A media and propaganda campaign has been under way since the Annapolis "peace" conference to legitimate the longstanding demands made on behalf of the Palestinian "Arab refugees" -- meaning in practice the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of refugees -- from the 1948 Arab-Israel war of sixty years ago, for their return to their ancestral homes and the return of all their ancestors' former land and property in what is now Israel.
The Palestinian National Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Liberation Organization founded by Yasser Arafat have always made this demand a sine qua non for "peace" with Israel, as do all of the Palestinian terrorist-political groups (Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, etc. etc.). And the Palestinian Arab leadership continues to stand by this demand today, promising their supporters that they will never agree to "peace" without its acceptance by Israel.
An example of the current media blitz on behalf of this "right of return" demand is an op-ed by Nir Rosen, a reporter who has covered the Islamic world for many of the United States' leading media organs, in the Washington Post ("Scapegoats in an Unwelcoming Land," Sunday, December 16, 2007). Mr. Rosen writes:
"the rights of the Palestinian refugees have been ignored for six decades by a world that has wished them away. But the Middle East will never know peace or stability until they are granted justice. In 1948-49, around the conflict that Israelis refer to as their War of Independence and that Palestinians call the Catastrophe, some 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed to make way for the creation of the Jewish state. In 1967, during the Six-Day War, 400,000 Palestinians were expelled by the Israeli military, according to Amnesty International."
A similar polemic by one Ghada Ageel, who describes herself as "a third-generation Palestinian refugee [who] grew up in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza and teaches Middle Eastern politics at the University of Exeter in Britain," appeared in the Dec.1, 2007 issue of the Los Angles Times: Ms. Ageel avers:
"sixty years ago, my grandparents lived in the beautiful village of Beit Daras, a few kilometers north of Gaza. They were farmers and owned hundreds of acres of land. But in 1948, in the first Arab-Israeli war, many people lost their lives defending our village from the Zionist militias. In the end, with their crops and homes burning, the villagers fled. My family eventually made its way to what became the refugee camp of Khan Yunis in Gaza . We were hit hard by poverty, humiliation and disease. We became refugees, queuing for tents, food and assistance, while the state of Israel was established on the ruins of my family's property and on the ruins of hundreds of other Palestinian villages. . . I raise this story today. . . to help convey the deep-seated fears of Palestinian refugees that we will be asked to exonerate Israel for its actions and to relinquish our right to return home.
That cannot be allowed to happen. All refugees have the right to return. This is an individual right, long recognized in international law, that cannot be negotiated away."
What is wrong with these demands? Just about everything. Here are only a few of the reasons why they unjust, ill-intentioned and grounded in deceit:
First and foremost, the Palestinian Arabs were the primary aggressors in the 1948 war, not innocent victims of the "Zionists" as their spokesmen and advocates claim. The Palestinian Arab guerilla-terrorists used very brutal tactics indeed in 1947-48 to achieve their leaders' publicly affirmed goal of "driving the Jews into the sea."
Within 24 hours of the passage of the United Nations General Assembly partition resolution of November 29, 1947, which the Palestinians' political leadership rejected, a civilian bus carrying Jewish passengers were attacked by Palestinian Arab guerilla-terrorists and five of its passengers were massacred. Two days later, the Jewish Commercial Center in Jerusalem was burned to the ground.
Soon terrorist and guerilla attacks on Jewish villages and urban neighborhoods were being carried out all across Palestine. Few if any Jewish communities were spared attack. In Jaffa, to take a fairly typical example, the minaret of the Hassan Bek mosque was used by the Palestinian Arab guerillas as a sniper post to direct random fire at Jewish civilians in nearby Tel Aviv, taking a heavy toll in lives over several months. The attacks on Jewish-operated vehicles along the roads were especially vicious, resulting in many casualties and effectively closing all of the major roads in Palestine to Jewish traffic.
As a result, many Jewish communities developed severe shortages of food, fuel, and medicines. The Jerusalem areas'100,000 Jewish inhabitants were especially hard-hit by the Palestinian Arabs' siege warfare. By May 15, 1948, after five and a half months of Palestinian guerilla-terrorist attacks, but before six Arab states had begun their massive invasion of Palestine-Israel, 2,500 Jews had already been killed, half of them civilians, and thousands more had been wounded.
