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Christmas 2006: Is Jesus still a Palestinian?; bethlehem notes....
Topic Started: Dec 13 2006, 02:41 AM (1,594 Views)
jon-nyc
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Jeffrey, which is it going to be? That there was no ethnic cleansing or that the ethnic cleansing was justified since the indigenous population supported the other side?

And you certainly present false choices - that they had to kill them, drive them out, or be killed themselves. In every land war one side overruns territory in which civilians from the other side live. Of course these represent a degree of threat to communications through sabotage, whatever - but most armies don't repsond with wholesale ethnic cleansing. (unless their goal is in fact to drive the current population off the territory so they can make it their own)


I'm frankly surprised you are engaging in this argument. I don't think many modern historians disagree with my point, namely, that hundreds of thousands of Arab civilians fled, not before the fighting started to get out of the way of advancing Arab armies, but as a direct result of attack by Jewish forces or threat of attack. (which, by the way, is why I asked JB what he had read on the topic - although I realize now it probably came off as patronizing)


As you may know, or should know, exploiting the fear of attack was a specific strategy of the Haganah/IDF - even Yigal Allon wrote about it in the official history of the Palmach. I'll quote from his report on 'Operation Broom' (yes, as in sweep out the arab population):

"The confidence of thousands of Arabs of the Huleh was shaken. We had only 5 days left, until 15 May. We regarded it as imperative to cleanse the interior of Galilee and create Jewish territorial continuity in the whole of upper Galilee.'

He describes the strategy, after having driven out the Arabs of Safed:

"We tried to utilize a strategem that exploited the defeats in Safed and the area cleared by Broom - a strategem that worked wonderfully. I gathered the Jewish mukhtars, who had ties with the different arab villages, and I asked them to whisper in the ears of several Arabs that giant Jewish reinforcements had reached Galilee and were about to clean out the villages of the Huleh, to advise them, as friends, to flee. The flight encompassed tens of thousands."


This is quoted in Martin Gilbert, definitely an Israel-friendly historian. (and a serious historian at that - he was Churchill's official biographer)


This is just another example. There are many. (for example, Haifa and its surrouding villages were cleared in a similar way - Weitz describes it rather enthusiastically in his diary, if you're interested.)


By the way, Ben-Gurion did in fact support ethnic cleansing (of course not genocide, not sure where you got that idea). Of course he knew he couldn't talk that way publicly, but it came out in his letters. And he did put it into effect, insofar as he could get away with it without it atttracting too much attention. Most modern historians don't hide from that fact. I'm not sure why you are so uncomfortable with it.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Jeffrey
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jon: "false choices"

Hmmm ... you must know something I do not. Can you please inform me of the intentions of the 20 or so invading Arab armies and resident snipers and how they intended to treat the inhabitants - men, women and children - of the Yishuv? Your reply seems to imply that you believe it was merely to settle a small border dispute. I was unaware of this. Could you please cite from the vast history sources you have read your evidence for this? To use your terminology, do you deny that the Arabs wanted to "ethnically cleanse" the Jews from Palestine?

I am frankly surprised that you would employ such double standards in evaluating the actions of the Haganah. Ethnic cleansing refers to genocide and concentration camps. Even Benny Morris says (on I believe rather exaggerated analysis) that only 800 Arab civilians were killed. This is a fraction of the Jewish civilians who were killed in this time frame. I am "uncomfortable" as you put it only with double standards being applied only to Jews fighting for physical survival (as I will continue to believe unless you present evidence of the sort I asked for in the first paragraph). I am aware that these double standards are common coin in discussions of this issue, but that is no reason for you to fall into that error. Again, I can see why you are uncomfortable with the Iranian quotes I gave above and wish to pass over them and (referring to your WTF comment) don't really know what to make of or how to understand Iran's actions. Evidence of that sort does rather undermine your position, and support mine. Iran's views did not come from nowhere, nor did they start in 2006.

