Journal of Palestine Studies Compounds its Ben-Gurion Error

[dsharavi]

April 9, 2012
Journal of Palestine Studies Compounds its Ben-Gurion Error
by Gilead Ini, Dexter Van Zile

In November 2011, CAMERA informed editors at the Journal of Palestine
Studies (JPS) of a falsified quote, attributed to Zionist leader David
Ben-Gurion, that was published in its pages. After investigating the
matter, the journal went through the motions of clearing the record.
Unfortunately its correction, while acknowledging that mistakes were
made, introduced additional, serious inaccuracies that severely
misinform readers.

According to JPS, the author of the article that relayed the hoax
quote, Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, "declined to respond himself" to
the questions about his falsification. Nonetheless, the journal's
editors defended "the overall accuracy" of Pappé's piece, arguing that
another purported statement by Ben-Gurion showed the author was
essentially correct.

Pappé claimed that Ben-Gurion wrote, "The Arabs will have to go, but
one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war."
JPS maintained this quote, while incorrect, is close enough to what
they say Ben-Gurion actually wrote, namely that "We must expel Arabs
and take their place."

The editors should have realized, though, that the new quote they
cited is at best questionable, and almost certainly inaccurate. Making
matters worse, JPS inserted invented words into its English
translation of the document it used to defend Pappé's article.

In other words, it introduced its own falsehoods to defend Pappé's
falsehood.

The Journal of Palestine Studies, which is published by the University
of California Press, should print a clarification for its readers, and
for the record, as any serious scholarly journal would do in this
situation.

Background

Over the past several months, CAMERA contacted a number of
institutions about Pappé's quote. Our calls for correction began after
the quote appeared in the 2010 film “With God on Our Side,” produced
by Porter Speakman, Jr.

In his correspondence with CAMERA, Speakman stated that his source for
the quote was Ilan Pappé's 2006 book The Ethnic Cleansing of
Palestine, and acknowledged CAMERA's finding that the quote did not
appear in any of the sources that Pappé cited in this book. Speakman
promised to delete the quote from his movie, and he did.

CAMERA then contacted the Journal of Palestine Studies, which in its
autumn 2006 published the quote as part of Pappé's article, "The 1948
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine."

The Quote and the Correction

Pappé, a revisionist historian who calls for dismantling the State of
Israel, claimed in JPS that Ben-Gurion sent a letter to his son Amos
stating, "The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment
for making it happen, such as a war."

CAMERA informed JPS editors that the quote could not be found in
Pappé's footnoted source. We elaborated elsewhere,

"[I]t's reasonable to conclude that famed revisionist historian
Ilan Pappé has transgressed the sacred ground between quotation marks
by inventing a quote and attributing it to Israel's first prime
minister David Ben-Gurion."

JPS's response to CAMERA's correction request acknowledged that the
citation was incorrect:

"According to the letter we received from CAMERA, "the quote
attributed to Ben-Gurion does not appear in the citation provided."
Verification by JPS revealed that this indeed is the case."

The JPS response added,

" In accordance with CAMERA’s request, we are publishing this text
in the winter 2012 issue of JPS—the first to appear since we learned
of the erroneous citation. The correction will also be posted on our
website at www.palestine-studies.org."

A New Problem

Unfortunately, a closer look shows that JPS's correction fails to
ethically resolve the problem. On the contrary, it raises serious
ethical concerns, and for several reasons leaves the publisher in a
deeper hole.

• First, the journal wrongly cast Pappé's error as a typographical
mistake amounting to little more than a "regrettable misattribution
and punctuation lapse." JPS editors suggested the author misplaced the
second quotation mark in the passage, and that the "correct" quote
should have ended with the word "go." The rest of the sentence, they
argued, should have been a paraphrase. Indeed, this is how the
sentence appears in other publications by Pappé: "The Arabs will have
to go," but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such
as a war.

But even in this "corrected" sentence, the essential problem remains
unchanged: None of the words in the sentence were ever written or
spoken by Ben-Gurion, so no arrangement of quotation marks would yield
an accurate quote. By focusing on the "erroneous citation," and by
republishing the sentence with what they described as "corrected
punctuation," editors failed to address with due seriousness what was
uncovered by their investigation — Pappé fabricated a quotation — and
failed to acknowledge that this represents a grave violation of
scholarly ethics.

• In addition, the journal directed its readers to online copies of
the relevant letter, an October 5, 1937 missive that JPS editors
explained is "well-known to scholars of the conflict." Along with its
English translation of the letter, which shows Ben-Gurion supposedly
calling for Arabs to be expelled, the publication shared what it
describes as "the Hebrew original" of the letter.

The document they link to, however, is not the original handwritten
letter, but rather a typed transcription. For reasons that will be
made clear below, this is an extremely important distinction.

• Of great concern, too, is a striking mistranslation in the
publication's English version of the letter, which according to JPS
was translated by their parent organization, the Institute for
Palestine Studies. "In the interests of optimal accuracy ... JPS asked
the Hebrew Department of the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) in
Beirut to translate the full text of the letter from the original
Hebrew," reads JPS's published response to CAMERA. Their translation,
though, fell far short of "optimal accuracy," and in fact
substantively manipulates the letter by inventing and inserting words
that Ben-Gurion did not actually write.

• Perhaps most seriously, the journal defended Pappé's hoax quote by
claiming that, while the quote doesn't quite appear in the Ben-Gurion
letter, its "essence" is accurate. This is because the letter, JPS
editors insisted, includes an even more aggressive call for ethnic
cleansing: "We must expel Arabs and take their place." The presence of
this statement in the letter "thoroughly vindicates Ilan Pappé's
reading," they concluded.

The problem is, some of the very scholars of the conflict JPS named to
bolster its position have actually noted Ben-Gurion wrote the exact
opposite in the letter: "We do not want to and we do not have to expel
Arabs and take their place."

The Facts, the Letter and the Mystery Scribble

In the original, handwritten letter, the sentence preceding the quote
in question is covered with a scribble. That scribble spills over onto
the first few important words of the purportedly "vindicating"
sentence, and covers the words "We do not want to and we do not." If
the passage is read without those marked-over words, it conveys the
opposite of its meaning as originally written.

It is unclear who scribbled over the key words, or when they were
struck out. For a number of reasons, though, it is apparent that Ben-
Gurion intended to note that expelling Arabs is neither desired nor
necessary. But even if JPS insists on embracing the position that the
sentence calls for Jews to expel Arabs — a position that is
unsustainable for reasons discussed below — it is clearly unethical
for them to hinge their argument on the modified, shortened version of
the quote without even hinting at the serious doubts that have been
raised by scholars of Israeli history.

To recap:

• First, Ilan Pappé's quote is a complete fabrication. Even if his
footnotes were scrambled, and even if a quotation mark was misplaced,
the historian is guilty of one of the worst violations of scholarly
ethics and public trust. Pappé's readers rely on him to convey the
information from the historical record in an accurate and trustworthy
manner. He did not. As the American Historical Association states,
"Those who invent, alter, remove, or destroy evidence make it
difficult for any serious historian ever wholly to trust their work
again."

• Likewise, regardless of what other thoughts Ben-Gurion did or did
not express in the letter, Pappé's misquote remains a serious
violation.

• The Journal of Palestine Studies' defense of Pappé hinges on a
passage in the letter that evidently says the exact opposite of what
the journal claims. And its (mis)interpretation is buttressed by
mistranslations in its English translation.

JPS's Defense

Below is an image of the passage (second sentence from the top) as it
appears in the letter described by JPS as the "the Hebrew original."

[image]

But here is the passage as it looks in the actual original:

[image]

Here is that passage again, but with the key portion — "We do not want
to and we do not have to expel Arabs and take their place" —
highlighted:

[image]

To be sure, the scribble requires some further attention. And one
central issue to consider is the immediate context of the passage,
which leaves little room for doubt that the marked out portion is an
integral part of the sentence.

In the sentences that immediately follow the one shown above, Ben-
Gurion continues his thought:

"All of our ambitions are built on the assumption that has proven
true throughout all of our activities in the land [of Israel] — that
there is enough room for us and for the Arabs in the land [of Israel].
And if we will have to use force, not for the sake of evicting the
Arabs of the Negev or Transjordan, but rather in order to secure the
right that belongs to us to settle there, force will be available to
us."

Of course, it would make no sense for Ben-Gurion to write that the
Jewish community "must expel" Arabs, and with the next stroke of his
pen state that the community believes there is enough room for both
groups to share the land, and that force, if needed, would not be used
to evict Arabs but rather to ensure the rights of Jews.

JPS Mistranslation

But here, JPS's translation of the transcription (which it offers as
the "Hebrew original") conveniently falters. The journal's translators
inserted the phrase "up to now" at the start the sentence beginning
with "All of our ambitions." Such a phrase does not exist — not in the
actual original letter and not in JPS's transcription of the original.
It is hard to imagine how this mistranslation could have been an
innocent mistake.

The Hebrew Department of the Institute for Palestine Studies also
tweaks the subsequent sentence, changing the opening word from "and"
to "but." To be fair, the IPS's Hebrew Department is not the only
translator who have made this latter adjustment. But taken together,
this major and minor change helps "fix" the problem of the
incompatible context.

Just to get a sense of how important the inserted words are to JPS's
efforts to vindicate Pappé's scholarship, here is how the three
sentences in question read as they appear in JPS's Hebrew
transcription:

"We must expel Arabs and take their place. All of our ambitions
are built on the assumption that has proven true throughout all of our
activities in the land — that there is enough room for us and for the
Arabs in the land [of Israel]. And if we will have to use force, not
for the sake of evicting the Arabs of the Negev or Transjordan, but
rather in order to secure the right that belongs to us to settle
there, force will be available to us."

Here is how the two sentences read with the words inserted by IPS's
translators:

"We must expel Arabs and take their place. Up to now all of our
ambitions are built on the assumption that has proven true throughout
all of our activities in the land — that there is enough room for us
and for the Arabs in the land [of Israel]. But if we will have to use
force, not for the sake of evicting the Arabs of the Negev or
Transjordan, but rather in order to secure the right that belongs to
us to settle there, force will be available to us."

Without the words invented and inserted by JPS's Hebrew department,
the last two sentences contradict the first. With the invented words,
Ben-Gurion is no longer saying there is room for both peoples in the
land but is describing a change of heart, saying that until now he
felt this way, but....

Yet even with JPS's mistranslations, the short version of the Ben-
Gurion quote does not fit in with the letter as a whole. In the
sentences leading up to the "We must expel" passage, Ben-Gurion refers
again and again to cooperating with the Arabs:

• "The greater the Jewish strength in the country, the more the Arabs
will realize that it is neither beneficial nor possible for them to
withstand us. On the contrary, it will be possible for the Arabs to
benefit enormously from the Jews, not only materially but politically
as well."

• "... the Arabs will realize that it is better for them to become our
allies ..."

• "They will derive benefits from our assistance if they, of their own
free will, give us the opportunity to settle in all parts of the
country."

• "... the Jews could be equal allies, real friends, not occupiers or
tyrants over them."

• "It is very probable that they will agree that we undertake the
development of the Negev and make it prosper in return for our
financial, military, organizational, and scientific assistance."

But in JPS's account, Ben-Gurion suddenly reverses course and writes
"We must expel Arabs and take their place," before immediately again
explaining that he believes there is enough room in the country for
both peoples and that force, if needed, will not be used to dispossess
the Arabs.

So even without knowledge of the scribbles, the "we must expel" quote
raises eyebrows because it stands out so dramatically as an outlier.

One other point worth considering is how the scribble fits with the
structure of this individual sentence. It simply would not make sense
for Ben-Gurion to write "We do not want to and do not have to expel
Arabs and take their places," and then, suddenly realizing that he
actually believes the opposite, scribble over the negation that opens
the sentence.

The Scholarly Discussion

JPS was right, at least, when it stated that

"Ben-Gurion's 5 October 1937 letter to his son Amos is well-
known to scholars of the conflict. Benny Morris, Ben-Gurion
biographers Shabtai Teveth and Michael Ben-Zohar, Nur Masalha, and
numerous others have all quoted from it. "

The letter, and more importantly, the nuances of the specific passage
about (not) expelling Arabs, is discussed by scholars including Arye
Naor in the journal Israel Studies; Shabtai Teveth in Ben-Gurion
ve'Arvie Eretz Israel and in the Hebrew journal Alpayim; Ilan
Greilsammer in La Nouvelle Histoire d'Israël; Véronique Meimoun in
Bulletin du Centre de Recherche Français á Jérusalem; Efraim Karsh in
Fabricating Israeli History; and Benny Morris in Alpayim.

The Journal of Palestine Studies should be well aware of this
discussion about the crossed out lines, because Benny Morris also
mentions them in a 1998 essay published in its winter 1998 issue.

And what specifically do the scholars invoked by the Journal of
Palestine Studies have to say? In the original English version of
Benny Morris's Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem published in
1987, Morris relayed the short version of the quote ("We must
expel..."). But after coming to understand what the original letter
looked like, he relayed the complete quote ("We do not want to and we
do not have to expel...") in the 1991 Hebrew edition of his book.
Again in issue 12 of Alpayim, published in 1996, Morris relays the
long version, and alternately suggests Ben-Gurion scribbled on the
text many years after the letter was sent, or that it was "apparently
not Ben-Gurion himself" who marked up the letter. In The Journal of
Palestine Studies (1998), Morris describes the quote as being
"problematic" due to the crossed out lines, and said it was unclear
who was responsible for the scribbles, or what Ben-Gurion's intent was
when writing the passage. When asked in April 2012 for clarification,
Morris told CAMERA he now guesses that Ben-Gurion mistakenly erased
the key words, intending only to erase what preceded it.

Shabtai Teveth's 1985 book Ben-Gurion ve'Arvie Eretz Israel, in its
Hebrew original, relays the long version of the quote. The English
version, published the same year, relays the short version. Although
Teveth's explanation for this in issue 13 of Alpayim is rather bizarre
— he says the text was cut because the English publisher asked him to
shorten the book by a third — this explanation makes clear that he
stands by the Hebrew version of the book.

It is true that Nur Masalha repeatedly uses the shortened version of
the quote. But Masalha relies on Shabtai Teveth's English book (see,
e.g., his citations in the autumn 1991 issue of Journal of Palestine
Studies and his 2007 book The Bible and Zionism) and as we have seen,
Teveth believes the long version is the accurate one.

In short, the scholars mentioned by JPS have all endorsed, or
otherwise rely on those who endorse, the complete version of the
quote. (We could not find a reference to the quote by Michael Bar-
Zohar.)

(4/18 Update: After this article was published, Bar-Zohar let CAMERA
know that "There is no doubt in my mind that Ben-Gurion never wrote
the sentence: 'We must expel the Arabs and take their place.')

The Need for a New Correction

This piece is not about the evolution of Ben-Gurion's views on
transfer. That is a worthwhile topic, but it's one that has already
been deeply explored and intensely debated by scholars. But before any
honest assessment of this subject can begin, Ben-Gurion's Oct. 5, 1937
letter to his son Amos must be accurately understood. Scholars must
contend with the misrepresentation of the record introduced by Pappé,
who invented a quotation, and the misrepresentation now introduced by
JPS. Hopefully this article will serve as a comprehensive resource on
the Ben-Gurion letter, and will help prevent the careless spread of
the allegation that it called for expelling Arabs.

The Journal of Palestine Studies insisted in its response to CAMERA
that "JPS's dedication to accuracy is no less deep than CAMERA's," and
that "In more than forty years of publication, JPS has always prided
itself on its high editorial standards. We very much regret the
occasions when we inadvertently fall short, but we would be more
distressed had the essential accuracy of an important article on so
important a topic been found wanting."

If true, JPS will publish a straightforward correction acknowledging
the seriousness of Pappé's initial error. It will correct the serious
mistakes in its translation, especially the inexplicable insertion of
the phrase "up to now." It will clarify that its copy of the letter is
not an original but rather a transcription. And it will acknowledge
that scholars who have seen the original, handwritten letter state
that Ben-Gurion expressed his opposition to expulsion it the phrase
JPS claims is a call for evicting Arabs.

[HHW]

Ben-Gurion actually *carried out* the eviction of the Arabs from
Palestine commencing in late 1947, ten years after the disputed letter
was written. He was the civilian commander in chief of that operation
and well prior to 1947-48 he had been deeply involved in the
preparation for it. This is amply demonstrated in Dr. Pappe's "The
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine". What we see this article is an attempt
to discredit the entire book and Pappe too also by raising cavils
about a tiny, peripheral bit of evidence relating to Ben-Gurion's
state of mind ten years before the crime in question. This ambiguous
picking of a single nit about a scribbled-upon sentence in a personal
letter of October 5, 1937 is ridiculous. It's the sort of thing which
is Camera's stock in trade.

