Fadel, our resident Zionist nutcases, Ephraim “Lefty” Pesach and lilmamzer have moved into a new post, “Hamas holds the high cards.” You might want to check it out and, oh I don’t know, confront some of their propaganda with truth.  But then, I am beginning to think that Zionists think it unduly rude for anyone, especially a Palestinian like yourself, to confront their little minds with truth.

Eliyahu, a former Israeli chief rabbi, advocates carpet bombing Gaza, and says there is no moral prohibition against killing civilians to save Jews. To read the full story, go the Jerusalem Post @ http://www.jpost.com

Then, compare this to how a fanatic atheist Zionist in our own backyards sees the solution by advocating and instigating that Israel should nuke the whole Arab-Muslim world; just check some of these Fascist Zionist visions of “Lefty” on this by going to the comments of few days back on this thread.

Puting these two posiitions in comparative perspective, one can find that fanatic religious Jews are one degree milder than fanatic atheist Fascist Zionists, but obviously both are the product of a savage mentality and evil teachings!

In light of this, the question begging an answer is: How many good Jews are there to neutralize the danger to world peace posed by these two fanatic extreme groups? I personally don’t know, and thus would like any comforting statistics by any informed reader.

THE 1948 ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE ILAN PAPPÉ

“This article, excerpted and adapted from the early chapters of a new book, emphasizes the systematic preparations that laid the ground for the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians from what became Israel in 1948. While sketching the context and diplomatic and political developments of the period, the article highlights in particular a multi-year “Village Files” project (1940–47) involving the systematic compilation of maps and intelligence for each Arab village and the elaboration—under the direction of an inner “caucus” of fewer than a dozen men led by David Ben-Gurion—of a series of military plans culminating in Plan Dalet, according to which the 1948 war was fought. The article ends with a statement of one of the author’s underlying goals in writing the book: to make the case for a paradigm of ethnic cleansing to replace the paradigm of war as the basis for the scholarly research of, and the public debate about, 1948.

ON A COLD WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, 10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches on a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine1. That same evening, military orders were dispatched to units on the ground to prepare for the systematic expulsion of Palestinians from vast areas of the country2. The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be used to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centers; setting fire to homes, properties, and goods; expelling residents; demolishing homes; and, finally, planting mines in the rubble to prevent the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit was issued its own list of villages and neighborhoods to target in keeping with the master plan. Code-named Plan D (Dalet in Hebrew), this was the fourth and final version of vaguer plans outlining the fate that was in store for the native population of Palestine3. The previous three plans had articulated only obscurely how the Zionist leadership intended to deal with the presence of so many Palestinians on the land the Jewish national movement wanted for itself. This fourth and last blueprint spelled it out clearly and unambiguously: the Palestinians had to go.

The plan, which covered both the rural and urban areas of Palestine, was the inevitable result both of Zionism’s ideological drive for an exclusively Jewish presence in Palestine and a response to developments on the ground following the British decision in February 1947 to end its Mandate over the country and turn the problem over to the United Nations. Clashes with local Palestinian militias, especially after the UN partition resolution of November 1947, provided the perfect context and pretext for implementing the ideological vision of an ethnically cleansed Palestine.

Once the plan was finalized, it took six months to complete the mission. When it was over, more than half of Palestine’s native population, over 750,000 people, had been uprooted, 531 villages had been destroyed, and 11 urban neighborhoods had been emptied of their inhabitants. The plan decided upon on 10 March 1948, and above all its systematic implementation in the following months, was a clear case of what is now known as an ethnic cleansing operation.”
--------------------------------------------------

Here is the link to Ilan Pappe’s article “The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”:

http://71.18.226.238/final/en/journals/printer.php?aid=7175

Fadel, Thank you for your kind words.  While I am sure most of our resident Zionists would cite your being Palestinian as somehow discrediting what you have to say, we both know the reverse is true.  Frankly, there have been far too few Palestinian voices heard over the American airwaves, especially these past six years. 

The reference to Muhammed Declan was made by Ali Abunimah during a June 15, 2007 broadcast on Democracy Now.  According to Mr. Abunimah, Mr. Declan and other Fatah commanders have been receiving weapons from Egypt, with the transfer facilitated by Israel.  Recently, Israel has turned down several resupply requests because some of the Fatah commanders are so corrupt, they had been selling the weapons to the highest bidders.  During the broadcast, both Mr. Abunimah and Laila El-Haddad referred to these Fatah units as “death squads,” and Mr. Abunimah compares them to the Contras who had mercilessly attacked soft civilian targets during the Reagan administration’s not so covert effort to effectuate regime change in Nicaragua in the 1980s--Elliot Abrams.