I also asked you to cite any other example in all history of a group faced with physical extermination who behaved better during wartime than the Haganah. You have not yet come up with any example. Perhaps you could use the example of Britain in WW2 or the North in the Civil War during Sherman's march. (Yes, I know these were not even wars for survival but they are widely regarded as moral countries fighting for a moral cause.) Again, the only thing I am uncomfortable with is the moral double standards you use in analysing the War for Independence, as indicated by your loaded and intentionally inflammatory use of the false claim of ethnic cleansing. The proper phrase is intercommunal war.
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TomK
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Wow Jeffery--have you got a guilty consience about something?

You are kind of in your own world with this stuff. Jews are good everyone else is evil--we get your point.

Chill out a bit. You're going Postal. :D

Let's change the subject.

Tom: How 'bout them Mets.

Jeffery: Well, there are three Jews on the team all are discriminated against for being Jews, in their last game the pitcher for the opposite team, a well known Nazi sympathizer, struck two of them out. :D
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jon-nyc
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Jeffrey - there is no doubt that the Arabs wanted to cleanse palestine of the Jews, and probably a majority still want to do so today.

What you need to understand is that my point wasn't, and never will be, that the Jews are evil, or that Israel behaves worse then her Arab neighbors.

I was simply trying to correct one single myth. Thats all. I wasn't even passing judgement, really. Hell, our forefathers did more than their share of ethnic cleansing on this continent.

There is no double standard here. Your problem is that you take any criticism of Israel - or even correction of myths - as an indication that I am somehow "on the other side". I think your upbringing has you hard-wired to circle the wagons on this topic - one can either be with you or against you. I would ask you to approach this issue with less emotion and actually read my posts (consistently above my single point was to correct that one myth, and you kept trying to bring me into conversations about which side is 'better')

And as I said above I am not, in general, a supporter of right of return, but I at least have the intellectual honesty to recognize it as a moral compromise, the lesser of two evils.
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Jeffrey
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jon - (1) Above you said that kill, move, or be killed was a "false choice", but now you say "there is no doubt that the Arabs wanted to cleanse palestine of the Jews, and probably a majority still want to do so today." Do you see a contradiction or change of position in your different posts?

(2) "think your upbringing" etc.

Your comment presumes quite a bit. I believe that not growing up Jewish you have little deep understanding of anti-semitism as an irrational historical phenomenon. You tend to view the issue in terms of liberal principles of rationality, which is not the reality of the causes of anti-semitism. It is perhaps sort of like my understanding of anti-gay prejudice. I oppose it. I have read about it. I have seen the bigotry thrown out here in the Coffee Rooms. I have several close gay friends. But it has never affected me personally. This does not make me anti-homosexual, but it does mean my understanding of the issue is limited. Take the analogy as you will.

(3) "I am not, in general, a supporter of right of return, but I at least have the intellectual honesty to recognize it as a moral compromise, the lesser of two evils."

Your sentence does not make sense in common english. Read literally, it says you do not support the ROR, but the ROR ("it") is the "lesser" of two evils, and is a "moral compromise". This means that you don't support the ROR, but you do, in fact, support the ROR (as a moral compromise and the "lesser" of two evils.) I assume you did not intend to print a self-contradictory sentence, and so I will ask you to explain. Also, whatever your actual position is, it is a bit presumptuous to assume that you are the one with "intellectual honesty" and that those who disagree with you lack this mental trait, or are ignorant of the nature of intercommunal war. Also, if you do intend to support a Pali ROR, please reconcile this with your comment that "there is no doubt that the Arabs wanted to cleanse palestine of the Jews, and probably a majority still want to do so today." I simply could not make any sense of your sentence, although I knew you believed it to be important as the conclusion of your post.

(4) "I wasn't even passing judgement, really."

The term "ethnic cleansing" is a clearly morally loaded term, with connotations of genocide and concentration camps in common parlance (as in Bosnia or Rwanda, the situations I have most often heard the term used recently). If you did not intend to pass moral judgement, you should not use it. I believed you were aware of the moral connotations of the phrase, and you intentionally used it to provoke and pass judgement.

