Thank you, Russian immigrant to Israel, for Nakba Day (Bradley Burston)

[Violet_Crumble]

Alex Miller will go down in history as the Israeli politician who tried his damnedest to erase the memory of the Nakba - and, in doing so, made the Nakba an indelible part of our lives.

It is customary for our people to honor fast days, memorial days and festivals by studying commentaries on their origins, the symbols and rituals of their observance, and the ways in which they connect to our own lives.

Therefore, this week, to mark Nakba Day, I've been learning about the events of 1948, and the heritage and the sorrows of Palestinians – thanks in no small part to a Russian Jewish immigrant to Israel, Alex Miller.

If for nothing else, Miller will go down in history as the Israeli who tried his damnedest to erase the memory of the Nakba - and in so doing, more than anyone, made the Nakba an indelible part of our lives.

In 2009, Miller introduced a Knesset bill which would have made taking part in a Nakba Day event punishable by arrest and up to three years in prison. The prison sentence was later struck from the bill in order to pave way for its becoming law in 2011.

But Miller's Nakba Law still casts a shadow over events marking the day. Legal experts have noted that if schools or other state-supported institutions merely read the names of Palestinians killed or forced to leave their homes in 1948, they could be fined at the discretion of the Finance Minister.

Is it relevant that Miller, a resident of the settlement city of Ariel and a senior member of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party, was born and raised in Leonid Brezhnev's Moscow?

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/thank-you-russian-immigrant-to-israel-for-nakba-day.premium-1.430577?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.240%2C2.243%2C


btw, I just noticed you have to pay to subscribe to Ha'aretz to read full articles. Is there some way around it other than googling for the article title and hope it's been posted somewhere else?

[oberliner]

1. You don't have to pay to read full articles at Ha'aretz

They are still free except for the premium content.

[Violet_Crumble]

2. Thanks. I must have been trying to read one that was part of their premium content...

I haven't visited Ha'aretz for a while and they've done yet another rejig of their site since I was last there...

[oberliner]

39. No problem

I'm really not particularly happy with the way the new version of their site is structured to be honest.

[azurnoir]

3. Thanks and it's true in attempting to outlaw the Nakba

the concept was brought to attention and is being more closely looked at today, history is rarely as simple as it can appear at first glance, especially that which is lost in the fog

BTW Haaretz required me to create a log in and nothing more since then

[Ken Burch]

4. There's simply no excuse in outlawing Nakba Day

ANY peaceful resolution of the I/P dispute will require that each side has legitimate grievances and legitimate causes for anger and mourning.

It doesn't jeopardize Israeli security in the slightest to admit that the people expelled in 1948 were, in the main, innocent victims and that their suffering was undeserved, as Palestinians need to admit(I think many do)that a lot of Israelis suffered without deserving to. Ending the conflict requires an acceptance that the wounds on both sides have to be given a chance to heal.

[shira]

5. Isn't Nakba Day a day of mourning for the failure of Israel's neighbors...

...to make good on their threats to kill and/or expel all the Jews from that region? To complete the work of the Mufti al-Husayni?

After all, had their been no war of annihilation declared against the Jews, there would be no refugees.

Am I wrong?

[Violet_Crumble]

6. As usual, yr wrong. The Nakba was the dispossession of around 700,000 Palestinians...

Nakba means "Catastrophe" in Arabic. It refers to the destruction of Palestinian society in 1948 when more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced into exile by Israeli troops. Because the Palestinians were not Jewish, their presence and predominant ownership of the land were obstacles to the creation of a Jewish state. Their exodus, or Nakba, was already nearly half-complete by May 1948, when Israel declared its independence and the Arab states entered the fray.

Many Zionist leaders in Palestine openly favored "transfer" of the indigenous Palestinian population. Zionist forces used clashes that erupted as the British Mandate of Palestine came to an end in 1947-48 to rid as much of the land of its Palestinian inhabitants as possible. By the end of 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinians - two-thirds of the Palestinian population - fled in panic or were forcibly expelled. It is estimated that more than 50 percent fled under direct military assault. Others fled in panic as news of massacres - more than 100 civilians in the village of Deir Yassin and 200 in Tantura -- spread.

