I agree that the Britain’s affinity of Jews and for Millenialism were important to the politics of the establishment of the State of Israel. BUT Zionism is far, far older than that and certainly did not originate in England.
SJ: “there were no people (other than Jews living in Judea) who were called ‘Palestinians,’”Yes, “here were people living there but it is not true that the modern Palestinians “had been there a long time.” Since the Roman conquest, this piece of land had many transient communities … Greeks, Jews, Arabs, Bedouins, Byzantines, Franks. Under the Turks none of these claimed this area as their ethnic home ..except the Jews.
This is beyond disingenuous and not a serious argument in any sense.
Israel, under Turkey, was governed as part of a very multiethinc place called “Syria.”
After the defeat of Turkey, several new nations were created out of the area the Turks considered Syria .. these included Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq .
These new borders reflected a mix of efforts intended to recognize ethnic groups and reward British and French allies.
Aside from the fact that many of these Jews people were immigrants or children of immigrants from Europe, the Jews were one more ethnic group under Turkey. They were, BTW refered to as “Palestinians” since there was no non-Jewish ethnic group interested in this piece of land.
Put another way, Palestine did not exist even as an ethnic identity in 48. The UN proposed to create yet another new nation. In 48 Transjordan invaded. NO ARAB government objected to the occupation of the area proposed by the UN as “Palestine.”
SJ: “The terrorism began (eg in Hebron) because of Arab antisemitism.”You do not think terrorism begets terrorism?
So antisemitism justifies terrorism? And this claim, too, is simply handwaving as to the ultimate aim of the Zionist cause: An exclusionary Jewish state in Palestine.
As for “an exclusionary Jewish state in Palestine” this has never been the goal of Zionism. Even today, only extremists sadly some in the ruling coalition, support such an idea.
The Zionist minority entity achieved, via partition, a majority of Palestine, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes and cast into exile.A majority? Within what borders? The only borders in this area were those delimitting Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.
The colonialist powers could have done what Syria wanted and left all of the minorities , including the Jews of Israel, the Hashemites, the bedouins of Jordan/Palestine, the Christians of Lebanon under Syrian rule. If you want to see how well that would have worked talk to a Kurd.
Or the powers could have done what they did do .. partition “Syria” so these minorities, none of whom had any idea of nationalism before WW I, could have their own countries. The jews too.
By the way, many Jews believe that the real FU here was allowing the Hashemite to rule Jordan since ethnically “Jordanians” and Arab Palestinians were the same people.
As for the 48 (and later) wars there was never a policy of ethnic cleansing by Israel. That does not mean there were not abuses, but the great majority of refugees fled because they were ordered to do so by the Arab forces. The Arabs also refused to allow these people to resettle in Jordan or Lebanon. FWIW, about the same number of refugees fled the Arab states to become Israelis.
**************************
I meant what I said about the value of facts.
If you want a really fair minded argument against Zionism, I recommend that you read Eduard Said’s excellent analysis. He sees Zionism as colonialism.
Modern Colonists, like the their predecessors, see themselves as bringing culture to an inferior people. I am sure that the European Zionists some themselves in this role. We have many such examples still going on today … the current Han-ization of Tibet, the colonization of North Ireland by Presbyterians, the Zulu invasion of South Africa (then a Dutch population since the Euroes ahd already wiped out the ’san, the Russian colonization of the Baltic states, … and of course most of US history.
Look, the fact is we have two antagonistic cultures living in a tiny area. Whatever their past history, the Israelis and the Palestinians are both very real people with strong cultures. Unless you want more horror, then you should support the effort to find a solution that lets these people live alongside each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment