Mideast: Israel Cracks Down on Minority Rights

reply to post by mattpryor

Sorry to hear you didn't like my avatar. I've made a new one just for you. And yes I do get annoyed when people post pictures like this without even trying to find out whether or not said pictures reflect reality. We're meant to be denying ignorance remember?

I like the new Avatar better than the old one Matt, that guy looked kind of angry and well on his way to an ulcer!

This one looks like he is half way there to understanding that difficult 2 + 2 = 4 concept that was confounding you so the other day.

As Culture D suggests you would like to have an intelligent conversation based on these things and giving you the benefit of the doubt I am going to respectfully challenge you to answer some nagging questions in regards to some of what you are contending, that frankly no Zionist has ever truly answered in a satisfactory way but usually just dances around in an attempt to minimize them.

First and foremost if the Zionists truly accepted the partition plan of the United Nations why does Yizhak Shamir clearly admit to murdering U.N. Special Envoy Count Bernadotte Folke of Switzerland and his aide de camp in cold blood on behalf of the Stern Gang?

That is a very serious question Matt that the “well lot’s of crazy things happened back then regarding Germany and Japan that’s ancient history” crowd doesn’t adequately answer.

What I often see is Zionists going back to that history when they are trying to attempt to weave it to make actions seem innocent but dismiss that time period and drop it like a hot potato when their arguments fail and they continue to be pressed for more meaningful answers.

How does a future Prime Minister of the Israeli State and a key political leader at the time murder an unarmed neutral envoy of the United Nations and at the same time you claim the Zionists were in favor of the partition plan?

That would be like me saying I love McDonalds right after I shot Ronald to death!

So please answer that if you can.

Answer also why the Zionists used terrorism against the British authorities and some Jewish Shop Keepers and Farmers who broke with the Zionist manifesto of economically starving the Palestinian natives for their shops and farms and were murdered by the Zionists for that as a result as a warning to other Jewish pioneers?

Clearly this was not a peaceful process that the Zionists were engaged in. Clearly this non-peaceful process was aimed at many disparate parties, the British, the United Nations, and the indigenous Arab Population.

Now in relation to your concerns about the map Majorion posted which as I am sure you know is a widely circulated one.

Regardless of who drew the map my opinion of what the map represents are areas that the Palestinians once had free and unfettered access to as in the ability to traverse their herds through without stoppage and blockage as in not having to live under Zionists governance or laws in those areas.

How do you explain the Zionists strategic land grabs of originally buying from corrupt British authorities swaths of land after lobbying the British for land reform laws to (a.) block the egress and regress of nomadic herders which many of the indigenous Arabs were free ranging herders and (b.) to ensure that it would be impossible for the indigenous Arabs to ever control a 52% contiguous swath of land for their own state?

In both cases this appears to have been done strategically based on what Zionists committed to writing regarding their plans at the time to (a.) make Palestine economically untenable for the indigenous Arabs and (b.) make it impossible for the indigenous Arabs to have a significant and sizable contiguous state.

I think they are both very relevant questions Matt and I would be far more respectful of someone that said “Yes! That was our plan, wasn’t it brilliant and incredibly effective in reaching our goals” versus pretending it simply did not happen, or that it has no real relevance on a situation that is ‘too complicated’ for people with legitimate humanitarian concerns to ‘understand’.

If you could answer these questions in a credible and truthful attempt I would be far closer to agreeing with someone like Culture D whose claims regarding the veracity of your debates are highly dubious and suspect at best presently.

Clearly when one looks at where Gaza is and where the West Bank is they are apart.
They are separated by great distances and in Gaza’s case it is ringed by automated machine gun pill boxes that are manned by computers effectively imprisoning the people of Gaza inside of a ring of steel keeping them separate from the West Bank which is ringed itself by Zionist settlements that are heavily armed Zionists settlers even without an Israeli Army presence which is conversely also high in the area.

Honestly I can see why a consortium of Arab States tried to military solve the situation after Zionist terrorist campaigns ousted the British with the intent of ousting the British and Zionists land purchases and land grabs and land thefts made it obvious there could be no two state solution with each state having a contiguous land mass of their own, which conversely Israel enjoys a contiguous landmass for the Zionists to roam freely by the indigenous Arabs do not. When one considers further then additionally the Zionist murders of U.N. Envoys it appears to me that the Arab Armies and Militias were simply attempting to correct a situation that neither the British nor the U.N. seemed capable or prepared to do because of Zionist terrorism.