[dsharavi]

Bullshit. If you have something to add, other than your usual
brainfarts, add it. Since you don't, STFU about topics which are
beyond your capacity to discuss.

[HHW]

In lieu of dealing with what I said you clip it and indulge your
perennial ad hominem filth. Here again is what you clipped so that the
readers may see and I may comment again:

Ben-Gurion actually *carried out* the eviction of the Arabs from

Palestine commencing in late 1947, ten years after the disputed
letter
was written. He was the civilian commander in chief of that operation
and well prior to 1947-48 he had been deeply involved in the
preparation for it. This is amply demonstrated in Dr. Pappe's "The

Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine". What we see in this article is an
attempt
to discredit the entire book and Pappe too by raising cavils

about a tiny, peripheral bit of evidence relating to Ben-Gurion's
state of mind ten years before the crime in question. This ambiguous
picking of a single nit about a scribbled-upon sentence in a personal
letter of October 5, 1937 is ridiculous. It's the sort of thing which
is Camera's stock in trade.

(Original typos edited)

In the past you've said you read Dr. Ilan Pappe's "The Ethnic
Cleansing of Palestine". I won't ask you to acknowledge it again, but
presuming anyway that you did, it is impossible for you to honestly
claim that what I say immediately above about the book and Ben-Gurion
is "bullshit". It is absolutely true and can be easily verified by
anyone open-minded enough to read it. The idea that people will do so
as the result of reading me here brings up unbidden the filthy bile of
your being, sharavi, but you can gain nothing from that because all of
those looking over our shoulders, hundreds every week, personally
*want to know the truth of the matter* no matter which side they
inhabit. That's human nature. Everyone wants to know the truth even
if, as with you, the intent is to suppress it at all costs for ethno-
political reasons. Even you, an unemployed former secretary or
paralegal, with ridiculous intellectual pretentions WANT TO KNOW even
if the truth is your most dire enemy.

[HHW]

On May 8, 10:56 pm, dsharavi <dshara...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Don't we just love it when sharavi posts something substantive,
something one can get his teeth into? And don't we just love her
naively touted former hero, that is her hero before she had read him,
Professor Benny Morris, who was the first of the new historians of
Israel to publish an account of the Jewish ethnic cleansing of
Palestine? Yes, Morris told at least a part of the truth and do you
know what it got him? A university professorship out in the Negev---
after he came to an understanding with the regime about not being so
bumptious in the future.

[plainolamerican]

On May 8, 10:53 am, dsharavi <dshara...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> true throughout all of our activities in the land ...
>
> read more »

"We must expel Arabs
and take their place."

---
which has been and is still happening

yes ... the quote is close enough

[HHW]

Reading the actual JPS Rebuttal to Camera's original complaint is very
illuminating. It contains an extensive English translation from the
October 5, 1937 letter from Ben-Gurion to his son Amos. It proves that
even in 1937 he was laying the groundwork for the ethnic cleansing of
Palestine's Arabs. Everyone should read it. Here is the citation:

http://palestine-studies.org/files/correct_JPSresponds.pdf

What sharavi has done is to mislead by publishing only the third in a
three stage interaction: 1) Camera's original complaint 2) the Journal
of Palestine Studies systematic rebuttal, and 3) Camera's attempt to
defuse that rebuttal by refusing to acknowledge the OBVIOUS gist of
Ben-Gurion's letter as a whole. And there is a lot more evidence to
the effect that Ben-Gurion was ideologically a convinced ethnic
cleanser though he and his colleagues usually used the soft euphemism,
"transfer". The goal of modern Zionism from the time of its founder
has been an Arab-free Jewish State in at least all of the final
British Mandate. It hasn't succeeded yet but there is little question
as to the intention. Take for example, the continuation of ethnic
cleansing in 1967 and, starting then, the colonial "settlement"
program in the occupied territories. They didn't build these
settlements in virtually every region of the West Bank in order to
give them to the Palestinians in settlement negotiations. Accordingly,
the KEY to the conflict can only be irresistible PRESSURE from North
America and Europe. Europe is ready but won't lead. The American
Congress is paralyzed by fear of the Israel Lobby and Republican
idiots like the Tea Party crowd. It will require a great statesman in
the White House to accomplish it, and it is in fact in the critical
national interest of Israel that it be done.

Best,

HHW

[dsharavi]

>On May 8, 10:56 pm, dsharavi <dshara...@hotmail.com>wrote:

>>Bullshit. If you have something to add, other than your usual
>>brainfarts, add it. Since you don't, STFU about topics which are
>>beyond your capacity to discuss.
>

On May 9, 2:52 pm, HHW <coaster132...@yahoo.com>wrote:

>In lieu of dealing with what I said you clip it and indulge your
>perennial ad hominem filth.

Pot = kettle. And fyi, you've made your boring repetition of "filth",
to describe your characteristic opposition to facts, a boring cliché.

>Here again is what you clipped so that the
>readers may see and I may comment again:

Your characteristic repetition of off topic twaddle doesn't make it
any less nonsensical than it was the first time.

But it's not surprising to see you adhere to the views of your
soulmates on die grosze Luege, to wit: "[Sie] gehen nach dem Prinzip
vor, wenn du lügst, dann luege gruendlich, und vor allem bleibe bei
dem, was du gelogen hast! Sie bleiben also bei ihren Schwindeleien,
selbst auf die Gefahr hin, sich damit laecherlich zu machen."

>Ben-Gurion actually *carried out* the eviction of the Arabs from
>Palestine commencing in late 1947, ten years after the disputed
>letter was written.

I'll deal with your twaddle in another post. Suffice it now to
emphasize that 1947, in the foregoing article, is NOT at issue. At
issue is Pappe's fake quote of Ben-Gurion's letter to Amos. That Pappe
faked the quote is fact, and that fact is incontrovertible.

>What we see in this article is an attempt
>to discredit the entire book and Pappe too by raising cavils
>about a tiny, peripheral bit of evidence

It's hardly the "tiny, peripheral bit of evidence" which you
ignorantly claim it is. Fake quotes of that letter, based on Pappe's
fake quote, abound. Respected historians, however, which Pappe is not,
quote it as follows:

"We neither desire nor need to expel the Arabs and settle in their
place. All our aspiration is built on the assumption, proven through
our enterprise, that there is enough room for ourselves and the Arabs
in Palestine."
Ben-Gurion to Amos, 5th October 1937, quoted in Teveth, Ben-Gurion:
The Burning Grounsd, p 588

>This ambiguous
>picking of a single nit about a scribbled-upon sentence in a personal
>letter of October 5, 1937 is ridiculous. It's the sort of thing which
>is Camera's stock in trade.

CAMERA's "stock in trade", as you put it, is debunking bullshit like
Pappe's.

>In the past you've said you read Dr. Ilan Pappe's "The Ethnic
>Cleansing of Palestine". I won't ask you to acknowledge it again, but
>presuming anyway that you did,

You goddamned better "presume" that I read it. I said I read it,
therefore I read it. I don't share your propensity for lying.

> it is impossible for you to honestly
>claim that what I say immediately above about the book and Ben-Gurion
>is "bullshit". It is absolutely true

It is entirely possible for me to honestly claim that what you said
about Pappe and BG is bullshit. That's what it is, and Pappe himself
has claimed that, like you, he doesn't give a rat's ass for facts.

>The idea that people will do so
>as the result of reading me here brings up unbidden the filthy bile of
>your being, sharavi,

Such language! Does my presenting facts in opposition to your borrowed
bullshit really make you that stewed?

>but you can gain nothing from that because all of
>those looking over our shoulders, hundreds every week,

rotf
As if.

> Everyone wants to know the truth

You don't, and neither does your idol Pappe.

>even
>if, as with you, the intent is to suppress it at all costs for ethno-
>political reasons. Even you, an unemployed former secretary or
>paralegal, with ridiculous intellectual pretentions WANT TO KNOW even
>if the truth is your most dire enemy.

rotf
Talk about ad hom.

Herr Watson's "primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off;
never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some
good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept
blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything
that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little
one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or
later believe it."

That describes Herr Watson rather well, although "blackwhite" and
"doublespeak" do it more succinctly, i.e.:
"To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to
forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes
necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it
is needed."
And:
"..."the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in
contradiction of the plain facts."

Yup, that's Herr Watson in his nut shell.

[dsharavi]

Like your bullshit? Your idol Pooppe's bullshit? You sink your teeth
into that? Or eat it with a spoon? Or just wallow in it, happy as a
pig in ..... oh yeah, that last describes your posts pretty well.

> And don't we just love her
> naively touted former hero, that is her hero before she had read him,
> Professor Benny Morris

I've never claimed Morris my "hero". As has been proven, repeatedly,
YOU were the one who cribbed the "Don't ya just love Benny Morris?"
line from a DoD post, then stupidly attributed it to me -- just like
you falsely claimed I made a "racist " remark about Al Sharpton, when
I did none such; when, In fact, contrary to your libelous claim, I
hadn't posted anything to the thread. Need the urls again?

Wow, TWO replies to t he same post. You're certainly one happy little
pig.

[dsharavi]

On May 9, 4:29 pm, HHW <coaster132...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> What sharavi has done is to mislead by publishing only the third in a
> three stage interaction: 1) Camera's original complaint 2) the Journal
> of Palestine Studies systematic rebuttal, and 3) Camera's attempt to
> defuse that rebuttal by refusing to acknowledge the OBVIOUS gist of
> Ben-Gurion's letter as a whole. And there is a lot more evidence to
> the effect that Ben-Gurion was ideologically a convinced ethnic
> cleanser

The only "evidence" you have comes from the mendacious propagandist
Pappe, who is on record as having stated that he doesn't care for
facts, and feels that his "colleagues'" requests that he stick to
facts are "vain and presumptuous".

The letter is quoted in works by respected historians, which Pappe
isn't, as follows:

"We neither desire nor need to expel the Arabs and settle in their
place. All our aspiration is built on the assumption, proven through
our enterprise, that there is enough room for ourselves and the Arabs
in Palestine.”

Ben-Gurion to Amos, 5th October 1937, quoted in Shabtain Teveth, David
Ben Gurion: The Burning Ground, p 588

Although you've been given this quote many times in the past half
decade, you have demonstrated that, without a doubt, you prefer
Pappe's crappe to facts. Which is pretty funny, seeing you and
"plainoldamerican" eschew facts in favor of your mutual belief in a
communist leader's propaganda.

[dsharavi]

I see you're another happy little pig wallowing in the muck. The
actual quote, as given by respected historians -- which Pappe is not
-- is:

"We neither desire nor need to expel the Arabs and settle in their
place. All our aspiration is built on the assumption, proven through
our enterprise, that there is enough room for ourselves and the Arabs
in Palestine.”

Ben-Gurion to Amos, 5th October 1937, quoted in Shabtai Teveth, Ben-

[HHW]

I'd hate to think you missed all the rest of this:

Reading the actual JPS Rebuttal to Camera's original complaint is
very
illuminating. It contains an extensive English translation from the
October 5, 1937 letter from Ben-Gurion to his son Amos. It proves
that
even in 1937 he was laying the groundwork for the ethnic cleansing of
Palestine's Arabs. Everyone should read it. Here is the citation:
http://palestine-studies.org/files/correct_JPSresponds.pdf

What sharavi has done is to mislead by publishing only the third in a
three stage interaction: 1) Camera's original complaint 2) the
Journal
of Palestine Studies systematic rebuttal, and 3) Camera's attempt to
defuse that rebuttal by refusing to acknowledge the OBVIOUS gist of
Ben-Gurion's letter as a whole. And there is a lot more evidence to
the effect that Ben-Gurion was ideologically a convinced ethnic

[HHW]

On May 9, 7:25 pm, dsharavi <deshar...@gmail.com> wrote:

I know nothing of plain old American. I will take him post by post.
It's a joke that you think I should be condemned for replying to him.
You're desperate.

Pappe is without question the leading historian of the Naqba and a
very brave and principled may to boot....You suffer from an idee
fixe.You hate him ONLY because he is famous, sympathetic with the
Palestinians and critical of Israeli policy. Especially you hate his
fame. In short you have a giant conflict of interest as an American
citizen. Our formal U.S. policy is something Dr. Pappe can live with.
It is you Zionist fanatics who can not. How do you expect to convince
open-minded Americans that a scholar with his essentially American
views on the issue should be shunned? And what stinking tools you are
limited to in the effort! If it were conceivable you'd be bowed in
shame.

Which Communist leader is that? I detest Marxism/Leninism's class
warfare, especially in operation. It murdered 100,000,000 innocent
civilians in the 20th Century, far more than the Nazis. I detest
National Socialism's racism and everything about the system in
operation. But they were both socialist at the end of the day.

I judge people by their conduct, by their morals and sense of decency,
not their intellectual fancies. This is a fact even though I hold most
man-made political ideologies in contempt at the intellectual level.
In the present that includes Zionism. It has blinded you people to
your own interests. It has turned Israel's government into a criminal
entity. These cobbled-together political ideologies are all wrong,
dangerous, and Zionism is getting more so every day, the vast bulk of
that danger being self-created.

But hey, I get along fine with honest, classical conservatives and
social democrats even though I've actually been a Democratic centrist
all my adult life. What I require is a healthy sense of justice,
something which you have choked out of your miserable system.

You don't know what you're talking about as to 20th century European
political movements. You were a non-professional law office drudge,
sharavi, a secretary.. Get off these pretenses that you're some sort
of intellectual. You're a compulsive, flaming bitch and nothing more.

[dsharavi]

On May 9, 2:52 pm, HHW <coaster132...@yahoo.com>wrote:

>In lieu of dealing with what I said you clip it and indulge your
>perennial ad hominem filth.

There you go with your "perennial ad hominem filth" shtik, which, as
we all know, is your stale euphemism for "presenting facts in
opposition to Watsonian bs".

> Here again is what you clipped so that the
>readers may see and I may comment again:

And "readers" may yawn again.

>Ben-Gurion actually *carried out* the eviction of the
> Arabs from Palestine commencing in late 1947, ten
> years after the disputed letter was written.

The letter is not in dispute, except by adherent of Israeli communist
leader Pappe.

> He was the civilian commander in chief of that
>operation and well prior to 1947-48 he had been
> deeply involved in the preparation for it. This is
>amply demonstrated in Dr. Pappe's "The Ethnic
>Cleansing of Palestine"

Pappe demonstrates nothing, amply or otherwise, other than the
aversion to facts you share.

You claim that BG was "civilian commander in chief" of some
"operation"? What "operation"? When?

What Ben was "deeply involved with" and "well prior to 1947-48" was
NOT ridding western Palestine of Arabs.

Now read carefully -- and pay attention, for a change:

"Ben-Gurion, who saw in Zionism the only solution for the problem
confronting the Jewish people and the sole chance for their rescue,
was utterly convinced that if Zionism was not realized at once, the
Jewish people were doomed. This explains why, more than all his
colleagues in the labor movement and the Zionist leadership, he was
driven by an enduring sense that the ground was burning beneath the
feet of the Jews of Europe. Therefore, in his view, time was of the
essence...From 1933 on, Ben-Gurion was guided in his judgments and
actions by his sense of the burning ground, along with his drive to
establish the authority without which rescue of the Jews in Europe
would be impossible."
Shabtai Teveth, David Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground, pp xiv-xv

---------------------------------------------------------------

"He rejected Jabotinsky's teaching that the Jews would get Palestine
only by force of arms. In 1916, implicitly acknowledging the conflict,
he had written to himself, "It is possible to come to terms with the
Arabs. this is a matter of strategy for the Yishuv." But after the
revolution in Russia he began asserting that there was no conflict of
interest between Zionism and the Arabs, since labor Zionism's vocation
was to expedite the socialist revolution in the East. With the
establishment of socialism in the region the conflict would disappear
as if it had never been, since it had been created arbitrarily by the
exploitative, feudal Arab effendis and clerics, who sought only to
benefit themselves, fearing progress and the social and national
liberation it would bring.

"A Jewish socialist republic could be established in Palestine that
would live in peace and harmony with its neighbors, the Arab socialist
republics."

"The Zionists, including Ben-Gurion, claimed that the Disturbances of
1919 and the early 1920s – which constituted Arab protest in blood and
fire against the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate, and Jewish
immigration to Palestine – were no more than the work of vandals and
mobs incited by the effendis and clerics, who feared Zionism as a
liberating social movement that threatened their class privileges, and
had the encouragement and assistance of British officials, who were
also enemies of Zionism.

