<p>“Just for historical accuracy, I want to note that Israel wasn’t given to the Jews a few years ago. Judea has been the Israeli homeland forever.”</p>
<p>Yup. From Egypt to the Euphrates, says the good book. The Zionist dream predated Hitler by a good 60 years. But it has been the homeland of the “Edomites” for even longer.</p>
<p>paying3</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>OMG I can’t even begin to imagine the fear, or how your folks probably continue to look over their shoulders for a very long time.</p>
<p>Thank you for sharing that.</p>
<p>BTW I did mean the 3 yrs. As a Catholic married to someone who by birthright is Jewish, I do understand what you meant about the thousands of years. I was talking about the pain and suffering endured in the 20th Century.</p>
<p>Wow! Who needs the History Channel! A great thread, and covering issues that are near to my heart. Hanna, you definitely understand and Dros, I really feel you. To the others, I really appreciate your insight and perspectives. P3t a really appropriate thought. Reading these perspectives give me the social tools to better understand and relate to my fellow man.</p>
<p>I also appreciate the high level of discourse on this thread, and the level of self-disclosure that posters have been willing to make. Dros, I particularly enjoy reading your posts and appreciate your integrity. Its interesting, but as a Jew whose parents were both survivors of the Holocaust, I find myself less offended by Hagees remarks that God allowed the Holocaust to occur so that the Jewish people would return to the land of Israel than I do by his remarks that Hurricane Katrina was Gods judgment on New Orleans for scheduling a gay pride parade that day. While I certainly dont agree with his theology, he does not seem to be voicing anti-Semitic sentiments as much as he is merely preaching the gospel of his apocalyptic brand of Christianity. And as would any subscriber of a deterministic theology, he believes that everything that happens, even the rise of Hitler the hunter and the Holocaust, is Gods will, especially if it conforms with his prophecy.</p>
<p>And while the Zionist dream did predate Hitler by 60 years, it postdated and was driven by the pogroms in Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century that were less systematic than the final solution, but certainly brutal. And the land on which the early Zionists settled was not given to them by anyone, nor was it conquered by them in the name of biblical entitlement. No, every inch of land that the Zionists settled prior to 1948 was purchased by them legitimately from Arab landowners. While this might not have been met happily by the Arab tenant farmers (now known as Palestinians) who had an attachment to the land, in some cases for generations, their grievance should have been with their brethren landlords who sold the land out from under them. There was virtually no sense of Arab/Palestinian nationalism in the land that is now Israel during the Ottoman rule prior to World War I. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, during the British Mandate, and largely in response to the growing settlement of Jews, a Palestinian nationalist identity began to emerge, as did violent revolt against the infidel settlers in 1920-21, 1929, and 1936-39. The Jews accepted the Peel Commission recommendations to partition the land, even though they were offered only 20% of it, but the Palestinian Arabs rejected the notion of sharing. During WWII, al-Husseini, the spiritual leader of the Muslim community in Palestine, cozied with Hitler and the Nazi regime. In 1947, the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan and immediately attacked the Zionists in order to ethnically cleanse the land of Jews rather than divide and share it with them, and when that failed, in May 1948, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq invaded the newly declared state of Israel, again in an effort to throw the Jews into the sea.</p>
<p>FarmDad, is it your understanding that between 1945 and 1955, approximately 100 million refugees left the Israel region, and about 5 million Palestinians remain?</p>
<p>Sunny,
The number of Palestinian Arabs who fled or were expelled from the land that became Israel during the first Arab-Israeli War from November, 1947 to March, 1949, and who became refugees, was closer to 700,000. The first wave of about 75,000 were upper and middle class Arabs, mostly from the mixed Jewish-Arab cities, who had the means to flee voluntarily to Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, or the West Bank during the early stages of the fighting between the local Palestinians and the Jews (instigated by the Palestinians who rejected the UN partition plan). They thought they would just have to cool out for a while temporarily until the Jews were driven into the sea. There was a second stage of mass flight of 200,000 to 300,000 Palestinian Arabs from cities and villages in the spring of 1948. In some cases, Arab commanders ordered the villagers to evacuate for military reasons or to prevent surrender, but for the most part, the Palestinians fled as a result of Jewish military offensives or their fear of such offensives. Sorry to say, but atrocities were committed by Jewish units during the military assault on the village Deir Yassin in April 1948 and this is believed to have fueled Palestinian fears and flight. (Deir Yassin was immediately condemned by The Jewish Agency; the Arab fighters committed atrocities of their own, probably not condemned by their leadership.) After the Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq invaded the newly declared state of Israel in May, 1948, it was all out war for survival on Israels part and another 300,000 to 400,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees, either because they were expelled during military operations or because they saw the writing on the wall and did not want to live under Jewish rule. </p>
