The rights of the INDIGIONOUS JEWS were violated within the total boundaries of Palestine, in contravention to the legal mandates.

     What rights? And in what sense “violated”? And are you talking about Palestine west of the Jordan? Mandated “Palestine” had no official boundaries until 1922 when the UN Mandate for Palestine was issued, as I have said numerous times, and as even Chaim Weizmann reported after San Remo (see above). Within Palestine west of the Jordan their “right” was to “a Jewish national home” which is exactly what they got.

     3) ” ” ” Including the exclusion of Jews from living on their historical family homes in the portion of Palestine given over to Jordan.

     That could certainly be true. I am not familiar with that issue.

210. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 12:37 pm

     Why is the above completely meaningless to you in your conclusion that 2007 Israel is already too large and must accept massive qtys of Arab immigrants?

     It’s ancient history. 1967 is becoming ancient history itself. My position says the land has to be fairly divided and shared. Why is this “unfair”?

     As to the immigrants, as you call them, the refugees have rights that need to be respected. You deny the validity of the rights of grandchildren of the original refugees of the Palestinian Diaspora who left sixty years ago, but you press a claim based on the rights of descendents of the Diaspora Jews who left two thousand years ago. Why are the rights of Arab descendents worthless if their ancestors left sixty years ago, but the rights of Jewish descendents are valid if their ancestors left two thousand years ago? I don’t think you can have it both ways, particularly when Palestinian families still hold deeds and receipts to specific land and specific property that was confiscated from them in 1948.

211. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 1:39 pm

     The rights I beleive the Jews have as result of their displacement from Judea (year CE zero + 66 and + 134) are mainly moral and ethical and have some impact on the other major questions but do not themselves constitute legal title in the 20th century. I have been clear about that.
     The Arab “Refugees” of 20th century Palestine by contrast, were invented and designed as pawns — to proliferate this conflict infinitum. Their circumstances mitigate their rights and do not reinforce them.

212. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 2:13 pm

     I have been clear about that.

     First I’ve heard of it.

     The Arab “Refugees” of 20th century Palestine by contrast, were invented

     If by “invented” you mean “driven from your land at gunpoint and your ethnically-cleansed land confiscated in your absence.” Yeah, they were “invented” by the Israelis all right. Definitely.

213. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 3:47 pm

     John:
     Your verbiage is one minor step prior to saying:
     “You-people’s land”.
     Israel is NOT my land although my Father’s side dates back some time in Jerusalem. I defend the Hebrews (although I am not religiously Jewish) because I believe they deserve defending.
     My land is the USA.
     “ethnically-cleansed”
     You are obviously an incorrigible.
     Its one thing to debate my contention that the “refugee” crisis was invented and designed to proliferate this conflict (and not by Jews, who gain no advantage in its proliferation). It is another thing to blanket dismiss all the numerous and profound mitigating circumstances, including San Remo; including the illegal exclusion of Jews by England) from immigration during the first part of 20th century; including the illegal supplementation of immigration of Arabs into Palestine during the same period; including the holocaust and; including the Arab involvement therein; including the discrimination and forced exile of Jews from their family lands all over the Mid East after WW2 and yes, also including the fact that Jerusalem is the single and exclusive spiritual headquarters of the world’s oldest Monotheistic faith, wherein the Jews were banned from resettling for most of the past 1,900 years. You also seem unconcerned that Jews were denied citizenship in Jordan. Your sole purpose in life seems to be to first embellish and then condemn Hebrews, for what you perceive to be their never-ending string of high-crimes and misdemeanors.

214. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 4:23 pm

     “The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers” — San Remo Resolution - April 25, 1920 (Section “B”)

     and:

     “The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval…”

     Britain was merely a caretaker and had no authority to act unilaterally or even bi-laterally with France. Turkey agrees to such surrender but not to Britain. Only to the Council of the League of Nations who represented the Principal Allies Powers.

     This is the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine:

     http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/palmanda.htm

     It was approved by the Council of the League of Nations including Article 25 [regarding Britain’s right to deal separately with Palestine and Transjordan] in July, 1922. Negotiations between the United States and Britain had been successfully concluded in May 1922. The Mandate went into effect July 24, 1922 with all the Principal Allied Powers as represented by the Council of the League of Nations on-board and in agreement.

     Now enough of this nonsense!

     Your verbiage is one minor step prior to saying: “You-people’s land”.

