Israel disgusts me.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are debating merits of op eds? Do you know how many awful op eds are written in mainstream media (not just Arab media) against Israel? Not to mention the horrendous rhetoric for Arab leaders. I really don't see how an op ed (one person's opinion!) is cause for concern. Someone wrote asinine, so what. Terrible rhetoric comes daily from the Arab and European media and we don't say a peep.

We don't provide Arab governments $3+ billion a year or go on endlessly about having shared values with them. Any time that you want to start treating Israel the way Arab countries are treated, just let us know.

Actually, we do provide Arab countries military aid, including Qatar, who is funding Hamas.

Yes, pointing out something that is irrelevant to what I said is always a good tactic. "We don't provide Arab governments $3+ billion a year or go on endlessly about having shared values with them."

Again, anytime that you think Israel should be treated just like Arab countries, let us know.

[Anonymous]

I don't know why you all act surprised. This school of thinking has existed in Israel forever. Again, if any other country gave a voice to this faction, they'd be branded fascists. I re-post a part of the interview with Benny Morris, a mainstream Israeli historian in Haaretz in 2004 - this after he had spend years researching the events of 1948. He not only justifies what was done to the Palestinians but sees the possibility of it happening again, and for a good cause. I am personally stricken by the line of thinking "X is horrible but without it Jewish state would not happen, therefore X is acceptable." At what point X is no longer acceptable? Is anything an acceptable price for the Jewish state?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/01/16/an-interview-with-benny-morris/

When ethnic cleansing is justified

Benny Morris, for decades you have been researching the dark side of Zionism. You are an expert on the atrocities of 1948. In the end, do you in effect justify all this? Are you an advocate of the transfer of 1948?

"There is no justification for acts of rape. There is no justification for acts of massacre. Those are war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime. I don’t think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."

We are talking about the killing of thousands of people, the destruction of an entire society.

"A society that aims to kill you forces you to destroy it. When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it’s better to destroy."

There is something chilling about the quiet way in which you say that.

"If you expected me to burst into tears, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I will not do that."

So when the commanders of Operation Dani are standing there and observing the long and terrible column of the 50,000 people expelled from Lod walking eastward, you stand there with them? You justify them?

"I definitely understand them. I understand their motives. I don’t think they felt any pangs of conscience, and in their place I wouldn’t have felt pangs of conscience. Without that act, they would not have won the war and the state would not have come into being."

You do not condemn them morally?

"No."

They perpetrated ethnic cleansing.

"There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide – the annihilation of your people – I prefer ethnic cleansing."

And that was the situation in 1948?

"That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."

The term `to cleanse’ is terrible.

"I know it doesn’t sound nice but that’s the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed."

What you are saying is hard to listen to and hard to digest. You sound hard-hearted.

"I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv [pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine] was attacked by the Palestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war.

"Remember another thing: the Arab people gained a large slice of the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great virtues, but because it conquered and murdered and forced those it conquered to convert during many generations. But in the end the Arabs have 22 states. The Jewish people did not have even one state. There was no reason in the world why it should not have one state. Therefore, from my point of view, the need to establish this state in this place overcame the injustice that was done to the Palestinians by uprooting them."

And morally speaking, you have no problem with that deed?

"That is correct. Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history."

And in our case it effectively justifies a population transfer.

"That’s what emerges."

And you take that in stride? War crimes? Massacres? The burning fields and the devastated villages of the Nakba?

"You have to put things in proportion. These are small war crimes. All told, if we take all the massacres and all the executions of 1948, we come to about 800 who were killed. In comparison to the massacres that were perpetrated in Bosnia, that’s peanuts. In comparison to the massacres the Russians perpetrated against the Germans at Stalingrad, that’s chicken feed. When you take into account that there was a bloody civil war here and that we lost an entire 1 percent of the population, you find that we behaved very well."

The next transfer

You went through an interesting process. You went to research Ben-Gurion and the Zionist establishment critically, but in the end you actually identify with them. You are as tough in your words as they were in their deeds.

"You may be right. Because I investigated the conflict in depth, I was forced to cope with the in-depth questions that those people coped with. I understood the problematic character of the situation they faced and maybe I adopted part of their universe of concepts. But I do not identify with Ben-Gurion. I think he made a serious historical mistake in 1948. Even though he understood the demographic issue and the need to establish a Jewish state without a large Arab minority, he got cold feet during the war. In the end, he faltered."

I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying that Ben-Gurion erred in expelling too few Arabs?

