There will be a lot more grass to cut
coaste...@yahoo.com
population as ‘cutting the grass’
by PHILIP WEISS on NOVEMBER 27, 2009 · 36 COMMENTS
I’m at my parents and they get the Times every day. I got up today and
read a news analysis by Ethan Bronner about the latest step in the
peace process and it has upset me all day. Bronner presents as
equivalent the Israelis’ failure to really halt the colonization
process–Netanyahu is still committed to finishing 3000 housing units
in the West Bank and to continue the colonization of East Jerusalem–
and the failure of the Palestinians to halt violence. And what is
Bronner’s evidence for the Palestinian failure? Well, it is the fact
that West Bank violence has not been curbed by the Palestinians
themselves, that has required "nightly Israeli raids" into the West
Bank. 15 to 20 "actions" just the other night, an unnamed Israeli
commander brags. "We call it cutting the grass."
And watching the grass too; over the last few years the Israelis have
built "an extensive intelligence network" in the West Bank..Of course
that’s not the only Palestinian violence that has to be curbed. There
is the whole of Gaza. A "terrorist" infrastructure.
there is still Gaza. It is ruled by the Islamists of Hamas who remain
dedicated to Israel’s destruction. Since Palestinian Authority
officials dare not even set foot there, it is hard to credit their
claim to have dismantled terrorist networks.
A deal is brewing where Israel may release 100s of political
prisoners, including many suicide bombers.
In the Israeli military’s words, that would be a lot of new grass to
cut
Bronner is married to an Israeli. And just think of all the Israeli
propaganda in those statements. The idea that the occupation with all
its humiliating oppressive violence–from intelligence networks to
nightly raids– is the legitimate activity of a state toward a
stateless people. The disgusting military jargon, "cutting the grass,"
which Bronner then echoes thuggishly. The reduction of all of Gaza to
a "terrorist network." An imprisoned people, held up as deeply
threatening because they are dedicated religiously to Israel’s
destruction.
If you or I were under occupation for more than 40 years, watching our
children grow up without opportunities or rights, some of us would
surely resort to violent resistance or maybe even religion. The
International Association of Democratic Lawyers’ report on the Gaza
slaughter of last winter said that the Palestinians are an occupied
people, and THERE IS NO PARITY BETWEEN OCCUPIER AND OCCUPIED; and the
occupied have the right to resist.
Doesn’t the Times owe an occupied people greater fairness? Just apply
Bronner’s standards of behavior to two other situations. Black South
Africa or Iraq. Imagine if the Shiites of Iraq had reported to
American authorities that they kept down Sunni terrorism in 2006 with
nightly raids, to "cut the grass." Do you think we ever would have
been able to make a political deal in Iraq? Do you think our papers
would have reported those reprisals in the bemused spirit that Bronner
brings to these raids and spies? Imagine if the apartheid government
of South Africa had tried to prolong its reign by "cutting the grass"
of the black resistance. What would be the international reaction?
Imagine the raids that routinely went on during the Jim Crow period to
keep down black resistance to rightlessness. Some of those "actions,"
as the Israeli commander put it, were lynchings.
Honest truth
> that West Bank violence has not been curbed by the Palestinians
> themselves, that has required "nightly Israeli raids" into the West
> Bank. 15 to 20 "actions"
Correct and it is convincing. Not that it matters as since the PA claims
jurisdiction and control over the region they become under international
law responsible for what happens in the region.
--
嚙踝蕭Of all the extreme fanaticism which plays havoc in man嚙踝蕭s nature, there is
not one as irrational as anti-Semitism. 嚙皺 If the Jews are rich [these
fanatics] are victims of theft. If they are poor, they are victims of
ridicule. If they take sides in a war, it is because they wish to take
advantage from the spilling of non-Jewish blood. If they espouse peace, it
is because they are scared by their natures or traitors. If the Jew dwells
in a foreign land he is persecuted and expelled. If he wishes to return to
his own land, he is prevented from doing so.嚙踝蕭
Lloyd George
coaste...@yahoo.com
> > Well, it is the fact
> > that West Bank violence has not been curbed by the Palestinians
> > themselves, that has required "nightly Israeli raids" into the West
> > Bank. 15 to 20 "actions"
>
> Correct and it is convincing. Not that it matters as since the PA claims
> jurisdiction and control over the region they become under international
> law responsible for what happens in the region.
The morally opaque juxtaposition of these two quotations is
nauseating. You are, perhaps, actually unable to understand why.
