34 IDF officers sign refusal petition

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1104981574072

This is a phenomenon about which I've tried to inform folks not so proficient in Israeli affairs.

Just about everyone here has been familiar with the far Left refusenilks. Meet the rightwing ones.

Now that Sharon's settlement evacuation plan is gathering momentum, Israelis who feel too morally uncomfortable with the seemingly inevitable and foreseen task of forcibly evacuating fellow Israelis from their homes in the disputed territories are making their position and intentions clear.

How many of you believe the rightwing refuseniks should be spared a trial and a penalty or receive a lighter sentence due to the fact their acting according to their conscience, just as you've always hoped for the far Left ones?

It'll be quite intriguing to follow how the Israeli law authorities deal with this particular brand of refuseniks should their ranks swell.

Israel, a democracy, has no constitution, bill of rights, or anything that looks like our 11th - 27th amendments. One result is:

90 percent of the land in Israel proper is held under restrictive covenants barring non-Jews, even those with Israeli citizenship, from owning the land or from earning a living on it. These covenants were first used in 1882 as Jews bought up land in Palestine from absentee Arab landowners.

Yet, according to paragraph two of Foreign Minister Balfour's private letter to Lord Rothchild dated November 2, 1917, it was stated that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

Did Mr. Balfour realize that this had not been the case for 35 years before the letter, and was occurring even as the letter was being written?

It is noteworthy that on the day of the letter, 95 percent of Palestine land was possessed by the Palestinians, 4 percent by Jews and 1 percent by others.

It would be difficult, therefore, to find two countries more profoundly different in their approaches to basic questions of citizenship and civil and human rights as are the United States and Israel.

No wonder Israel refuses to use our exemplary model of Constitutional democracy.

TP: "90 percent of the land in Israel proper is held under restrictive covenants barring non-Jews, even those with Israeli citizenship, from owning the land or from earning a living on it."

What you don't mention is that the same 90 isn't available for private ownership _at all_, Jew or non-Jew; it's state-owned.

@%<

What you deem facts is a rather skewed perception of reality on the ground:

>>>"Israel, a democracy, has no constitution, bill of rights, or anything that looks like our 11th - 27th amendments."<<<

False. Israel has a serious of Basic Laws that are in the process of forming a kind of unwritten constitution as more of them are increasingly being legislated. (Do you know Canada and New Zealand have no constitution either?)

>>>"90 percent of the land in Israel proper is held under restrictive covenants barring non-Jews, even those with Israeli citizenship, from owning the land or from earning a living on it."<<<

Not true. In reality both non-Jews and Jews cannot own any of the ~92% that's under the Israel Lands Authority control. Public land can only be leased and there've been a few cases where land was leased to non-Jews.

>>>"These covenants were first used in 1882 as Jews bought up land in Palestine from absentee Arab landowners. Yet, according to paragraph two of Foreign Minister Balfour's private letter to Lord Rothchild dated November 2, 1917, it was stated that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.
Did Mr. Balfour realize that this had not been the case for 35 years before the letter, and was occurring even as the letter was being written? <<<

Where did you get your information from? On the eve of Israeli independence in 1948, only 8.6% of the entire territory west of Jordan was Jewish owned.

>>>"It is noteworthy that on the day of the letter, 95 percent of Palestine land was possessed by the Palestinians, 4 percent by Jews and 1 percent by others."<<<

Wrong again. About 95% was public land that passed over to the British occupation administration from Ottoman rule that had owned it for 400 years or so.


Let me suggest you use all types of sources, including impartial and official Israeli to get your facts straight.


What about the refusenik issue?

> What you don't mention is that the same 90 isn't available for private ownership _at all_, Jew or non-Jew; it's state-owned.


What gehrig doesn't mention is that the state is owned by Jews. The State of Israel is, by definition, a "Jewish state." So all state owned land is really owned by Jews. It's just not owned by individual Jews, that's all.

"Do you know Canada and New Zealand have no constitution either?"

Well, how surprising. Did you know that Great Britain doesn't either?

Your rationalization is very transparent, but such an argument cannot be the basis for rational conclusions.

Here's another transparent rationalization: "Two wrongs don't make a right."

More appropriately, we should say that in our case, four wrongs don't make a right.

But let's be more reaistic and to the point: four wrongs are four times worse than one. And 10,000 wrongs are 10,000 times worse than one.

GB, NZ, Canada, the US and Israel all are countries that created territory from ethnic cleansing and genocide. In the case of GB, a truly brutal and rapacious colonizer (see Kenya), its prescience was that it was a state based on the committing of atrocities around the world, so why should it risk having one of its leaders prosecuted using its own law of the land?

In the case of the US, that is exactly what's begun to happen, although slowly, but surely nonetheless.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed an action under Germany's universal law to prosecute Rumsfeld et al for war crimes. That same action could be prosecuted in the US under our War Crimes Act of 1996 with the direct assistance of our Constitution.

