WHEN DID HISTORY BEGIN?

It seems for some, it began in 1948.

That was the day the EVIL JEWS did their dastardly deed against the 'HELPLESS PALESTINIANS'....

Well..thats one view of history. Do the Facts support it? (Lev thinks so.)

Jews were massacred in "Palestine" long b4 1948, by Arabs.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hebron29.html

Putere... THAT is the reason the Jews could never just 'settle' as you suggest.

<<Israel, ...was imposed on the indigenous population of Palestine.>>

REALLY? Why is your historical view myopic? How about the EXILE OF JEWS by the Romans which was IMPOSED on them in AD 70?

WHY is it less valid to point to "THAT" point in history than to point to 1948 which was the 'REVERSAL' of one of the greatest crimes against humanity in all history. i.e. the Destruction and Exile in AD70.

SHOW me by what moral 'beam balance' you determine 1948 to be more relevant than AD70? Oh..I know.. 'that was a longggggg time ago'..duh.

Makes not a SCRAP of difference.

INDIGENOUS Palestinians? My head just exploded.. I've booked my next therapy appointment... The "Palestinians" are NOT 'indigenous' they are the combined result of Islamic conquest..and coerced conversions.

Refer Hamas Charter PART 3 Article 11
<<This is the status [of the land] in Islamic Shari’a, and it is similar to all lands conquered by Islam by force, and made thereby Waqf lands upon their conquest, for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection.>>

Indigenous my foot! read.... READ what they themselves say!x100

Which part of ISLAMIC CONQUEST do you not understand?

Which part of BY FORCE do you not 'get'?

Why is ISLAMIC conquest Ok. But "Jewish re-conquest" not ok ? sounds very racist and Islamist to me.

I wish all these 'racist' and xenophobic anti semites would crawl back into their holes under their blood stained rocks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G71PSF2qCI8&feature=related PRE 1948

Open your blind eyes people.

To Petere, fungus, passy, and Lev: I would point out the obvious.

Israel exists as a thriving nation state in reality. Any theorizing around Israel not existing means denying that reality. So this is how anti-Zionist fundamentalists fantasize to address that basic problem.

Israelis and their Jewish supporters are depicted as inherently evil oppressors by the simple process of denying the historical link between the Jewish experience of oppression in both Europe and the Middle East and the creation of Israel. Conversely, Palestinians are depicted as intrinsically innocent victims. In place of the fundamental and objective centrality of the State of Israel to contemporary Jewish identity, anti-Zionist fundamentalists portray Israel as a mere political construct, and utilize ethnic stereotyping of all Israelis and all Jewish supporters of Israel in order to justify their claims.

The purpose of negating the reality of Israel's existence is to overcome the ideological barrier posed by the Left's historical opposition to racism. Any objective analysis of the Middle East would have to accept that Israel could only be destroyed by a war of partial or total genocide which would inevitably produce millions of Israeli Jewish refugees, and have a catastrophically traumatic effect on almost all Jews outside Israel. But advocacy of genocide means endorsing the most virulent form of racism imaginable. So instead anti-Zionist fundamentalists construct a subjective fantasy world in which Israel is detached from its specifically Jewish roots, and then miraculously destroyed by remote control free of any violence or bloodshed under the banner of anti-racism. And of course the perpetrators cannot reasonably be accused of antisemitism because they deny holding any prejudices towards Jews. Problem solved.

For further discussion of the fallacy of a one-state position, see my "One state is no solution", New Matilda online, 4 March 2008.

By the way Fatah never advocated a bi-national state, rather an Arab State of Palestine in which the Jews would be allowed to remain as a tolerated religious community.

Philip Mendes

Guess the time will come when Israelis either accept that their period of dominance is over, and negotiate a single, secular, democratic state, or wind up with nothing.
As for being concerned about the: Any objective analysis of the Middle East would have to accept that Israel could only be destroyed by a war of partial or total genocide which would inevitably produce millions of Israeli Jewish refugees, and have a catastrophically traumatic effect on almost all Jews outside Israel.
One, destruction or not is their choice, two: as for the: inevitably produce millions of Israeli Jewish refugees, and have a catastrophically traumatic effect on almost all Jews outside Israel bit, after Israels 60 odd years of brutal treatment of the Palestinians, -- I really care!

David,

Your accusations might be offensive if there was any veracity to them.

I am well aware of the sectarian conflicts prior to 1948 and, even most grimly, between non-Jewish and Jewish Palestinians. Likewise I am well aware of the diaspora form Roman times and the history the Jews after that, perhaps even more so than yourself. If you can however, derive a objective connection between the Jews expelled by the Romans in 70 AD and those who moved into Palestine after the formation of Israel, you're doing better than any geneticist on the planet.

You do appear unaware that Herodotus referred to the Palestinians some 2500 years ago and of course, they are mentioned as the the Hebrew (Plishtim) and in their quasi-historical sources (e.g., 1 Samuel 17:26, 17:36; 2 Samuel 1:20; Judges 14:3), "people of P'lesheth", "Philistia").

I am surprised that you raise the issue of the Hamas charter as if we haven't all already read it. I am yet to see a single person on OLO who supports Hamas' Charter, although that is very different to those who oppose them without thinking of the causes and reasons for their continued existence. In case there is something you've missed, I utterly oppose the replacement of a somewhat secular, somewhat democratic Jewish state of Israel with a theocratic and dictatorial Islamic state of Palestine.

There is a preferred option: A country which justly resolves the dispossesion of its original inhabitants, a country which is a homeland to Christian, Jew and Muslim without being a state for any and with no religious laws, a country which respects civil liberties and democratic traditions. However, such as country is only possible if people give up both their sectional interests and the self-fulfilling prophecy that it cannot be achieved. Whoever supports such a proposition will receive the support of "the left".

To Philip,

Not once have I ever believed that genocide or ethnic cleansing of Jews - or anyone else - was justified. What I believe is justified is the changing of Israeli laws in order to make it, instead of a Jewish state, a state for all of its citizens, regardless of religion or lack of religion. I don't see how this would require genocide or ethnic cleansing. Nor do I how this elides Jews' religious and historical connection to the land, or their persecution over the centuries.

You still haven't answered my question as to how it is possible to have a nation designed for one particular religious group and have a fair system in place.

Jewish people, like everyone else, should be able to live anywhere they feel like in the world in peace, prosperity and equality. Yet having a nation established to favour them over everyone else is fundamentally discriminatory.

If you really want to see what's wrong with the concept of a state designed for one particular religious group, check out the websites www.adalah.org and www.arabhra.org

Peter e: Good to see you being honest about your prejudices. No more pseudo leftism, just the bigotry of a far right position.

To Fungus, I would point out that Israel provides a refuge for Jews who have historically been victims of racism. Affirmative action policies for Jews or women or homosexuals or those who grew up in State care etc. discriminate in favour of a persecuted group. I realize many who come from the dominant majority culture don't understand this because they think that opportunities are equal for all. But in reality they aren't.

The same logic applies to a Palestinian State when such is formed. They will have the right to discriminate in favour of their own people because they have been oppressed.

Philip