Never forget: "Ninety-eight percent of respondents said the Oct. 7 slaughter made them feel "prouder of their identity as Palestinians." — according to a survey by the Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) research firm.
“Ends justify the means” is a failed narrative and only serves to undermine the desired result.
Russell was that misquote from you or did you just pass it on? I looked up your reference. Tables # 23 and 24 breaks down responses to the Question: “Considering the ongoing events, do you feel a sense of pride as a Palestinian?” That was from November 14th, two and half weeks after Israel’s invasion. Besides the question having a different context and different meaning than what you wrote, the timing changes it too…Nothing brings out the pride in a people like outsiders telling 1/3 of them to leave their homes knowing they will probably have nothing to return to.
The table # 27 and 28 would probably serve what you were going for better and you don’t even have to twist the words. Though the percentage isn’t as impressive when you say 75% it is still mind boggling high!
I would like to know what facts they actually have of the Horrific Events that happened on Oct 7th? I’m sure what they have seen and what they believe would be different than what the rest of us had access to. “Fake News” manipulation rally calls aren’t just here in the states.
And if you ask me if I still have a sense of pride as an American after Iraq and Vietnam even though in the end we find out we Had No Real reason to be in either country… I still say I am Very Proud to be an American and a 4 Generation Veteran.
Horrible situation over there. And the Hate being cultivated on Both sides is only going to grow with the kids living through this.
Ryan, fascinating conversation between you and Chuck Holton. I thought your Ukraine scenario describing the rolling effect of Ukraine’s finally getting trained pilots and F16’s and improving its military position was really interesting. Great thoughts on Gaza too.
I thought I would make a point about the Gaza war. I know that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is immensely complicated because of the history of the region, and the starkly different view many people have of that conflict in terms of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. A Palestinian journalist once said to me that the conflict is not between right and wrong, it is a conflict between two rights.
In my view, history really matters. The simple history of that place is that in the late 19th century, a group of European Jews decided to look for a safer place to live than Europe and landed on the idea of the biblical homeland of the Jews, which is Palestine or greater Israel. Problem was, all the arable land already had people living on it. They pressed on anyway and Arabs starting resisting them in the 1920’s, with a particularly ugly massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1928 followed by the Arab Revolt of 1936. Let’s just fast forward to October 7th and the present Gaza war to point out that the Arabs never stopped violently resisting them and the Israeli’s never found the national will to deal with the problem politically. In my mind, the October 7 terrorist attack was just the third Intifada, the first being the Intifada of stones, the second being the intifada of terrorist suicide bombs and the third being the awful attack on Israeli civilians next to Gaza, rapes, murder, kidnapping and so on. Each time has been more deadly than the last.
So who are the good guys? The Israel’s, who executed a text book 19th century colonial project and maintained it with military oppression long after its sell-by date in modern political terms? The Palestinians who gnawed on their murderous rage and never stopped hating the Jews who displaced them for three generations? Certainly not all the victims, Jews killed by terror bombings, always living under a cloud of fear, Palestinians living with no civil rights for 50 years, imprisoned, stopped and humiliated at check points, losing their land year by year to illegal settlements, or locked away in Gaza in squalor.
The Gaza war has done more to damage Israel than anything the Palestinians have ever done. Was this the Hamas strategy? They surely knew, after what happened to Lebanon, that the Israeli’s would take the gloves off after October 7th. Now the world has turned more hostile to Israel than at any time in its history. Israel is accused of genocide in the World Court. Their relationship with their chief protector, the United States is more damaged than it has ever been. And the younger generation of American Jews is turning against Israel to a degree that we have never seen before. The Saudi deal is in the tank. And of course, the Palestinian issue, which had pretty much faded from international consciousness, is back on the front burner, eclipsing even the Ukraine war.
So who is winning this war? Nobody is, but Hamas has dragged it out with no end in sight and October 7th is yesterday’s news compared to the 30,000 dead and mass starvation. Israel is never going to defeat Hamas in the total victory that Netanyahu wants. They will certainly kill all the leaders eventually, but the war will have created a whole new crop of Hamas enthusiasts. And Biden is now publicly (or through leaked commentary) threatened to limit arms sales to Israel if they attack Rafah.
It is all a wheel within a wheel. I have no idea why we are talking about building this pier with all the potential problems you have commented on, or parachuting aid into Gaza (killing the people it falls on) instead of just leaning on the Israeli’s to let the stuff come in on trucks.