Mr. Sharon has already been indicted for well known crimes but this was by the World Court itself without anyone else's help. Boy what a peacmaker he is. At least Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize. But so did Ytzak Rabin; but wait, he was assassinated by his own people for trying to make the peace. There's a flashing red light to Israeli peacemakers. They better remain thought criminals only.

Mr. Pinochet is under arrest in Chile and Mr. Bush will undoubtedly soon follow.

I put my allusion to Canada and N.Z. in parentheses as I wasn't trying to rationalize. Whether or not I even made a rationalization is in the eye of the beholder.

Anyhow, you're expecting Israel to be more moral or holier than Great Britain, or all democracies for that matter? I'm suspicious of the motives of those who seem to do that.

>>>GB, NZ, Canada, the US and Israel all are countries that created territory from ethnic cleansing and genocide."<<<

In Israel's case there was ethnic cleansing to some degree but NO genocide (regardless of the distorted meaning this term has been given by far leftists). Examples of genocide are Rwanda or the Holocaust. The fate that befell local Arabs during 1948 doesn't even come close to a genocide.

>>>"Mr. Sharon has already been indicted for well known crimes but this was by the World Court itself without anyone else's help."<<<

Pardon me? When did that court indict him? As I'm unaware of this, could you please provide a source relating this indictment?

>>>"At least Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize. But so did Ytzak Rabin; but wait, he was assassinated by his own people for trying to make the peace."<<<

You consider your information reliable??
Rabin was murdered by an lone extreme rightwing freak who had been assisted by two people, including his brother. How can you tar all Israelis with the same brush and expect such a claim to be taken seriously?

The awarding that prize to Arafat was a cruel joke the Norwegians played on the world, for crying out loud. You give that particular prize any moral weight?? You know one of the Nobel committee members had quit it as he felt it'd be morally insane to take part in such a moral travesty? Artafat was arguably the person least deserving of this prize throughout its history.

>>>" There's a flashing red light to Israeli peacemakers. They better remain thought criminals only."<<<

See my reply above re Yigal Amir (the assassin).

[You consider your information reliable??
Rabin was murdered by an lone extreme rightwing freak who had been assisted by two people, including his brother. How can you tar all Israelis with the same brush and expect such a claim to be taken seriously?]

while this is a subjective issue, this response is misleading

after Oslo, Rabin experienced an organized hate campaign in which Israelis, many of them right wing settlers, openly called for his assassination on religious grounds

Leah Rabin condemned right wing Likud politicians like Benjamin Netanyahu for complicity because she believes that they failed to take a stand against them

there may have only been 3 people involved, but they acted in an environment in which they were encouraged to do what they did, and any failure to acknowledge it does a disservice to the memory of Rabin

[The awarding that prize to Arafat was a cruel joke the Norwegians played on the world, for crying out loud. You give that particular prize any moral weight?? You know one of the Nobel committee members had quit it as he felt it'd be morally insane to take part in such a moral travesty? Artafat was arguably the person least deserving]

I'm no Arafat fan, for reasons very different than those that you and others would cite (in my case, more along the lines of Edward Said), but, unless my memory is failing, Henry Kissinger got a Nobel Prize, and, if so, there's no comparison between the man involved in the Christmas bombing, the invasions of Cambodia and East Timor, as well as the Chilean coup, and Arafat

in the big picture, you are certainly correct that the Nobel Prize is a joke, but that was true long before Arafat, as there have been quite a number of odd recipients

--Richard Estes

CT's Likudnik buddies hated Rabin because he was willing to make the great and awe-inspiring concession of a bantustan statelet for the Palestineans. The Likudniks thought that was way an excessively generous offer.

Richard, I admire your ability to maintain decorum with CreTin. This guy is a dye-in-the-wool reactionary and an idiot (who among other things thinks that Thomas Friedman of the NYTimes is "anti-Israel").

First off, I'd like to get the dumbass a.a.r.o.n. out of the way (for now at least) by stating Likud politicians mostly aren't exactly what I would expect from politicians, both on the political and personal levels.
A.a.r.o.n.'s keeps up his childish conduct, this time around slightly distorting my description of Thomas Friedman, on top of lying about Rabin as though he was Barak. The clown cant tell s**t from shat.

*********************

CT: You consider your information reliable??
Rabin was murdered by a lone extreme rightwing freak who had been assisted by two people, including his brother. How can you tar all Israelis with the same brush and expect such a claim to be taken seriously?

>>>"while this is a subjective issue, this response is misleading"<<<

I'm about to show your recount of the chain of events leaves some to be desired.

>>>"...after Oslo, Rabin experienced an organized hate campaign in which Israelis, many of them right wing settlers, openly called for his assassination on religious grounds "<<<

So, you're talking not about all Israelis, but about many Israeli rightwingers -- not even all rightists.
I can tell you most Israeli rightists didn't issue or echo those calls, which came from a rather small circle of religious rightwing Israelis, not secular ones. See how much I've narrowed it down so far?

