What in particular jumps out as wrong in terms of their internal policies? Are you talking about their religious issues because I agree.
I doubt the Palestinians think that Israel is particularly free.
Whether or not they think they’re free or not is irrelevant. Most have no experience of the other Middle Eastern, Arab-dominated countries which empirically suggest that an Arab state in place of Israel would be significantly less free than a Jewish one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World#Middle_East_and_North_Africa. A quick scroll down on that link to the disputed territories bit will reveal that those areas controlled by the Palestinian National Authority are definitely not free.
Just out of curiosity, why do you think that Palestinians are blowing themselves up inside Israel, but not inside Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia?
Don’t know. It seems that Arab countries oppress them. For instance Lebanon bars them from certain jobs and even though Palestinians make up two-thirds of the Jordanian population they are ruled over by a British-installed Hashemite family. I think that the reason they blow themselves up in Israel is that Israel currently have a military presence in the West Bank, however no action was carried out against Jordan or Egypt when those countries occupied the West Bank and Gaza respectively from 1948-1967. The fact that Israel is a Jewish state has a lot to do with it, especially given the corruption and brainwashing-power of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.
Just take a look at the percentage of public expenditure over GDP. That’s all you need to know. Plus its not a particularly decentralized country, and I dislike political centralization.
You don’t need to be a libertarian to be opposed to Zionism. Zionism is an ideology that is similar to fascism. It’s based on racial exclusion, the idea that ethnic Jews all over the world are intitled to all the land in biblical palestine. The gentiles should be kicked out because Israel should be ethnically pure. To unterstand this ideology one needs to read the book of Joshua and how the Hebrews after the exodus settled the land of Palestine. They basically exterminated every one. coexistence was not an option.
Even today in the so-called democratic country of Israel, Israeli Arabs are treated as second rate citizens and many politicians are openly talking about deporting them. As for the other Palestinians they were mopped up and placed in huge open sky prisons in Gaza and the West Bank.
Any one who heard Netenyahu’s speech in the Knesset understands that Israel doesn’t want to trade land it conquered in 67 for peace.
Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing, it’s like equating being a Nazi with being a German. I personally have nothing against the Jews as an ethnic group, some of the people I admire most are Jews (Mises, Rothbard, Hayek, Einstein, Chomsky, Finkelstein etc.). But I despise Zionism just as I despise Nazism, Apartheid, Islamic fundamentalism and any other racist, violent and intolerant ideology
Sigh… It is a shame people associate the bad or the worst elements of a movement with the entire movement itself. The fact that the grassroots campaign ‘Peace Now’, which actively campaigns against the Israeli government, calls itself Zionist is of no concern to many or completely unknown. Organisations like the New Israel Fund, which seeks to improve the condition of Israeli Arabs, also proudly describe themselves as part of the Zionist tradition, as do dovish parties like Meretz/Yachad. ‘Zionism’ merely means Jewish independence (and the Israeli Declaration of Independence speaks of equal rights for all). Beyong that, there are Labour Zionists, Religious Zionists, Dovish Zionists and Hawkish Zionists. Comparing Zionism to Nazism or Islamism is plain nonsense.
Zionists say Palestine is theirs because God gave it to the Jewish people. Now let’s see what the bible says about that:
The LORD your God hath (…) given you this land. (Deuteronomy 1:13)
When Yahweh your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you — the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites…and when Yahweh your God gives them over to you…you must utterly destroy them…Show them no mercy (Deuteronomy 7.1-11).
"And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. Joshua 6:21
“So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded. And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon.” Joshua 10:40-41
What I find most shocking about the biblical narrative was that the divine promise of the land of Palestine came with the mandate to exterminate the indigenous peoples. Living side by side with the people who already lived in the land is never considered. The ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 becomes more comprehensible in the light of these biblical passages.
This is the ideology that inspires the Zionists in control of Israel and to me it is more similar to Nazism than to it is libertarianism.
As far as I understand it, there’s a lot of ideology mixed up within “Zionism”. For sure there’s religious fundamentalism and nationalism and I think more socialism than free enterprise. I don’t think it’s absolutely correct to equate Zionism with “Jewish independence” because, after all, it’s not as if Zionists wish for Jews to form independent nations outside the region of Transjordan and Palestine.