     By “your” I was referring to the Palestinian’s land. They were the ones who were driven from their land at gunpoint; not the Jews. They were the ones who were absent and had their land confiscated; not Jews. I might have said “driven from one’s land” etc. I was not referring to Jews.

     Your sole purpose in life seems to be…

     Virtually everything you attribute to me in that paragraph is made up stuff which I don’t accept. Quit trying to put words in my mouth. I’ve actually agreed with you from time to time. Your trouble is you won’t take yes for an answer. And your default position is to disagree with any historical description which does not portray the Jews as righteous victims at every turn, history’s perpetual piñata. I’m sure if the British had tried to create a Jewish national home in Transjordan you would be complaining that it was all desert land. I seem to have heard that before in fact.

215. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 4:29 pm

     “The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval…”

     As to the necessary approval of the Principal Allied Powers, that was given through the Council of the League of Nations in July, 1922. The United States had agreed in May, 1922. The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine went into effect on July 24, 1922, including Article 25 which authorized Britain to deal separately with Palestine and Transjordan.

     Now enough of this nonsense!

216. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 4:31 pm

     Your verbiage is one minor step prior to saying:“You-people’s land”.

     By the word “your” I was referring to the Palestinians; not Jews. The Palestinians who were driven off their land at gunpoint and made into refugees; not Jews. The Palestinians were the ones who were absent and had their land confiscated; not Jews.

217. John Baker Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 4:38 pm

     Your sole purpose in life seems to be …

     First of all, just about everything in that paragraph is stuff you have made up and tried to put in my mouth. Secondly, I don’t accept it. Quit trying to define my positions for me. If you will notice I have agreed with you from time to time. I do not hold the Jews responsible for high crimes and misdemeanors, as you claim. But neither do I believe as you seem to that they are history’s perpetual piñatas, righteous victims screwed over at every turn throughout history. No doubt if Britain had tried to create a Jewish national home in Transjordan, you - Isidor - would be moaning that they were given all desert land. I seem to have heard that before in fact.

218. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 23rd, 2007 at 9:57 pm

     Professor:
     I think your earlier post was grammatically incorrect or awkward at best. The word “they” would have been more appropriate then “your”, although I accept your statement on your intended meaning and stand corrected on that point.
     As far as your other assortment of gibberish . . . not so much.
     Your inaccurate and malicious (continued) use of the term: “ethnically-cleansed” persists as a major source of annoyance to me and I am sure to some others, even from the pro-Palestinian wing.
     Even if your assertion is 100% correct as to the Arabs who left in 1948 being forced to do so, even at “gunpoint” which as you know, I am FAR from the only person who rejects this narrative, but even if precisely exactly true, that act DOES NOT constitute “ethnic-cleansing”, in the way the word has come into usage in the common parlance.
     Assuming (arguendo) that your factual narrative is true, Jews coming out of the M.E. region, who had been forced to leave with ZERO possessions would have had some ethical (parity) rights to “share” some possessions with some of the Arabs in and around Jerusalem. This is called “tit-for-tat” NOT “ethnic cleansing”. “Ethnic-cleansing” was a word pair which arose out of the genocide taking place in the Balkans. Numerous mass-graves were involved. There was also no real dispute over the land and no Serbs being butchered or forced out of their own zones by Bosnians. Therefore and hence, “ethnic cleansing” can only be understood as a crime of the highest possible magnitude, since it was invented to describe mass murder, plus mass expulsion — without cause or parity conditions.
     Flap your mouth as you like, I think the most recent exchange of posts has quite clearly illustrated that the position you safeguard is that of making the rules up as you go along. Your education continues to vastly exceed your intellect, primarily because you can’t pay proper respect to reality.

219. John Baker Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 5:27 am

     We differ as to the meaning of the term “ethnic-cleansing.” Most people use it without genocidal implications, as I do here. to mean “to run all of the _[unfavored ethnic minority group]_ out of the country.” It is what is meant by the euphemism “transfer.” A rose by any other name is still a war crime. It was a war crime when the Nazis did it to the Jews in Poland. It’s still a war crime.

220. John Baker Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 6:05 am

     Correction. Mass deportation was technically not a war crime I think in 1938, but it was ten years later when the Fourth Geneva Conventions were written in 1948 largely because of the mass deportations of Jews from Poland by the Germans. By the term ethnic cleansing, most people mean mass forced deportations (pace Isidor’s contribution on the subject to Wikipedia).

221. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 7:27 am

     The term: “Ethnic Cleansing” was invented by the Serbs themselves, to describe what they did to the Bosnians. What they did was to exterminate (in some instances) and in others, they were satisfied with the Muslims running away en-masse. Therefore, though you try, you can not escape the accepted meaning of the word, even though the word was not invented in 1948. Suppose you HAD to use the vocabulary which existed in 1948, what word would you select to best describe your factual description of events?
     While peacefully sitting in the tub (my best thinking time) I realized something that had not previously occurred to me.
     How do 750,000 people get evicted from their “ancestral homes” WITHOUT at least a few thousand dead bodies? Given the Arabs ‘hot-blooded’ and territorial traditions, one might reasonably expect a FEW TENS OF THOUSANDS of young Arab men, who refused to leave, formed a resistance and died in the process. Yet, no such bodies have been identified and to my knowledge, no such claims have even been made.
     Combine this abnormality with the total lack of supporting newsprint and also throw in the statements made by Arab heads of State, such as the former Prime Minister of Syria, confirming that the combined Arab leadership “compelled these people to leave” , and you have a serious problem with proofs. Of course, that has never slowed you down before. Rarely does a lack of proofs slow down any accusations made against Jews and that holds true up till this very day in 2007. Perhaps more so this day then 20 or 30 years ago.

222. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 9:06 am

     PS>
     While there is ongoing and longstanding debate about the circumstances surrounding the migration of residents in 1947-1948, there can be no denial that the Arabs who left have been maintained in “zoo” like conditions, by everyone else but Jews for the past 60 years.
     There can also be no denial that the UNHCR has been told to keep their hands off these populations. There can finally be no controversy that this group of people have had their “refugee” status extended — to include their offspring, in a prescedent setting move.
     While it remains unclear how they got there, it is precisely evident who keeps them as virtual animals, lacking basic human rights — and its NOT the Hebrews.

223. John Baker Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 4:05 pm

     There is no escaping the fact that the 1948 War was ON BOTH SIDES a war of ethnic cleansing. The goal OF BOTH SIDES was to capture as much territory as possible with the least number of people in it belonging to the other side. This is how ethnic conflicts work and the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 was no different from any other ethnic conflict in that respect. The results are fully known. The Israelis displaced Arab inhabitants. The Arabs displaced Jewish inhabitants. As it turned out, the larger numbers were on the Israeli side: 750,000 Arabs were displaced. The Arabs were trying to do the same thing and did where possible. The Arab states have also been almost zero help since, as Isidor says. Something needs to be done to end this misery. I don’t care who does it; it needs doing.

224. John Baker Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

     Yet, no such bodies have been identified and to my knowledge, no such claims have even been made.

     All it takes to convince people to leave without a struggle are a number of massacres which are then publicized. The most famous massacre of an Arab village was Deir Yassin.

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

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

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

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

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

     From an Israeli newspaper report in 1992:

     “The Israeli newspaper Ha’ir had an article titled “Massacres of Palestinians in 1947-49: During the War, Many Arabs Were Massacred by Jews Not Only in Deir Yassin,” published May 6, 1992, on the eve of Israel Independence Day and included details of previously unreported massacres. In the article, the Israeli history researcher Ariyeh Yitzhaki concludes that “at least 20 large massacres of Arabs took place during the War of Independence (defined as over 50 murdered in each massacre) and about 100 small massacres (defined as of individuals of small groups). These massacres had a profound effect on the fleeing of Arabs from the country.”

