Are there problems with some of Fulford's observations in this piece? Yes without a doubt. His aside on the Native anthem was in my opinion unecessary and gratuitous. His views however on the conference itself bears discussion in my view.

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helpful for us

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[ 14 October 2006: Message edited by: Khimia ]

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The people who have dreamt for years of making Israel appear illegitimate have recently concentrated on depicting its current struggle as a rerun of the fight within South Africa during the apartheid era, with Jews playing the whites this time and Palestinian Arabs the blacks.

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Desmond Tutu: This means you. Apparently your dedication to dismantling Apartheid was in fact a ruse to make Israel look bad.

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That comparison wouldn't survive serious scrutiny, but it's just dumb enough to stir enthusiasm among those who bring to this question nothing more logical than a suspicion of Israel and sometimes a dash of anti-Semitism.

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Critics of Israel are bigotted against Jews.

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A few hundred people holding those views gathered last weekend in Toronto at a conference, The Struggle Continues: Boycotting Israeli Apartheid, at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. A Palestinian flag covered the rostrum and Arabic music filled the auditorium.

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Warning, warning: Arabs in the room.

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It was not a notably coherent event. On the way in, I heard a student say, "She was like, 'Boycott Israeli goods!' And I was like, 'Which are they?'"

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Teenagers/students are dumb and shouldn't think about hard topics like the international affairs or the Middle East.

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Then, without explanation, the opening event turned out to be an expression of Canadian Indian culture. Zainab Amadahy, from the Coalition in Support of Indigenous Sovereignty, explained that all of Toronto belongs to the Mississauga Indians, their ownership certified by treaty long ago.

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There is no similarity between Canada's grab of First Nation's lands, and Israel's grab of Palestinian lands -- none whatsoever.

This stuff is so over the top, its probably appreciated by about three people. Rant on, Wedgie, rant on.

[ 14 October 2006: Message edited by: -=+=- ]

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Fulford: Then, without explanation, the opening event turned out to be an expression of Canadian Indian culture.

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Without explanation, eh? Look up solidarity and this time actually read the definition instead of putting scare quotes around the word. Fulford's piece reads like instructions on how to think like a right wing shit bag. Hell, the author even takes a sort of policeman approach to those he disagrees with; there are "the usual suspects" [i.e., trade unions, especially the evil CUPE which Fulford can barely contain his venom and hatred against] who are "rich enough" to have a foreign policy of their own.

Here's one of the most astonishing statements by this National Post scribbler:

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Israel is charged, at worst, with expanding its own borders at the expense of its neighbours. There's no sense in which that can be called "colonial," particularly in an era when the Israeli government is trying to get rid of territory it acquired when being attacked.

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Gee, that sounds so civilized. "expanding its borders at the expense of its neighbours". What do all those Arab countries have to complain about? Shut up already about phosphorus bombs. Shut up about cluster bombs. Shut up about war crimes against civilians. Shut up about arrested Parliamentarians. Shut up about targetted assassinations. Shut up about thousands of Palestinians, including children, in Israeli dungeons. Shut up about making Palestine unviable. Does Fulford mention these things?

Of course not. Israel, says Fulford about the views of its critics, is "guilty by analogy". It's just a dispute about "fences" between "neighbours" and some territory "acquired while being attacked".

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Maybe some of these apologists might ponder the likely future of Israel if the government of that country continues with its current apartheid-like policies. They have only to look at other and similar examples.

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Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid

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Over 600 people attended the landmark conference, Boycotting Israeli Apartheid: The Struggle Continues, held from 6-8 October in Toronto, Canada. The conference represents a watershed moment in the Palestinian solidarity movement, with leading anti-apartheid activists from Palestine, South Africa, Canada and England addressing the way forward in the global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions.

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Supplemental on South African connection:

COSATU Open letter in support of CUPE resolution

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South African workers will never forget the support given by the Israeli state to the apartheid South African regime. In the same way we will never forget the thousands of acts of solidarity of ordinary citizens around the world who sustained our struggle through the boycott weapon.

COSATU supports the demand that Apartheid Israel must respect and implement all resolutions passed by the United Nations; that the right of return of Palestinian refugees must not be compromised; that Israel respects the democratically elected government of Palestine; and that Palestinian taxes collected by Israel must be returned to the elected representatives of Palestine unconditionally.

Those supporting the ideology of Zionism and the pro-Israeli lobby will muster their substantial resources against you. Despite these pressures, we ask you not to doubt for a single moment the correctness of your just stand.

We salute the courage and vision of CUPE Ontario’s leadership and members in unanimously passing resolution 50. Your unwavering resolve inspires us, we who lived through decades of apartheid oppression, as it will undoubtedly inspire and endear you to millions of Palestinian and other freedom loving people throughout the world.

In Solidarity,

Willie Madisha
President
Congress of South African Trade Unions

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Debate THAT.

[ 14 October 2006: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Originally posted by Petsy:
The Tutu quote is always dragged out as holy gospel. As I recall he did not claim Israel was an Apartheid state but rather lamented whathe felt were "apartheid-like" tactics. An ugly criticsm to be sure but far from the ongoing claims that Tutu somehow has consistantly held that Israel is akin to the former racist Apartheid state of SA.

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That's some interesting hair-splitting.

I guess you are making the distinction between an apartheid law passed by a legislature and a "tactic" -- which I assume means Israeli colonists taking over Palestinian farms, Israeli-only roads in the West Bank and Gaza and so forth.

Yet, these "tactics" eminate directly from the cabinet of the Knesset. They are directed by the government of Israel, and implemented by the state. I'm not sure how you can say that is different from state apartheid in South Africa, without getting into some serious hair-splitting.

And, these state "tactics" are exactly what Tutu compared to his experience under Apartheid.

For the record, here's Tutu's speech from 2002 as reported in the Guardian:

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In our struggle against apartheid, the great supporters were Jewish people. They almost instinctively had to be on the side of the disenfranchised, of the voiceless ones, fighting injustice, oppression and evil. I have continued to feel strongly with the Jews. I am patron of a Holocaust centre in South Africa. I believe Israel has a right to secure borders.

What is not so understandable, not justified, is what it did to another people to guarantee its existence. I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.

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[ 14 October 2006: Message edited by: -=+=- ]

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Debate THAT.

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Many distinguished South African anti-Apartheid fighters well remember the friendship that past Israeli governments showed the odious Apartheid regime. Many remember the assistance that Israel provided to South Africa's nuclear program. Many remember ... and will never forget who took their side in that heroic and victorious struggle and who took the side of the South African apartheid regime.

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Many distinguished South African anti-Apartheid fighters ought to also remember that for many many years just about the only whites in South Africa who stood against apartheid were Jews. Remember Helen Suzman??? For years the only anti-apartheid member of the South African parliament who faces constant death threats as well as anti-semitic outbursts from the neo-Nazi elements in the National Party. What about people like Ruth First and Nadine Gordimer etc... as a matter of fact just about the ONLY white people in South Africa who opposed apartheid were Jewish and they often endured so much hate from the Afrikaans speaking racists (many of whom had openly supported Hitler during WW2) that they were driven to move to Israel. (kinda like how in the US just about the only whites who were willing to risk their lives signing up Black voters in the deep south were Jews)

Fulford's aproach is to label (all) critics of Israel as anti-Semitic. No thinking is required, no evidence of atrocities need be looked at. His contention is virtually identical to the odious remarks of PM Harper - who was and is being roundly denounced and criticized for his despicable Republican-like attempt to create a "wege" issue. What a disgrace.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Many distinguished South African anti-Apartheid fighters ought to also remember that for many many years just about the only whites in South Africa who stood against apartheid were Jews.

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Desmond Tutu makes this exact point here:

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Almost instinctively, the Jewish people have always been on the side of the voiceless. In their history, there is painful memory of massive roundups, house demolitions and collective punishment. In their scripture, there is acute empathy for the disfranchised. The occupation represents a dangerous and selective amnesia of the persecution from which these traditions were born.

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Tutu also goes on to point out that many prominent South Africa Jews have drawn the parallel between the apartheid policies of Israel, and those of South Africa:

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Many South Africans are beginning to recognize the parallels to what we went through. Ronnie Kasrils and Max Ozinsky, two Jewish heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle, recently published a letter titled 'Not in My Name'. Signed by several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans, the letter drew an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli policies. Mark Mathabane and Nelson Mandela have also pointed out the relevance of the South African experience.

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The same article, written in 2003, also reinforces the connection between Israei and South African apartheid Tutu made a year earlier:

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These tactics are not the only parallels to the struggle against apartheid. Yesterday's South African township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the Occupied Territories. To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar.

[...]

The growing Israeli refusenik movement evokes the small anti-conscription drive that helped turn the tide in apartheid South Africa. Several hundred decorated Israeli officers have refused to perform military service in the Occupied Territories.

[...]

If apartheid ended, so can the occupation. But the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction.

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The conclusion is inescapable: those who suffered through, and who fought, apartheid in South Africa see the same qualities at work in Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.

[ 14 October 2006: Message edited by: -=+=- ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
If I had been PM of Israel I would have broken off all relations with South Africa in that era and been the biggest supporter of the ANC in the world. Unfortunately Likud was in power in those days (largely thanks to the votes of "Jewish Arabs" from places like Morrocco, but I digress) - but that doersn't mean that Israel should be eliminated.

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Stockholm, the vast majority of the commentors here do not believe that Israel should be "eliminated." I certainly do not -- Israel is a country like any other, has the same right to exist, and should not be treated any differently or subjected to double standards.

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Originally posted by ohara:
OK so I understand:

I always thought in relation to Apartheid in South Africa that we had a situation in which the white minority ruled the Black majority. Is there a similar case in Israel I am unaware of?

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The West Bank and Gaza?

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You appear to imply critics of Israel believe it has no right to exist. The way you have framed your comment, it appears to be a smear.

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Since they keep calling themselves "anti-Israel" I can only assume that they want Israel to cease to exist. When you are "anti" something, you generally oppose the very existence of that thing.

All the Palestinaisn have to do is agree that Israel has a right to exist and a comprehensive peace treaty is waiting to be signed. But they never will because it would rob them of a scapegoat for all their problems.

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Originally posted by ohara:
Ok and what territories did the Apartheid South African government oversee? If there were territories I am unaware of were they "occupied" as a result of war? Was there negotiations to have them returned?

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Ohara, you're letting your side down.

Bantustan:

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Bantustan is the word that describes the twenty territories that served as tribal reserves for the indigenous black inhabitants of South Africa and South-West Africa (now Namibia), as part of the racial segregation policies of apartheid. Ten bantustans were established in South Africa, and ten in neighboring South-West Africa (then under South African administration), for the purpose of concentrating, in their territories, members of designated ethnic groups, thus making each of those territories ethnically homogeneous.

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The rhetoric employed by some opposed to Israeli policy is entirely ineffective beyond a limited audience.

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Ironically but fittingly, Fulford's attempt to marginalize critics of Israeli policy is positioned left-most on the page, and it is in fact the most moderate of the three articles taking up the whole of this page in the continuing effort of the National Post's editors to discredit critics of Israeli policy.

Situated in the middle of the page is Alan Dershowitz's criticism of Michael Ignatieff (and Louise Arbour for good measure) for daring to bring the principles of international humanitarian law into a discussion of Israeli military action; and fittingly far to the right of the page is George Jonas, who predicts very few Jews will ever vote Liberal again in the future, while heaping abuse on, well, just about everybody:

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Mr. Ignatieff's recent remark about Qana being a war crime may be the last straw, but the camel is in Canada, not Israel. The burden breaking the poor beast's back is all the bicycle-riding vegetarians in the progressive-liberal-socialist axis of moral relativism who have been gradually toggling their anti-Zionism toward plain, old-fashioned anti-Semitism.

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The real marginalization comes about by efforts like the one underway on this page from today's National Post: three long columns by prominent authors aimed at discrediting, by any means possible, criticism of Israeli policy, including its military conduct during the recent conflict (during which, it should be noted, Ignatieff and the others have all pointed to Hezbollah war crimes as well).

Now, back to the middle of the page: 'Is self-defence a war crime?' asks the self-disgraced and long-discredited Dershowtiz, who continues with his usual tactics by deliberately misquoting Louise Arbour's statements on the lawfulness of military force from this summer:

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Yet there are some who would deem such legitimate self-defence to be a war crime. Most prominent among them is Canada's own Louise Arbour, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and currently the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights. Even before the war in Lebanon was over, Arbour rushed to judgment and threatened "personal criminal responsibility" against Israeli generals and political leaders for their attacks on areas in which civilians live. Her benighted view is that any shelling of cities -- regardless of the threat posed to Israeli civilians by rockets being fired from these cities -- "constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians." Let's be clear what this means: If Hezbollah (or Iran) were firing nuclear or biological weapons at a democracy from Beirut (or Tehran), the democracy would be committing a war crime if it tried to destroy the enemy rockets by pinpoint bombing, as long as there was any "foreseeable" risk to civilians. This formulation would make war criminals out of the United States, Canada, Great Britain and all the Allies during the Second World War and in the current war against terrorism.

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The misrepresentation of Louise Arbour's statements is more significant. To quote Dershowitz, let's be clear: Arbour didn't say what he says she did.

Here's Arbour, according to the BBC:

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Indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians... Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged military significance, but resulting invariably in the killing of innocent civilians, is unjustifiable.

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Manifestly, 'any shelling' and 'pinpoint bombing' of known nuclear-missile launch sites currently in operation are not at all the 'indiscriminate shelling' of cities or the bombardment of sites with only 'alleged military significance' Arbour was discussing this summer.

Not that that matters to Dershowitz, of course. Bent on disgracing himself, he makes a strawman of Arbour in order to make her, with Ignatieff, someone of benighted views who would deny Israel the internationally recognized inherent right of self-defence.

Arbour was doing no such thing, of course, but simply underlining some of the well-understood limits on the exercise of that right: proportionality and discrimination. But Dershowitz can't stand for such principles to be applied in this case, and so misrepresentation and logical fallacies, delivered at volume, become his means of attack on Arbour, as well as on Ignatieff.

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It is possible that he [Ignatieff] believes that even if the Israeli killing of Lebanese civilians was an unintended consequence of its efforts to prevent rocket attacks against its own civilians, it was still a war crime. Such a view would reflect a perverse and dangerous approach to international law that would make it nearly impossible for democracies to protect its civilians from terrorists who launch rockets from civilian population centres. It would also encourage other terrorist groups to emulate the tactic employed by Hezbollah in its recent war against Israel: to use local civilians as human shields behind whom the terrorists fire their rockets at enemy civilians. This gives the democracy only two choices: to protect its civilians by destroying the rocket launchers even if that means some civilians will inevitably be killed; or do nothing and allow its own civilians to be targeted. Faced with this choice of evils imposed by the terrorist, every democracy would chose to protect its own civilians, as Israel did.

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Again, the real choices aren't 'defend yourself without due regard to the principles of proportionality and discrimination' and 'don't defend yourself,' and Dershowitz knows this, because he says so at the end of his essay:

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'There cannot be any absolute prohibition against such self-defensive military actions so long as they are proportional to the dangers and reasonable efforts are made to minimize civilian casualties.'