Fadel, if there is any insight you could add to our understanding of the current clash between Fatah and Hamas, I am sure most Truthdiggers would appreciate it.

To Tony Wicher:

“Yes, ITW sounds like a humane and progressive individual who just can’t quite get his head out of the Zionist box. Perhaps we can yet manage to straighten him out.”
========
I have been reading with great interest, admiration and love all the sound and reasonable arguments you posted lately, especially in response to ITW. I concur with your words above, but instead of “perhaps we can yet manage to straighten him out”, I would say, “I hope you manage to help him find his real soul which is buried under a thick layer of fog due to insecurity and confusion. I, as a real Palestinian, would like to assure him that, if after real and sincere efforts at ending the conflict are under way, he will find me fighting on the side of the Jews against this Palestinian minority that might still be advocating the wishful thinking of “throwing the Jews in the sea.” The Jews, but not the Zealot Zionists, are there to stay. I will be honored and pleased to share with my good cousins this beautiful and Holy Land of God; neither the Jews nor the Arab-Muslims are this land’s owners; all are just transient inhabitants of the land.

To Ernest Canning:

Thank you for all the wonderful effort you put in educating the participants on this thread. In one of your latest comments you alluded to this character called “Muhammad Dahlan.” This evil character is a disgrace for all Palestinians and Muslims, since he is dishonoring the name of “Muhammad” given to him mistakenly at birth. Dahlan is the henchman of both Israel and U.S. neocon governments. He has sold his soul and people to the highest bidder, and who can be a higher bidder than Israel and the Bush administration?! Believe me! When I first saw the face of this man surface in the political life of Palestine, some gut feeling made me very uncomfortable about this evil traitor. This is exactly the same feeling I had when I first saw Bush’s face and heard his speech as the Republican front runner for the presidency in 2000. Though psychology is not my field of education and specialty, I think that I am a natural psychologist who is capable of recognizing evil when he first sees the face of one, even at a distance.

Re #78598 by Ernest Canning on 6/16 at 2:32 pm

Ernest,

Yes, ITW sounds like a humane and progressive individual who just can’t quite get his head out of the Zionist box. Perhaps we can yet manage to straighten him out.

Tony, excellent post.  It is not possible to “equate” your principled opposition to Zionist, ethnic cleansing to “driving the Jews out of Israel.” ITW and the other Zionist posters are thus forced to “conflate” these two very different positions.

The difference I see between ITW and some of the other mindless Zionist posters, however, is that I sense he is conflicted between his intellectual ability to consider the evidence that all is not well on the Zionist front and the emotional pull of Zionism’s blinding ideology.  His responses to my posts, and most recently to yours, suggest that so far, his emotionalism has prevailed over his ability to reason.  This explains his effort to avoid the powerful facts contained in Robert’s video through the less-than-intellectually-honest dismissal of the documentary as “propaganda” followed by flight from this site altogether when your comments struck at the very core of his emotionally charged, Zionist beliefs.

I don’t know whether he will ever read the comments you and I posted since his parting remarks, but if he does, I hope he will come to understand that you and I had made a sincere effort to reach out to his better self.

#78505 by Inherit The Wind on 6/16 at 4:17 am
(Unregistered commenter)

“TW,
I’m disappointed in you.”
==================================================
Well, ITW, I hope you have a meditative vacation. Perhaps you will reach an epiphany and change your mind. I myself have not much to do on this quiet Saturday afternoon, so I am going to spend a little time to address some of your charges. You may never read my replies, but maybe somebody else will.
--------------------------------------------------
“I guess we’re back to you and your buddies “knowing” that everything Jews do, especially Israelis, is automatically evil, and nothing the wonderful, peaceful Arabs do ever is, and is always justified.”
---------------------------------------------------
ITW, Will you please tell me where I or anyone else on this thread, even the most pro-Palestinian, has said this? Apparently you are willing to say anything, no matter how wildly ridiculous. You should be ashamed. Can’t you try to exercise a little restraint, a little scholarly integrity? How can we possibly have a constructive discussion this way?

