Heavens above! So many Anglo-Celt-Australians apparently not packing up and going back to the British Isles and giving their Inner West terraces back to the Aboriginals, despite their vehement hatred of colonialism. I guess they can see the speck in Israel's eyes so much more clearly than the blinking great colonialist battering ram in their own. If you're don't have a single relative in the area, how about butting out and find a cause of your own!

Posted by David G, Friday, 7 December 2012 10:36:44 AM
“colossal mistake in allowing the formation of Israel smack in the middle of where another group of religious people had been living for centuries.”

Jews were there way before Muslims by a few centuries. Judaism is in the year 5773 and Islam year 1433

That’s that idea out the window.

There is NO Islamic/Muslim history in the area at all. The history in the area is mainly Jewish with some Christian. The Arabs had they inhabited the land woud have built something.

Arabs come from Arabia. Jews come from Judea, get it Jews/Judea, which the Jordanians when they captured it, called it the West Bank.

Check out the names of Arabs now in the region you will find them mainly to be of Egyptian and Syrian origin

Posted by halduell, Friday, 7 December 2012 12:07:15 PM
Quoting from a radial revolutionary like Jabotinsky gives you no credit unfortunately

Posted by Geoff of Perth, Friday, 7 December 2012 12:18:08 PM
Where on earth do you get the idea that “terrorizing and slaughtering innocent men, women and children in Gaza,” is going on.

Let me tell you something, since Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005 on average they have fired 3 rockets daily indiscriminately into Israel in the hope of killing people. Israel on the other hand fires it’s rockets at specific targets. Israel sends out text messages to every cell phone in Gaza and drops leaflets warning people to leave the area. Hamas won’t let them go.

Hamas deliberately fires rockets FROM civilian areas, so Israel will get the co-ordinates, fire missiles there and kill innocent people and Hamas happily admit to it, so does Hezbollah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DwtRd3ZCNBs

Part ONE
In answer to Marilyn Shepherd, Friday, 7 December 2012 3:02:55 PM

1. it was jewish terrorists who evicted 800,000 Palestinians from their land, not the other way around.

Wrong. It’s well documented. That the Arab leaders urged the Arabs to live, with the promise of return ”Once the Zionist entity had been annihilated”

It is also well documented in speeches and writing that Israel urged the people not to flee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuGqpFxogRg&list=FLRjSAgzAZGBNafbhc-zzs2g&index=39

In 1947, there were approximately one million Arabs in the whole of western Palestine. (British figures put the number at 1,200,000; independent calculations claim 800-900,000).

Of these, the total number actually living in that part of Palestine which became Israel was, according to the British figure, 561,000.

After the end of hostilities in 1949, there were 140,000 Arabs remaining in Israel.

The total number of Arabs who left could not, therefore, mathematically have been more than some 421,000. (561 – 140 = 421)

At the end of May 1948, Faris el Khoury, the Syrian representative on the UN Security Council, estimated their number at 250,000
Emile Ghoury announced on September 6, 1948, that by the middle of June 1948, at the time of the first truce, the number of Arabs who had fled was 200,000.

"By the time the second truce began (July 17, 1948)," Emile Ghoury said, "their number had risen to 300,000"

Count Bernadotte, the UN Special Representative in Palestine, reporting on September 16, 1948, informed the United Nations that he estimated the number of Arab refugees at 360,000, including 50,000 in Israeli territory (UN Document A/1648)

PART TWO
In answer to by Marilyn Shepherd, Friday, 7 December 2012 3:02:55 PM

2. any jewish people in the West Bank are illegal squatters, something they recognised in June 1967 according to Akiva Eldar and other historians.

Quoting Akiva Eldar gives you no credit.

The Mandate for Palestine survived the demise of the League of Nations. Article 80 of the UN Charter implicitly recognises the “Mandate for Palestine” of the League of Nations.

This Mandate granted Jews the irrevocable right to settle anywhere in Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, a right unaltered in international law and valid to this day.

Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (i.e. the West Bank), Gaza and the whole of Jerusalem are legal.

The International Court of Justice reaffirmed the meaning and validity of Article 80 in three separate cases:
• ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 11, 1950• ICJ Advisory Opinion of June 21, 1971• ICJ Advisory Opinion of July 9, 2004:

In other words, neither the ICJ nor the UN General Assembly can arbitrarily change the status of Jewish settlement as set forth in the “Mandate for Palestine,” an international accord that has never been amended.

All of western Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, including the West Bank and Gaza, remains open to Jewish settlement under international law.

I am getting blown away by the ignorance that abounds here and the quoting from very unreliable sources.

I keep seeing people post about the fictitious country of Palestine.

I'm curious. Where is that?

There is/was a region by that name. It was the area of land promised by Britain to the Jews, as it was their historical homeland. Before anyone comments otherwise, there is nothing in the region that pre-dates the Jewish presence. If the Arabs had a presence in the region there would have been buildings to show for it, as there are in countries like Spain.

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3389.htm

I can't possibly go into the history of the region as there is too much to type. If you know your Bible, you would know the Jews lived in the Land of Canaan and Judea and Samaria. The Romans renamed the area to Palestine, to rid it of it's Jewish History.

The British reneged on their promise and gave 78% of Palestine for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Ergo Jordan is Palestine.

The terms Palestine and Palestinian came into being on June 4th 1967. As one well known Arab says "I went to bed an Arab and when I woke up in the morning, I was a Palestinian" They were terms coined by Russia for use as a propaganda weapon.

Singer

I have read your 5 selected quotes from my various posts over the last 4 years which you use as your basis for calling me a Jew-hater. This is very revealing and tells us a great deal about you.

Your selected quotes indicate that I believe that

1. Israel uses "defense' as a reason to attack;
2. a home for the Jews is exclusive and therefore racist;
3. Schlomo Sand, a distinguished Jewish historian, closely argues a convincing case for Zionistic nationalism and racism in his book The Invention of the Jewish People, and has a good case;
4. that Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed from their homeland;
5. that good-will is required from Israelis including ceasing indoctrination of their children, ethnic cleansing and brutal occupation.

This is correct. I do believe these things and a growing number of the world's population, indicated by the recent UN General Assembly vote, apparently believe so too.

The quotes indicate that I am a critic of what Israel, and Zionists generally, are doing. This is also the opinion of many Jews, including Orthodox Jews. If these criticisms of Israel do not apply then a One-State solution is the obvious answer to the problem. A Palestine/Israel State which is truly democratic, non-racist, offering equal civil and political rights to all its citizens.

You obviously object to this which speaks volumes about you and your ideas.