After the Arab states' invasion began on May 15, the Palestinian Arab "irregulars" helped the Arab armies in every way they could: they blew up Jerusalem's main water pumping station, leaving its inhabitants without regular water as well as food supplies; continued to ambush Jewish traffic on the roads; acted as guides to Arab troops; and held down defensive positions, thereby freeing the Arab regular armies for offensive operations against their Jewish neighbors. By the time the war ended, about 6,000 Jews had been killed, including approximately 2,000 civilians-nearly one per cent of the Jewish population of Palestine/Israel.
In order to defend the country's 650,000 Jewish inhabitants, whose villages and urban neighborhoods were scattered amongst Arab ones, from annihilation by the combined Palestinian Arab and Arab states' onslaught, the Palestinian Jewish defense militias (just in the process of evolving into the Israeli army) were forced to capture Palestinian villages that served as bases of operation for the guerilla-terrorist attackers. It is true that when the defense militias entered some Palestinian villages in order to drive out or capture the guerilla-terrorists, much of the Palestinian Arab civilian population also fled from these villages. But this was hardly the fault of the Israelis.
The Arab Palestinian guerillas did not wear uniforms or distinguish themselves in any way from the Arab civilian population, among whom they lived and from whom they were recruited. As a result, there was no way that the Israeli soldiers could drive the guerillas out of these villages without adversely affecting their noncombatant relatives and neighbors
Even so, the Israeli forces' counter-guerilla operations, unavoidable for self-defense as they were, were not even the immediate cause of the "exodus" of most Palestinian Arabs from the areas that became Israel in 1948. Many Arab leaders as well as ordinary Palestinian Arabs have confirmed the role of the Palestinian Arab leadership and the governments of the Arab states in causing the mass evacuation of much of the Arab population from what is now Israel. A prime example is none other than the present head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Abbas wrote in March 1976 that
"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, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe."
Another well-informed Arab politician, Khaled al-Azm, a former Syrian Prime Minister, states in his memoirs published in 1973 that
"Since 1948, it is we who have demanded the return of the refugees, while it is we who made them leave. We brought disaster upon a million Arab refugees by inviting them and bringing pressure on them to leave. We have accustomed them to begging...we have participated in lowering their morale and social level...Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson and throwing stones upon men, women and children...all this in the service of political purposes..."
And Mahmud Al-Habbash, a columnist for the official PA paper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, has confirmed that the Arabs left Israel in 1948 only after Arab leaders persuaded them to do so by promising them a speedy return to their homes in Palestine; as Habbash puts it,
"the leaders and the elites promised us at the beginning of the ‘Catastrophe' [the establishment of Israel and the creation of refugee problem] in 1948, that the duration of the exile will not be long, and that it will not last more than a few days or months, and afterwards the refugees will return to their homes, which most of them did not leave only until they put their trust in those ‘Arkuvian' promises made by the leaders and the political elites. Afterwards, days passed, months, years and decades, and the promises were lost with the strain of the succession of events..." [Term "Arkuvian," is after Arkuv - a figure from Arab tradition - who was known for breaking his promises and for his lies. Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, December 13, 2006].
As for Mr. Rosen's claim that ‘in 1967, during the Six-Day War, 400,000 Palestinians were expelled by the Israeli military," for which he gives "Amnesty International" as his source, it is true that an AI report dated March 3, 2004 contains a single sentence claiming that "In . . .1967, Palestinianrefugees were expelled out of their homes by force.". But the report does not give the figures cited by Ms. Rosen ("400,000") or indeed any figures at all for the refugees of the 1967 war. Even more to the point, it provides no documentation or other supporting evidence whatsoever for its expulsion claim. Nor have we seen any such evidence relating to an expulsion of Palestinians in 1967 elsewhere.
Even the claims of many of the present-day "refugees" to be Palestinians are dubious. In her painstakingly researched study From Time Immemorial, Joan Peters points out that UNWRA defines any Arab who lived in Palestine for a minimum of only two years before Israel became independent in 1948, and who left Israeli territory at that time, plus all Arabs descended from such individuals to the end of time. As Ms. Peters documents at great length, tens if not hundreds of thousands of Arabs immigrated to Palestine under the British Mandate administration of 1918-1948, attracted by the massive economic development and infrastructure improvements introduced into Palestine by the Jewish "settlers" and the British administration.
Thus many of the "Palestinians" not only have never lived in Palestine themselves, but are fairly distant descendants of people who lived their only briefly before 1948, having been born elsewhere in the Arab world -- for the most part, in the Hauran region of Syria. Even more registration of phony refugees occurred because of the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA) practice of relying solely on the claims of self-professed refugees to determine refugee status, without attempting to verify their claims.
Equally dubious are the claims of so many of the refugees to be the heirs of former Palestinian landowners. All of the claims to ancestral land inheritances could not possibly be true. Very few Palestinian Arabs actually left behind valuable property when they left Israeli territory in 1948. Prior to Israel's independence very few Arabs possessed clear and unencumbered legal title to land in Palestine. Vast areas of the country were the property of the "state" (originally the Turkish government). Other land was held in common by villages.
Much of what land as was privately owned by Arabs prior to 1948 was included in vast latifundia owned by a few dozen wealthy "effendi" (aristocratic) families, some of whom did not even live in Palestine. Most Palestinian Arabs were tenant farmers, landless laborers, or Bedouin nomads. And such farms as were owned by Arab smallholders were usually hard-scrabble affairs on sandy, unproductive soil, which enabled their cultivators at most to eke out a bare living. Their owners were heavily indebted to money-lenders or large landlords.
In addition, many Arabs who claim to have once owned land in Palestine were actually squatters on previously unoccupied and unclaimed "state" land, without a legal private owner. Although many of these individuals never possessed title deeds to the land they professed to own and did not pay any taxes on them, they or their descendants nonetheless demand that "their" land be "returned" to them.
Claims of massive poverty, deprivation and suffering on the part of the Palestinian Arab refugees are largely false. For sixty years four generations of Palestinian refugees or alleged refugees have had all or most of their housing, food, education through college and graduate school, medical care and social services provided to them for free by UNWRA. No Americans or Europeans have benefited from such a generous and all-encompassing welfare state.
On top of UNWRA assistance, the Palestinian Arabs also receive a total of over a billion dollars a year in aid from other United Nations agencies, the United States, the European Community, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, and Iran. There have been no tents in the "refugee camps" (actually towns or urban neighborhoods) since the 1950s; the "refugees" live in apartments or houses, many of them as large and with the same amenities as apartments and houses in the United States and Europe.
For example, after the fighting in Jenin in 2002, when the Israel Defense Forces were compelled by repeated terrorist massacres to enter the Jenin "refugee camp" in order to remove the large terrorist base of operations there, the United Nations rebuilt the houses that had been destroyed in the fighting gratis for the Palestinians, hiring a British company to build English style townhouses with central heating and all modern amenities. However, at one point, the construction was halted by armed Palestinian Arabs with guns, who invaded the UNWRA housing office and demanded that bigger houses be built for them. They claimed that their original houses that were destroyed in the fighting were bigger than the townhouses designed by the British construction firm; they had been more like ranch houses.
Even Mr. Rosen, while purporting to describe the dire poverty and misery of the refugees in Lebanese "camps," lets slip an inconsistency: he observes that
"the term ‘refugee camp' summons up images of tents and squalor, but Nahr-el Bared, like many of its counterparts elsewhere in Lebanon, had been a thoroughly urban camp [sic], with low-slung apartment buildings. It even had soothing views of the Mediterranean."
Of course, non-refugee multimillionaires would gladly pay millions of dollars for a plot of land and a house with such "soothing views!" In short, Palestinian refugeeism is something of a racket.
The international community has not recognized or enforced a "right of return" for most of the very numerous non-Palestinian refugee communities throughout the world. The list of refugee populations who have been forced from their homelands and whose lands have been seized without compensation because of wars and revolutions within the past 100 years is endless. The more than 850,000 Jews who have either been expelled or fled from Arab and other Muslim countries since the Arab world initiated hostilities against the Jews of Israel-Palestine in 1947; the fifteen million Germans expelled from Pomerania, Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia by Poland and Czechoslovakia after World War II; the two million ethnic Greeks and Turks who were expelled from either Greece or Turkey in a "population exchange" administered by the League of Nations in 1922; the additional 200,000 Greeks who were expelled from northern Cyprus by the Turkish military invasion in 1974; the millions of Hindus who fled the newly created Muslim state of "Pakistan" and the millions of Muslims who fled what remained of India to Pakistan following the partition of India in 1947; the millions of Russians who fled Russia after the Communist takeover of that country in 1917 for other European countries or the United States; and the millions of Cubans,Vietnamese and Laotians who fled their homelands for the United States after the Communist take-overs of these countries, have all been denied repatriation, the return of the vast amounts of property they were forced to leave behind, or even compensation for their lost property.
Why should the Palestinian Arabs be considered a uniquely special case, with more rights than other refugees from wars and/or revolutions?
