“The current Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.” —Sir Gerald Kaufman, Jewish member of British Parliament
Jewish protesters shut down Israeli consulate in Los Angeles in support of Gaza.
Qatar and Mauritania expel Israeli diplomats and cut all diplomatic ties over NAZI genocide in Gaza.
PictorIal: Germany 1940 = Israel 2009? You decide.
Demonic Nazis use 9 year old boy for target practice.
Reich-wing terrorist Hal Turner threatens to attack crowds at inauguration!
Clueless. Obama says Bush was “a nice guy.”
The Satanic Party: RNC Chair candidate Blackwell (the guy who helped Bush steal the ’04 election in Ohio) says
GOP must block economic recovery, to help Republicans’ chances in the next election.
America organizes going away tribute for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Jan 19 notes, thomasmc.com.
Apart from his comments condemning Israel’s military actions, Sir Gerald is a supporter of Israel, so, I hope you are not merely cherry-picking his anti-Israel comments to suit your own antipathy against Israel. As someone whose family was involved with the Nazis, Sir Gerald should be more circumspect about making such incendiary comments. The Nazis rounded up and murdered people based on their religion. Israel has expressed a desire for peaceful co-existence with the Palestinians in Gaza. Ironically, it is Hamas, which Israel is trying to wipe out, that has vowed genocide against the Jews. Indeed, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Grand Mufti Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, to which Hamas is related, was an allie of Hitler, and, his followers are keeping Hitler alive today. Hamas=Terrorism Hamas=Nazi
Worthy of reading to get a different point of view than that of Sir Gerald…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1105228/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-Yes-war-Gaza-terrible-But-alternative-worse–us.html
Israel is just NAZI Germany in slow motion.
Those who support Israel today, would have supported Hitler in the 30s.
“Israel is just NAZI Germany in slow motion”
Oh, my, someone didn’t take their medication. I see sinister references on this blog to Zionism, as if Zionism is some sort of diabolilcal movement that Jews are ashamed of. Zionism is a very proud philosophy that focuses on the beauty of a Jewish homeland. Gotta problem with that? Aren’t Palestinians clamoring for their own homeland? Maybe we should call it Palestinianism. How does Palestinianism differ from Zionism? Hmmm, well, one major difference is Israel celebrates multi-culturalism, including a sizable Arab population. Palestinianism advocates an Arab-only culture, with Jews strictly forbidden. Is that not racist? If Arabs are openly allowed to live in Israel, why can Jews not live in Gaza? Why no protests about the racist policies of Gaza? Nazi Germany’s dream was that of being Juden-free. So, as I see it, the Nazis and the Palestinians have far more in common than the Israelis and the Nazis.
Alicia,
Unfortunately, Zionism is twisted and distorted by those who have no understanding of history. To compensate for their lack of knowledge and radical political agenda, those individuals only peddle exaggerated anti-Israel hate with the hope that people won’t look beyond the epithets they hurl.
Maybe I’m hypersensitive, but, my antenna goes up when someone reveals their “anti-Zionist” sentiments. Experience has taught me that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism re-booted for 21st century political correctness. It’s not kosher being anti-Semitic in most civilized circles, but, you merely couch your sentiments as anti-Zionist and you’ll be invited back for dinner. How convenient. Martin Luther King, Jr. was hip to this way back then, when he said, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.” Word.
I agree with you, Alicia. I don’t believe anyone can characterize “anti-Zionism” any different. After all, if one denies the Jewish people their right of national expression, while allowing for Palestinian or German or any other nationalism, then that is a discriminatory stance against the Jewish people.