(5) "actually read my posts"

I did read your posts, and am under the strong impression that mine have not been read as carefully.
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TomK
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Jeffrey
Dec 17 2006, 02:24 PM


(2)  "think your upbringing" etc.

Your comment presumes quite a bit.  I believe that not growing up Jewish you have little deep understanding of anti-semitism as an irrational historical phenomenon.  You tend to view the issue in terms of liberal principles of rationality, which is not the reality of the causes of anti-semitism.  It is perhaps sort of like my understanding of anti-gay prejudice.  I oppose it.  I have read about it.  I have seen the bigotry thrown out here in the Coffee Rooms.  I have several close gay friends.  But it has never affected me personally.  This does not make me anti-homosexual, but it does mean my understanding of the issue is limited.  Take the analogy as you will. 


No No No!!!

Jeffery, you should have used BLACKS, not gays as your example. A much better choice--We Shall Overcome...Freedom Riders. (Not that messy AIDS stuff!)

Tell us of your PAIN. Your SUFFERING. Jeffery, please tell us how YOU were discriminated against. How YOU suffered for your faith (if indeed you actually BELIEVE in the Jewish G-d.)

Now this is TNCR DRAMA! :rolleyes: :D

And Jeffery--please read MY posts.. :D
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jon-nyc
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Regarding right of return....

When I say moral compromise, I mean that there is no solution that does not involve an injustice, even a grave injustice.

To support right of return essentially means supporting the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. I've read enough history to understand that Jews cannot rely on the good will of the majority around them - maybe everything will be fine for a while, even a few hundred years, but eventually they find themselves at risk. It could be that parts of the world are more enlightened now and will remain so, but if I were leading the Jews I certainly wouldn't bet my people's future on it. Therefore supporting the conversion of Israel from a Jewish state to an Arab state with a large Jewish minority would involve a tremendous injustice, namely putting at risk the long-term survival of the Jews as a people.

However, denying the right to return is also supporting an injustice. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were either driven away from their homes at gunpoint, or prevented, at the point of that same gun, from returning to their homes after fleeing a warzone. In some cases, these were bedouin nomads, in other cases families that had lived there only a generation or so, but in yet other cases these were families that spent countless generations in the same location (this was especially common in the cities). For many of these individuals, their only crime was being the wrong race. To deny them their homes for this reason is also an injustice.


Hence my point. To hold a poisition (or at any rate an intellectually honest one) on this topic involves choosing between two injustices. I view the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state to be (by far) the greater injustice, given (1) the history of the Jews, and (2) their relative lack of options as compared to the Palestinian refugees.


That's what I meant when I said 'moral compromise'.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Jeffrey
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jon - Ah ... "it" referred to your political position, not a RoR.

Our positions are not that far apart. I have no principled objection to compensation or reconstruction funds being given to Pals as part of an overall peace deal (as Clinton and Barak offered, only to be met with a new war), since even just wars that involve the general national population always involve some injustice (again I reference England in WW2 bombing Dresden to keep up British morale and the North in the Civil war during Sherman's march), and would argue that forced Jewish refugees from Arab lands should receive similar compensation, for similar reasons. Peace treaties after wars usually involve some economic negotiations as well. At present, such compensation funds would do little good, since they would only go to cronyism and weapons and more war, not economic development and restitution, so the logical point is meaningless at present, until a viable peace treaty is on the table, and that seems quite a long ways off.

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TomK
HOLY CARP!!!
Jeffrey
Dec 17 2006, 05:57 PM
jon - Ah ... "it" referred to your political position, not a RoR.

Our positions are not that far apart.  I have no principled objection to compensation or reconstruction funds being given to Pals as part of an overall peace deal (as Clinton and Barak offered, only to be met with a new war), since even just wars that involve the general national population always involve some injustice (again I reference England in WW2 bombing Dresden to keep up British morale and the North in the Civil war during Sherman's march), and would argue that forced Jewish refugees from Arab lands should receive similar compensation, for similar reasons.  Peace treaties after wars usually involve some economic negotiations as well.  At present, such compensation funds would do little good, since they would only go to cronyism and weapons and more war, not economic development and restitution, so the logical point is meaningless at present, until a viable peace treaty is on the table, and that seems quite a long ways off.

