Lest we forget...

[Phoenall]

EXCEPT that --- the US didn't have the excuse of being "state-less" or "new-state" disorganized.

Neither did Zionist Israel. By the time they declared statehood they had fully a functioning state infrastructure and military high command. The Haganah units themselves were well trained and in several cases composed of WW2 veterans from all the allied armies. All they lacked were heavy weapons and ammunition and aircraft, which arrived in the first weeks of the war. After the first truce, the Zionists were constantly on the offensive.

That's the way states evolve.. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV commercial??

EXCEPT that --- the US didn't have the excuse of being "state-less" or "new-state" disorganized.

Neither did Zionist Israel. By the time they declared statehood they had fully a functioning state infrastructure and military high command. The Haganah units themselves were well trained and in several cases composed of WW2 veterans from all the allied armies. All they lacked were heavy weapons and ammunition and aircraft, which arrived in the first weeks of the war. After the first truce, the Zionists were constantly on the offensive.

This is way states are born. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV Commercial? USUALLY requires have a military organization as a top priority. Don't you know this??

There was no organized Israel when this happened. It's the kind of "stateless" action that the world has to grapple with DAILY now because of 47 different stateless (or proxies to Iran/Saudi etc) Muslim Militant groups. And they answer to HISTORY.. Not to any of their allies.

This is way states are born. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV Commercial? USUALLY requires have a military organization as a top priority. Don't you know this??​

Indeed, if you are going to ethnically cleanse the local population and steal their land, you are going to need guns.

So who stole what land in the context of this thread. Who issued the grant of the land ?

 

[Boston1]

Oh let me guess, Tinman is blithering on miles off topic again.

Best we forget that too

The simple reality is that this particular non event the Arab Muslims are hyping as some kind of rallying point is just more Arab Muslim hasbara. ;--)

 

[P F Tinmore]

EXCEPT that --- the US didn't have the excuse of being "state-less" or "new-state" disorganized.

Neither did Zionist Israel. By the time they declared statehood they had fully a functioning state infrastructure and military high command. The Haganah units themselves were well trained and in several cases composed of WW2 veterans from all the allied armies. All they lacked were heavy weapons and ammunition and aircraft, which arrived in the first weeks of the war. After the first truce, the Zionists were constantly on the offensive.

That's the way states evolve.. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV commercial??

EXCEPT that --- the US didn't have the excuse of being "state-less" or "new-state" disorganized.

Neither did Zionist Israel. By the time they declared statehood they had fully a functioning state infrastructure and military high command. The Haganah units themselves were well trained and in several cases composed of WW2 veterans from all the allied armies. All they lacked were heavy weapons and ammunition and aircraft, which arrived in the first weeks of the war. After the first truce, the Zionists were constantly on the offensive.

This is way states are born. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV Commercial? USUALLY requires have a military organization as a top priority. Don't you know this??

There was no organized Israel when this happened. It's the kind of "stateless" action that the world has to grapple with DAILY now because of 47 different stateless (or proxies to Iran/Saudi etc) Muslim Militant groups. And they answer to HISTORY.. Not to any of their allies.

This is way states are born. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV Commercial? USUALLY requires have a military organization as a top priority. Don't you know this??​

Indeed, if you are going to ethnically cleanse the local population and steal their land, you are going to need guns.

So who stole what land in the context of this thread. Who issued the grant of the land ?

For the hundreds of years before the Zionist colonial project nobody contested land ownership.

 

[Phoenall]

EXCEPT that --- the US didn't have the excuse of being "state-less" or "new-state" disorganized.

Neither did Zionist Israel. By the time they declared statehood they had fully a functioning state infrastructure and military high command. The Haganah units themselves were well trained and in several cases composed of WW2 veterans from all the allied armies. All they lacked were heavy weapons and ammunition and aircraft, which arrived in the first weeks of the war. After the first truce, the Zionists were constantly on the offensive.

That's the way states evolve.. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV commercial??

EXCEPT that --- the US didn't have the excuse of being "state-less" or "new-state" disorganized.

Neither did Zionist Israel. By the time they declared statehood they had fully a functioning state infrastructure and military high command. The Haganah units themselves were well trained and in several cases composed of WW2 veterans from all the allied armies. All they lacked were heavy weapons and ammunition and aircraft, which arrived in the first weeks of the war. After the first truce, the Zionists were constantly on the offensive.

This is way states are born. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV Commercial? USUALLY requires have a military organization as a top priority. Don't you know this??