Zionist forces depopulated more than 450 Palestinian towns and villages, most of which were demolished to prevent the return of the refugees. (Figures of the number of towns and villages destroyed and depopulated vary. The Israeli daily Haaretz reports 530 lost villages.) These comprised three-quarters of the Palestinian villages inside the areas held by Israeli forces after the end of the war. The newly established Israeli government confiscated refugees' land and properties and turned them over to Jewish immigrants. Although Jews owned only about seven percent of the land in Palestine and constituted about 33 percent of the population, Israel was established on 78 percent of Palestine.

http://imeu.net/news/article001237.shtml#1

[shira]

7. So you know that if no war on the Jews was declared in 1948...

...there would still be a Nakba day to commemorate Israel's forceful expulsion of > 700,000 Palestinians? Because that's what the Israelis were going to do anyway. War or no war?

[Ken Burch]

9. The Zionist side had been discussing forcible transfer for years.

Last edited Sat May 19, 2012, 04:03 PM - Edit history (2)

Here are some quote from the Wikipedia page on pre-1948 attitudes on both sides of the issue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_and_Palestinian_Arab_attitudes_before_1948

The cultural Zionist Ahad Ha'am 'saw the historical rights of the Jews as outweighing the Arabs' residential rights in Palestine'[13].
Herzl's companion Max Nordau, a political Zionist, declared that Palestine was the 'legal and historical inheritance' of the Jewish nation, and that the Palestinian Arabs had only 'possession rights'.[14]
David Ben-Gurion, labour Zionism's most important leader, held that the Jewish people had a superior right to Palestine,[15] that Palestine was important to the Jews as a nation and to the Arabs as individuals, and hence the right of the Jewish people to concentrate in Palestine, a right which was not due to the Arabs.[16]
Zeev Jabotinsky, leader of the more radical revisionist Zionists, held that since Palestine was only a very small part of the Land held by the Arab nation, "requisition of an area of land from a nation with large stretches of territory, in order to make a home for a wandering people is an act of justice, and if the land-owning nation does not wish to cede it (and this is completely natural) it must be compelled".[17]

There were some in the Zionist movement who dissented from this mindset, and I'd also like to mention some of them in this passage below from the same Wikipedia page:

The dissident Zionists in Brit Shalom and Ihud thought differently. Hugo Bergmann wrote in 1929: "our opponents [in mainstream Zionism] hold different views. When they speak of Palestine, of our country, they mean 'our country', that is to say 'not their country' [... this belief is based on the concept that in a State] one people, among the people residing there, should be granted the majority right."[18], and Ernst Simon held that the historical right "is binding on us rather than on the Arabs" and therefore an agreement with the Arabs is necesarry.[19]


And once again, shira the State of Israel is not "The Jews". Please stop using rhetoric that implies that anyone who disagrees with you is an antisemitic whackjob.

(on edit) I shouldn't have to say this, but I DO support Israel's right to exist. It's just that I reject the idea that it can only go on existing if it keeps treating Palestinians like this. Can you accept that as a reasonable position?

[shira]

10. Very unlikely for many reasons. One being that Ben Gurion wouldn't do it. n/t

[Ken Burch]

12. Ben-Gurion on transfer:

"Zionism is a TRANSFER of the Jews. Regarding the TRANSFER of the [Palestinian] Arabs this is much easier than any other TRANSFER. There are Arab states in the vicinity . . . . and it is clear that if the [Palestinian] Arabs are removed [to these states] this will improve their condition and not the contrary." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 159)

“I support compulsory transfer. I do not see anything immoral in it."

[shira]

15. Context. Where is it?

Last edited Sun May 20, 2012, 09:42 AM - Edit history (1)

You're great at quoting from anti-zionist sources, but I doubt they quoted Ben Gurion within context. Anti-zionists have an agenda to portray everything about Israel as racist, colonialist, etc. They are absolutely shameless WRT lying, omitting info., telling half-truths, etc.

Let's see it all.

