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The Forum > Article Comments > Impartial only through an imperial lens > Comments

Impartial only through an imperial lens : Comments

By John Pilger, published 26/11/2012

As Gaza is savaged again, understanding the BBC's role requires more than sentiment.

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Fungus, Israel did not steal the land from the Palestinians nor commit ethnic cleansing. The land did not belong to the Palestinians, it belonged to the Ottoman Turks prior to WW1 and fell under British mandate when they lost World War 1. There has always been a continual Jewish presence in Israel, notwithstanding the Babylonian and Roman exile. As the very first point of my previous post says, the UN acknowledged when it proposed the partition plan that both the claims of the Jews and those of the Arabs to the land are valid and the partition plan was based on the principle of self-determination. Regarding your claims of ethnic cleansing, as soon as Israel declared its independance, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon attacked it with the help of the Palestinians, in an attempt to destroy the Jewish State and exterminate its population. The War of Independence was started by the Arabs and its express aim was genocidal - "to drive the Jews into the sea". Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt occupied Gaza. Neither wanted an independent Palestinian State. Nobody can blame Israel for the Egyptian and Jordanian decision to occupy the lands allocated to the Palestinians and for denying them the right of self determination. When the Arabs waged an aggressive war against the Israelis, the Israeli's allowed the Arabs to flee to Arab controlled areas, unlike the Arab armies who tried to kill Jewish civilians and did infact massacre many who tried to escape. It was the Arab policy to take prisoners during battles and these prisoners were generally put to death (for example in Kfar Etzion where no Jewish refugees were left). It is precisely because the Jewish Army did not deliberately kill civilians, unlike the Arab armies, that there is a refugee issue
Posted by KerryG, Tuesday, 27 November 2012 8:36:33 PM
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Fungus, you make many statements that the the Palestinians have recognised Israel's right to exist and have been willing to exchange land for peace and the Israelis haven't. I'm not sure where your information comes from, but the facts remain:
The Jews accepted the Peel Partition plan in 1937, the Arabs rejected it, demanding all of Palestine be placed under Arab control and most of the Jewish population be transferred out. In 1947 the Jews accepted the Partition plan and the Arabs rejected it, choosing rather to go to war with the newly established Jewish State in an attempt to drive it into the Sea. In 2000 Barak offered Arafat all of the Gaza strip, 94-96% of the West Bank (in exchange for the 4-6% that Israel would retain for security purposes, Israel would cede 1-3% of its land to the Palestinians). In addition Barak offered complete control over East Jerusalem, as well as the entire Temple Mount, and offered a $30 billion compensation package for the refugees, while agreeing that some, (although not all) of the refugees could live in Israel. Arafat as we know rejected the proposal without even making a counter-offer and the Palestinians began the second intifada instead. Yes you can continue to blame the Jews and the Israelis for all the problems (The Hamas Charter also blames the Jews for the French and Russian revolutions, World Wars I and II and the creation of the Untied Nations) and the Palestinians can continue to play the victim card but the truth is that the Palestinian people are only victims of the Palestinian leadership, who since 1937, again in 1947 and repeatedly since then has rejected all offers to have a Palestinian state living alongside a Jewish State. This has been and remains the root cause of the conflict
Posted by KerryG, Tuesday, 27 November 2012 8:37:16 PM
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Never kill a mosquito - it's not a conflict between equals!
Posted by Yuyutsu, Tuesday, 27 November 2012 9:25:04 PM
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Okay where do I start here?

To Avw:

Benny Morris says there was no ethnic cleansing. Ilan Pappe says there was. Also, in Norman G. Finkelstein's book "Image & Reality In The Israel-Palestine Conflict" there is a chapter in which Finkelstein dismantles Benny Morris's "born of war, not by design" theory as to how the Palestinian refugee problem arose.
Also, read this interview with Benny Morris. He states that Zionist terror groups committed massacres and rapes of Palestinian Arabs, but then goes on to state that they were perfectly justified in doing so, and that their only wrong was not finishing the job in expelling all of the Palestinian Arabs.

http://www.deiryassin.org/bennymorris.html

You write, "It’s important to note that there are far more Arabs in Israel and the Palestinian territories today, than in 1947. A far better example is the ethnic cleansing of Jews in Arab lands, where Jewish population has dropped by a factor of 100."