<p>By the end of the war, about 350,000 refugees were in Jordan (primarily in the West Bank), 200,000 were in Gaza (Egypt), 100,000 were in Lebanon, and about 60,000 were in Syria. Only Jordan granted their refugees citizenship and treated them well. Estimates of the current Palestinian population in the territories vary, but have been estimated to be from 1.35 to 2 million in the West Bank and 1.1 million in Gaza. Of course, if the Palestinians and Arab nations would have accepted the UN partition plan in the first place and had not initiated war, there would have been no refugee problem. By the way, after Israel declared its independence, approximately 700,000 Jewish refugees were expelled or fled under duress from neighboring Arab countries where they had had their homes for generations, and they were immediately absorbed by Israel.</p>
<p>The only problem with the original “partititon plan” is that Palestinians are not Jordanians, they are not Lebanese, they aren’t Egyptian, they aren’t Syrian. The U.N. plan included no recognition of the “Edomites”, whose history in what became Israel predated (according to the Old Testament) Jewish occupation of the land.</p>
<p>“In the Shadow of the Holocaust” is a very good read:</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Struggle Between Jews and Zionists in the Aftermath of World War II: Yosef Grodzinsky: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Holocaust-Struggle-Zionists-Aftermath/dp/156751278X/ref=ed_oe_p]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Holocaust-Struggle-Zionists-Aftermath/dp/156751278X/ref=ed_oe_p)</p>
<p>Welcome, FarmDad and thanks for quantifying things. That makes a positive difference. Also, your CONCISE recap of a big swath of Mideast history really adds to the conversation, IMHO. You don’t resort to political invective anywhere in your posting. Thank you. I will try to emulate that. </p>
<p>Mini:
</p>
<p>I could counter-argue this way: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>What about the “Muslim Brotherhood” that might transcend national borders during a humanitarian crisis such as 1948?</p></li>
<li><p>Consider that wave of 700,000 Jews who were pushed out or left under duress immediately after 1948 and fled to Israel, from such places as Yemen, Morocco, Iran, Iraq. Those folks weren’t the same as Jews who predated them from European/Russian background, either, in terms of language, culture, customs. And yet, the European (Ashkenazi) newly “Israeli” Jews embraced their fellow Jews at that moment. Worldwide, private contributions, large and small, came from the American Jewish community (remember the metal can “pushkes” to give coins on the grandma’s stove?) through Jewish National Fund. That’s how a poor pioneering state such as Israel was able to settle fellow immigrants, from housing to new language education (who knew Hebrew? That had to be taught to several generations at once at Ulpan schools.) It was a matter of political will but it happened.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>By comparison, any of the other well-established Arab governments, ruled by sheiks, “could have” absorbed the waves of Palestinean refugees at the same moment. </p>
<p>Especially so if it was in the hundreds of thousands, as per FarmDad’s posting. The “5 million” number of Palestinean refugees now in the public consciousness doesn’t express the number of actual original refugees but 3 generations of descendents born SINCE the migration who now claim the “right to return” to live in Israel. This might account for the large numerical gap in public talk today about the numbers of displaced Palestineans. Are we talking displaced in l948 or displaced in 2008? I mean, four of my grandparents left homes in Russia between l900-1906, but if all their descendants went back to those homes today and said they wanted them back, we’d be talking 200 descendants, and from just 4 people. Who has the right of return 3 generations later – the numbers of out-migrants or the numbers of returning descendants? Understand that’s a key issue in Israel today when you discuss Right of Return, a big sticking point in current negotiations for peace.</p>