>>>"Leah Rabin condemned right wing Likud politicians like Benjamin Netanyahu for complicity because she believes that they failed to take a stand against them "<<<

She may very well have been correct. But there's a great difference between commission and omission here.

>>>"there may have only been 3 people involved, but they acted in an environment in which they were encouraged to do what they did, and any failure to acknowledge it does a disservice to the memory of Rabin "<<<

To be sure, there were a few far Right rabbis who had claimed Rabin was fair game for assassination on the religious grounds he had betrayed the Jewish people and such. Yigal Amir was nevertheless a very strong minded and determined man who considered those rabbis' edict as merely a religious green light for the murder, the extent to which it was binding he wasn't too concerned about anyway; he simply considered it an affirmation of his wish.

CT: The awarding of that prize to Arafat was a cruel joke the Norwegians played on the world, for crying out loud. You give that particular prize any moral weight?? You know one of the Nobel committee members had quit it as he felt it'd be morally insane to take part in such a moral travesty? Artafat was arguably the person least deserving.

>>>"I'm no Arafat fan, for reasons very different than those that you and others would cite (in my case, more along the lines of Edward Said), but, unless my memory is failing, Henry Kissinger got a Nobel Prize, and, if so, there's no comparison between the man involved in the Christmas bombing, the invasions of Cambodia and East Timor, as well as the Chilean coup, and Arafat"

in the big picture, you are certainly correct that the Nobel Prize is a joke, but that was true long before Arafat, as there have been quite a number of odd recipients"<<<

I knew someone might bring up Kissinger and agree he wasn't exactly deserving of it. But for all his undoubted faults, I can't accept that Arafat was either equally (un)deserving or more deserving than he. But then again, I'm no anti-Zionist leftist so I can't bring myself to feel morally vindicated if I think of juxtapose those two Nobel laureates the way you did backed by the reasoning you muster.

The Nobel Prize has been awarded to pretty nasty warmongers long before Kissinger (for example http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1906/ ) although as with Arafat and Kissinger the prizes were more tied to individual actions not the overall person. I wouldnt really fault those who award the prize as much as one can easilly do in retrospect since those who can do most in single acts for peace are usually warmongers (ie a warmonger who moves their base away from war is really doing more for peace than a person who is preaching to the choir.

In terms of talk of CT and Likud, I think that does bring up a common problem of the US left in global analysis. The US right has ties to the right-wing in many other countries but alliances are not always what one would thuink they should be from an ideological perspective since right-wing usually means nationalist. Chirac probably irritates Bush more than would a Socialist leader since the nationalism of the French right gives them one more reason for standing up to the US (afterall it was De Gaulle, not the Socialists who pulled French troops out of NATO). The same is somewhat true of the Israeli political parties. While Sharon probably agrees ideologically more with Bush than would a Labor leader, Labor would be a lot less likely to stand up to the US than would a Likud leader. Israel gets enough US support the US can always strong-arm anything it wants out of the Israeli government, but that comes at some political cost at home so one does see more open defiance by Likud than one would see by Labor. While its always nice to see someone standing up to the US, in this case Likud's interests that differ from the US make things worse for everyone (form Palestinians to Israelis) so I would probably still support Labor even if it is now the unspoken favorite of the Bush administration.

How do Likud and Bush differ? Israel serves some geopolitical importance to the US allowing an ally in an important and unstable region, but its importance is often overblown. When US oil interests come under threat Israeli intelligence may be able to help, but unlike the Middle East under the Shah (or Kuwait today) it can't serve as a base for US agression. The US (and Bush's) interest in the Israel-Palestinian peace proces is largely to decrease antiAmerican sentiments in the region. Israel is also politically important to several communities in the US and that factors into its political importance (and under Clinton some of his motivation appeared to be his religious feeling about the "Holy Land") Economically, the US right might favor Likud over Labor due to their economic policies, but Israel isnt a large enough economy for that to really have a huge impact (although ideology does cause that to play a role in alliances between US and Israeli political partys when other issues are not playing a more important role). Likud itself seems to differ from Labor in a similar way to how the Demorats and Republicans differ; some differences on social and economic policies and a differ in tone more than substance on security matters (wanting to look tough and more willing to violate basic moral principals when fighting the preceived "enemy").