"If he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should have done a complete job. I know that this stuns the Arabs and the liberals and the politically correct types. But my feeling is that this place would be quieter and know less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for all. If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole country – the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion – rather than a partial one – he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know why you all act surprised. This school of thinking has existed in Israel forever. Again, if any other country gave a voice to this faction, they'd be branded fascists. I re-post a part of the interview with Benny Morris, a mainstream Israeli historian in Haaretz in 2004 - this after he had spend years researching the events of 1948. He not only justifies what was done to the Palestinians but sees the possibility of it happening again, and for a good cause. I am personally stricken by the line of thinking "X is horrible but without it Jewish state would not happen, therefore X is acceptable." At what point X is no longer acceptable? Is anything an acceptable price for the Jewish state?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/01/16/an-interview-with-benny-morris/

When ethnic cleansing is justified

Benny Morris, for decades you have been researching the dark side of Zionism. You are an expert on the atrocities of 1948. In the end, do you in effect justify all this? Are you an advocate of the transfer of 1948?

"There is no justification for acts of rape. There is no justification for acts of massacre. Those are war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime. I don’t think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."

We are talking about the killing of thousands of people, the destruction of an entire society.

"A society that aims to kill you forces you to destroy it. When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it’s better to destroy."

There is something chilling about the quiet way in which you say that.

"If you expected me to burst into tears, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I will not do that."

So when the commanders of Operation Dani are standing there and observing the long and terrible column of the 50,000 people expelled from Lod walking eastward, you stand there with them? You justify them?

"I definitely understand them. I understand their motives. I don’t think they felt any pangs of conscience, and in their place I wouldn’t have felt pangs of conscience. Without that act, they would not have won the war and the state would not have come into being."

You do not condemn them morally?

"No."

They perpetrated ethnic cleansing.

"There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide – the annihilation of your people – I prefer ethnic cleansing."

And that was the situation in 1948?

"That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."

The term `to cleanse’ is terrible.

"I know it doesn’t sound nice but that’s the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed."

What you are saying is hard to listen to and hard to digest. You sound hard-hearted.

"I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv [pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine] was attacked by the Palestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war.

"Remember another thing: the Arab people gained a large slice of the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great virtues, but because it conquered and murdered and forced those it conquered to convert during many generations. But in the end the Arabs have 22 states. The Jewish people did not have even one state. There was no reason in the world why it should not have one state. Therefore, from my point of view, the need to establish this state in this place overcame the injustice that was done to the Palestinians by uprooting them."

And morally speaking, you have no problem with that deed?

"That is correct. Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history."

And in our case it effectively justifies a population transfer.

"That’s what emerges."

And you take that in stride? War crimes? Massacres? The burning fields and the devastated villages of the Nakba?

"You have to put things in proportion. These are small war crimes. All told, if we take all the massacres and all the executions of 1948, we come to about 800 who were killed. In comparison to the massacres that were perpetrated in Bosnia, that’s peanuts. In comparison to the massacres the Russians perpetrated against the Germans at Stalingrad, that’s chicken feed. When you take into account that there was a bloody civil war here and that we lost an entire 1 percent of the population, you find that we behaved very well."

The next transfer

You went through an interesting process. You went to research Ben-Gurion and the Zionist establishment critically, but in the end you actually identify with them. You are as tough in your words as they were in their deeds.

"You may be right. Because I investigated the conflict in depth, I was forced to cope with the in-depth questions that those people coped with. I understood the problematic character of the situation they faced and maybe I adopted part of their universe of concepts. But I do not identify with Ben-Gurion. I think he made a serious historical mistake in 1948. Even though he understood the demographic issue and the need to establish a Jewish state without a large Arab minority, he got cold feet during the war. In the end, he faltered."

I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying that Ben-Gurion erred in expelling too few Arabs?

"If he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should have done a complete job. I know that this stuns the Arabs and the liberals and the politically correct types. But my feeling is that this place would be quieter and know less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for all. If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole country – the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion – rather than a partial one – he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations."

So one historian equates to fascism? Should we ascribe the values of certain radicals in the United States to the us government?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This article is very disturbing to me as an American Jew and supporter of Israel. I'm not sure what else to say.

Query your friends about their AIPAC donations. That could be a start.