Last but certainly not least, implementation of the "right of return" demand for Palestinian Arabs would force the relocation of millions of people, most of them refugees or the descendants of refugees themselves, who have been resettled in the course of sixty years on land that is claimed by the Palestinian Arabs. The "return" of four million alleged "refugees," actually the descendants, mainly third and fourth generation, of people who once were or claimed to be refugees, who have been trained from birth to hate Israel, would result in a massive internal insurgency against the state, followed by the occupation of Israel by hostile Arab armies and the probable extermination of its Jewish population. Indeed, there is considerable evidence that this is precisely what most "right of return" advocates have in mind.
It is long overdue for the libel of an Israeli or Zionist "original sin" against the Palestinian Arabs to be discredited, along with the supposed Palestinian Arab "right of return," which is grounded in this false "narrative." There can be no peace between Arabs and Israelis before the lies are dispelled, and people on both sides, as well as the international media, academic experts, the world's governments and international organizations all acknowledge the truth.
John Landau contributed to this article.
Documentary sources: We used the following documentary sources in addition to those indicated by the hyperlinks: Our account of the Palestinian Arab's active and aggressive role in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War is derived from Netanel Lorch, Israel's War of Independence 1947-49 (2nd edition, 1969); A Clash of Destinies, also published under the title Both Sides of the Bunker, by Jon and David Kimche , ( 1960 ); O Jerusalem by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre ( 1972; reissued 2007 );and Genesis 1948 by Dan Kurzman (1992). All of these are listed on Amazon Books.com web site in the section on "Israel-Arab War 1948-49." See also Eli E. Hertz, Arab and Jewish Refugees-The Contrast, (http://www.mythsandfacts.com/Conflict/8/Refugees.pdf), pp.1-12, and David Meir-Levi, Big Lies: Demolishing The Myths of the Propaganda War Against Israel , (2005), http://www.frontpagemag.com/media/pdf/biglies.pdf, pp.15-25. For the dubious claims of many "refugees" to Palestinian nationality and/or refugee status, see Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial, (1984), pp.4-5, 17-19,269-325; and Hertz, Arab and Jewish Refugees, 18-19, 31-32, 36-37. For Arab land tenure in Palestine , see Michael J. Cohen, The Origins and Evolution of the Arab-Zionist Conflict (1987),72-76; and Hertz, Arab and Jewish Refugees,40-41, 58, in addition to the hyperlinked sources. For the generous benefits received by Palestinian Arab "refugees," from UNWRA, see Hertz, Arab and Jewish Refugees,26-34, 36-37; Report of Karen Koning Abuzayd, Commissioner-General of UNWRA, to the U.N General Assembly, http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/f45643a78fcba719852560f6005987ad/f41861cdd2f7a7bf8525738d004ef47f!OpenDocument; UNWRA Home Page, http://www.un.org/unrwa/; and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Relief_and_Works_Agency_for_Palestine_Refugees_in_the_Near_East. For the additional massive international foreign aid to the Palestinian Arabs, see Q: How much international aid does Palestine receive? http://www.israelipalestinianprocon.org/bin/procon/procon.cgi?database=5-J-Sub-Q10.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=1&rnd=343.787719090257; Ben-Dror Yemini, "And the World Pays," Maariv International,11/1/2007,http://www.maariv.co.il/online/1/ART1/529/562.html; Clyde Mark, Specialist in Middle East Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, United States Aid to the Palestinians, CRS Report for Congress, Received through the CRS Web, March 4, 2005, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS21594.pdf ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestinians; and numerous other online articles. For the luxurious townhouses built for "refugees" in the Jenin "refugee camp" by a British construction firm, and the Palestinian complaints that they weren't big enough, see Judy Lash Balint ,The ingrates of Jenin, June 29, 2004,http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/3795.htm;Gideon Levy, This week in rebuilt Jenin, Ha'aretz, 11 June 2004, http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node/1312 and numerous other press accounts. For the lack of a "right of return" for non-Palestinian refugees, see Hertz, Arab and Jewish Refugees, 20-26, 32-33, 36-37 in addition to hyperlink sources. For the international community's non-recognition of a right of return or even restitution for non-Palestinian refugees, see Hertz, Arab and Jewish Refugees, 20-26, 32-33, 36, in addition to the hyperlinked sources. For the intention of destroying Israel by advocates of the "right of return" for Palestinian Arab refugees, see Hertz, Arab and Jewish Refugees, 18, 40, 49.
http://www.MiddleEastSolutions.com
Rachel Neuwirth, an internationally recognized, political commentator and analyst. She specializes in Middle Eastern Affairs with particular emphasis on Militant Islam and Israeli foreign policy. She has been published in prominent news papers of Europe, Asia and the US. She is frequently quoted by reputable Media.