Obviously this is just my opinion, based on work I have done in the region in the past. I have sympathy for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Both are right. Both are wrong.
Respectfully, your perception of the history of Israel is simplistic. A bunch of European Jews didn't just come in, kicking Arab farmers off their land. The Jewish Fund, the General Zionist Organization and others bought land from Ottoman and Arab owners and leased it to individuals and farming organizations to improve it. Prior to 1948 no Arabs (or anyone else) had their land taken from them.
You also misstate the situation in Hebron, which had always had a large Jewish presence, going back to Abraham. Likewise Jerusalem was a Jewish majority city.
You might gain some insight by reading Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad" or any other period work.
The 1948 war was played by non-European rules. Had the surrounding Arab nations succeeded, Jews would have been killed, enslaved, or driven out of the region. The proto-Israelis were much more gracious in victory. Twenty percent of Israel's population are non-Jewish Arabs who enjoy full civil rights. More than fifty percent of the Jewish population comes from North Africa, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria or from Palestine itself and can be considered non-European.
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. I am afraid, with respect, that simplification is in the eye of the beholder. As I am sure you know, this is an ongoing problem with this subject, the tendency for subjective opinion to be taken as historical proof by one impassioned commentator or another.
I never said European Jews came in and kicked Arab farmers off their land. I think you are turning a blind eye to the whole procedure of Jewish land purchases long before 1948, something that contributed to the violence in the 1920’s and the Arab strike and revolt of 1936. Often these purchases were from absentee landlords or done in secret and Jews hired Jews to work their new land, pushing Arab laborers off the land in the process. Your description of this suggests there was no reason for Arab anger at the Jews, but violence started in the 1920s and continued to this day. Neither Hebron nor Jerusalem were Jewish majority cities in the early days of Zionism. Please observe the demographic details. And it is nothing short of comical to think that the proto-Israeli’s were “gracious”, however you might imagine that Arabs might or might not have treated them had the Arabs won (an unprovable hypothetical). Israeli Arab citizens who stayed behind in 1948 have suffered discrimination in employment, housing, education and civic access from 1948 until today. During the second Intifada, Israeli Arabs citizens who demonstrated in sympathy to West Bank Arabs were treated as enemy collaborators and shot dead by Israeli police snipers, a technique they learned from the IDF who did this to Arab demonstrators on the Temple Mount. Please keep in mind we are talking about voting Israeli Arab citizens, shot by their own police, whose salaries were paid with their taxes. And I am sure you understand that the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries happened in response to the expulsion of Palestinians by the Jews and the establishment of the state of Israel.
I am afraid you have bought into a fairly flawed and cherry picked historical narrative because it makes you comfortable. It is a crueler story.
My evidence comes from primary sources, including The New York Herald, The Prince of Wales Photographic Expedition of 1863, Mark Twain's account in The Innocent's Abroad, The Palestine Post, The London Times, The New York Times, etc. I also have had personal contact with survivors of the Hebron and Jerusalem pogroms, etc. I have not always been a Zionist, and I have done significant research of primary sources.
You presume to know and understand the motivations for Arab hatred of Jews under the British Mandate. Where are your facts and sources? Based on your logic, if a New Yorker buys a farm in Mississippi and employs other New Yorkers to work the farm, the farmhands who were previously employed should be excused for venting their irritation with violence against the new occupants. Is there something wrong with my analogy?
Also, at the time most of the land purchases from absentee owners, most of the land had gone to waste and could not have been worked.
You ignore Islam's hatred and oppression of The Jews which goes back to the time of the Koran and Hadiths.
You know, I am sure you are a nice person and your motivation for going on about this is sincere. But I am afraid your bias is pretty evident.
I am a retired television journalist and I have made about 50 films in my career. Among them are two important films about the Arab/Israeli conflict, three films about the Holocaust, a series about Islamic history, a special about Islamic art and architecture and a special about Islamic Spain. All of these films required a great deal of research and time spent with scholars who specialized in the various subjects. I spent a week, for instance, in the national archive of Germany in Koblenz, looking at 5,000 photographs of the Holocaust. I did the same thing at the archive at Yad Vashem. On average it takes about a year to make an hour of serious television documentary work. I tell you this so that you will understand I am not a casual observer of the subject.