     http://daily.stanford.org/article/2003/5/7/palestiniansMassacredIn1948War

225. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 5:49 pm

     “All it takes to convince people to leave without a struggle are a number of massacres which are then publicized. The most famous massacre of an Arab village was Deir Yassin.”
     We are talking about Arabs John.
     These are the same people who swear to AVENGE the deaths of their own SUICIDE BOMBERS.
     These are NOT Buddhist monks.
     Even if Buddhists, would 750 THOUSAND of them be “ethnically cleansed” from their homes and villages by virtue of word-of-mouth? With no {ZERO} armed rebellion? Not Buddhists and certainly NOT Arabs.
     The last element which lacks sensibility is how these fleeing populations wound up in so many different Arab countries. Typically, fleeing populations (normal “refugees”) hit (and cross) one or maybe two borders. The Palestinian-Arabs wound up in each and every country with borders to Israel and some without borders with Israel, such as Kuwait and Iraq. Were this done for humanitarian reasons, then, these Palestinian-Arabs would NOT have been kept as sub-humans for five minutes, let alone 60 years.
     In the clear light of reason and based on the evidence, what likely took place was as follows:
     1. The bulk of the Arab countries had been allied with Germany in WW2.
     2. They were given “free passes” after the war by the Allied nations, who were both intimidated by them and also brown-nosing for oil. Essentially, these were the only countries who paid no political or other price for being allied with Hitler.
     3. To these countries, WW2 did not really end and perhaps, they were in denial and also — were somewhat delusional that the war was not quite finished.
     4. Remembering that these were generally tyrannical dictatorships, their own populations were of a different mindset. The “street-level” Arabs were inclined for the war to end and for peace to break out. These dictators had other plans.
     5. The establishment of Israel was not initially seen as such a bad thing politically, because it gave the Arab war-lords the practical advantage of having much of the world’s Jewish population neatly gathered in one place.
     6. But they lacked the racial hatred which had overtaken the Germans. After all, many Jews of that day were similar in racial characteristic to the Arabs. So the Arab leaders needed to cultivate this conflict and inflame the street-Arabs. Otherwise, the Arabs citizens they needed as soldiers simply lacked motivation to rape, pillage and/or burn.
     So, at the appropriate time, they choreographed the expulsion of Arabs from Israel. As I have earlier admitted, some relatively insignificant numbers of (known or suspected) Arab militants were probably shown the highway by the Israelis. Perhaps between 5,000-10,000, which included both their families and their posies.
     The balance of about 750,000 were extracted from Israel by the Arab war-lords and carefully dispersed in a large number of neighboring countries. This to spawn the motivation needed to invade Israel and kill everything in sight, then confiscate the land. This plan failed when the Jews successfully fought back, as had NOT been anticipated — wherein the Arab potentates were expecting a repeat of Nuremberg and Buckenwald.

     I do not deny the Deir Yassin massacre and I condemn any targeting of civilians. However, as I understand events, this was in retaliation for massacres against Jews, going back to 1920 (28 years worth). I still condemn it as being unholy under any circumstances. However, I do deny that such massacres of Arabs were wide-spread and I also submit that the facts of this and other events are in dispute. The Israeli position is that militants were targeted in several zones. These were people (generally adult men) who had been politically connected to the Mufti and his crimes and posed a significant threat to the fledgling Jewish state. If you have any doubt of the chemistry of how this works, look no further then 2007 Iraq. Saddam loyalists and other radical elements have brewed a civil war. Were civilians killed in Deir Yassin? Yes, probably . . and Israelis who are “insiders” hardly deny it. Never have. What they say is that after 28 years of rape and pillage by Arabs, the Israeli hot-heads finally got their shot and convinced the military to allow a retaliatory hit. However, as I understand from these same “insiders” (who were there) Deir Yassin was not picked by random either. It was selected because it was said to contain a significant number of militant Arab rampagers. These were the core target and while at it, pay- back for the Jewish villages massacred over decades, including events fairly recent to Deir Yassin.
     I have read your linked article. Not impressive. No reference points and not generally scholarly reporting, closer akin to the National Enquirer.
     I know what Jews do wrong. It is NOT what they are generally accused of and here is no exception. Jews do not look for trouble and are not particularly vindictive. Their “eye-for-an-eye” principle is more designed to deter further attacks on them then to inflict vengeance. ts an intellectual, not an emotional counter-measure.
     John: Your entire concept is flawed. Its one lie built on top of a rumor, built on top of a slander, built on top of a liable, built on top of an innuendo. Nothing particularly new their (regarding Jewish guilt) either.
     In the mean time you can not convince me (and I think the entire notion remains far-fetched) that 750,000 Arabs would simply up and leave, based on the reported deaths of a few hundred. These are the same Arabs who lost over 3,500 of their own teachers, preachers and intellectuals to militant Arab factions (hit-squads) during the period between 1918 and 1947.
     Look at what’s happening in Iraq….
     Some people are fleeing their homes but do the math.
     500 civilians can perish is one day of sectarian terror, hundreds of thousands of civilians blown to bits over 5+ years.
     Deir Yassin = 250 casualties and 750,000 refugees???
     Iraq = 250,000 civilian casualties and should therefore equal 750-million refugees.
     Too many abnormalities. (Far too many). Your story sucks.

226. John Baker Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 5:59 pm

     Yet, no such bodies have been identified and to my knowledge, no such claims have even been made.

     Wrong.