"After the riots of Av 1929, Ben-Gurion...acknowledged the existence
of the Arab national movement and, as he had not been formerly, was
ready to meet with its spokesmen, the representatives of the same
effendis and clerics whom he had once dismissed. He sought to convince
them that there was no conflict of interest and that the two nations,
Jewish and Arab, could live together in peace and harmony in the
framework of a plan he had created to establish a Federal Palestine; a
federation between a Jewish Palestine and its Arab neighbors, in which
the Arabs of Palestine, even if they became the minority in the Jewish
state, would not be a minority in the framework of the federation. In
this manner the Arab "fragment" living in Palestine would not be
oppressed since its national aspirations would be expressed within the
framework."
Teveth, pp 457-458

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Joseph Aharonovitch, one of Ben-Gurion's staunchest supporters in the
HEC, wrote in Davar [May 3, 1933], under the headline Neither Shall
You Follow Their Example, that "the use of force, other than in self-
defense, is an abomination to our movement; it jeopardizes our work in
Palestine and all the hopes of Zionism. Only he who has finished with
Zionism, or a madman, can choose such a path."
Teveth, p 461

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Unlike other JAE officials who dealt with the Arab question, Ben-
Gurion rejected political contacts with Arabs who favored Zionism for
financial gain and openly espoused contacts with Arab nationalists,
more precisely the heads of the pan-Arab movement. Since 1929 the star
of the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, had been rising in
the Arab community. The Jews held him responsible for the massacres
and atrocities against Jews in the 1929 Disturbances. By 1933 it was
clear that if anyone could claim to speak on behalf of Palestine's
Arabs it was he, and Ben-Gurion focused on this man."

"Ben-Gurion approached Musa Alami, son of a wealthy and respected
family and holder of a law degree from Cambridge. Until the end of
1933 Alami had been Wauchope's personal secretary, and from early 1934
he was assistant attorney general for the Mandatory government. Ben-
Gurion said he was in search of an "Arab nationalist who cannot be
bought with money or favors, but is not a hater of Israel." In Alami
he found such an Arab."

"Ben-Gurion chose Alami not only because of [his]family connections,
but also because he regarded Alami – mistakenly, it turned out – as
"an Arab politician who does not appear as such in public because he
holds government office, but who is the man behind Arab policy in
Palestine." And Ben-Gurion intended to open his talks with the Arabs
quietly.

"On March 20, 1934, Alami and Ben-Gurion met in Moshe Sharett's
apartment in Jerusalem. Opening his remarks with the accepted Zionist
claim that "we bring a blessing to the Arabs of Palestine, and they
have no good cause to oppose us," Ben-Gurion received a shattering
surprise. Musa Alami retorted, "I would prefer that the country remain
impoverished and barren for another hundred years, until we ourselves
are able to develop it on our own." Dauntless opponents had always
found favor with Ben-Gurion, and he was pleased at this reply. "I felt
that as an Arab patriot he was entitled to say what he said," wrote
Ben-Gurion in his memoirs. It is likely that he also expressed the
same sentiment directly to Alami at their first meeting, and a certain
chemistry developed between them. The first talk, like the ones that
followed, was frank and straightforward."
Teveth, pp 460-461

---------------------------------------------------------------

"On June 15, while Musa Alami was still involved with the murder
trial, Ben-Gurion had met with the Lebanese Muslim leader Riyadh al-
Sulh, and on July 18 with the leader of the pan-Arab Istiqal party in
Palestine...At the end of July Ben-Gurion was invited to Government
House in Jerusalem...Before dinner Ben-Gurion told him [Wauchope]
about his plan and the positive response it had received from the
Arabs...to his great surprise Wauchope asked him to continue his talks
with the Arabs.

"He did. On August 14 he went to see Alami at his home in Sharafat,
and visited him again on August 27, and 31. Alami and Hadi told Ben-
Gurion things he had never heard before. He got a firsthand account of
Arab fears and growing Arab pessimism. Although "a few are getting
rich" from the development Zionism brought about in Palestine, Hadi
told him, "the people are being dispossessed."*
These talks, Ben-Gurion believed, taught him to see Zionism and its
enterprise "through Arab eyes" and to empathize with the Arabs. Ben-
Gurion would later tell his JAE and Mapai colleagues that they saw
only the terrible distress of the Jewish people, with the sword of
Nazism dangling over their heads, but that he perceived the Arabs'
distress as well and could sense their fear of growing Jewish strength
in Palestine. He explained further that this fear was rooted in the
prejudice that Jews ruled the world, having unlimited financial means
at their disposal an omnipotent control over public opinion, the
press, Parliament, and the British government. He said he understood
how "the Arab fear" fueled the Arab national movement and its acts of
protest and terror.

"From these talks the irreducible conflict of interest of Zionism and
the Arab national movement emerged very clearly, for the only solution
perceived by his interlocutors for their problems was an end to Jewish
immigration and land sales.* "Our final goal, Ben-Gurion told Hadi and
Alami, "is the independence of the Jewish people in Palestine , on
both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community
numbering millions," whereas "the goal of the Arab nation is
independence, unity, and revival for all the Arab peoples in their
lands." The main question he posed in these talks was whether these
two objectives could be reconciled, and he believed they could. In
exchange for Arab recognition of the Jewish right to return to
Palestine, Ben-Gurion promised, speaking for the Jewish people, to
recognize "the right of the Arabs to remain on their land, while the
Yishuv is allowed to grow through the development of Palestine." The
Jews would use their "political influence, financial means, and moral
support to bring about the independence and unity of the Arab people,"
namely, an Arab federation."

"At the August 14 meeting Alami brought up the mufti, who was "the
decisive force" in Palestine, promising to pass on to him the content
of their talks and suggesting that Ben-Gurion meet with Haj Amin
himself – secretly, of course...Meanwhile the connection continued
through Alami, who kept his word and, in describing the Federal
Palestine plan to the mufti, also raised Ben-Gurion's question. Was it
possible to come to an understanding whereby the Arabs would agree to
the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine in exchange for
Jewish consent to this federation?
Teveth, pp 464-467

See further:
S. Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestine Arabs: From Peace to War
D. Ben-Gurion, My Talks with Arab Leaders

---------------------------------------------------------------

"In March 1936 he had told Judah-Lieb Magnes, "The difference between
you and me is that you are ready to sacrifice immigration for peace,
while I am not, though peace is dear to me. And even if I were
prepared to make a concession, the Jews of Poland and Germany would
not be, because they have no other choice. For them immigration comes
before peace."
Teveth, Burning Ground, p 539
---------------------------------------------------------------

"Ben-Gurion maintained that, whatever the Zionist policy, the Arabs
would always be the Jews' neighbors in Palestine. In November 1935 he
had told Menahem Ussishkin, "We should not, and cannot, drive the
Arabs out by force." He regarded dialogue as essential, and Sharett
defended the talks with Antonius to Wauchope in the same vein."
Teveth, Burning Ground, p 539-40

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Ben-Gurion, more than any of his colleagues in the party and the JAE,
understood the Arabs' feelings and was ready to acknowledge their
rights. He took satisfaction in the fact that his meetings with with
Abd al-Hadi, Alami, Arslan, Antonius, and others had taught him to
empathize with the Arab point of view. He pointed out this advantage
more than once to his JAE and Mapai colleagues. His "Arab eyes"
enabled him to feel "the Arabs' fear" of a Jewish buildup and to
understand that this fear lay at the root of the Disturbances. "It
really is difficult," he wrote the Jewish Agency in June, "for someone
who has never talked with the Arabs to imagine the magnitude of their
fear."10

"Furthermore, he acknowledged the existence of an Arab national
movement, and in November 1936 accounted for its origins in a letter
to Ussishkin. "We ourselves, by our very presence and progress here,
have nurtured the Arab nationalist movement." Such a movement would
have arisen anyway, but Zionism had had a catalytic effect. In the
same letter he presaged the conflict's future. "In these Disturbances
we have already seen a mighty manifestation of a pan-Arab movement and
military alignment...of the Arabs of neighboring countries for the
Palestinian Arabs' war against the Jews."

"Reviewing all of his statements at the time, one can see that the
signs of recognition of a Palestinian people were clear. In 1930 Ben-
Gurion had declared, "We wholeheartedly support the right of self-
determination for all peoples...and that undeniably includes the Arab
people in Palestine." He reiterated this view in February 1937 before
the Histadrut council:

"The right which the Arabs in Palestine have is theirs as inhabitants
of the country...because they live here, and not because they are
Arabs...Arabs who do not live here have no rights in Palestine...The
Arab inhabitants of Palestine should enjoy all civic and political
rights, not only as individuals, but as a national group, just like
the Jews."

"[H]e found himself at odds with his Mapai colleagues, who took him to
task in both party forums and the press, in a controversy that lasted
from May 1936 to February 1937...The controversy was based on
differing evaluations of the Arab national movement. Katznelson still
regarded Arab violence as the work of "instigators" -- clerics and
effendis — and ...denied the existence of an Arab national movement
that was the standard-bearer for the rights of Palestine's Arabs. "Can
this be described as nationalism? Let's not believe it for a moment!"
To his mind, the hostility and terror stemmed from other sources
entirely—the malaise of the educated sons of the effendis, Arab
savagery, and Muslim xenophobia. "The factor of importance, which
characterizes the Arab movement in the East, is the desert origin,
this deep link with the desert which has not yet been severed." This,
not "the Arabs' fear," constituted "the true content" of the Arab
movement. Reprovingly, almost raising his voice, he asked, "Where is
the SOCIAL AND PROGESSIVE CONTENT we saw in the liberation movements
of Poland and of the Czechs, in the protracted struggle against
European rule in India, and among all those who seek to liberate their
culture? Not a trace." Katznelson rejected Ben-Gurion's premise that
the Arabs were fighting dispossession from the land of their fathers,
as well as Ben-Gurion's view of Sheik Izz al-Din al-Qassam as an "Arab
Trumpeldor." "In all these terrorist manifestations," wrote
Katznelson, "one might find evidence of personal dedication to
religious fanaticism and xenophobia, but we cannot discern anything
else."12

"By 1929 Ben-Gurion had found that a movement's political capacity is
determined and measured by its ability to mobilize the masses. This
was the ground on which he recognized the Arab national movement;
Katznelson, on the other hand, judged a movement according to its
"content." The Arab movement's "corrupt leadership," said Katznelson,
disqualified it as a national movement. "Such is the Arab movement,
and I say all the groping and sifting in the world is unlikely to
change our attitude to its character." Tabenkin, Beilinson, and Kaplan
also denied that the Disturbances constituted "war" and "rebellion."
As far as they were concerned, these were nothing more than dastardly
acts of murder, robbery, looting, and destruction, for which the sole
accountability rested on the government. Naturally enough, then, they
could not accept the British factor as the most vital of Zionism's
interests. "I think this idea is far-fetched," said Tabenkin.

"Ben-Gurion responded, "There are comrades among us who see only one
enemy, the government. In their opinion, there is no uprising or
revolt by the Arabs...I have a hard time understanding the astonishing
blindness of people like Beilinson, Tabenkin, Kaplan, and others." He
could not fathom, he said, their denial of such an obvious fact. In
August 1936 he sent the party Central Committee a special letter on
this matter. "I cannot ignore the harsh fact that there is indeed an
Arab uprising in Palestine...The Arabs fight with arms and strikes,
terror and sabotage, mayhem and destruction of property...What more
must they do to make their acts merit the name of rebellion and
uprising?" But the more he pounded away at his colleagues the more
stubbornly and infuriatingly they held to their views. "Were I an
Arab," he wrote Sharett in June 1937, "an Arab politically, nationally
minded...I would rebel even more vigorously, bitterly, and desperately
against the immigration that will one day turn Palestine and all its
Arab residents over to Jewish rule."13

"If Ben-Gurion was astonished by his colleagues' blindness, were they
not also entitled to an equal measure of astonishment at Ben-Gurion's
vision? And might they not take him for an opportunist? This
possibility weighed heavily on Ben-Gurion, and he felt the need to
demonstrate his ideological integrity. At the height of the
controversy he confided to his diary [26 June 1937], as if for his own
eyes only,
"In my opinion, there is no greater danger to political (and
not only political) thought than inertia, devotion to an existing
structure of outmoded thought. The world is never static, and
certainly history is not. Powers and factors and constellations renew
themselves from time to time, obliterating or fundamentally altering
that which existed before. Other ways must be sought to obtain the
objective."

"Ben-Gurion then went to great lengths to distance himself from
outmoded thought. In June 1936 he had taken the rare step of
confessing to an error, telling Mapai that his approach to the Arab
question in the early years of Achdut ha-Avodah had been mistaken. To
the Histadrut council in February 1937 he again admitted "a mistake I
made thirteen years ago."14 If he did this hoping his associates would
follow suit, he was disappointed. The disagreement deepened; at its
center was the unspoken question of whether a Palestinian people truly
existed. By remaining "blind," his colleagues were spared major
ideological contradictions and could continue to regard socialist
Zionism as a wholly just doctrine, for it there was no Arab national
movement there could not be a Palestinian people..

"Ben-Gurion, who could no longer claim, as he had previously, that the
Arabs of Palestine were but a "fragment" of the great Arab nation and
that therefore there was no conflict of interest between them and
Zionism, found himself upholding a flawed doctrine. However, because
he could not admit publicly that Zionism was not a movement of
absolute justice, he stopped short of declaring that the Arabs of
Palestine were a "Palestinian people." ...Moreover, the Arabs of
Palestine had not yet declared themselves a "Palestinian nation," and
Ben-Gurion, at the forefront of Zionism, was certainly not the man to
do so for them."
Teveth, pp 542-544

---------------------------------------------------------------

"November 1938 was a decisive time in Ben-Gurion's life. The future
Ben-Gurion envisaged was more terrifying than any of his colleagues
could imagine. He differed from other Zionist leaders both in his
foresight of political developments and in his adherence to the dream
of a Jewish state that would be the salvation of European Jewry. The
temporary peace achieved in Munich had not clouded his vision for an
instant. He had no doubt that Hitler would move inexorably toward war
and the destruction of the Jewish people and that Britain would betray
the Jews just as it had Czechoslovakia. Ben-Gurion saw through Malcolm
MacDonald's Zionist-sympathizer posturings whose purpose was "merely
to cover up the betrayal." "At this time," he wrote the Jerusalem JAE,
"we cannot rule out the possibility that they will abandon us."

"The Woodhead Report and its accompanying statement made it clear that
the Peel Commission had merely postponed the change of course for two
years. The report's significance was frighteningly clear: the harsh
restrictions on immigration and land sales were tantamount to
abolishing the Mandate and handing Palestine over to Arab rule, just
as the Czechs had been turned over to the Nazis. As the sands of the
hourglass measured out the last days of European Jewry, Zionism was
simultaneously reaching the end of its rope. Realizing this, Ben-
Gurion felt pressed to find an immediate answer to two questions: if
the state was not to be, how could Zionism save European Jews from
Hitler? And how could Zionism deliver the Jews of Palestine from the
Arabs? Ben-Gurion was alone in considering these two questions a
single problem."
Teveth, p 654

---------------------------------------------------------------

"In August 1933 Ben-Gurion bought a copy of Mein Kampf and after
reading it announced to the Histadrut Council, in January 1934, that
"Hitler's rule endangers the entire Jewish people...Who knows, perhaps
just four or five years—if not less—stand between us and that terrible
day." That January he and Sharett confronted Sir Arthur Wauchope with
the threat of destruction hovering over the Jews of Germany and
Poland. In April 1935 he asked the Zionist Executive, "Is there a man
today so blind he does not see the catastrophe of the Jews?" That year
he forewarned the Zionist Congress of "the greatest perils in store
for the existence of the Jewish people all over the world...the days
of the Inquisition...and the Crusades...are back." In November, he
told the JAE, "From the fearful situation of the masses one gets the
feeling that even the little it is possible to do at the moment will
not be possible a short time from now. We must work as fast as we can
to save the maximum." And in December 1935 he said, "Destruction is
lying in wait for our people in all the lands of its dispersion. A war
of ruination has been declared against the captives of the Nazis."

