It's a milchemet mitzvah, and we must all do our part. To be sure, it's impossible to change the minds of most people, but you never know who you might be influencing. And it's also important to boost morale among loyal Jews. One comment that I wrote on a nasty post by Shaun King received over a thousand "likes"!
In the course of these arguments, I've learned some interesting things, which have led me to develop new strategies. You have to realize that not all opponents of Israel are the same. Some are raging Islamists/ antisemites (with whom there is absolutely no chance of influence), and others are just people caught up in the zeitgeist. And so I think that we should try to tease these groups apart - firstly, to be able to ignore those with whom there is absolutely no chance of influence, and second, to use the first group's extremism as a way to wake up the others as to whom they are getting in bed with.
The former, spelling out clearly what they are justifying, is done by making comments such as this:
So, you're saying that because the Government of Israel committed various wrongdoings against Palestinians, it's legitimate for Hamas to fire rockets at men, women and children. Got it.
For the Islamists/ antisemites, the answer is yes, that's legitimate. But hopefully other people will see that there is something wrong here. (I saw one writer claim that "we can't morally judge people in the Palestinian's position"; yet he was perfectly happy to morally judge people in Israel's position!)
The other approach is to draw out clearly what they are really objecting to. Many people may initially express their grievance against Israel in terms of Sheikh Jarrah or Israeli "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians, but what they really object to is Israel's very existence. It's usually not difficult to get them to admit that. And so then there's the irony of them claiming that Israel is evil because it engages in ethnic cleansing, but they are saying that they want to ethnically cleanse Israel of Jews! I've been in threads where Western critics of Israel are claiming that the Palestinians just want to live in peace, but you can simply point out to them that in the very same thread there are countless Arabs saying that they want to drive the Jews out of Israel.
Thus, you can simply paraphrase your opponents' arguments as follows:
Short version: The Jews had no right to escape persecution and return to their ancient homeland, and so they are not allowed to defend themselves against rockets being fired at them.
Again, this is something that for hardcore Islamists and antisemites, the answer is, "Yes, exactly!" (because they deny that Jews ever lived in Israel). But hopefully other people will have pause to consider, especially in the face of Islamists showing their true colors. And even if they don't - even if I am being completely naive in thinking that we can affect anyone else - it's important for us to crystallize the real issues.
If you'd like to subscribe to this blog via email, use the form on the right of the page, or send me an email and I will add you.
Here is the truth: both the Israelis and Palestinians are right about different things.
ReplyDeleteThe Sheikh Jarrah evictions are as morally indefensible as Jewish doctors not treating Gentiles on shabbos. There is no 'mishum eiva' (the tikun olam of the Orthodox) greater than this. The policing at Shaar Shechem was needlessly provocative. What kind of preschooler casually chucks tear gas into Al Aqsa just before Eid on the basis of fairly minor provocations? Ben Gvir is beyond the pale and Netanyahu was grossly irresponsible playing with him. I have little sympathy for the facists in Israeli politics.
Also true: Hamas committed a war crime of aggression by starting a war they couldn't win over this issue. Who brings 500kg war head rockets to a skunk water fight? I have zero sympathy for the facists in Palestinian politics.
You aren't helping the state by engaging in bad faith hasbara. People smell refusal to engage with inconvenient truths.
There's also no point debating with enraged people. There is no point in exchanging simplistic memes and unfairly characterising your opponents in bad faith.
Many Israeli policemen are terrible people who just pop off tear gas or squirt sewage for no good reason. You are under no moral obligation to cover up the wrongs of the state and the military occupation. Aderaba: of you care about Jewish lives and Palestinian lives you should publicise these excesses so that they stop recurring.
What on earth are you saying? The police did not attack Al Aqsa. That is a lie propagated by Arabs to defend their attacks on innocent Israelis. And the police do not target Arabs nor harm them. They are not terrible people. I bet you like them when you want police around. How about you be the police and then come back to me and tell me what really happened. The police are regular people doing their job, trying to make a living. Every time police kill a terrorist Arab they face 20 years in jail. It's disgusting, What do you want? Defund the Israeli police!
DeleteAnd Bibi is not a facist government. Look, either Israel is a fascist state or Palestine is a fascist state. You cannot have both be facists. I vote for Palestine being a fascist state. Therefore, Israel is not a fascist state.
@ The Hat,
DeletePlease read this article, then see if your first paragraph makes sense. If you can't access it, then I can send you the entire text.
Almost Nothing You’ve Heard About Evictions in Jerusalem Is True
Neutral application of property law becomes an international incident because a landlord is a Jew.
By Avi Bell and Eugene Kontorovich
May 14, 2021 3:10 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/almost-nothing-youve-heard-about-evictions-in-jerusalem-is-true-11621019410?mod=trending_now_opn_pos4
I agree that one has to admit to faults if one is to cast blame. There are apologists on both sides who cannot see this at all.
DeleteI do wonder, though, at the hypocrisy of those who think Israel's response to Hamas is disproportionate, but have no problem at all with Hamas's response to a minor police action on the Temple Mount and a court case about a property dispute.
How perfectly disgusting.
Deletehttps://www.wsj.com/articles/almost-nothing-youve-heard-about-evictions-in-jerusalem-is-true-11621019410 ACJA
DeleteThe Sheikh Jarrah evictions are both morally and legally defensible. I respectfully suggest that you learn the facts of the case.
DeleteThey are certainly legally defensible according to israeli law, which was carefully designed for this (even though other israeli courts have issued different rulings in similar cases, see this link)
Deletehttp://www.hamoked.org/Document.aspx?dID=Documents1941
Morally though, and for as long as Israel refuses to also give back land they seized from palestinian refugees, there's no case for them.
And especially when it is evidently clear that Israel is trying to change the ratio Jews/Arabs in East Jerusalem (it looks like they aim for a 60/40 picture).
I don't think Netanyahu is a fascist, but it seems to me that The Hat was talking about Ben Gvir, wasn't he?
As an aside, this name עצמה יהודית embodies all I dislike in the nationalist camp. They've effectively managed to become just like our enemies, obsessed with brutal power, and in the name of the Torah! And then they will talk to you despisingly about the 'galuth mentality', about the 'sheep brought to slaughter'.
Israel's response is not necessarily disproportionate. They're under attack, they need to defend themseves, and they do it. But they are just as much responsible for the war, and this situation must end.
Was Hamas' response disproportionate? Yes, but we have to consider this also: what options do palestinians have to make Israel stop eventual abuses of power? and if the answer is none, can we wonder they resort to asymetrical strategies, terror war and internet propaganda?
Police officers in Israel are not necessarily terrible people, but military occupation of non-cooperating populations, naturally produces tensions, violence, and abuse. This too must end.
@Samuel D
DeleteI can't access the full article, but the opening paragraph is certainly not very convincing. Yes, it's a legal battle, but it's a legal battle contrived in a way that doesn't give the arab tenants a chance. For example, the law is that Jewish person can claim land owned before 1948, but arabs can't. The world looks at this like descrimination. I think this is what @The Hat is referring to.
I don't know what the solution is. As a religous Jew, I of course believe that the land should be populated by Jews alone, and we have much biblical support for this (lo t'chanem, ger toshav, etc.), however, as the @The Hat said, "Eiva" has certainly played it's role in modern Halachik decisions, overriding some biblical ideas.
@Shmuel tear gas in Al Aqsa https://news.sky.com/video/jerusalem-teargas-and-stun-grenades-inside-al-aqsa-mosque-12302587
DeleteIP brutality: I was personally threatened by an officer (not a regular policeman, someone more senior) with being beaten up in an Israeli Police van if he ever saw me going for a walk around the Old City again after I walked past a group who were having a barbeque (yep, having a barbeque) while in duty. Many will have similar experiences of police violence, illegality and corruption.
Itamar Ben Gvir is a racist and and extremist. So is Otzma Yehudit. And Netanyahu dragged them over the electoral threshold.
@Samuel D: a neutral land law would give millions of Palestinians a right of return as others have said in this thread. It's time to draw a line and stop the evictions.
@ablock
DeleteI'm not so much in the סוגיא right now. I'm probably going to make mistakes but I'll try giving ראשי פרקים since I oubt anyone else will.
לא תחנם-לא תתן להם חניה בקרקע according to many ראשונים this only applies to שבע עממין. Even for the others it doesn't mean you have to take their land whenever you can, just that you shouldn't give it to them. תוספות say that if the jews offer you less, you're allowed to sell. Rav Kook wrote about it regarding היתר מכירה. See also this piece by Rav Lichtenstein.
http://kolharav.blogspot.com/2010/12/rabbi-aharon-lichtensteins-response-to.html
For the idea of איבה and maintaining good relationship, there is precedent in the תנ''ך which describes שלמה המלך giving land to חירם with whom he allied.
According to most ראשונים any gentile who does not engage in עבודה זרה is just like a גר תושב for everything else than the מצוה of providing for him (להחיותו). This includes all types of muslims and some christians, and according to the מאירי all christians. However some modern authorities say that enemies of עם ישראל cannot be called גר תושב (I don't remember who).
@ The hat
DeleteYou are clearly falling for this media ploy. The article you sent a link to is from May 10. Classic anti-israel nonsense. "It all started when Israel fired back"
The rocks and fireworks against Israeli police started on May 8. Two days before your article about storming Al aksa.
We dont need trash like you spinning the events to make israel appear evil. We have enough. Go troll somewhere else.
And just for the record Sheik jara which is historically known as Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood (get your history straight!) is a civil dispute not a political one. No one would give a damn if it involved christians and muslims but since jews are involved well you know.
oh and one more thing Ben Gvir "extremism" and "racism" is peanuts compared to anyone from the palestinian authority, hamas, and much of the arab world.
Ive been fighting the battle by posting comments on Time of Israel but definitely not the same exposure as Facebook.
DeleteNo, Ari. The mistake I am making now is arguing with enraged people. It's futile and a waste of my time.
DeleteThe mistake you are making apart from being enraged is not reading my original post which referred to the disturbances you reference as 'fairly minor provocations'. If you need to throw gas into Al Aqsa on their erev Rosh Hashana you'd better have a really compelling need. Tens of teenagers standing outside the mosque throwing bricks and fireworks at similar numbers of police officers is not a compelling need to gas 200 worshippers, many of whom were not involved in the violence, and even if bricks and fireworks were stockpiled in Al Aqsa. You have to treat their mekomos hakedoshim with extreme sensitivity. If you need to remove stockpiled weapons, you do so in great numbers and without gas.
Additionally, you also arbitrarily chose when to begin your history. There is a back history to the Al Aqsa squalling, which was the police road blocks in Shaar Shechem / Nablus gate.
I forgot to add regarding Ben Gvir, Marzel, Lehava, and assorted other Kahanaist degenerates. I agree that Hamas are also degenerate racists.
DeleteI don't understand how Hamas' despicable evil negates that of, say, someone like Marzel or Ettinger. You take the view that two wrongs somehow make one right (surely it should make two rights? Which would make you a Hamas apologist?).
I take the view that most of us learned in nursery - two wrongs don't make any rights.
"Tens of teenagers standing outside the mosque throwing bricks and fireworks at similar numbers of police officers is not a compelling need to gas 200 worshippers, many of whom were not involved in the violence, and even if bricks and fireworks were stockpiled in Al Aqsa"
DeleteLol. If you want I'll come by and throw a couple bricks at you. See how fast your self-righteousness vanishes.