There was no organized Israel when this happened. It's the kind of "stateless" action that the world has to grapple with DAILY now because of 47 different stateless (or proxies to Iran/Saudi etc) Muslim Militant groups. And they answer to HISTORY.. Not to any of their allies.

This is way states are born. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV Commercial? USUALLY requires have a military organization as a top priority. Don't you know this??​

Indeed, if you are going to ethnically cleanse the local population and steal their land, you are going to need guns.

So who stole what land in the context of this thread. Who issued the grant of the land ?

For the hundreds of years before the Zionist colonial project nobody contested land ownership.

SAYS WHO as the muslims say that they own the land your property is built on because allah told them. Never mind about hundres of years ago we are talking here and now, and the international laws in place dictate that the arab muslims never owned the land for around 1,000 years.

 

[Boston1]

We have other threads for that nonsense

This nonsense has something to do with forgetting phony atrocities dreamed up incite violence or fear

 

[Shusha]

Typical Israeli combat. Military attack on civilians. Same as it is today.

When they pick up guns and start shooting at you they are no longer civilians -- they are combatants.

But this is exactly why I'm arguing about the context of the battles for independence -- it infects generations with narratives like this one. And pushes peace farther away.

 

[fanger]

Palestine: Legitimate Armed Resistance vs. Terrorism

The Israeli, and pro-Israeli, media have made a great deal of noise about the recent Palestinian operations in the occupied Gaza Strip whereby eleven Israeli soldiers were killed in two separate attacks on armored personnel carriers. With very few exceptions in the Israeli and pro-Israeli media these operations have been deliberately misrepresented as some sort of “terrorist” attacks, a cynical propaganda ploy designed to discredit the Palestinian legal right to resist occupation.

This justification for legitimate armed resistance has been specifically applied to the Palestinian struggle repeatedly. To quote General Assembly Resolution A/RES/3246 (XXIX) of 29 November 1974:

3. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation form colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle; …
7. Strongly condemns all Governments which do not recognize the right to self-determination and independence of peoples under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of Africa and the Palestinian people; (4)
These two points — that people under colonial and foreign domination have the right to use armed struggle against their oppressors and that this specifically applies to the Palestinian people — has been repeatedly reaffirmed in a myriad of United Nations resolutions. These include UNGA Resolution A/RES/3246 (XXIX; 29 November 1974), UNGA Resolution A/RES/33/24 (29 November 1978), UNGA Resolution A/RES/34/44 (23 November 1979), UNGA Resolution A/RES/35/35 (14 November 1980), UNGA Resolution A/RES/36/9 (28 October 1981), and many others. While these resolutions, coming from the General Assembly do not carry the weight of law per se, they do reflect the views of the majority of the world’s sovereign states, which is the basis of customary international law. So although General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding in of themselves, when they address legal issues they do accurately reflect the customary international legal opinion among the majority of the world’s sovereign states.

Palestine: Legitimate Armed Resistance vs. Terrorism

 

[Shusha]

Once it came down to making the decision to go house to house and shoot the inhabitants, including children - then the context changes. It changes from being a battle to being a slaughter of non-combatants. A massacre. That is not a false narrative. The false narrative I'm seeing is the one denying this took place.

Well, in fact there are no reliable numbers about how many died, let alone how many were women or children and even less the cause of death for each. Thus, your narrative that "a decision was made to go house to house and shoot the inhabitants in cold blood" is false. Its a narrative intended to sell and exaggerate the story as an atrocity, rather than to present what we actually know about the event.

Your narrative paints a picture of women and children and elderly men cowering frightened in their homes while terrorists went from house to house and calmly shot them all. But that was not the case -- it was an active battle with active shooters that went on for more than six hours. You don't walk into a house in the middle of an active battle and ask nicely if there are any men with guns there. That would get you killed. War just doesn't work that way.

Now, does this mean I don't believe any atrocities happened? Of course not. I think there is evidence of at least some women and children being needlessly killed and even, in some cases, deliberately killed. I agree with you that, while the operation as a whole was demonstrably not intended as a massacre, indeed had been forbidden to be so, at least some of the attackers did outright murder at least some of those killed. Which, of course, I condemn.

​

Were they warned? The truck never reached the village. Even if it had reached the village at it's designated time of 5am - the battle had already started.

But again, context. The truck was there. The truck was on the road. The loudspeaker and the fluent Arabic speaker were on the truck. The intent was clearly to warn. (Thus no intent to massacre). The truck fell into a ditch which had been built by the villagers as fortification against attack. (Ironic, no?).