"In a letter to Kaplan in March 1936, Ben-Gurion spoke of "the
destruction in store for the Jews of Germany and Poland and the other
countries of eastern Europe," and several days later prophesied to
Mapai's Central Committee that "the situation of Polish Jewry will be
worse than that of German Jewry." In October 1936 he warned the
Zionist Actions Committee, "There are forces in Europe that seek to
blot out the memory of Judaism." At the Mapai convention in Rehovot in
1938 he spoke of "a war of extinction against the Jewish people,"
saying that Germany had "engraved upon its flag the obliteration of
the Jewish people." In November he wrote Malcolm MacDonald that
"millions of our people are facing annihilation." He did not keep his
forebodings secret from the public at large; at a meeting of
representatives from throughout the Yishuv in December 1938 he
announced that one of Hitler's goals was "the absolute eradication and
physical destruction of the Jewish people, not just in Germany but all
over the world." The approach of the world war strengthened his belief
in his prediction, and in June 1939 Ben-Gurion told the Zionist
Executive, "This war could bring down catastrophe upon us...in this we
can trust Hitler...If there is a war...he will carry this out. First
of all he will wipe out the Jews of Europe."
Teveth, pp 848-849

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Did he ask himself, when confronted with information on the
systematic physical extermination of the Jews, whether history was
playing a cruel joke on him, testing the courage of his convictions?
He might well have answered yes, for the terms "destruction,"
"extermination," "ruin," "catastrophe," and "extinction" had had an
entirely different meaning before the Holocaust, the putting to death
of six million Jews, was recognized for what it was and named. When
Ben-Gurion spoke in January 1933 of the "annihilation" facing German
Jewry, he meant terrible living conditions imposed on them by Hitler.
In April 1935 he defined "ruin" as "economic and cultural
impoverishment, the weakening of a people as a whole, political
devastation, the eradication of civil rights." Even at the Congress in
the summer of 1937, he said that "physical destruction and material
impoverishment endanger the existence of the Jewish populations of
many countries." And when he wrote to Miriam from Beaver Lake in April
1942 that Hitler aimed "to annihilate" the Jews, he was thinking of
political and economic ruin, not genocide. Until late 1942, when he
used the terms "obliteration" and "devastation," Ben-Gurion, like his
colleagues, visualized large-scale pogroms, not the Final Solution."
Teveth, pp 850-851

"Although a distinction was made after the Holocaust between the
massive death caused by premeditated starvation, deprivation, disease,
and large-scale killings and the massive death by industrial
implements that took place after the Wannsee Conference in January
1942, this distinction concerned only the Germans. From a Jewish,
Zionist point of view it mattered little whether the six million died
by typhus and shooting or by gas and crematoriums. Had he realized
sooner that an industrial, systematic genocide was taking place, he
would have understood that time was of the essence and might have
reacted differently. But, as must be repeated forever, such
annihilation was far beyond his grasp and that of his generation..He
foresaw destruction, but not the Holocaust, and this imperfect
forecast predetermined his actions. He worked out his plans in
accordance with his conception of the world at that time, its faults
and its surprises; the world of evil spawned by Hitler was unthinkable
to him in the literal sense of the word. He believed that the Jewish
people had been cast into an abyss of darkness, but that the beacon of
Zionism would direct them up into the light. He did not understand
that there would be no exit, no salvation, no hope of escape from
Hitler's inferno."
Teveth, pp 851-852

---------------------------------------------------------------

"In April 1936 he had told Wauchope, "Were there a possibility of
transferring Polish Jewry to America or Argentina we would have done
so, regardless of our Zionist ideology. But the whole world is closed
to us. Had we not room in Palestine, our people would have no choice
but suicide."

"The Evian Conference of 1938 and the Bermuda Conference of April 1943—
the free world's two farcical attempts, at the initiative of the
United States, to find a refuge for the Jews—proved Ben Gurion right.
Not one country opened its gates to Hitler's victims."
Teveth, p 855

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Ben-Gurion supported the proposed partition state, he said, not
because he viewed it as the fulfillment of the Zionist goal -- "Within
this area there is no possibility of solving the Jewish question" --
but because he thought sovereignty could decisively help achieve both
short-term and long-term objectives. His sense of the burning ground
made him view the saving of Jews from the destruction awaiting them in
Europe as the primary, immediate objective. "For this reason the
decisive factor," which he was unwilling to forego, even in return for
a truncated state, was "the area and limits of authority...Will they
serve to bring in one and a half million Jews within the next fifteen
years?...I see time as the fatal, decisive, and crucial element. I see
the writing on the wall burning in letters of blood and fire all over
Palestine."
Teveth, p 612
---------------------------------------------------------------

The frontiers envisaged by the Peel scheme should also be regarded as
a stage, for "no borders are eternal...and by the time we complete the
settlement...of our state a lot of water will have flowed under the
bridge." First, it would be possible to expand peacefully. "We shall
break through these frontiers, and not necessarily by the sword." How?
"We will bring into our state hundreds of thousands of Jews," "a
million and a half," "more than two million," he said at different
times. Then, "after we become numerous and strong," it would be
possible to discuss settlement of the Negev desert, "making it worth
the Arabs' while." Failing this, the state could be enlarged by other
means. Two months after the Congress, in a letter to his son, he
specified what these would be."
p 616

---------------------------------------------------------------

*NB: Both Alami and Hadi were prominent opponents to land sales to
Jews. Nevertheless:
Musa al-Alami sold lands to the JNF on which Kibbutz Tirat-Zevi was
founded in 1936, plus 1,600 dunams near Migdal, 1,700 dunams in
Hirbiya, 6,000 dunams in the southern Judean plain, and other lands
jointly owned with the Husaynis.
Awni Abd al-Hadi sold 2,000 dunams in the Jezre'el, the lands of the
village of Qumia, and a parcel of 6,000 dunams in Kafer-Zar'in to the
JNF. Both Hadi and his brother assisted the JNF in assembling large
tracts of land for purchase, while their father sold lands on which
moshava Karkur and Kefar-Pinnes were founded.]
Both were lawyers, of course.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Something to keep in mind:

"There is no greater danger to political (and not only political)
thought than inertia, devotion to an existing structure of outmoded
thought. The world is never static, and certainly history is not.
Powers and factors and constellations renew themselves from time to
time, obliterating or fundamentally altering that which existed
before."
Ben-Gurion, 26 June 1937

>What we see in this article is an attempt
>to discredit the entire book and Pappe too

Pappe does a fine enough job discrediting himself, and needs no help.

>This ambiguous picking of a single nit about a
>scribbled-upon sentence in a personal letter of
>October 5, 1937 is ridiculous. It's the sort of
>thing which is Camera's stock in trade.

It would not be "ambiguous picking of a single nit" or "ridiculous" if
corrections were made to someone who, while claiming to be an
historian, had written: "In June 1940, Churchill declared in the
Commons, 'We shall fight with the Wehrmacht on the beaches, we shall
fight with the Wehrmacht on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the
fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never
fail our Nazi allies".

If you weren't so ignorant of the subjects you try, and fail, to
address, you would know that Pappe's deliberate falsification of BG's
1937 letter is neither "ambiguous picking of a single nit" nor
"ridiculous".

>In the past you've said you read Dr. Ilan Pappe's "The Ethnic
>Cleansing of Palestine". I won't ask you to acknowledge it again,

Do so, and you'll get the list of Pappeal errors I previously posted.

>it is impossible for you to honestly claim that what I say
> immediately above about the book and Ben-Gurion
>is "bullshit".

It is indeed highly possible for me to state -- honestly -- that what
you posted above, and about Pappe's crappe, and your mutual crappe
about Ben Gurion, is bullshit, and of the purest ray serene, too.

>It is absolutely true and can be easily verified
> by anyone open-minded enough to read it.
>The idea that people will do so as the result of reading me here brings up unbidden

It brings up "unbidden" the thought that you have a ridiculously high
opinion of yourself.

>the filthy bile of your being, sharavi,

Va te y chingala tu madre sucia, pendejo.

>but you can gain nothing from that because all
>of those looking over our shoulders, hundreds

>every week, personally*want to know the truth

>of the matter* no matter which side they inhabit.
>That's human nature.

That's MOTSS. It's human nature to tell stories, a trait carried to
the extreme by "palestinians" and communist leaders like Pappe.

>Everyone wants to know the truth

You have amply demonstrated that, like your communist idol Pappe, you
don't give a damn for "truth".

>even if, as with
>you, the intent is to suppress it at all costs for ethno-
>political reasons.

Bah.

>Even you, an unemployed former secretary or
>paralegal, with ridiculous intellectual pretentions
>WANT TO KNOW even if the truth is your most
>dire enemy.

You wish. Truth isn't my enemy – it's yours, and you prove it with
your continuous posting of lies, propaganda insults, defamations, and
pure unadulterated crap. And FYI, I was a litigation paralegal in a
multinational oil corporation's West Coast legal division HQ, then
ditto in a major PNW law firm, one in which, I might add, an
associate's lowest AV rating was still higher than yours --
particularly in the matter of ethics.

N'awr, mynd i eistedd ar'no a theolli fel r'alter kacker dwp tiyn.

[dsharavi]

> On May 9, 7:25 pm, dsharavi <deshar...@gmail.com> wrote>

> > The only "evidence" you have comes from the mendacious propagandist
> > Pappe, who is on record as having stated that he doesn't care for
> > facts, and feels that his "colleagues'" requests that he stick to
> > facts are "vain and presumptuous".
>
> > The letter is quoted in works by respected historians, which Pappe
> > isn't, as follows:
>
> > "We neither desire nor need to expel the Arabs and settle in their
> > place. All our aspiration is built on the assumption, proven through
> > our enterprise, that there is enough room for ourselves and the Arabs
> > in Palestine.”
> > Ben-Gurion to Amos, 5th October 1937, quoted in Shabtain Teveth, David
> > Ben Gurion: The Burning Ground, p 588
>
> > Although you've been given this quote many times in the past half
> > decade, you have demonstrated that, without a doubt, you prefer
> > Pappe's crappe to facts. Which is pretty funny, seeing you and
> > "plainoldamerican" eschew facts in favor of your mutual belief in a
> > communist leader's propaganda.

On May 9, 6:15 pm, HHW <coaster132...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'd hate to think you missed all the rest of this:
> Reading the actual JPS Rebuttal to Camera's original complaint
> is very illuminating. It contains an extensive English translation
> from the October 5, 1937 letter from Ben-Gurion to his son

Which is the same fakery Pappe pretended to "quote".

Apart from that, do you not pay attention to dates, times, context,
timelines? Or is it that you don't understand the concept thereof, or,
like your communist idol, you don't care? What you claim is the
"actual JPS Rebuttal" isn't. The ORIGINAL "complaint" was made in
November 2006, not by the CAMERA, but by Benny Morris, in response to
an Independent article earlier that month by discredited journalist
Johann Hari.

Hari claimed, "David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father, wrote in
1937, 'I support compulsory transfer. I do not see in it anything
immoral ... The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune
moment for making it happen, such as a war.'"

In response, Morris wrote, "The first part of the quote (‘I support
compulsory transfer’) is genuine; the rest (‘The Arabs will have to
go ... such as a war’) is an invention, pure and simple, either by
Hari or by whomever he is quoting (Ilan Pappe?)."

Morris goes on to explain that the recommendation had been made months
earlier, by the Royal Commission in July 1937. "The commission
concluded that the only fair settlement was by way of partition, with
the Jews receiving less than 20 per cent of Palestine, but that, for
it to be viable, the 20 per cent should be cleared of potentially
hostile, disloyal Arabs. (Britain, incidentally, at the end of World
War II supported the expulsion to Germany of the German Sudeten
minority, which had helped Hitler destroy and occupy Czechoslovakia –
for precisely the same reasons.) The Arabs, then and later, rejected
the principle of partition as well as the specific Peel proposals."

[NB:
Drolly enough, the Journal of Palestine Studies gave the
expanded Ben-Gurion quote, correctly, in its Winter 1998 issue:
"I saw in the Peel Plan two positive things: the ideas of
state and compulsory transfer. I support compulsory transfer. I don't
see in it anything immoral, but compulsory transfer can only be
effected by England and not by the Jews..Not only is it inconceivable
for us to carry it out, but it is also inconceivable for us to propose
it."
"We must carefully examine the question whether transfer is
possible, whether it is necessary, whether it is moral, and will it
bring benefit. We do not want to dispossess.You must remember, that
this method contains an important humane and Zionist idea, to shift
parts of a people [i.e., Arabs] to their own country and to settle
empty lands."]
Challenged by Morris om 2006 over his fake quote, Pappe gave three
sources for his alleged quote. In fact, it appeared in none of Pappe's
given sources. In 2012, he provided a fourth "source". Pappe's fourth
"source", amusingly, stated exactly the opposite of what Pappe
claimed.

> It proves that
> even in 1937 he was laying the groundwork for the ethnic cleansing of
> Palestine's Arabs. Everyone should read it. Here is the citation:http://palestine-studies.org/files/correct_JPSresponds.pdf

So, then, you claim that Ben-Gurion and his colleagues were
proclaiming bullshit upon bullshit piled higher and deeper for nearly
forty years. That right?

> What sharavi has done is to mislead by publishing only
> the third in a three stage interaction: 1) Camera's original
> complaint 2) the Journal
> of Palestine Studies systematic rebuttal, and 3) Camera's attempt to
> defuse that rebuttal by refusing to acknowledge the OBVIOUS gist of
> Ben-Gurion's letter as a whole.

The one misleading is, again, YOU. The foregoing is NOT "a three-stage
interaction"; the "interaction(s)" go back to 2006, as stated above.

> And there is a lot more evidence to the effect that
>Ben-Gurion was ideologically a convinced ethnic
> cleanser though he and his colleagues usually
> used the soft euphemism, "transfer".

In fact, the "soft euphemism 'transfer'" was proposed by the Peel
Commission. In response to Peel's proposal of transfer, Ben Gurion
wrote, "We must carefully examine the question whether transfer is
possible, whether it is necessary, whether it is moral, and will it
bring benefit. We do not want to dispossess.You must remember, that
this method contains an important humane and Zionist idea, to shift
parts of a people [i.e., Arabs] to their own country and to settle
empty lands."

Until 1948, Ben-Gurion and his colleagues expected the Jewish state
would contain a sizeable Arab minority, while a second Arab state in
Palestine held the majority. King Abdallah of Jordan was adamantly
opposed to another Arab state in Palestine.

>The goal of modern Zionism from the time of its founder
> has been an Arab-free Jewish State in at least all of the final
> British Mandate. It hasn't succeeded yet but there is little question
> as to the intention.

So, then, you claim that Ben-Gurion and his colleagues were
proclaiming bullshit upon bullshit piled higher and deeper for nearly
forty years. Based on faked quotes from your idol Pappe. That right?

>Take for example, the continuation of ethnic
> cleansing in 1967 and, starting then, the colonial "settlement"
> program in the occupied territories. They didn't build these
> settlements in virtually every region of the West Bank in order to
> give them to the Palestinians in settlement negotiations.

You and your communist idol give no explanation for how, if "ethnic
cleansing" of Arabs has been going on for all those decades, the Arab
population has INCREASED by something like 1,000 percent.

[flush the usual Jewish Lobby blah blah blah blub blubber blah]

And you've never supplied the names of so little as a dozen of the
"over 500 villages" which you repeatedly claimed, ala Pappe, that
"Israel bulldozed in 1948." Care to rectify that omission with a few
names?

[dsharavi]

> > On May 9, 4:29 pm, HHW <coaster132...@yahoo.com> wrote a bunch of Pappe poop, as well as the usual ad homs:

[flush]

> > The only "evidence" you have comes from the mendacious propagandist
> > Pappe, who is on record as having stated that he doesn't care for
> > facts, and feels that his "colleagues'" requests that he stick to
> > facts are "vain and presumptuous".
>
> > The letter is quoted in works by respected historians, which Pappe
> > isn't, as follows:
>
> >  "We neither desire nor need to expel the Arabs and settle in their
> > place.  All our aspiration is built on the assumption, proven through
> > our enterprise, that there is enough room for ourselves and the Arabs
> > in Palestine.”
> > Ben-Gurion to Amos, 5th October 1937, quoted in Shabtain Teveth, David
> > Ben Gurion: The Burning Ground, p 588
>
> > Although you've been given this quote many times in the past half
> > decade, you have demonstrated that, without a doubt, you prefer
> > Pappe's crappe to facts. Which is pretty funny, seeing you and
> > "plainoldamerican" eschew facts in favor of your mutual belief in a
> > communist leader's propaganda.
>
> I know nothing of plain old American. I will take him post by post.
> It's a joke that you think I should be condemned for replying to him.

Pendejo, I hardly think you should be "condemned" for replying to
plainoldamerican. I was laughing at both of you.

> You're desperate.

No, that's you. You're ALWAYS desperate when taken to task for your
crap.

> Pappe is without question the leading historian of the Naqba

He's one of the leading bullshitters, and no historian.

>and a
> very brave and principled may to boot....

A "may"? Did you mean to say "fay"? "Gay"?

>You suffer from an idee fixe.You hate him
>ONLY because he is famous, sympathetic with
> the Palestinians and critical of Israeli policy.
>Especially you hate his fame.

Stop attributing emotions to me which are merely your own.

>In short you have a giant conflict of interest as an American
> citizen.

And you, who idolize a propagandising communist liar, don't?