No Isaac, because my house is not the sacred centrepoint of the nationalistic and religious yearnings of most of the world's population. That makes a big difference about what is wise and what is preschooler levels of stupidity.
DeleteIt's interesting, but actually makes sense, that people like "The Hat" would present such a false and distorted view of reality, one that sides with Israel's enemies. Why would one expect more from anti-Zionists, even when we are war?
DeleteAnd I must admit, my feelings toward the Haredim in this time of national crisis and war have become much more negative in light of some of these comments. Side with the enemy. But they hate you just as much. And if Israel were not there to protect you, there would be no place for you either.
I ask this seriously: why NOT move back en masse to Poland, where at least the fur hats have a place in the winter? The Poles will love you as they always have.
why there will be no peace in israel:
Delete1a- violating shemita merits expulsion from the land
1-- hilonim eat chazir and arnevet " " "
2-- the citizens are not learning tora 24-7
3-- the State was created by Satan , as a nisayon. especially the products of the 67 war . the jews chose an'ism' instead of mashiach after 1945
al derech hateva , we could say that the land was not uninhabited and we threw out a million arabs in 48 .we are a state born in sin , and going back to europe / arabia as pure justice would demand would be sui-genocidal....
Teiku--- only Tishbi can solve this dilemma. nothing else prior to mashiach will work...
@ The Hat,
DeleteYou have NO idea what you are talking about. Most of the land that formed the State of Israel was purchased legally, at hugely exorbitant prices since it was mostly considered worthless to the sellers. But they took advantage of the Jewish buyers.
If Israel gained land in the 1948 War, it was LEGALLY justified in that it was a defensive war against 6 invading armies with full support of the local Arab populations. What do you think would have happened had the Arabs won that war? I'll answer since I cannot trust yours: it would have been a second Holocaust, within 3 years of the end of the one in Europe. And of course, just like the Holocaust in Europe, the Haredim would have said that it was a punishment from G-d.
Moreover, the vast majority of Arabs living in Israel at the time were immigrants from surrounding Arab countries, who came because of the vastly improved economy and living conditions that the Jews brought. They did NOT live here from "time immemorial" as their propaganda says.
Moreover, the occupying British policy was to declare any and all Arabs living in the British Mandate as "indigenous" after only TWO years of living there, whereas Jews were never designated so, even if they were lived there for many generations.
Your Haredi anti-Zionist outlook has distorted your thinking so much that you now lean over into the same lying, antisemitic arguments as our enemies. And even on this blog, where at least one would think all Jews would come together to face our common enemy, you take many of the positions of our enemies and divide us.
But of course the Haredi are above it all. They are never impacted by the inconvenient realities occurring in the real world. Just like so much of the Haredi leadership that used every means at their disposal to escape Europe during the Holocaust, including using help from Zionists, while their fellow Jews were trapped in Europe to their horrible fates. Then later proclaim that it was all a punishment from G-d.
I'm not Charedi. I have more rational beliefs about tora miSinai then all you so called rationalists who pride yourselves in your ability to exist in a society where you can tell the truth.
DeleteThe common thread is that... I abhor sectarianism. I apply the rules consistently. And I tell the truth.
The Sheikh Jarrah land used to be Jewish. In 1948 it was captured by the Jordanians. They settled some of the refugees of the forced expulsions from Ramla and Lod there. If you are going to give Jews back their land, the whole of Ramla, Lod, and Har Nof (formerly known as Deir Yassin) need to be handed back as well to avoid racial discrimination.
@lechatchila
DeleteAre you a Navi to tell us if there will be peace or not?
Our job is to do what is right in all situations. Which is not going back to wherever we came, as the UNO rightfully gave us the right to have a state here.
@Samuel D
I saw no one 'side with the enemy' here. No one said Hamas is right. Even if they did, accusing anyone of treachery shows more that you don't have sound arguments than it shows them wrong.
'The Hat' doesn't impress me as being chareidi. I am, if you want, and to be transparent, some type of (mostly) rationalist chareidi. So I can reassure you: chareidim nowadays are, in their vast majority, even more right-wing than you are, and they vastly approve all of Israel's actions against Gaza. You have nothing to fear from them on this subject.
'Most of the land that formed the State of Israel was purchased legally, at hugely exorbitant prices since it was mostly considered worthless to the sellers. But they took advantage of the Jewish buyers'. Lies, and bad formulation. Most of the land that formed the State of Israel still belonged to arabs in 1948, but Israel designed precise laws on 'absentee's possession, in order to strip them from those lands. I tend to think this was somewhat justified, given that at the same time Israel had to take in all the jews who got expulsed from Arab countries with nothing. But I understand that the palestinians don't like it, and at any rate it only gives the arabs in Sheikh Jarrah more legitimacy, since they too were allocated this residency because they got expelled from West Jerusalem.
If the arabs had won the war it would most certainly have been a second holocaust. That's why many chareidim fought in this war, sorry for your little storytelling. If it had tragically happened chareidim would have said it's a punishment of G.d indeed. But you know it's not true, and you also know why 6 million of our brethren had to die -not as a punishment from G.d- so please enlighten us with your profound wisdom.
'Moreover, the vast majority of Arabs living in Israel at the time were immigrants from surrounding Arab countries, who came because of the vastly improved economy and living conditions that the Jews brought. They did NOT live here from "time immemorial" as their propaganda says'. You seem to know quite a lot about propaganda. What a shame you can't see it when it's saying things you like. Alas, it's more lies and bullshit. The recensment made by the british in 1919 gives muslim and christian arabs as 90/100 of the total population. Moreover DNA studies suggest that palestinians are closer to both ashkenazi and sefardi jews (but especially ashkenazi) than any other arab speaking population, which means a lot of their ancestors were actually jews who converted to Islam, precisely from ''time immemorial''. This possibility was already perceived by some of the founding fathers of zionism, but they hastily rejected it when they understood it meant no need to have a separate state.
On the british policy I don't know, could be. What does it prove?
@Shmuel There's no evidnce of police using tear gas at the Al Aqsa. Otzma Yehudit is not racist.
DeleteThey're not racist, they just hate arabs.
DeleteI had a conversation two elections ago (the one they ended losing) with someone who wanted to make me vote for them. I let him say his whole saling lines about how we need to be more ferm, and kill all of the terrorist's families and so on... then I told him calmly I would prefer to live in Gaza than under a fascist regime of my own brothers. Boy, did he not like it!
Some small corrections to the history given above.
DeletePer Wikipedia it was actually the British who evicted Jews from Sheikh Jarrah pre independence.
Secondly, the Jordanians settled refugees from Haifa rather than Ramla and Lod.
Sorry, I meant, @HAt, There's no evidnce of police using tear gas at the Al Aqsa. Otzma Yehudit is not racist.
Delete@Hat, The Jews were sold the land from the Ottoman Turks. Legally, it was Jewish land.
DeleteYou say "If you are going to give Jews back their land, the whole of Ramla, Lod, and Har Nof (formerly known as Deir Yassin) need to be handed back as well to avoid racial discrimination"
DeleteYou seem to be confusing individual legal ownership with sovereignty and forgetting what happened to the aggressors of ww2.
it would be nice if you had a couple more of these short rebuttals, for us non-writers.
ReplyDeleteSo there's a different approach to dealing with all the irrational hatred out there?
ReplyDeleteThe people who hate Israel...
The people who are just caught up in the anti-Israel zeitgeist...
The people who hate haredim....
The people who are just caught up in the anti-haredi zeitgeist...
The people who hate Trump...
The people who are just caught up in the anti-Trump zeitgeist...
Good points.
DeleteThere's an "anti-haredi zeitgeist"?
DeleteThis is a false dichotomy you're trying to set up.
DeleteIt is very clear that there are actually anti-Semitic "son'ei yisrael" out there who believe that Israel and the Jewish people should be wiped out, and equally clear that there is a different category of ignorant Americans/westerners who say "why can't they all just get along" and blame "big bad Israel" for beating up on the poor, "oppressed" Palestinians...
Well, this is progress. I think it is more fitting for you to become an important personage and commenter on Facebook rather than pretending to be a Talmid Chacham with the credentials and expertise to pontificate on the creation of the unoverse and the nature of Divine Providence.
ReplyDeleteDid you read his new book?
DeleteI read the new book. All the more reason to agree that Walter (as he often does) has hit the nail on the head.
DeleteAs for the current post: great work. Although the sentence "It's a milchemet mitzvah and we must all do our part" seems to have been needlessly added to garner some comments by making the post that bit provocative. (Yes I know protecting Jews is a Mitzva, regardless though "Milchems Mitzva" usually carries with it a connotation I suspect was not overlooked by the author).
milchemet mitzva means it is to be solved by learning torah
DeleteThank you for this helpful information. On one of your facebook post, I am dealing with such an Islamist/antisemite now. It is very hard to put any sense in them. They either deny everything or don't speak English. It's very frustrating. They lie about everything. I do it for others to point out his hypocrisy and side with Israel.
ReplyDeleteIt is important for us to crystallize the real issues.
ReplyDeleteBut I have news for you. Anti Semitism is thousands of years old. At a certain point you need to take a step back and say, clearly there is more to this than "hasbarah" because basic logic doesn't work.
Despite the obvious logic, they will hate and they will kill. It happened in Germany and it happened a thousand times before and after.
If you believe in Torah so you look there for answers. Open a sefer Yehoshua. Open a sefer shoftim. Open other books from Tanach.
Tanach doesn't beat around the bush. The Jewish nation had standing armies and they fought with bravery and might and cunning.
But you can't pick and choose which parts of Tanach you like, which sadly some people do. They overlook admonitions and focus on Jewish bravery and nothing else.
Fact: Hashem placed the enemies to a) test them to see if they will remain loyal and not stray after other gods and ways, and b) as a punishing rod from Hashem when Israel sins.
Just like we see so clearly how the Palestinians and those who side with them don't get basic logical issues, so is it clear that many Jews who don't take Torah seriously, don't see the spiritually obvious.
Of course the response is, are you G-d? You have no way to know etc. But the truth is that you can't just ignore what's openly stated and constantly repeated.
Fact: There won't ever be peace in the middle east no matter what. It's anti Semitic and all your logic will get nowhere because there is more to anti semitisim than plain logic.
Rationilism is great but not as a method of throwing away certain Torah facts. Hashem sent anti Semitism and all the logic in the world will fail unless we attempt to assimilate the Torah attitudes with our outlook and live in accordance with His will as much as possible.
If that happened, the wars would stop. Yes there is so much good in the Holy Land, but clearly Hashem wants more.
If you don't believe these basic concepts, that means you don't believe Tanach is real and relevant.
It also means risking alienating ones self from the Jewish people and its glorious destiny.
Wait, what? There won't be peace ever no matter what? What Tanach are you reading? Mine says that G-d has a plan and that plan includes us coming back to our land and living here in peace. Yes there are prerequisites and there's work to be done, but what is this never ever no peace thing?
DeleteWait, what? There won't be peace ever no matter what? What Tanach are you reading? Mine says that G-d has a plan and that plan includes us coming back to our land and living here in peace. Yes there are prerequisites and there's work to be done, but what is this never ever no peace thing?