For this stupid obsession with the desert (and it’s a stupid obsession unless one is an extremely religious Jew) I find Zionism to not only be undesirable for Jews, but dangerous for them as well. Establishing your independent nation on a narrow strip of land, backs to the sea and surrounded by hostile enemies does not strike me as recourse for protecting your people. It seems more like a massive ghetto. What the Israelis have done to maintain possession of that place has brought shame upon themselves as well as non-Israeli and non-Zionist Jews all the same.
It’s quite clear most of the people commenting on Zionism know little about it. You, for instance, regurgitate passages from the bible that most people disregard, whilst ignoring that most of the original Zionists were actually secularists! Theodor Herzl, whose books Altneuland and The Jewish State set forward the idea of Zionism as a political theory, fully believed that Jews ought to share the land with Arabs. Ben Gurion, the Jewish leader during the early twentieth century, believed that the Arabs should be encouraged to remain full and equal citizens of Israel. The semi-expulsion of the Palestinians can only be understood when considering that the Palestinian community rejected the will of the international community and then launched hostilities against the Jews. Then, and only then, did the Zionist leadership realise that to hold such a large and hostile Arab population would result in a second genocide of the Jews, as was the stated Arab intent. Putting down the tragic Finkelstein books will reveal a different Zionism than that to which you seem accustomed.
Continuously dwelling on what Zionism “was” or “could’ve been” belies what it became and has become. Is there Arab complicity? Of course. But it takes two to tango and two wrongs do not make a right.
This post has been updated:
Tartan Pimpernel criticized me for this post (he actually accused me of being an incredible liar) because I said: “All these authors are Israeli Jews and they all agree on the following:
- Israel’s security was never threatened in any of its wars against the Arabs.
-The Zionist started the hostilities in 1948 and committed countless massacres against the Palestinians and those they didn’t kill they kicked out of their homes.
-Israel never wanted peace with the Arabs, and rejected many peace offers.”
I recognize I was a bit sloppy when I wrote this. What I should have said instead is the following:
“Reading these books I came to the following conclusion:
- Israel’s security was never threatened in any of its wars against the Arabs. (Ilan Pappe & Zeev Maov)
- The Zionists started the hostilities in 1948 (Ilan Pappe), massacred many Palestinians and expelled many more.(Ilan Pappe, Avi shlaim, Benny Morris)
- Israel never wanted peace with the Arabs, and rejected many peace offers. (Zeev Maov & Avi Shlaim)”
Here’s the original post:
"You just brought up one of the contradictions of Zionism. On the one hand Zionists were secular yet on the other hand they claimed Palestine was their land given to them by God.
As for not knowing anything about Zionism, that’s your opinion. When I want to learn about a topic I try to find what respected authorities have to say about it. For the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here are the authors that I consulted:
- Benny Morris’ Righteous Victims. Benny Morris, no lover of the Palestinians, is a leading historian in Israel.
- Avi Shlaim’s The Iron Wall. Israeli author Avi Shlaim is also a respected historian.
- Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Both an Israeli and a Jew. Respected authority on Israel.
- Zeev Maoz’s Defending the holy land. Former Head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, Zeev Maoz knows a thing or two about Israel’s wars
- Etc.
All these authors are Israeli Jews and they all agree on the following:
- Israel’s security was never threatened in any of its wars against the Arabs.
- The Zionist started the hostilities in 1948 and committed countless massacres against the Palestinians and those they didn’t kill they kicked out of their homes.
-Israel never wanted peace with the Arabs, and rejected many peace offers."
Tartan Pimpernel said: “It’s quite clear most of the people commenting on Zionism know little about it. You, for instance, regurgitate passages from the bible that most people disregard, whilst ignoring that most of the original Zionists were actually secularists!”
In recent years there has been a dramatic growth of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel and Jewish fundamentalists take the bible literally.
The respected Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling said: “The value of the [Jewish] religion, at least in its Orthodox and nationalistic form that prevails in Israel, cannot be squared with democratic values. No other variable—neither nationality, nor attitudes about security, nor social or economic values, nor ethnic descent and education—so influences the attitudes of [Israeli] Jews against democratic values as does religiousity.”