I believe the point that I and “my buddies” on this thread all agree on is that the Zionist project, the idea of a “Jewish state” is inconsistent with univeral principles of democracy and human rights. It is not morally sustainable. It has led those who have adopted this ideology to commit crimes against humanity. Those crimes are ongoing, and they will not stop so long as the principle of having a “Jewish state” in Palestine remains the fundamental policy of the Israeli government.
--------------------------------------------------
“Like the 19 assholes who took over 4 airlines on 9/11 and killed nearly 3,000 people.  I guess they were justified, too, and it’s just another piece of Israeli propaganda.  Like the crap put up on Al Jazeera that it was really the Jews who were behind it and all of them were notified to get out of the WTC that day? (death lists prove that wrong).”
-----------------------------------------------------
ITW,

Nobody here has brought 9-11 up that I know of. I certainly haven’t. I have never been a 9-ll conspiracy theorist. I have always thought bin Laden is a real Arab/Muslim militant, and a brilliant, ruthless strategist, perhaps the equal of Ben Gurion. Both regard mass murder as an acceptable means of acheiving their glorious goals. Bin Laden has apparently run circles around the moronic Bush administration; as of this writing he is free as a bird and winning on all fronts. But I think this is only possible because he has help. As there is a synergy between Nazism and Zionism, so there is also a synergy between Muslim extremism and Western Imperialism. The imperialists in the Bush administration have never been interested in catching bin Laden. He is far, far more useful as a bogeyman to justify an endless “Global War on Terror”.

Re #78505 by Inherit The Wind on 6/16 at 4:17 am
Continued from above)

“I cannot believe that people with brains can watch the Palestinians slaughtering each other and STILL blame all their atrocities and problems on ... those evil Jews, oops “Zionists” (chortle).”
--------------------------------------------------
ITW,

“Jew” is one thing; “Zionist” is another. I know this is hard for you, but please try to understand. A Zionist is a Jew who believes in a Jewish state. A hundred and twenty years ago there were no such Jews. I am hoping that in another twenty years the great majority of Jews will have given up on this terrible idea. When Zionism is gone from the Earth, there will still be millions of Jews, and I wish them all happiness and long life, wherever they live.
--------------------------------------------------
“I don’t object to legitimate criticism of Israel, and there sure is plenty they deserve, but the clear-cut anti-semitism “the answer to all our problems is to drive all the Jews out of Israel” is garbage.  It’s not fair to Israelis, and it’s not fair to Palestinians either because it replaces reality and real solutions with ideal fantasies.”
---------------------------------------------------
ITW,

I do not believe that one single poster on this thread has advocated “driving all the Jews out of Israel”. What has been advocated is an end to Zionist policies and a righting of the wrongs that have been committed because of these policies. In my view the only way this can be done is by a process of reunification that will correct a partition that should never have ocurred, where all people residing in the country will be equal and where those who have suffered because of the immoral Zionist policies are as far as possible made whole. This is not at all the same thing as “driving the Jews out of Israel”. I don’t know why you insist on equating them.

Robert, Fisk’s article exposes the sham in the corporatocracy’s claims that all it seeks is to “spread democracy.” Whether we are talking about Palestine or Venezuela, the process is always the same.  Regimes, no matter how undemocratic, will be labeled as “democratic” so long as they are willing to be pliant cogs in the neoliberal “new world order.” As Fisk has noted elsewhere, America favors democracy only when it advances its interests.  When a people select a leader, like a Massadegh in Iran (1953) or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, who seek to advance the interest of their own people rather than the corporate bottom line, these leaders are demonized as empire’s covert dimension springs into action, seeking ways to destabilize and overthrow the democratically elected regimes.  It is for this reason that it matters not if Hamas makes genuine overtures for lasting peace with Israel.  It will never be accepted as “legitimate” by the corporatocracy.

The Wages of Corruption and Occupation

Welcome to “Palestine”

By Robert Fisk

June 16/17, 2007

“Who can we negotiate with? To whom do we talk? Well of course, we should have talked to Hamas months ago. But we didn’t like the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. They were supposed to have voted for Fatah and its corrupt leadership. But they voted for Hamas, which declines to recognize Israel or abide by the totally discredited Oslo agreement.

No one asked - on our side - which particular Israel Hamas was supposed to recognize. The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds - and goes on to build - vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22 per cent of “Palestine” still left to negotiate over?”

Here is the link to Robert Fisk’s article:

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk06162007.html

Crocodile Tears

The Gaza Cage

By Uri Avnery

June 16/17, 2007

“WHAT HAPPENS when one and a half million human beings are imprisoned in a tiny, arid-territory, cut off from their compatriots and from any contact with the outside world, starved by economic blockade and unable to feed their families?”

Here is the link to Uri Avnery’s article:

http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery06162007.html

ITW, conflating disagreement with your take on the conflict into an anti-Semitic desire to “drive all the Jews out of Israel” is an act of intellectual dishonesty.  Not one of the critics of Zionism on this post has suggested that Jews should be driven out of Israel.  When I first entered the dialogue between you and Tony Wicher, suggesting that UN Resolution 242 and a two-state solution had a better prospect of success than his proposed one-state solution, Tony responded:  “Whatever brings peace.”

Not that it makes any difference, by I am personally the product of mixed parentage.  My father was British.  My mother was a Russian Jew.  My Jewish friends tell me that if my mother is Jewish, that makes me Jewish, to which I usually respond, “What does that make my father?  Chopped liver?”

My father was tortured by the Japanese in 1942.  My parents met in a Japanese internment camp in Shanghai during World War II.  I, myself, am a Vietnam vet.  My personal and familial experience with war has led to a committment to peaceful resolutions of conflicts.

I regard myself not as Jewish, Christian or of any other religious affiliation but instead consider myself a secular humanist.  I have no interest in religion beyond a personal committment to the First Amendment guarantee that each individual has a right to believe or not to believe as he or she sees fit.

I see you as an individual caught between a principled recognition that much of what has been done in the name of the state of Israel by its “leaders” (just as much of what has been done in the name of the US by its so-called “leaders") is morally reprehensible and the sway of years of Zionist propaganda that prevent a more fundamental recognition that it is the very continuance of the “occupation” that lies at the core of endless conflict. 

I sincerely hope that you (1) have a nice vacation and (2) return with a willingness to enter an honest, self-critical dialogue from which all of us can learn from one-another.

Ernest Canning...you are more than welcomed. I don’t know you in person, but your comments tell a lot about you as a person and what you stand for. You are one of those Americans who does NOT just sit on the sidelines and does NOTHING.

I too watch Amy Goodman on “Democracynow”. I think she has integrity & she is a very competent professional & has all the ingredients for humanity.

Ernest...I don’t know if you watched the debate between former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami and Norman Finkelstein.

In Case that you haven’t, here is the link to this very informative & important debates on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“Fmr. Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami Debates Outspoken Professor Norman Finkelstein on Israel, the Palestinians, and the Peace Process (02/14/2006).”

Here is the link:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/14/1518230

Tony and Robert:  I thank you again for your always insightful comments.

Getting back to how corporate media can distort what we see and hear, we have the immediate coverage of the clash between Hamas and Fatah.  Today, on Democracy Now, Ali Abunimah, founder of electronic intifada, presented a view that you have not and will not read in the corporate press.

“Since January 2006 when Hamas won the legislative election..., the United States refused the election results and has been arming several Palestinian militias, particularly those controlled by Gaza warlord, Mohammed Declan.” Abunimah compared Declan’s death squads to the Contras and noted that “the architect of this policy is none other than Elliott Abrams...who was convicted for lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal.”

Abunimah contends this is part of a larger U.S. strategy of installing puppet regimes throughout the region to “fight proxy wars...against this phantom enemy of an Islamic caliphate that George Bush and his friends have dreamed up.  And everywhere it’s failing.  In Afghanistan the Taliban are resurgent.  [In] Iraq...the US can’t even trust the Iraqi militias and the Iraqi army that it set up....And now we see the US-backed Palestinian Contras being routed in Gaza.”

Abunimah, who like Tony advocates a one-state solution, suggests that the Israeli policy of trying to isolate Palestinians in separate ghettos is failing; that “Palestinians are the majority population in Israeli-ruled territory between Jordan and the Mediterranian Sea.  And it’s only a matter of time before the world wakes up to this reality.”

“When Killings Don’t Count”

“A Week of Israeli Restraint”

By Tanya Reinhart

6/22/2006

“In Israeli discourse, Israel is always the side exercising restraint in its conflict with the Palestinians....”

“During the week of Israeli restraint, the army killed a Palestinian family who went on a picnic on the Beit Lahya beach in the Gaza Strip; after that, the army killed nine people in order to liquidate a Katyusha rocket.

But in the discourse of restraint, the first killing does not count, because the army denied its involvement, and the second was deemed a necessary act of self-defense.”

Here is the link to Tanya Reinhart’s article:

http://www.counterpunch.org/reinhart06222006.html

Re #78457 by Ernest Canning on 6/15 at 8:54 pm
(332 comments total)

“I would not have had a problem if ITW had merely advanced the conventional view as to the immediate cause of the six day war.  My problem is that he used this difference as an “excuse” to dismiss the entirety of a documentary as “propaganda.”

I agree with you on that point. That’s why I also thought ITW’s response was uncalled for.

ITW may believe that Israel would withdraw from the occupied territories if its “right to exist” were recognized. I doubt this, since there is ample evidence that Zionists have always planned on conquering all of Palestine and have never been serious about a Palestinian state.

Billy, most of the targets in the six day war were military.

TW.  You are partially correct in asserting that the American corporate media portrayed the six-day war as a pre-emptive strike launched because Arab forces, especially Egypt’s were massing at the border.  Actually, some of the initial reporting erroneously suggested that that Syria and Egypt had struck first.  (But then, I was in the U.S. military at the time, and the reporting we received was subject to a greater level of censorship). 

This video touched upon that issue.  It involves the fact that planning for this pre-emptive strike had been going on for quite some time within the Israeli military, and, as the video notes, the principle reservations pertained to how the Johnson administration would react.  If you accept the notion that Pearl Harbor was a defensive strike, then perhaps you can accept the six day war as a defensive strike.  I, for one, don’t buy it.

Surprise as well air superiority had a great deal to do with the lopsided level of Israeli success in the six-day war, just as it explained the lopsided results at Pearl Harbor.  In 1973 the suprise was on the part of the Arab states which launched the Yom Kippur war suddenly and without provocation.  It produced results that were very different from those that occurred in 1967.

I would not have had a problem if ITW had merely advanced the conventional view as to the immediate cause of the six day war.  My problem is that he used this difference as an “excuse” to dismiss the entirety of a documentary as “propaganda.  Actually, Robert’s video contains one of the most powerful “factual” statements as to the moral depravity that is the occupation. 

In short, ITW used this classic historical dispute as a means by which he could simply change the subject--a tactic that is, quite frankly, intellectually dishonest.

Finally, many of our resident Zionist posters keep repeating the mantra that “land-for-peace” won’t work because all Arabs must be regarded as “murderous thugs” bent on the destruction of the state of Israel.  Odd, I seem to recall that in the one instance in which Israel gave back conquered lands (Sinai), it led to a treaty and normal diplomatic relations with Egypt which has held to this day.  Are we to believe that there is some fundamental difference between Egyptians and Palestinians that would facilitate peace and security in the first instance, yet result in a supposed Israeli suicide in the other?  Or is the continued violence simply a reflection of an oppressed people striking out against their continued subjugation?

Re #78260 by Ernest Canning on 6/15 at 7:04 am
(329 comments total)

TW--You mistake vigorous disagreement with anger.  Have you watched Robert’s video?  If so, do you agree with ITW that it is propaganda?
-----------------------------------------------
Ernest,

Yes, I had watched it before, but ITW’s response threw me off and I had to watch it again. The video begins with the occupation. It does not go into the war or the events preceding it. So I thought ITW’s response was off target. As a description of the occupation itself, it looks perfectly reasonable to me. It is true that there is an Arab version of events which tells a different story, and I have never been inclined to believe it. It does sound like propaganda to me as ITW says.

Since neither you nor the video were asserting the Arab version of events, I don’t see what ITW is objecting to. Perhaps it is that we don’t see the context; that the occupation was the result of Arab aggression.

You say that the official version of the 67 war is propaanda. What then is your version?

TW--You mistake vigorous disagreement with anger.  Have you watched Robert’s video?  If so, do you agree with ITW that it is propaganda?

Gaza’s Reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhOa5hv3zas&eurl;=

Story of student from Gaza

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vu7WjxPAyY&mode=re lated&search;=

Ooops...Please disregard my comment #78229. That was supposed to go to another comment/response.

My sincere apologies.

(continued from previous comment)

We stayed there for about 9 weeks. My family and I made a commitment to tell the truth about what we saw, witnessed and experienced from our trip to the Holy Land. So there you go...just wanted to share that with you. It may help to understand where my drive for the TRUTH on this topic comes from.

I am NOT anti-Jewish. I am anti-Zionism, Israel’s RACISM/APARTHEID policies that the Israeli government and its brutal IDF have gruesomely enforced on the Palestinians for decades.

It is fortunate that the are many JEWS who are for TRUTH, peace, moral justice and against the many horrible crimes committed by Zionists against the Palestinians from the 1940’s to this date.