DeleteWait, what? There won't be peace ever no matter what? What Tanach are you reading? Mine says that G-d has a plan and that plan includes us coming back to our land and living here in peace. Yes there are prerequisites and there's work to be done, but what is this never ever no peace thing?
Delete'Fact: There won't ever be peace in the middle east no matter what. It's anti Semitic and all your logic will get nowhere because there is more to anti semitisim than plain logic'.
DeleteThis line of reasoning is typically why many religious jews don't want peace.
But you're wrong. Maybe G.d wants us to do teshuva et al., but for sure he wants us to be 'a beacon unto the nations' and 'pursuers of peace'. Therefore even if peace really was unattainable we would be obligated to try and reach it. But the truth is it could be attained if we all really wanted it.
You forget one crucial point. The Torah also talks about free will. For all you know, G-d is not involved with the rockets and Hamas is using their free will to kill Jews.
Delete@Shmuel
DeleteFun Fact: Free will is not something that was extended to the Goyim.
@Ruvi,
DeleteSo in your view, Hitler was not evil? He was just following his programming and had no choice at all?
And when חז’’ל explain why מצרים was punished for fulfilling the prophecy to אברהם, they were just engaging in mental masturbation because it was actually completely unjust and השם is a רשע?
Looks like intelligence wasn't extended to everyone.
DeleteRuvi, do you have a mareh makom for that claim?
DeleteRuvi: there is a massive distinction the Gemara has between Nevuchadnetzar and Titus, each destroyers of a Beis HaMikdash. The former was a tool of the Almighty while the latter was an evil sinner. Sure, the psychological reason for this might be that they were living through the Roman Era, but the lesson about non-Jewish free will seems to be clear: sometimes there are people who are pawns of Hashem, but sometimes there are just bad people.
DeleteSimilarly, the question raised about punishing the Mitzrim - weren't they just fulfilling Hashem's Will, the plan from BBB? Well, yes, says the answer (apologies for lack of source), but they didn't have to be so enthusiastic about the oppression. THAT is what merited them the Makkos and the dying in the sea.
Kira: No need to repost the same thing three times.
DeleteYes Hashem has a plan for us. One day there will be perfect peace as openly reiterated in Tanach.
But that requires prerequisites as you stated. What I was saying, and is obvious, is that so long as the necessary teshuva is lacking, lasting peace won't happen.
And don't start with the "light unto the nations". Certainly the prophet states we should be that, but when leaders ignore the Torah they aren't being lights simply by dint of attempting peace. Their fools.
All the so called intelligencia that pontificate about anti semitism will never understand it unless they embrace the Torah.
Tanach is clear. Without returning to Hashem, peace won't happen. It will be the same thing over and over again
Ruvi - Source please. Goyim have free will.
DeleteI gave up long ago trying to fight the PR online. We are vastly outnumbered by Muslims and leftists. It's a depressing, lonely battle that ultimately yields very little reward. Very few people ar genuinely likely to change their vehement opinion from the other end of the sepctrum because they were impressed by how articulate you were.
ReplyDeleteThis does not mean to give in and allow the Arabs to steal our land.
DeleteYou forgot to mention many Jews and many OTD are Woke,Leftists, Socialists, communists and are extremely anti Israel and even antisemetic. But not all skeptics and atheists are pro Woke, or anti Israel or antisemetic, for example ACJA. ACJA
DeleteACJA - Most atheists are Leftist but it is nice to see one who is not pro woke, anti-Israel, etc.
DeleteVery interesting. This strategy is a lot more clever than simply defending in block whatever Israel does, which is bound to utter failure.
ReplyDeleteThis guy from the other side of the fence (or at least purporting to be) talks such sense.
ReplyDeletehttps://mobile.twitter.com/gaza_report
He saw the blood letting coming, he called it out as politicised madness, and he hopes for better. Give peace with Palestinians such as these a chance.
Also this guy is a real mensch
Deletehttps://mobile.twitter.com/kann_news/status/1393883861197762560
Thank you for all you are doing. Have been thinking deeply about this and hope to connect at some point. In the meantime one thing occurred to me:
ReplyDeletePeople want to be on the "popular" side. There's deep lack of morale right now among some Jews because the (apparently) ascendant hard left is growing more brazenly anti-Israel, as are their protesters in the streets etc.
To combat this I think it is important to highlight in every way we possibly can not only where Israel is right but also where it is winning the "PR campaign" too. Perhaps nothing on that score more important than this: There are a tidal waves of *Arab countries* now making peace with Israel and siding with Israel. There are European countries raising our flags in their capitals. The overwhelming majority of US lawmakers and the public unequivocally support Israel. The message must be that the tide is turning and that Israel is increasingly winning friends and only growing stronger - no different than candidates for office insisting that the momentum etc. is on their side. It's half the battle. We need to be making that case strongly.
The other major thing is that I think we need to be focusing far more on volume than on depth – and, to that end, the model should be far more one where the average person is contributing by sharing/re-sharing graphic content prepared by others, rather than every person feeling the responsibility to create their own expository content/replies.
ReplyDeleteThere’s two key problems this solves:
(1) Increasing ROI for the Content That is Shared
Written posts/comments have such little ROI relative to memes/pictures/videos (I really strongly support your work in this area for that reason).
Long expository posts/comments rarely get the same level of attention/get shared as often. Memes/videos/pictures can get shared dozens of times – especially if we educate towards that model – and they build traction that way.
(2) Barriers to Entry for People Who Want to Help But Feel They Can’t/Don’t Have the Time Etc.
People feel exhausted coming up with their own things. They don’t know where to begin. But they shouldn’t have to.
I’d like to see a model where the average person who feels like they want to contribute but doesn’t have the time/capacity knows that there are central addresses they can go to (your page, for example) in order to find ready-made memes/videos/etc. that requires from them nothing more than pressing “share.” It’s literally just as effective – probably more effective, because of the network effects/algorithm/force of repetition/time saved etc.—than people coming up with their own thing. (It also places more distance between the content and the sharer, so any fear of blowback etc. is diminished).
We desperately need to enlist the many, many, many people who sympathize with Israel but don’t know where to begin. If they knew all they needed to do was share a couple of memes/videos each day and that together we’d be blitzing SM in a more efficient way to push back on the false narratives, it could be extremely moralizing/energizing, I think
@Anonymous, Great ideas.
DeleteOne more thing: must always, always, always be on offensive - and fight tooth-and-nail for the language/terminology they're trying to co-opt.
ReplyDeleteToo many posts are defending Israel from charges of genocide, etc. Don't accept the defensive posture! Hamas et. al. are the ones committing genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, colonialism etc - so just say that! (And assert Israel's historical/moral/political rights on its own terms - not in the rhetorical form of a defense).
I don't think there is any point fighting the PR as virtually everyone in the world has unconscious bias on this matter. As always the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. The police in Israel are violent against Haredim and ethiopians etc and probably more so against arabs.
ReplyDeleteI always wondered that last point - aren't police more delicate with Arabs so as to not make an Incident? (Whether or not one agrees with your statement about being biased against the Chareidim. Although I would expect a certain measure of kid gloves there as well due to political blowback.)
DeleteI read a news story today about how the police tried to several times to arrest somebody putting up illegal pashkevils in Meah She'arim, but every time they tried, they stopped because they realized there were other people around, and it would start a conflict.
Delete@Yosef R
DeleteOne just has to look at the records of convictions at Machash to see how violent police are against charedim. Some of the convictions are against innocent charedi children. I would also encourage you to look on youtube for police brutality against charedim.
@ablock
One news story is not exactly evidence as the police were probably outnumbered there.
If you want a flavour from the head of Jerusalem police check this out :
https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/Hk7JCWopD
As a self identified rationalist, this is where rationalism sells us short. The hatred and obsession over Israel really defies human understanding as does our persistence and inability to disappear.
ReplyDeleteIf we accept that god brought us to this point, cant we also believe he'll take us onward?
True, we need an actual army. But some fights are left to god. Sometimes even rationalism must throw in the towel.
I don't understand what is so inexplicable. Palestinians are upset at being displaced, and discriminated against (reasonable) and defeated (understandable but not necessarily reasonable). Israelis are upset at being shot at.
DeleteI have seen grown middle aged men in a shul end up in a public fist fight in front of children over whether a window should be open or shut. By contrast the Israel / Palestine conflict makes perfect sense.
@The Hat:
DeleteBut I thought that the Oslo Accords were supposed to be a step in addressing the Palestinians' valid right to autonomy/statehood. Hamas was committing suicide bombings then on the pretext that they're opposed to any agreement with the Zionist entity.
And where exactly did the Oslo Accords go wrong? Did Rabin and Peres really envision a situation where Israel would get 20,000 rockets shot at them from the Palestinian autonomous areas? If they did, and still went ahead with Oslo anyway, well, that wasn't exactly very prudent.
I remember Rabin and Peres' rationalizations very well, in envisioning "a New Middle East": they said that, as the economic situation of the Palestinians would improve, fewer and fewer would be attracted to join terror groups.
In any event, the West Bank Palestinians should have more grievances, since there are settlements encroaching on their land. On the other hand, Israel left the Gaza Strip in its entirety, and the Palestinians in Gaza should seemingly have no territorial claims against Israel. Nonetheless, the rockets are emanating from Gaza, not the West Bank.
DeleteCan I start by making an observation that Rabbi Dr Slifkin makes about looking for abstract metaphysical causes when the real ones are very obvious is often a form of displacement activity, to distract from what practically needs to be done.
Fundamentally, Israel and Palestine are fighting for control of territory. That's it. There's nothing more basic, more understandable then that. It's the same fight my children have over who gets to play with the fire engine.
Whether that dispute can ever be resolved amicably is a separate point. I can understand your scepticism. I would point out is that the current status quo is not sweetness and light for Israel at the moment, and it is not going to improve with time. Is the risk of a future West Bank rocket so qualitatively different, so utterly unacceptable, compared to a Gazan rocket which you endure now? So why not give peace a chance as soon as you have built up and supported a credible Palestinian peace camp.
Of course Rabin and Peres didn't envisage this utter morass. They would not have tolerated it. They would have intervened sharply and overwhelmingly into the short war in which terrorists defeated the Palestinian government and took over the Gaza strip.
You're right, the West Bankers have the legitimate grievances, and the terrorists of Gazan are the authors of all their own problems. The WBs have no real power; the Gazans do. Unfortunately it is not in our gift to prevent one bloc feeling solidarity with the other.
@The Hat:
DeleteOn the Hebrew version of Quora, someone had a very penetrating insight, that Hamas' rocket fire was also intended to "torpedo" the possibility of Mansour Abbas being included into any future Israeli coalition--something which could achieve many more positive developments for the Arab community in Israel, and for West Bank Palestinians. But reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority has far too many risks involved at this point.
There is no need to wait to have a 'credible palestinian peace camp' to end once and for all all construction in settlements and evictions, or to give Arabs construction permits in East Jerusalem and other places under israeli jurisdiction. We only need the peace camp in order to relinquish power and jurisdiction. So there is no need to fear from rockets in the West Bank anytime soon.
DeleteYes there are lessons to be learnt from Oslo and Gush Katif. It makes no sense to disengage unilaterally. The transition has to be thought over and carefully managed.
Once peace is the goal, it will take the time it needs.
I've always wondered why Israelis seem to think that if Jerusalem is the capital city of Israel, it can't be of Palestine too.