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But Dershowitz can't stand it when someone tries to apply those standards to a specific case of Israeli military action as Ignatieff and Arbour have done, and so he resorts to tortured logic and deceitful misquotes.

I'm making this long point about Dershowitz's piece to underscore that the issue is not really about the 'rhetoric' critics of Israeli policy use (though they and everyone should always choose words carefully): the real issue is the substance of their criticisms and how distasteful some facts are to some people.

Neither Ignatieff nor Arbour used any extreme or inflammatory language in their discussions; nor did AI, or HRW, or the UN-appointed human rights experts whose report came out last week, but all of these people and organizations--and many more besides--will be met in the pages of the National Post and elsewhere by mockery, abuse and outright deceit regardless of how they say what they say, because it's what they're saying that so outrages people like Fulford, Dershowitz and Jonas.

And what they're basically saying is that it is possible for 'our' side to commit crimes, even very serious ones, and that the other side's crimes don't excuse or justify ours, let alone require them.

That's more or less it, but it's a dangerous idea that people like Fulford labour to keep on the margins of discourse, because of its potentially profound implications for people in power.

[ 14 October 2006: Message edited by: sgm ]

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Originally posted by -=+=-:

Wikipedia.

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Originally posted by ohara:

Bantustan were lands aceded , I thought, as a ruse to Black South Africans. It was not land taken over and occupied as a result of war which could through negotiation and the promise of peace be returned.

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Ohara, you should learn more about South African history if want stop undermining your position.

I'm also surprised you can say with a straight face that no black land in South Africa was taken through war by whites.

For example, the homeland of the properous and culturally rich Zulus was conquered and annexed twice. First by the Boers, and then by the British. It was divided into the white province of Natal, and a Zulu bantustan (KwaZulu).

The ten batustans in South West Africa were set up on land originally conquered in vicious counter-insurgency wars by the Germans. After WWI South Africa became the administrator of these lands, assuming the German responsiblity.

Many of the other post-WWII batustans were the result of straight-ahead ethnic cleansing. The national government forcibly removed black citizens to them. This obviously used state force, and is a crime against humanity, though strictly speaking is not a war.

This of course ignores the countless original colonial wars against the native inhabitants that allowed a white state to be set up in the first place. It also ignores the constant covert hostilities practiced against the ANC, Mandela and other black citizens of South Africa proper during the Apartheid years.

[ 14 October 2006: Message edited by: -=+=- ]

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In fact I will go as far to state that the use of these tactics virtually ensures that those who employ it will not be taken seriously.

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Yes, the apologists for Israeli racism always want to reframe the debate away from the truth to something less offensive to the racists. How nice.

Fact 1: Israel is a 'Jewish" State.
Fact 2: Palestinians are not Jewish.
Fact 3: Israeli engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Fact 4: Israel occupies the West bank and Gaza.
Fact 4: Jewish "settlers" who illegallt occupy lands in the West Bank, have full citizenship and legal rights as Israelis by virtue of being Jewish.
Fact 5: Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have no such rights.
Fact 6: Israeli is building an Apartheid Wall to seal off Palestinians from each other and Jews.
Fact 7: There are Jewish only roads, and pass laws.
Fact 8: There are marriage laws that apply only to Palestininians by virtue of them not being Jewish.
Fact 9: Any Jew can travel to Israel and have full citizenship and all the rights and privelges that entails by virtue of being Jewish.
Fact 10: Palestinians are prevented from returning to ancestral homes by virtue of them not being Jewish.

The existence of Israel is the price the world has to pay for thousands of years of pogroms, massacres and Holocausts against Jews. If there hadn't been all these years of mass murder and persecution, Israel would never have had to exist. But now it serves a valuable purpose as an insurance policy.

[ 15 October 2006: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
[QB]Actually people who call Israel "colonialist' have it all in reverese. Jews are after all the original aboriginal inhabitants of the area between the Meditteranean and the Jordan River (well I suppose there were Canaanites before them - whoever they were).

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According to whom? I'll take a title deed in the hands of an Arab farmer over a real estate transaction finalised thousands of years ago with an unseen sky ghost any day and twice on Shabbat...

By your logic, the Celts, and any number of Germanic/Indo-European peoples could make a claim on various territories throughout Asia.

If Israel is to survive in peace, it has an obligation to get rid of all the fascist, racist, reactionary West Bank settlements, end the checkpoints, end the cutoffs of the water supply, let Palestinian ambulances take the wounded to safety, and stop trying to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

And, historically, the Arabs of Palestine had nothing whatsoever to do with the Holocaust or other manifestations of historic antisemitism, so they shouldn't have been kicked off of lands where they'd lived for milennia. The Israeli government should issue an official apology for Deir Yassin and all the other attacks on innocent Palestinians in 1948. There never had to be a Nakba.

It was NEVER "a land without people".

Two peoples, two states. It's the only way, and the Israeli government and the IDF HAVE to stop trying to prevent it.

[ 15 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:

And, historically, the Arabs of Palestine had nothing whatsoever to do with the Holocaust or other manifestations of historic antisemitism,..

[ 15 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Well, there was the wartime Grand Mufti of Jerusalem...

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Joel_Goldenberg ]

The Mufti didn't CAUSE the Holocaust and, as a powerless subject of British colonialism did not have any real influence over who did and did not get to live in Palestine.

The Mufti was trivial compared to, say the decision of the US and CANADIAN governments to refuse to allow Jewish refugees and others fleeing Hitler to have sanctuary in their countries.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
The Mufti was just one man shooting his mouth off, Joel.

The Mufti didn't CAUSE the Holocaust and, as a powerless subject of British colonialism did not have any real influence over who did and did not get to live in Palestine.

The Mufti was trivial compared to, say the decision of the US and CANADIAN governments to refuse to allow Jewish refugees and others fleeing Hitler to have sanctuary in their countries.

Palestinians did not deserve to suffer for the sins of white Europeans.

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a) One leader shooting his mouth off...
b) Who said he caused the Holocaust? Your quote referred to "having nothing to do with the Holocaust." He was quite willing to contribute to it...

From the Wikipedia entry:

In Germany, he was irrelevant, a buffoon to be humored because he temporarily served Hitler's purposes, but otherwise a man of no importance.
The Mufti is mainly used today as a justification for falsely equating Palestinians with Nazis.

In the story of the world's mistreatment of the Jews(and remember, it was European conservative Christians and nationalists who cheered Hitler on and did nothing to stop him until it was too late, and it was American, Australian and Canadian "Christians" who barred the doors to Jewish refugees when between them those three countries could have taken in everyone that Hitler wanted to kill and put them all to work helping the world defeat fascism)Palestian Arabs, who were nothing but powerless subjects of the British Empire at this point, were not complicit in what happened in Europe between 1933 and 1945.

Nothing the Mufti said or did had any real effect on what Hitler did. Hitler would have done all that he did if the Mufti had never been born.

My point stands:

The poison spewed by the Mufti, loathsome as it was, did NOT mean that it was right to dispossess 750,000 Palestinians in 1948.

In the mean time, the unjust treatment of Palestinians continues.
There are several things Israel must do now to begin to rectify the situation:

1)Dismantle the wall and the checkpoints. These have served no purpose and have only fueled Palestinians' legitimate anger at the mistreatment and injustice they face.

2)Remove ALL remaining settlements in the West Bank and agree that every ACRE of the West Bank and all of Gaza are to be immediately recognized as A PALESTINIAN STATE. This state should have been accepted at the time of Oslo. It was always unjust that the Israelis refused to treat the Palestinians as a full and equal partner in negotiations but rather held out statehood as a privelege to be earned, rather than a natural right. It was also unjust that even the more "moderate" Israeli governments of the 1990's CONTINUED settlement construction. Hamas is in power in Palestinie because the Israeli government did these things, and because it humiliated Arafat over and over again.

