[lit-ideas] Re: U.N. Special Committee on Palestine
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 01:17:08 -0400
This seems a bit more balanced. There were no problems between the Arabs and
Jews before the founding of Israel, with no suggestions that anybody was going
to throw anybody into the sea. The question at the heart of this conflict
remains: Do you think someone has the right to throw someone out of their home
and move in and leave the homeowner homeless? Even if the Mayor says it's
fine? Beating a population into submission is going to work about as well as
it's working.
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 7/27/2006 12:54:09 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: U.N. Special Committee on Palestine
Stan:
In one of the books I?m reading, Selbourne?s The Losing Battle with Islam, on
page 182, he seeks balance and provides an interesting overview of some of the
matters under discussion:
?The United Nations decision on 29 November 1947 to partition Palestine, to the
perceived disadvantage of the Palestinians, contributed to the confusion and
bloodshed which were to follow. It also ensured the hostility which the very
existence of Israel was to arouse. In their pro-Israeli partiality, some
historians and commentators have sought to ignore the implications of the
disproportions in territorial allocation in the UN partition plan. Others, in
their pro-Arab partiality, have sought to cancel the implications of the
invasion of Israel on 15 May 1948 -- within a few hours of the proclamation of
the new state on 14 May 1948 -- first by Egypt and then by the armies of Iraq,
Transjordan (as it the was), Lebanon and Syria.
?Others have elided the complexiti4es of the passage of events from 1947 to
1949. A Guardian commentator in January 2004 could therefore reduce these
events to ?the war that gave birth to the state of Israel in 1948?, which by
omission contains its own falsehood. Others have translated the flight of
Arabs in 1948 and 1949 -- thousands fled even before the hostilities had broken
out -- into their ?expulsion?; or, better still, into their ?deportation? by
the new state as it was attacked. Some of those who were intended to be
assisted by the attack -- the local Arab population -- stood their ground,
fighting alongside the invading armies so that in certain sectors they for a
while gained the upper hand. Others cut and ran, led in their flight by their
own communities? heads, many other tens of thousands of Arabs were driven from
their ancestral homes and terrains at the hands of the Israelis.
?In some villages and cities, including Haifa, Jaffa and Tiberias, the exodus
appears to have been ordered by Arab community leaders themselves, often they
were among the first to flee, having the means to do so. As the then British
High Commissioner for Palestine, General Sir Alan Cunningham, reported, ?the
collapsing Arab morale in Palestine? was attributable in part to what he called
?the increasing tendency of those who should be leading them [sc. The Arabs] to
leave the country?. Furthermore, ?in all parts of the country the effendi
class has been evacuating in large numbers over a considerable period, and the
tempo is increasing?. As Hussein Khalidi, one of the Palestinians? leaders
complained, ?Everyone is leaving. Everyone who has a cheque or some money --
off he goes to Egypt, to Lebanon, to Damascus?.
?Even before the invasions of May 1948 Israeli militias had acted brutally
against local Arab population, as at the village of Deir Yassin on 9 April
1948, when more than one hundred villagers were killed. But in the repetitions
of the history of this period, the numbers of those who were expelled, who were
deported or who were ?ethnically cleansed? have often been exaggerated.
Perhaps 700,000 fled the fighting in search of safety, or were driven from
their homes as the Israeli army conquered, ?600,000? were displaced according
to the British Foreign Office estimate at the time. In addition, from 1948 to
1950, hundreds of thousands of Jews also left, or were driven by expropriation
and attack from their homes in Egypt, Iraq -- where 118,000 of the total Iraqi
population of 4.5 million were Jews -- Lebanon, the Maghreb, Syria and
elsewhere in the Arab world, in August 2004, the Libyan leader offered
compensation of their losses.
?The fate of the Arabs in conflict which lasted until the uneasy truce in 1949
was a many-sided matter. So, too was the multiple invasion of Israel -- which
at the time had an army of only 30,000 -- by neighbouring Arab nations.
Nevertheless, a simplified history of complexity, war, fear, crime and flight
as reduced the events, for many, to the victimization of Arab by Jew.
Contrariwise, and with related simplification of the truth, it has been
asserted by a Jewish historian that ?had the Palestinians and the Arabs
refrained from launching a war to destroy the emerging Jewish state, there
would have been no refugees and none would exist today?.?
Comment: With such a small army, only 30,000, fighting the armies of Iraq,
Transjordan, Lebanon and Syria, supplemented by Palestinians, who wished to
drive the Jews out of the land, it would be too much to expect that the
Israelis would fight according to Marquis of Queensbury rules. They were
desperately fighting for their survival, and while no one can know for certain
at this late date how many Palestinians were driven out of battle zones,
Selbourne tells us of the large numbers who fled in advance of the war. Could
they see the war coming? I don?t see why not. Surely Iraq, Transjordan,
Lebanon and Syria did some marshalling of troops that would have alerted the
Palestinians to what was coming. To stay could have meant becoming a victim as
Irene suggests they all were, but to stay could also have meant joining the
invading armies that had come to throw the Jews into the sea.
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Stan Spiegel
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 8:43 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] U.N. Special Committee on Palestine
Andy -
Listening to your "know-nothing" comments takes more patience than I'm willing
to show. Have you completely forgotten everything about the founding of Israel,
the role played by the UN and the British mandate?
Andy says:
If the Mexican Indians, say, came in and threw the Americans out of California,
put them into tents and took their land for themselves, would you think the
Mexican Indians (or whatever group) were entitled to that land? The Israelis
threw people out of their homes and moved in. Does that not mean anything to
you? Because the Americans dealt with the American Indians by slaughtering
them and compounding them in the 19th century, that makes it okay for the
Israelis to do it now?
Your portrait -- and Omar's comment about how property is distributed in
America -- is nonsense. It's because of Andy and Omar -- and the Islamist
theology that can't stand sharing a little bit of land with Jews in the Middle
East. The self-righteous garbage the two of you are spewing to hide your
anti-semitism is too much.
Stan Spiegel
Portland, ME
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