Ah, and singing hatred motivated songs, such as חברון שלי or זוכני נא should be forbidden.
Yehuda P - I doubt it.
Delete(a) Israeli politics are of secondary interest to Palestinian politicians. Hamas clearly had their own electorate to appeal to with the latest despicable round of violence. They want to depict themselves as the defenders of Jerusalem and the legitimate rulers of the West Bank.
(b) the outcome that the coalition fell apart or may have fallen apart was not one which would be predictable from the outset. It really was Mr Bennet's personal choice.
(c) I think you are missing the wood for the trees. Jews have been fighting Arabs for the past 130 years in that region. The particular nuances of this battle and that battle aside, the underlying conflict is about land.
@The Hat
DeleteA different paradigm might explain the facts we have better. Israel is fighting to maintain a sovereign corner within the ancient Jewish homeland. Palestine is fighting to reinstate the Pact of Umar which prohibits any form of dignity in Dar-al-Islam, let alone sovereignty on any parcel. Instead of arguing over which paradigm, the one I just presented or that Palestine's objective is just a mirror of Israel's, is more accurate, I'll ask what behaviors would you expect under each paradigm? Which set of behaviors most closely describes the Palestinians' actual behavior?
As to the risks of rockets from the Jordanian conquest vs. from Gaza, would you rather be in Ashkelon or in Petach Tikva while the rockets are flying from Gaza? Turning the Jordanian conquest into another Gaza would make Petach Tikva and the rest of the coastal plain like Ashkelon is now.
Oslo was pushed through by willful blindness, including by many like myself, as to what the PLO wanted. The warning signs were there that rather than ending claims once and for all, the PLO wanted to gain a foothold for a stronger position to launch a war to complete the eradication of Israel. Such signs include talk of the phased plan, justification to Muslim audiences by the Treaty of Hudaybiya, and internal talk about using the agreement as a trojan horse. Since Oslo went into effect, the entire Palestinian media and education system has been about biding time until ready to eliminate Israel.
Sat Shalom, with respect, that kind of civillisational grad plan abstraction serves only one purpose which is to deflect from the land issue. If you live in England and hear hooves, think horse, not zebra.
DeleteRight, it is a Milchemet (milchemes according to traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation) Mitzva, and everyone is obligated to participate.
ReplyDeleteSo those people who dress up in fatigues and enjoy the action, are slackers for not sitting in front of a keyboard and typing up answers to anti-semites on the internet. Bunch of lazy loafers those guys. There is only one way to care about other Jews, and that is through Facebook.
/s
"Still, I do feel that all of us (if we are not in the IDF) have an obligation to spend time doing this"
DeleteI was looking for a credible source that shows how many Palestinians are now being killed by their own rockets. I saw somewhere that 17% of casualties are their own rockets landing on them, but I can't find a source for it.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dci-palestine.org/nine_children_killed_in_gaza_strip_as_violence_escalates
DeleteAny chance you can update the table - statistics from 1970 to 1991 don't seem very relevant to 2021!
ReplyDeleteGet an SSL certificate on your site. It's not encrypted so people could potentially see what pages others are looking at when they visit this site. Attackers could also change the data in transit and attack visitors to the site. It's not difficult to do and there is lots of information on how to do this online.
ReplyDeleteTo talking through your hat
ReplyDeletehttps://www.camera.org/article/sheikh-jarrah-the-facts/
Those registered owners are eligible to file for compensation from the Custodian, but Palestinians were pressured not to make claims, lest that legitimize Israel’s existence and sovereignty.
Listen to the Syrian
https://twitter.com/i/status/1393341642426486785
They would rather have their house and not have the compensation. Reasonable, no?
DeleteIt is not reasonable for Israelis to be made homeless to accommodate their enemies.
DeleteNobody is making Israelis homeless, and enemy is not a term which can be applied to unarmed civilians, apparently purely on the basis of their racial origins. The only people being threatened with homelessness are not Jewish.
DeleteYou say "and enemy is not a term which can be applied to unarmed civilians, apparently purely on the basis of their racial origins. "
DeleteNasser said the right of return is a means for the destruction of Israel. If the Palestinians insist on the right of return, they are then advocating to be the role of the enemy
Israel going far beyond international standards, when it comes to compensating the belligerents, which is what drives the anti-zionists mad.
ReplyDelete...........................
https://www.camera.org/article/backgrounder-the-palestinian-claim-to-a-right-of-return/
Arabs who lost property in Israel are eligible to file for compensation from Israel’s Custodian of Absentee Property. As of the end of 1993, a total of 14,692 claims had been filed, claims had been settled with respect to more than 200,000 dunums of land, more than 10,000,000 NIS (New Israeli Sheckels) had been paid in compensation, and more than 54,000 dunums of replacement land had been given in compensation. Israel has followed this generous policy despite the fact that not a single penny of compensation has ever been paid to any of the more than 500,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, who were forced by the Arab governments to abandon their homes, businesses and savings.
1) The Palestinians who were displaced did not displace Jews, in, say Iraq.
Delete2) Two wrongs alas do not make any rights.
3) 14,692 claims have been filled. How many have been paid out?
4) Several hundred thousand Palestinians were forcibly displaced. Why were only 14,692 claims filed?
Sorry this is also bunk albeit far better. Here you can read the law and you'll see it only applies to residents of Israel, and only between 1973 and 1976.
DeleteWhy were 14,692 claims filed? Same reason Arabs voted against Un 194 giving them the right of return. They considered it would be an implicit recognition of Israel.
DeleteSorry apparently I forgot to put the link: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/absentees-property-compensation-law-1973
DeleteNot many arabs expulsed from Israel in 1948 were citizens of Israel in 1973. 14,692 is actually a pretty big figure, sorry.
As far as I can tell the more obvious explanation is that under the absentee property law those displaced forcibly in 1948 have no entitlement to compensation - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_land_and_property_laws#The_'Absentees_Property_Law'
DeleteBut no amount of facts and common sense will ever convince an enraged partisan. I'm wasting my time here.
Jew Well:
DeleteYears ago, my father was told to file a claim with an obscure US government agency. Turns out, the US took some substantial Czechoslovakian assets during WWII as enemy assets, and is in process of returning it to CZ. Meanwhile, US citizens with assets in CZ during WWII can get reimbursed.
Never heard from there for a few years, I later find out have to have been a US when CZ government nationalized the asset, during WWII when he was in munkotabu work camp in Hungary.
Meaning, it doesn't work out for (non) US citizens, it doesn't work out for (non) Israeli citizen.
@MiMedinat HaYam
DeleteHardly relevant, but very interesting.
Dr Slifkin
ReplyDeleteWhich sites do you post at, so that we can learn
Hi, you don't have to include this post, but is there any way you can take off the picture from the prior post with the bodies in Meron? It is so painful for me to look at, I can't come to this site anymore if I have to see that picture. thank you
ReplyDeleteI don't have much graphics ability, but I have some ideas of graphics that would my a point about the difference between Israel and Hamas as you suggest doing. One is panels showing what Israel and Hamas have to do to keep their citizens safe in their homes. For Israel, that would be Iron Dome (at whatever the cost is per interceptor), bomb sirens at 3 AM, and bomb shelters. For Hamas, it's keeping military assets (hardware and command facilities) away from civilian infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteAlso regarding " 1) Two wrongs alas do not make any rights."
ReplyDeleteThere is international precedent for aggressors losing property after losing wars they instigated.
So there is only one wrong here, done to the Jews who lost property from the Arabs.
regarding "4) Several hundred thousand Palestinians were forcibly displaced."
The vast majority were not forcibly displaced. The Palestinians fled the war they instigated hoping to come back after the Jews were wiped out.
In addition the Palestinians have not shown one shred of remorse for their attempted genocide of the Jews. Even trying for a second attempt when they voted in the genocidal Hamas.
It is counter productive to invite their would be killers into Israel proper for a third attempt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered_Territories#Legal_status_of_the_territories
i) The aggressors in the 1948 war were Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. I'm struggling to see either pre 1948 Palestinian Arabs or Palestinian Jews as aggressors for simply existing in their homes.
DeleteAs an aside, the notion of territorial conquest is rather frowned upon in civilised countries these days. I accept it has long historical precedent.
ii) Could you quote some serious historical sources showing you have done even minimal research into the prevalence of the forcible displacement of Arabs in 1948?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_1948_Palestinian_exodus
The notion that someone would "flee the war they instigated" fails the common sense test, as fleeing is hardly instigating war. Most people, I am sure, would want to preserve their home and property where it was safe to do so.
iii) I agree with you that a law of return would be counterproductive to the interests of peace and prosperity. It is time, I suggested, to draw a line. We will not be returning Har Nof to the agricultural village of Deir Yassin. And we will not be returning in Sheikh Jarrah to an isolated indefensible group of Jewish houses.
As to requiring shreds of remorse, I think you ask too much. I don't think the Palestinians are entitled to discriminate against you as a Jew because you don't show a shred of remorse for Deir Yassin, for the rape of Arab women in Ramla, or for the massacres committed by Jews in 1948 against Arabs. Nobody is asking you to like the Arabs, or for them to like you. There need no be a great moment of catharsis. All that is required is that an end to the violence.
iv) I am gravely concerned by the Palestinians voting for Hamas. Likud is not the same as Hamas, but the Kahanists are, and Likud allies with them. There is obviously no prospect of peace between the parties so long as extremists are so popular.
v) I don't doubt that the 95% of the occupation is legal under Israeli law . I also don't doubt that it is a discriminatory, oppressive and fundamentally irredeemably immoral enterprise which should end as soon as at all practicable.
Exactly
DeleteI will reply in 2 parts.
DeletePart 1
(1)You say "The aggressors in the 1948 war were Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. I'm struggling to see either pre 1948 Palestinian Arabs or Palestinian Jews as aggressors for simply existing in their homes."
The Palestinians did not just stay in their homes. According to Benny Morris.
"In defiance of the will of the international community, as embodied in the UN General Assembly Resolution of November 29th, 1947 (No. 181), they launched hostilities against the Jewish community in Palestine in the hope of aborting the emergence of the Jewish state and perhaps destroying that community. But they lost; and one of the results was the displacement of 700,000 of them from their homes."
(2)
You say "As an aside, the notion of territorial conquest is rather frowned upon in civilised countries these days. I accept it has long historical precedent."
In '67 territorial conquest was considered legal by many although not all authorities. What ever is frowned upon today, international law does not work retrospectively.
(3)
You say "Most people, I am sure, would want to preserve their home and property where it was safe to do so. "
Correct. except in the 48 war it was not safe to do so and so the vast majority of arabs fled because it was not safe.(there were some who were expelled) Had the Arabs not launched a ( genocidal) war against the Jews none would have fled. Talk about an own goal.
Abbas in '76.
https://www.israellycool.com/2019/01/30/watch-mahmoud-abbas-admitting-palestinian-arabs-for-most-part-were-not-expelled-but-fled/
“The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.”
(4)You say "I agree with you that a law of return would be counterproductive to the interests of peace and prosperity."
Before you said "They would rather have their house and not have the compensation. Reasonable, no?"
part 2
Delete(5)you say"As to requiring shreds of remorse, I think you ask too much. I don't think the Palestinians are entitled to discriminate against you as a Jew because you don't show a shred of remorse for Deir Yassin, for the rape of Arab women in Ramla, or for the massacres committed by Jews in 1948 against Arabs. Nobody is asking you to like the Arabs, or for them to like you. There need no be a great moment of catharsis. All that is required is that an end to the violence."