Rabbi Kook the Elder, the revered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism, said, “The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”
According to the ideologies which underlie Gush Emunim, the militant West Bank settlers group, and Hasidism, non-Jews have “satanic souls” Common to both the Talmud and Halacha, Orthodox religious law, is a differentiation between Jews and non-Jews.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who was very influential in Israel as well as in the U.S., explained that, “It is written, ‘And the strangers shall guard and feed your flocks’ (Isaiah 61:5). The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews…”
Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh said: “If you saw two people drowning, a Jew and a non-Jew, the Torah says you save the Jewish life first,” Shahak says that, “Changing the words ‘Jewish’ to ‘German’ or ‘Aryan’ and ‘non-Jewish’ to ‘Jewish’ turns the Ginsburgh position into the doctrine that made Auschwitz possible in the past.
The Jewish fundamentalists believe that God gave all of the Land of Israel (including present-day Lebanon and other areas) to the Jews and that Arabs living in Israel are viewed as thieves. Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, another spokesman, said, “We must live in this land even at the price of war. Moreover, even if there is peace, we must instigate wars of liberation in order to conquer it [the land].”
When it comes to Baruch Goldstein who murdered 29 Palestinians at prayer, fundamentalists refuse to acknowledge that such an act constitutes “murder” because, according to the Halacha, “the killing by a Jew of a non-Jew under any circumstances is not regarded as murder. It may be prohibited for other reasons, especially when it causes danger for Jews.”
You are an incredible liar. I know for a FACT that you have not read Benny Morris’ book otherwise you would not make those ridiculous claims. Benny Morris, a historian who is critical of the Israeli state’s propaganda surrounding the creation of Israel, has affirmed as HISTORICAL FACT that Israel’s security was threatened enormously by its neighbours and that the Arabs started the hostilities.
Allow me to demonstrate to all other readers here that JB Say is lying through his teeth. Here is a quote from Benny Morris’ righteous victims which I have right in front of me. “From December 1947 to March 1948, the Arabs held the initiative and the Haganah remained on the strategic defensive… Much of the fighting in the first months took place in and on the edges of the mixed cities - Jerusalem, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and Haifa - in most cases initiated by the Arabs… Attacks on Jewish vehicles were one of the components of the first stage of the war.” (Pages 196-200)
Morris describes the very first part of the war. After the UN’s vote, he notes that “the Zionists and their supporters rejoiced.” (Page 186) Here is the important part - “Not far from each celebrating Jewish throng was an Arab villace or neighbourhood where the mood was grim… The initial reactions were spontaneous and explosive, and apparently unorganised. On the morning of November 30 a band of Arabs ambushed a bus near Kfar Syrkin, killing five Jews and wounding several others. Twenty-five minutes later they let loose at a second bus, killing two more people.. These were the first casualties of the first Arab-Israeli war.” (Page 190)
Morris has written several articles online where he affirms that the Arabs perpetrated hostilities and that Israel’s security was ultimately threatened. Here he says this: “In fact, what actually happened was this: The Arab states and the Palestinian national leadership, headed by Haj Amin al-Husseini, opposed the partition of Palestine, claiming all of Palestine for the Arabs. When the General Assembly voted in favor of partition, on 29 November 1947, the Palestinian leadership rejected the resolution and the Palestinian militias launched hostilities to abort the emergence of a Jewish state. They were aided by money, arms and volunteers from the Arab states. In the course of this first, civil-war half of the 1948 War (roughly from 30 November 1947 until 14 May 1948) the Palestinian militias attacked Jewish traffic and settlements for four months. But eventually the Jewish militias, chiefly the Haganah, went over to the offensive (in early April) and routed the Palestinians, and some 300,000 were displaced from their homes and lands. On 15 May 1948, the day after the Zionist leaders declared the establishment of the State of Israel, the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq invaded Palestine, in defiance of the will of the international community, as embodied in the partition resolution, and attacked the Jewish state. The army of Jordan, the fourth invading army, occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the core of the territory earmarked in the partition resolution for Palestinian Arab statehood. (The Palestinians failed to declare statehood, and Jordan did not allow the Palestinians to establish a state and subsequently formally annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Egypt emerged from the war in control of the Gaza Strip.) During the weeks and months after 15 May, the Israeli army contained the invading armies and eventually drove them out of most of Palestine. Another 400,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the course of the fighting: Some were expelled by Jewish troops (for example, from Lydda and Ramle in July 1948), some were advised to leave or ordered out by Arab leaders and officers (for example, from Haifa in April 1948 and Majdal in October). But most of the 700,000 simply fled out of fear of being caught up and harmed in the fighting. In summer 1948 the Israeli government decided not to allow the displaced Arabs—most of whom ended up in refugee camps in other parts of Palestine, i.e., the West Bank and Gaza—to return to the area of the State of Israel, deeming them inimical (they had just assailed the Jewish community and tried to destroy the Jewish state) and a potential Fifth Column.”
