Sganot:
1)"Writing without connection to reality": an apt description of Zionist spin docs such as yourself.
2)Re para 3, hasbara site, CAMERA, details Pal Prop Law banning sale of land to 'occupiers'. Occupation=crime against humanity. Occupiers=criminals. Banning land sales to such is apartheid? Choice contextualising quote from 'There's a system for turning Palestinian property into Israel's state land', Akiva Eldar, Haaretz 27/12/05: "Ehud Barak likes to compare...Israel to a villa in a jungle. It would be interesting to know whether he means that the areas of the settlements in the territories are a legal veranda of the villa or part of the jungle. Right under the noses...of prime ministers, chiefs of staff & GOCs of the Central Command...Israel has imposed the law of the jungle on those territories. The Civil Admin, with the blessing of the State Prosecutor's Office, has been a key partner in a system of real estate deals, of which the description 'dubious' would be complimentary. Building companies owned & managed by settler leaders & land dealers acquire lands from Palestinian crooks & transfer them to the Custodian of Government Property in the ILA. The custodian 'converts' the lands to 'state lands', leases them back to settler associations that then sell them to building companies. In this way it has been ensured that the Palestinians (under the law in the territories, the onus of proof is on them) never demand their lands back." You can look up the rest. From the confiscation of refugee lands in 48-49 to the present, it's a trail of hanky panky and your job is to cover it up by concocting 'Palestinian apartheid'.
3)Re para 4 and "100% ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter...Beit Haarava." Dan Kurzman, Genesis 48 writes glowing accounts of how the militarised colonists of the Etzion Bloc (inc Kafr Etzion, Massuot Yitzhak & Ein Tzurim) who routinely fired on the Arab Legion were taken, after capture, by "kind" Arab legionaires to prison in Trans-Jordan. Ditto for the Zionist forces in the Jewish Quarter. TBC

Sganot: Continued:-
He makes no mention of of the fate of Kafr Darom (also armed to the teeth) and Beit Haarava is not even in his index. There is no sense whatever in K's account that this was ethnic cleansing. As usual, you're clutching at straws.
4)Re para 5: Yes, complex, basically a covert uprooting by Zionist forces in the wake of their theft of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing (the real thing: planned, deliberate, with massacres!) and mass expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians. Try this on for size: "In spite of our constant reports that the situation in Iraq was exaggerated and artificially enflamed from without, the State Department urged us to intervene with the government to facilitate an air-lift that the Zionists were organising to 'rescue' Iraqi Jews...Although the Iraqi police later provided our embassy with evidence to show that the synagogue and the library bombings, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaign, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of Iraqi Jews, whom the Zionists had 'rescued' really just in order to increase the Israeli Jewish population..." (pp.48-9, 'Ropes of Sand' by CIA agent, Wilbur Crane Eveland).
5) Segev cited a Hebrew work by Natan Michael Gelber.
6)Para 7: Re "return of an indigenous people to its homeland", yours is an ideological, faith-based delusion. "Jews & Pals have nearly identical genes": really? Mizrahim maybe, but not Ashkenazim. Indigenous Australians & the vote: And when did Israel's 'Arabs' finally emerge from military rule? "Jews & Arabs always had equal voting rights in Israel": What?! "ALWAYS"? Since 1948? Australia's "remaining framework of legal discrimination": Evidence, please. "Removing indigenous children": When is Israel going to come to terms with the removal of Mizrahi children from their families? Aust's "land remains in the hands of colonists and their descendents": There is no LEGAL impediment (as there is in Israel re Israeli Arabs) to A's indigenes buying/leasing land here. Occupation? Hello? Military rule. Carpet bombing: I don't think Gazans would appreciate your fine distinction. TBC

2bob,

Yes, given Israel’s past in Lebanon, the quiet on the Left is notable. But support for the current action doesn’t necessarily translate into feelings of regret about previous withdrawals. You need to show real evidence. You can’t just project your own feelings or extrapolate that if people support re-entry into Lebanon and Gaza, they must feel stupid/misled about the previous exits.

Also, you exaggerate the number who thought Hamas would become a responsible neighbor. Israeli unilateralism grew out of the opposite feeling – that for the foreseeable future, the prospect of finding a responsible peace partner in either Fatah or Hamas is hopeless.

Strewth,

-Please avoid ad hominem attacks.

-Re PA property law, you keep returning to the settlements. They aren’t relevant because they aren’t PA-controlled. Eldar raises important issues about shady land deals, and also includes some factual and logical mistakes, but this is beside the point. The PA law isn’t about shady land deals or about settlements. The crime is selling land to a Jew. If you still don’t get it, you probably never will.