Israel has no problem in condemning the targeting of Arab innocents. The Palestinians do have a problem in condemning their war of aggression in '48.
Why is this important? Quite simple. If the Palestinians consider their attack moral but a tactical failure due to military weakness, once they have a state they will use all their energies to build up their strength to have a second attempt to destroy what they see as the gangster illegitimate state of Israel, so there needs to be a cultural change from the Palestinians, before there can be even talk of a state.
I see little sign of this happening.
(6) you say "(iv) I am gravely concerned by the Palestinians voting for Hamas. Likud is not the same as Hamas, but the Kahanists are, and Likud allies with them. "
(a)Ben-gvir is racist and a Kahana admirer but he has distanced himself from Kahana's policies of mass expulsion and has certainly not called for the genocide of the Palestinians so cannot be equated with Hamas.
(b)If you are willing to condemn Likud allying with kahanist parties are you will to comdemn Abbas allying with hamas. ?
If I can make a general point, you still seem to struggle with the notion that the Palestinians were homogenous. They were not. Some were fighters; many were farmers. Some allied with Israel.
Delete-
I've responded below to the detailed historical points.
-
You may be aware that Baruch Marzel held a celebratory dinner in honour of Yitzchak Goldstein. He is a founding member of Otzma Yehudit. Otzma Yehudit are therefore glorifiers of terrorists. Otzma supporters fight with the army, and murder babies in their beds. Like Hamas who changed their racist charter 2 years ago, they think that a bit of Hasbara will help. The Hasbara is the ring in the nose of pigs.
-
I'm quite happy to condemn both Abbas for many things including allying with Hamas when not fighting with them. Without drawing a strict moral equivalence, I feel quite a similar criticism could be fairly made out against Netanyahu.
You say
Delete"If I can make a general point, you still seem to struggle with the notion that the Palestinians were homogenous. They were not. Some were fighters; many were farmers. Some allied with Israel. "
You could say the same thing about the Germans in ww2. The fact is that Germany is still responsible for the holocaust despite the fact that not all Germans supported the holocaust. You start a war then your people suffer the consequences.
So a founding member of Otzma Yehudit is a glorifier of of a terrorist. He no longer has a leadership position so cannot be equated with Otzma Yehudit. I am of course not condoning their racism.
DeleteAbbas is also a glorifier of terrorists.
Churchill no doubt also said some racist things about the Germans in ww2. I hope you would not equate Churchill with the German leadership.
Another recommendation for a graphic. Show someone standing underneath a Hamas flag slaughtering a child. The caption would state,"Oh Allah the merciful. Please accept our sacrifice of our precious followers and have the world media condemn Israel in response."
ReplyDeleteSubtle.
Delete...but sometimes biting satire is what is needed. (Subtlety like A Modest Proposal)
DeleteAlthough would depicting someone mentioning Allah trigger its own round of holy war?
Yosef R, I think you might be onto something there.
DeleteShkoyech, thanks. I also feel drained from arguing online with people who think that the IDF and Hamas are morally equatable and that Israel has little to no right to exist.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you appreciate that there is a gulf of difference between Israel being morally impeccable and morally equivalent to Hamas; and between Israel having a right to exist and absolutely every action undertaken by the state to be a model of prefect virtue. Once you abandon an absolutist need to parse everything from that point of view, there's a great mental relief. Instead of thing yourself into knots you can say "actually I don't agree with this particular aspect of Israeli state policy".
DeleteThese thoughts aren't treacherous forbidden thoughts to be repressed. Very often they reflect the objective truth.
@The Hat, seeing as I didn't right anywhere that Israel is morally impeccable, as you put it, nor suggested it in any sort of way, I don't see what your comment has to do with what I wrote - unless you're one of those people who believe that Israel is in fact morally equatable to Hamas?
DeleteI am sure that what we both don't want to do is to present simplistic dichotomies between 'Hamas and Israel are morally equal' or 'Israel has no right to exist' on the one hand and 'Israel is unimpeachablly virtuous' on the other. The truth is in between and the one is not the corollary of the other.
DeleteAs for Deir Yassin, a palestinian own goal to lie and say they were raped. It led to Palestinians fleeing.
ReplyDeleteNot what happened in Deir Yassin, but what was invented about Deir Yassin, helped to carve the way to our decisive victories on the battlefield.
http://www.middleeastpiece.com/1948war_deiryassin.html
Ayish Zeidan, another Deir Yassin villager said, "The Arab radio talked of women being killed and raped, but this is not true... I believe that most of those who were killed were among the fighters and the women and children who helped the fighters. The Arab leaders committed a big mistake. By exaggerating the atrocities they thought they would encourage people to fight back harder. Instead they created panic and people ran away."37
..
Nusseibeh who was informed of the coming lie of rapes and atrocities by Khalidi above, told the BBC the fables about Deir Yassin that "This was our biggest mistake. We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror. They ran away from all our villages."39
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N0SDlD53os#t=7m
I never claimed rape in Deir Yassin. Sources are equivocal and I cannot provide strong evidence.
DeleteWhat is unequivocal is the rapes at Ramla. David Ben Gurion wrote in his diary about it (Ben-Gurion, Volume 2, p. 589. Morris 1986 p105)
)
How utterly disgusting. There were jewish eyewitnesses who testified, including members of the Irgun and Lehi. But of course you will only bring what suits you, meaning what some arabs said AFTER they understood people would fly because of this (which by the way is not a war act, and pretty much counts as being forcibly displaced). It has no value. Later declarations of foreign politicians do not prove a thing, except what they wanted to do at the time they said it. They weren't historians and had no access to sources. They knew nothing more than you and me.
DeleteI am not convinced the rapes at Ramla are unequivocal. I have not checked properly but my impression that Ben Gurion was referring to reports of rapes, which needed investigation rather than the certainty of them.
DeleteYou say " There were jewish eyewitnesses who testified, including members of the Irgun and Lehi"
DeleteCould you bring a link.
https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/EXT.premium-EXT-MAGAZINE-1.4256661?lts=1622036297800
DeleteFrom Meir Pail
סודי ביותר
אל: מפקד מחוז ירושלים.
מאת: אברהם - קצין מודיעין.
הנידון: פעולת הפורשים בדיר-יאסין.
ביום שישי 9.4.48 בשעה 16:00 הוזמנתי על ידי אחד ממפקדי הלח"י לבקר בכפר "הכבוש". שהיתי בכפר עם איש לח"י כשעה ויכולתי לראות את כל מעשיהם של הפורשים שם.
א. המצב הצבאי.
[...]
ב. תוצאות הפוגרום.
1. במחצבה שעל-יד גבעת שאול ראיתי את חמשת הערבים שהם הובילו ברחובות העיר. הם נרצחו ביריות ושכבו אחד על גבי השני.
2. הכפר מלא הרוגים מכל צד. ניכר שהערבים לא נהרגו תוך כדי קרב, אלא הועמדו לקיר. ראיתי בעיני כמה משפחות שנרצחו על נשיהן, ילדיהן וזקניהן כשגוויותיהן מוטלות אחת על גבי השנייה.
3. אנשי הפורשים הסתובבו כשהם שודדים וגונבים מכול הבא ליד: תרנגולות, מכשירי רדיו, סוכר, כסף, זהב ועוד. חלק גדול מכל הביזה נכנס לכיסיהם הפרטיים של "הלוחמים".
4. כל איש מהפורשים מתהלך בכפר מלוכלך בדם וגאה על מספר הנפשות אשר הרג. ניכר היה בהם חוסר החינוך והאינטליגנציה של החייל שלנו.
5. באחד הבתים במרכז הכפר רוכזו כמאתיים נשים וילדים קטנים. הנשים ישבו בשקט ולא הוציאו אפילו הגה מפיהם. בבואי למקום הסביר לי "המפקד" שיש בדעתו להרוג את כולם. בערב שמעתי שהנשים והילדים שוחררו והועברו לשכונת מוצררה.
It's true none of the jewish witnesses openly spoke about rapes, but there for sure was a horrible massacre.
According to Prof. Eliezer Tauber who has extensively researched this, Peil (who may not have even been there )is contradicted by Arab witnesses.
Deleteand after the battle ended there was no more killing.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/deir-yassin-the-end-of-a-myth/
Deir Yassin: There was no massacre
A founding myth of the Palestinian narrative was a fabrication that drove thousands of Arabs to panic and flee
What really happened in Deir Yassin? Contrary to what one could expect, I found that the testimonies of the Jewish attackers on the one hand, and the Arab survivors on the other hand, were surprisingly similar, at times almost identical. My methodology, therefore, was to integrate the testimonies of both parties involved, Jews and Arabs, into one story. I relied on a vast number of testimonies and records from 21 archives (including Israeli, Palestinian, British, American, UN and Red Cross), many of them yet unreleased to the public, and hundreds of other sources. My findings were basically two: no massacre took place in Deir Yassin, but on the other hand, the false rumors spread by the Palestinian leadership about a massacre, rapes and other atrocities, drove the Palestinian population to leave their homes and run away, becoming a major incentive for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.
Like I said, disgusting.
DeleteAnd you didn't even read the first article.
I'm done.
Benny Morris’ accounts of Arab appeals to flee (from “Birth Revisited”):
ReplyDelete“On 12 December the committee warned against ‘Fifth Columnists’ spreading defeatism and influencing people ‘to leave their properties and houses, which have become easy prey to the enemy who has seized and occupied them … Stay in your places’, the committee urged.” Pg. 108. Obviously encouragement to flee was being given for there to be a warning not to listen to it.
..
Husseini at times explicitly permitted and even encouraged the evacuation of women, children and old people from combat zones or prospective combat zones in order to reduce civilian casualties – in line with pre-war Arab League directives.” Pg. 136
..
The Sixth Airborne Division was more explicit: Probable reason for Arab Higher Executive [i.e., AHC] ordering Arabs to evacuate Haifa is to avoid possibility of Haifa Arabs being used as hostages in future operations after May 15.
...
In my correspondence with Professor Efraim Karsh, he advised “rather than look[ing] for the single ‘blanket order,’ one has to assemble the countless pieces of evidence into a complex mosaic on the basis of archival searches. The overall picture that will emerge will clearly show that a substantial number of Palestinian Arabs were driven out by their own brothers.”100 Here is the mosaic I have assembled so far:
"Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of refugees... while it is we who made them to leave... We brought disaster upon... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave... We have rendered them dispossessed... We have accustomed them to begging... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon... men, women and children - all this in service of political purposes..." - Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister in 1948-49, The Memoirs of Haled al Azm, (Beirut, 1973)
"Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it." – The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.
http://www.middleeastpiece.com/arabrefugees_causes.html
I accept your choice of Benny Morris as a reliable historian. That you can quote the first of the so called "new historians", distinguished by his willingness to challenge the crude propaganda of his predecessors, just shows the depths of your self deception. As I have mentioned earlier, all normal cognitive processes seem to melt when dealing with Israel / Palestine, and normally bright, intelligent people rage apoplectic around some half baked unbelievable bubbe massehs.