227. John Baker Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 6:03 pm

     you can not convince me (and I think the entire notion remains far-fetched) that 750,000 Arabs would simply up and leave

     Oh I’m not saying that at all. That until recently anyway was your position I believe, that all these Arabs left voluntarily somehow or other. What I have tried to do many times is show declassified Haganah-IDF documents that show that the overwhelming majority (73%)left at gunpoint and sometimes had to be kept from returning at gunpoint. You are now complaining that there are no bodies to show. But there were plenty of bodies. The remainder left at gunpoint in fear of their lives.

228. John Baker Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 6:15 pm

     “In “1948 and After” Benny Morris examines the first phase of the exodus and produces a detailed analysis of a source that he considers basically reliable: a report prepared by the intelligence services of the Israeli army, dated 30 June 1948 and entitled “The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948″. This document sets at 391,000 the number of Palestinians who had already left the territory that was by then in the hands of Israel, and evaluates the various factors that had prompted their decisions to leave. “At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations.” To this figure, the report’s compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which “directly (caused) some 15%… of the emigration”. A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to “fears” and “a crisis of confidence” affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases…”

     “This article was first published in Middle Eastern Studies, January 1986.

     Morris, Benny. “The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel
     Defence Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948.” Middle Eastern
     Studies. 22 (1986).

     “The Emigration of the Arabs of Palestine in the Period 1/12/1947/- 1/6/1948″ is the name of a document that was produced by Israeli Defence Forces Intelligence Service. It is dated June 30, 1948 and consists of two parts: a 9 page text and a 15 page appendix. The details in the appendix serves as a basis of the statistical breakdown in the text.

     The author is assumed to be Moshe Sasson, assistant to the director of the Arab Department in the Intelligence Service. (He was later Israel’s ambassador to Italy and Egypt.)

     The document became publicly known in in 1985, after a copy of the report had been discovered among the papers of Aharon Cohen (former director of Mapam´s Arab Department), which were given to the Hashomer Hatza’ir Archive, Israel.”

     “On the eve of the UN Partition Plan Resolution of 29 Nov 1947, according to the report, there were 219 Arab villages and four Arab, or partly Arab, towns in the area designated for the Jewish state, with a total Arab population of 340,000 Arab residents. By June 1, 180 of these towns had been evacuated, with 239,000 Arabs fleeing the areas of the Jewish state. A further 152,000 Arabs, from 70 villages and three towns (Jaffa, Jenin, and Acre), had fled their homes in the areas designated for Palestinian Arab statehood in the Partition Resolution. Thus by June 1, according to the report, the refugee total was 391,000, with an error of 10 to 15%.
     The UN gives a figure of 750,000 800,000 Palestinian refugees by the end of 1948, so that the period covered by the Intelligence Service Report is one in which roughly one half the refugee population was generated.
     The report then outlines eleven (I will list five) of what the IDF Intelligence Service regarded, in June 1948, as the factors which precipitated the exodus, listing them in order of importance as:
     Direct hostile Jewish [Haganah/IDF] operations against Arab settlements (the Haganah was the army of the Yeshuv, or Jewish community in Palestine, and was the precursor of the Israeli Defense Force, or IDF).
     The effect of our [Haganah/IDF] hostile operations on nearby Arab settlements (especially the fall of large neighboring centers).
     Operations of the Jewish dissidents [Menachem Begin’s Irgun and Yitzhak Shamir’s Stern Gang, also known as the Irgun Tzvai Leumi and the Lehi, resp.].
     Jewish whispering operations [psychological warfare] aimed at frightening away Arab inhabitants.
     Ultimate expulsion orders [by Haganah/IDF].
     The Intelligence Service then gives a detailed breakdown and explanation of these factors, stressing that “without doubt, hostile [Haganah/IDF] operations were the main cause of the movement of the population”. The wave of emigration in each district, explains the report, “followed hard upon the increase and expansion of our [Haganah/IDF] operations in that district. The departure of the British of course, helped the Arab evacuation, but it appears that the British withdrawal freed our hands for action more than it influenced the Arab immigration directly.” The report cites:
     “surprise, protracted mortar barrages, and the use of loudspeakers broadcasting threatening messages, factors which had a strong influence in precipitation flight”. An attack on one village or town often affected its neighbors. The evacuation of a certain village because of an attack by us prompted in its wake many neighboring villages to fleeThe fall of Tiberias, Safad, Samakh, Jaffa, and Acre engendered in their wake many waves of emigrants.”
     The report concludes that:
     “it is possible to say that at least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our Haganah/IDF operations and by their influence. the effects of the operations of the dissidents Jewish organizations [the Irgun and the Stern Gang] directly caused some 15% of the emigration.”
     The Intelligence Service states that the activities of the Irgun and Stern were especially important in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv area, in the coastal plain to the north, and around Jerusalem. The report cites the “special effect” of the Irgun and Stern Gang operations in Deir Yassin.
     The action at Deir Yassin, especially greatly affected the thinking of the Arabs; not a little of the immediate flight during our [Haganah/IDF] attacks, especially in the central and southern areas was due to this factor which can be described as a decisive accelerating factor.
     Recall that the Deir Yassin massacre, which occurred on April 9 1948, claimed the lives of about 240 men women and children of this peaceful village and included rapes and mutilations.3 There were other massacres, perhaps two to three thousands, essentially defenseless, Palestinians were massacred, according to Haifa University historian Ilan Pappe, however the Deir Yassin massacre was widely publicized and became, in some ways, the signature of the Irgun and the Stern Gang.
     Altogether the report states, Jewish [Haganah/IDF, Irgun, Stern] military accounted for 70% if the Arab exodus from Palestine.”

229. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 7:24 pm

     We are back to these somewhat obscure “reports” and articles you like to rely on. We were on this months ago. The conversation concluded when you were unable to reference the actual (official) document being relied on. You rely on a VERY limited number of documents to try and prove a VERY LARGE ALLEGATION. You are unable to actually produce the document itself, only the rumor of the existence of this document.
     Such an important document would (if real) be publicly available (on literally hundreds of university web sites) and elsewhere. First, you base an entire ‘Armageddon’ on one solitary document, then, you seem to have no bashfulness to dismiss the gross unavailability of said ‘block-buster’ and chalk it up to what again?? with all this tumalt, I have seemed to forgot…

230. John Baker Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 7:38 pm

     You are unable to actually produce the document itself, only the rumor of the existence of this document.

     It’s fully documented and publicly available, (as in “published”?). Go get it if you want to read it. That’s the purpose of providing the publication data, so anyone can go to the source and check it out. Be my guest.

     Such an important document would (if real) be publicly available (on literally hundreds of university web sites) and elsewhere.

     Nope. Wrong again. You have no idea what you are talking about. Scholarly papers published in low-circulation academic journals are NOT routinely made available online, otherwise libraries would not subscribe.

     I’m afraid the only reasonable position left for you at this point is to say “Big deal. Ethnic cleansing is a good thing. So who cares? I’m glad they ran them all off the land.”

231. John Baker Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 7:44 pm

     The document quoted from was published over twenty years ago, Isidor:

     Morris, Benny. “The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948.” Middle Eastern Studies. 22 (1986).

     Middle Eastern Studies is the name of the journal. Volume 22 from 1986. The paper is by Benny Morris (Prof. of History at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva).

     He also references the original document in question and where to locate that.

232. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 24th, 2007 at 9:52 pm

     “Scholarly papers published in low-circulation academic journals are NOT routinely made available online . . ”
     What nonsense.
     Almost EVERYTHING that is IMPORTANT is searchable online. The specific document you allege is a MEGA, ZONGO, ‘SMOKING-GUN’ document. The noteworthy exceptions generally relate to Vatican archives, which are intentionally safeguarded from publicity (kept away from the general public). If the document can be photographed, and it is important, it will be online in 2007. This document you allege is not merely “important” but of seminal importance to the ongoing conflict. If you have read Dore Gold’s newest book, about 10% of the pages are photos of various proofs and documents, such as a page from the British Ministry of Information dating back to 1868, proving that Jerusalem (then) had achieved a Jewish majority.
     Suppose I told you that a document existed, which I could go review (if I had the time and motivation), which was a photo of Adolph Hitler’s vagina, and I told you that it was NOT searchable on the internet . . .
     You gonna believe such a photo exists?
     You gonna get on a plane to visit Cebu Philippines (where said picture is supposed to reside), to prove me wrong?
     I repeat:
     If such a profoundly important piece of evidence existed, it would be readily available for viewing.
     Otherwise, its like the “Canadian girlfriend” who (when I was a virgin) I told my friends I had done. Perhaps you also had such a phantom girlfriend, who necessarily lived far away. A lot of guys with too much virtue shared this lady. She was quite a harlet.

233. John Baker Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 5:33 am

     Almost EVERYTHING that is IMPORTANT is searchable online.