[Ken Burch]

22. It was from testimony to the Peel Commission.

Is there actually an acceptable context for a statement like that?

BTW. I'm not portraying everything about Israel as racist or colonialist. Just pointing out that its creation wasn't innocent and harmless, and that the resolution of the conflict requires admissions from both sides that damage was done to the other side, and, in both cases, sometimes without justification.

You can't really object to that, can you?

I hold the U.S. to the same standard.

[shira]

23. Still no context, and yes it matters. Here's Benny Morris...

Neither Ben-Gurion nor the Zionist movement ‘planned’ the displacement of the 700,000-odd Arabs who moved or were removed from their homes in 1948. There was no such plan or blanket policy. Transfer was never adopted by the Zionist movement as part of its platform; on the contrary, the movement always accepted that the Jewish state that arose would contain a sizeable Arab minority.

But in 1947-48 the Palestinian Arabs, joined by invading Arab states’ armies from outside, launched a war whose aim – which they (and even Pappe, Israel’s Lord Haw-Haw) have never denied – was to destroy the nascent state of Israel (and quite probably its inhabitants as well). But – what can you do? – the Arabs were beaten. And in the course of beating them, the Israelis drove out the Palestinians, who were not ‘totally innocent ... peasants’ (a ludicrous phrase). Their villages and towns served as the bases from which their militiamen and armies attacked Jewish communities and convoys.

The ‘innocent’ Palestinians were the aggressors – and dispossession was the price they paid for their aggression. In the circumstances, had the Jews not driven them out, Israel would not have arisen and its (Jewish) population would have been slaughtered – or, at the least, the Jewish state would have been established with a considerable Fifth Column in its midst and rendered mortally unstable. (Conversely, had the Arabs accepted the 1947 UN Partition Resolution, refrained from violence, and gone on with their lives as loyal Israeli citizens, nothing would have happened to them.)

Nonetheless, Israel emerged from the 1948 War with a 160,000-strong Arab minority (alongside 700,000 Jews) – a fact that tends to undermine the charge that there was a blanket policy of ethnic cleansing.

[azurnoir]

24. why no citation? n/t

[Ken Burch]

28. Sorry...here's three sources for the second quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_1948_Palestinian_exodus

http://www.1948.org.uk/population-transfer-committee/

http://linkage.rockefeller.edu/wli/reading/wolf.html

There are others.

Ben-Gurion said this before the Peel Commission in 1938.


________________________________________________________________________________________________

My objective in posting this quote is NOT to say that the existence of the State of Israel is evil. Rather, it is to say that the creation of that state was not a purely innocent act and that, if peace is to be made, recognition must be made that people on both sides of this did suffer, and many of them suffered needlessly.

That's not demonization...it's just a desire for peace.

My posting this is no different than an Israeli pointing out that a large number of Native Americans were driven off their lands, most of whom had done nothing to deserve it. I can acknowledge that, and call for redress and an acknowledgment of the wrongs to be made, when it comes to my country, and I accept the right of the Israeli who may have pointed this out(not that nobody here had noticed it, of course)as being fully legitimate.

[oberliner]

37. I don't think you understand what a source is

Three websites referencing the same source does not equal three sources.

[oberliner]

40. Do you even know what the Peel Commission is?

You wrote:

Ben-Gurion said this before the Peel Commission in 1938.

The Peel Commission published its report in 1937.

Ben-Gurion never spoke before the commission (and no one did in 1938 as they had already issued their report by then).

The quote you cited is from a Jewish Agency Executive meeting.

In that meeting, Ben-Gurion said, "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."

And that was in respect to a discussion of the findings of the Peel Commission which included just such a suggestion.

[Ken Burch]

46. I stand corrected on the date.

In my research I'd seen it given as 1937 AND 1938.

[oberliner]

16. How confident are you of the validity of that quote?

I mean that in all seriousness.

[azurnoir]

25. I believe it came from here

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quotes/Story694.html

however are you about to tell us Ben-Gurion said no such thing and in fact said something else entirely ?

eta here is more

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quotes/Story694.html#David%20Ben-Gurion

[oberliner]

26. I do believe he said no such thing and in fact said something else entirely

He repeatedly has expressed exactly the opposite sentiments of the quote on numerous occasions.