Furthermore, he deals with the idea that Israel’s security was threatened in another interview: “We are a small minority in a large sea of hostile Arabs who want to eliminate us. So it’s possible than when their desire is realized, everyone will understand what I am saying to you now. Everyone will understand we are the true victims. But by then it will be too late.”
On top of this, I find it incredibly ridiculous that you claim Ilan Pappe is a “respected authority on Israel.” I’ll direct you to another piece by Benny Morris which deals with Pappe’s historical inaccuracies.
Pappe uses fake sources.
“About the 1929 “Temple Mount” riots, which included two large-scale massacres of Jews, in Hebron and in Safed, Pappe writes: “The opposite camp, Zionist and British, was no less ruthless [than the Arabs]. In Jaffa a Jewish mob murdered seven Palestinians.” Actually, there were no massacres of Arabs by Jews, though a number of Arabs were killed when Jews defended themselves or retaliated after Arab violence. Pappe adds that the British “Shaw Commission,” so-called because it was chaired by Sir Walter Shaw (a former chief justice of the Straits Settlements), which investigated the riots, “upheld the basic Arab claim that Jewish provocations had caused the violent outbreak. ‘The principal cause… was twelve years of pro-Zionist [British] policy.’” It is unclear what Pappe is quoting from. I did not find this sentence in the commission’s report. Pappe’s bibliography refers, under “Primary Sources,” simply to “The Shaw Commission.” The report? The deliberations? Memoranda by or about? Who can tell? The footnote attached to the quote, presumably to give its source, says, simply, “Ibid.” The one before it says, “Ibid., p. 103.” The one before that says, “The Shaw Commission, session 46, p. 92.” But the quoted passage does not appear on page 103 of the report. In the text of Palestinian Dynasty, Pappe states that “Shaw wrote [this] after leaving the country [Palestine].” But if it is not in the report, where did Shaw “write” it? Actually, the thrust of the “Report of the Commission on the Palestine Disturbances of August, 1929,” which appeared in 1930, is completely contrary to what Pappe asserts (though it does list some non-lethal Jewish provocations-peaceful demonstrations, a newspaper article-as among the immediate triggers of the eruption of the Arab violence). The report states: “The fundamental cause, without which in our opinion disturbances either would not have occurred or would have been little more than a local riot, is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future.” As to the riots themselves, the report states: “The outbreak in Jerusalem on the 2**3rd of August [the start of the riots] was from the beginning an attack by Arabs on Jews for which no excuse in the form of earlier murders by Jews has been established.” The disturbances “took the form, for the most part, of a vicious attack by Arabs on Jews accompanied by wanton destruction of Jewish property… In a few instances, Jews attacked Arabs and destroyed Arab property. These attacks, though inexcusable, were in most cases in retaliation for wrongs already committed by Arabs in the neighborhood in which the Jewish attacks occurred.””
Pappe did not do any decent, required research
“To cover the history of Palestine-a geographically small backwater in the giant Ottoman domain-and the activities of its aristocracy and their interaction with the authorities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, one would have to spend many months in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul. There one would need to locate and pore over reports and correspondence from and about the relevant vilayets (provinces), Syria/Damascus and Beirut, and the relevant sanjaks and mutasarafliks (districts), Jerusalem, Nablus, and Acre, in addition to the central government’s deliberations and decision-making about Jerusalem and its environs. Pappe, who lacks Turkish, has not consulted any Ottoman archives. There is not a single reference to any Ottoman archive, or any Turkish source, in his endnotes.”