I have high respect for Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Sara Roy, Tanya Rheinhart, Amira Haas, Uri Avnary, Gideon Levi, Nurit-Peled Elhanan and many other Jews who are on the side of TRUTH, moral justice, peace, human rights, international law, UN Resolutions.

They are NOT on the side of the brutal / racist zionism of Ariel Sharon, Menachem Begin, Izthak Shamir, Ben Netanyahu, Ehud Olmert, Israeli military generals, Israel’s brutal IDF and the fanatic zionist zealots.

I would like to ask/request for you to read an article by Dr. Nurit-Peled Elhan, an Israeli professor. This compassionate Jewish mother writes about the children of the Israelis & the Palestinians...the victims of this tragic conflict.
------------------------------------------------

“We Are All Victims of the Occupation”

Let Our Children Live

By Nuri Peled-Elhanan 01/29/2007

Here is the link to this outstanding article:

http://www.counterpunch.org/peled01292007.html

A Grave Injustice at DePaul University

Why I Plan to Boycott the Catholic Church

By Bill Christison

Former CIA Analyst, 6/13/2007

“If anyone reading this thinks I am overreacting, that is unfortunate. The Israel lobby simply should not be allowed to win this round. There is little doubt that some will argue that the Catholic hierarchy in Rome had nothing to do with the decision against Finkelstein. But there is also little doubt that the hierarchy can overrule that decision if it wishes. And it says something that, to me, is utterly despicable if the hierarchy of the church refuses to overrule its own underlings at DePaul.”

Here is the link for the rest of this article:

http://www.counterpunch.org/christison06132007.html

June 12, 2007

Prof. Norman Finkelstein reflects on DePaul university’s decision to deny him tenure and the 40 year old Israeli occupation.

Here is the link for an 8:48 minutes audio (Chicago Public radio) of Prof. Finkelstein. He is truly a man of great courage & integrity. He is NOT going to budge a fraction of an inch from what he believes in...the TRUTH.

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11& ar=1083

ON ITS 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE JUNE 1967 ARAB-ISRAELI WAR…

Norman Finkelstein on Chicago Public radio:

June 6, 2007

“Norman Finkelstein: In order to understand the build up to the war the best place to begin is November, 1966. There was an Israeli retaliatory, as they call it, attack on a Jordanian village called Samu. In the course of the attack on Samu they blew up 125 buildings and killed a large number of Jordanian soldiers.

When that attack happened the Jordanians and also the Syrians began to attack Nasser for not coming to their defense. Here was this Egyptian president claiming to be the leader of Arab nationalism and Pan-Arabism and impotence in the face of Israeli aggression.”

Here is the link for the transcript-or- audio of Norman Finkelstein’s interview on the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war:

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11& ar=1067

#77937 by Inherit The Wind on 6/14 at 7:10 am
(Unregistered commenter)

“Ernest Canning on 6/13 at 9:30 pm
(322 comments total)

“Actually, I started by providing a fact: The film begins by OMITTING that in 1967, Israel was facing massing armies on her borders, that had the stated intention of obliterating her.”

OK, I did watch this film before. It starts with the occupation, not with the war. ITW’s description of the war could be true, and it would not make the film false. Arabs obviously have their own version of how the war began. I will have to consult scholarly sources I consider reliable.

As to the accuracy of the film, it agrees with everything I know about the occupation.

Re #77959 by Lefty on 6/14 at 8:15 am
(259 comments total)

“Greetings Tony, I love you and appreciate your being a WARRIOR FOR PEACE AND JUSTIC [sic][emphasis added] for the Palestinians. . . .
===================================================
Fadel, in addition to all of the other pejorative things I’ve said about you, in case I left it out, YOU’RE ALSO AN IDIOT! “

-----------------------------------------------------
Lefty,

You have got to be getting desperate when you are reduced to criticizing someone for a typo. You’re starting to like Fadel. Admit it.

Re #78170 by Ernest Canning on 6/14 at 7:47 pm
(323 comments total)

I remember the 67 war as reported in U.S. newspapers and it was reported there as ITW describes it. I took it at face value at the time. Could you and ITW have a learned discussion about this without getting angry, not as people on opposite sides, but as two friends together seeking the truth? I’d be interested. Please give sources. Meanwhile I will go and watch Robert’s video.

ITW:  I don’t want to burst your bubble but the tale that Arab armies were gathering, getting ready to strike, so Israel struck pre-emptively is a piece of propaganda that ranks up there with Bush’s claim that we had no choice but to invade Iraq before the smoking WMD gun became a mushroom cloud.