And the battle began before the anticipated time due to accidental discovery by one of the men who guarded the village at night. Again, the intent was for the loudspeaker to announce the attack and allow the villagers to flee. (Thus, again, no massacre). Actually, the intent, at least according to some, was to have the loudspeaker announce that the village was surrounded and that everyone would leave and the village would be taken peacefully.

Your narrative leaves out important facts - that village could have been taken peacefully, per Haganah, that they represented no thread at the time, that they had signed and not violated a peace pact, and that non-resisting civilians were systematically killed. It was an utterly unnecessary massacre from start to finish.

Interesting that you qualified your statement with "non-resisting" and "systematically". Neither of these things are true. There's the narrative again.

I might agree that the village could have been taken peacefully. Why wasn't it? Might it have been because the villagers stockpiled weapons, built fortifications and trained men to shoot? Again, you leave out important facts in order to sell your "massacre" story. When, in point of fact, the village was not taken peacefully because the villagers chose to fight.

And what makes you think the peace pact between the Arab and Jewish villages would permit EITHER group to use the village as a base? If the villagers fought off the Arab forces who wanted to use the village in that way, what makes you think they wouldn't have tried to fight of the Jewish forces. (Which they did).


And to keep focused on what my point is -- it is not that atrocities did not happen. They clearly did. On both sides. (Like the Hadassah medical convoy attack (also called a massacre) a few days later.) And they should, of course, be condemned. But both sides also used this particular event as propaganda and it is difficult to sort out which is which.

Upselling and memorializing one particular battle in a long (very long) conflict between two peoples as a massacre only serves to entrench (infect) the mentality that the Arabs bear no responsibility toward events and that they are merely victims of oppressors. That the Arabs are being acted upon instead of being a partner in the conflict.

 

[flacaltenn]

EXCEPT that --- the US didn't have the excuse of being "state-less" or "new-state" disorganized.

Neither did Zionist Israel. By the time they declared statehood they had fully a functioning state infrastructure and military high command. The Haganah units themselves were well trained and in several cases composed of WW2 veterans from all the allied armies. All they lacked were heavy weapons and ammunition and aircraft, which arrived in the first weeks of the war. After the first truce, the Zionists were constantly on the offensive.

That's the way states evolve.. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV commercial??

EXCEPT that --- the US didn't have the excuse of being "state-less" or "new-state" disorganized.

Neither did Zionist Israel. By the time they declared statehood they had fully a functioning state infrastructure and military high command. The Haganah units themselves were well trained and in several cases composed of WW2 veterans from all the allied armies. All they lacked were heavy weapons and ammunition and aircraft, which arrived in the first weeks of the war. After the first truce, the Zionists were constantly on the offensive.

This is way states are born. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV Commercial? USUALLY requires have a military organization as a top priority. Don't you know this??

There was no organized Israel when this happened. It's the kind of "stateless" action that the world has to grapple with DAILY now because of 47 different stateless (or proxies to Iran/Saudi etc) Muslim Militant groups. And they answer to HISTORY.. Not to any of their allies.

This is way states are born. You think it happens like a Bernie Sanders TV Commercial? USUALLY requires have a military organization as a top priority. Don't you know this??​

Indeed, if you are going to ethnically cleanse the local population and steal their land, you are going to need guns.

Guns or "suicide belts" or little missiles or bombs are SECONDARY to Organization and Representation. What I SEE is a lot responsible (and some not so responsible) Jewish Zionist organizations apologizing or denouncing the action.. Pretty quickly after it happened.

Whatever the "stateless" or unorganized intend to DO with those armaments and terrorist tools cannot MAR or stain the bigger goal.. And having folks make responsible efforts to DENOUNCE those actions --- is more important than unleashing the militants to just kill and murder.

Nice to have a GPS coordinate for any leadership that APPROVES of this "stateless" violence. Makes it's easy to fix with a cruise missile or a directed strike...

 

[fanger]

31°46'21.59" N 35°12'11.40" E

 

[Shusha]

There is a narrative today that the Jewish people/Israel/Zionists are intentionally, deliberately, systematically committing genocide/ethnic cleansing/deliberate murder on the innocent, non-resisting Arab Muslim Palestinians. Its a lie. Its a LIBEL. (Personally I also think its a projection).

Upselling events such as the Deir Yassin "Massacre" corroborates and supports the LIBEL. It offers "proof" of the LIBEL.

 

[Coyote]

You are just as capable of atrocities as I (my people) are, as the Palestinians are - as any human being is.

I disagree. The capability for committing atrocities is sourced, not in just being human, but in the ideology of one's culture and what one believes and then the willingness to ACT upon those beliefs.

This almost deserves it's own thread - I profoundly disagree. The fighting that led to the founding of Israel was as much a clash of ideologies as it was of nationalist inspirations. The Jewish nationalists were comprised of ideological groups that ranged from relatively benign to extreme. They were also comprised of a number of semi-autonomous para-militaries - in fact, I think there are a lot of parallels to the situation in the Mid East in general where you have failed states and independent militias that represent a spectrum of ideological extremes.

When it comes to ideologies - those at the extremes of that ideology have more in common with the extremes of other ideologies than they do with their more moderate counterpart, and that is independent of culture. I can think of a lot of examples. When you are looking at extremes you are looking at people who's cause is so important that they are willing to kill innocent people for it - the ends justifies the means. Bombs are set in civilian centers - they don't know who they are killing, and they don't care because the cause matters over lives. In general, Christian culture is - should be - pretty pacifist based on it's religious tenants - but in reality? Not always. Lehi and Irgun both held to an ideology that was against any sharing or partition of Palestine. They were considered pretty extreme by their peers.

When it comes to gunning down children - looking them in the eye and shooting them because they are Arabs and serve as an example to frighten Palestinians into fleeing - there is NO FALSE EQUIVALENCY and that term becomes meaningless when you insist on it.

But AGAIN, in your bold section, you are ascribing intent here to actors of these specific events, and by extension to the Jewish people, that is not actually SOURCED in either the actors nor the Jewish people as a whole. It is EXACTLY what I accused you of pages ago -- the mythologizing of the event to suit a narrative: "Jews shoot innocent women and children because they are Arabs". This is EXACTLY why the myth is perpetualized -- to infect the next generation with that thought -- that Jews shoot innocent women and children -- not because the Jews and the Arabs were (are) embroiled in a nasty and sometimes immoral and often complicated war over mutual rights to self-determination and territory -- but that Jews shoot innocent women and children because they are Arabs.

Isn't that exactly what you are doing when you say Palestinians kill Jews because they are Jews? (in otherwords not because they see Israeli's as their enemy or an occupying force)? Is that a myth then that is being perpetrated and leading young people to hate the Palestinians - and yes, that is a problem that even some of Israel's politicians have acknowledged after violent incidents)?

In the case of Deir Yassin - why else would they kill children?

You illustrate it better than I could have ever hoped. Its not a complicated and nuanced conflict -- Jews just gun down children because they are Arabs.

Here is what I don't understand Shusha - it seems, when I read your replies, you call it a "complicated nuanced conflict" when it comes to the actions of the Israeli's - but that seems to disappear when it comes to the actions of the Palestinians.

I agree, it is often complicated and nuanced - but not every individual situation is. When a para-military group, known for it's extremism, set's off a bomb in a civilian market place....what is it? When a para-military group, known for it's extremism, goes house to house killing inhabitants, including children...what is it? What do you call it when they parade captured women and children in West Jeruselum before killing them and dumping their bodies in a quarry? Why did they kill defenseless children? Because they are Arabs and they wanted to send a message to other Arabs that the same thing could happen to them?

This is WHY you, and others, see a (false) equivalence between acts of conflict and acts of egregious violence against innocents such as the Fogel family. Because you project the intent. You project the idea that conflict and combat is the same thing as killing innocents because they are Arabs (or Jews).

How is the deliberate killing of innocents such as the Fogel family different than the deliberate killing of innocents such as the children in that village? Killing those children went beyond an "act of conflict" and became an act of "egregious violence" against innocents - it crossed an important line.

THIS is the myth that needs to be unmade and re-framed. Warfare, with all its tragedies and entirely unfair collateral damage, is NOT morally equivalent to murdering innocents in the streets or in their own homes.

The problem with framing it that way is that for many Palestinians - that conflict has not ended, it is still warfare. You are effectively legitimizing their actions by saying that in war, there are no lines that can not be crossed - that nothing goes "too far". I don't agree with that. There is a reason some actions are considered war crimes.

There is absolutely a difference between mutual combat and the collateral damage which occurs during (as you already admitted) and walking into someone's house and slicing the throat of a three-month-old baby. If you can't see that, I honestly don't know what to say to you.

Collateral damage - Israel bombs Gaza, does it's best to prevent civilian casualties in a densely populated area where fighters are mixed with civilians - civilians will end up killed no matter how careful one is. THAT is collateral damage.