Pappe presents false history as fact
“Pappe repeatedly refers to “Harry Lock” of the British Mandate government secretariat in the 1920s-but the chief secretary’s name was Harry Luke. Pappe obviously encountered the name in Hebrew or Arabic and transliterated it, with no prior knowledge of Luke against which to check it: if he had consulted British documents, he would have known the correct spelling. Pappe refers to “the Hope Simpson Commission”-there was no such commission, only an investigation by an official named John HopeSimpson. He refers to “twenty-two Muslim… states” in the world in 1931, but by my count there were only about half a dozen. He refers to “the Jewish Intelligence Service”-presumably the Haganah Intelligence Service-and then adds, “whose archive has been opened to Israeli historians but not to Palestinians.” To the best of my knowledge, this is an outright lie. All public archives in Israel, including the Haganah Archive in Tel Aviv, which contains the papers of its intelligence service, are open to all researchers.”
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Furthermore, I wish to provide a brief counter to your post containing ‘quotes’ by famous Rabbis. Aside from the fact that you are committing the association fallacy, there are many instances whereby anti-Semitic propaganda has been spread through the faking of quotes by Jews. There are many quotes going around about which are allegedly taken from the Talmud, tet these ‘quotes’ comes from so-called Talmudic books which simply do not exist!
Secondly it is clear to me, and to the other religious Jews here, that the Talmud is also something you lack knowledge in. To make the egregious (and completely false) claim that the Talmud sanctions the killing of non-Jews because they are of lesser worth is completely intellectually dishonest. To spread about such virulent anti-Jewish propaganda is seriously a terrible thing to do on your part. Judaism teaches, as a core principle, that all humans are made in God’s image and that life is the most valuable thing. The idea of Jews as ‘chosen’ is simply that Jews are required to follow 613 commandments and to set an example to the rest of the world, who only need to follow the 7 Noahide Laws. This is Jewish law, take it from someone who has studied Halacha extensively. There are three things that Jews must never do, even if it will save their own life. The first of these is to commit adultery. The second is to commit idol worship. The third thing Jews can never, EVER do is to commit an act of premeditated murder of ANY HUMAN BEING. Period.
Your falsified claims come mainly from the spurious fascist propaganda sites (David Duke is a favourite, I’ve heard) who quote racists such as Shahak. Shahak is not a rabbinical scholar, he’s a chemist. He does not study Talmud. He does not know Halacha inside-out. Shahak is a polemicist who left Judaism because of personal issues. He quotes out of context and does not source. He is not a reliable polemicist (which is what he is) at all.
I’ll direct you to this site which actually quotes real passages from the Talmud (not the fake ones that circulate on the net, taken from books that don’t even exist) and provides evidence to the absurd and completely un-Jewish idea that gentiles are inferiour etc.
This is a good site too.
Oh, and the idea that Israel never wanted peace with the Arabs has been proven false by history. History shows us that Israel gave up the Sinai, which it captured defensively after Egyptian invasion, in the peace treaty. History shows us that Israel offered all of Gaza and 98% of the West Bank in 2000, only to be rejected by the Palestinians. History shows us that Israel pulled out of Gaza, evacuating all settlers, in 2005 for peace, but got Hamas and thousands of rockets in response. Once again, facts counter lies.
My Response to Tartan Pimpernel Part I
Tartan Pimpernel **said “**You are an incredible liar.” Well I will not answer this ad hominem attack since I like to remain civil in debates. You seem to be getting very emotional here, lighten up it’s just an intellectual debate
In my previous posts I listed four books by four different authors. You chose to pick Benny Morris and to selectively quote him to prove that I am a liar. Well now I am going to let Ilan Pappe tell you with his own words exactly what I said:
I’ll use Ilan Pappe’s book the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine :
The following quotes are from the paperback edition 2010 ISBN 978185168554.
P 40: “The partition Resolution was adopted on 29 November 1947, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine began in early December 1947 with a series of Jewish attacks on Palenstinian villages and neibourhoods in retaliation for the buses and shopping centers that had been vandalized in the Palestinian protest against the UN resolution during the first few days after its adoption. Though sporadic, these early Jewish assaults were severe enough to cause the exodus of a substantial number of people (almost 75,000).
On 9 January, units of the first all-arab volunteer army entered Palestine and engaged with the Jewish forces in small battles over routes and isolated Jewish settlements. Easily winning the upper hand in these skirmishes, the Jewish leadership shifted its tactics from acts of retaliation to cleansing operations (…) About 250,000 Palestinians were uprooted in this phase, which was accompanied by several massacres (…) Aware of these developments the Arab League took the decision, on the last day of April, to intervene militarily, but not until the British Mandate has come to an end.