#78100 by Tony Wicher on 6/14 at 4:21 pm
(105 comments total)

“I see this as a pathological condition requiring compassion and therapy which attempts to remove the scales from their eyes. Condemning them as human beings serves no good purpose; it merely deepens their conviction that they are right and you are the enemy.”
=================
Tony: Thanks for your elaboration; I concur with your suggested ideal approach to dealing with the people in question.

As a man of peace and reason, my love and respect for you is increasing! Please keep up the good and noble work! And may your approach bear fruits, especially with this character who calls himself “Lefty.”

Fadel, in #77856, writes:

“My point is that ideologies do not exist in a vaccum; they are created by men with souls and flesh; they are implemented by men with souls and flesh; and they are sustained by men with souls and flesh. Ideologies based on theory and thought do not kill others, dispossess them, steal their land and cause any harm by themelseves, but followers of these idelogies do. So by necessity, if you condemn Zionism, you must condemn Zionists.This is like saying that guns don’t kill by themselves, it’s people with guns and intent who do killing. You cannot take the gun or the gun manufacturer to court, but you can take the owner of the gun who used it to kill.”
---------------------------------------------
Fadel,

I think everybody starts out believing whatever their parents told them when they were young and trusting children. These beliefs determine how most people see the world for the rest of their lives; they fit their experiences into these early belief systems, so that the belief systems themselves rarely change. Some people do transcend these beliefs, but most do not. Zionists, for example, were educated as children to believe that Zionism is noble, that the founders of Israel were heros, etc. Their parents tell them nothing about the Nakba or Palestinian suffering. When they grow up, they have a blind spot. Given the distorted way they see the world, their responses are understandable. They may be perfectly good people of conscience outside of this one area. I see this as a pathological condition requiring compassion and therapy which attempts to remove the scales from their eyes. Condemning them as human beings serves no good purpose; it merely deepens their conviction that they are right and you are the enemy.

Re #77862 by Robert on 6/13 at 10:34 pm

Thanks, Robert. That’s a great post.

Re: #77856 by Fadel Abdallah on 6/13 at 9:51 pm
(62 comments total)

#77846 by Tony Wicher on 6/13 at 9:13 pm
(103 comments total)

* * *

“Greetings Tony, I love you and appreciate your being a WARRIOR FOR PEACE AND JUSTIC [sic][emphasis added] for the Palestinians. . . .
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Fadel, in addition to all of the other pejorative things I’ve said about you, in case I left it out, YOU’RE ALSO AN IDIOT!

Re: #77862 by Robert on 6/13 at 10:34 pm
(74 comments total)
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Were Nelson Mandela and the ANC trying to destroy the state of South Africa and murder all of its white citizens?  Was the entire continent of Africa trying to destroy the state of South Africa on the basis that it had no right to exist?

As I have explained on Truthdig on many occasions, the official South African policy of apartheid was based soley on a long tradition of racial bigotry against blacks, not for purposes of self defense.  The Blacks in South Africa could not unilaterally pose a threat to the existence of South Africa.  Israel is in a completely different circumstance than South Africa was.  Conversely, it is Israel which segregates itself, not the Arabs, in order to protect its sovereignty and its citizens from terrorist attcks by Arabs.

If you can’t see the difference, that’s your problem.

Further, I don’t know whether your Mandela letter is genuine, or if it was written before or after Mandela proclaimed that Israel should not withdraw from any territories until it’s borders were secure.  From my point of view, neither invalidates the other.

I also have no doubt that, but for centuries of Arab hatred and bigotry, and the Arab policy of apartheid against Jews, which continues, unabated, the state of Israel would have been fully integrated, ab initio.  [Look it up].

Comment #77628 by “lefty” on 6/13 at 9:39 am

“Lefty=ephraim pesach”...keeps throwing at us what Nelson Mandela said about Israel...Well...here is a response that might be of interest to ALL on board here & everywhere:

=====================================================

A LETTER FROM NELSON MANDELA TO THOMAS FRIEDMAN

MARCH 30, 2001

TO: THOMAS FRIEDMAN (columnist New York Times)

FROM: NELSON MANDELA (former President South Africa)

“Thomas, if you follow the polls in Israel for the last 30 or 40 years, you clearly find vulgar racism that includes a third of the population who openly declare themselves to be racist. This racism is of nature of “I hate Arabs” and “I wish Arabs would be dead”. If you also follow the judicial system in Israel you will see there is discrimination against Palestinians, and if you further consider the 1967 occupied territories you will find there are two judicial systems in operation that represent two different approaches to human life: one for Palestinian life and the other for Jewish life. Additionally there are two approaches to property and to land. Palestinian property is not recognized as private property because it can be confiscated.