I think there is a huge mistake in the analysis of most of the left (and right) when it comes to Israeli and Palestinian politics. Likud and most of the Israeli Right has supported the Occupation and supported settlers for nonreligious reasons not tied at all to religion of the idea of Israel being a religious state. The real reason is the same conservative ideas of valuing security of one's own nation over noncitizens. One sees the same thing in other conflicts around the world. Israeli occupation of the West Bank is based on the same concerns that caused Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe or the virtual occupation of most of Central America by the US in the 1980s (a desire to have a buiffer zone between the nation and those deemed to be a threat). Ideas of "Zionism" confuse this since conservative nationalist politics can be countered and weakened by making the public less worried about outside threats wheras talk of "ZIonism" makes the Occupation sound somewhat different and intractible. It also leads to conspiracy theories and confusion when people who seem reasonably intelligent hold irrational views on certain issues. If CT or even Gehrig may feel that all coverage of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon was antiIsrael, demonize Fisk, claim the BBC and LA Times are biased against Israel ... you can see this as them lying because they are "Zionists" or you can recognize that one sees identical things with respect to how nationalists see other conflicts. Many Serbs I talked to during the war in Bosnia also claimed that all the media was baised against their cause because of an antiSlavic bias. Since nationalism leads to at least a moderate irrationality regarding the world as being divided between basically good people on one group and people who may pose a threat in the other, it blinds peopel in a way where when their side does wrong, it has to be someone else's fault. All media is somehwhat biased but during the war in Lebanon and during the seige of Sarajavo, the attrocities were clear enough that it caused cognitive dissonance and rather silly accusations (few first hand reports from either conflict could be seen as nonbiased when the truth contradicted a rather simplistic view of a world where ones side must only do evil things by accident and on a small scale). If you ever talked to a left leaning S Africans during apartheid one was meet with a rather complicated set of views that has some similarity with what encounters when talking to the Israeli center-left (a desire for change mixed with a fear of the "other"). There are somewhat less politically charged examples one can come up with showing this same phenomena (the Chilean right's views on Pinochet, the views of former supporters of Marcos in the Phillipines, or the way the less bigotted supporters of the BJP dealt with Gujarat) There is nothing specific to supporters of Israel when it comes to supporting a single side blindly and ignoring (or dismissing as biased) contradicting facts. By singling out ZIonism as a cause rather than just anougher case of a familar phenomena one ignores the universal nature of this problem (which can even be said to include views of many on the US about the USSR before it became too hard to deny or justify certain actions)

Israel has control of the territories that they won in war from Jordan and Egypt.

The longer the Palestinians keep up the "Israel has no right to exist, terror is the only path, we must martyr ourselves by the millions" CRAP, the less land they may ever see.

If they ever genuinely want peace alongside Israel, instead of on top of Israel, in return Israel will hand gaza and most of the west bank to them.

That is all.

Israel has no right to exist, terror is the only path, we must martyr ourselves by the millions"

One rarely hears anything close to that anymore from Palestinians and when one does it can usually be dismissed as being said by small groups usually hyperbolically. The main Palestinian groups recognized Israel's "right to exist" years ago and even the more miltant groups accept Israelis existance as an unchangable fact.

In the past there was a larger desire by many Palestinians and Arab groups to prevent or end the state of Israel from solidfying and one can morally judge that by todays standards but its a little misdleading. The desire by some Native Americans to prevent the US from solidfying its hold on the US West is usually seen as a moral cause by people to preserve their land, wheras if one heard the same call today for everyone in the US West to "go back to Europe" one would have to dismiss the call as hyperbole (although one could misrepresent it as a call for genocide).

Most current fighting between Palestinians and Israelis seems mainly tied to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza with other issus being brought up for PR purposes or out of anger. You can think what you want about the morality of Palestinian fighting, but to judge Palestinians as a group for the actions of militant groups is unfair. Most of the world sees the Kurdish cause in Turkey as somewhat just (at least for less restrictive laws on speaking Kurdish...) but one could get in a similar debate on the justice of PKK attacks on Turkey during the 80s and 90s. Should you claim that restrictive laws on Kurds are a result of the violence of the Kurdish militants or the other way around? What about N Ireland, Basque Spain, Kashmir, Darfur, ... Its easy to say if "they" stopped fighting us we could start treating "them" fairly but in almost all these cases the "they" in question and the "them" in question are not the same people.

Arguing with supporters of Israel its easy to give an example of another conflict and ask why people are more sympathetic to lets say Northern Irish Catholics (in spite of IRA attacks) than Palestinians (in spite of Hamas attacks), but while there may well be well thought out responses, the real reasons are always unspoken. Racism is often given as an excuse by the Left but again it misses the point that N Irish Protestants have the exact same view of Catholics as Israelis do towards Palestinians. Turkish nationalists will justify actions against Kurds by accusing those who are sympathetic to Kurds as coddlers of terorrism and even some on the radical left in the US justify crackdowns on dissent by Castro with quite similar arguments (since nationalist like loyalty to a group can just as easilly be based around ideology as ethnicity or religion)

>>>"...as with Arafat and Kissinger the prizes were more tied to individual actions not the overall person. I wouldnt really fault those who award the prize as much as one can easilly do in retrospect since those who can do most in single acts for peace are usually warmongers (ie a warmonger who moves their base away from war is really doing more for peace than a person who is preaching to the choir"<<<

That may be true but doesn't detract from the moral travesty of granting a terror careerist a prize based merely on the *hope* by the Nobel committee that Arafat would permanently abandon terror and violence.
You can bash Kissinger and others to the content of your heart, but I can't think of any laureates that had indulged in violent activities for decades on end prior to being awarded, let alone ongoing violent activity after having been awarded the Nobel such as Arafat. Even if the Nobel had been granted to somebody as worse as Arafat, that doesn't make Arafat's award justified. To cap it off, Arafat wasn't merely a warmonger.