Rachel has the same subtle derision toward "Arabs" that Southern historians from the deep South used to and some still do have about the "Negroes" (my junior high Southern Colonel history teacher used to call them "Negras"), or to be more blunt, the same kind of derision Alfred Rosenberg used to have about the "Jews" in Nazi Germany, all of them creating their own alternative histories, mythologies and stereotypes to futher their ideological and political agendas.
But a picture is worth a thousand words, so check out these two YouuTube videos:
First of all ,the very first item on the middle east agenda is
1) Israel get behind the U.N. Madated 1967 lines and stay there.Obey International law
2) No Arabs can return to Israel .they return to Palestine, Israel is not a country but a contested plot of rocks and sand.Jews have a right to go/return to Israel, the contested piece of rocks and sand in no mans land
3)A 2 state solution is the only answer ,along with U.N. troops backed by heavy ,and i do mean heavy gun ships.
4) The Jewish occupants of Israel cannot co exist with Arabs .The jews believe they are superior and thus will always lean towards an apartheid system of state.
5) wars take 2 sides those that claim it is all the arabs fault or vice versa are not fooling anyone .
6) the day of the internet has arrived ,you can no longer hide behind lies. both sides are guilty.
7) the jewish people of Israel have looked for peace for 60 years and never wanted it. all the time they have advanced on land that is not theirs .Will the jews of Israel obey International law.
8) We must all live together in this world, we are all gods children those that have problems with this outlook will find it very difficult to cope in the coming years.
8 points to peace
no more apartheid states allowed in a world of free flowing information .
The people of the world are awakening
by
dave stanley (5 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 286 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 9:52:48 AM
All Ideologies of Superiority are Anti-Evolutionary
The fundamental spiritual truth of the Universe is that we are all brothers and sisters made in the image of God (or Goddess). Any philosophy or ideology that propounds that one group or race or class of people is superior to another and, ipso facto, can lord it over that "other", be it the "Elect" of Calvanism, the "Aryan Man" of Nazism, the "Chosen People" of Zionism, the "Pure Mudjadhadeen" of Wahabi Extremism, and on and on, is anti-evolutionary and will fall by the wayside, often rather violently.
Humanity is meant to evolve into oneness and unity in the grand scheme of things. Connectedness with each other is the emerging paradigm, and the Internet is a manifestation of that.
by
Mac McKinney (40 articles, 53 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 875 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 10:14:55 AM
Thank you, Rachel, for an excellent article. I am sure that you are prepared for the backlash from the many people on this site who are anti-Israeli. I just want to encourage you to keep up the good work. I enjoy your well-researched articles.
by
Barbara Peterson (45 articles, 75 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 404 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 10:33:01 AM
Before everyone starts getting into anti-Israel, pro-Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-Semitic, let me make one thing clear, that criticizing individuals who espouse reactionary ideologies that have been embraced in Israel, or criticizing the Israeli government, is not the same as criticizing the entire state of Israel, and does not make one "anti-Israeli", just as criticizing the Neocons and George Bush does not make one "anti-American". Those who sling these epithets are usually trying to evade facing painful truths, crush dissent or both. So let's try to avoid this here. Let me also point out that in Israel there is much more debate and criticism than there is here, which is really, really ironic.
by
Mac McKinney (40 articles, 53 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 875 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 11:19:47 AM
Do you have a suggestion on what I should call it when someone labels Israel as an apartheid state? This is what I was referring to when I used the term "anti-Israeli." I am open to suggestions.
by
Barbara Peterson (45 articles, 75 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 404 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 11:38:58 AM
I think the question that has to be answered first is, Is there Apartheid or Are there Apartheid tendencies in Israel?
Jimmy Carter was pilloried for daring to suggest that in his book, and accused of anti-Semitism. But how to you reply to this article by Uri Avnery, a leading Israeli critic of the Israeli State. What would you call him?
Thursday 25 January 2007 (07 Muharram 1428)
Israel, Carter and Apartheid
Uri Avnery
Yesterday, a decree of the officer commanding the Central Sector, Gen. Yair Naveh, was about to come into force. It forbade Israeli drivers from giving a ride to Palestinian passengers in the occupied territories. The knitted-Kippah-wearing general, a friend of the settlers, justified this as a vital security necessity. In the past, inhabitants of the West Bank have sometimes reached Israeli territory in Israeli cars.