What’s so messed-up about this Zionism/racism/terrorism nonsense is it just detracts from the reality that Palestinians in Gaza are suffering miserable lives and are being denied their homeland NOT because of the Israelis, but, because of Hamas intransigence in refusing to live like civilized human beings with Israel. A good first step might be referring to Israel as Israel, not the “Zionist entity”. The other reality is that the Palestinians would do far better working with Israel than working with Hamas or even Fatah, or the Arab states, for that matter, who have done nothing to lift the Palestinians from their squalid lives. For God’s sake, how many other people have been living in refugee camps for over 60 freaking years? With their trillions of dollars in collective oil wealth, the Arab states have not seen fit to allow Palestinians to emigrate to their own lands? The Israelis rescued 40,000 of their own from freaking Ethiopia, but, Arab states cannot lift a finger to the Palestinians? Correction, they do lift a finger: the middle finger. If the Palestinians were smart, and I credit them for being smart, they’d want to work with the Israelis to help them build their homeland, use advanced Israeli technology and tap into important financial and construction resources. When people are prosperous and content, they soon forget about strapping bombs to themselves. The only color that matters is green.
‘With their trillions of dollars in collective oil wealth, the Arab states have not seen fit to allow Palestinians to emigrate to their own lands?’
Yes, Jewish Zionists and their Christian American backers want Muslim Palestinians to just be written off from their rights to their own lands and property stolen from them by he ‘Jewish State’. Then all would be so very nice, says this Zionist spammer.
There is little question that the plight of Palestinian refugees is real, but a combination of factors ranging from bad leadership (as defined by Yasser Arafat’s rejecting President Clinton’s bridging proposal of December 2000) and hardline Arab states using Palestinians as pawns in their conflict with Israel have perpetuated their plight.
“Lebanon provides the clearest example of a host state’s denial of rights, use of refugees as political pawns, and illegal discrimination. In Lebanon, many Palestinians are preoccupied with basic survival, overwhelmed by poor physical conditions in the refugee camps, pervasive poverty, high unemployment and underemployment, and inadequate medical services. Successive Lebanese governments have consistently opposed the permanent resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and state policies reflect this stance, denying virtually all social and economic rights. In addition, the state has prohibited the expansion of existing refugee camps, which contributes to overcrowding and illegal and unsafe building of additional stories on existing structures,” Human Rights Watch reported.
Typical of the refugee camps in which Lebanon’s Palestinian population is largely confined is the Burj al Shemali camp with a population of 19,000 residents. “Waste water runs through a trough in the alleys. Human waste is disposed of in pits beneath homes. Some of the alleys have grown so jumbled that waste-removal trucks cannot get through, and filled-up pits are becoming a problem, Mr. Joma said. Residents say the Lebanese Army, which has a checkpoint at the camp’s entrance, sometimes searches cars to make sure no unauthorized building materials enter, so the camp does not become more permanent,”the May 19, 2003 issue of The New York Times reported.
Any solution must address the core needs of both the Palestinian refugees and their descendants, as well as Israel’s core needs. Three steps would contribute to a humane solution:
1) All descendants of 1947-48 refugees who were born in various Arab states should be granted full citizenship, human rights, and equal opportunity in work and education in those Arab states in which they were born.
2) All refugees from all wars should have the opportunity to return to a new Palestinian state when it is created.
3) A fund should be established, even in the absence of a peace agreement, to replace refugee camps with permanent housing and provide investment in creating economic and educational opportunities for the refugees and their descendants.
You care about Palestinians? Then give them rights in a multi-ethnic country that consists of the lands stolen from them by the ‘Jewish State’. Give it up, ‘Don’. You write volumns of tripe.
Tony Logan,
My solution addresses the core needs of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants. They have a chance to move to what would become a Palestinian state, they gain access to permanent housing, and a chance to benefit from opportunity from economic development. At the same time, Israel’s need, namely its survival, is addressed.
On the other hand, your thinking treats Palestinian refugees as little more than pawns to be sacrificed in the name of undermining Israel. That hardline approach does the Palestinian refugees no favors. If anything, it prolongs the hardship they have been suffering as a result of years of bad leadership, repressive conditions in host Arab states, and the consequences of the acts of terrorist groups such as Hamas.