<p>Back to l948: Instead of absorbing Palestinean refugees then, the surrounding Arab nations instead chose to keep them as second-class citizens (except in Jordan, as FarmDad just taught me). If monetary resources are needed to resettle people, there was money and still is all the moreso today (oil). Instead, due to sheer hatred of the presence of Jews gaining a new foothold in the Middle East, coupled with sheer disrespect of Palestineans by wealthier Arab nations, no money flowed to help resettle Palestineans. Rather, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia funneled money and political rhetorical support to terrorists, from Arafat’s PLO to Hezballah to Hamas. Arms were smuggled to Arafat’s Intifada to maintain the Palestinean refugees in a state of politically-animated misery. And it’s been such for the past 50 years. Israel keeps pulling OUT of occupied territory overrun during reactive warfare (who does that?) but the basic impulse to solve the problem is of no interest to surrounding Arab nations, evidently. Meanwhile, mal-educated Americans (including many in college courses today) learn to hold only Israel accountable for the current misery of the Palestinean refugees in Gaza and the West Bank.</p>
<p>I really meant to thank FarmDad for joining the conversation. I always choose carefully what to debate with Mini since I respect him on a host of issues. We disagree on the left-ness of our positioning on the Israel debate, that’s all.</p>
<p>“By comparison, any of the other well-established Arab governments, ruled by sheiks, “could have” absorbed the waves of Palestinean refugees at the same moment.”</p>
<p>But why should they have? They were Palestinians, not Jordanians, Saudis, etc., with historic ties to the land (and, by the logic of Old Testament references, predating Jewish ties.) By the same reasoning the U.S. could have absorbed ALL the Jewish refugees (and, as the book I linked to argues, that was something the Zionists greatly feared). The Jews coming from Europe had no such “historic” (as opposed to mythological) claims.</p>
<p>Mini, please demonstrate, with scholarly references, your assumption that the Palestinians as a group are directly descended from the Edomites or any other people named in the Old Testament? Are you an expert on the migration of peoples in the Middle East in the last 3000 years? How many Palestinians were descended from the Arab conquerors of the second half of the first millenium of the common era? How many from other groups? </p>
<p>Please also keep in minds that the yearning for a return to Jerusalem and the Holy Land is not something that began with political Zionism in the 19th century. Do you think the Zionist movement picked that particular part of the Ottoman Empire as its desired homeland at random? The hope of an eventual return has been a constant since Roman times, and certainly was present throughout the medieval era. </p>
<p>Are you aware that there was a continual Jewish presence in Jerusalem and other locations in “Palestine,” throughout? Do you know about Safed? Are you aware of exactly who it is that the Crusaders slaughtered indiscriminately, together with the Muslims, when they conquered Jerusalem?</p>
<p>In any event, something I’ve never understood about the whole “right of return” argument, from the Palestinian viewpoint, is the question of how many generations it’s supposed to last. Because if it’s supposed to last forever, then that position requires an acknowledgement that the Jews have an equal right to be there, based on their own “right of return.” You can’t have it both ways. </p>
<p>By the way, I happen to be very much in favor of a Palestinian state, and the elimination of most of the settlements. If I were in Israel, I would be part of the peace movement. </p>
<p>But arguing for an unlimited right of return by all people who left or were driven out (doesn’t matter) in or about 1948 is a waste of time. It just isn’t going to happen. Just as Jerusalem isn’t going to be turned over.</p>
<p>Donna</p>
<p>Mini, interesting. </p>
<p>I guess what the US did in 1945, instead of absorbing all Holocaust refugees, was play a leadership role in the United Nations to ensure the positive vote to establish the State of Israel in May, 1948. That way, Jewish refugees could head for Israel, in l948 and ever since, on an “as needed” basis. (Also many came here, but more to Israel). Some of the refugees hung out on the island of Cyprus close to Israel,while everything was up-in-the-air for 3 years, then moved to Israel as soon as it was a sovereign nation. </p>
<p>Instead of providing a fish dinner, the US gave people the fishing license instead.</p>
<p>p3t Thank you very much for the kind welcome. Ive been known to engage in invective at times, but try to refrain on this subject. Well see how well I succeed in this post!</p>
<p>Donna Bravo!</p>
<p>mini Perhaps you can explain your argument further on the Edomites. You seem to be saying that since the Edomites have an alleged biblical claim to the land that predates the Jews, they are entitled to have it all now. That is a dangerous argument as it is the same reasoning used by the messianic Jewish settlers who assert that they are entitled to the West Bank now because of biblical claims to Judea and Samaria. Since Edomites are the descendents of Essau, who was the grandson of Abraham, it would seem that a Jewish presence predated the Edomites. And Im not sure that the Israelite descendents of Jacob would agree with your interpretation of ancient land rights. Perhaps the matter of Essau selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of red porridge can be adjudicated in the World Court and the winner can take all.</p>
