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The Forum > Article Comments > Palestine - cutting Abbas down to size > Comments

Palestine - cutting Abbas down to size : Comments

By David Singer, published 16/10/2012

Israel comprises only 17% of former Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza 5%, and Jordan makes up the remaining 78%.

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Dear Julian,

To state a fact is not to express any value judgment.

The Jews are clearly a nation: you can read about it all over the bible, in the Jewish prayer book and in every bit of Jewish literature from many ages.

You may like this fact or you may hate it. You may believe that Jews should inherit the earth, or you may agree with Hitler that they should be eliminated. If you are a Zionist then you believe that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews.

There is a wide consensus within Judaism that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews, which will eventually all return there, but there is also an internal division among the Jews as to whether the time is ripe to return to the land now and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, or whether the Jews are still exiled under God's punishment and must wait patiently until the Messiah comes and brings them back to the land, subduing all nations around on the way.

You may legitimately argue the right of nations to "seize someone else’s land and hold it by violence", but you ridicule yourself in denying the "right" of people to call themselves a nation, especially when they have done so for about 3000 years. Also, by denying them the "right" to consider themselves "special". Do you really believe that one needs permission to think of themselves as "special"? That you personally do not agree that they are has nothing to do with it!

<<It is asserted that Jews loyal to the land of their birth were being “cowardly” by failing to satisfy Zionist ambitions.>>

There were no Zionists yet at Napoleon's times!
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 17 October 2012 6:34:12 PM
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Claims on behalf of an ethnic group do not make them facts, even “clearly”, no matter in how many of their own texts the claim is made. A belief that “the land of Israel belongs to the Jews” does not make it belong to the Jews. It didn’t belong to whoever grabbed it from its inhabitants 3000 years ago either. Wide consensus in the religion of some Jews does not make it true.

Some members of an ethnic group considering their group “special” does not make it special, and calling it a “nation” doesn’t make it a nation. The “special” claim is racist, and sure, people are entitled to be racists. And to be contemptuous of racism.

The Zionists are demanding and have always demanded that the world, in particular the Palestinians, give in to the territorial demands made on the basis of all these self-serving “beliefs”.

Many people, hopefully increasingly numbers of people, reject all these claims as being without factual or moral basis. “We’re special so we want their territory” won’t cut it with anyone who has a moral compass.

Evaluating the past, Zionist Yuyutsu labels French Jews as cowardly for their loyalty to their country. Jews’ identification with their countries through history has been condemned by Zionists labelling them for it today. Zionists see this as interfering with their programme of racial self-identification. That is why Zionists have historically welcomed anti-Semitism.

Fortunately there are two important factors set to lead to dismantlement of Israel. One is the Palestinian population bomb. The other is the finite supply of Middle East oil. No oil, no incentive to keep Israel going as a threat to the oil-rich Arabs.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Wednesday, 17 October 2012 9:31:53 PM
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Dear Julian,

You seem to wish Israel dismantled: while I don't share your desire (but off-topic, I similarly wish to see Australia dismantled into its constituent states), it is legitimate: you are welcome to mess around with the Jews and the Zionists, either you'll succeed or you won't, but please don't mess around with the facts!

Ultimately, on a rare philosophical level, I agree that there are no such things as nations - that notion is only a human abstraction with no grounds in reality, but to the relative extent that nations exist at all, the Jewish nation is one of the surest and oldest candidates in existence today. They may be without land, or they may be living on land that is not theirs, but that doesn't change the basic fact of their nationhood.

Now what else do you call a person who believes one thing, but claims the opposite in order to please the ruler and gain favours? I used the word 'coward' - do you have a better one? Those Jews were not cowardly for loyalty to France: if indeed they were loyal to France, then they wouldn't be cowards, but they never meant in fact what they told Napoleon.

I do agree with your statement that <<A belief that “the land of Israel belongs to the Jews” does not make it belong to the Jews>>:
Did I ever suggest anything to the contrary? Was I offering an opinion about who owns or should own that land? Did I in fact suggest anything that justifies your calling me 'Zionist' (a similar claim from someone who's more serious with facts might have hurt my feelings)?

I'm no advocate for either the Jews or the Zionists. All I care is for the safety of my family in Israel and to hell with the rest. If you threaten my family with the "Palestinian population bomb", then I'm sure some specialized bacteria or virus can disarm that bomb in no time. No hard feelings and nothing to do with Zionism or the love of Jews, simply caring for my family.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 17 October 2012 11:06:47 PM
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This is getting philosophical and the thread is getting old, but the points will crop up again. To deal with this phase, the central core of Zionism is the invention of nation status for Jews (like pretending I am part of a “Celtic nation” rather than Australia the land of my birth). The statement that Jews are “a nation” is a Zionist statement. This is why I referred to Yuyutsu as a Zionist. If he is not a Zionist I apologise for that - one can say something Zionists also say without being a Zionist, and wrongly calling anyone a Zionist is insulting on the scale of wrongly calling someone a “Jew hater” or a Nazi.

Identifying with a range of Zionist claims would on the other hand edge closer to being a Zionist as quacking, waddling, and laying eggs would edge closer to being a duck.

No virus is going to defuse the Palestine population bomb nor will the USA put its lives on the line to protect Israel other than to protect oil interests. The settler enclave is bound, in time, to be engulfed as such ventures have been before. Israel still has the strategic advantage, and it could do good for once (and ensure a liveable future for Yuyutsu’s family) by genuinely bargaining to persuade the Palestinians to adopt modern civilised norms as a price for working towards a democratic solution for all of Palestine including the enclave. It is the failure of the European robber colonisers to do this when they had the chance that has left Africa a patchwork of brutal kleptocracies after the colonies could no longer stave off dismantlement.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 18 October 2012 2:18:21 PM
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