Of course I don’t know everything about this complex history, but I know a lot more than the average Joe. The idea that there is some kind of ancient history of hatred of Jews by Muslims is simply not true. It is an idea that is often presented in order to suggest that the conflict is ancient and impossible to change, but Zionism has a start date in the late 19th century and the European Jews who developed the idea presented it themselves to the Europeans as a colonial project. It is not in the Bible or the Koran. Your New York farmer analogy is silly in the extreme. For it to be an effective metaphor, the New Yorker would also have to bring thousands of New Yorkers into Mississippi with the publicly stated goal of erasing Mississippi and establishing a new state, with a different language and religion. Where you get the idea that most of the land purchased by Jews had “gone to waste” makes no sense. Why would the Jews have purchased it? This is part of the propagandistic myth about “Making the desert bloom” and “a land without a people for a people without a land” two chestnuts designed to encourage people to forget about the displacement of the Arabs.
I guess you think that 19th century sources were untouched by 19th century ignorance and 19th century bias, but I am afraid you would be wrong in that. I have a bookshelf dedicated to the subject of Israel and the Holocaust that is about six feet long. It is a complex subject explored by people with highly divergent points of view and a variety of biases and trying to find clarity in it is difficult. I try to be cognizant of that. Thanks again for responding to my post.
Robert I think you really over simplified this. There has been a continuous Jewish presence since Biblical times. While the number since at least the 12th century has been about 5,000 the total population was around 150,000. Constant pogroms, other persecutions and forced conversions kept the population down. Jews started fleeing Eastern Europe in the late 19th century because of massive pogroms. Most came to U.S. but small amounts came to the Israel (approx. 60, 000) in two migrations. You can check the Demographic info yourself. Larger immigration's came after that especially after independence when the Arab countries started kicking there Jewish populations out. So though you didn't say it this wasn't an invasion by White Europeans. Israel is trying to deliver food by truck. Hamas has hijacked a lot of it. I don't know what the outcome of all this will be it not been good for either side. When you say 30,000 dead it's by Hamas's count they include their forces in the number. Israel currently says they have killed 13,000 of Hamas's soldier. Just to give it some balance. I could go on but I just wanted to point out some of the inaccuracies of your account.
I’m not sure what difference it makes whether or not there was a continuous Jewish presence in Palestine. I certainly wasn’t denying that. The more important demographic information is what percentage of the population they make up at critical times. If we are to believe the Jewish Virtual Library’s demographic page, for instance, at the very start of the Zionist project, the Jewish population was 8%. That makes the non-Jewish population (almost entirely Arabs) 92%. In spite of this demographic problem, which the early Zionists were entirely aware of, they felt they were fully entitled to move forward with a plan that would most assuredly put think in to conflict with the native Arabs. By the time of the Arab revolt against Jewish immigration and land purchases in 1936, the Jewish population was 28%. By 1947, at the time the UN was designing the partition of Palestine, the Jewish population had risen to 32%. Keep in mind that the UN plan was to give this 32% of the population about 56% of the land. Land actually owned by the Jews was 6.6 in 1947. The UN plan was patently unjust, and the Arabs rejected it and war followed, just as the United States Department of State had predicted, when trying to discourage President Truman from supporting it.
So these demographic figures at critical times are much more important in explaining the conflict than Jewish population over the centuries (in 1517 the Jewish population was 1.7%) or whether or not the land was a biblical entitlement to the Jews. If someone came to your door tomorrow and said “God has promised me your car.” Would you give them the keys?
As to the situation in Gaza regarding humanitarian aid, neither you nor I really know what is going on there since the Israeli’s have created a complete media blackout and will not let reporters in. The New York Times reported today that the IDF denied entrance to an aid truck because of a pair of scissors in a first aid kit, which they claimed might be used as a weapon. If counting all the dead people (now said to have surpassed 31,000) makes you uncomfortable because it includes fighters, how about the 12,300 children killed in the enclave in the last four months, more than all the children killed in all the wars in the world between 2019 and 2022.
So, with respect, I don’t think my comments have been marked by inaccuracies. I think you are a sincere supporter of the state of Israel and these facts and figures cause you pain. Thanks again for responding to my post.