Israeli peace activists decided that this nauseating order must be protested. They organized a “Freedom Ride” of Israeli car-owners who were to enter the West Bank (a criminal offense in itself) and give a ride to local Palestinians, who had volunteered for the action.
An impressive event in the making. Israeli drivers and Palestinian passengers breaking the law openly, facing arrest and trial in a military court.
At the last moment, the general “froze” the order. The demonstration was called off.
The order that was suspended (but not officially rescinded) emitted a strong odor of apartheid. It joins a large number of acts of the occupation authorities that are reminiscent of the racist regime of South Africa, such as the systematic building of roads in the West Bank for Israelis only and on which Palestinians are forbidden to travel. Or the “temporary” law that forbids Palestinians in the occupied territories, who have married Israeli citizens, to live with their spouses in Israel. And, most importantly, the wall, which is officially called “the separation obstacle”. In Afrikaans, “apartheid” means separation.
It is easy to detect a similarity between the planned enclaves and the “Bantustans” that were set up by the white regime in South Africa — the so-called “homelands” where the blacks were supposed to enjoy “self-rule” but which really amounted to racist concentration camps.
Because of this, we are right when we use the term “apartheid” in our daily struggle against the occupation.
Therefore, the title of former President Jimmy Carter’s new book is fully justified — “Palestine — Peace not Apartheid”. The title aroused the ire of the “friends of Israel” even more than the content of the book itself. How dare he? To compare Israel to the obnoxious racist regime? To allege that the government of Israel is motivated by racism?
It seems that Carter himself was not completely happy with the use of this term. He has hinted that it was added at the request of the publishers, who thought a provocative title would stimulate publicity. If so, the ploy was successful. The famous Jewish lobby was fully mobilized. Carter was pilloried as an anti-Semite and a liar.
The storm around the title displaced any debate about the facts cited in the book, which have not been seriously questioned. The book has not yet appeared in Hebrew.
But when we use the term “Apartheid” to describe the situation, we have to be aware of the fact that the similarity between the Israeli occupation and the white regime in South Africa concerns only the methods, not the substance. There are several basic differences between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the historical conflict between the whites and the blacks in South Africa.
(a) In South Africa there was a conflict between blacks and whites, but both agreed that the state of South Africa must remain intact — the question was only who would rule it. Our conflict is between two different nations with different national identities, each of which places the highest value on a national state of its own. (b) In South Africa, the idea of “separateness” was an instrument of the white minority for the oppression of the black majority, and the black population rejected it unanimously. Here, the huge majority of the Palestinians want to be separated from Israel in order to establish a state of their own. The huge majority of Israelis, too, want to be separated from the Palestinians. On the Israeli side, only the settlers and their allies demand to keep the whole historical area of the country united and object to separation, in order to rob the Palestinians of their land and enlarge the settlements. On the Palestinian side, the Islamic fundamentalists also believe that the whole country is a “waqf” (religious trust) and therefore must not be partitioned. (c) In South Africa, a white minority (about 10 percent) ruled over a huge majority of blacks (78 percent), people of mixed race (7 percent) and Asians (3 percent). Here, between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, there are now 5.5 million Jewish-Israelis and an equal number of Palestinian-Arabs (including the 1.4 million Palestinians who are citizens of Israel).
(d) The South African economy was based on black labor and could not possibly have existed without it. Here, the Israeli government has succeeded in excluding the non-Israeli Palestinians almost completely from the Israeli labor market and replacing them with foreign workers.
It is important to point out these fundamental differences in order to prevent grave mistakes in the strategy of the struggle for ending the occupation.
In Israel and abroad there are people who cite this analogy without paying due attention to the essential differences between the two conflicts.
No doubt it is essential to arouse international public opinion against the criminal treatment by the occupation authorities of the Palestinian people. We do this every day, just as Jimmy Carter is doing now. However, it must be clear that this is immeasurably more difficult because Israel is accepted by the world as the “State of the Holocaust Survivors”, and therefore arouses overwhelming sympathy.
It is a serious error to think that international public opinion will put an end to the occupation. This will come about when the Israeli public itself is convinced of the need to do so.
There is another important difference. In South Africa, no white would have dreamt of ethnic cleansing. But in Israel, this goal is under serious consideration, both openly and in secret. One of its main advocates, Avigdor Lieberman, is a member of the government and last week Condoleezza Rice met with him officially. Apartheid is not the worst danger hovering over the heads of the Palestinians. They are menaced by something infinitely worse: “Transfer”, which means total expulsion.