>>>"If CT or even Gehrig may feel that all coverage of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon was antiIsrael, demonize Fisk, claim the BBC and LA Times are biased against Israel ... you can see this as them lying because they are "Zionists" or you can recognize that one sees identical things with respect to how nationalists see other conflicts."<<<

No, I do NOT think ALL the the reporting about Israel's invasion of Lebanon was anti-Israel. I try to be fair and use concrete examples to back up claims I make that the BBC is anti-Israel and Robert Fisk lied about Sabra & Shatila and am not really going to concern myself with how anti-Zionists perceive my substantiated allegations.

Whatever one considers me, jingoistic I'm not.

" Whatever one considers me, jingoistic I'm not."

Thats where the confusion lies. I dont consider you jingoistic and thats quite different from being blinded by ones choice of sides in a conflict. Serbs I talked to in the Bay Area who saw the press as misrepresenting what was going on in Bosnia for the most part didnt support Moslosovic or the war in Bosnia, they just thought the Serbian attrocities were being focused on due to an antiSlav bias. Perhaps you were not as blinded about Lebanon, but I would be curious to hear of examples of coverage of that conflict that you see as nonbiased (and were not by clearly proIsrael papers since one can find Serb papers that did good reporting on everything else but supported the war in Bosnia). So far you have said you found the NYT (Friedman) and the Times (for which Fisk worked at the time) biased. Do you think the AP and Reuters lied about Lebanon too? (Fisk worked closely with Terry Anderson the chief Mideast correspondent for the AP before his kidnapping so their stories were quite similar).

I can see how you would see bias when Lebanon is constantly held over Israel's head as a distinguishing mark of shame (since the US has carried out far worse attrocities before and sense as have many other countries), but that bias is by those who focus on the conflict not by the reporters for covered it first hand at the time. Bringing up Lebanon is unfair when the main problem today is with the West Bank and Gaza and what happened in Lebanon can at most explain why Sharon is so hated or why suicide bombs are seen as a tatic that works (since it only took two bombings to drive the US out and the bombings of Israeli building also seemed to have had the desired effect)

But, while I dont think Lebanon has much bearing on what one should think about what is going on today it is a good litmus test when arguing with supporters of Israel since it does help one to understand if arguing even makes sense. If I am arguing with someone about the war in Iraq and they keep repeating that US foreign policy is always based on the highest of moral principals, bringing up Pinochet or Suharto gives at least an insight into who I am arguing with. If I get an answer "we had to support Pinochet depite his human rights abuses since it was part of the Cold War effort to contain Communism..." I know the person is being truthful but is very conservative. If they respond claiming that either the US didnt really support Pinochet or Pinochet never did anything wrong, then I know they need to read more about the conflict before I can really discuss it with them or that they are compeltely blinded by US patriotism and discussion will likely lead nowhere. In the case of Lebanon I have a feeling that most Israelis at the time would have argued that some response to attacks may have been needed but Begin and Sharon went too far when they had the army go all the way to Beirut and the result was a disaster for everyone involved and included many attacks by Israelis on civilians areas that could be considered attrocities (and resulted in Israel's first military defeat). The way Israelis saw the invasion at the time reminds me a lot of the way the US public is starting to see Iraq. If you are arguing with someone about Israel today and they think what happened in Lebanon was entirely the fault of others and that Israel did everything right, you know there is no room for real discussion on most issues regarding Israel since the blinders are on and there is no room for the possibility that Israel can do wrong (despire any facts to the contrary).

If you can at least admit there were serious moral problems with some of the bombings of Beirut, the question of how you see the bombing and Israels' role in Sabra and Chatila comes down to a question of how you see human nature and attrocities. Are attrocities something that must be the product of low level corrupt individuals when on one's own side (like a racist IDF soldier who targets a kid, or an individual US solider at Abu Ghraib) but is intrinsic to the nature of the thinking of the "other side"? Nobody is ever going to admit that but its pretty much the way everyone sees the world. "Our side" always does what is right and the crazies who stray are rare and can not be held to represent anything about our overall cause. "The other side" is wrong (evil, antiDemocratic, racist, antiSemitic, stupid, irrational, full of ethnic hatreds, they dont value the life of their children, full of hate) and when individuals or small groups on "their side" do things it reflects on their very foundations. One heared such talk from Gonzales when talking about torture in the hearings yesterday when he brought up beheadings. One hears this when those on the Left use individual actions to demonize whole policies, the entire right, "Zionists"... One hears this from supporters of Israel when talking about Palestinian bombings vs Israeli bombings. One hears this same logic by both sides in massacres in India by Muslims against Hindus and Hindus against Muslims. People like to see the world in simple black and white terms, where "evil" (no matter how it's defined) is always associated with the "other" wheras if one personally carries out the same acts carried out by ones enemies (for the worst of possible reasons), one's justfiications make the actions somehow different.