Yeah, I am a Zionist. No, if and or buts. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable as it seems too. I can tell by your retort that is not something you appreciate. But for balance I am also a 2nd generation U.S.Army veteran. So your still playing fast and loose with numbers reported by Hamas. Your comments were not so much inaccurate but biased and leave out the nuance. The comment about the car was unnecessary and frankly uncalled for. Maybe, I'm looking at better and or other news sources then you. Or you are ignoring the sources you don't want to agree with which seems to also be the case. So you arrogate to know what I do or don't know so you can talk down to me or was this just because I corrected you. I could go on and try and bury you in biased opinions populated by cherry picked facts but I have better things to do with my time.SMH
Thanks for your response. Your post did not make me uncomfortable at all, I am just giving you what I believe to be more accurate information. As is plain, this subject very often elicits contrasting views. Simply to be a Zionist means you stand on one side of the narrative divide and clearly embrace a vision dear to that side and you are certainly entitled to your beliefs and opinions, but that does not make them facts. I worked in the region as a journalist and lived in Jerusalem with my family and done quite a bit of work about the Holocaust. I don't know what your army service has to do with anything, but thanks for your service. I am not playing fast and loose with the numbers supplied by Hamas, but simply using what is reported in the main stream media, in this case the New York Times, an outlet often criticized as being pro-Jewish. I thought the car comment was clever, sorry it rubbed you the wrong way. These kinds of arguments or discussions are really pretty useless when there is no evidence that opinions will change. But thanks for posting anyway.
First negative comment ever. The sound was horrible on my system. Usually it isn't so I think it must be from your end. I didn't finish listening. I would love to get the transcript.
- Whether or not we are nice people has no bearing on the subject. Thanks, but 'No thanks.'
- Your claim to knowledge based on your career in journalism is also of no account. Historians laugh at documentaries, even well researched ones. Have you ever read or studied historiography - the study of how history is created?
- I have at my side "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism" by Boston and Ibn Warraq. It is a flawed work because their research methods were purposive; they didn't look for work that would lead to other conclusions. I have, and I understand the differences between schools of abrogation of Islam texts, and the religious differences resulting from different systems of abrogation. For the most part antisemitic interpretations prevail.
- I also have enough Arabic to follow some Arabic language television. Though I often get stumped. MEMRI is a good source for English translation, but again a purposive sample. No one speaks about peace.
- My silly analogy, which was
based on Reconstruction carpet-baggers. If you don't like it, consider current arguments about mass immigration from Central and South America. I don't believe there is any excuse for murdering immigrants. By extension of your argument, murder of immigrants by those who believe they lost jobs, would be excusable.
- Consider the Tel Chai massacre of 1920. A few dozen Jews bought land and tried to farm it. There were no thousands of colonizers.
- You dismiss much of the settled fact as irrelevant because it is uncomfortable or contrary to your conclusions. If you study mideastern history seriously, you will have changed your opinions several times. I have. Have you?
Some real interesting thoughts. I thought the main reason for the pier was to supply part of Gaza that the convoys have not been able to reach. Most of the convoys in the North aren't making it to there destinations and military escorts invites more tragedies like the recent one. I think that the Israeli's pretty much control the beaches and won't interfere and probably will help. As you said Hamas has the most to lose by this, so I guess they will be the greatest threat, as they are now to the convoys. Yes, this is also political, pressure on Biden to do something is extreme.
For most of the war, Israeli spokesmen have urged aid organizations to use alternative crossings which were underutilized and quicker. Israeli examination of aid trucks is necessary to avoid re-arming Hamas.
The purpose of the Oct 7 attack was to provoke a over reaction, it was successfully in that regard. Israel has 2.5 million people in a barrel 25 miles long and two miles wide and is shooting at them relentlessly attempting to accomplish am impossible "kill em all" mission. People in this country are allowed to "clutch at their pearls" over their perception of Israel's actions. Perhaps feeding a starving population and ending the blood shed would result in less "pearl clutching".
“The Ends Justify the Means” approach on Both sides has long since poisoned their motivations and either’s righteousness.
Sadly the amount of hate and resentment born of these most recent events will only serve to harden the conviction of the kids that survive this, again on both sides.
I think we get the dangerous pier idea because Israel doesn’t what the added risk of the Easy, Effective and Efficient way of just driving it over… One because it’s a target for Hamas like Ryan said, and even more so a political hot potato to sign off on it for Israeli politicians.
Never forget: "Ninety-eight percent of respondents said the Oct. 7 slaughter made them feel "prouder of their identity as Palestinians." — according to a survey by the Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) research firm.
“Ends justify the means” is a failed narrative and only serves to undermine the desired result.