You ever been to Israel, Jeffery?

You are a nut case.

Dresden--Sherman's march. The American Civil War and WWII have nothing to do with the introduction of Jews into Palestine. In both cases the atrocities occured on the midst of warfare. For the Jews to use such tactics just to "take over" is more than distasteful--it's wrong. Nazi's could make the same case for things they did.

You are living in a dream world. :D :D :D
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jon-nyc
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bachophile
Dec 16 2006, 11:46 PM
jon,

Quote:
 
JB and I were discussing a single, narrow point. Namely, whether all the refugees of 48 left on there own accord or were some in fact driven out by Jewish forces and Jewish irregulars.


didnt want to get involved in this, but i will interject a minor point.

i think its well established that the truth lies between the old zionist claim that the refugee problem was an arab induced problem versus the post zionist claim of "ethnic cleansing" (your term jon). the truth is in the middle as your above quote states more calmly.

i think the big turn off was your use of obviously a loaded inflammatory term such as ethnic cleansing with its associated images of concentration camps in bosnia.

just like jimmah's use of the loaded term apartheid.

loaded terms carry associations which go beyond the nature of the moment and give false understandings by clouding meaning.

the 1948 situation was one of survival. we all know what would have happened if they had won the war. 3 years after aushwitz would have witnessed the sequel...aushwitz 2. not to justify anything. just putting things in perspective.

hyperbole never helps anybody.

Just now saw this, Bach.

Agreed that the term is distasteful, but I'm not sure if its any more so than the actions it is meant to describe. As you probably know, the term gained currency in the 90s with the events in Bosnia, displacing the more sterile term 'population transfer'.

I think the newer term is more appropriate, since the motivation behind the action is contained in the term itself. Population transfer is too value-neutral, and could encompass such actions as helping refugees flee a flooded area, like the buses that took Katrina victims to Houston.


Having said that, I certainly recognize that the loaded terminology draws analogies that are unfair - who would compare Ben-Gurion to Milosevic? But at the same time I find the idealized narrative of Israeli history that one often hears in this country (not so much in yours) such a distortion of reality that its exponents need a spritz of cold water now and then. (more worryingly, this idealized narrative is not merely put forward as propoganda, it is genuinely believed. again not so much in your country, but its very common here)
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jon-nyc
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Jeffrey
Dec 17 2006, 04:57 PM
Our positions are not that far apart.

How about that! Who would have guessed a page or two ago ;)

(let me add I agree with your last post in its entirety)
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TomK
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jon-nyc
Dec 17 2006, 06:03 PM
Jeffrey
Dec 17 2006, 04:57 PM
Our positions are not that far apart.

How about that! Who would have guessed a page or two ago ;)

Compared to me--Jeffery's right. (For the first time!)
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Daniel\
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Well, thank you Jon for giving me an accurate view of history.


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Jeffrey
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jon: " I certainly recognize that the loaded terminology draws analogies that are unfair - who would compare Ben-Gurion to Milosevic? But at the same time I find the idealized narrative of Israeli history that one often hears in this country (not so much in yours) such a distortion of reality that its exponents need a spritz of cold water now and then"

The reason your purposeful use of the loaded and hectoring term (and above you claimed not to pass judgment, so I still find your overall position deeply confused, even if we agree somewhat on the practical conclusions) is incorrect, is because Milosevic and the Hutus etc. were not under thread of physical extermination, as the Yishuv was (a fact I finally got you to admit, after you said I gave only false choices). I have made this point about 8 or 9 times, so if you still fail to recognize it, I can say no more.