Not collateral damage - soldiers take a village, despite the fact that that village had a non-aggression pact, and walk through house by house killing civlians inside - the elderly, women and children. Taking 25 as prisoners, they paraded them through West Jeruslelum before being taken back, shot and their bodies dumped in a quarry. THAT is NOT collateral damage.

You seem to have, quite deliberately, passed over the entire context of the resistance, and combat and military action as though it is immaterial to the morality of this or that specific event. Its not.

I think that, in this particular event, it is being used to excuse something that is inexcusable. You can try to understand them, in the context of the times and the conflict that was going on - but once you start excusing them, then where does that road end?

Something similar happened with our soldiers in Iraq - I would have to dig to find it - but the person in charge, ordered his men to shoot down civilians in a village - there was no military need to do so. He was courtmartialed, tried and found guilty. Even in war, there are some lines that should not be crossed.

Problem with your warped thinking is that from 635 C.E. the muslims have been commanded to "KILL THE UNBELIEVERS" so that the word of their god could be made true. And that is that the muslims rule the world and have to take it by force of arms. Don't forget that koran is not written in chronological order, and what is in chapter 1 is not the beginning of the story. If you read the koran you will find that mo'mad was very into the Jews in the beginning but placed the accounts late in the koran. The commands to kill them are placed early in the koran so it confuses the western mind set that expects the beginning to be at the start and not in the middle.


All muslims that follow islam and the koran are by nature extremists that see no wrong is mass murder of innocents if it furthers the spread of islam. The results of polls have been produced on this board and they bear this out.

This blather has nothing to do with the IP conflict, or what happened in 1948.

 

[Coyote]

There is a narrative today that the Jewish people/Israel/Zionists are intentionally, deliberately, systematically committing genocide/ethnic cleansing/deliberate murder on the innocent, non-resisting Arab Muslim Palestinians. Its a lie. Its a LIBEL. (Personally I also think its a projection).

Upselling events such as the Deir Yassin "Massacre" corroborates and supports the LIBEL. It offers "proof" of the LIBEL.

It isn't right to deny or falsify the massacre Deir Yassin in order to put the lid on false narratives. It did happen. And the Palestinians have a legitimate right to remember it because it represented a pivotal for both sides in the war.

Deir Yassin is not a lie or a libel.

IMO, from what I read - this would be the narrative.

It occurred during war involving various paramilitaries that were semi-autonomous.
Deir Yassin was considered a peaceful village and not a threat (per Haganah).
The pressure to attack it came from two of the more extreme paramilitaries - Irgun and Lehi who had a vested interest in making an example of an arab village to terrify the Palestinians into fleeing and possibly economic reasons.
Killing civilians was brought up in discussions several times but voted down.
They encountered resistance when they attacked the village.
After the resistance ended, they went house to house and killed those hiding within.
The majority of those killed were elderly, women and children.
Of those taken prisoner, some were paraded through Jerusalem and released in the Arab Quarter, others were taken back to the village and shot.
Information pertaining to this event is incomplete because material is still classified.

Is any part of the above a libel or a lie?

 

[Boston1]

Palestine: Legitimate Armed Resistance vs. Terrorism

The Israeli, and pro-Israeli, media have made a great deal of noise about the recent Palestinian operations in the occupied Gaza Strip whereby eleven Israeli soldiers were killed in two separate attacks on armored personnel carriers. With very few exceptions in the Israeli and pro-Israeli media these operations have been deliberately misrepresented as some sort of “terrorist” attacks, a cynical propaganda ploy designed to discredit the Palestinian legal right to resist occupation.

This justification for legitimate armed resistance has been specifically applied to the Palestinian struggle repeatedly. To quote General Assembly Resolution A/RES/3246 (XXIX) of 29 November 1974:

3. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation form colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle; …
7. Strongly condemns all Governments which do not recognize the right to self-determination and independence of peoples under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of Africa and the Palestinian people; (4)
These two points — that people under colonial and foreign domination have the right to use armed struggle against their oppressors and that this specifically applies to the Palestinian people — has been repeatedly reaffirmed in a myriad of United Nations resolutions. These include UNGA Resolution A/RES/3246 (XXIX; 29 November 1974), UNGA Resolution A/RES/33/24 (29 November 1978), UNGA Resolution A/RES/34/44 (23 November 1979), UNGA Resolution A/RES/35/35 (14 November 1980), UNGA Resolution A/RES/36/9 (28 October 1981), and many others. While these resolutions, coming from the General Assembly do not carry the weight of law per se, they do reflect the views of the majority of the world’s sovereign states, which is the basis of customary international law. So although General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding in of themselves, when they address legal issues they do accurately reflect the customary international legal opinion among the majority of the world’s sovereign states.