The British left on 15 May 1948, and the Jewish Agency immediately declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine (…) That same day, regular Arab forces entered Palestine.”
So the timeline here is clear and I challenge you to prove I misquoted Pappe in any way.
Now I want to add a few things:
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You can’t dismiss Ilan Pappe as a historian just because he refutes the official Zionist narrative.
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Here’s what Michael Palumbo, author of The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from Their Homeland, Says about Morris: “Morris’ regard for documentation is indeed commendable, were it not for his tendency to choose sources which support his views, while avoiding those document collections which contain information inconsistent with his principal arguments. His decision not to use the testimony of Israeli veterans is unfortunate, since some of them have spoken candidly about Israeli atrocities and expulsion of civilians at Deir Yassein, Lydda-Ramle and Jaffa. From Wikipedia page on Benny Morris (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Morris)
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So Morris is accused of the same thing he accuses Pappe of doing, funny isn’t it?
Tartan, this is your last warning. Cool it.
I am afraid that it is not an ad hom if it is substantiated. You said that all the authors you listed (Morris included) refute the facts that Arabs initiated the conflict and that Israel’s security was in danger. That claim, I’m afraid, was a lie, since Morris has always asserted these to be true.
Now there is no point trying to provide a counter-argument which is based upon Pappe’s book, since I’ve provided evidence to show that,
a) Pappe makes up sources,
b) he takes real history and falsifies it according to his own opinions, and
c) he did not do enough research into the subject (see the Turkish archives part in the wall of text I posted earlier).
I’m also afraid that Benny Morris’ political opinions have no bearing on his historical works. That being said, the young Morris refused to serve in the military in the territories and was sent to jail for it. Modern Benny Morris affirms that he is still a voter of left-wing parties and still supports the two-state solution. He has not been “radicalised” as you assert. Morris is quoted by both sides of the divide - Finkelstein and Dershowitz both use him. Chomsky relies on him. Pappe on the other hand has provided a book which has proven to be riddled with errors (again, see my post above, there’s no point quoting a book that’s incorrect) and therefore unreliable. This is why Morris says, “In the case of Pappe and myself, there was always methodological discord. We both knew that official Zionist historiography was deeply flawed and needed to be reassessed and rewritten on the basis of the evidence that had become available; but we approached history, and the writing of history, from antithetical standpoints. Pappe regarded history through the prism of contemporary politics and consciously wrote history with an eye to serving political ends. My own view was that while historians, as citizens, had political views and aims, their scholarly task was to try to arrive at the truth about a historical event or process, to illuminate the past as objectively and accurately as possible. I believed, and still believe, that there is such a thing as historical truth; that it exists independently of, and can be detached from, the subjectivities of scholars; that it is the historian’s duty to try to reach it by using as many and as varied sources as he can. Shlaim once said that he believes historians should not merely describe and analyze but also act as “judge and jury” (or was it “judge, jury, and executioner”?)–that it is their responsibility to pass moral judgment on the actions (and the thinking?) of their protagonists. He has a powerful confidence in his own “moral compass.” He once wrote that I had lost mine. I do not believe that historians should moralize in their historiography: it is a sign of hubris, and it is tedious. My belief is that historians should seek truth, not “justice,” and describe and analyze events, using as wide a range of sources as possible to try and work out why people acted as they did and what were the consequences–and then let the reader judge, using his or her own “moral compass,” whether the protagonists were right or wrong, wise or unwise.”
I would seriously recommend reading the review of Pappe’s work which demonstrates his sloppiness as a historian. How you can continue to quote someone who makes up evidence is beyond me. I mean seriously, just read this and take it in: “Some of Pappe’s “historical” assertions are, quite obviously, politically motivated, but they are mistakes nonetheless. He refers to “statements made by Jewish and Zionist leaders about the need to build the ‘Third Temple.’” Husaynis often leveled that charge against the Jews, in order to incite the Muslim masses. But which important Zionist leader in the 1920s advocated the construction of a Third Temple? None whom I can name. Later Pappe reinforces this lie by remarking that “Palestinian historiography, including recent work that draws on newly revealed materials, suggests that the mufti’s concern was not baseless, and that there really was a Jewish plan to seize the entire Haram [Temple Mount].” Pappe offers no evidence for this extraordinary assertion.”