Again, a fair comparison of ethics would be English reactions to the German bombing of London, which in fact did not put the existance of the British people at any total danger, unlike the danger the hostile armies did to the Yishuv, comprised of people who (mostly) legally immigrated on land they purchased, or who had lived their in communities for 2500 years (as in Hebron, until they were themselves "cleansed" by a pogrom). Your use of hectoring ("cold water") language is simply incorrect, and morally inaccurate.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
Until this discussion I thought most people understood "ethnic cleansing" to be associated with mass graves and extermination. Now it seems to mean people moving from one area to another either forcibly or by choice. Perhaps that is an acceptable use of the term but one would be forgiven for thinking that there should be a new term invented to encompass only those horrors with which we asssociated "ethnic cleansing" before. At least, for the sake of honestly, so that we understand we are not talking about the same thing in both cases.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Jeffrey
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JB - I have noticed that sometimes people feel the need to be deliberately offensive when discussing the actions of Israel, in a way they do not feel the need to be when discussing other actions of other countries or peoples.
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phykell
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JBryan
Dec 18 2006, 04:53 AM
Until this discussion I thought most people understood "ethnic cleansing" to be associated with mass graves and extermination. Now it seems to mean people moving from one area to another either forcibly or by choice. Perhaps that is an acceptable use of the term but one would be forgiven for thinking that there should be a new term invented to encompass only those horrors with which we asssociated "ethnic cleansing" before. At least, for the sake of honestly, so that we understand we are not talking about the same thing in both cases.

Genocide.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it's animals are treated. - Ghandhi

Evil cannot be conquered in the world. It can only be resisted within oneself.

Remember, bones heal and chicks dig scars
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Daniel\
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Jon's use is correct, if Wikipedia's entry is to be believed:

"Ethnic cleansing refers to various policies or practices aimed at the displacement of an ethnic group from a particular territory. The term entered English and international usage in the early 1990s to describe certain events in the former Yugoslavia, with the induced cleansing of Bosniaks ("Bosnian Muslims"). The term became known to the world as Serbian war overheads most of the time either openly discussed or indicated their plans in cleansing (čišćenje) of territories. Narrower definitions equate ethnic cleansing with forcible population transfer accompanied by gross human-rights violations and other factors. In broader definitions it is effectively a synonym of population transfer."

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jon-nyc
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JB - I think my usage of 'ethnic cleansing' conforms with the norm. While I suppose genocide would be its extreme case, it is generally used when discussing the removal of a certain ethnic group form particular territory under force or threat of force.

Wikipedia agrees with me, FWIW. (at least it does now after I spent the last 4 hours editing it ;) )

Jeffrey - the term does apply. The Yishuv was under threat of extermination by Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqi armies. The villagers of Lydda or Safed hardly represented an existential threat.


Re 'judgment' my sentence was "I wasn't even passing judgement, really." That last word is key - what I was trying to say is that the point of my above posts wasn't to say "aren't the Israeli's evil? Can you believe they would do such a thing?" Rather (as Ive said repeatedly) in the above posts I was just trying to point out that one of the founding myths of Israel hasn't withstood the scrutiny of historians.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Daniel\
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I quote Wikipedia and to support your use of a term and come to find out YOU wrote the damn thing? What a waste of time- I have not written a post on this board in the last two days I have not had reason to delete and replace with Edit.



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jon-nyc
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That was a joke! I didn't edit the entry.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Daniel\
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I am relieved Jon. LOL! :singdance:

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jon-nyc
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You can even check the history. :angel:
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jon-nyc
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phykell
Dec 18 2006, 04:06 AM
JBryan
Dec 18 2006, 04:53 AM
Until this discussion I thought most people understood "ethnic cleansing" to be associated with mass graves and extermination. Now it seems to mean people moving from one area to another either forcibly or by choice. Perhaps that is an acceptable use of the term but one would be forgiven for thinking that there should be a new term invented to encompass only those horrors with which we asssociated "ethnic cleansing" before. At least, for the sake of honestly, so that we understand we are not talking about the same thing in both cases.

Genocide.

Good point, Phykell. While I suppose genocide is technically a form of ethnic cleansing, it makes sense that it was coined as a dysphemism for the more neutral-sounding 'population tranfer'. The word genocide hardly needed to be made more emotive.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Daniel\
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Edit


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