DeleteThe bubbe maaseh in question is that the vast majority of the Palestinian refugees, in some act of opposition to the nascent state of Israel, or in allegiance to their enemies, left their homes and lands. Think about it. Does that sentence even make sense?
-
It was Morris who first pointed out the obvious issues with the story that the Palestinians had withdrawn en-masse pursuant to the orders of the very "committee" you quote opposing withdrawals!
You see, the fifth columnists the committee objected to were the panickers and defeatists - not the political leadership (the committee). The committee were self evidently not complaining about themselves.
-
I don't see why encouraging non-combatants to leave the combat zone is (a) is anything other than humane common sense and good military practice for preserving lines of communication and (b) represents any moral failing or act of agression on the part of those refugees themselves.
-
The last two quotes are your best, but they refer to the treatment of Palestinians 'after they lost their honour'. These were persons who were overwhelmingly internally displaced to the East, whom the invading armies took back with them on their retreat, without any clear plan for their resettlement or rehbailitation.
I will leave it to you to read your newfound hero Benny Morris. In particular, look at Morris on page 88 in "1948 and After" citing an IDF intelligence report which concluded that 70% of the refugees resulted from
1. direct, hostile Jewish operations against Arab settlements.
2. the effect of our hostile operations on nearby Arab settlements
3. operations of the Jewish dissidents
I know you won't look at this. There are none so blind as won't see.
If you want me to look at something provide a link
Delete(1)
ReplyDeleteYou say
"I don't see why encouraging non-combatants to leave the combat zone is (a) is anything other than humane common sense and good military practice for preserving lines of communication and (b) represents any moral failing or act of agression on the part of those refugees themselves."
I hope you can see why non-combatants being encouraged to leave falsifies the Arab claim that Israel expelled 700,000 Palestinians.
(2)
You say
"1. direct, hostile Jewish operations against Arab settlements.
2. the effect of our hostile operations on nearby Arab settlements
3. operations of the Jewish dissidents
I know you won't look at this. There are none so blind as won't see."
...
Palestinians attack Jews from Palestinian settlements as part of their pre-may 48 drive to destroy the upcoming Jewish state of Israel.
Jews defend themselves by defeating the Palestinian forces in their towns.
Palestinians see their war plans are not going as expected, so they flee like cowards, (or to be politically correct they do the sensible thing and leave)
Result. Israel is freed from large sections of their would be genocidalists. Whats not to like.
Like I said before "The vast majority were not forcibly displaced. The Palestinians fled the war they instigated hoping to come back after the Jews were wiped out."
I have yet to see you falsify that statement from Morris (barring the genocide point which Morris leaves as open possibility not a cert.)
.....
(3) you say "The bubbe maaseh in question is that the vast majority of the Palestinian refugees, in some act of opposition to the nascent state of Israel, or in allegiance to their enemies, left their homes and lands. Think about it. Does that sentence even make sense?"
The largest Arab town was Haifa who left as they were accused by Arab leaders of being traitors for remaining under Jewish rule.
Makes sense to me why they left. They wanted to save their necks and their honour. Does it not make sense to you?
........................
“As reported by the United Press (UP) correspondent in Haifa, Mano Dierkson: … The Arab leaders ordered the town’s [Haifa] complete evacuation whereas the Jewish leaders felt that such a development would be a tremendous defeat for them ...
Scaremongering was a primary weapon in its arsenal. Arab residents received written threats that, unless they left the town, they would be branded as traitors, deserving death.
...
Karsh, Efraim – Nakbat Haifa, Pp. 54-55
...........................
(4)Some more quotes on arab calls for the palestinians to leave. (Btw ethnic cleansing is not the same as displacement. Ethnic cleansing means crossing borders. If Arab leaders forcibly removed Palestinians across borders, then it is not Israel who ethnically cleansed but Arab leaders. If displaced Palestinians were encouraged to move into Arab countries, then it is not Israel that ethnically cleansed. see morris)
"...the Jewish Haganah asked (using loudspeakers) Arabs to remain at their homes but the most of the Arab population followed their leaders who asked them to leave the country." The TIMES of London, reporting events of April 22nd, 1948
“The representatives of the refugees denied that the propaganda of the Arab States and of the Arab Higher Committee had had any influence on their decision to flee their homes.” – General Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Official Records: Fifth Session Supplement No. 18 (A/1367/Rev.1)
“We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.” - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, quoted in Sir Am Nakbah ("The Secret Behind the Disaster") by Nimr el Hawari, Nazareth, 1952
I apologise to the readers for this unedifying slug fest of two complete morons. There is nothing more pathetic than two dogs competing to be the last to urinate on the lamp-post.
DeleteHere goes anyway.
A) You haven't got a substantive response to a stone cold primary sourced document written by people who would know about why the Palestinians left. I knew you'd ignore it, and that's what you duly did.
I however cannot stop thinking about it.
Why did the IDF write that the reason that Palestinians fled was because of the IDF's direct or proximate operations or the actions of IZL / Lehi? Why would such a thing be written?
You know why. I know why. Because it was true. That's why.
B) You keep ascribing talking about the Palestinians collectively. That's not how it works. Some fought. Many did not. Not all those who fled were combatants. So your collective description of every single Palestinian as "genocidalists" is unfair. But you probably already know that.
C) You can see the tension in your simultaneous claim that "what's not to like" about the absence of Palestinians with the claim that this has nothing to do with Jewish fighters. You even quote the Times which quotes the Zionist claim that the Haganah was announcing on loudspeakers for Palestinians to return. This is all clearly propaganda. It was clearly in Israel's interest to clear its territory of an unsympathetic civilian population and this is what it did.
D) Saving your neck or honour as a civillian hardly constitutes grounds for summary dispossession. The incoherent lie around the Absentee Property Law was that somehow fleeing law connoted enmity to Israel, or comity with its enemies. That patently is untrue. It was prima facie about saving necks and 'honour.'
E) You've quoted multiple sources showing the Palestinian political leadership *opposing* retreat as evidence that the retreat was a *project of* the Palestinian political leadership.
It's genuinely amazing. If ever there was evidence that I am wasting everyone's time here, it is that.
-
Here is some sickly sweet pap to ensure everyone stops wasting their time.
The state of Israel never did any wrong and will never do anything at all which is wrong at any point ever in the future. Every single Palestinian hate us and want to kill us. They all deserve exactly what they get. They are always wrong. The end.
Except its not the end, and my children and your children and their children are going to continue to die in pointless wars in part because we and they refuse to absorb amazingly self evident, obvious facts. The end.
You say "You haven't got a substantive response to a stone cold primary sourced document written by people who would know about why the Palestinians left. I knew you'd ignore it, and that's what you duly did."
DeletePlease could you give me the link and I will attempt a response.
you say "You keep ascribing talking about the Palestinians collectively. That's not how it works. Some fought. Many did not"
In no war is there a 100% draft. Does not mean that the country which is the aggressor is not responsible
You say"
You can see the tension in your simultaneous claim that "what's not to like" about the absence of Palestinians with the claim that this has nothing to do with Jewish fighters."
What tension? it was a stroke of good luck that people who were hostile to its very existence left.
You say"You even quote the Times which quotes the Zionist claim that the Haganah was announcing on loudspeakers for Palestinians to return. This is all clearly propaganda. It was clearly in Israel's interest to clear its territory of an unsympathetic civilian population and this is what it did."
So you think that the Times lied. How did Israel get the Times to lie?
You say"The incoherent lie around the Absentee Property Law was that somehow fleeing law connoted enmity to Israel, or comity with its enemies. "
No country lets citizens of an enemy country keep it's possessions. If the Palestinians ever make peace with Israel, then Israel would be prepared to discuss compensation as long as this is a 2 way street. Clinton discussed such a deal. In the meantime Israel has a better record than the Arabs in compensation.
You say"You've quoted multiple sources showing the Palestinian political leadership *opposing* retreat as evidence that the retreat was a *project of* the Palestinian political leadership."
I said the non combatants retreat was a *project of* the Palestinian political leadership, not the combatants.
However as Morris points out the non combatants retreat
caused may of combatants retreat, due its morale lowering effect.
"The state of Israel never did any wrong and will never do anything at all which is wrong at any point ever in the future"
DeleteIsrael is a beacon of light in the middle east, but it is certainly not without its faults.
"Every single Palestinian hate us and want to kill us."
Most but not all support terror attacks against Jews.
"They all deserve exactly what they get"
They lost and they deserved to lose.
"Except its not the end, and my children and your children and their children are going to continue to die in pointless wars in part because we and they refuse to absorb amazingly self evident, obvious facts. The end."
The war is only against the Palestinians. Most of the Arab world will come to terms with Israel. If Trump had won we may have had piece in a year. It will take a bit longer than that with Biden, but be under no illusion peace is coming with the Arab world.
So reason for hope.
I'm dealing with a man who pretends not to understand what a civilian is. It that expelling civilians is a war crime. There is no hope and I am eating my time. Here is a link you won't read.
Deletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-combatant
I've already sent you the source for the quote. The book and the page number. Please do me the small courtesy of reading what I wrote before you
-
The Times was misled in 1948 the same way that the New York Times was misled about a ground invasion two weeks ago or the AP bureau in Gaza pumps out Hamas propaganda. Journalists report what their Israeli and Hamas sources tell them.
This does not really affect the current legal issue about the Sheikh Jarrah evictions, but the discussion has now spread to include the whole refugee thing from 1948.
ReplyDeleteWhoever may be responsible for "causing" the "Palestinian" refugees back in 1948 (ie do we blame the Mufti for telling people to leave while Israel was saying to stay), keeping the refugee status going for SEVENTY YEARS is clearly the fault of the Arab countries. After WW2, Jews in DP camps were absorbed by Jewish communities within 5 years. The UN has a separate committee for the Palestinian refugees and has permitted "refugee status" to be something inherited by children and grandchildren, which is something never seen before.
Again, nothing directly to do with the current situation - there may be good legality and practicality on both sides of the Sheikh Jarrah issue regardless of this...
ReplyDeleteHere's Benny Morris' succinct summary. To flatly say that 750K Arabs were expelled is a ludicrous lie and irresponsible.
https://twitter.com/elderofziyon/status/1396301066292105218
https://twitter.com/elderofziyon/status/1396833460107497474/photo/1
You are conflating @elderofziyon with Benny Morris.
DeleteI am wasting my time arguing with an enraged partisan. That makes me a bigger idiot then you.
Are you seriously arguing that elderofziyon misquoted Benny Morris?
DeleteAre you seriously arguing that the Irish Times misquoted Benny Morris?
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/israel-and-the-palestinians-1.896017
Most of Palestine's 700,000 "refugees" fled their homes because of the flail of war (and in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes on the backs of victorious Arab invaders). But it is also true that there were several dozen sites, including Lydda and Ramla, from which Arab communities were expelled by Jewish troops.
You are conflating @elderofziyon with Benny Morris.
DeleteNo, he isn't - if you look on that thread he quotes Benny Morris. Here is Morris's opinion piece from the Times of Ireland in 2008: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/israel-and-the-palestinians-1.896017
And here is the quote elderofzion posted from there: "Most of Palestine's 700,000 "refugees" fled their homes because of the flail of war (and in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes on the backs of victorious Arab invaders). But it is also true that there were several dozen sites, including Lydda and Ramla, from which Arab communities were expelled by Jewish troops."