>
> --
> “Of all the extreme fanaticism which plays havoc in man’s nature, there is
> not one as irrational as anti-Semitism. … If the Jews are rich [these
> fanatics] are victims of theft. If they are poor, they are victims of
> ridicule. If they take sides in a war, it is because they wish to take
> advantage from the spilling of non-Jewish blood. If they espouse peace, it
> is because they are scared by their natures or traitors. If the Jew dwells
> in a foreign land he is persecuted and expelled. If he wishes to return to
> his own land, he is prevented from doing so.”
>
> Lloyd George
Honest truth
> On Nov 28, 5:18 am, Honest truth <Honest_tr...@Wisdom.net> wrote:
>>> Well, it is the fact
>>> that West Bank violence has not been curbed by the Palestinians
>>> themselves, that has required "nightly Israeli raids" into the West
>>> Bank. 15 to 20 "actions"
>>
>> Correct and it is convincing. Not that it matters as since the PA claims
>> jurisdiction and control over the region they become under international
>> law responsible for what happens in the region.
>
> The morally opaque juxtaposition of these two quotations is
> nauseating. You are, perhaps, actually unable to understand why.
Well if so, you are wrong again.
As the Egyptian minister stated recently the PA is responsible for its
actions.
http://www.gamla.org.il/english/feature/lynch2a.htm
coaste...@yahoo.com
> On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 07:41:14 -0800 (PST), iconocl...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > On Nov 28, 5:18 am, Honest truth <Honest_tr...@Wisdom.net> wrote:
> >>> Well, it is the fact
> >>> that West Bank violence has not been curbed by the Palestinians
> >>> themselves, that has required "nightly Israeli raids" into the West
> >>> Bank. 15 to 20 "actions"
>
> >> Correct and it is convincing. Not that it matters as since the PA claims
> >> jurisdiction and control over the region they become under international
> >> law responsible for what happens in the region.
>
> > The morally opaque juxtaposition of these two quotations is
> > nauseating. You are, perhaps, actually unable to understand why.
>
> Well if so, you are wrong again.
>
> As the Egyptian minister stated recently the PA is responsible for its
> actions.
>
> http://www.gamla.org.il/english/feature/lynch2a.htm
And so, of course, are the Israelis. Would you like to compare them?
D S
wrote:
> > As the Egyptian minister stated recently the PA is responsible for its
> > actions.
> >http://www.gamla.org.il/english/feature/lynch2a.htm
> And so, of course, are the Israelis. Would you like to compare them?
How about comparing Pappe "line by line" with Sachar? lol
Deborah
coaste...@yahoo.com
It's going to be interesting to compare Sachar with Pappe on the Naqba.
Aaronovich
"icono...@yahoo.com" <coaste...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:969e2233-1fee-4d1c...@d9g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
From my observation of a few days, this woman assumes a mantle of academic
superiority, which she defends with obfuscation, distortion, nastiness,
racism and typical Jew screeching.
Zev
> "iconocl...@yahoo.com" <coaster132...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=6A734D7A-4CA7-43BB-9B8B-3211318F5E0C
By Seth Frantzman
The Jerusalem Post | 8/22/2007
As negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority aimed
at creating a Palestinian state willing to live side-by-side with
Israel in peace resume, one of the major sticking points continues
to be the Arab refugee issue. Bitter arguments among politicians
and scholars continue to surround the creation of the refugee
problem during Israel's War of Independence in 1948.
It has become fashionable in recent decades to frame the 1948 war
as one in which the Arabs were victims of Zionist aggression.
Anti-Zionist scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi and Ilan
Pappe have presented the war as if the only important events were
Deir Yassin and the flight or expulsion of Arabs from Haifa, Acre,
Tiberias, west Jerusalem, Jaffa and numerous villages.
In this context, Ilan Pappe's work deserves special attention. He
was born to a German Jewish family in Haifa in 1954. The former
senior lecturer in the University of Haifa's Department of
Political Science recently announced he was moving to the UK
because it had become "increasingly difficult to live in Israel"
with his "unwelcome views and convictions."
These views are those of the "new historians" - leftist scholars
who in the 1980s began to reinterpret Israeli and Palestinian
history. He is the author of six works on the history of the
Israeli-Arab conflict and the Middle East. In his recently released
book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappe claims that Israel
prepared a special plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's
Arab population known as Plan D for dalet. Pappe's "evidence" is
derived from his interpretations of files found in the Hagana and
Israel state archives.