Russell was that misquote from you or did you just pass it on? I looked up your reference. Tables # 23 and 24 breaks down responses to the Question: “Considering the ongoing events, do you feel a sense of pride as a Palestinian?” That was from November 14th, two and half weeks after Israel’s invasion. Besides the question having a different context and different meaning than what you wrote, the timing changes it too…Nothing brings out the pride in a people like outsiders telling 1/3 of them to leave their homes knowing they will probably have nothing to return to.
The table # 27 and 28 would probably serve what you were going for better and you don’t even have to twist the words. Though the percentage isn’t as impressive when you say 75% it is still mind boggling high!
I would like to know what facts they actually have of the Horrific Events that happened on Oct 7th? I’m sure what they have seen and what they believe would be different than what the rest of us had access to. “Fake News” manipulation rally calls aren’t just here in the states.
And if you ask me if I still have a sense of pride as an American after Iraq and Vietnam even though in the end we find out we Had No Real reason to be in either country… I still say I am Very Proud to be an American and a 4 Generation Veteran.
Horrible situation over there. And the Hate being cultivated on Both sides is only going to grow with the kids living through this.
Ryan, fascinating conversation between you and Chuck Holton. I thought your Ukraine scenario describing the rolling effect of Ukraine’s finally getting trained pilots and F16’s and improving its military position was really interesting. Great thoughts on Gaza too.
I thought I would make a point about the Gaza war. I know that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is immensely complicated because of the history of the region, and the starkly different view many people have of that conflict in terms of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. A Palestinian journalist once said to me that the conflict is not between right and wrong, it is a conflict between two rights.
In my view, history really matters. The simple history of that place is that in the late 19th century, a group of European Jews decided to look for a safer place to live than Europe and landed on the idea of the biblical homeland of the Jews, which is Palestine or greater Israel. Problem was, all the arable land already had people living on it. They pressed on anyway and Arabs starting resisting them in the 1920’s, with a particularly ugly massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1928 followed by the Arab Revolt of 1936. Let’s just fast forward to October 7th and the present Gaza war to point out that the Arabs never stopped violently resisting them and the Israeli’s never found the national will to deal with the problem politically. In my mind, the October 7 terrorist attack was just the third Intifada, the first being the Intifada of stones, the second being the intifada of terrorist suicide bombs and the third being the awful attack on Israeli civilians next to Gaza, rapes, murder, kidnapping and so on. Each time has been more deadly than the last.
So who are the good guys? The Israel’s, who executed a text book 19th century colonial project and maintained it with military oppression long after its sell-by date in modern political terms? The Palestinians who gnawed on their murderous rage and never stopped hating the Jews who displaced them for three generations? Certainly not all the victims, Jews killed by terror bombings, always living under a cloud of fear, Palestinians living with no civil rights for 50 years, imprisoned, stopped and humiliated at check points, losing their land year by year to illegal settlements, or locked away in Gaza in squalor.
The Gaza war has done more to damage Israel than anything the Palestinians have ever done. Was this the Hamas strategy? They surely knew, after what happened to Lebanon, that the Israeli’s would take the gloves off after October 7th. Now the world has turned more hostile to Israel than at any time in its history. Israel is accused of genocide in the World Court. Their relationship with their chief protector, the United States is more damaged than it has ever been. And the younger generation of American Jews is turning against Israel to a degree that we have never seen before. The Saudi deal is in the tank. And of course, the Palestinian issue, which had pretty much faded from international consciousness, is back on the front burner, eclipsing even the Ukraine war.
So who is winning this war? Nobody is, but Hamas has dragged it out with no end in sight and October 7th is yesterday’s news compared to the 30,000 dead and mass starvation. Israel is never going to defeat Hamas in the total victory that Netanyahu wants. They will certainly kill all the leaders eventually, but the war will have created a whole new crop of Hamas enthusiasts. And Biden is now publicly (or through leaked commentary) threatened to limit arms sales to Israel if they attack Rafah.
It is all a wheel within a wheel. I have no idea why we are talking about building this pier with all the potential problems you have commented on, or parachuting aid into Gaza (killing the people it falls on) instead of just leaning on the Israeli’s to let the stuff come in on trucks.
Obviously this is just my opinion, based on work I have done in the region in the past. I have sympathy for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Both are right. Both are wrong.