>Our formal U.S. policy is something Dr. Pappe can live with.

So, now you claim to read Pappe's thoughts, so as to falsify them.
That right?

> It is you Zionist fanatics who can not. How do you
> expect to convince open-minded Americans that
>a scholar with his essentially American views on
> the issue should be shunned? And what stinking
> tools you are limited to in the effort! If it were
> conceivable you'd be bowed in shame.

In case you haven't been keeping up on current events, per Gallup,
American support for Israel is at its highest (71%). American support
for fakestinians, OTOH, is about the same as it's always been, with
only 4% giving it a favorable rating.

> Which Communist leader is that? I detest
> Marxism/Leninism's class warfare,

You know what communist leader that is; he's the one whom you claim is
"comfortable" with American policy.

> I detest National Socialism's racism and everything
> about the system in operation. But they were both
>socialist at the end of the day.

National Socialism, FYI, persecuted not only communists, but
socialists as well.

> I judge people by their conduct, by their morals and
> sense of decency, not their intellectual fancies.
> This is a fact

It's pure-d bs.

> What I require is a healthy sense of justice, something
> which you have choked out of your miserable system.

rotf
You antisemites are so ridiculous.

> You don't know what you're talking about as to
> 20th century European political movements. You
> were a non-professional law office drudge,
> sharavi, a secretary.. Get off these pretenses that
> you're some sort of intellectual.

Spew out whatever you want to believe, pendejo. In fact, my profs at
both UCLA and Oxford, as well as the attorneys I worked for, thought I
was fairly well educated. At all events, I never worked for a hick
lawyer who practiced in a one-lawyer town, because he knew he couldn't
handle any competition.

Before spewing your phoney claims, don't forget your peer review rated
you mediocre, and your legal ethics somewhat lower.

[plainolamerican]

> ...
>
> read more »

The goal of modern Zionism from the time of its founder
has been an Arab-free Jewish State in at least all of the final
British Mandate.

---
aren't arabs, muzzies, and other religions allowed to live in israel?

The American Congress is paralyzed by fear of the Israel Lobby and
Republican
idiots like the Tea Party crowd. It will require a great statesman in
the White House to accomplish it, and it is in fact in the critical
national interest of Israel that it be done.

---
the US is not responsible for israel's national security.
we owe them nothing and shouldn't sacrifice American interests for
israel.

the jews in our government have always sacrificed the interests of the
USA for israel.

know the enemy

[plainolamerican]

---
ditto

[plainolamerican]

---
only because the American population self-identifies as predominantly
Christian and most are zionists
... but Americans are slowly becoming less Christian.

86% of American adults identified as Christians in 1990 and 76% in
2008.
The U. S. population continues to show signs of becoming less
religious, with one out of every seven Americans failing to indicate a
religious identity in 2008. The historic Mainline churches and
denominations, who are zionists, have experienced the steepest
declines.

US support for israel will diminish as the zionist population
decreases.
so, enjoy using US zionist xian tools while they are available.

[plainolamerican]

---
the same ol' struggle that costs Americans

[plainolamerican]

On May 9, 7:25 pm, dsharavi <deshar...@gmail.com> wrote:

---
the truth about the accuracy of the Ben-Gurion quote doesn't concern
me. Israel's actions present the truth.

My only beef with israel/jews is that they are using the USA for
israel's benefit and sacrificing US national security and welfare and
because they promote socialism and open borders in America.

America first or self-deport.

[HHW]

On May 9, 9:51 pm, dsharavi <dshara...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On May 9, 2:52 pm, HHW <coaster132...@yahoo.com>wrote:
>
> >In lieu of dealing with what I said you clip it and indulge your
> >perennial ad hominem filth.
>
> There you go with your "perennial ad hominem filth" shtik, which, as
> we all know, is your stale euphemism for "presenting facts in
> opposition to Watsonian bs".

Everyone here understands what ad hominem argument is.

> > Here again is what you clipped so that the
> >readers may see and I may comment again:
>
> And "readers" may yawn again.

Misleading. You don't clip my words out of concern that readers might
become fatigued. Your concern is about maintaining their present level
of confusion on American interests and Middle-Eastern and Israel Lobby
realities. This is politics, sharavi. It's deeply affected by
perceptions and prejudices---and lying. You don't want the Lobby's
grip on the American Congress to be degraded. You'll say anything to
silence critics like me. Literally anything, even unto false
allegations of pederasty. Next to you the serial dissembler Dershowitz
is an absolute saint. He's clever about how he does it. You're not
bright or principled enough even for that.

You want the extremely unnatural nature of our relationship with
Israel to continue so long as Israel's undeclared but actual ambitions
for colonial expansion have not been fulfilled. In fact you will want
endless support for Israel irrespective of whether we deliver it
voluntarily.

The problem with permitting the Israelis to fulfill those ambitions,
of course, is that they are criminal in nature and therefore nothing
will be resolved by achieving them. They will exacerbate the awful
effect of the earlier crimes going back to 1947. Thus your goals are
extremely hostile to America's. Fulfilling them will require continued
and intensified occupation, apartheid and/or more ethnic cleansing.
This greedy and yet messianic struggle for a greater and greater
Jewish State is deeply hostile to American interests so long as we
continue our present supine relationship with Israel. It includes a
nuclear arms race begun by Israel, just what we Americans need as we
struggle to wind down the stockpiles of the Cold War and to advance
non-proliferation on a global basis. The U.S., your only ally, will
continue to turn in the wind indefinitely --- or until our once-in-a-
century great statesman achieves the Presidency (or re-achieves it).
Alternatively it just might be a man on horseback, a Peronista type.
And you just want to roll the dice indefinitely irrespective of the
damage done us already for as long as we submit.

> >Ben-Gurion actually *carried out* the eviction of the

> > Arabs from Palestine commencing in late 1947, ten
> > years after the disputed letter was written.
>

> The letter is not in dispute, except by adherent of Israeli communist
> leader Pappe.

Respond to what I said about Ben-Gurion's actual carrying out of the
ethnic cleansing of Palestine! The fact that he DID IT makes any
concern about that particular letter absolutely moot. He meant to do
what he did, obviously. It isn't even necessary to prove that he also
intended to do it ten years earlier----though without question he was
preparing for it during that era and was hoping for an opportunity to
get away with it, such as doing it during a war. Hell, he began it six
months before Israel even became independent and the war he wanted
began.

>
> > He was the civilian commander in chief of that
> >operation and well prior to 1947-48 he had been
> > deeply involved in the preparation for it. This is
> >amply demonstrated in Dr. Pappe's "The Ethnic
> >Cleansing of Palestine"
>

> Pappe demonstrates nothing, amply or otherwise, other than the
> aversion to facts you share.

Your readiness to lie at the drop of a hat is displayed. Listen,
everyone, buy the book: "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" by
Professor Ilan Pappe of Exeter University in the UK. Check it out of
the library. We Americans are supporting the present-day exploitation
of one of the great crimes of the 20th Century. And it's unnecessary.

>
> You claim that BG was "civilian commander in chief" of some
> "operation"? What "operation"? When?

Some operation? You know what we're speaking of. He was the civilian
commander in chief of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine which
commenced roughly in December, 1947. Read the book.

>
> What Ben was "deeply involved with" and "well prior to 1947-48" was
> NOT ridding western Palestine of Arabs.

He was deeply involved with a half-decade or more project of
collecting the intelligence necessary to pull it off militarily. It
was gathered into "the village files". That's in the book too, fool.
He was deeply involved in expanding the militias to the point where
they could beat back a combined Arab state invasion and ethnically
cleanse the country at the same time, not even using the same troops
or operating where the fight against the Arab armies was taking place.
By and large it was a SEPARATE OPERATION, NOT JUST INCIDENTAL TO
FIGHTING THE ARAB STATE ARMIES. Talk about pre-meditation!

>
> Now read carefully -- and pay attention, for a change:
>
> "Ben-Gurion, who saw in Zionism the only solution for the problem
> confronting the Jewish people and the sole chance for their rescue,
> was utterly convinced that if Zionism was not realized at once, the
> Jewish people were doomed.

Did you realize that this confirms JPS's argument about Ben-Gurion's
state of mind as displayed in the 1937 letter to Amos?

> This explains why, more than all his
> colleagues in the labor movement and the Zionist leadership, he was
> driven by an enduring sense that the ground was burning beneath the
> feet of the Jews of Europe. Therefore, in his view, time was of the
> essence...From 1933 on, Ben-Gurion was guided in his judgments and
> actions by his sense of the burning ground, along with his drive to
> establish the authority without which rescue of the Jews in Europe
> would be impossible."
> Shabtai Teveth, David Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground, pp xiv-xv

So Ben-Gurion's state of mind about the Nazi's in 1933 Germany
justified the dispossession of an innocent people on another continent
in 1947-48 when Hitler had been long dead and the Western Allies,
democracies, ruled Europe? I think not. Teveth's comment doesn't fit
unless you will say that everywhere Jewish feet touch mother earth it
burns.

In any event surely you understand that Ben-Gurion's 1930s pessimism
about Europe is a bit musty in the occupied Palestine of 2012. For
what it's worth I have never felt that present day green-line Israel
should be dismantled. But I don't see it as fully legitimate either
given the circumstances under which it was taken from a non-European
people. I suppose we can blame Ben-Gurion and his ideological heirs
for that, but what I'd like is to see it definitively accepted,
legitimated by all relevant nations, especially the enemies it has
made in the Middle-East since its founding in the midst of a great war
crime. That can not happen without an independent Palestinian State.
There must be a grand compromise and not on a 'what's mine is mine and
what yours is mine too" basis. The present talk of a single state
solution is not serious as Zionists will not give up dominance or the
Jewish State concept.

> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "He rejected Jabotinsky's teaching that the Jews would get Palestine
> only by force of arms. In 1916, implicitly acknowledging the conflict,
> he had written to himself, "It is possible to come to terms with the
> Arabs. this is a matter of strategy for the Yishuv." But after the
> revolution in Russia he began asserting that there was no conflict of
> interest between Zionism and the Arabs, since labor Zionism's vocation
> was to expedite the socialist revolution in the East. With the
> establishment of socialism in the region the conflict would disappear
> as if it had never been, since it had been created arbitrarily by the
> exploitative, feudal Arab effendis and clerics, who sought only to
> benefit themselves, fearing progress and the social and national
> liberation it would bring.

Gawdawful political theorizing.

>
> "A Jewish socialist republic could be established in Palestine that
> would live in peace and harmony with its neighbors, the Arab socialist
> republics."

Even worse. As naive as you, sharavi.

>
> "The Zionists, including Ben-Gurion, claimed that the Disturbances of
> 1919 and the early 1920s – which constituted Arab protest in blood and
> fire against the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate, and Jewish
> immigration to Palestine – were no more than the work of vandals and
> mobs incited by the effendis and clerics, who feared Zionism as a
> liberating social movement that threatened their class privileges, and
> had the encouragement and assistance of British officials, who were
> also enemies of Zionism.

I'm sure you, sharavi, would have been right there with them pumping
out this trash. It's exactly what you do here and now.

>
> "After the riots of Av 1929, Ben-Gurion...acknowledged the existence
> of the Arab national movement and, as he had not been formerly, was
> ready to meet with its spokesmen, the representatives of the same
> effendis and clerics whom he had once dismissed. He sought to convince
> them that there was no conflict of interest and that the two nations,
> Jewish and Arab, could live together in peace and harmony in the
> framework of a plan he had created to establish a Federal Palestine; a
> federation between a Jewish Palestine and its Arab neighbors, in which
> the Arabs of Palestine, even if they became the minority in the Jewish
> state, would not be a minority in the framework of the federation. In
> this manner the Arab "fragment" living in Palestine would not be
> oppressed since its national aspirations would be expressed within the
> framework."
> Teveth, pp 457-458

When is Teveth's Zionist take on this history going to show up? The
last couple of paragraphs have been fine.

>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Joseph Aharonovitch, one of Ben-Gurion's staunchest supporters in the
> HEC, wrote in Davar [May 3, 1933], under the headline Neither Shall
> You Follow Their Example, that "the use of force, other than in self-
> defense, is an abomination to our movement; it jeopardizes our work in
> Palestine and all the hopes of Zionism. Only he who has finished with
> Zionism, or a madman, can choose such a path."
> Teveth, p 461

Except that a Jewish State required it and Zionism justified it.

These paragraphs are simply random quotes which don't bear on the
issues. Your suppressed premise is that Jews owned the country by
divine right and that it was therefore wrong-headed for the Arab
leadership not to roll-over and accept these various vaporous
proposals by Ben-Gurion.

The canard gambit.

> "From these talks the irreducible conflict of interest of Zionism and
> the Arab national movement emerged very clearly, for the only solution
> perceived by his interlocutors for their problems was an end to Jewish
> immigration and land sales.* "Our final goal, Ben-Gurion told Hadi and
> Alami, "is the independence of the Jewish people in Palestine , on
> both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community
> numbering millions," whereas "the goal of the Arab nation is
> independence, unity, and revival for all the Arab peoples in their
> lands." The main question he posed in these talks was whether these
> two objectives could be reconciled, and he believed they could. In
> exchange for Arab recognition of the Jewish right to return to
> Palestine, Ben-Gurion promised, speaking for the Jewish people, to
> recognize "the right of the Arabs to remain on their land, while the
> Yishuv is allowed to grow through the development of Palestine." The
> Jews would use their "political influence, financial means, and moral
> support to bring about the independence and unity of the Arab people,"
> namely, an Arab federation."

Do YOU believe that last sentence?

>
> "At the August 14 meeting Alami brought up the mufti, who was "the
> decisive force" in Palestine, promising to pass on to him the content
> of their talks and suggesting that Ben-Gurion meet with Haj Amin
> himself – secretly, of course...Meanwhile the connection continued
> through Alami, who kept his word and, in describing the Federal
> Palestine plan to the mufti, also raised Ben-Gurion's question. Was it
> possible to come to an understanding whereby the Arabs would agree to
> the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine in exchange for
> Jewish consent to this federation?
> Teveth, pp 464-467

What good does it do you to argue that Ben-Gurion only used force when
taking it by stealth failed? This is 2012. You can get clear title to
78% of the country by simply agreeing to a Palestinian State in the
rest. The Arabs were prescient in rejecting this Trojan Horse
"federation" b.s.

>
> See further:
> S. Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestine Arabs: From Peace to War
> D. Ben-Gurion, My Talks with Arab Leaders
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "In March 1936 he had told Judah-Lieb Magnes, "The difference between
> you and me is that you are ready to sacrifice immigration for peace,
> while I am not, though peace is dear to me. And even if I were
> prepared to make a concession, the Jews of Poland and Germany would
> not be, because they have no other choice. For them immigration  comes
> before peace."
> Teveth, Burning Ground, p 539

It's 2012. The issues are not the same.

> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Ben-Gurion maintained that, whatever the Zionist policy, the Arabs
> would always be the Jews' neighbors in Palestine. In November 1935 he
> had told Menahem Ussishkin, "We should not, and cannot, drive the
> Arabs out by force." He regarded dialogue as essential, and Sharett
> defended the talks with Antonius to Wauchope in the same vein."
> Teveth, Burning Ground, p 539-40

It wasn't cool to talk openly about the military option. It was done
privately.

> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Ben-Gurion, more than any of his colleagues in the party and the JAE,
> understood the Arabs' feelings and was ready to acknowledge their
> rights. He took satisfaction in the fact that his meetings with with
> Abd al-Hadi, Alami, Arslan, Antonius, and others had taught him to
> empathize with the Arab point of view. He pointed out this advantage
> more than once to his JAE and Mapai colleagues. His "Arab eyes"
> enabled him to feel "the Arabs' fear" of a Jewish buildup and to
> understand that this fear lay at the root of the Disturbances. "It
> really is difficult," he wrote the Jewish Agency in June, "for someone
> who has never talked with the Arabs to imagine the magnitude of their
> fear."10

Justified fear, fully justified fear as demonstrated by the subsequent
history.

> "Furthermore, he acknowledged the existence of an Arab national
> movement, and in November 1936 accounted for its origins in a letter
> to Ussishkin. "We ourselves, by our very presence and progress here,
> have nurtured the Arab nationalist movement." Such a movement would
> have arisen anyway, but Zionism had had a catalytic effect. In the
> same letter he presaged the conflict's future. "In these Disturbances
> we have already seen a mighty manifestation of a pan-Arab movement and
> military alignment...of the Arabs of neighboring countries for the
> Palestinian Arabs' war against the Jews."

What, after all, does this justified fear generate?