As to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is an additional factor. The so-called “Palestinian autonomous areas” are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system.

The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel’s racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a “Jewish” state.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

The responses made by South Africa to human rights abuses emanating from the removal policies and apartheid policies respectively, shed light on what Israeli society must necessarily go through before one can speak of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and an end to its apartheid policies.

Thomas, I’m not abandoning Mideast diplomacy. But I’m not going to indulge you the way your supporters do. If you want peace for democracy, I will support you. If you want formal apartheid, we will not support you. If you want to support racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing, we will oppose you.
When you figure out what you’re about, give me a call.”

Now for the the rest of the STORY...here is the link:

http://www.mediamonitors.net/arjan28.html

#77846 by Tony Wicher on 6/13 at 9:13 pm
(103 comments total)

I am not condemning Zionists but Zionism, the ideology, the project of a Jewish state in Palestine. I think it is and always was essentially pernicious. I am not attacking any person; you will notice that I do not engage in personal invective.
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Greetings Tony, I love you and appreciate your being a warrior for peace and justic for the Palestinians. However, I beg to disagree with you on this point. My point is that ideologies do not exist in a vaccum; they are created by men with souls and flesh; they are implemented by men with souls and flesh; and they are sustained by men with souls and flesh. Ideologies based on theory and thought do not kill others, dispossess them, steal their land and cause any harm by themelseves, but followers of these idelogies do. So by necessity, if you condemn Zionism, you must condemn Zionists.This is like saying that guns don’t kill by themselves, it’s people with guns and intent who do killing. You cannot take the gun or the gun manufacturer to court, but you can take the owner of the gun who used it to kill.

ITW--Your effort to dismiss this documentary as propaganda reminds me of the effort by Rumsfeld et al to dismiss as propaganda the live al Jazeera TV broadcasts during the seige of Falluja--as if the photographic images, instead of the Rumsfeldian Newspeak were the lie.

Facts, ITW!  You’ve provided nary a one!

Tony Wicher, I wholeheartedly agree that Zionism is a pernicious, racist ideology that has led its adherents to commit crimes against humanity.  My statement was limited to a very narrow issue--the 1941 effort by a tiny faction of the Zionist movement to strike an accord with Adolf Hitler.  Setting aside questions of ideology, that effort was a despicable act that all--including the Zionists posting on the site, should condemn.  My only point is that we should avoid anything that resembles “guilt by association” that might be misconstrued as an effort to lay this despicable act on the doorstep of all Zionists.

Re #77780 by Ernest Canning on 6/13 at 5:44 pm
(319 comments total)

“However, I think it no more appropriate to condemn all Zionists for Stern’s despicable attempt at a Zionist/Nazi alliance then it would be to condemn all Catholics because the current Pope was once a member of the Hitler Youth.”

I am not condemning Zionists but Zionism, the ideology, the project of a Jewish state in Palestine. I think it is and always was essentially pernicious. I am not attacking any person; you will notice that I do not engage in personal invective.

Tony Wicher:  The quote you provided of the effort by Avraham Stern of the “National Military Organization” to enter a pact with Hitler so as to further his twisted, Zionist goals is one of the more disturbing that I have ever read, especially when it was by then, 1941, obvious that the Nazi goals were genocidal.

However, I think it no more appropriate to condemn all Zionists for Stern’s despicable attempt at a Zionist/Nazi alliance then it would be to condemn all Catholics because the current Pope was once a member of the Hitler Youth.

The real criticism of present-day Zionists lies in the fact that they have become so blinded by their ideology that they resemble the mindless Party members in George Orwell’s “1984” who would daily participate in a ritual of hate.  These people have no interest in any facts that do not fit their preconceived notions of what this conflict is all about.

Take, for example, my effort to reach out to ITW by suggesting that he actually watch the marvelously factual one hour, 9 minute documentary which Robert linked to in comment #76638 and to then return so that we could entertain an honest, intellectual discussion.  I was not at all surprised that my olive branch triggered a spiteful response from our resident Zionist sociopath, Ephraim “Lefty” Pesach, who simply called me “scum.” But I actually thought there was a prospect that ITW and perhaps Charles Barton would rise to the challenge.

Boy was I wrong!  Their subsequent posts reveal that they have no interest in acquiring the knowledge that