Sunday, May 22, 2011

Back to 1948

I was blissfully offline last week, as large groups of notionally "Palestinians" tried to break through Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon. So a week later I'm adding the obvious comment, whereby the demonstrators were not decrying Israeli settlements on the West Bank. They were demonstrating against the existence of the Jewish State. They were demanding that descendants of people who once lived in British Mandatory Palestine be allowed to move back. Israel could dismantle all settlements, move back to the Green Line, divide Jerusalem, set up an embassy on the Palestinian side of town, and apologize for decades of being not nice to the Palestinians, and these demonstrators wouldn't dream of being satisfied. And all the Western media that didn't explain this, or even condemned Israel for defending itself, are effectively lining up on the side of the Palestinian demand for a right of return.

I'm not certain why this needs to be pointed out, but sadly, it probably does.
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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most succinct comment on the hypocritical situation I have seen to date.

Welcome back Yaacov.

Asaf

May 22, 2011 at 3:21 PM
Silke said...

thanks Yaacov !!!

but since I have started frequenting some German blogs I have realized that understanding implications is far from being a German forte.

... and according to my memory "implizieren" was not even part of everyday German for the early decades of my life. My best guess is that it was only introduced in the 80s because "andeuten" and its synonyms weren't quite up to the task any longer.

BTW Schadenfreude seems to have been missing in the Anglos' language and they found it in our vocabulary. Makes me think whenever I come across one of those inspired by "but they don't bleed like us" rants.

May 22, 2011 at 3:38 PM
Anonymous said...

Same thing goes for the next flotilla. Egypt has opened it's gate. The UN has declared that there's no humanitarian crisis in gaza. The govt of gaza is no longer even politically isolated.

You'd have to be an idiot to think the point of another flotilla is anything other than to pick a fight.

May 22, 2011 at 3:54 PM
Barry Meislin said...

Methinks you've mistitled this post (though with all the best intentions, goes without saying).

Should be, "Back to (November 28) 1947".

(And even there, I'm being a wee bit optimistic.)

May 22, 2011 at 4:02 PM
Anonymous said...

Sorry. Didn't quite complete the thought.

... To pick a fight with the absolute objective of eroding israels political ability to act in self defense, whereas the ostensible objectives are completely confounded by the facts.

May 22, 2011 at 4:17 PM
4infidels said...

It has now become the mainstream accepted account that the Palestinians were "kicked out" or "expelled" in 1948. Not fled; not were encouraged to leave by their leaders. Of course, some were expelled by Israeli soldiers, but not the overwhelming majority, many of whom fled without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

The NY Times allowed Abbas to write an op-ed piece in which he claimed that the Jews went to war in 1948 to drive out the Palestinians in order to ensure a significant Jewish majority in their new state. Today on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace (the host) phrased a question in terms of the "right of return" for the Palestinians "who were kicked out in 1948."

And no one ever mentions that the standard definition of refugees does not include the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of refugees.

The Arabs started the 1948 war with the goal of genocide toward the Jewish community living in Palestine. Prior to that time, they joyfully massacred defenseless Jews who were often non-Zionist and/or part of communities in Safed, Jerusalem and Hebron that existed long before the modern Zionist movement, and in the case of liars like Abbas, Arafat, Edward Said and others, long before their immediate families arrived from the surrounding areas. The whole thing really sickens me after a while. Why is Abbas considered to be indigenous to Palestine when his ancestors came in the late 1800s from Syria? Why if the land was so dear to him that he encourages and honors children who give their life for it would his family have so easily fled rather than stayed and fought in 1948? Why is his claim on any inch of Israel better than that of any Jew? The reason is simple: Palestine was just one part of what was seen as an entire region of Arab and Muslim territory, where borders were less important than linguistic and religious ties. Heck, there was no such thing as a Palestinian until after the 1967 war, when for propaganda purposes, it started to make sense to invent a new identity.

How does Rashid Khalidi, born in New York City, to a Saudi diplomat father (born in Palestine) and a Lebanese Christian mother get to go on and on and on about the indignities of expulsion, statelessness and humiliation, while building his entire professional identity around his supposed victim status? All while calling those who don't buy into his lies as racists, colonialists and imperialists? Meanwhile, Jewish children of Holocaust survivors and Jewish children of those expelled from Arab lands, all of whom had far more perilous and harrowing ordeals, moved on with their lives and built professional identities around their skills and talents, not sucking up opportunities portraying themselves as eternal victims. If Khalidi is a stateless refugee, then so are most American Jews whose families fled Germany, Russia, Poland, etc., and their descendants should continue to be indulged for generations and generations even as they live middle and upper middle class lives of comfort in America, as do the children and grandchildren of Khalidi and Said.

May 22, 2011 at 6:40 PM
Barry Meislin said...

...To pick a fight...

And don't forget those Turkish elections coming up next month.

(And guess who's defending Turkish pride along with the larger Islamic "nation"?.... Yes, that's right! Combining morality, nationalism, and religion while highlighting the devil that is the cause of all evil---and which must be destroyed---make for excellent politics!!.... assuming, of course, that one can keep the jinn under control....)

Yes, excellent politics.

File under: "Time to take off the gloves and really earn that Qadafy Human Rights Prize!!"

May 22, 2011 at 9:14 PM
NormanF said...

Ya'acov, in a nutshell if Israel did all the things its Far Left and the world demanded, the Arabs would still continue the conflict. As we saw last Sunday, the real battle is not over the post-1967 lands but rather the lands of 1948. There really isn't any room for compromise when its an existential issue. In short, either there is a Jewish State or there won't be one. As Prime Minister Netanyahu forcefully reminded President Obama this past Friday, history won't give the Jewish people a second chance.

May 23, 2011 at 1:06 AM
Barry Meislin said...

Norman, what you've described is not a bug.

It's a feature.

File under: "Onward, progressive soldier!"

May 23, 2011 at 9:35 AM
Pisa student said...

but since I have started frequenting some German blogs I have realized that understanding implications is far from being a German forte

Wow Silke then the Germans should be more than happy to have such a shining star like you.You even know what iimp äähh "implizieren" meant!Wow

May 23, 2011 at 1:25 PM

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