Palestine: Legitimate Armed Resistance vs. Terrorism

Finger is just too funny.

Is the entire Arab Muslim narrative really based of nothing but lies and half truths ?

Third sentence in and we've already got false claims of Gaza being occupied.

Quote

operations in the occupied Gaza Strip

End Quote

Then we get to this little jewel

Quote

Palestinian legal right to resist occupation.

End Quote

A there is no such thing as palestine ergo there are no palestinians B there is no occupation. Gaza in a completely autonomous area fully able to declare statehood anytime it wants to, they're just to busy firing rockets into Israel.

The travesty of inaccuracies goes on with

Quote

legitimate armed resistance

End Quote

Stabbing pregnant woman and firing rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas are not legitimate resistance under the Geneva Conventions

And one last example.

Quote

legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation form colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle;

End Quote

There is no colonial power and there is no foreign subjugation ergo there can be no legitimate armed struggle. The Judaic people are native to the area, the area was divided into Arab and Jewish states and attacking civilians is hardly a legitimate struggle.

Anyway this is getting boring so yeah. Fingers entire diatribe is based off a lie

 

[Coyote]

When it comes to gunning down children - looking them in the eye and shooting them because they are Arabs and serve as an example to frighten Palestinians into fleeing - there is NO FALSE EQUIVALENCY and that term becomes meaningless when you insist on it.

Our honorable coyote seems to be an eyewitness to anything anywhere, anytime. A wildly creative imagination, hiding the reality on the ground. Palistanians want, desperately, to get "massacred", or something, to prove they're "massacred", of course.

There appear to be a lot of "eye witness" here. I prefer to back up my statements with sources. Refute them, or move on.

No problemo, refute Uri Milstein, then.

The problem with framing it that way is that for many Palestinians - that conflict has not ended, it is still warfare. You are effectively legitimizing their actions by saying that in war, there are no lines that can not be crossed - that nothing goes "too far". I don't agree with that. There is a reason some actions are considered war crimes.

You misunderstand my meaning. I am not in any way saying that there is no such thing as a war crime or that in war "anything goes". Not at all.

I am saying there is a difference between a battle between two groups where each group is firing upon the other and sneaking into someone's house to slit their throats.

Again, you are ignoring the context of the villager's resistance.

I'm not seeing much of a moral difference - it seems to me that the cold blooded killing of children is inexusable regardless of the context in which it occurs. It takes a special kind of person to look at a cowering child and shoot it or to smash open the belly of a pregnant woman (as was reported). The context may differ - but that willful act - does not.

But you have not proven beyond any doubt that the Jews killed children have you. All you have is unsubstantiated individual reports of maybe's and might have dones

It's substantiated. You have plenty of first person reports (much like some of what substantiated the Holocaust). Those reports came from Jewish sources as well as Palestinian. What exactly do you expect?

 

[Coyote]

I call BS

Secret papers ?

Really ?

Recently released ?

Really ?

Where ?

Why are they impossible to find ?

Whats up with all this evidence that apparently doesn't exist ?

What's up with keeping it classified after 68 years?

Why is material related to Deir Yassin STILL classified after 68 years? Makes one wonder.

Wondering is fine but jumping to conclusions or making wild assumptions isn't.

Given the exemplary conduct of the Israeli military and the blatant lies so typical of the Arab Muslim narrative I can't see not giving the benefit of the doubt to the Israeli's until more information is available

We are not talking about the modern Israeli army. We are talking about the various paramilitaries that made up the Jewish resistance. Do some research on Lehi and Irgun, look up the list of attacks Irgun made.

Have you, and if you have why were they originally formed back in the early 1920's ?

Your reply doesn't make any sense.

 

[Coyote]

You are just as capable of atrocities as I (my people) are, as the Palestinians are - as any human being is.

I disagree. The capability for committing atrocities is sourced, not in just being human, but in the ideology of one's culture and what one believes and then the willingness to ACT upon those beliefs.

This almost deserves it's own thread - I profoundly disagree. The fighting that led to the founding of Israel was as much a clash of ideologies as it was of nationalist inspirations. The Jewish nationalists were comprised of ideological groups that ranged from relatively benign to extreme. They were also comprised of a number of semi-autonomous para-militaries - in fact, I think there are a lot of parallels to the situation in the Mid East in general where you have failed states and independent militias that represent a spectrum of ideological extremes.