The reality is, any viable solution will need to meet the core needs of both parties. Expecting Israel to freely consent to its own demise is unrealistic and unjust. If peace is to be achieved through negotiations, both Israel and the Palestinians will need to make concessions.
There is nothing ‘hardline’ about saying that the Palestinians have the right to live in the territories they were born in as equal citizens with the Jewish population there. You quite simply are against that because then Israel would not be a ‘Jewish State’ of your racist dreams, but rather one that would treat its inhabitants without discrimination based on culture, religion, and ethnic background. There is nothing ‘hardline’ about advocating that Palestinians be allowed a Right to Return with compensation to the lands and property stolen from them by Jewish colonialists.
Don, you as an advocate of racial supremacy, grow quite boring, because all your ‘conversation’ is nothing more nor less than an effort to obfuscate who you really are. You are an Israeli spam gun.
When the Jewish leadership compromised and accepted the partition plan, the Jewish diaspora, in effect, limited their “right of return” to the ancestral homeland to the section that would become Israel. Palestinian refugees will have to do the same in limiting their return to the section of the region that will become a Palestinian state.
It is extreme to espouse a solution that would bring about the end of a sovereign state. That’s what your solution does.
All said, just as the Jewish diaspora compromised; so will the Palestinians have to compromise.
Finally, it is you who have demonstrated disregard for racism in trivializing Apartheid with your misleading allegations in another thread. Apartheid should be condemned. It should not trivialized.
“Yes, Jewish Zionists and their Christian American backers want Muslim Palestinians to just be written off from their rights to their own lands and property stolen from them by he ‘Jewish State’. Then all would be so very nice, says this Zionist spammer.”
Yeah, because, like it or not, Israel is a legal, sovereign
state–UN Res. 181. Deal with reality. Plus, the Jews have a historic connection with Palestine, as well. That’s why both the Jews and Arabs were presented with a Partition Plan. The Jews accepted and have built a brilliant society on their land. The Arabs have squandered the past 60 years wallowing in hatred and continue to live in refugee camps, while Israelis live normal, prosperous lives. That the Palestinians have been so neglected by their rich Arab brethren demonstrates a breathtaking lack of compassion.
“You care about Palestinians? Then give them rights in a multi-ethnic country that consists of the lands stolen from them by the ‘Jewish State’”
Insensitive though it might sound, the “lands” were never the Palestinians in the first place to have been “stolen” This is a blood libel against the state of Israel. Indeed, the term Palestinian at that time referred to Jews not Arabs. It was Arafat, an Egyptian, who coopted Palestinian in 1967 for political purposes to establish Palestinians as a separate sect. In reality, Palestinians are Arabs. There is no Palestinian language and no Palestinian language. There are no references to Palestinians in the Koran, the Old Testament or the New Testament. But, I digress. Palestine was never a legally established state, it was a region. For most of the preceding 1,000 years, or so, Palestine had been under the control of the Mamluks, the Turks and the British. You cannot have stolen from you that which was never your’s.
Alicia,
Your point about Jews having a historical connection to the region is correct. In its thorough examination of the situation in reaching the decision for partition, UNSCOP found:
The basic premise underlying the partition proposal is that the claims to Palestine of the Arabs and Jews, both possessing validity, are irreconcilable, and that among all of the solutions advanced, partition will provide the most realistic and practicable settlement, and is the most likely to afford a workable basis for meting in part the claims and national aspirations of both parties…
It is a fact that both of these peoples have their historic roots in Palestine…
The basic conflict in Palestine is a clash of two intense nationalisms…
Only by means of partition can these conflicting national aspirations find substantial expression and qualify both peoples to take their places as independent nations in the international community and in the United Nations.
In the end, it is Israel’s enemies who seek to deprive the Jewish people of their rights. A two-state solution would accommodate the needs and rights of both peoples. Yet, the rejectionist side only seeks Israel’s elimination, despite the Jewish people’s historical legitimacy in the region.