If you dont think you see the world with such blinders pick the side you support in any military conflict and name a horrible war crime carried out by your side. If you cant (no matter what country or group you are talking about) you are probably blinded (since I cant think of a war that has happened where both sides have not carried out horrible attrocities).

You know, you seem to be in the habit of typing acres of text as if to get the "opponent" on the defensive by having them bogged down in spending much their time to read it all and have trouble composing understandable and coherent rebuttals.

As to you first wish, take for example a reporter like then NYT's David Shipler -- hardly a friend of Israel -- who confirmed Israel's claims of heavily armed PLO camps strewn all over souther Lebanon.

[You know, you seem to be in the habit of typing acres of text as if to get the "opponent" on the defensive by having them bogged down in spending much their time to read it all and have trouble composing understandable and coherent rebuttals.]

am I the only person who finds this funny?

yes, it does take time to read things, and, worse yet, it takes time to consider what you think about it, and post a response!

of all the gall, for ? to spend the time to compose detailed, thoughtful posts for consideration

would it be safe to say that CT has never read Proust or Tolstoy? one wonders

Gibbon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire is definitely out of the question, although, perhaps, The Lord of the Rings is sufficiently entertaining to overcome short attention spans

could this be a Freudian slip, an accidental admission by CT as to his methods on this site?

I mean, really, post or not, but don't whine about it

--Richard

>>>"would it be safe to say that CT has never read Proust or Tolstoy? one wonders

Gibbon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire is definitely out of the question, although, perhaps, The Lord of the Rings is sufficiently entertaining to overcome short attention spans"<<<

This is fun. You seem to consider yourself something like an oracle in your own mind. Psychic abilities perhaps?

>>>"could this be a Freudian slip, an accidental admission by CT as to his methods on this site?"<<<

I see both ? and you, to name two examples, engaging far more in composing lengthy texts than I (though you unquestionably do it less often).

"Racism is often given as an excuse by the Left but again it misses the point that N Irish Protestants have the exact same view of Catholics as Israelis do towards Palestinians."

You are right. I am Catholic and I don't like the IRA terrorists. I am Spanish and don't like the Spanish ETA terrorists.

Would you call it racism or xenophobia?

Sorry for being too wordy. Work is going slow due to the Hollidays and it feels better to write one or two well thought out things then a lot of short responses that can be misinterpreted.

I am curious to read something by David Shipler about the bombing of Beirut; there wouldnt happen to be any reposts online? Or books by him?

Most of the history I have read about Lebanon has been from encyclopedia type sources with just dates and names, longer histories of the Middle East that just mention it, and Fisk's book "Pity the Nation". Fisk seemed pretty even handed towards every group aside from the Phalange (where his tendency to bring up their similarities to European fascist groups seemed at little much when demonizing a group for dress style in addition to their actions seemed a little much) He went into a good amount of detail about Palestinian camps in Lebanon, the checkpoints massacres in 1975, fighting between Syria and the PLO, PLO shelling of villages that resulted in large numbers of deaths, cross border attacks against civlians in Israel, and corruption by Arafat and others at a high level in the PLO.... When describing the horrors of the large numbers of deaths in W Beirut from Isreali bombings he always described the PLO (or Syrian or some other militai) installations that were in almost every case the primary target (including antiaircraft guns on the roofs of hospitals). The main group he seemed to go a little soft on was the Shiite groups in the S of the country and I wonder if some of that was because the chapter on months leading up to the kidnapping of Terry Anderson was partly written as an appeal to his captors for release (it was syndicated to a local newspaper so the captors might read it). I think the main reason Fisk gets such a bad rap from the right-wing is for the one chapter on Sabra and Chatila where he describes in graphic detail what he saw sneaking into the camps as the massacres were finishing andone interview he has with an Israeli solider (nobody in command_ who talks of a desire exterminating all Palestinians. He also had many sympathetic interviews with Israeli soliders and interviews wth poeple filled with hate from most oft he groups and graphic descriptions of Hama in Syria (Which he witnessed first hand) and a rather graphic description (although second hand) of the murder of a large number of IDF troops who were tied up as prisoners.

I would be interested in reading other first hand account about what happened in Lebanon, although I would definitely be less interested in hearing something written from the army or militas' perspectives than from civlians who had to face attrocities from all sides. Are there any good histories written by Maronites or perhaps the small Jewish community that was still in W Beirut at the time of the Israeli air raids?