Some people in Israel and around the world follow the apartheid analogy to its logical conclusion: The solution here will be the same as the one in South Africa. There, the whites surrendered and the black majority assumed power. In Israel, that is a beautiful dream for the end of days.
I have no doubt that in the end, a federation between the two states, perhaps including Jordan too, will come about. Yasser Arafat spoke with me about this several times.
But neither the Palestinians not the Israelis can afford 50 more years of bloodshed, occupation and creeping ethnic cleansing.
The end of the occupation will come in the framework of peace between the two peoples, who will live in two free neighboring states — Israel and Palestine — with the border between them based on the Green Line. I hope that this will be an open border. Then Palestinians will freely ride in Israeli cars, and Israelis will ride freely in Palestinian cars.
by
Mac McKinney (40 articles, 53 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 875 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 1:20:52 PM
Thanks for your clarification. I will keep this in mind. I would like to address something in your response. You quoted:
The end of the occupation will come in the framework of peace between the two peoples, who will live in two free neighboring states — Israel and Palestine — with the border between them based on the Green Line. I hope that this will be an open border. Then Palestinians will freely ride in Israeli cars, and Israelis will ride freely in Palestinian cars.
Lofty words, but this will never happen. The reality is, if Sharia law takes over, which is highly likely, and Hamas becomes the ruling party of the day, the blood will flow like a river. Not just Israeli blood, but the blood of women who will not comply with the law, and the blood of anyone considered an infidel. This is not hysteria, but fact.
This plays into the framework of the new world order quite nicely if we understand that what is being created is a system where the elite rule, have their private armies and workers, and the rest of us just die.
by
Barbara Peterson (45 articles, 75 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 404 comments)
on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 4:00:40 PM
Instead of saying lofty words, but these can never happen, try saying lofty words and these will happen. Already the imagery in your mind will begin to shift with one changed phrase. We create negative or positive realities more than we realize through our thoughts and images.
by
Mac McKinney (40 articles, 53 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 875 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 9:01:11 PM
The article is shameful rightwing drivel. Note that Neuwirth
cites the "painstakingly researched study From Time Immemorial," by Joan Peters. Try googling on the words "fraud" and "Joan Peters," and read some of the links. What's funny is not the predictable criticism from figures like Chomsky and Finkelstein. Rather, it's the comments made even by rightwing nutcases who desperately want to support the book.
For instance, the well-known nut Daniel Pipes (who encourages students to spy on their professors & post their names on the Internet, if they're too "liberal") is quoted in the Wikipedia page on the book as saying,
"From Time Immemorial quotes carelessly, uses statistics sloppily, and ignores inconvenient facts. Much of the book is irrelevant to Miss Peters's central thesis. The author's linguistic and scholarly abilities are open to question. Excessive use of quotation marks, eccentric footnotes, and a polemical, somewhat hysterical undertone mar the book. In short, From Time Immemorial stands out as an appallingly crafted book."
There are other similarly scathing remarks on that page. For instance, the editor of the rightwing Capitalism Magazine says,
“I did not originate most of the criticisms of the book. Likewise, I have not sought to check every one of Peters' footnotes, which are voluminous; I have focused on the critics' claims. From Time Immemorial is work of propaganda, with all the bad connotations that term carries. Peters’[s] case rests upon distortion and fabrication. Time and again, she misconstrues sources in a tendentious manner. She cribs uncritically from partisan works. She conceals crucial calculations, and draws hard conclusions from tenuous evidence. She speculates wildly and without ground. She exaggerates figures ... etc etc
Ms Neuwirth's style is straight-forward: simply make a list of everything negative about Palestinians, & omit anything negative about the land-grabbing Israelis. Would it be hard to write an essay about the conflict between the American Indians and the settlers of the Old West -- and have the settlers come out looking good? It's easy, if you use Neuwirth's method. For instance, let's take a phrase like this:
"In Jaffa, to take a fairly typical example, the minaret of the Hassan Bek mosque was used by the Palestinian Arab guerillas as a sniper post to direct random fire at Jewish civilians in nearby Tel Aviv, taking a heavy toll in lives over several months. The attacks on Jewish-operated vehicles along the roads were especially vicious, resulting in many casualties..."
Just switch the nouns appropriately, & presto! We have
In Laramie, to take a fairly typical example, a church was used by the Indian savages as a sniper post to direct random fire at innocent settlers, taking a heavy toll in lives over several months. The attacks on wagon-trains along the roads were especially vicious, resulting in many casualties. There were many brutal scalpings ...
