[continued from above]

You write, "International law distinguishes between territory acquired in an aggressive conquest and territory acquired following a war of self-defence."

It is illegal to acquire territory by war. Resolution 242 clearly states that Israel should withdraw from the territories it captured in the Six Day War.

You write, "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."

Yes the Zionists did steal land from the Palestinians and commit ethnic cleansing. The Ottomon empire occupied Palestine, but the Palestinians still owned land. They had farms, towns and cities. Many of the refugees still possess the keys and the title deeds to the houses they used to own that were stolen from them.

You write, "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."

Ilan Pappe writes that there were actually two stages of Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestinians - the first during the civil war in Palestine and the second in Israel's war for independence. Thus, the ethnic cleansing started before the foreign Arab countries attacked Israel, and continued after they did.

I will also post a few links from Jewish Australian commentator Michael Brull's previous blog. They address this topic extensively.

http://home2.iajv.org/node/133

http://home2.iajv.org/node/131

ome2.iajv.org/taxonomy/term/11/0?page=9

[continued below]

Looks to as though this crap ain't going to stop anytime soon. Man, even the Irish & the Serbs & Croations came to some agreements but the Palestinians ? No Siree !

Fungus, I'm with you 100%. Thanks for all the links.
Now, how to convince our USrael a..se-kissing PM that things are not kosher? The witch had to be arm twisted merely to allow our UN representative to abstain, and not to vote for Palestinian observer status! Yeah, Australia will have great input on the Security Council - as one more vote for the USA and Israel. It shames us all.

fungus:

Indeed where do I start.

Unlike Ilan Pappe, who has been discredited and shown to be a fraud, Benny Morris is disliked equally by both the left and the right, so his opinions are far more credible than an extremist like Pappe.
Norman Finkelstein is another example of the extreme left view. He even describes himself as "an old-fashioned communist," who "see(s) no value whatsoever in states." (Wikipedia). In short, other than fringe political analysts from the extreme left, no serious commentator supports the claims you raised.

“…Finkelstein shows that the Arab states were attempting to avoid war with Israel”

It was indeed the view of Communists in 1967 (and still is today, it seems) that Israel was the aggressor. No matter how you look at it though, you cannot reconcile this view with the aggressive steps taken by Egypt and the Arab World in the weeks and months leading up to the war. Rather than avoiding war, they encouraged it. How is outsing the UN peace keepers an attempt to avoid a war?

“…Israel only removed the settlements from Gaza because it was not seen to be worth the money and effort to hold on to them”

Ignoring the fact that you are relying on views of extremists and discredit commentators again, the side benefits to Israel (economic benefits) are irrelevant. The fact is that Israel did trade territory (Gaza settlements) for peace, but got no peace in return. Economical reasons have also been raised as the reason for Hamas’s belligerency - it is in their interest to keep the state of war firmly in place so that they can continue benefiting financially from the tunnel smugglers. The occupation is NOT continuing, as per the evidence I provided elsewhere (article in Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, as cited in http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4482.htm).

“I wonder if you think Australians should be satisfied if some group of foreigners decided to take a slab of Australia for themselves”

Your comparison is invalid – Australia is an established country whereas Palestine was a territory with no government, where 2 peoples struggled for self determination.

(cont...)

(cont...)

Regarding the links you provided to prove your point that Israel does indeed target civilians, since most of those links don’t actually work or point to a valid article I can’t really comment on them. As for the one link that does work, the decades old shelling of a refugee camp in southern Lebanon, it still does not show that Israel targets civilians deliberately:

"The [Hezbollah] guerrillas fired six Katyushas from near our position. The [Israeli] shells came in two minutes later.”

As you can see, the shells were in response to the Hezbollah rockets, not deliberately targeting civilians.

“…Zionist terrorist groups actually committed terrorist actions against Iraqi Jews … to get the Jews to flee to Israel”

There are plenty of conspiracy theories such as the one you are proposing here. Theories such as the one about the false moon landing produced in a Hollywood studio, the CIA/Mossad being responsible for the 9/11 bombing, and even a theory that Israel trains sharks to attack beach goers in Egypt. All these theories are just as credible as each other.

“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.”

If you read my paragraph in full rather than take a sentence and use it so blatantly out of context you will see that I was specifically referring to the current Gaza conflict and the strategy of Hamas, not to Palestinians or Israelis in general. It should also be obvious from David G’s comment that I was referring to, he also commented on the current conflict.

How is Ilan Pappe discredited?

Norman G. Finkelstein is hardly an extremist. He supports the two-state solution and was criticised by Ali Abuminah for being too moderate.

And if you're going to criticise the messenger and not the message, then I suggest you take a good look at that interview with Benny Morris that I posted. He actually endorses ethnic cleansing, including massacres and rapes.

It turns out you are right that most of my links didn't work. So here they are, in full working order (hopefully):

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/09/world/meast/gaza-violence/index.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-obama

http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/05/20/israel-investigate-killings-during-border-protests

http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/04/12/israelgaza-protect-civilians-attack

http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/04/05/gaza-stain-remains-israels-war-record

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/israelgaza-un-must-send-monitors-2012-11-19

http://www.cpj.org/2012/11/in-gaza-news-outlets-targeted-journalists-injured.php