>
> "Reviewing all of his statements at the time, one can see that the
> signs of recognition of a Palestinian people were clear. In 1930 Ben-
> Gurion had declared, "We wholeheartedly support the right of self-
> determination for all peoples...and that undeniably includes the Arab
> people in Palestine." He reiterated this view in February 1937 before
> the Histadrut council:
>
> "The right which the Arabs in Palestine have is theirs as inhabitants
> of the country...because they live here, and not because they are
> Arabs...Arabs who do not live here have no rights in Palestine...The
> Arab inhabitants of Palestine should enjoy all civic and political
> rights, not only as individuals, but as a national group, just like
> the Jews."

Such talk proved to be fatuous. Look what happened. Ben-Gurion was in
fact the driving force regarding the "transfer" of 750,000 Arabs from
Palestine. I'm beginning to think that Teveth won't deny it.

Can't believe you posted this!

We know these things, Deb. This is 2012. The problem boils down to
Israeli refusal to give up the West Bank and East Jerusalem. You're
waiving the bloody shirt. But the Palestinians are not the Nazis.
They're not even of the same continent.

> >What we see in this article is an attempt

> >to discredit the entire book and Pappe too
>

> Pappe does a fine enough job discrediting himself, and needs no help.
>

> >This ambiguous picking of a single nit about a
> >scribbled-upon sentence in a personal letter of
> >October 5, 1937 is ridiculous. It's the sort of
> >thing which is Camera's stock in trade.
>

> ditto in a major PNW law firm...

Then why are you unemployed, divorced and isolated despite still being
"young"? And tell us, how is it that you never rose above the lowest
law office drudge in a back room cubicle? Couldn't you find an
upwardly mobile position doing something? How 'bout that oil company.

I'm here to talk about America's worst and by far most dangerous
foreign policy problem, one which relates directly to the nature of
our relationship with Israel. You are here to defend Israeli crimes as
evidenced by your fumbling about in this thread, and to assist in
laying the foundation for more. After all apartheid, Israel's
occupations and ethnic cleansings are all criminal and will be in the
future too unless a deal is struck, the policy is changed and
restitution made.

[HHW]

On May 10, 10:29 am, plainolamerican <plainolameri...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Interesting, but we can't wait for that.

[plainolamerican]

you're right
allowing them to continue to extort our politicians in DC must end
asap by any means necessary

[dsharavi]

>>On May 9, 2:52 pm, HHW <coaster132...@yahoo.com>wrote:
>>>In lieu of dealing with what I said you clip it and indulge your
>>>perennial ad hominem filth.
>
>On May 9, 9:51 pm, dsharavi <dshara...@hotmail.com>wrote:
>>There you go with your "perennial ad hominem filth" shtik, which, as
>>we all know, is your stale euphemism for "presenting facts in
>>opposition to Watsonian bs".
>

On May 10, 5:59 pm, HHW <coaster132...@yahoo.com>wrote:

>Everyone here understands what ad hominem argument is.

Anyone who's been here awhile is familiar with your "perennial ad
hominem filth" shtik, which, you use as a euphemism for "presenting
facts in opposition to Watsonian bs". For poor examples of argumentum
ad hominem, they need only check a few of your posts.

>>>Here again is what you clipped so that the
>>>readers may see and I may comment again:
>
>>And "readers" may yawn again.
>
>Misleading.

Not at all. Your parroting of your communist idol's twaddle is one
vast ache of boredom.

>You don't clip my words out of concern that readers might
>become fatigued.

Obviously, pendejo.

> Your concern is about maintaining their present level
>of confusion on American interests and Middle-Eastern
> and Israel Lobby realities.

Again, you arrogantly presume to tell me what I want, what I think,
where I live, how I live – which is nothing more than your
presumptuous twaddle. There are maybe 20 people on these NGs; you're
amongst those who are confused "on American interests and Middle-
Eastern" matters. Further, you've demonstrated that you have no
interest in rectifying your ignorance. When faced with facts in
opposition to your borrowed nonsense, you just cut and run.

>This is politics, sharavi. It's deeply affected by
>perceptions and prejudices---and lying.

You would know about perceptions and prejudices and lying –
especially lying.

>You don't want the Lobby's
>grip on the American Congress to be degraded. You'll say anything to
>silence critics like me. Literally anything, even unto false
>allegations of pederasty. Next to you the serial dissembler Dershowitz
>is an absolute saint. He's clever about how he does it. You're not
>bright or principled enough even for that.

You wish. If your wish is valid, then produce a DIRECT response to
questions I've put to you for years on end. You can start with a dozen
or so of the names of those 500-plus Arab villages you allege were
bulldozed by Israel in 1948. Then you can back with a few facts your
libelous comment as to some "racist remark" I [never] made.

Of course, you haven't the cojones to do either.

>You want the extremely unnatural nature of our relationship with
>Israel to continue so long as Israel's undeclared but actual ambitions
>for colonial expansion have not been fulfilled. In fact you will want
>endless support for Israel irrespective of whether we deliver it
>voluntarily.

Whatever, pendejo.

>The problem with permitting the Israelis to fulfill those ambitions,
>of course, is that they are criminal in nature and therefore nothing
>will be resolved by achieving them. They will exacerbate the awful
>effect of the earlier crimes going back to 1947. Thus your goals are
>extremely hostile to America's. Fulfilling them will require continued
>and intensified occupation, apartheid and/or more ethnic cleansing.

[snip remaining twaddle]

Got any facts to present, in lieu of your subjective, ludicrous, and
nonsensical opinions? Of course you don't.

>>>Ben-Gurion actually *carried out* the eviction of the
>>>Arabs from Palestine commencing in late 1947, ten
>>>years after the disputed letter was written.

>>The letter is not in dispute, except by adherent of Israeli communist
>>leader Pappe.
>
>Respond to what I said about Ben-Gurion's actual carrying out of the
>ethnic cleansing of Palestine!

I responded. The response hasn't changed. 1947-48 was not at issue; at
issue is Pappe's deliberatley falsified version of Ben-Gurion's
letter. How many times must that be repeated until you grasp it?

I weary of trying to get some facts into that coprolitic excresence
between your shoulders which you utilise in lieu of a brain.

>The fact that he DID IT makes any
>concern about that particular letter absolutely moot.

Pendejo, you've already had it explained to you why your communist
idol's deliberately fabricated version has no basis in fact, and why
his mendacity subtracts greatly from what little credibility he has
left.

>He meant to do
>what he did, obviously. It isn't even necessary to prove that he also
>intended to do it ten years earlier----though without question he was
>preparing for it during that era and was hoping for an opportunity to
>get away with it

No credible historian asserts that nonsense.

>such as doing it during a war. Hell, he began it six
>months before Israel even became independent and the war he wanted
>began.

Do favour us with your version of how it was going in mid-December
1947.

>>>He was the civilian commander in chief of that
>>>operation and well prior to 1947-48 he had been
>>>deeply involved in the preparation for it. This is
>>>amply demonstrated in Dr. Pappe's "The Ethnic
>>>Cleansing of Palestine"
>
>>Pappe demonstrates nothing, amply or otherwise, other than the
>>aversion to facts you share.
>
>Your readiness to lie at the drop of a hat is displayed.

MOTSS, pendejo. I present facts. You don't.

>We Americans are supporting the present-day exploitation
>of one of the great crimes of the 20th Century. And it's unnecessary.

What's unnecessary is your hyperbolic twaddle. "One of the great
crimes of the 20th Century"? Seriously? "One of the great crimes " --
such as:

* the Armenian genocide;
* the Rwandan genocide;
* four years of the Khmer Rouge's starving, torturing, murdering more
than a million Kampucheans;
* the atrocities in Kosovo;
* the Arabs' massacres of non-Arab Sudanese Christians;
* the slaughter of half million Chinese civilians 1937-39 under
Fumimaro Konoe;
* Germany's WWII war crimes;
* ten years of internicene warfare, and war crimes, in the former
Yugoslav republic;
* the Tianamen Square massacre;
* 1.6 million North Koreans murdered in purges and in concentration
camps under Kim II Sung's dictatorship;
* One million Biafrans murdered in three years under Yakubu Gowon;
* 1.5 millions Ethiopians murdered in less than three years under
Menghistu;
* Kambanda's slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans in less than a year;
* Saddam Hussein's slaughter of 800,000 Kurdis -- in 1987 alone, --
and 600,000 Iranians in the Iraq vs. Iran war he started;
* half a million Afghanis slaughtered during the Taliban's
dictatorship;
* half a million Angolese slaughtered under Jonas Savimbi;
* 300,000 Bangladeshis slaughtered in less than a year under Yahya
Khan of Pakistan;
* half a million "palestinians" expelled from Kuwaiti for their
support of the Iraq invasion, while 6,000 were detained and tortured;
* crimes against humanity committed by Leopold II of Belgium against
Congolese; Stalin; Mao; Mussolini (Libya 1934-43, Ethiopia 1936);
Tojo; Castro; Pinochet; Khomeini; Tito; Sukarno; Bin Laden; Mobutu
Sese Seko of Zaire: Idi Amin Dada; Charles Taylor of Liberia; Foday
Sankoh of Sierra Leone; Suharto in Aceh, East Timor, New Guinea; Ho
Chi Min; Micombero in Burundi (1972): Milosevic of Yugoslavia; Hassan
Turabi of the Sudan; Papa Doc Duvalier; Rafael Trujillo; Hafez Al-
Assad of Syria; Robert Mugabe.

To name a few. I beg to differ, pendejo, but the "plight" of
"palestinians" doesn't equal any of the foregoing – particularly
since, unlike the foregoing crimes, the "palestinians" brought it on
themselves.

And you have the cojones to call ISRAEL's treatment of "palestinians"
"one of the great crimes of the 20th century? Your antisemitism has
discomboobilated your brain. No wonder you have no credibility.

Perhaps this severence from reality is the reason your peer-reviewed
rating as an attorney was mediocre? There's no doubt they were spot on
when they rated your ethics as subpar.

>>You claim that BG was "civilian commander in chief" of some
>>"operation"? What "operation"? When?

>Some operation? You know what we're speaking of.

I don't. Tell me. Of what operation was BG "civilian commander in
chief" ? When?

>He was the civilian
>commander in chief of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine which
>commenced roughly in December, 1947. Read the book.

I read the book. Pappe is, as historians of the period have said, full
of crappe. In December 1947, the Arabs had the upper hand, Jewish
casualties exceeded Arab casualties, and ... who was on the run?

Produce some evidence that Jewish casualities in December 1947 did NOT
exceed those of Arabs.

Then you can produce some dozen names of the over 500 villages you
claimed were "bulldozed" by Israel in 1948.

>>What Ben was "deeply involved with" and "well prior to 1947-48" was
>>NOT ridding western Palestine of Arabs.
>
>He was deeply involved with a half-decade or more project of
>collecting the intelligence necessary to pull it off militarily. It
>was gathered into "the village files". That's in the book too, fool.

Unless you view Pappe's scribblings as your Holey Quran, pendejo, you
are wrong again. BG's diary entries, letters, speeches, memoranda, all
show that he was deeply concerned with establishing western Palestine
as a refuge for Europeans Jews before Hitler's projections in Mein
Kampf became reality. Which, of course, they did – thanks to people
who shared your mindset.

>He was deeply involved in expanding the militias to the point where
>they could beat back a combined Arab state invasion and ethnically
>cleanse the country at the same time, not even using the same troops
>or operating where the fight against the Arab armies was taking place.
>By and large it was a SEPARATE OPERATION, NOT JUST INCIDENTAL TO
>FIGHTING THE ARAB STATE ARMIES. Talk about pre-meditation!

Talk about fantazia.

Ben-Gurion was not a dictator, like his opposing number, Hitler's
blood brother Amin al Husayni. BG's writings show that felt the
necessity to establish western Palestine as a refuge for European Jews
against Hitler. Toward the end of the war – in which his son served as
an RAF pilot, and his oldest daughter as a field nurse, both of them
being British subjects – BG busy trying to whittle down the
Revisionists, their military arm of the IZL, as well as the IZL's
splineter group the LHY. In 1944, he managed

>>Now read carefully -- and pay attention, for a change:
>
>>"Ben-Gurion, who saw in Zionism the only solution for the problem
>>confronting the Jewish people and the sole chance for their rescue,
>>was utterly convinced that if Zionism was not realized at once, the
>>Jewish people were doomed.
>
>Did you realize that this confirms JPS's argument about Ben-Gurion's
>state of mind as displayed in the 1937 letter to Amos?

Obviously you didn't read carefully, since it does no such thing.

>>This explains why, more than all his
>>colleagues in the labor movement and the Zionist leadership, he was
>>driven by an enduring sense that the ground was burning beneath the
>>feet of the Jews of Europe. Therefore, in his view, time was of the
>>essence...From 1933 on, Ben-Gurion was guided in his judgments and
>>actions by his sense of the burning ground, along with his drive to
>>establish the authority without which rescue of the Jews in Europe
>>would be impossible."
>>Shabtai Teveth, David Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground, pp xiv-xv

>So Ben-Gurion's state of mind about the Nazi's in 1933 Germany
>justified the dispossession of an innocent people on another continent
>in 1947-48 when Hitler had been long dead and the Western Allies,
>democracies, ruled Europe? I think not.

Operative word here: "think". You don't.

You cling to your stupid antisemitic bigotry like the redneck hick you
are, and parrot the lies of your fellow haters. "Innocent people"? Oh
please. In the late 1930s, your "innocent people" slaughtered hundreds
of Brits, thousands of Jewish Palestinians, thousands of Arab
Palestinians who opposed him, and drove thousands more into exile. The
terrorist Arab leader Amin al Husayni solicited for, and won, Nazi aid
for this. Shortly thereafter, your soulmate Shtler welcomed the
terrorist leader personally to Germany, and set him up in the Jew-
killing franchise, to the point of promising formally that when
Germany conquered the British Empire, Husayni would receive funds to
set up copies of Auschwitz-Birkenau throughout Palestine – which,
then, included Transjordanian Palestine (later Jordan).

But you don't want to hear any of this. You prefer your antisemitic
feuilletonists.

> Teveth's comment doesn't fit
>unless you will say that everywhere Jewish feet touch mother earth it
>burns.

Ti mynd'i uffern a bwyta perfedd dy fam budr, fab i bwtain brwnt.

>In any event surely you understand that Ben-Gurion's 1930s pessimism
>about Europe is a bit musty in the occupied Palestine of 2012. For
>what it's worth I have never felt that present day green-line Israel
>should be dismantled.

Bah. You've called for the destruction of the state of Israel many
times. And, FYI, in case you haven't been keeping up on current
events, "Ben-Gurion's 1930s pessimism" – which, incidentally, was none
such – is irrelevant with respect to .... "occupied Palestine"? Where
is that?

>But I don't see it as fully legitimate either

Of course you don't. 1) You know nothing of the subjects you attempt
to address; 2) you have no interest in rectifying your ignorance; and
3) You prefer Communist propagandists' twaddle to facts.

[flush crap]

>>---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>"He rejected Jabotinsky's teaching that the Jews would get Palestine
>>only by force of arms. In 1916, implicitly acknowledging the conflict,
>>he had written to himself, "It is possible to come to terms with the
>>Arabs. this is a matter of strategy for the Yishuv." But after the
>>revolution in Russia he began asserting that there was no conflict of
>>interest between Zionism and the Arabs, since labor Zionism's vocation
>>was to expedite the socialist revolution in the East. With the
>>establishment of socialism in the region the conflict would disappear
>>as if it had never been, since it had been created arbitrarily by the
>>exploitative, feudal Arab effendis and clerics, who sought only to
>>benefit themselves, fearing progress and the social and national
>>liberation it would bring.

>Gawdawful political theorizing.

Quite accurate – not that you would know.

>>"A Jewish socialist republic could be established in Palestine that
>>would live in peace and harmony with its neighbors, the Arab socialist
>>republics."

>Even worse. As naive as you, sharavi.

It's what Ben Gurion felt at the time, pendejo. Not that you would
know, of course.

>>"The Zionists, including Ben-Gurion, claimed that the Disturbances of
>>1919 and the early 1920s – which constituted Arab protest in blood and
>>fire against the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate, and Jewish
>>immigration to Palestine – were no more than the work of vandals and
>>mobs incited by the effendis and clerics, who feared Zionism as a
>>liberating social movement that threatened their class privileges, and
>>had the encouragement and assistance of British officials, who were
>>also enemies of Zionism.

>I'm sure you, sharavi, would have been right there with them pumping
>out this trash. It's exactly what you do here and now.

Wow, you ARE desperate, old man. Why don't you give up your charade?