     You are part of the generation that has now spent such a large percentage of their lives with the access that the Internet provides that you feel entitled to it. Ha ha ha ha. Rave on. You have no idea what you are talking about. This is too silly.

234. John Baker Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 6:15 am

     Scholarly journals often have subscription rates in the range of $300 to $500 per year. Most of their subscribers are libraries, with only large universities subscribing to the small journals. Their operating budgets come from these subscriptions. They are not about to put their articles online FREE especially considering only a very few people are interested in actually reading them. Most university libraries do subscribe to JSTOR however, and can retrieve individual articles for you for a price, if you are affiliated with the library (student or professor or alumnus). This is the nature of the academic publishing business. Now you know.

     http://www.jstor.org/

235. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 7:20 am

     “He also references the original document in question and where to locate that”
     Its this document to which I refer.
     Anyone can write an article.
     Heaven knows, if a ‘Hemingway’ level BS artist like Carter can get space in NY times whenever the feeling overtakes him, then any fabrication can be populated into the ‘journals of academia.’
     But Morris relies (stakes) his entire thesis on one document. This supposed (though unavailable) “official report” compiled by some ranker in the IDF — at the appropriate point-in-time.
     I don’t really care about the billing conventions of for-profit libraries. I’m not sure how many people do or at least, those folks interested in evidence surrounding the migration of Arabs out of Israel around 1948.
     Traditionally, Anti-Semets have relied on scant and nebulous proofs.
     “Protocols of the Enders of Zion”, for example, became the core and basis for an entire century of Anti-Semitism.
     This Hertzl character (one private citizen), to this day is relied on as proof of all the varied injustices of world Jewry.
     Your phantom document is just such a claim.
     I will again repeat:
     If such an “official” admission of war crimes exists, it would be searchable on the internet, or, at least contained (in photocopy) in some books on the subject.
     Are you aware of just how many anti-Israel web sites would spend whatever money is required to find this document, photograph it and prominently re-print it?? Like about 1,000, not even counting the Jihad web sites. Since it is alleged to be an official governmental document it can not be subject to copyright and even if copyrighted, at least 500 of those 1,000 webmasters would not care and print it anyway.
     Reports are merely opinions.
     Show me the PROOF of the underlying allegation.
     If one thinks about it, even one official document would be precious little proof but at least it would be something more then you have, which is NOTHING.
     If the underlying allegation were true, reason suggests that there would be a LOT more then one official document.
     750,000 humans displaced from their homes and villages as result of a concerted effort by dozens of high-ranking “Zionist” leaders and no one does a death-bed confession?
     No 60-Minutes interviews with recalcitrant Israeli brass?
     One supremely important “official document” that no one can produce.
     In the old days, the Jew-haters would at least do a forgery.
     Today, the rumor of a (possible) forgery is sufficient evidence to condemn an entire nation.
     Look, it might be real, but so far you have shown me sh*t. Woefully inadequate evidence, especially in the face of all the numerous abnormalities suggesting your entire story (of mass expulsion) is but one more fabrication in a 2,000 year old tradition of such fabrications..

236. John Baker Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 4:07 pm

     But Morris relies (stakes) his entire thesis on one document.

     Not at all. It’s one of hundreds of such documents, declassified Israeli intelligence archives in fact. And even his opponents accept the validity of these documents. What they complain about is that he has not published any Arabic documents to show the other side of the picture. But everyone (except Isidor) knows the documents are genuine.

     You might be interested in his personal views which he keeps separate from his historical reconstruction work and which have changed over the years. He discussed this online recently:

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/03/12/DI2007031200377.html

237. John Baker Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 4:26 pm

     One supremely important “official document” that no one can produce.

     It’s important but not supremely. It’s one of hundreds. It’s not that no one can produce it. I’ve told you exactly where to find it. You are just too lazy to go look for it or too cheap to pay for a copy, which is what you will have to do. It was published over twenty years ago, Isidor. Do you understand what “published” means? It means “made public.” Once something is published, it has publication data connected with it that tell people where to go to find it. In this case, Morris also tells you where to find the original document (presumably in Hebrew). It is no longer a secret document. Until it was published it was classified, but no longer. It is now available but copyrighted. Even if you buy a copy, you are not entitled to put it on the Internet because of copyright protection. If you want to look at it, go look at it. Probably your local library can get a copy of it for around $20 for you.

238. John Baker Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 4:35 pm

     any fabrication can be populated into the ‘journals of academia.’
     