<p>Why should the Arab nations have treated the Palestinian refugees humanely? Because it would have been the moral thing to do.</p>
<p>You seem to be preoccupied with an odd notion of ethnic purity. Only descendents of Edomites can have sovereign rights on the land. Arab nations should not humanely absorb fellow Arab refugees because they are Palestinian and not nationals.</p>
<p>While I do believe that the U.S. should have absorbed as many Jewish refugees of the Holocaust as was possible, it is hardly analogous to the treatment by Arab nations of their Arab brethren who were already there in their countries. At least the U.S. did not maintain Jewish refugees in refugee camps for the past 60 years.</p>
<p>Regarding the Grodzinsky book, I notice that he is not an historian. The book and publisher appear to be agenda-driven rather than attempting to provide scholarly balance. Of course the Zionists strongly wanted the post-war European Jewish refugees to go to Palestine/Israel and there is documentation by actual historians of forced conscription, or at least efforts at forced conscription. But the vast majority of European refugees who emigrated to Israel did so voluntarily, often at great risk through illegal channels. You might be aware that the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society (HIAS) succeeded in resettling some 150,000 Jewish DPs in the U.S., as well as Canada, Australia, and South America. My own father was a 17-year-old orphan when he was liberated by American troops after escaping from a Death March that followed his internment at Buchenwald, Plaschow, and Gross-Rozen. He spent three years in DP camps before emigrating to the U.S., perfect fodder for the evil Zionists, yet somehow he managed to escape their forced conscription. It was not an issue for him.</p>
<p>My mother was also a Jewish refugee from the Nazis. She grew up in Berlin and lost 11 members of her immediate family in the Holocaust. She ended up in the U.S., after a period of time in England, because that’s where her parents had escaped to. She had many friends, many relatives, who chose to go to Israel. And many who did not. I have relatives all over, from Brazil to France to Israel. None of them was conscripted or coerced to go anywhere.</p>
<p>p3t and Donna,</p>
<p>Good points about the “right of return” in posts 88 and 90. The “right of return” is actually a code phrase for the elimination of Israel. I believe that the main reason that the Oslo process fell apart and that Arafat would not accept the Clinton plan in 2000 is that after telling his people in Arabic throughout the process that Israel did not exist on the map and that the 5 million Palestinians in their diaspora could “return” to the land that is Israel, he couldn’t suddenly tell them, “just kidding.” I believe that this is a more fundamental issue than the issue of borders, and even the issue of Jerusalem, as compromises can be made on those issues. Since most of the Palestinian diaspora never lived in Israel, the right of return is a dignity/entitlement issue for them while it is an existential issue for Israel, and therefore it is the Palestinians who will have to compromise on this one if there will ever be a two-state solution (If Israel compromises, then it is a defacto one-state solution, which was really the Arafat agenda, and is currently the Hamas and far left agenda). The “right of return” actually doesn’t exist as UN resolution 242’s only words on the subject is a call for “achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.” While I had felt hopeful about the Oslo process, I, as well as abler minds, neglected the elephant in the room. You can’t condition a population for rejection and then suddenly agree to a deal. A Palestinian state will not become a reality until the Palestinian leadership, in Arabic as well as English, start preparing their people for co-existence with Israel and the fact that they will not be “returning.” The beginnining of this preparation and measurable evidence of it needs to be a focal point of any US mediated peace process down the road, and I don’t think Condi is doing it.</p>
<p>Farmdad would answer for himself. Meanwhile, I’d reply thusly:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Educated people just do that; it’s called: reflecting, learning from hiistory, in search of insight to move forward, and not to repeat same mistakes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The Zionist dream is a success. Evidence: your cellphone, your answering machine, your next medical procedure…Israeli inventions are a list longer than your arm. </p>
<p>It’s no longer a third world, developing country full of kibbutzim and orange groves, but a productive capitalist democracy tha exports technology and inventions worldwide. </p>
<p>Imagine what could have been done in the past (just) 60 years without the distractions of war? </p>
<p>So, yes, it’s a success. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What? Are you referring to the brain drain of highly trained people who find much higher salaries in the US than in Israel? Or do you mean the soldiers who finish serving and decide to travel the world for a year or so, then decide their future?