[>>>"could this be a Freudian slip, an accidental admission by CT as to his methods on this site?"<<<

I see both ? and you, to name two examples, engaging far more in composing lengthy texts than I (though you unquestionably do it less often).]

I seem to recall lengthy discussions of the ethnography of the Middle East, especially Palestine, under the CT brand name

and, even recently, you have posted some lengthy remarks

but, ultimately, the question is one of content, not length, and ? has provided some thoughtful comment


[>>>"would it be safe to say that CT has never read Proust or Tolstoy? one wonders

Gibbon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire is definitely out of the question, although, perhaps, The Lord of the Rings is sufficiently entertaining to overcome short attention spans"<<<

This is fun. You seem to consider yourself something like an oracle in your own mind. Psychic abilities perhaps?]

it's really a lot simpler

I just picked them because they are long, and in the cases of Proust and Gibbon, multivolume

for the record, I like Tolstoy, but I've never been inclined to read either Proust or Gibbon

--Richard

"You are right. I am Catholic and I don't like the IRA terrorists. I am Spanish and don't like the Spanish ETA terrorists...Would you call it racism or xenophobia?"

Your dislike for the IRA is probably different than the dislike by N Irish Protestants for N Irish Catholics because of the IRA. The recent accusation of a massive bank roberry by the IRA for example has lead many N Irish Proetstants to demand that Sinn Fein not be part of the government, which would essentially meanun derreprestation of the Catholic minority (just as banning Batsuna due to ETA hurt all Basques).

A more extreme example I heard recently was an interview (I think it was on Fresh Air on KQED) with a writer who had interviewed people involved with ethnic fighting in India. He apparently interviewed someone involved in the burning alive of a Muslim man during the Gujarat riots. The murderer mentioned that the man he killed had begged for his life saying he had children, but the murderer responded "you should have thought about that when the Muslims killed men with families on the train" People who justify the Occupation by pointing at Arafat's actions during the Peace Process or at suicide bus bombs remind me of that man (or someone believing the same thing but not carrying out the actions); two wrongs dont make a right and collective punishment that uses terrorism as an excuse can also be its own form of terrorism.

As far as I know, Sinn Fein is the "political"branch of the IRA, so I think those protestants are right, exactly the same as Batasuna in relation to ETA: they are all terrorists.

Banning ETA just harms the Basque who support terrorists but it's good for the Basques who are their victims or potential victims.

And I think it is good for all the Spaniards. It is outrageous that we have to finance terrorism through taxes..

And I cannot see why it is important if they are a minority or not.

Neither the British protestants or the Spaniards burn terrorists alive or dead. On the contrary, we have been very nice to them but they still kill us.

And I know what terrorism is like so I like no kind of terrorist, IRA, ETA, Hamas or whatever.

And the Arab terrorists have been murdering Jews since long before what you call the "occupation".

What is more, that kind of terrorists' aim is to kill us all.

The IRA are courageous and virtuous freedom fighters, who are attempting to throw off the evil, apartheid yoke of British imperialist tyranny, and put a final end once and for all to the long, brutal, agonizing occupation of their homeland, and the unspeakably criminal oppression of their people, by the cruel and ruthless gang of thieves, thugs, goons and murderers who do the bloody bidding of the *real* Evil Empire. That gang is the British Army. It is a monster run amok. Its fangs have dripped Irish blood for centuries. It’s political wing is Britain’s Parliament. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy the the wicked fiends of Whitehall. Peace and justice will never prevail while they still they stalk the earth. Cursed be they forever. May the very sod itself rise up against them and the sky rain death upon them. May they shrivel, wither, dwindle and fade, and their names be forgotten forever, but never their monstrous deeds. Never forget. Never forgive. Death to empirialism. Brits out now.

Terrorism never has justification.

I am sorry if you are Irish, but one thing is to fight an army and a very different thing is targeting civilians.

Both nessie and angie's ancestors hail from Ireland and they are one helluva cyber pair. Coincidence?

I know Ireland was invaded by Britain, but this is not justification for terrorism.

I would presume a Google search would lead you to what you're seeking from David Shipler, vintage historical narratives written by Maronites and if you get particularly fortunate, by Jewish individuals who once lived in Lebanon. An alternate route to such material may be using the A-9 search engine which I found on amazon.com, though I've yet to try it out.

Good luck.

What, not even to found the State of Israel?

What's that you say? You believe Israel should have been founded by terrorism?

As far as I know, Israel wasn't founded by terrorism.

Would you mind telling me if you are the person defending the IRA?