Respectfully, your perception of the history of Israel is simplistic. A bunch of European Jews didn't just come in, kicking Arab farmers off their land. The Jewish Fund, the General Zionist Organization and others bought land from Ottoman and Arab owners and leased it to individuals and farming organizations to improve it. Prior to 1948 no Arabs (or anyone else) had their land taken from them.
You also misstate the situation in Hebron, which had always had a large Jewish presence, going back to Abraham. Likewise Jerusalem was a Jewish majority city.
You might gain some insight by reading Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad" or any other period work.
The 1948 war was played by non-European rules. Had the surrounding Arab nations succeeded, Jews would have been killed, enslaved, or driven out of the region. The proto-Israelis were much more gracious in victory. Twenty percent of Israel's population are non-Jewish Arabs who enjoy full civil rights. More than fifty percent of the Jewish population comes from North Africa, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria or from Palestine itself and can be considered non-European.
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. I am afraid, with respect, that simplification is in the eye of the beholder. As I am sure you know, this is an ongoing problem with this subject, the tendency for subjective opinion to be taken as historical proof by one impassioned commentator or another.
I never said European Jews came in and kicked Arab farmers off their land. I think you are turning a blind eye to the whole procedure of Jewish land purchases long before 1948, something that contributed to the violence in the 1920’s and the Arab strike and revolt of 1936. Often these purchases were from absentee landlords or done in secret and Jews hired Jews to work their new land, pushing Arab laborers off the land in the process. Your description of this suggests there was no reason for Arab anger at the Jews, but violence started in the 1920s and continued to this day. Neither Hebron nor Jerusalem were Jewish majority cities in the early days of Zionism. Please observe the demographic details. And it is nothing short of comical to think that the proto-Israeli’s were “gracious”, however you might imagine that Arabs might or might not have treated them had the Arabs won (an unprovable hypothetical). Israeli Arab citizens who stayed behind in 1948 have suffered discrimination in employment, housing, education and civic access from 1948 until today. During the second Intifada, Israeli Arabs citizens who demonstrated in sympathy to West Bank Arabs were treated as enemy collaborators and shot dead by Israeli police snipers, a technique they learned from the IDF who did this to Arab demonstrators on the Temple Mount. Please keep in mind we are talking about voting Israeli Arab citizens, shot by their own police, whose salaries were paid with their taxes. And I am sure you understand that the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries happened in response to the expulsion of Palestinians by the Jews and the establishment of the state of Israel.
I am afraid you have bought into a fairly flawed and cherry picked historical narrative because it makes you comfortable. It is a crueler story.
Thanks again for your comment.
My evidence comes from primary sources, including The New York Herald, The Prince of Wales Photographic Expedition of 1863, Mark Twain's account in The Innocent's Abroad, The Palestine Post, The London Times, The New York Times, etc. I also have had personal contact with survivors of the Hebron and Jerusalem pogroms, etc. I have not always been a Zionist, and I have done significant research of primary sources.
You presume to know and understand the motivations for Arab hatred of Jews under the British Mandate. Where are your facts and sources? Based on your logic, if a New Yorker buys a farm in Mississippi and employs other New Yorkers to work the farm, the farmhands who were previously employed should be excused for venting their irritation with violence against the new occupants. Is there something wrong with my analogy?
Also, at the time most of the land purchases from absentee owners, most of the land had gone to waste and could not have been worked.
You ignore Islam's hatred and oppression of The Jews which goes back to the time of the Koran and Hadiths.
Who is cherry picking? Where are your facts?
You know, I am sure you are a nice person and your motivation for going on about this is sincere. But I am afraid your bias is pretty evident.
I am a retired television journalist and I have made about 50 films in my career. Among them are two important films about the Arab/Israeli conflict, three films about the Holocaust, a series about Islamic history, a special about Islamic art and architecture and a special about Islamic Spain. All of these films required a great deal of research and time spent with scholars who specialized in the various subjects. I spent a week, for instance, in the national archive of Germany in Koblenz, looking at 5,000 photographs of the Holocaust. I did the same thing at the archive at Yad Vashem. On average it takes about a year to make an hour of serious television documentary work. I tell you this so that you will understand I am not a casual observer of the subject.