One of his most damning pieces of evidence is the village surveys
carried out by the Hagana's intelligence units. These surveys go
into minute detail about many Arab villages, including the number
of armed men, the mukhtar and any anti-Jewish activity in the
village. Pappe lends further evidence to his thesis by showing that
Jewish forces, whether Hagana, Irgun or Lehi, attacked Arab
villages even before the declaration of the state on May 15, 1948.
But Pappe makes one egregious mistake. He never bothers to ask the
same question of the Arabs he does of the Jews: What about their
lists, their intelligence reports and their ethnic-cleansing plans?
What were Arab intentions in the five months between the passage of
the UN partition plan on November 29, 1947, and the birth of
Israel?
The archives of The Palestine Post, now The Jerusalem Post and then
the newspaper of record of Mandatory Palestine, provide some of the
answers and tell a very different story from the one presented by
Pappe.
Sixty-two Jews were murdered by Arabs in the first week after the
UN partition plan was passed, and by May 15, 1948, a total of 1,256
Jews had been killed, most of them civilians. These deaths were
caused by Arab militias, gangs, terrorists and army units which
attacked every place of Jewish inhabitation in Palestine.
The attacks succeeded in placing Jerusalem under siege and
eventually cutting off its water supply. All Jewish villages in the
Negev were attacked, and Jews had to go about the country in
convoys. In every major city where Jews and Arabs lived in mixed
neighborhoods the Jewish areas came under attack. This was true in
Haifa's Hadar Hacarmel as well as Jerusalem's Old City.
Massacres were not uncommon.
Thirty-nine Jews were killed by Arab rioters at Haifa's oil
refinery on December 30, 1947. On January 16, 1948, 35 Jews were
killed trying to reach Gush Etzion. On February 22, 44 Jews were
murdered in a bombing on Jerusalem's Rehov Ben-Yehuda. And on
February 29, 23 Jews were killed all across Palestine, eight of
them at the Hayotzek iron foundry.
Thirty-five Jews were murdered during the Mount Scopus convoy
massacre on April 13. And 127 Jews were massacred at Kfar Etzion on
May 15, 1948, after 30 others had died defending the Etzion Bloc.
In Arab countries more than 100 Jews were also massacred and
synagogues were burned in Aleppo and Aden, driving thousands of
Jews from their homes.
Back in Palestine many small kibbutzim were subjected to attacks,
including Gvulot, Ben-Shemen, Holon, Safed, Bat Yam and Kfar Yavetz
- all in December. In January and February, it was the turn of
Rishon Lezion, Yehiam, Mishmar Hayarden, Tirat Zvi, Sde Eliahu, Ein
Hanatziv, Magdiel, Mitzpe Hagalil and Ma'anit.
In March and April these attacks culminated with an assault on
Hartuv by 400 Arabs based in the village of Ishwa and an attack on
Kfar Darom by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Arab attackers also bombed The Palestine Post in February. In
March, the Jewish Agency, the Solel Boneh building in Haifa and an
Egged bus were also bombed.
Some of today's scholars prefer to present every massacre of Jews
as a "response" to some Jewish deed, and to portray as a "myth" the
very idea that Israel struggled desperately for existence in 1948.
But it was no myth.
The fact is 1,256 Jews were killed in five months. Even before the
first Arab villages were captured in April, 924 Jews had already
been killed. Ilan Pappe should have pondered what might have been
if those Jews had not been slaughtered.
What if attacks and riots had not been the first Arab reaction to
the partition plan?
Plan Dalet was a plan, it was one of many plans. The lists compiled
by the Hagana had been cobbled together for a decade before 1948,
but they were not blueprints - merely intelligence assessments. The
British also kept lists of everything; they knew about weapons in
various kibbutzim, about the Hagana and illegal Jewish immigration
to Palestine. Those lists weren't blueprints for ethnic cleansing
anymore than were the Hagana files on Arab villages.
When a Jewish area was overrun - and some were - the homes were
looted or destroyed and any survivors were killed, as at Kfar
Etzion (only three of the defenders survived the massacre).
The potential for the ethnic cleansing of Jewish Palestine was
never realized because of the discipline, determination and sheer
luck of the Yishuv.
If the Arabs had not carried out across the board attacks
throughout the Yishuv between 1947 and 1948, perhaps the nature of
the subsequent Jewish victory would have been different. As it was,
the ceaseless attacks against all isolated Jewish settlements only
gave Zionist commanders every reason to see neighboring Arab
villages as threatening and to act accordingly.
Scholarship - including that of the "new historians" - on the 1948
war will remain incomplete until methodical studies are carried out
about widespread and often well-planned Arab assaults on the
Yishuv.
The writer is in the doctoral program at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem. His master's thesis was on the 1948 war.