-Occupation isn’t a crime against humanity; it isn’t a crime at all. In fact, the first context in which “crimes against humanity” were legally defined and prosecuted was in occupied Germany. Large parts of the Geneva Conventions govern occupation, which would be odd if it were a “crime”, let alone a “crime against humanity”! You may find the following educational:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_occupation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_against_humanity
http://www.crimesofwar.org/thebook/crimes-against-humanity.html
http://www.crimesofwar.org/thebook/occuption-territory.html

-You can make ethnic cleansing seem as pretty as you please, and smear the victims by referring to them as “militarized colonists”, “Zionist forces”, etc. You’re not fooling anyone. The fact is that every Jew living in the parts of Palestine that fell under Arab rule was either killed or forcibly removed. Does Kurzman have glowing accounts about how 133 defenders of Kfar Etzion finally surrendered, and the “kind” Legionnaires proceeded to murder 129 of them. (Of course there were some kind Legionnaires -- of the four survivors, three were saved by a few brave Arab soldiers who protected them.)

Strewth,

- Kfar Darom was “armed to the teeth”? Evidence, please. And why would that be relevant? Regardless of arms, it didn’t survive the Egyptian siege. As in every other case of Jewish communities in Arab-occupied Palestine, the residents were forced out. And because K doesn’t mention it, it didn’t happen? Educate yourself.

-Was the Farhoud against Iraqi Jewry carried out by “Zionists”?

-Segev’s “The Seventh Million” never mentions Natan-Michael Gelber or quotes anything by him. Apparently you’ve lifted the quote from some anti-Zionist propaganda piece that sloppily misattributed it. No wonder you don’t know anything about the context or interpretation that Segev gives. Good try, and thanks for playing.

- Yes, return of an indigenous people to its homeland, and this isn’t about “faith”.

-My message beginning “Shorbe” includes a bunch of info and links re Jewish genetics. Educate yourself. Numerous studies have found evidence of a very close genetic relationship between Ashkenazi and Sefardi Jews, Palestinian Arabs, Syrians, Lebanese, Kurds, etc. In fact, there is some evidence that Ashkenazi Jews are actually more closely related to Palestinian Arabs and other Middle Easterners than Sefardi Jews, though the two Jewish groups are closest to each other, and both are closer to other Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean populations than to Northern and Eastern Europeans.

-Arab Israeli villages in the Galilee were subject to military rule until 1966, but Arab and Jewish Israelis, unlike indigenous Australians, always had the right to vote. Yes, since 1948.

-My information about Australia mainly comes from Wikipedia articles such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aborigine , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generation , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Australia

-Despite your attempts to say otherwise, both Arabs and Jews can buy and lease land in Israel.

-Yes occupation. Hello.

-This land has seen frightful bombing, not just in Gaza as you indicate but also in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Beersheba, Haifa, etc. Just yesterday, Rosh Hanikra, Tiberas, Carmiel, Safed, Nahariya, Kiryat Shmona, the western Galilee and the Upper Galilee were all bombed. Still, it isn’t carpet bombing. And yes, the distinction is important.

Clearly, the Palestinians have been put between a rock and a hard place - Israel is the rock, but the so-called 'allies' of the Palestinians are the 'hard place.' This indicates to me that the Islamic nations are not hostile to Israel simply out of their sympathy to the Palestinians, but for other reasons.

This remains the chief practical problem with any resettlement solution. Though the rest of the Islamic world is big enough to accommodate the Palestinians, they seem completely unwilling to do so. For religious and political reasons, some Islamic nations (and/or pan national Islamic groups) see the constant aggravation of Israel and the West as desirable (quite apart from the plight of the Palestinians). That being the case, the Palestinians represent a useful tool for some Islamic nations to inflict pain on the Israeli's and distress to the West, while avoiding culpability. That so much of the aid from the Islamic world appears to primarily consist of arms, or support for terrorist organisations, speaks volumes. They need only supply arms and the Palestinians, blind to their manipulation, represent an endless supply of willing cannon fodder.

Any thoughts on how such issues can be overcome? What would it take to persuade the Arab/Islamic world to take on the task of re-settling the Palestinians and what would it take to persuade the Palestinians to go willingly - financial incentives? I can't imagine that most of them wouldn't jump at the chance of a better life elsewhere.

Sganot,

Do you believe that the lack of response by the left is more than simply a symptom of the ‘normal’ reaction of Israeli’s in war?

In response to your response to stupid/misled, the point that I was trying to make, unsuccessfully it appears, is not that I believe, nor that I think any reasonable person in Israel believes that disengagement should not have occurred, but rather that it was carried out without regard to the effect of such disengagement upon the Hizbollah supporters, especially with regard to how they would view it. On my reading, the implementation of UN Resolution 425 [http://10452lccc.com/eliasenglish/youarenotwelcomed.htm], required that the Lebanese Army should take over responsibility of the South Lebanon, in addition to disarming Hizbollah (Sorry my links keep getting lost, dunno why? Perhaps I should stop citing Lebanese (anti-Syrian) Dissident’s).

Given that the disengagement was designed to implement this resolution, and demonstrated Israel’s willingness to comply with it, how precisely should one feel at the abysmal failure of Lebanon to comply with its part?

For the remainder of the argument on this article, particularly with regard to the legality of the current situation, and the apportionment of blame under International Law it is necessary to examine the International Law in question. For any who are interested I refer you to my post here: [http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4706#48573].

For a very good general discussion on the problem facing the majority of Lebanese, those who do not support Hizbollah & Syria, please see: http://10452lccc.com/eliasenglish/questioned_credibility.htm

Inshallah

2bob