rexw wrote ...our indigenous people have bargaining power well in excess of their 2.5% of our population...
I suggest that this has come about because of a guilt-empowered cultural blackmail that has been going on for the last 40 or 50 years. Peter Sutton's book The Politics of Suffering has a great deal to say about this, although I don't remember if he called it blackmail. See especially the third chapter, The Trouble With Culture.
To go from the national to the global, the Zionists have been conducting a similar guilt-empowered cultural blackmail on all the world for the last century, but especially since the Holocaust. As an example, in my lifetime we in the west have gone from exalting our common Greco-Roman heritage to citing our Judeo-Christian heritage.
Cultural blackmail such as these is a distortion, as well as an extraction. We are being conned on two fronts.

To Giovanni della Mirandola (Part 1)

You state:

"First of all, the assertion that only .0001% of Palestine was set aside for Jewish self-determination is absolutely incorrect, particularly considering the 1947 UN Partition Plan (which was not completely accepted by the Arab States nor the Jewish Community in Palestine)."

I never said that.

1. What I said was that 99.999% of the captured Ottoman Empire (Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Mesopotamia)was set aside for Arab self-determination. Palestine comprised only 0.01% of that lost territory.

2. Furthermore the Arab States completely rejected the UN Partition Plan. The Jewish community in Palestine accepted the Partition Plan.

You then state:

" Along those lines, specifics of previous agreements with regards to a Jewish state in Palestine become more or less obsolete and inconsequential. Furthermore, the fact that Palestine was ruled by the Ottomans prior to the British Mandate does not change the fact that a people with a distinct identity lived on that land as well."

The UN partition Plan was a compromise plan. Had it been accepted then one might be able to argue that the Mandate and article 80 of the UN Charter had been superseded. But that did not happen - and neither have any of the peace proposals since then such as Oslo and the Roadmap. The Mandate and article 80 are alive and kicking today - supported by UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

No people with a distinct identity lived in Palestine. As I pointed out Jews, Moslems and Christians lived there. What distinct identity do you claim this population shared other than the same postal address? How would you compare their identity to say the Kurds or the Copts?

To Giovanni della Mirandola (Part 2)

You state:

"The multiple agreements, to which Israel is party, including the latest agreements at Annapolis in 2007, absolutely forbid the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. "

This is simply not true. I challenge you to point to any statement confirming your claim.

Israel made it clear at Annapolis that negotiations would be conducted in accordance with the letter given by President Bush to Prime Minister Sharon on 14 April 2004. That letter said (among other things)

"The United States is strongly committed to Israel's security and well-being as a Jewish state. It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.

As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. "

To Giovanni della Mirandola (Part 3)

You continue:

"Your assertion that the 1948-49 armistice borders are the only agreed upon borders is extremely incorrect and seems to forget the 44 years between June 1967 and June 2011"

I'm sorry but the same 1949 armistice line still exists unchanged by anything over the last 62 years.

What evidence do you have to the contrary?

You then state:

"Israel does not claim sovereignty over the West Bank (see Haaretz, today, as just one reference)."

Can you give me the link to the specific article?

You then state:

"Finally, Article 80 of the UN Charter says nothing of “Jews are entitled to settle in the West Bank;” how you interpret it as such is simply baffling."

Article 80 preserves the rights of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.

The Mandate for Palestine adopted by the League of Nations prescribed the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in Palestine which includes the West Bank. The rights vested in the Jewish people did not disappear with the demise of the League of Nations.

I am more than happy to answer any further comments you may wish to make.

However vague and unsubstantiated general comments - such as your attack on the late Professor Julius Stone serve no real purpose other than to denigrate a jurisprudential giant whose seminal work still remains a leading text on the conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine - notwithstanding attempts to rewrite the history of Palestine.

Until you accept the Mandate and article 80 of the UN Charter still are current and relevant in 2011 - you are destined to completely misunderstand the nature of the conflict

Mr. Singer,

I’m afraid that going point by point will prove tedious and unfruitful in this forum. To address some issues, however:

You, as Stone, erroneously try to imply the invalidity of a distinct Palestinian identity. It would be close to impossible to fully address the complexities of identity in any part of the Middle East, but I can tell you that it is more complex than simply “Arab Palestinian.” Simply because the Ottomans considered the area to be part of the Vilayet of Syria does not invalidate the independent identity - in fact multiple identities- of the people on that land. Filastiin has been the name of that strip of land in one way or another since before the arrival of the first Hebrews (see the Torah for reference to the Philistines). TE Lawrence’s The Seven Pillars of Wisdom also provides an interesting insight into the diversity and complexity of identity and ethnicity in the area prior to 1917.

Regarding Jewish acceptance of the UNGA Res 181, Ben Gurion’s testimony and letters expressing his sentiment for the plan “as not acceptable to us” indicates that both sides had reservations. Furthermore, the Mandate cannot be described as “alive and kicking.” The 1948-49 lines do not follow the 181 lines and those, in turn, only approximately followed the borders suggested by the mandate’s Peel Commission. As they say of Keynes and Freud, the Mandate is dead.

Your reference to the LoN endorsement of the British Mandate in Palestine tells only part of the story. The LoN did endorse the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine but made it expressly clear that said home was not to comprise all of Palestine. That stipulation echoes the wording of the Balfour Declaration, decisions of the San Remo conference, and Churchill’s 1922 White Paper, among other statements and agreements.

Having spent significant time living and traveling in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine, and spent significant time with people on both sides of the conflict, I believe I can confidently say I do understand the conflict quite well.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-israel-needs-to-separate-from-the-palestinians-1.368795

With Respect,

Dear Yuyutsu,

I believe that Judaism is the religion of over 18 million Jews. It is one of the oldest major religions and was the first religion to teach the belief in one God. That unlike the other major religions, Judaism is the relgion of only one people - the Jews. Both Christianity and Islam developed from Judaism. These religions accept the Jewish belief in one God, and the moral teachings of the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible is what Christians call the Old Testament. The basic laws and teachings of Judaism comes from the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

Jews are the descendents of an ancient people called the Hebrews. Or at least that's what I've believed.

That's why I still can't fathom what all this is about. You can give up a religion and still be Jewish - can't you?

Now I'm confused. I guess I shall have to read Sand's book - because
I thought I knew what I was talking about - but now I'm not so sure.
And I have to admit that your reference to the "venom" of Jewish
teaching disturbs me greatly. I don't believe that any religion can be summed up in a single line. It's just as much of a fallacy to say
that "Christianity is a religion of peace," as it is to say that "Islam is a religion of hatred." Both have a God that loves and
smiteths.