     You know not whereof you speak, again. Very hard to get anything into print in academic journals. They are peer reviewed. That means when you submit a paper for publication (which usually means you have read versions of it at a number of academic conferences and have gotten feedback and suggestions about it already) the editor farms copies of it out to several anonymous colleagues in your specialty who are qualified to read it and check it out and tell the editor whether it deserves to be put into print and if not what changes could be made to make it worthy. Then, once you publish it it doesn’t become engraved in stone as though it were Divine Writ. It’s data plus interpretation that is further argued about and written about by other scholars in academic papers of their own at other conferences and so on. This is the nature of academic disputation and academic discourse. The audience in every case is made up of the pickiest people in the world, the most critical readers there are: other professors who would like nothing better than to show that you have made mistakes in your work which will make them look like geniuses. I’m exaggerating, but let’s say the audiences are far from gullible. It is their job really to
     pick each other’s work apart. That is how “science” advances, taking things apart and putting them back together in new ways.

239. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 5:28 pm

     “too cheap to pay for a copy”
     Now was that necessary?
     FYI: I paid almost $2,000 to place a rebuttal to a Carter (NY Times) Op Ed in the Plains, Georgia Sunday newspaper and almost $7,000 to rebut Sen. Mitchell’s Sharm el Shake report (in the Portland ME Sunday Newspaper).
     Since you are such an accomplished, expert, all knowing, all seeing cybernetic-acidemic hero, suppose I pay you $40.00 to forward me a copy of this alleged “official” admission of war crimes by the Israeli government???
     If you can, you will also gain the profound and imeasurable pleasure of a public appology from myself. (That has to be worth at least $50.00!)
     What say you ??

240. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 5:36 pm

     “You know not whereof you speak, again. Very hard to get anything into print in academic journals.”
     FYI:
     I was an assistant to a physics professor who got his paper on casio (21) gaming published in the prestegious Journal of Math (circa ~~1982). He ommitted my name from deserved mention and I can assure you his science was no Issac Newton. He chain-smoked pot, dropped LSD and initially learned most of what he knew of computer programming from me. I was unqualified to debate his math but his assumptions as to the maximum possible brain functions of the player was completely baseless and reflected his own grossly impaied cognition. Plus, he was a selfish pri*k.

241. John Baker Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 6:15 pm

     I’d be happy to pay for a copy myself and send you one too, but am currently unaffiliated and would have to impose on friends. You must have someone nearby you could ask.

242. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 7:22 pm

     “You must have someone nearby you could ask.”
     I know how to influence a municipal planning board and possibly fix a traffic ticket.
     The acidemia you refer to is beyong my skill-set.

243. John Baker Says:
     September 25th, 2007 at 7:40 pm

     OK I’m working on it. But I guarantee you I could not get a traffic ticket fixed.

244. John Baker Says:
     September 26th, 2007 at 4:50 pm

     got a P.O. Box or other non-personal address to send it to if I can get it?

245. Cornelius Trollstein Says:
     September 26th, 2007 at 7:52 pm

     John:
     Thank you and I do insist on paying.
     For web privacy, I will post a numb ad on craigs list and post the URL of the ad on this blog during the conversation which is occuring (at the time when you confirm that the document is available). Then, answer the ad by craigs relay email and we will be able to exchange email addresses and I will then email you the PO Box.
     OK? Sounds complicated but is 2 minutes on your side.

246. John Baker Says:
     September 26th, 2007 at 8:20 pm

     sounds fine though I’m not familiar with the process and may need some hand-holding. I may be able to get the article for postage only thru inter-library loan. stand by for updates as news breaks.

247. MuzzleWatch » “Israel’s Jewish Defamers.” CAMERA’s Ha’aretz/Progressive Jewish love-fest in NYC Says:
     October 3rd, 2007 at 5:59 pm

     […] If you’re in NYC, this will be a great opportunity to see chief CAMERA gadfly Andrea Levin go after Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper. Levin will have much to talk about. Besides providing often remarkable coverage of actual life under occupation, coverage that puts much American journalism to shame, their top Palestinian affairs writer Danny Rubinstein recently refused to back down from using the word “apartheid” at a UK gathering. And now, in this extraordinary Ha’aretz editorial today… The de facto separation is today more similar to political apartheid than an occupation regime because of its constancy. One side - determined by national, not geographic association - includes people who have the right to choose and the freedom to move, and a growing economy. On the other side are people closed behind the walls surrounding their community, who have no right to vote, lack freedom of movement, and have no chance to plan their future. […]

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