" As far as I know, Israel wasn't founded by terrorism. "

Terrorism is a subjective judgement on what one thinks of the motives of groups that carry out certain types of attacks. People like to claim that it is defined in a specific fashion (nongovernmental attacks intended to intimidate a government for political change) but then this gets modified when groups people would obviously support fit the definition (like the Resistance during Nazi rule which fits that exact definition). Another definition would require that the attacks be directed on civilians but then would an IRA attack on a bar mainly frequented by soliders be terrorism or not? If one does consider this terrorism, then one would again have to include many attacks by the Resistance under Nazi rule, attacks in British interests before the American Revolution, etc... The idea that attacks are nongovernmental is usually put in there to destinguish terrorism from war crimes (or just normal acts during war) but when people talk of state sponsored terrorism that undermines this definition and makes it clear that in many cases "terrorism" just means acts of political violence that one disgarees with strongly. Take nearly equivalent assasinations (except for ones views on the justice of the assasination) the assasination of Rabin, the assasination of Yasin, the assasination of MLK and the assasination of Ze’evi. Almost all the mainstream media only places the last as terrorism since the mainstream media caries its biases (which are definitely not antiIsrael most of the time). While the deaths of Rabin and MLK are also seen as bad by the media (and the assasinations were for political purposes) they are not classified as terrorism since terrorism carries with it an element of demonization of the casue of those carrying out an action. The murder of Yassin is classified almost universally as not a terorist attack since terrorism has nothing to do with an act itself but with ideas of the justice of the cause of the act and a willingness to demonize the movement that the attack represented (so calling it terrorism would then mean one was calling Israel a terrorist).

While someone can try to get around this problem in definition by saying one denounces all acts of political violence (as long as they are not commited by governments) to say this, supporters of Israel (or the US) would have to denounce the actions used by the nongovernmental groups that helped found Israel (and the US).

----

Irgun (ארגון), shorthand for Irgun Tsvai-Leumi (ארגון צבאי לאומי, also spelled Irgun Zvai-Leumi), Hebrew for "Military-National Organization", was a Zionist rebel group that existed in the early 20th century.

Irgun actions:

* 1937-1939 - A large number of attacks against Arabs, sometimes en masse, were carried out, especially under the command of Moshe Rosenberg and David Raziel. For example, 24 Arabs were killed and 39 injured by a marketplace bomb in Haifa, February 27, 1939, and further casualties were caused by bombs in Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv on the same day. (Sources: Palestine (now Jerusalem) Post 2/28/39; Y. Ben-Ami, Years of Wrath, Days of Glory; Memiors of the Irgun (1982))

* July 22, 1946 - Irgun bombs King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of the British civil and military administration, killing 91 people (17 Jewish). The Irgun gave a warning to evacuate the building, which was ignored by the British (Source: [1] (http://www.onwar.com/aced/nation/jay/jew/firgun1931.htm))

* October 31, 1946 - Irgun bombs British Embassy in Rome, Italy. (Source: [2] (http://www.cdiss.org/)).

* May 4, 1947 - the Irgun breaks into the Akko prison and releases 27 Jewish activists (Source: [[3] (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Acre.html)] , [[4] (http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac13.htm)])

* September 29, 1947 - Irgun bombs police station in Haifa, Palestine, killing four British and four Arab policemen, and two Arab civilians. (Source: [5] (http://www.cdiss.org/)).

* December 29, 1947 - Irgun throws grenades into cafe in Jerusalem, Palestine, killing 11 Arabs and 2 British policemen. (Source: [6] (http://www.cdiss.org/)).

* 9 April 1948 - The Irgun together with the Stern gang attacked the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, killing at least 107 civilians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun

Lehi (Hebrew acronym for Lohamei Herut Israel, "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel") also known as the "Stern Gang"

Noted Lehi attacks:

* November 6, 1944 - Lehi assassinates Lord Moyne, a British government representative blamed for the White Paper immigration policy, in Cairo. This act rocked the British government, and outraged Winston Churchill the British Prime Minister. The two assassins were captured, sentenced to death, and executed.

* April 9, 1948 - Lehi and Irgun attack Deir Yassin (see Deir Yassin massacre).

* September 17, 1948, Lehi assassinated the UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. Bernadotte's insistence on the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes was the cause for his murder. The assassination was directed by Yehoshua Zetler and carried out by a four-man team led by Meshulam Markover. The fatal shots were fired by Yehoshua Cohen. Lehi leaders Nathan Yellin-Mor and Matitiahu Schmulevitz were arrested two months after the murder. Most of the suspects involved were released immediately and all of them were granted general amnesty on the 14th of February, 1949.

In 1980 Israel instituted the Lehi ribbon, red, black, grey, pale blue and white which is awarded to former members of the Lehi underground.

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

Start here:

http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/09/1696976_comment.php#1713346

They lie about even petty stuff like this. And yet they expect you to take them at their word when they deny thier capital crimes. Surely they take you for fools.

it does not include the efforts of the Israeli military to drive Arabs out of their villages in 1948, and massacres that were carried out as a result, as recently documented by Israeli historian Benny Morris as well as Nur Mastalha