For example:

Under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by them. Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement, should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price.

and

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.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion

Wikipedia has been fairly good at debunking the fake Ben-Gurion quotes floating out there - they are legion.

[azurnoir]

27. I'll have to rememberthis the n ext time you attempt to delegitimize wiki however

here is more from your source

Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question. No solution! There is a gulf, and nothing can bridge it… We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs.
Written statement ( June 1919), as quoted in Time magazine (24 July 2006)

Under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by them. Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement, should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price.
Written statement (1920), as quoted in Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs : From Peace to War (1985) by Shabtai Teveth, p. 32.

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.
Letter to his son Amos (5 October 1937), as quoted in Shabtai Teveth, Ben Gurion: The Burning Ground; and Fabricating Israeli History: The 'New Historians (2000) by Efraim Karsh; this has been extensively misquoted as "[We] must expel Arabs and take their places" after appearing in this form in The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (1987) by Benny Morris, p. 25.

The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan: one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today, but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them.
Speech in 1937, accepting a British proposal for partition of Palestine which created a potential Jewish majority state, as quoted in New Outlook (April 1977)

In our political argument abroad, we minimize Arab opposition to us. But let us not ignore the truth among ourselves. I insist on the truth, not out of respect for scientific but political realities. The acknowledgement of this truth leads to inevitable and serious conclusions regarding our work in Palestine . . let us not build on the hope the terrorist gangs will get tired. If some get tired, others will replace them.

and so called 'debunking' is indeed in the eye of the beholder

[azurnoir]

35. and the first quote by Ben-Gurion was rather a non-sequator

Under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by them. Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement, should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price.

the fellahin class did not own land that's why they were fellahin

The rural people of the Middle East

Fellahin was the term used throughout the Middle East in the Ottoman period and later to refer to villagers and farmers.[1] Nur Masalha translates it as "peasants".[2] They were distinguished from the effendi, or, landowning class,[3] although the fellahin in this region might be tenant farmers, smallholders, or live in a village that owned the land communally.[4][5] Others applied the term fellahin only to landless workers.[6] The term fallahin applied to Christian, Druze and Muslim villagers.[7] The term fallah was applied to people from several regions in the Middle East, including those of Egypt and Cyprus.

This page was last modified on 3 April 2012 at 02:33.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fellah

[Ken Burch]

29. See post #28

There are multiple sources for the quote.

I can accept that Ben-Gurion said other things at other times about this issue...but so what? He was hardly the first politician to say one thing at one time and another thing at another time.

[oberliner]

36. There are not multiple sources for the quote

There is one highly disputed source for the quote.

Everyone else has just repeated the information from the same dubious source.

[azurnoir]

38. ah you mean the wiki quotes from 1919 and 1920 ?

and have been shown by definition to have little meaning?

[Violet_Crumble]

17. Is there something you didn't understand about the information I gave you?

I'm not sure you understand even now what the Nakba is...

Also, I'm so glad I read posts like the one I'm replying to and get so much in the way of education about what the war of 1948 was. I'd been under the false impression (damn those academic types who write books and poison our brains away from the Real Truth of PMW and PajamasMedia!) that it was the predictable result of the British bailing out and Israel declaring statehood in part of the British Mandate, and that Palestinians were understandably not going to sit back and take their land being taken from them. But now I've been told the reality. If it'd been anyone but the Jews, they'd have been out their welcoming them and helping them destroy their villages and society. No, because they hate Jews, it was a *War On The Jews*. Simple as that. No need to think any further. Thanks for sorting everyone out on that!

[shira]

19. You say you know what 1948 was about. Hmm....

"Palestinians were understandably not going to sit back and take their land being taken from them."

Their land?

What was being taken away from them?

As if Jews had no claim and were stealing land?

Amazing.

[Violet_Crumble]

20. Yeah, their land....

Or are they the only people in the world where the land they lived on for generations shouldn't have been seen by them as their land?

