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Originally posted by rupert They were. They were ethnically cleasnsed and there villages were burnt to the ground, the Israelis said that the arabs could come back but they did not mean it and made sure they didnt come back. As I have always said, as far as I am aware the best Israeli account of the entire conflict is Benny Morris's Righteous Victims. It gives quote after quote after quote from Israelis at the time admitting there goal was to ethnically cleanse the arabs. Read it. If not that book then the opening chapters of Robert Fisks Pity the Nation. It has numerous interviews with Jews and Arabs who actually lived in 1948 and recount what actually happened. The best that can be said about the Israelis in 1948 was that they were divided into two factions the Ben-Gurion faction that wanted to reach an accomodation with the arabs and the Stern Gang faction who did not want to make any accommodation with the arabs.

Of course you can find quote after quote of Israelis calling for the extinction of Arabs just as you can go to Palestine and find quote after quote of Palestinians calling for the extinction of Israel. Does that extrapolate towards the entire society or population though??? I’m well aware of the Stern Gang and LEHI’s efforts to create a Jewish state and rid the region of Arabs. However, the Stern Gang was an ultra-right terrorist organization that conducted terrorist bombings against the British and even other Jews. They even went so far as to collaborate with the Nazis in order to achieve their objectives! However, the LEHI and the similar group Irgun were actively dismantled by Ben-Gurion himself in 1948. Ben-Gurion even went so far as to blow up arms shipments that these groups were getting to conduct operations. Read about the sinking of the Altalena. So yes you can find examples of Israeli extremism, but what you are saying is tantamount to me saying something like … look at Hamas, that’s an example of all Palestinians being terrorists. I’m most certain I would be hearing from everybody calling me a racist and calling for me being banned

Instead of reading all these heavily opinionated pieces, try something a little more abstract and unbiased, like a historical textbook. I’ve found from time to time again that these “sensational” accounts from radical, “cutting edge” authors are trying to do only one thing … sell their book. As such, they fail to give you the big picture so to speak. Try reading R. R. Palmer’s A History of the Modern World. It should give a good account of everything going on in the region and present it in a fair, unbiased manner.

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Am I. Am I. You want proof of Israeli racism. These are articles from a Jewish author who writes in Ha'aretz http://www.zmag.org/content/showart...=22&ItemID=3674 http://zmag.org/content/showarticle...=22&ItemID=3571 http://zmag.org/content/showarticle...=22&ItemID=3529 http://zmag.org/content/showarticle...=22&ItemID=3120 Or if Eugene Levy isnt enough http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html As to the Joan Peters book http://store.yahoo.com/netanyahu/fintrutinmid.html This book has been proved to be a fraud, and it finds support from, oh look guess who Binyamin Netanyahu. People have posted that book on this site as proof of the Jews superior claim to the land. The intent of that book is to try and say that Palestine was just an empty desert when the Jews arived. Its a lie. A fabrication just like the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" A lie with a nasty racist agenda. It makes the arabs un-people. People without rights, nothing more than "cockroaches" as General Eitan called them. Remember the Israeli tourism minister who the arabs managed to kill about two years ago. The arabs chose him for a reason. He was on record as calling the arabs "vermin" When top officials get away with saying stuff like that you know that the society where racism is acceptable. No leading politican in the west could ever get away with what they say in Israel.

Sigh … what did I say? I said you were being extremist and ONE-SIDED in your proclamation of Israel being racist. Did I not say that there were elements within Israeli society that were racist??? Well you just proved what I had already admitted to. However, once again that doesn’t implicate Israeli society as being racist. There are going to be those who are racist in positions of power EVERYWHERE. Just look at Strom Thurmond who campaigned to be President under a platform of segregation. Do you even want me to dredge up quotes of Palestinian officials and reports of their direct affiliation to terrorist groups? If you’re going to use the erection of a wall as an example of Israeli society being racist then why didn’t the Israelis do this 40 years ago after they had established their state? Why do they even let Palestinian workers cross into Israeli proper to work? The Israeli wall was erected in response to increased terrorism from the Palestinians not increased racism on the part of the Israelis. Your argument that Israeli society is racist is going to win just as much credibility as the argument that Palestinian/Arab society is racist. Both societies are twisted by hatred over the years of conflict, however they are not racist.

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The truth is the arabs were the majority population of the land that is Israel right up until 1948 and had continually inhabited that land since the Caliph in the 7th century. Any other statement is a lie.

There was no Arab state in Israel at the time of its establishment. And if you look at the initial partition lines drawn up by the UN it was based on population density between Jews and Arabs.



If you read about the history of Palestine in the 19th and early 20th century, much of the Jewish holdings in Israel pre-1948 were acquired through legal land purchases from Arab land owners. This partition based on who actually owns what was summarily rejected by OUTSIDE neighboring Arab countries who were intent on exterminating jews. And that lead to the situation of Israel looking like it does today.

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Last edited by occrider on May-29-2003 at 16:07