With respect to the fairly recent origins of a distinct Palestinian nationalist movement. The following is a summary:
Prior to the arrival of the British and the beginning of the British Mandate, the Arabs of Palestine consistently demanded to be united with Syria, and usually saw themselves as part of a single united Arab country. Palestinian identity began to crystallize during the British mandate and the Arab revolt of 1936, and more especially upon the UN declaration of partition in 1947. Two attempts were made to form a Palestinian state after partition of Palestine. Curiously, it seems that there was no movement after 1948 to establish a state, until Yasser Arafat assumed leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization after 1968. The Palestine Liberation Organization had been founded in 1964, but it was founded under the aegis of pan-Arabist Nasserite Egypt, and its goal was to “liberate” the country of Palestine originally, but not necessarily to establish an independent state there.
Source: Mideastweb.org
“There is nothing ‘hardline’ about saying that the Palestinians have the right to live in the territories they were born in as equal citizens with the Jewish population there”
Given that most of the “Palestinians” born in those territories are deceased by now, and given it would be nearly impossible to determine which individuals still living are from the territories, repatriation would be impractical if not impossible. Keep in mind that since the ’48 War, Arabs from all over the Middle East fled to Judea and Samaria. They and their offspring, numbering today in the millions, do not merit repatriation. Right of return is not an option, so let’s deal with the only realistic option, that of a Palestinian homeland in Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).
“Don, you as an advocate of racial supremacy, grow quite boring, because all your ‘conversation’ is nothing more nor less than an effort to obfuscate who you really are. You are an Israeli spam gun.”
Such self-indulgent ad hominem attacks do nothing to advance the discussion nor the lives of the Palestinians that we all would like to see improve.
Yawn… The ventriloquist and the dummy routine again. Zionist Internet Megaphone spam is just so nauseating. I can’t hardly imagine a whole society of this nonstop? Yuck!
Tony Logan,
Another evasion. Rather than reexamining your positions against the historic information that has been provided, you choose to divert attention from the substance of the arguments. That you do so is not surprising. When one lacks credible sources, one often tries to compensate with diversions, ad hominem attacks, etc.
Gaza desperately short of food after Israel destroys farmland- Officials warn of ‘destruction of all means of life’ after the three-week conflict leaves agriculture in the region in ruins
article at The Observer http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/01/gaza-food-crisis
Sounds like genocide in the making, ‘Don’?
Although combat led to the destruction of farmland, there is no indication that the destruction was deliberate and aimed at starving Gaza’s residents. In fact, Israel has been permitting humanitarian aid to flow into the Gaza Strip during and after Operation Cast Lead that Israel’s permitting such aid is prima facie evidence that Israel had no intent to starve Gaza’s residents.
“Gaza desperately short of food after Israel destroys farmland- Officials warn of ‘destruction of all means of life’ after the three-week conflict leaves agriculture in the region in ruins”
Mr. Logan, I posted a link to an article profiling a Palestinian family whose farm has been infiltrated by Hamas militants, destroying their farm and their lives. Does your heart go out to them, as well? I won’t hold my breath for a comment.
Dummy and Ventriloquist, once again. Poor old ‘Alicia’ and ‘Don’ s noses are growing longer and longer and longer…
I wish I got paid for replying to your trash. No chance of losing the job…
Tony Logan,
Instead of evading Alicia’s question, try answering it. Also, if you believe Israel deliberately destroyed Gazan farmland with the intent of starving Gaza’s residents, provide some credible evidence to support such claims.
The clown as lawyer routine, ‘Don’? We are not in a court of law where ‘intent’ might make some differencing in sentencing lotted out. If you think that anybody has to play games with you about the meaning of the word ‘Is’ then you are sorely mistaken.
Now I am going to ad hominum attack you by calling You, the Internet Megaphone, a Big Stupid Turkey! Hey, that’s not Thomas calling you a Nazi at least, now is it? But its so rude of me, no doubt and I just know that you as lawyer will take offense. Poor little, Israel.