Of course I don’t know everything about this complex history, but I know a lot more than the average Joe. The idea that there is some kind of ancient history of hatred of Jews by Muslims is simply not true. It is an idea that is often presented in order to suggest that the conflict is ancient and impossible to change, but Zionism has a start date in the late 19th century and the European Jews who developed the idea presented it themselves to the Europeans as a colonial project. It is not in the Bible or the Koran. Your New York farmer analogy is silly in the extreme. For it to be an effective metaphor, the New Yorker would also have to bring thousands of New Yorkers into Mississippi with the publicly stated goal of erasing Mississippi and establishing a new state, with a different language and religion. Where you get the idea that most of the land purchased by Jews had “gone to waste” makes no sense. Why would the Jews have purchased it? This is part of the propagandistic myth about “Making the desert bloom” and “a land without a people for a people without a land” two chestnuts designed to encourage people to forget about the displacement of the Arabs.
I guess you think that 19th century sources were untouched by 19th century ignorance and 19th century bias, but I am afraid you would be wrong in that. I have a bookshelf dedicated to the subject of Israel and the Holocaust that is about six feet long. It is a complex subject explored by people with highly divergent points of view and a variety of biases and trying to find clarity in it is difficult. I try to be cognizant of that. Thanks again for responding to my post.
Robert I think you really over simplified this. There has been a continuous Jewish presence since Biblical times. While the number since at least the 12th century has been about 5,000 the total population was around 150,000. Constant pogroms, other persecutions and forced conversions kept the population down. Jews started fleeing Eastern Europe in the late 19th century because of massive pogroms. Most came to U.S. but small amounts came to the Israel (approx. 60, 000) in two migrations. You can check the Demographic info yourself. Larger immigration's came after that especially after independence when the Arab countries started kicking there Jewish populations out. So though you didn't say it this wasn't an invasion by White Europeans. Israel is trying to deliver food by truck. Hamas has hijacked a lot of it. I don't know what the outcome of all this will be it not been good for either side. When you say 30,000 dead it's by Hamas's count they include their forces in the number. Israel currently says they have killed 13,000 of Hamas's soldier. Just to give it some balance. I could go on but I just wanted to point out some of the inaccuracies of your account.
Thanks taking time to respond.
I’m not sure what difference it makes whether or not there was a continuous Jewish presence in Palestine. I certainly wasn’t denying that. The more important demographic information is what percentage of the population they make up at critical times. If we are to believe the Jewish Virtual Library’s demographic page, for instance, at the very start of the Zionist project, the Jewish population was 8%. That makes the non-Jewish population (almost entirely Arabs) 92%. In spite of this demographic problem, which the early Zionists were entirely aware of, they felt they were fully entitled to move forward with a plan that would most assuredly put think in to conflict with the native Arabs. By the time of the Arab revolt against Jewish immigration and land purchases in 1936, the Jewish population was 28%. By 1947, at the time the UN was designing the partition of Palestine, the Jewish population had risen to 32%. Keep in mind that the UN plan was to give this 32% of the population about 56% of the land. Land actually owned by the Jews was 6.6 in 1947. The UN plan was patently unjust, and the Arabs rejected it and war followed, just as the United States Department of State had predicted, when trying to discourage President Truman from supporting it.
So these demographic figures at critical times are much more important in explaining the conflict than Jewish population over the centuries (in 1517 the Jewish population was 1.7%) or whether or not the land was a biblical entitlement to the Jews. If someone came to your door tomorrow and said “God has promised me your car.” Would you give them the keys?
As to the situation in Gaza regarding humanitarian aid, neither you nor I really know what is going on there since the Israeli’s have created a complete media blackout and will not let reporters in. The New York Times reported today that the IDF denied entrance to an aid truck because of a pair of scissors in a first aid kit, which they claimed might be used as a weapon. If counting all the dead people (now said to have surpassed 31,000) makes you uncomfortable because it includes fighters, how about the 12,300 children killed in the enclave in the last four months, more than all the children killed in all the wars in the world between 2019 and 2022.
So, with respect, I don’t think my comments have been marked by inaccuracies. I think you are a sincere supporter of the state of Israel and these facts and figures cause you pain. Thanks again for responding to my post.