>>"After the riots of Av 1929, Ben-Gurion...acknowledged the existence
>>of the Arab national movement and, as he had not been formerly, was
>>ready to meet with its spokesmen, the representatives of the same
>>effendis and clerics whom he had once dismissed. He sought to convince
>>them that there was no conflict of interest and that the two nations,
>>Jewish and Arab, could live together in peace and harmony in the
>>framework of a plan he had created to establish a Federal Palestine; a
>>federation between a Jewish Palestine and its Arab neighbors, in which
>>the Arabs of Palestine, even if they became the minority in the Jewish
>>state, would not be a minority in the framework of the federation. In
>>this manner the Arab "fragment" living in Palestine would not be
>>oppressed since its national aspirations would be expressed within the
>>framework."
>>Teveth, pp 457-458

>When is Teveth's Zionist take on this history going to show up? The
>last couple of paragraphs have been fine.

If you had actually read half the documents you claim to have read,
you would know that Dr Teveth, former political correspondent for
Haaretz 1950-1980. and Senior Research Fellow at Tel Aviv University,
isn't quite the "Zionist" – whatever that may be -- you claim he is.
In 1982 he was lambasted by the GoI for antisemitic and antiIsrael
bullshit. It';s certain you would like to believe that that accusation
had a negative effect on his career, but, in fact, it had no effect
whatsoever.

>>---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>"Joseph Aharonovitch, one of Ben-Gurion's staunchest supporters in the
>>HEC, wrote in Davar [May 3, 1933], under the headline Neither Shall
>>You Follow Their Example, that "the use of force, other than in self-
>>defense, is an abomination to our movement; it jeopardizes our work in
>>Palestine and all the hopes of Zionism. Only he who has finished with
>>Zionism, or a madman, can choose such a path."
>>Teveth, p 461
>
>Except that a Jewish State required it and Zionism justified it.

In 1933, they weren't thinking about a Jewish state. Try reading
something other than a Communist's totalitarian propaganda.

>issues.Your suppressed premise is that Jews owned the country by

>divine right and that it was therefore wrong-headed for the Arab
>leadership not to roll-over and accept these various vaporous
>proposals by Ben-Gurion.

It's evident you must be reminded, yet again, that the issue herein is
your communist idol's deliberate twisting and falsification of what
he alleged as a "qoute" – for which, as you must be reminded again, he
could produce no evidence. You are deliberately skewing the subject.

Ah, so? It gives the lie to your borrowed falsifications.

>>"From these talks the irreducible conflict of interest of Zionism and
>>the Arab national movement emerged very clearly, for the only solution
>>perceived by his interlocutors for their problems was an end to Jewish
>>immigration and land sales.* "Our final goal, Ben-Gurion told Hadi and
>>Alami, "is the independence of the Jewish people in Palestine , on
>>both sides of the Jordan River, not as a minority, but as a community
>>numbering millions," whereas "the goal of the Arab nation is
>>independence, unity, and revival for all the Arab peoples in their
>>lands." The main question he posed in these talks was whether these
>>two objectives could be reconciled, and he believed they could. In
>>exchange for Arab recognition of the Jewish right to return to
>>Palestine, Ben-Gurion promised, speaking for the Jewish people, to
>>recognize "the right of the Arabs to remain on their land, while the
>>Yishuv is allowed to grow through the development of Palestine." The
>>Jews would use their "political influence, financial means, and moral
>>support to bring about the independence and unity of the Arab people,"
>>namely, an Arab federation."

>Do YOU believe that last sentence?

I do, because I know more about the subject than you and your
communist idol, who is on record as stating he cares nothing for
facts.

>>"At the August 14 meeting Alami brought up the mufti, who was "the
>>decisive force" in Palestine, promising to pass on to him the content
>>of their talks and suggesting that Ben-Gurion meet with Haj Amin
>>himself – secretly, of course...Meanwhile the connection continued
>>through Alami, who kept his word and, in describing the Federal
>>Palestine plan to the mufti, also raised Ben-Gurion's question. Was it
>>possible to come to an understanding whereby the Arabs would agree to
>>the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine in exchange for
>>Jewish consent to this federation?
>>Teveth, pp 464-467

>What good does it do you to argue that Ben-Gurion only used force when
>taking it by stealth failed? This is 2012. You can get clear title to
>78% of the country by simply agreeing to a Palestinian State in the
>rest.

Again, you must be reminded that 2012, or 1948, is not at issue. At
issue is what Ben-Gurion wrote in 1937 -- before WWII, in case you
need a reminder – and in 1938, he was still optimistic, despite two
years of Arab terrorism.

>The Arabs were prescient in rejecting this Trojan Horse
>"federation" b.s.

Twaddle. How many Arabs have you personally encountered, in your hick
town in Minnesota, or you all white Anglo-European enclave in
Guadalajara?

>>See further:
>>S. Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestine Arabs: From Peace to War
>>D. Ben-Gurion, My Talks with Arab Leaders

You would do well to take the above advice, and educate yourself.

>>---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>"In March 1936 he had told Judah-Lieb Magnes, "The difference between
>>you and me is that you are ready to sacrifice immigration for peace,
>>while I am not, though peace is dear to me. And even if I were
>>prepared to make a concession, the Jews of Poland and Germany would
>>not be, because they have no other choice. For them immigration comes
>>before peace."
>>Teveth, Burning Ground, p 539

>It's 2012. The issues are not the same.

2012 is not at issue. Obviously, you must be reminded again that what
is at issue is your communist idol's deliberate falsification of BG's
1937, to wit: "We do not wish, we do not need to expel the Arabs and
take their place. All our aspirations are built upon the assumption —
proven throughout all our activity in the Land — that there is enough
room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs." That is what BG
wrote, and the fact that your communist idol delibertely falsified the
sentences is incontrovertible.

>>---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>"Ben-Gurion maintained that, whatever the Zionist policy, the Arabs
>>would always be the Jews' neighbors in Palestine. In November 1935 he
>>had told Menahem Ussishkin, "We should not, and cannot, drive the
>>Arabs out by force." He regarded dialogue as essential, and Sharett
>>defended the talks with Antonius to Wauchope in the same vein."
>>Teveth, Burning Ground, p 539-40
>
>It wasn't cool to talk openly about the military option. It was done
>privately.

What are you nattering about, pendejo? That you have no propaganda to
rebut the foregoing facts? Ben-Gurion maintained that, whatever the
Zionist policy, THE ARABS WOULD ALWAYS BE THE JEWS' NEIGHBORS IN
PALESTINE. Do you give no consideration to that fact in the coprolitic
excrescence between your shoulders which you utilise in place of a
brain?

>>---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>"Ben-Gurion, more than any of his colleagues in the party and the JAE,
>>understood the Arabs' feelings and was ready to acknowledge their
>>rights. He took satisfaction in the fact that his meetings with with
>>Abd al-Hadi, Alami, Arslan, Antonius, and others had taught him to
>>empathize with the Arab point of view. He pointed out this advantage
>>more than once to his JAE and Mapai colleagues. His "Arab eyes"
>>enabled him to feel "the Arabs' fear" of a Jewish buildup and to
>>understand that this fear lay at the root of the Disturbances. "It
>>really is difficult," he wrote the Jewish Agency in June, "for someone
>>who has never talked with the Arabs to imagine the magnitude of their
>>fear."10
>
>Justified fear, fully justified fear as demonstrated by the subsequent
>history.

Can you explain your rather obscure comment?

>>"Furthermore, he acknowledged the existence of an Arab national
>>movement, and in November 1936 accounted for its origins in a letter
>>to Ussishkin. "We ourselves, by our very presence and progress here,
>>have nurtured the Arab nationalist movement." Such a movement would
>>have arisen anyway, but Zionism had had a catalytic effect. In the
>>same letter he presaged the conflict's future. "In these Disturbances
>>we have already seen a mighty manifestation of a pan-Arab movement and
>>military alignment...of the Arabs of neighboring countries for the
>>Palestinian Arabs' war against the Jews."

>What, after all, does this justified fear generate?

Please elucidate your obscure and coy question.

>>"Reviewing all of his statements at the time, one can see that the
>>signs of recognition of a Palestinian people were clear. In 1930 Ben-
>>Gurion had declared, "We wholeheartedly support the right of self-
>>determination for all peoples...and that undeniably includes the Arab
>>people in Palestine." He reiterated this view in February 1937 before
>>the Histadrut council:
>
>>"The right which the Arabs in Palestine have is theirs as inhabitants
>>of the country...because they live here, and not because they are
>>Arabs...Arabs who do not live here have no rights in Palestine...The
>>Arab inhabitants of Palestine should enjoy all civic and political
>>rights, not only as individuals, but as a national group, just like
>>the Jews."
>
>Such talk proved to be fatuous. Look what happened. Ben-Gurion was in
>fact the driving force regarding the "transfer" of 750,000 Arabs from
>Palestine. I'm beginning to think that Teveth won't deny it.

Oh so, it's 750,000 Arabs, is it? The UN – before it received $$
$millions from the US and the UK – place it at some 430,000. That's
still below the nearly one million Jews "ethnically cleansed" from
Arab lands.

You didn't read the foregoing. If you did, it didn't sink in. Your
silly comment evidences only that you don't care jack shi'ite about
the subject, unless it buttresses your inherent antisemitism.

O boo hoo, I'm unemployed, I'm divorced, I'm isolated, boo hoo, boo
hoo hoo, I was never more than a law office drudge in a back room
cubicle, boo hoo boo hoo hoo.

Oh wait, none of that applies -- except the divorce (from my ex
parasite).

>I'm here to talk about America's worst and by far most dangerous
>foreign policy problem, one which relates directly to the nature of
>our relationship with Israel.

That's the last thing you're here to talk about. You're here to peddle
your filthy antisemitism, your lies, parrot the antisemitic bullshit
of your idolised communist propagandists, and to badmouth anyone who
presents facts in opposition to your second-hand disinformation. It's
doubtful that you've ever encountered a Palesinian Arab in your entire
life. It's easy to see why your peer-reviewed AV rating as an attorney
was no more than medoicre, and your legal ethics grossly subpar. You
typify what a cousin said, "I respect maybe half my fellow attorney.
Maybe half". You're not in the half he respects.

[HHW]

You hate any critic of Israel. That includes Peter Beinart:

Israel in Peril
JUNE 7, 2012
David Shulman

The Crisis of Zionism
by Peter Beinart
Times Books, 289 pp.,
$26.00


Benjamin Netanyahu; drawing by Pancho

On April 15 of this year I was returning to Israel on an Alitalia
flight from Rome. About forty minutes before landing in Tel Aviv, the
captain informed us that Israel had announced extraordinary security
measures, constricting its air space in response to an unusual threat,
and that from that moment on—we were still high above the Mediterranean
—until we would be allowed to leave the terminal, all photography was
strictly forbidden; beyond that, we were to follow the instructions of
Israeli security personnel on the ground.

My first thought was that Benjamin Netanyahu had decided to attack
Iran, despite, or maybe actually because of, the seeming movement in
the preceding days toward an effective and acceptable peaceful
solution to the problem of the Iranian nuclear project. On second
thought I decided that such an attack was still somewhat unlikely. So
what was going on?

Upon landing we were diverted to the old, by now outmoded Terminal 1,
then, after passport control, taken by buses to the new Terminal 3.
There were police and border police everywhere, in large numbers, and
we soon saw them arresting a demonstrator and forcing him into a
police van. At this point it dawned on me that the extraordinary
menace from the skies had to do with the arrival in Israel of a few
dozen peace activists from Europe. They were, we later learned, trying
to reach Bethlehem in the Palestinian territories in order to protest
against human rights abuses by Israel.

These protesters clearly provided reason enough to call out the armed
forces, as if a violent invasion were taking place. Some fifty or so
were arrested; two managed to slip through the cordon and reach
Bethlehem. Government spokesmen that evening proudly spoke of having
warded off a threat of almost existential proportions. Their
satisfaction was marred only by the fact that the TV news that day was
full of one of those incidents that reveal in a flash the violent
reality of the occupation.



Shalom Eisner, deputy commander of the army brigade stationed in the
Jordan Valley and a settler himself, was filmed while brutally, and
without provocation, smashing a Danish peace activist in the face with
his rifle. The ugly, indeed horrifying, scene was broadcast dozens of
times. I’m sorry to say that I’ve seen the likes of it rather often in
demonstrations in East Jerusalem (Sheikh Jarrah, Ras al-Amud, Silwan)
and in peace actions in the territories. Eisner has since been
temporarily relieved of his command; if earlier cases are any
indication, he will probably be reinstated after some two years in
another post. Interviewed after the incident, he gave an honest
statement of his moral stature: “Maybe it was a professional mistake
to use the gun when there were cameras around.”1

Why should a handful of harmless demonstrators elicit so severe a
reaction? Netanyahu, in his official announcement, said that if these
people were so concerned with human rights, they should check out the
situation in Syria, Gaza, or Iran—as if such sites of egregious abuse
relieved Israel of any responsibility for what is going on day by day
in the occupied territories. The same logic—that of the endless war
between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness—underlies
Netanyahu’s constant dwelling on the Holocaust in relation to Iran.
Like many Israelis, he inhabits a world where evil forces are always
just about to annihilate the Jews, who must strike back in daring and
heroic ways in order to snatch life from the jaws of death. I think
that, like many other Israelis, he is in love with such a world and
would reinvent it even if there were no serious threat from outside.

Buried somewhere inside all this is a bad Israeli conscience about the
treatment of Palestinians since 1948—a conscience repressed but still
somehow alive (not, perhaps, in Netanyahu). The rationalizing vision
pasted over that bad conscience, a vision simple-minded, self-
righteous, dangerous, and immoral, underlies the dilemma that Peter
Beinart has eloquently and bravely stated in The Crisis of Zionism. He
articulates it as a conflict, very familiar by now, between liberal,
democratic values and a proto-racist, atavistic nationalism. This
conflict has created two Jewish states in the Middle East. As Beinart
says, “To the west [of the Green Line, the pre-1967 border], Israel is
a flawed but genuine democracy. To the east, it is an ethnocracy.”

By “ethnocracy” he means “a place where Jews enjoy citizenship and
Palestinians do not”; it is a mini-state run by settlers, some of them
violent and fanatical, that disenfranchises a huge Palestinian
population and continually appropriates Palestinian land in the
interests of expanding and further entrenching the colonial project of
the settlements. Inevitably, the ethos of the occupation, now in its
forty-fifth year, spills westward over the Green Line: “Illiberal
Zionism beyond the green line destroys the possibility of liberal
Zionism inside it.”

The evidence for this observation is overwhelming; Beinart discusses
recent research that shows a dangerous erosion in the commitment by
ordinary Israelis to basic democratic values and the concomitant rise
of hypernationalist, racist, and totalitarian tendencies, some of them
well represented in the ultra-right parties in the Knesset and in the
current Israeli cabinet. In the last year or so, we’ve seen a spate of
antidemocratic, “ethnocratic” legislation all too reminiscent of dark
precedents in the history of the last century.

We could also describe what is happening, more simply, as a takeover
by the settler mini-state of the central institutions of the Israeli
state system as a whole. By now, Israeli policy is almost entirely
mortgaged to the settler enterprise; almost every day brings some new,
inventive scheme to legalize existing “illegal outposts” in the
territories and to facilitate the appropriation of more and more
Palestinian land.2 The inevitable result of such policies is the
imminent demise of the so-called “two-state solution,” which would put
a Palestinian state by the side of pre-1967 Israel (with whatever
minor revisions of the old boundary the two sides would agree upon in
negotiations). By now, a huge portion of the West Bank has, in effect,
been annexed, perhaps irreversibly, to Israel. No state can be
constituted on the little that remains. I will return to this
question.

Even apart from the disastrous political consequences of current
Israeli policy, it is critical to recognize that what goes on in the
territories is not a matter of episodic abuse of basic human rights,
something that could be corrected by relatively minor, ad hoc actions
of protest and redress. Nothing could be further from the truth. The
occupation is systemic in every sense of the word. The various
agencies involved—government bureaucrats and their ministries and
budgets, the army, the blue-uniformed civilian police, the border
police, the civil administration (that is, the official Occupation
Authority), the courts (in particular, the military courts in the
territories, but also Israeli civil courts inside the Green Line), the
host of media commentators who toe the government line and perpetuate
its regnant mythologies, and so on—are all inextricably woven into a
system whose logic is apparent to anyone with firsthand experience of
it. That logic is one of protecting the settlement project and taking
the land. The security aspect of the occupation is, in my view, close
to trivial; were it a primary goal, the situation on the ground would
look very different.

Take a few routine, typical examples, drawn at random from an endless
series. In mid-January the civil administration sent its bulldozers,
accompanied, of course, by soldiers, to demolish the ramshackle hut of
Halima Ahmad al-Hadhalin, a Palestinian widow with nine orphaned
children living in the deeply impoverished site of Umm al-Kheir,
adjacent to the large and constantly expanding settlement of Carmel in
the south Hebron hills. The bureaucrats claimed that the shack was
built without a permit, which is no doubt true; Palestinians living in
the West Bank “Area C,” i.e., under full Israeli control, only very
rarely receive a permit to build from the committee, largely composed
of settlers, that oversees such requests.