When it comes to ideologies - those at the extremes of that ideology have more in common with the extremes of other ideologies than they do with their more moderate counterpart, and that is independent of culture. I can think of a lot of examples. When you are looking at extremes you are looking at people who's cause is so important that they are willing to kill innocent people for it - the ends justifies the means. Bombs are set in civilian centers - they don't know who they are killing, and they don't care because the cause matters over lives. In general, Christian culture is - should be - pretty pacifist based on it's religious tenants - but in reality? Not always. Lehi and Irgun both held to an ideology that was against any sharing or partition of Palestine. They were considered pretty extreme by their peers.

When it comes to gunning down children - looking them in the eye and shooting them because they are Arabs and serve as an example to frighten Palestinians into fleeing - there is NO FALSE EQUIVALENCY and that term becomes meaningless when you insist on it.

But AGAIN, in your bold section, you are ascribing intent here to actors of these specific events, and by extension to the Jewish people, that is not actually SOURCED in either the actors nor the Jewish people as a whole. It is EXACTLY what I accused you of pages ago -- the mythologizing of the event to suit a narrative: "Jews shoot innocent women and children because they are Arabs". This is EXACTLY why the myth is perpetualized -- to infect the next generation with that thought -- that Jews shoot innocent women and children -- not because the Jews and the Arabs were (are) embroiled in a nasty and sometimes immoral and often complicated war over mutual rights to self-determination and territory -- but that Jews shoot innocent women and children because they are Arabs.

Isn't that exactly what you are doing when you say Palestinians kill Jews because they are Jews? (in otherwords not because they see Israeli's as their enemy or an occupying force)? Is that a myth then that is being perpetrated and leading young people to hate the Palestinians - and yes, that is a problem that even some of Israel's politicians have acknowledged after violent incidents)?

In the case of Deir Yassin - why else would they kill children?

You illustrate it better than I could have ever hoped. Its not a complicated and nuanced conflict -- Jews just gun down children because they are Arabs.

Here is what I don't understand Shusha - it seems, when I read your replies, you call it a "complicated nuanced conflict" when it comes to the actions of the Israeli's - but that seems to disappear when it comes to the actions of the Palestinians.

I agree, it is often complicated and nuanced - but not every individual situation is. When a para-military group, known for it's extremism, set's off a bomb in a civilian market place....what is it? When a para-military group, known for it's extremism, goes house to house killing inhabitants, including children...what is it? What do you call it when they parade captured women and children in West Jeruselum before killing them and dumping their bodies in a quarry? Why did they kill defenseless children? Because they are Arabs and they wanted to send a message to other Arabs that the same thing could happen to them?

This is WHY you, and others, see a (false) equivalence between acts of conflict and acts of egregious violence against innocents such as the Fogel family. Because you project the intent. You project the idea that conflict and combat is the same thing as killing innocents because they are Arabs (or Jews).

How is the deliberate killing of innocents such as the Fogel family different than the deliberate killing of innocents such as the children in that village? Killing those children went beyond an "act of conflict" and became an act of "egregious violence" against innocents - it crossed an important line.

THIS is the myth that needs to be unmade and re-framed. Warfare, with all its tragedies and entirely unfair collateral damage, is NOT morally equivalent to murdering innocents in the streets or in their own homes.

The problem with framing it that way is that for many Palestinians - that conflict has not ended, it is still warfare. You are effectively legitimizing their actions by saying that in war, there are no lines that can not be crossed - that nothing goes "too far". I don't agree with that. There is a reason some actions are considered war crimes.

There is absolutely a difference between mutual combat and the collateral damage which occurs during (as you already admitted) and walking into someone's house and slicing the throat of a three-month-old baby. If you can't see that, I honestly don't know what to say to you.

Collateral damage - Israel bombs Gaza, does it's best to prevent civilian casualties in a densely populated area where fighters are mixed with civilians - civilians will end up killed no matter how careful one is. THAT is collateral damage.

Not collateral damage - soldiers take a village, despite the fact that that village had a non-aggression pact, and walk through house by house killing civlians inside - the elderly, women and children. Taking 25 as prisoners, they paraded them through West Jeruslelum before being taken back, shot and their bodies dumped in a quarry. THAT is NOT collateral damage.

You seem to have, quite deliberately, passed over the entire context of the resistance, and combat and military action as though it is immaterial to the morality of this or that specific event. Its not.

I think that, in this particular event, it is being used to excuse something that is inexcusable. You can try to understand them, in the context of the times and the conflict that was going on - but once you start excusing them, then where does that road end?