(It’s getting late over there is it not?) That damn time difference…
Tony Logan,
Even as you ignore the role of intent, international law does not. For an act to constitute a crime against humanity or war crime, it must be deliberate or willful.
I can understand why you dismiss the importance of “intent,” as that detail destroys your blanket allegations of Israeli war crimes, etc.
Zionism is terrorism, meanwhile, back at the ranch, Hamas, classified as terrorists by the US, EU, Australia and Japan (Did I miss anyone), straps bombs on Palestinian children to blow up Israeli men, women, children and babies. Israel is committing “genocide” against the Palestinians, meanwhile, Israel repeatedly asks Gazans to live together in peace while Hamas openly preaches annihilation of “the Zionist entity” and Jews all over the world. It’s Bizaaro World!
Alice,
You wrote:
Given that most of the “Palestinians” born in those territories are deceased by now, and given it would be nearly impossible to determine which individuals still living are from the territories, repatriation would be impractical if not impossible. Keep in mind that since the ‘48 War, Arabs from all over the Middle East fled to Judea and Samaria. They and their offspring, numbering today in the millions, do not merit repatriation. Right of return is not an option, so let’s deal with the only realistic option, that of a Palestinian homeland in Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).
You have hit the proverbial nail on the head. When it comes to diplomacy and diplomatic solutions, those solutions need to accommodate the core needs of all parties, they need to be based on realistic assessments of what is possible, and, as Ruhl Bartlett, one of the 20th century’s leading authorities on diplomatic history advised, “sensitive to the public will” but not “servile to public delusions.”
The notion that Arab rights can be pursued at the exclusion of those of Israel and her people, that dogma can trump pragmatic compromise, and that the delusion of a “right to return” to Israel can be demanded even as such a development would reverse the original intent of the UN’s partition plan is only a path toward failure. That is exactly where Arab rejectionism has led. Not surprisingly, there is no Palestinian state today. In contrast, in countries where leaders put statesmanship ahead of dogma, mutually beneficial relations have been established with Israel. Today, Egypt and Jordan benefit from the vision and courage of Anwar Sadat’s and King Hussein’s choice to reach peace with Israel based on pragmatic considerations of the national interest and respect for Israel’s needs.
Typo. Sorry Alicia. I accidentally typed “Alice.” I apologize for the error.
**There is nothing ‘hardline’ about saying that the Palestinians have the right to live in the territories they were born in as equal citizens with the Jewish population there**
Funny how in the nearly 20-years during which Jordan “occupied” the West Bank and Egypt “occupied” Gaza, from ’49 to ’67 after which Israel took control (That’s right, Israel didn’t actually “steal” those territories from the Palestinians, Israel “stole” the land from Jordan and Egypt, he said sarcastically), you never heard a peep about Palestinian nationalism and the yearning for a homeland. Now, why is that, he asked rhetorically? Call me cynical, but, might it have something to do with the fact that Jews were in control of those territories and not Arabs? And, before Israel began its reconstitution, nobody REALLY wanted to live in Palestine, probably because it was a bloody desert broken up only by disease-infested swamps. Only after Israel transformed that cesspool into paradise do the so-called Palestinians and their acolytes have ths newfound drive to return to their “homeland”.
The Israeli military propaganda brigade spam machine always chooses names like Tom, Dick, and Harry for their internet Christian presence. Here, it is David, Alice, Mary, Don, Grace, and now Tom Cat!
Tony Logan,
Your conspiratorial name-calling does nothing to address the fundamental flaws of your arguments. They are exaggerated and they lack a factual basis.
Question for Mssrs. Tony Logan and Thomas Mc: I’ve read your sentments about Palestinians “returning” to their “homeland” and allegations of Israel dispossessing Palestinians of their land. So, my queston is: Were the Palestinians not offered a homeland as part of the UN Partition Plan of 1947?