Yeah, I am a Zionist. No, if and or buts. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable as it seems too. I can tell by your retort that is not something you appreciate. But for balance I am also a 2nd generation U.S.Army veteran. So your still playing fast and loose with numbers reported by Hamas. Your comments were not so much inaccurate but biased and leave out the nuance. The comment about the car was unnecessary and frankly uncalled for. Maybe, I'm looking at better and or other news sources then you. Or you are ignoring the sources you don't want to agree with which seems to also be the case. So you arrogate to know what I do or don't know so you can talk down to me or was this just because I corrected you. I could go on and try and bury you in biased opinions populated by cherry picked facts but I have better things to do with my time.SMH
Thanks for your response. Your post did not make me uncomfortable at all, I am just giving you what I believe to be more accurate information. As is plain, this subject very often elicits contrasting views. Simply to be a Zionist means you stand on one side of the narrative divide and clearly embrace a vision dear to that side and you are certainly entitled to your beliefs and opinions, but that does not make them facts. I worked in the region as a journalist and lived in Jerusalem with my family and done quite a bit of work about the Holocaust. I don't know what your army service has to do with anything, but thanks for your service. I am not playing fast and loose with the numbers supplied by Hamas, but simply using what is reported in the main stream media, in this case the New York Times, an outlet often criticized as being pro-Jewish. I thought the car comment was clever, sorry it rubbed you the wrong way. These kinds of arguments or discussions are really pretty useless when there is no evidence that opinions will change. But thanks for posting anyway.
Interesting conversation, terrible sound.
First negative comment ever. The sound was horrible on my system. Usually it isn't so I think it must be from your end. I didn't finish listening. I would love to get the transcript.
I started watching, but since my time in the evenings is limited I'll have to finish watching later...
Where to start first??
- Whether or not we are nice people has no bearing on the subject. Thanks, but 'No thanks.'
- Your claim to knowledge based on your career in journalism is also of no account. Historians laugh at documentaries, even well researched ones. Have you ever read or studied historiography - the study of how history is created?
- I have at my side "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism" by Boston and Ibn Warraq. It is a flawed work because their research methods were purposive; they didn't look for work that would lead to other conclusions. I have, and I understand the differences between schools of abrogation of Islam texts, and the religious differences resulting from different systems of abrogation. For the most part antisemitic interpretations prevail.
- I also have enough Arabic to follow some Arabic language television. Though I often get stumped. MEMRI is a good source for English translation, but again a purposive sample. No one speaks about peace.
- My silly analogy, which was
based on Reconstruction carpet-baggers. If you don't like it, consider current arguments about mass immigration from Central and South America. I don't believe there is any excuse for murdering immigrants. By extension of your argument, murder of immigrants by those who believe they lost jobs, would be excusable.
- Consider the Tel Chai massacre of 1920. A few dozen Jews bought land and tried to farm it. There were no thousands of colonizers.
- You dismiss much of the settled fact as irrelevant because it is uncomfortable or contrary to your conclusions. If you study mideastern history seriously, you will have changed your opinions several times. I have. Have you?
Enough!
Hamas's strategy reminds me of self-immolation to gain world support.
Some real interesting thoughts. I thought the main reason for the pier was to supply part of Gaza that the convoys have not been able to reach. Most of the convoys in the North aren't making it to there destinations and military escorts invites more tragedies like the recent one. I think that the Israeli's pretty much control the beaches and won't interfere and probably will help. As you said Hamas has the most to lose by this, so I guess they will be the greatest threat, as they are now to the convoys. Yes, this is also political, pressure on Biden to do something is extreme.
For most of the war, Israeli spokesmen have urged aid organizations to use alternative crossings which were underutilized and quicker. Israeli examination of aid trucks is necessary to avoid re-arming Hamas.
The purpose of the Oct 7 attack was to provoke a over reaction, it was successfully in that regard. Israel has 2.5 million people in a barrel 25 miles long and two miles wide and is shooting at them relentlessly attempting to accomplish am impossible "kill em all" mission. People in this country are allowed to "clutch at their pearls" over their perception of Israel's actions. Perhaps feeding a starving population and ending the blood shed would result in less "pearl clutching".
Should I stop watching you guys then? I am retired so I have time to burn. Thank you guys I watch both of you when I can and do learn some each time.
Well said Robert.
“The Ends Justify the Means” approach on Both sides has long since poisoned their motivations and either’s righteousness.
Sadly the amount of hate and resentment born of these most recent events will only serve to harden the conviction of the kids that survive this, again on both sides.
I think we get the dangerous pier idea because Israel doesn’t what the added risk of the Easy, Effective and Efficient way of just driving it over… One because it’s a target for Hamas like Ryan said, and even more so a political hot potato to sign off on it for Israeli politicians.
Glad that you chose to live in a free state Ryan.