Or Russian-born immigrants who tried out Israel for a decade and then decide to try the U.S. because of higher salaries? </p>
<p>Sure, there’s outmigration but that’s because it’s a free society there. Citizens are free to move away, so some do. It’s a democracy that now exports technology and trained people to the world. I still call that a success, not a failure. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>point taken, although future plans are to for the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to stop protecting outlier settlement outposts in the West Bank. This would encourage everyone to gather into a half-dozen protectable larger settlements instead, all close to the border of mainland Israel, for example: Terkoa. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The frustration is that Israel’s multiple peace proposals are met with disdain. Offer something, and more is demanded. Do you think you invented the idea of a peace settlement?</p>
<p>For example, looking back (tho you don’t think that’s productive): Why then did Arafat walk away from the peace settlement offered up by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak? Barka offered 97% of what Arafat asked for, and Arafat stupidly walked away from the peace talks. Best peace offer imaginable at the time, but no thanks, said the leader of the Palestineans at that time, Arafat. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Then what’s the problem? Name it.</p>
<p>
Ask Hamas, Hezballah, the despot in charge of Iran, et al.</p>
<p>gpm,</p>
<p>Wouldnt it be wonderful if the past wasnt an issue? Then we could all just tell the parties involved to accept the board as it is currently set, without having to address Palestinian grievances or Israeli concerns, and tell them all to just get along. The problem is that the past is relevant to the parties involved, and understandably so. It is difficult to know how to work toward a peace settlement without addressing the needs, grievances, and concerns of the parties, which is related to an understanding of the past.</p>
<p>I think that the greatest challenge to the Zionist dream right now is that Israel is facing an increasingly radicalized neighborhood as a result of the Islamic fundamentalist movement. Israel has had no difficulty giving up territory or dismantling settlements when negotiating with Arab partners who are willing to accept its fundamental right to exist. If it were only a dispute about territory or national identity, then it would be much easier. But for Hamas, Hezbollah, and their sponsors in Iran and elsewhere, it is the very existence of Jewish sovereignty on the land beside them that is an anathema to them for deeply held religious reasons. So in that sense, the right of return may be a side issue because discussion of the "right of return presupposes a negotiated settlement which the Hamas-types are at their core against. But if you are dealing with the moderates like Abbas who appear to want to achieve an actual two-state solution, then you are going to have to deal with the right of return issue front and center, because the militants are feeding on the old Arafat message which the population still consumes, that they should have it all.</p>
<p>I have the impression from your post that you think that the real issue preventing the settlement of the Palestinian issue is that of the Jewish settlements that continue to antagonize the Arab/Palestinian population. I am not denying that the settlements constitute a legitimate issue that is necessary to address, but at the risk of rehashing the past, it should be recalled that the conflict originated long before a single settlement existed. The PLO was formed 3 years before the West Bank and Gaza were occupied as a result of war caused by Arab aggression. When most westerners sympathetic to the Palestinians say that the root cause of the conflict is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, they are thinking of the West Bank and Gaza. To Arafat and Hamas, but hopefully at the end of the day not Abbas, the occupation of Palestinian lands refers to the entirety of Israel. And when Israel unilaterally dismantled all settlements and withdrew from Gaza, we saw how that turned out.</p>
<p>gpm,</p>
<p>Sorry about the incorrect assumption. I do agree that circumstances in the region have changed quite a bit in the past 8 years, but apart from the exit of Arafat, not necessarily for the better. The current Israeli leadership is weak; Olmert is about to fall, and it is not clear if there is anything better in the wings. Abbas is also weak and almost seems irrelevant. The ascendance of Hezbollah in Lebanon is foreboding. Im not so sure how much Hamas is calming down. They desperately want a ceasefire because they are afraid of a major Israeli offensive into Gaza in response to the daily shelling, especially if Israel is headed toward new elections. They also want Rafah to be reopened so they can continue to import weapons into Gaza. The Hamas leadership is quite open about viewing a ceasefire as a tactical break, until conditions are more favorable to see Israels destruction. The seem to be getting ready to make a deal for Shalit, however, as they’re feeling upstaged and left out by Hezbollah.</p>
<p>I am genuinely interested in hearing more specifically how you think diplomacy in the region should proceed.</p>
<p>I thought this was College Confidential, not Politics Confidential.</p>
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</p>
<p>Ah, welcome to the Parent’s Cafe, a refreshing sidebar for those parents and others seeking college related issues. Politics certainly factor in academia, wouldn’t you agree?</p>
<p>I understand it this way: for serious discussions from a parent’s point of view concerning college admissions, college life, high school academic preparations, or the psychology of sending kids off to college, there’s Parents Forum. </p>
<p>For anything else on the parents’ minds, there’s Parents Cafe. Often the cafe echoes the same topics students are talking about on campus, from American politics to global weather events/disasters, or anything in the news. Sometimes we also just exchange recipes, talk about cars, or make jokes about marmots, too. The Cafe keeps the Forum more focussed on college help topics.</p>
<p>As well, students post in either place to give facts-from-the-ground or opinions on whatever the parents are discussing. Sometimes students start a thread in either place, seeking parental advice or just to mess with our heads.</p>