Anyway, yr version where the war was all about hating on Jews is far more simplistic and the entire war can be communicated in one short and outraged sentence. I can see why there'd be a preference to run with it

[shira]

21. No land was being taken prior to the wars of 1948....

You wrote:

"Palestinians were understandably not going to sit back and take their land being taken from them."

So what exactly made them so "understandably" mad that a war had to be declared?

Jews also had as valid a claim to land in that region, did they not? So it wasn't only Palestinian land.

[Ken Burch]

30. But they did not have the right

to take the attitude that it was there land MORE than it was the Palestinians' land...or to simply move into homes that Palestinians had been driven out of, without any compensation being paid to those who'd been made to leave.
They did not have the right, in short, to act as if the fourteen centuries that Palestinians had lived continuously in these lands in significant numbers, farming the land, creating their own culture, making their own lives and traditions, meant nothing.
And it's that attitude, I think, more than any prejudice that you would prefer to think was involved, that is resented by the Palestinians.

If the situation were reversed, the Israelis who were displaced by Palestinians in a reversed scenario would probably be acting very much the same...after all, in the years when control of these lands was in play(1918 to 1948)there was terrorism on BOTH sides, and quite a lot of it.

[shira]

31. Do you hear yourself? They did not have the right....

..."to take the attitude that it was there land MORE than it was the Palestinians' land".

They didn't.

They accepted every 2 state deal. The Palestinians did not.

They did not have the right, in short, to act as if the fourteen centuries that Palestinians had lived continuously in these lands in significant numbers, farming the land, creating their own culture, making their own lives and traditions, meant nothing.
And it's that attitude, I think, more than any prejudice that you would prefer to think was involved, that is resented by the Palestinians.

Do the Palestinians have the right to act as if Jews haven't lived throughout Israel (including Judea/Samaria) for the past 3000+ years, living continuously in those lands in significant numbers, farming the land, creating their own culture, making their own lives and traditions?

Realize it's the PA that is now doing its very best to deny Jews have any claim to Jerusalem. From Arafat to Abbas, both deny Jewish history there.

Also, Jews were displaced in a reverse scenario. Half the population descends from Jews who had to leave Arab lands surrounding Israel. Most lost everything they had in doing so.

I've maintained all along both people have valid claims to the land. You guys don't, as you want it to appear that land was stolen and people were expelled due to nasty Zionist plans and that's why, as someone posted above, the Palestinians "understandably" went to war against the Jews.

Before there was a state.

Before anyone was expelled.



The Jews offered Palestinians the chance to remain and be part of a democracy, where they could be represented. The Mufti and his gang wanted it all.

[Ken Burch]

32. The Palestinians weren't against Jews living in Palestine

If they had been, they wouldn't have been just fine with living alongside the indigenous Jewish population of the area, as they did until 1948(after that, the whole thing kind of turned into tit for tat, and I DO feel it was wrong for the indigenous Jewish population of the West Bank to be kicked out...as it was for the Jewish communities of North Africa, the Persian Gulf and Iran to be made to feel, by whomever actually made them feel this way, that they weren't welcome where THEY had always lived).

The issue was the mass influx from outside...and it would have been an issue if a mass influx of anybody else who wasn't Arab had appeared at the same time. It's not as if they'd have been ok with a million Baptists from Texas moving in, or every Presbyterian in Scotland.

And I'm not part of any group of "you guys", or an apologist for the Mufti. But what the Mufti did no longer matters. He's been dead since 1973 and was in exile for 25 years before THAT. It's not fair to blame every Palestinian that will ever be born for what the Mufti did.

[shira]

42. It wasn't up to them. The Turks allowed Jews to live throughout the mideast....

...until they lost WW1, not the Palestinians.

And I'm not part of any group of "you guys", or an apologist for the Mufti. But what the Mufti did no longer matters. He's been dead since 1973 and was in exile for 25 years before THAT. It's not fair to blame every Palestinian that will ever be born for what the Mufti did.

What the Mufti did matters. Those who succeeded him, like Hamas, Arafat/Abbas are of the same opinion as him. They hate Israel and will never live in peace alongside a Jewish state.