3)Officially apologize for Deir Yassin and all that was done under Plan Daled.

4)Agree that the Palestinian water supply is NEVER TO BE DISRUPTED AGAIN. Immediately replant all the olive trees that were uprooted. There was never a reason to deprive innocent Palestinian farmers of the right to work their land.

Israel would lose nothing in doing any of the above. Israel gains nothing by refusing.

Time is running out. Palestinian intransigence is growing, and with good reason. Israel has given them no reason to try moderation.

It's time to admit that Palestinians have just as much right to the land as Israelis. Compensation must be offered, apologies for brutality must be offered, strutting macho must come to an end.

The alternative is to continue to try to create "facts on the ground" through brute force, to continue to silence all dissent with shouts of "ha breira", and to continue to make everything worse. There is no way people like Theodore Herzl or Martin Buber would want that.

Or the other alternative would be binationalism by default, because if Israeli policy is going to continue to work to try to make a Palestinian state impossible, it will also make it impossible to argue against a binational state in the future.

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 16 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
[qb]In Palestine, he was an important figure.

In Germany, he was irrelevant, a buffoon to be humored because he temporarily served Hitler's purposes, but otherwise a man of no importance.
The Mufti is mainly used today as a justification for falsely equating Palestinians with Nazis.

In the story of the world's mistreatment of the Jews(and remember, it was European conservative Christians and nationalists who cheered Hitler on and did nothing to stop him until it was too late, and it was American, Australian and Canadian "Christians" who barred the doors to Jewish refugees when between them those three countries could have taken in everyone that Hitler wanted to kill and put them all to work helping the world defeat fascism)Palestian Arabs, who were nothing but powerless subjects of the British Empire at this point, were not complicit in what happened in Europe between 1933 and 1945.

Nothing the Mufti said or did had any real effect on what Hitler did. Hitler would have done all that he did if the Mufti had never been born.

My point stands:

The poison spewed by the Mufti, loathsome as it was, did NOT mean that it was right to dispossess 750,000 Palestinians in 1948.

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You miss my point. You made a blanket statement and I was just correcting it.

[ 17 October 2006: Message edited by: Joel_Goldenberg ]

But no, those statements had no real effect on what Hitler did. It's not as though Hitler would have let it go at mild harassment of the Jews if it werent' for that durned ol' Mufti.

That is the real point. The words of the Mufti did not justify al-Nakba.

[ 17 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Argh. It's really not necessary to quote someone's entire post in order to post a one-sentence response to it, especially if the post you're quoting is really long.

Just quote the relevant sentence (or even paragraph) and respond to that. Edit the rest out.

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Not to argue, but in my opinion, the entire post missed the point of my posts because much of it was a rehash of positions stated many times here as opposed to the very specific point I was making. But anyway, I will follow your directive next time.

Update: I have now edited the post.

[ 17 October 2006: Message edited by: Joel_Goldenberg ]

It was wrong to hold every Palestinian to blame for the foolish words of the Mufti, words which never reflected the consensus position of the Palestinian community at the time. Palestinians may well have wished to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, but they weren't morally equivalent to the Nazis for taking this view.

The Israeli government SHOULD issue an apology for Deir Yassin and all the acts undertaken in Plan Daled. The state could have been established WITHOUT making 750,000 Palestinians leave their homes.

They'd be losing nothing in saying, say "We were right to seek a refuge for the Jewish people, a place of safety, but we were wrong to drive out a people who had done nothing to us. We will now seek to atone for this and to create a new political arrangement based on justice and equality for all".

They'd just have to say "Yes, we were right to try to establish a homeland, but wrong to dispossess everybody who was living here at the time. We admit it was never 'a land without people' and want to address the injustices that were done."

Nothing would be lost with this act, and a lot would be gained in terms of trust and in the reduction of hostility necessary to create an eventual just peace.

[ 17 October 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]