Now Avi Shlaim is at least a decent historian however he didn’t present many new things like Morris did. Nonetheless that which has been written by Pappe has been almost completely re-written in a more elegant and accessible fashion by Shlaim. Whilst Pappe makes up things like the expulsions within twelve days of the UN resolution, Shlaim doesn’t, whilst remaining at least accepting of the idea of the Palestinians as instigators in a larger, culminative conflict.
Here is more argumentation against Pappe, pointing out his shoddy historiography (or lack thereof): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Shlaim doesn’t go uncorrected either.
My Response to Tartan Pimpernel Part II
In his book Defending the Holy Land (here’s the link for the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Defending-Holy-Land-Critical-Analysis/dp/0472033417/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1307493286&sr=1-1) Zeev Maoz says the following:
- P 35 “(…) most of the wars in which Israel was involved were the result of deliberate Israeli aggressive design (…) None of these wars –with the possible exception of the 1948 War of independence- was what Israel refers to as Milhemet Ein Berah(“ war of necessity”). They were all wars of choice”
- P 40 “I review a number of peace-related opportunities ranging from the Zionist-Hashemite collusion in 1947 through the collapse of the Oslo Process in 2000. In all those cases I find that Israeli decision makers-who had been willing to embark upon bold and daring military adventures- were extremely reluctant to make even the smallest concessions for peace (…) I also find in many cases Israel was engaged in sysrematic violations of agreements and tacit understandings between itself and its neibours.”
Zeev Maoz is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. He is the former head of the Graduate School of Government and Policy and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, as well as the former academic director of the M. A. Program at the Israeli Defense Forces’ National Defense college.
PS: 1- Pappe responded to Benny Morris’ crticism in an article entitled “Benny Morris’s lies about my book” link here: http://www.hnn.us/articles/4482.html
2- Your Benny Morris is no longer credible he is now lamenting the fact that Ben Gurion didn’t finish the job and kicked all the Palestinians out in 1948.
See this Article in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/oct/03/israel2). Here are some excerpts:
“The radical Israeli historian who did more than any other to force his country to face up to its responsibility for the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the 1948 war now believes the Middle East might be at peace if David Ben-Gurion had expelled all the Palestinians.”
In an about-turn that will horrify his former Iiberal allies, Benny Morris argues in the Guardian that “perhaps, had [Ben-Gurion] gone the whole hog, today’s Middle East would be a healthier, less violent place, with a Jewish state between Jordan and the Mediterranean and a Palestinian Arab state in Transjordan”.
Last night Professor Avi Shlaim, another eminent Israeli historian who challenged the orthodoxy, said: “What Israel carried out in 1948 was ethnic cleansing and what Benny is telling us now is that Ben-Gurion should have been more thorough and comprehensive in his policy of ethnic cleansing. Benny seems to have lost his moral bearings.”
Prof Shlaim added: "It is very ironic that Benny Morris, who has done more than any other scholar to reveal the full extent of Israel’s expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 has come full circle and is today suggesting that Israel did not expel enough Palestinians in 1948.
Tartan Pimpernel said: “I wish to provide a brief counter to your post containing ‘quotes’ by famous Rabbis (…)Your falsified claims come mainly from the spurious fascist propaganda sites (David Duke is a favourite, I’ve heard)”
Well here’s a quote from a Rabbi and it’s not from a “fascist propaganda site”, it’s from Ha’aretz a leading Israeli newspaper:
Title: U.S.: Rabbi’s ‘offensive’ remarks harm peace efforts# Here are some excerpts:
The United States on Sunday condemned remarks by the spiritual leader of Israel’s leading ultra-Orthodox party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who said the Palestinians should “perish”.
“We regret and condemn the inflammatory statements by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,” U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley. “These remarks are not only deeply offensive, but incitement such as this hurts the cause of peace.”
Yosef had said during his weekly Shabbat sermon that the Palestinians, namely Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, should perish from the world. Yosef, a founder of the Shas Party, also described Palestinians as evil, bitter enemies of Israel.
“All these evil people should perish from this world … God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians,” Yosef had said.