[Ken Burch]

33. The issue with Jerusalem is EAST Jerusalem, not ALL of Jerusalem

They aren't trying to make the whole city judenrein.

[shira]

43. Both Hamas and the PA are calling for all Jerusalem....

Not in english, of course.

[Ken Burch]

8. No, it isn't, and yes, you're wrong.

It's simply a day that recognizes that a lot of people were dispossessed, most of whom had done nothing to deserve it.

Acknowledging the pain those people feel and admitting that it's valid doesn't have to mean wishing for Israel's annihilation.

If the day was about what YOU say it's about, nobody on the Israeli Left would opposed its banning.

[shira]

11. It's only about being dispossessed?

Granted, it could be that the loss of land is another reason for it. But another valid reason is that most believe the establishment of Israel, no matter how big, was the real disaster.

[Ken Burch]

13. If they had been allowed to return, without retribution, after the war was over

it is difficult to believe that the Palestinians would still have wanted to resist the existence of Israel in any form whatsoever, or to automatically be fixated on driving out anybody who simply happened to be Jewish.

After all, they had co-existed well enough with the indigenous Jewish population of Judea and Samaria, at least, prior to 1948.

I will always wonder why it wasn't enough for the Israeli government, post-1967, to ask that THOSE people be resettled. Why, instead of that, did Ariel Sharon decide to bring in huge numbers of people that had no direct connection with the lands of the West Bank, many of whom(not all, but many)were there out of messianic religious and revanchist political intent. It would have been just to call for those who'd lived their prior to 1948 to be allowed back..but why anybody else? And why, if anybody else had to be brought in, did people who were the craziest of the crazy have to be included?

I mean, seriously shira, can you not see how it MIGHT possibly cause trouble amongst the Palestinians for these outsiders, many of whom were brought in from America, of all places, with the attitude that "it's OUR land, not YOURS" to not only be brought in from elsewhere but defended by the might of the IDF?

[shira]

14. Oh stop it...

You wrote:

If they had been allowed to return, without retribution, after the war was over

it is difficult to believe that the Palestinians would still have wanted to resist the existence of Israel in any form whatsoever, or to automatically be fixated on driving out anybody who simply happened to be Jewish.

After all, they had co-existed well enough with the indigenous Jewish population of Judea and Samaria, at least, prior to 1948.

You're not aware there were 2 wars in 1948, are you? One was a civil war and the other was later in the year when Israel's neighbors attacked.

If you knew anything about that civil war you would not claim "it is difficult to believe that the Palestinians would still have wanted to resist the existence of Israel in any form whatsoever".

You want to take that one back?

[Ken Burch]

34. Of course I knew there were two wars

But the Palestinians weren't to blame for the outside attack against Israel by the OTHER Arab countries. Those other countries did that on their own.

[shira]

41. Yes, and the first was a civil war. And you cannot understand why Israel was reluctant...

...to bring back all refugees later on?

Seriously?

[Ken Burch]

44. They could at least have let the oldest come back.

And even today, I strongly suspect that allowing the elders of the Palestinian diaspora to return, by itself, would do a lot to cool Palestinian anger, especially if allowing that were to be combined with an admission that not everybody who was driven out in 1948 was a soulless, hate-driven monster who deserved everything she or he got.

Can you not understand why being seeing so many of their countrywomen and countrymen forbidden ever to return to the land their ancestors had lived in for generations might make it harder for Palestinians to reconcile themselves to the existence of the new situation?

Yes, Israeli Jews have suffered at the hands of Palestinians and other Arabs. But the reverse has also happened, and happened many times. You need to understand that BOTH communities have wounds...that there's parity of pain...that it isn't just the case of one side's bigotry(both sides in this have shown plenty of that, if you look at it honestly).

Constantly insisting on morally privileging the side you back in this is going to make it impossible for you to ever be part of ending the conflict.

[shira]

45. Ken, a few posts back you said that Israel should have let all refugees back in....

...shortly after 1948 and everything would have been just fine. That was a ridiculous statement, wasn't it?

Now what are you calling for?

[LeftishBrit]

18. Very interesting article