A number of Palestinian refugees ended up in Gaza and the West Bank. Regarding the Jewish exodus from Arab countries, I have been interested in how that came about. I have actually seen conflicting reasons given. Some say they were driven out. Others say they left of their own accord. The Jews who fled Iraq were refugees. The Iraqi Jewish historian Naem Giladi has written that Zionist terrorist groups actually committed terrorist actions against Iraqi Jews in a false flag operation in order to get the Jews to flee to Israel.

You write, "Israel wasn’t the aggressor in 1967. It was Egypt’s president Nasser, who closed the straights of Tiran to Israeli shipping, assembled massive armies on the Israeli borders, and expelled the UN peace keeping force (why do that if you’re not interested in war?)"

Like I said, read Norman G. Finkelstein's book "Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict". There is a chapter in which Finkelsteins shows that the Arab states were attempting to avoid war with Israel.

[continued below]
Posted by fungus, Tuesday, 27 November 2012 10:57:37 PM
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[continued from above]

You write, "Israeli settlements in Gaza were removed by Israel, sometimes forcibly. If the Palestinians are indeed willing to trade land for peace as you say, how come the return of the Gaza territory led to daily rockets instead of peace?"

According to Noam Chomsky's and Ilan Pappe's book "Gaza In Crisis", Israel only removed the settlements from Gaza because it was not seen to be worth the money and effort to hold on to them. And Israel has subjected Gaza to a crippling blockade, including by controlling its borders and sea access. Thus, the settlements were withdrawn, by the occupation continues.

You write that Israel does not target civilians. I cannot believe that for the third time this week I have to provide the following links on this website to show that the Israeli military does target civilians.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/09/wo...nce/index.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...a-israel-obama

http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/05/20/i...order-protests

http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/04/12/i...vilians-attack

http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/04/05/g...els-war-record

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/israe...ors-2012-11-19

http://www.cpj.org/2012/11/in-gaza-n...ts-injured.php

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ma...y-1305571.html

Also, try reading Norman G. Finkelstein's books "Beyond Chutzpah - On The Misuse of Anti-Semitism & The Abuse of History", "This Time We Went Too Far" and "Goldstone Recants". Also try reading Gideon Levy's book "The Punishment of Gaza".

Also, the fact that Gaza and the West Bank were occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively prior to being occupied by Israel does not negate the fact that there Israel suppressed freedom of speech in those territories after it annexed them.
Posted by fungus, Tuesday, 27 November 2012 10:58:50 PM
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Avw, here is a link about Israel's control of Gaza.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2004/10/28/israel-disengagement-will-not-end-gaza-occupation

You write, "This is not a war between equals. It’s a war between right and wrong."

Really? :/ Your beliefs are really that simplistic? You seriously believe that the Palestinians have no case? And that Israel is not guilty of any wrongdoing? That it is just black and white - Israel good, the Palestinians bad? That is just embarrassing.

Now, onto KerryG.

KerryG, you write, "it is irrelevant what some may believe the Zionist intentions were in accepting the Plan. The facts remain that the Jews accepted the plan, and the Arabs rejected it. The fact is that had the Arabs accepted the plan, they would have had a large contiguous Palestinian State alongside a Jewish State."

It is not just a case of "what some may believe". It is a fact that the Zionist side only accepted the Partition Plan as a stepping stone to getting the rest of Palestine later. Check out page 19 of Avi Schlaim's book "Collusion Across The Jordan". Also, I wonder if you think Australians should be satisfied if some group of foreigners decided to take a slab of Australia for themselves.

[continued below]
Posted by fungus, Tuesday, 27 November 2012 11:36:00 PM
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