I saw Halima on January 28, a freezing, rainy day; she was standing
barefoot, still shocked and traumatized, in a neighbor’s tent. Such
demolitions happen regularly at Umm al-Kheir and have nothing whatever
to do with the rule of law; they are part of a malevolent campaign to
make life as miserable as possible for the Palestinians there (who,
incidentally, claim credibly to own the land on which Carmel sits
today) in the hope that they will go away.

Precisely the same line of reasoning applies to a wave of demolition
orders issued in February of this year against the project of
electrification and the building of energy infrastructures in a set of
some sixteen tiny Palestinian khirbehs spread over the south Hebron
hills. The shepherds and small-scale farmers in this region live in
caves, tents, or shacks, in abject poverty. Volunteers and peace
activists with technical know-how such as Noam Dotan and El’ad Orian,
from the organization known as Comet-Me, have painstakingly built wind
turbines and basic electric grids in many of these villages to serve a
population of some 1,500 people.

The immediate change in the quality of life in this harsh region was
dramatic; my friend Ali Awwad from Tuba, proudly turning on a light
bulb in the cave he inhabits, said to me, “For the first time in my
life, I feel like a complete human being.”3 Can these minimal
infrastructures, entirely benevolent in intention and effect, funded
mainly by European donors at the level of hundreds of thousands of
euros,4 constitute a threat of any sort to Israel?

Apparently, they can. The civil administration is keen on destroying
them, once again on the flimsy excuse that they were put in place
without permits—as if a request for a permit would have been
forthcoming.5 Several electric pylons have already been destroyed and
electric wires, undoubtedly worthy targets for the Israeli army, have
been cut in some six villages. Pressure from European governments,
especially Germany, has stayed the new demolition orders for the
moment, but the danger that the bulldozers will turn up when
opportunity arises remains very real.

Could the courts stand as a bulwark against such arbitrary acts by the
authorities or the more severe instances of outright theft or violent
attack by settlers? Occasionally, they do. In general, however, no
Palestinian has the slightest chance of finding justice in an Israeli
military court, and very few indeed have been justly treated in the
civil courts over the last forty years. Any case having to do with an
attempt to establish or maintain Palestinian ownership over lands
taken for settlement is, ipso facto, unlikely to end in a decision
that goes against the settlers or the government, although there have
been some exceptions to this gloomy conclusion. Palestinians who
protest against the occupation and the loss of village lands are
treated harshly, sometimes imprisoned for long periods, sometimes
killed in the course of the demonstrations.6

It is such matters that make Beinart’s deliberately understated
description of the occupation seem, from a local perspective in Israel-
Palestine, far too mild. His book is clearly addressed in the first
instance to an American audience, one perhaps not fully aware of the
real situation inside the Palestinian territories. The tone is
polemical, as one might expect; inevitably, Beinart has been bitterly
attacked as naive—the worst, also the cheapest insult in the lexicon
of those who defend Israeli policies—and as oblivious to the
complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.7 He is, in fact, all
too aware of those complexities, far more so than many who claim to
speak to or for American Jews (most of whom, as Beinart points out,
have probably never met a living Palestinian). He mainly focuses on
the situation as it is today, under this particular American president
and this particular Israeli government. Possibly the most revealing
part of the book is the detailed and persuasive description of the
political maneuvers that allowed Netanyahu to humiliate Obama
repeatedly, first over the issue of a freeze on settlements, and later
in Congress, in 2010–2011.

The settlement freeze, in which the Obama administration had invested
considerable effort, pressure, and prestige, was never more than a
sham; according to the reliable count by Peace Now, construction of
new housing units in the territories in 2010, the year of the
“freeze,” was only slightly lower than in 2009 (1,712 units as opposed
to 1,920). In March 2010, on the day that Vice President Biden arrived
in Jerusalem, the Israeli government announced that it was nearly
doubling construction in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat
Shlomo—an obvious and probably calculated insult to the
administration.

Even more outrageous was Netanyahu’s arrogant response to a key speech
of Obama’s on May 19, 2011, in which the president stated clearly that
“the dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with
permanent occupation.” Netanyahu announced that he “expects to hear a
reaffirmation from President Obama of US commitments made to Israel in
2004”—including acceptance by America of the annexation by Israel of
huge chunks of Palestinian land in the so-called “settlement blocs.”
Note the word “expects,” as if Netanyahu were dictating to a
submissive president what the latter should or should not say.
Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on May 24, 2011, a pastiche of myth and
demagogic rhetoric of the extreme right, remained faithful to this
tone, which Congress shamefully applauded.

Sadly, Beinart shows how Obama has consistently given in to pressure
from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby and
other American Jewish establishment voices. He gives a withering
critique of the leadership of central American Jewish institutions, by
now blindly and rather crudely identified with the Israeli right and
the Netanyahu line; he quotes Keith Weissman, formerly on the AIPAC
staff, as saying that already in the mid-1990s dominant figures there
“were sucking at the teat of Likud.” Beinart shows that this
orientation, with its visceral aversion to the very idea of a free
Palestinian state and its enthusiasm for the occupation, now largely
dominates the Anti-Defamation League, the Zionist Organization of
America, the Presidents’ Conference, and a large part of the Orthodox
rabbinical establishment as well.

Orthodox hypernationalism and its sometimes violently antidemocratic,
even racist voices partly account for Beinart’s pessimistic prognosis
for mainstream American Judaism and its relation to Israel.8 “American
Zionism,” he fears, “will become the province of people indifferent to
liberal democratic ideals, and the American Jews most committed to
those ideals will become indifferent, at best, to the Jewish state.”9
He cites studies showing that younger non-Orthodox American Jews,
conspicuously liberal in their values and politics, are less and less
attached to Israel. Here is the American Jewish version of the
conflict I have described in Israel between democratic ideals and
tribal nationalism. Both my grandfathers, like most American Jews of
their generation, at once Rooseveltian Democrats committed to strong
notions of social justice and ardent Zionists, would have been
horrified by what has happened in Israel and by the consequent need
for American Jews to make such a choice.


Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
Palestinian children walking past Israeli border policemen standing
guard near a Palestinian house taken over by Jewish settlers in the
center of Hebron, April 3, 2012

The book has a welcome pragmatic thrust to it, reflecting the urgency—
and the immense difficulty—of generating change, but here again
Beinart’s recommendations seem to me rather limited.10 He wants to
strengthen liberal Jewish education in the US and to expand its
funding basis; no one could take exception to this plea, though its
potential effects on Israeli policy may be decades away. More
immediately, he recommends a boycott by American Jews of products
coming from Israeli settlements in the territories. This may seem a
bold step in New York or Philadelphia, given the current climate in
American synagogues and other Jewish institutions, though many of us
have been doing it for years, publicly or silently, to no great
effect. I once threw a fit in a well-known Jerusalem restaurant when
it turned out that they had in stock only wine produced by settlers or
in wineries located in the territories. The owner eventually appeared
and apologized profusely, promising that in future he’d have a wider
selection. That’s about as far as we’ve got, although there is at
least one case—that of the Barkan wineries—where pressure from
outside, probably mostly from Europe, apparently led to the closure of
the main production unit on the West Bank, near Banu Hassan. Lest this
example inspire inflated hopes, I should add that, according to recent
studies, many if not most Israeli wineries process grapes grown in
settlements.

By now, targeting settlers’ produce has a slightly anachronistic feel
to it. Does it make sense to focus on wine from Hebron or milk
products from the Susya dairy when the entire Israeli political system
sustains the colonial project in the territories? I should make it
clear that I oppose the call for an across-the-board boycott of
Israel, and in particular for an academic-cultural boycott, which, in
my view, can only be counterproductive, strengthening the prevalent
paranoid mythology and its strident spokesmen on the right. Although I
spend a portion of my time in often quixotic gestures in the south
Hebron hills, in general I’m not fond of the ineffectual.

What is needed is something far more effective—perhaps something that
a second-term Democratic president could achieve if he had the courage
to confront the stranglehold of AIPAC on American politics, partly
described by Beinart. In the meantime, we could use the kind of
idealistic and hardheaded volunteers whom Arnold Wolf, the charismatic
liberal rabbi who was one of Obama’s mentors in Chicago, took to
Selma, Alabama, during the civil rights struggle. We need volunteers
on the West Bank, to protect innocent Palestinian civilians from
marauding settlers and the soldiers who invariably back the settlers
up. Even a few hundred people would make a real difference.

But it may already be too late. Analysts like Meron Benvenisti, the
former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, have been saying for years that the
idea of the two-state solution is no more than a fig leaf, to which
both the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships pay lip service, hiding
the recalcitrant reality of what is already a single state between the
Jordan River and the sea. At the moment, this single state, seen as a
whole, fits Beinart’s term—a coercive “ethnocracy.” Those who recoil
at the term “apartheid” are invited to offer a better one; but note
that one of the main architects of this system, Ariel Sharon, himself
reportedly adopted South African terminology, referring to the
noncontiguous Palestinian enclaves he envisaged for the West Bank as
“Bantustans.”

These Palestinian Bantustans now exist, and no one should pretend that
they’re anything remotely like a “solution” to Israel’s Palestinian
problem. Someday, as happened in South Africa, this system will
inevitably break down. In an optimistic version of the future, we may
be left with some sort of confederated model that is more than one
state but somehow less than two—and in which the Jews will soon become
a minority. I do not see how that can happen without a struggle,
hopefully nonviolent at least to some degree, in which Palestinians
claim for themselves the rights that other peoples have achieved.

How did we reach this point? Why do Israelis cling to a policy so
evidently irrational, indeed suicidal? The simple—too simple—answer
is: we’re afraid. We’ve been so traumatized, first by our whole
history and then by the history of this conflict, that we want at
least an illusion of security, like the kind that comes from holding
on to a few more rocky hills. Never mind that every inch of Israel is
within range of tens of thousands of missiles currently stationed in
Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, not to mention Iran, and that a few more
square kilometers make no difference to that threat. We’ll still take
over those West Bank hills, and we’ll even put a few rickety caravans
on them for anyone crazy enough to want to live there, and we’ll
station a few dozen bored soldiers on top of each of them and all
around them, and we’ll connect them to the Israeli electricity grid
and the water system, and we’ll build a big perimeter fence to enclose
the new settlement and to provide land for it to grow on (usually many
times the size of the settlement itself). The land happens to belong
to Palestinians, but that, clearly, is a consideration of no relevance
here.

The fears of Israelis are no doubt real enough, and a generous
interpretation of Israeli policy over the last four decades would give
them due emphasis. As Ali Abu Awwad, one of the leaders of the new
generation of Palestinian nonviolent resisters, often says: “The Jews
are not my enemy; their fear is my enemy. We must help them to stop
being so afraid—their whole history has terrified them—but I refuse to
be a victim of Jewish fear anymore.” He’s right to refuse. But I think
the reality we inhabit and have largely created by our own actions has
more to do with the story we Israelis tell ourselves about who we are—
a powerfully dramatic story that, like many such mythic stories, has a
way of perpetuating itself, at continually escalating cost to those
who tell it. This story more and more coincides with the primitive
Netanyahu narrative I mentioned earlier.

To get away from it, we need to recognize certain primary facts,
however uncomfortable they may be for some of us. As has been the case
in the past, there are always easily available diversions and
distractions that mask the true basis of the ongoing struggle; in
Israel today, the main such diversion is called “Iran.” Along with
such distractions we have the Israeli refusal to see the present
Palestinian leadership in Ramallah for what it is, a more than
adequate partner for Israel. Those who don’t agree should be thinking
about men such as Marwan Barghouti, still biding his time in an
Israeli jail. He’s no saint, to be sure, but he enjoys enormous
authority among Palestinians, and he knows very well what is required
to strike a deal. There is good reason to believe that he wants such a
deal, along the lines that are by now recognized as reasonable by a
majority on both sides of the conflict and, indeed, by most other
nations. He has recently published a strong statement calling for mass
nonviolent resistance in the territories and an end to the farce of a
negotiating “process” that has allowed Israel to stall endlessly—and
to hide its deeply rooted hostility to the very idea of coming to some
form of agreement with the Palestinian national movement.

This profound antipathy to making a meaningful peace will undoubtedly
continue to dominate the present Israeli government, now expanded by
the entry of the Kadima party into the coalition; Kadima presents
itself as “centrist” but is, in fact, hardly distinguishable from the
Likud, from which it seceded under Sharon’s leadership, when it comes
to Palestinian matters. The new cabinet will continue to entrench the
occupation and to legalize the massive theft of Palestinian lands
while loudly complaining that the Palestinians are responsible for the
collapse of negotiations.

So again, it is worth stating the self-evident truths: at the core of
this conflict there are two peoples with symmetrical claims to the
land. Neither of the two has any monopoly on being “right,” and each
has committed atrocities against the other. One of these two sides is,
however, much stronger than the other. Until the national aspirations
of the weaker, Palestinian side are addressed and some sort of
workable compromise between the two parties is achieved—until the
occupation as we know it today comes to an end—there will be no peace.
It is impossible to keep millions of human beings disenfranchised for
long and to systematically rob them of their dignity and their land.

To prolong the occupation is to ensure the emergence of a single
polity west of the Jordan; every passing day makes a South African
trajectory more likely, including the eventual, necessary progression
to a system of one person, one vote. Thus the likelihood must be faced
that unless the Occupation ends, there will also, in the not so
distant future, be no Jewish state.

—May 9, 2012

1
Gili Cohen, Haaretz , April 20, 2012. ↩

2
Most recently, Chaim Levinson, Haaretz , April 24, 2012, reports that
the government is attempting to circumvent the standard procedures for
authorizing building in the territories by ordering the army to enable
supposedly temporary construction, without permits. Nothing in Israel
is as permanent as a “temporary” outpost on the West Bank. ↩

3
One can see the installations in situ in Danny Bertha’s fine film on
this project, The Human Turbine (2010). ↩

4
The German government reportedly provided approximately 400,000 euros.
↩

5
For further reports on the recent wave of demolition orders, see
www.greenprophet.com and Akiva Eldar in Haaretz , February 2, 2012. ↩

6
For the case of Abdallah Abu Rahmah from Bil’in, see my essay, “Salt
March to the Dead Sea,” Harper’s , June 2011; Abdallah’s relative
Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahmah was killed by the army in Bil’in on April
17, 2009. A particularly salient example is the year-long arrest of
Bassem al-Tamimi, the leader of the popular protest at al-Nabi Saleh
in the northern West Bank; al-Tamimi was released on April 25, 2012.
To take the measure of the man, read his statement to the military
court . ↩

7
For example, Jonathan Rosen, “A Missionary Impulse,” The New York
Times Book Review , April 13, 2012. ↩

8
Beinart, The Crisis of Zionism , pp. 164–168. ↩

9
Beinart’s analysis was first set out in full in an important essay in
The New York Review , “The Failure of the American Jewish
Establishment,” June 10, 2010. ↩

10
For a more radical critique, see Joseph Dana, “The Crisis of Zionism:
Undeterred by Unavoidable Realities,” The National , April 20, 2012. ↩

[HHW]

> For further reports on the recent wave of demolition orders, seewww.greenprophet.comand Akiva Eldar in Haaretz , February 2, 2012. ↩

>
> 6
> For the case of Abdallah Abu Rahmah from Bil’in, see my essay, “Salt
> March to the Dead Sea,” Harper’s , June 2011; Abdallah’s relative
> Bassem Ibrahim Abu Rahmah was killed by the army in Bil’in on April
> 17, 2009. A particularly salient example is the year-long arrest of
> Bassem al-Tamimi, the leader of the popular protest at al-Nabi Saleh
> in the northern West Bank; al-Tamimi was released on April 25, 2012.
> To take the measure of the man, read his statement to the military
> court . ↩
>
> 7
> For example, Jonathan Rosen, “A Missionary Impulse,” The New York
> Times Book Review , April 13, 2012. ↩
>
> 8
> Beinart, The Crisis of Zionism , pp. 164–168. ↩
>
> 9
> Beinart’s analysis was first set out in full in an important essay in
> The New York Review , “The Failure of the American Jewish
> Establishment,” June 10, 2010. ↩
>
> 10
> For a more radical critique, see Joseph Dana, “The Crisis of Zionism:
> Undeterred by Unavoidable Realities,” The National , April 20, 2012. ↩

Hey, Zev, I've reviewed the Frantzman article at your request. I now
request that you do an equivalent review of this article by Peter
Beinart.

It will be riveting, no?