Come the day a Zionist today has the same kind of answer for those actions like they would have a day before carrying out those actions then I would have some differing degree regarding the veracity of Zionist’s often nonsensical explanations that never even come close to addressing the obvious well thought out preplanning that went in to their terrorist campaigns against the British, U.N. and indigenous Arabs to ensure a Zionist State on Zionist terms as opposed to the British, U.N. and indigenous Arabs terms.

Establishing credibility is key in fruitful discussions Matt and the indeginous Arabs made quite a few political blunders of their own when dealing with the British in regards to their occupation of the region.

I never enjoy arguing with any woman Matt because I have yet to ever encounter any woman who can unequivocally state she was ever 'wrong' about something without some kind of qualification.

I likewise never enjoy debating Zionists because they too are never 'wrong' about anything that they have ever done in their own eyes even though often just about everyone else in the world but Zionists see it as wrong.

It suggests a degree of infalibility that is just not possible in human beings especially a collective group of human beings that had just finished enduring widespread political persecution on a grand scale in the part of the world many of them hailed from.

Admitting what the Zionists have done fully and without qualification and why they truly did it, is the key to moving forward in the peace process, if the Zionists truly want peace at some point they have to gain credibility in this manner otherwise all you do have is one Zionist patting the other Zionist on the back and lauding their good sense and wisdom while the rest of the world altetrnately laughs, scratches their head and wonders if perhaps there truly is alien life on the planet as to how a collective group of politically minded people could be so blind to what intelligent and well read and travelled humans see.

I must say I'm a little confused. Earlier you described my contributions to this thread as:

apartheid bigoted ramblings of a proponent of murder, theft and segregation

Now you want to compare history notes?

Well, whatever, I'm game.

Folke Bernadotte was murdered by LEHI (AKA the Stern Gang) because they objected to his partition plan and were worried that the Yishuv would accept it. That partition plan was significantly different to the 1947 UN Partition plan proposed in resolution 181, in that the area designated for Israel was much, much smaller and the Negev was given over entirely to the Arabs.

You can compare the two here:

Bernadotte Plan

vs

1947 UN Partition Plan

My own opinion is that this was the pointless and cold blooded murder of a man of peace. I don't think you'll find many people that disagree with that sentiment. It also did nothing to advance the cause of a Jewish homeland, since both Israel and the Arabs had already rejected the Bernadotte Plan.

Incidentally the Arab states also rejected the UN Partition Plan, claiming that it gave too much land to the Jews, and in rejecting it they also threatened the use of force to ensure it was not implemented. In contrast the Jewish agency accepted the plan, albeit begrudgingly, as the best they could get. The hope was that given time the economic ties between Israel and its Arab neighbours would make boundaries unimportant.

As for Shamir's involvement in the killing, I don't know. I know he was a leader of LEHI, so I presume he must have been aware of it, but he never stood trial (I seem to remember there was an amnesty on armed militia groups as a condition of their disarmament).

Answer also why the Zionists used terrorism against the British authorities and some Jewish Shop Keepers and Farmers who broke with the Zionist manifesto of economically starving the Palestinian natives for their shops and farms and were murdered by the Zionists for that as a result as a warning to other Jewish pioneers?

You have cleverly included some subtle yet damning and inaccurate assertions here by tarring all Zionists with the same brush. Groups such as LEHI, Hanagah and Irgun did fight a bloody and intensive terrorist campaign against the British (including the bombing of the British military headquarters at King David hotel), Arabs and Jews. But they represented the small, extremist faction of Revisionist Zionism (as opposed to Labor Zionism which was the mainstream, which adopted a much more peaceful, conciliatory approach towards Palestinians and the British).

Do the actions of radicals 60 years ago characterize the mainstream political attitudes in Israel today? No. Do they reduce the legitimacy of a Jewish homeland? No.

Earlier you said that my comments indicate that I am opposed to a separate Palestinian state. I'd like to clarify that I'm not, in fact I support it as an ultimate objective, and the sooner the better. However the terms and basis of that state are something that need to be negotiated - something which Israel has demonstrated a consistent willingness to do, whereas Palestinian factions have not. With them it's a zero sum game, and their stance is damaging their own interests in my opinion. As someone said recently (can't remember where) Palestinians seem to never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.