Doesn't that "prove" how vicious the Indian "aggressors" were?
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1013 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 1:47:29 PM
'Thus many of the "Palestinians" not only have never lived in Palestine themselves, but are fairly distant descendants of people who lived their only briefly before 1948, having been born elsewhere in the Arab world -- for the most part, in the Hauran region of Syria. Even more registration of phony refugees occurred because of the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA) practice of relying solely on the claims of self-professed refugees to determine refugee status, without attempting to verify their claims. '
Oh, Rachel-once- again. According to the above logic of hers surely the modern Jews who were born and lived before for generations in different countries and neither ethnically nor culturally resemble the ancient Hebrews have even lesser rights to the land of Judea and Samaria. Mrs. Newirth had just undermined the Zionist doctrine fair and square. That's what happens when your own hate is applied to you. You get intertwined.
And BTW the debate above: Criticism of any country has nothing to do with its population usually. As a Jew I do not care if Israel is criticised. I surely do care if another Jew is unfairly treated. But I also care if any another individual is treated unfairly too. That's inluding the unfair treatment by the Jews.
It would be very much advisable if all the pundits just..leave the Jews and Arabs alone for some time. That includes Mrs. Newirth who already has quite a reputation..
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Mark Sashine (42 articles, 19 quicklinks, 226 diaries, 3197 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 12:30:04 PM
Give it up. All of us looking for justice for Palestinians
and some semblance of sanity in the Middle East are going to be labeled 'anti Semitic' by the well oiled Israel lobby and its incessant propaganda machine. To achieve peace we'll have to ignore their outrageous claims, continue to speak out, and expect to be villified. It's their way of quashing discussion and it seems to be working more poorly every day. I'm very encouraged by the comments here. Although I have to add that Israel's actions, documented daily in newspapers, are probably the true reason for the turnaround in public opinion. Israel is its own worst enemy. Couldn't happen to nicer people.
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Cameron Salisbury (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 15 comments)
on Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 3:10:02 PM
Isn't That Just as One-Sided as Those You Criticize?
What we need is common sense and a recognition that both sides have been wrong.
And what is especially needed is even greater recognition by the world community that Palestinians have been the most-wronged party.
That does not mean that Palestinian extremists and "Jihadists" are not wrong. They most certainly are wrong. But the Israelis are more wrong, and the British, Americans and Israelis have been perpetrating wrong-doing on the Palestinian people since 1917.
Wake up, Rachel. The Palestinians were told some of their lands, when part of the British Mandate, would be granted to Israel. OK so far? We can all agree that setting up a homeland for Jews of the Diaspora was a good thing to do.
When Palestinians objected, the UN (which created Israel) told Israel--as a condition for chartering Israel--that Israel must pay reparations for property taken to create the new state. David Ben-Gurion agreed to this.
To date, NO reparations have ever been paid by Israel for Arab property included in the 1948 designation of Israel. So--Palestinians and Arabs have every right to demand the right of return, and the return of properties, because of Israel's bad faith in failing to pay the reparations it agreed to pay.
I have spoken with a family in Seattle which still holds the title (deed) for a large orange grove, taken to create Israel. They have never been answered or compensated, despite repeated inquiries to Israeli authorities.
Is this Israeli government one which deserves our respect? Of course not. Does this mean one is "anti-semitic?" Of course not.
by
R. Queisser (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 54 comments)
on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 11:35:20 AM
I like this article because it presents the other side of the story. You wrote:
"Is this Israeli government one which deserves our respect? Of course not. Does this mean one is "anti-semitic?" Of course not."
Of course the Israeli government does not deserve respect, but not for the reasons most think. Most hold up the Israeli government as horrible oppressors of the Palestinian people. What does not get much attention is the fact that the Israeli government is one of the major oppressors of the Israeli people. These are the people who were promised one thing, and are receiving another - a kick in the pants for believing a corrupt government.
The Israeli government does not deserve respect because its leaders are going along with the global elitist plans to eliminate the country as it is. It doesn't matter to these people who is oppressed or who dies in the process. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is manufactured for the purpose of the destruction of Israel. Does anyone realistically think that any of the governments of the day are looking out for the people? The Arab states just love the Palestinian problem. So do the global elites. They should, they manufactured it. Anyone who wants to blame Israel solely for the problem is not seeing the big picture.
The question is, why destroy Israel? Barry Chamish has a very good theory at