That makes me a bigger idiot then you.
Not an idiot, but perhaps blinded by your own biases.
He presented a quote from @elderofziyon ("To flatly say that 750K Arabs were expelled is a ludicrous lie and irresponsible.") as 'Benny Morris succinct succinct summary'. In fact Morris attributed the refugees to the 'flail of war' which is far from inconsistent from @elderofziyon's claim.
DeleteBut you already know this.
Quite right. I doubt if 'the hat' will respond to this.
DeleteYou say "the 'flail of war' which is far from inconsistent from @elderofziyon's claim."
DeleteDo you mean consistent ?
Who is more delusional - the Charedi who insists his learning Torah protects Israel? Or the Academic who insists arguing with Jew-haters on internet forums is helping the war effort?
ReplyDeleteTeveth on Arab orders for the non combatants to flee.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/shabtai-teveth/charging-israel-with-original-sin/
Nevertheless, shorn of its bias, Morris’s account produces the same picture which emerges from Ben-Gurion’s statement. And in both, one phenomenon stands out: more often than not, the flight was led by Palestinian Arab notables, national and local, civilian and military, with the wealthy and senior municipal officeholders as well as members of the AHC and local National Committees (NC’s) pointing the way. Furthermore, in every locality where the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) took charge, the evacuation of non-combatants—women, children, and elderly—repeated itself.
...
Instructions to abandon whole villages or for the evacuation of noncombatants were issued mainly by the AHC, the NC’s, officers of Jordan’s Arab Legion, and commanders of the ALA and the “irregulars.” In several cases such instructions were given by the Mufti of Jerusalem, the acknowledged leader of Palestine’s Arabs. Thus, on January 22, he told a delegation of Haifa Arabs “to remove the women and children from the danger areas in order to reduce the number of casualties.” In April, the Mufti continued to permit and even to encourage the evacuation of noncombatants from potential combat zones. Characteristic of the atmosphere in which these instructions were given and received was the warning by the Jerusalem NC that resistance to the evacuation order would be seen as “an obstacle to the Holy War [jihad] and in the way of the fighters, and would hamper their actions in these neighborhoods.”
Civilians saving their necks and enemy combatants 'permitting or even encouraging' said neck saving. So what if civilians fled death? They were hardly doing so in act of aggression towards Israel.
DeleteBut you know this. So what's your point? There is no point. I'm arguing with an enraged partisan.
You are entirely free to continue digging out quotes showing the opposite of your position without my interlocution. Have be a nice day
(1)If civilians flee their towns to facilitate the Arab aggression/genocide against the Jews, it makes them de facto collaborators in the aggression/genocide.
Delete(2)
Can you really not see that non-combatants fleeing the war their leaders instigated falsifies the Arab claim that Israel expelled 700,000 Palestinians?
Do you still deny that Morris said (according to the Irish Times)?
Delete"Most of Palestine's 700,000 "refugees" fled their homes because of the flail of war (and in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes on the backs of victorious Arab invaders). But it is also true that there were several dozen sites, including Lydda and Ramla, from which Arab communities were expelled by Jewish troops."
1) The refugees fleeing helped Israel's war aims and were deleterious to those of the Arab armies.
DeleteLet me make this very simple for you. Fleeing is intrinsically not an act of aggression.
2) No. The Arabs civilians fled because they were actually attacked or had reasonable reason to believe they were going to be attacked shortly. That doesn't mean they can be collectively punished because different Arabs were fighting Jews.
You keep quoting Haifa for example. The Jews won the battle of Haifa by mortar bombing civilians. Of course they fled - and that was the intent of local commanders.
3) The flail of war is a curious turn off phrase which Morris intends to mean that there was no or a limited centralised plan to expel Arabs - but that the effect of combat operations was to induce this effect anyway.
You say "You keep quoting Haifa for example. The Jews won the battle of Haifa by mortar bombing civilians. Of course they fled - and that was the intent of local commanders."
DeleteHave you heard of someone called Stockwell ?
“‘You have made a foolish decision’, he [Major-General Hugh Stockwell, Commander of the British Sixth Airborne Division] thundered at the Arabs: Think it over, as you’ll regret it afterwards. You must accept the conditions of the Jews. They are fair enough. Don’t permit life to be destroyed senselessly. After all, it was you who began the fighting, and the Jews have won. But the Arabs were unmoved. ‘They had lost [the] first round but ... there were more to come’. All they wanted, therefore, was British support in carrying out the mass evacuation. They stuck to this position the next morning, when they met Stockwell and his advisers to discuss the practicalities of the evacuation. Of the 30,000-plus Arabs still in Haifa, only a handful, they said, wished to stay.” – Karsh, Efraim – Nakbat Haifa, Pp. 50-51
Firstly, do me the small courtesy of reading what I wrote. I'll write it again for your convenience and everyone else's inconvenience.
Delete"Let me make this very simple for you. Fleeing is intrinsically not an act of aggression."
I'm sure you think you have a point. If be grateful if you could articulate what it is.
Fleeing is intrinsically not an act of aggression.
DeleteYet vacating a place to give easy access to an aggressor can potentially be an act of aggression
The point is quite simple. Stockwell contradicts your claim that Israel intended to expel all the Arabs of haifa. The Jews asked 30000 Haifa arabs to stay. An amazing humanitarian act
DeleteNo, Dear Mad Hatter,
DeleteFirstly, we're having another attribution problem where you quote verbatim your fellow partisans instead of the actual source. You see we have the word of Efraim Karsh - the word of a man described by a real historian (Morris) as "a mélange of distortions, half-truths, and plain lies that vividly demonstrates his profound ignorance of both the source material... and the history of the Zionist-Arab conflict," "Undeserving of a Reply" and "belabors minor points while ignoring the main pieces of evidence." - about what Stockwell said. What Stockwell actually said, and whether he "thundered" theatrically or not, is, to my limited knowledge, unknowable.
Even in Karsh's version of "history", the offer to stay did not come from the Zionists but from Stockwell himself.
And finally, fleeing being an act of aggression. You are being embarrassingly preposterous. If an armed combatant wants to fight from a house, the presence of absence of unarmed civilians is not going to be a military deterrent.
So you must be suggesting that combatants should not seek to protect civillians - and that to the contrary, this is somehow a moral failing which should be punished by expropriation? I truly don't understand, and what's sadder still is you clearly don't.
When did right and wrong get so jumbled up in your head, Mr Mad Hatter? When did you become such a Kahanist, terroristic degenerate?
(1)These are Karsh's sources on what Stockwell said and the way he said it.
DeleteSalomon’s report to the Political Department, Israel’s
Foreign Office, Apr. 1, 1949, ISA, FM 2401/11; Beilin,
“Operation Haifa,” pp. 2–3; recollection of Abraham
Kalfon (participant in the truce negotiations), Feb. 24,
1972, HA, File 284 (David Nativ’s personal archive),
p. 27; Dan Kurzman, Genesis 1948: The First Arab-
Israeli War (New York: New American Library,
1972), pp. 191–92; Moshe Carmel, Maarachot Tsafon
(Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1949), p. 107.
(2)You say "Even in Karsh's version of "history", the offer to stay did not come from the Zionists but from Stockwell himself."
This is what Morris says about Haifa. Shabtai Levy the first Jewish mayor of Haifa was a zionist.
....................
Be that as it may, the Jewish and British officials were flabbergasted. Levy appealed “very passionately . . . and begged [the Arabs] to reconsider.” He said that they should not leave the city “where they had lived for hundreds of years, where their forefathers were buried, and where, for so long, they had lived in peace and brotherhood with the Jews.” The Arabs said that they
“had no choice.”153
...
(3) You say "If an armed combatant wants to fight from a house, the presence of absence of unarmed civilians is not going to be a military deterrent. "
If an armed combatant tells an unarmed civilian sharing his ethnicity to leave a house so he can attack the rest of the inhabitants, he clearly views the unarmed civilian as an obstacle to his attack.
Since you quote Morris's view on Karsh, for the sake of balance I will quote Karsh's view on Morris.
Delete"Morris engages in five types of distortion: he misrepresents documents, resorts to partial quotes, withholds evidence, makes false assertions, and rewrites original documents."
https://www.meforum.org/466/benny-morris-and-the-reign-of-error
Then why did you quote Morris approvingly when it suited you? This isn't objective history.
Delete"If an armed combatant tells an unarmed civilian sharing his ethnicity to leave a house so he can attack the rest of the inhabitants, he clearly views the unarmed civilian as an obstacle to his attack."
DeleteNo, it's much simpler. To quote... yourself, you would remove non combatants to save their lives and necks. Again, a lack of intellectual consistency.
I quoted Morris approvingly despite his bias and distortions, is because if he says something in favour of Israel,there is no reason to dispute it.
DeleteIf he says something negative, I like to check it against Karsh and Teveth.
Ok lets take this a bit further.
ReplyDeleteYou say "3) The flail of war is a curious turn off phrase which Morris intends to mean that there was no or a limited centralised plan to expel Arabs - but that the effect of combat operations was to induce this effect anyway."
(1)Before you denied Morris said this.
when you said "You are conflating @elderofziyon with Benny Morris."
Do you now accept that Morris did say this ?
(2) Do you accept or deny that the Arab 'narrative' that Israel expelled 750K Arabs is a ludicrous lie and irresponsible?
I always accepted that Morris said that. What I didn't accept and continue not to accept is that the statement you labelled 2 follows from that. I think a fair reading of your post is that you were intentionally or otherwise attributing statement 2 to Morris. Which you agree is wrong.
DeleteAgreed I should have phrased it better.
Deletethere were no speech marks around my quotation of @elderofziyon
..
To flatly say that 750K Arabs were expelled is a ludicrous lie and irresponsible.
..
Anyone can read @elderofziyon provided in the link and see what was said by whom.
I believe @elderofziyon's understanding of morris is correct and yours is wrong.
You said previously "The aggressors in the 1948 war were Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. I'm struggling to see either pre 1948 Palestinian Arabs or Palestinian Jews as aggressors for simply existing in their homes."
ReplyDeleteWere you aware that according to Morris, Israel's "War of Independence," began in November 1947, not in May 1948?
Obfuscatory irrelevance, please be the last dog to urinate on this particular lamppost in the space provided below:
DeleteYou say " The flail of war is a curious turn off phrase which Morris intends to mean that there was no or a limited centralised plan to expel Arabs - but that the effect of combat operations was to induce this effect anyway."
DeleteSo Arabs fled because they they were too cowardly or too sensible to participate in the war they started.
Which means Israel did not expel 700,000 Arabs.
You say
Delete"The aggressors in the 1948 war were Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. I'm struggling to see either pre 1948 Palestinian Arabs or Palestinian Jews as aggressors for simply existing in their homes."
Morris says clearly the Palestinian Arabs were responsible for what befell them.
...
The Palestinian Arabs were not responsible "in some bizarre way" (David Norris, January 31st) for what befell them in 1948. Their responsibility was very direct and simple.
In defiance of the will of the international community, as embodied in the UN General Assembly Resolution of November 29th, 1947 (No. 181), they launched hostilities against the Jewish community in Palestine in the hope of aborting the emergence of the Jewish state and perhaps destroying that community. But they lost; and one of the results was the displacement of 700,000 of them from their homes.
Could I have a direct quote from Morris saying what you say he says (no of course not because he doesn't believe that. Hence the criticisms from politicised polemicists).