[Anonymous]

This is the future - opposition to Israel around the globe and from people who won't change their negative view just because some Baby Boomer clicks her heels three times and says Hamas, Hamas, Hamas every time Israel's war crimes come up.

https://mobile.twitter.com/zrjaved/status/495629399451254784/photo/1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the future - opposition to Israel around the globe and from people who won't change their negative view just because some Baby Boomer clicks her heels three times and says Hamas, Hamas, Hamas every time Israel's war crimes come up.

https://mobile.twitter.com/zrjaved/status/495629399451254784/photo/1

I'll stand up for gaza when Hamas disavows it's previous statements about the destruction of Israel. The desire for coexistence needs to be mutual.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are debating merits of op eds? Do you know how many awful op eds are written in mainstream media (not just Arab media) against Israel? Not to mention the horrendous rhetoric for Arab leaders. I really don't see how an op ed (one person's opinion!) is cause for concern. Someone wrote asinine, so what. Terrible rhetoric comes daily from the Arab and European media and we don't say a peep.

We don't provide Arab governments $3+ billion a year or go on endlessly about having shared values with them. Any time that you want to start treating Israel the way Arab countries are treated, just let us know.

Actually, we do provide Arab countries military aid, including Qatar, who is funding Hamas.

Yes, pointing out something that is irrelevant to what I said is always a good tactic. "We don't provide Arab governments $3+ billion a year or go on endlessly about having shared values with them."

Again, anytime that you think Israel should be treated just like Arab countries, let us know.

Your post was about, in part, us not funding Arab countries with military aid. We do that. In fact, as of 2008, we provided Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, $6 billion and $4 billion. That is more than we provided Israel. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/80701.pdf

[Anonymous]

More huge protests against Israel all over the world today. The only issue really is whether Israel collapses from within or from outside first. The country is digging its own geopolitical grave deeper and deeper with every additional civilian killed by the IDF. Free Palestine!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So one historian equates to fascism? Should we ascribe the values of certain radicals in the United States to the us government?

I think his views are very close to fascism, yes. It's anyone's call how many historians it takes to equate to anything. Benny Morris is not a radical at all, he's considered very middle-of-the-road, respectable, well-published individual. The point is that there is ample cultural permission in Israel for learned individuals to hold these views and to expound on them, and it doesn't make them radicals. The right-wing and the radical in the U.S. are quite marginalized, and the cultural permission to hold and expound these views in the U.S. is not there the way it is in Israel.

[Anonymous]

Israel will be here long after the morons posting here....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Israel will be here long after the morons posting here....

Strange things have happened in the past, like the fall of the Soviet Union.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the future - opposition to Israel around the globe and from people who won't change their negative view just because some Baby Boomer clicks her heels three times and says Hamas, Hamas, Hamas every time Israel's war crimes come up.

https://mobile.twitter.com/zrjaved/status/495629399451254784/photo/1

I'll stand up for gaza when Hamas disavows it's previous statements about the destruction of Israel. The desire for coexistence needs to be mutual.

Gaza and Hamas are two different things. That dead two day old baby didn't vote for Hamas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the future - opposition to Israel around the globe and from people who won't change their negative view just because some Baby Boomer clicks her heels three times and says Hamas, Hamas, Hamas every time Israel's war crimes come up.

https://mobile.twitter.com/zrjaved/status/495629399451254784/photo/1

I'll stand up for gaza when Hamas disavows it's previous statements about the destruction of Israel. The desire for coexistence needs to be mutual.

Gaza and Hamas are two different things. That dead two day old baby didn't vote for Hamas.

By that logic Israel is different than its government. The fact is that Gaia voted for Hamas, period. So gazans must deal with the policies and actions of its government, just like the Israelis.

[Anonymous]

Pp here. Clearly Gaia and gaza are different. If only it was that easy. I meant gaza.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Your post was about, in part, us not funding Arab countries with military aid. We do that. In fact, as of 2008, we provided Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, $6 billion and $4 billion. That is more than we provided Israel. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/80701.pdf

I'm not sure where in that 700 page document you found your figures. But, the first thing to note is that Afghanistan is not an Arab country. Second, and again I don't see the $4 billion figure for Iraq in that document, that may have been a blip. We give Israel $3+ billion a year, every year. According to this page:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html

US aid has totalled $120,472,000,000.

According to this page:

http://gbk.eads.usaidallnet.gov/data/fast-facts.html

In FY12, Israel received $3.1 billion to Iraq's $1.9 billion.

So, Iraq and Afghanistan, countries we invaded, briefly exceeded Israel's annual assistance. I guess if Israel wants to be invaded in return for its aid, that would be worth considering. My point remains, we don't treat Israel nor does Israel see itself as being the same as Arab countries. But, if it would like to be treated like an Arab country, they should just say so.