Something similar happened with our soldiers in Iraq - I would have to dig to find it - but the person in charge, ordered his men to shoot down civilians in a village - there was no military need to do so. He was courtmartialed, tried and found guilty. Even in war, there are some lines that should not be crossed.

Again your making an assumption

Quote

Why else would they kill children

End Quote

We don't know that any children were killed.

Yes, we do - their bodies were found.

So who killed them is the next question, and it is not past the arab muslims to plant bodies from elsewhere as a means of propaganda. Finding bodies does not prove that the Jews killed them does it ?

There's plenty of evidence that they were killed by Irgun and Lehi, not the least of which they did not deny it, but indeed bragged about it. Are you suggesting that they would have issued an apology if they had not done it? You're grasping at straws.

 

[Coyote]

Typical Israeli combat. Military attack on civilians. Same as it is today.

When they pick up guns and start shooting at you they are no longer civilians -- they are combatants.

But this is exactly why I'm arguing about the context of the battles for independence -- it infects generations with narratives like this one. And pushes peace farther away.

IMO, it's events like these that require an honest "truth and reconciliation" effort on both sides to get past. It wasn't just a massacre - it was The Massacre that pushed thousands of Palestinians to flee their homes, and most were not allowed to return. It's a part of their history.

What it sounds like you are saying that the Pali's "just need to get over it" and perhaps, eventually they do for the sake of obtaining peace - but denying them their history is not the way to do it. Should the Jews forget theirs?

 

[RoccoR]

Coyote, et al,

Yes, this is very true. And in addressing the issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, it serves no useful purpose to attempt to rewrite history.

Both sides have committed atrocities. The "Deir Yassin event was one of many; just as Kfar Etzion and Haifa Oil Refinery massacre were at the time.

I'm sure that if you read one or two of Benny Morris's books, you can make a quite impressive lists of very bad decisions the Jewish/Israelis made across the decades that paint them as the black horse. (I can hardly open a page that I don't read some revelation of a Israeli wrongdoing.) Just as you can get a very similar impressive list of Arab Palestinian activities. My favorite is the Captured Jewish Holy Sites Desecrated in Jerusalem.

It isn't right to deny or falsify the massacre Deir Yassin in order to put the lid on false narratives. It did happen. And the Palestinians have a legitimate right to remember it because it represented a pivotal for both sides in the war.

Deir Yassin is not a lie or a libel.

(COMMENT)

A positive outcome is only achieved if powered by bold ideas and profound goals and objectives. Only then can the any of us hope a solution will be found. If the Palestine Territory wanted to emulate the post-war development miracle set by Japan's economic growth, the huge effort in Germany, the Arab Palestinians went about it the wrong way.

They need to try something different. Like the Germans and Japanese of today have worked past the conflict of seven decades ago, so it is that the Arab Palestinian must break away from the failed patterns of the Arab League and adopt new ideas that would bring them in competition with Israel; NOT conflict.

Most Respectfully,
R

 

[Boston1]

Our honorable coyote seems to be an eyewitness to anything anywhere, anytime. A wildly creative imagination, hiding the reality on the ground. Palistanians want, desperately, to get "massacred", or something, to prove they're "massacred", of course.

There appear to be a lot of "eye witness" here. I prefer to back up my statements with sources. Refute them, or move on.

No problemo, refute Uri Milstein, then.

The problem with framing it that way is that for many Palestinians - that conflict has not ended, it is still warfare. You are effectively legitimizing their actions by saying that in war, there are no lines that can not be crossed - that nothing goes "too far". I don't agree with that. There is a reason some actions are considered war crimes.

You misunderstand my meaning. I am not in any way saying that there is no such thing as a war crime or that in war "anything goes". Not at all.

I am saying there is a difference between a battle between two groups where each group is firing upon the other and sneaking into someone's house to slit their throats.

Again, you are ignoring the context of the villager's resistance.

I'm not seeing much of a moral difference - it seems to me that the cold blooded killing of children is inexusable regardless of the context in which it occurs. It takes a special kind of person to look at a cowering child and shoot it or to smash open the belly of a pregnant woman (as was reported). The context may differ - but that willful act - does not.

But you have not proven beyond any doubt that the Jews killed children have you. All you have is unsubstantiated individual reports of maybe's and might have dones

It's substantiated. You have plenty of first person reports (much like some of what substantiated the Holocaust). Those reports came from Jewish sources as well as Palestinian. What exactly do you expect?

Oh common now. All of these so called first person reports appear to be from these so called "secret" documents that no one can seem to find.

So whats next, aliens said it, so its gotta be true