DeleteYou still struggle with the notion that unarmed non combatant citizens of Palestine had committed no act on of aggression against the other citizens of mandatory Palestine by fleeing to save their necks.
Here is a direct quote from Morris.
Delete.................
The Palestinian Arabs were not responsible "in some bizarre way" (David Norris, January 31st) for what befell them in 1948. Their responsibility was very direct and simple.
......
This was my paraphrase
"Morris says clearly the Palestinian Arabs were responsible for what befell them."
and your issue with my paraphrase is what exactly?
Sir Alan Cunningham recorded that Jaffa arabs fled and were not expelled.
ReplyDeleteIt is pathetic to see how the [Jaffa] Arabs have been deserted by their leaders,” recorded Palestine’s Chief Secretary, Sir Henry Gurney. The High Commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, pointing directly to the leaders’ flight as a precipitant of the mass exodus, reported on April 26 that the mayor of Jaffa had twelve days earlier gone on “four days’ leave” and had not yet returned, and that half the members of the city’s NC had also left. By May 5 Cunningham reported that “Nearly all [Jaffa’s city] councilors and members of National Committee have fled.” Even Morris admits that the steady exodus of the middle and upper classes considerably demoralized the remaining inhabitants and provided a model for their own departure.
So you must be suggesting that combatants should not seek to protect civillians - and that to the contrary, this is somehow a moral failing which should be collectively punished by expropriation?
DeleteWhere did I suggest that combatants should not seek to protect civilians?
DeleteThe Arabs and the Arab Palestinian authorities launched their genocidal attacks against the Jews not to protect the local Arabs' civilian lives whose safety was assured by the Jewish leadership, but to destroy Israel.
https://www.meforum.org/3082/azzam-genocide-threat
Of the countless threats of violence, made by Arab and Palestinian leaders in the run up to and in the wake of the November 29, 1947 partition resolution, none has resonated more widely than the warning by Abdul Rahman Azzam, the Arab League's first secretary-general, that the establishment of a Jewish state would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades."
In 1948 International law recognized that to the victor belongs the spoils.
DeleteOne does not assure the safety of civilians by indiscriminately mortar bombing them (Haifa); by rape (Ramla); or by herding civilians into a mosque and then dynamiting it (Saliha). In 1948 International Law didn't permit one group of citizens on the territory of the former British Mandate of Palestine to displace another group of citizens. See the Hague convention of 1899.
DeleteHague Convention on land warfare dated 1899.
DeleteArticle 28
The pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault, is prohibited.
Pillage is illegal. But according to a us supreme court justice, International law recognizes that to the victor belongs the spoils. See what happened to Germany
DeleteContrary to what 'the hat' would have you believe Arab flight from Haifa began well before the outbreak of hostilities
ReplyDeletehttps://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/efraim-karsh/were-the-palestinians-expelled/
As the British Mandate in Palestine neared its end in 1947-48, the city of Haifa became engulfed in intermittent violence that pitted Arab fighters, recruited locally as well as from neighboring Arab countries, against the Jewish underground organization known as the Hagana. The hostilities would reach their peak on April 21-22, 1948, when the British suddenly decided to evacuate most of the town and each of the two parties moved in quickly to try to fill the vacuum and assert control. But the first thing the documents show is that Arab flight from Haifa began well before the outbreak of these hostilities, and even before the UN’s November 29, 1947 partition resolution.
As an attempt to assert historical expertise over me, missing out explicit mention of the refineries attacks and the reprisals wasn't the great look you were going for.
DeleteBut then the whole post was so bizarrely off topic, so ad hominem, it is unworthy of further reply. Mr Mad Hatter, you and I are through. A pleasant life to you sir.
You have your dates completely wrong.
DeleteOn 30 December '47 Irgun retaliated against Arab attacks on Jews. Had Arabs not initiated the violence against Jews no innocents would have died.
However prior 30 Dec '47 on mid-December 1947, some 15,000-20,000 people, almost a third of the city’s Arab population, had fled, creating severe adversity for those remaining.
The post far from being bizarrely off topic, refuted your nonsensical claim that the Jews expelled all the Arabs from Haifa
By the way do you support the Arab genocidal attack against the Jews starting from November '47?
DeleteSo I never said the Jews expelled Arabs from Haifa. I said the Arabs fled. Quite possibly because they were being mortar bombed indiscriminately. I'd flee if that were my children being mortar bombed.
DeleteOf course I don't support attacks on civilians, Arab or Jew.
DeleteI could ask you similarly loaded questions about whether you support the rape of Arab women by Jewish soldiers in Ramla in 1948.
The Arabs didn't flee Haifa in 1948 because terrorists of different ethnicities attacked each other in 1947. They left after they lost the Battle of Haifa, during which civilians were attacked.
If you like Morris do not count Arabs who flee as being expelled by Israel.
DeleteThen why do you say that this statement " To flatly say that 750K Arabs were expelled is a ludicrous lie and irresponsible. "
is not the view of Morris?
You say "They left after they lost the Battle of Haifa, during which civilians were attacked."
DeleteWhy did they leave after Shabtai Levy begged them to stay ?
'The hat' seems to think it is reasonable for the Arabs to make the Jews homeless.
ReplyDeleteInstead of advocating on how reasonable it is for your fellow Jews to be made homeless, maybe you give up your own home for an Arab refugee family.
"They would rather have their house and not have the compensation. Reasonable, no?"
Oh, so the Arabs being evicted from Sheikh Jarrah have converted? I must keep up with the news.
DeleteYou seem to have difficulty in remembering that you said in effect that it is reasonable for 10's of thousands of Jews to be made homeless.
DeleteI've been following with some degree of amusement the debate between The Hat and The Mad Hatter. The kicker that made me almost fall of my chair was The Hat writing:
ReplyDelete"But then the whole post was so bizarrely off topic, so ad hominem, it is unworthy of further reply. Mr Mad Hatter, you and I are through."
I'm not entirely sure what he was referring to as being "ad hominem" in terms of what the The Mad Hatter wrote. Maybe it was just too sensible for The Hat's tastes? And his attempt to delegimize any future argument ("...please be the last dog to urinate on this particular lamppost in the space provided below:"). And his continued calling of the The Mad Hatter and "enraged partisan" whereas the reality was that The Mad Hatter's responses were nothing if not cool, collected, measured, and researched...
Not to mention his continued use of the "but you already know this" (and similar) refrain. As if trying to tell the opposing opinion that he already agrees with The Hat's opinions. Now that's a winning argument! Go (The) Hat!
What we're witnessing here is an argument between someone who brings up fact after fact with another, who in response, just insults, mocks and tries to deligitimize the person making some very solid arguments. He's trying very hard to make us think he's very smart and articulate but in the end is exposed as a fraud and a hyprocite.
Other ad hominem gems coming from The Hat.
"When did right and wrong get so jumbled up in your head, Mr Mad Hatter? When did you become such a Kahanist, terroristic degenerate?"
"I'm dealing with a man who pretends not to understand what a civilian is. It that expelling civilians is a war crime. There is no hope and I am eating my time. Here is a link you won't read."
The Hat - please be the last dog to urinate on this particular lamppost in the space provided below:
I feel even sorrier for the dog keeping track of goings on at the lamppost then then the lamppost itself. Pungent.
DeleteNo you don't. But you know this.
DeleteIf Arabs are evicted from Sheikh Jarrah , it will be because they refuse to pay rent to their Jewish owners.
ReplyDeleteAll countries allow people who refuse to pay rent to be evicted So the landlords actions are entirely legal.
You though think it is reasonable for 10s of thousands of Jewish home owners to be be made homeless.
Oh, so it's Arabs who are being evicted. Not Jews. Just checking. The story keeps changing. Hard to keep up.
DeleteAre Jews are being evicted from Har Nof for failing to pay rent to the former residents of Deir Yassin?
Please show me where I stated that Jews are being evicted from Sheikh Jarrah
DeleteDeir Yassin was won after Israel defeated the arab aggressors.
DeleteAll legal. If it is legal for the Germans it is legal for the Arabs
You say "Oh, so it's Arabs who are being evicted. Not Jews. Just checking. The story keeps changing. Hard to keep up."
DeleteThe story has not changed at all.
(1)Arab refugees want to dispossess 10's of thousands of Jews and make them homeless and you think it is reasonable.
(2)A couple of Jewish families in Sheikh Jarrah seek to evict some Arab families for refusal to pay rent. If they paid rent they could stay. No country allows people to stay in a property rent free.
This is going before a judge at the moment.
I fail to understand why you think (1) contradicts (2). Please explain.
Morris on the flight of the Palestinians has a different view than 'the hat'
ReplyDelete..............
My conclusions about the emergence of the Palestinian refugee problem haven’t changed in those books, or in my book “1948,” which was published in English in 2008 and in Hebrew in 2010. Some Palestinians were expelled (from Lod and Ramle, for example), some were ordered or encouraged by their leaders to flee (from Haifa, for example) and most fled for fear of the hostilities and apparently in the belief that they would return to their homes after the expected Arab victory.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-ethnic-cleansing-and-pro-arab-propaganda-1.5452143
Nope, that's my view.
DeleteYour view is that Israel expelled 700,000 Arabs, which is not Morris's view.
DeleteAccording to this Palestinians seemed to have owned castles
ReplyDeletehttps://secureservercdn.net/45.40.145.151/3e8.04f.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/223332222.jpg
According to D'Alambert, and equally relevant, the sum of the differences between the forces acting on a system of massive particles and the time derivatives of the momenta of the system itself projected onto any virtual displacement consistent with the constraints of the system is zero.
DeleteGo figure.
So we basically have a shared understanding of the facts. In 1948, 70 percent (Morris) of roughly 700,000 Palestinian refugees left to save their necks.
ReplyDeleteWhat is in dispute is whether looting land and property from these civilians was a) moral and b) permitted under the rules of land warfare in 1948. In fact, I suspect that b) is not in dispute as I've quoted the Hague Convention showing that looting was not legal.
The only real question is whether looting raping and killing civilians is moral.
Dispassion is not the same as objectivity.
I will fiercely and passionately rip into Kahanaists degenerate partisans who cannot objectively apply basic rules of morality.
If you object passionately to Shalhevet Pass being shot in the face by a Palestinian terrorist, you must passionately object to Palestinian women being gang raped by the Haganah in Ramla.
That is the only objective position of a moral person.
There were misdeeds by the Jews, but no where near on the scale of the Arabs. The Arab leadership were trying to commit genocide, just 3 years after the Holocaust. The Palestinians were being led by an avowed Hitler admirer (Haj Amin)
DeleteAny reaction by the Jews compared to that was miniscule.
Please quote where I said raping and killing civilians is moral.
DeleteDo you accept the Arab narrative of the Naqba?
ReplyDeleteYou are going to have to be more specific.
DeleteYou seem to believe that it reasonable for Israel to give Arabs their houses back despite the fact that it would make 10's of thousands of Jews homeless.
ReplyDeleteDo you call that moral?
I would be grateful if you could do me the small courtesy of reading what I wrote.
DeleteI wrote "It is time, I suggested, to draw a line. We will not be returning Har Nof to the agricultural village of Deir Yassin. And we will not be returning in Sheikh Jarrah to an isolated indefensible group of Jewish houses."