Palestine the wasteland

Post #10,257 by bluke 9/23/01 4:44:50 AM Reply	Palestine the wasteland Actually your characterization of "Palestine" as a "wasteland" is quite accurate. Read any travel account to Palestine from the 1800's such as Mark Twain's. The one common thread is that Palestine was a wasteland with hardly any inhabitants. After the Jews started returning in the 1880's and the economy picked up Arabs started migrating in. For example National Geographic reported in one of the 1914 issues that the population of Jerusalem is given as 40,000 Jews, 13,000 Christians (half of whom were Europeans), and only 7,000 Muslims. Where are alll those Palestinians? A travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker brings out the same point that the Muslim population in the city of Jerusalem was minimal. Many of the facts that we get today have been greatly distorted and works such as these, especially the 1906 book outline quite clearly the statistics of that era and how we can interpret these facts and figures to be relevant in todays Mideast conflict. Did you know that Yasir Arafat was born in Cairo? How about the fact that 76% of the Palestine Mandate was give to the Arabs by the British in 1922 (what is now Jordan)? Read the book from Time Immemorial by Joan Peters
Post #10,279 by a6l6e6x 9/23/01 4:13:21 PM Reply	Re: Palestine the wasteland and Arafat the Egyptian. I'll go along with Palestine having been somewhat of a wasteland. Of course the Bedouins of the region (including the Negev desert) managed to eke out an existence there for centuries. Had to keep moving though. Israel did make the deserts bloom, but guess who lost out in the deal? Did you know that Yasir Arafat was born in Cairo? Yes. I've read that, and you've mentioned it before. So what? If Arafat is has to be an Egyptian, you're not an Israeli, and I'm not an American. As they say, "Home is where the heart is." Alex Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad. -- Euripides
Post #10,321 by bluke 9/24/01 4:02:23 AM Reply	The significance of Arafat the Egyptian is very clear. If Arafat was born in Cairo why does he have more right to the West Bank then I do? It shows that the Palsetinians are not people who were living in Palestine for hundreds of years and the Jews came and kicked them out. Rather, they migrated to Palestine after the Jews started rebuilding the land.
Post #10,323 by bluke 9/24/01 4:11:51 AM Reply	Re: Palestine the wasteland Well if Palestine was a wasteland then it follows that the Jews did not come in and throw out millions of Palestinians etc. The fact is if we look at other comparable situations they were all solved via integration or resettlement including: 1) At the conclusion in 1923 of the Greek-Turkish War, harsh treatment of Greek communities in Turkey caused large numbers of these Turkish Greeks to flee their homes. Because of this, the peace treaty between the two sides provided for a mutual exchange of populations \ufffd about 2 million Greeks who had been Turkish citizens were relocated to Greece, while about 500,000 Turks who had been Greek citizens were relocated to Turkey. The immoveable property left behind was seized by the respective Governments and was used, in part, to resettle the incoming refugees. (Eyal Benvenisti and Eyal Zamir, Private Claims to Property Rights in the Future Israeli-Palestinian Settlement, The American Journal of International Law, April 1995, p 322) 2) The Potsdam Declaration imposed by the Allies following World War 2 provided for the transfer to Germany of approximately 15 million Germans, particularly from those parts of eastern Germany which after the war were allotted to Poland. Under the Declaration the German populations in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria were relocated to Germany, these German refugees lost title to the property they left behind, and no arrangements were made to compensate them for their losses. (Benvenisti and Zamir, p 322) 3) Settlement of the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in British India via division of the region into India and Pakistan required relocation of millions of people. Once again, immoveable property left behind by these refugees was seized by the respective governments to help settle the incoming refugees. (Benvenisti and Zamir, p323). If the Arabs in 1947 had agrred to the Partition Plan there would have been no problems. If after 1948, the Arabs would have absorbed the 800,000 refugees again the conflict would have been over. The fact is that in the same time period Israel absorbed 800,000 Jewish refugees who were forced to flee Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, etc.
Post #10,324 by bluke 9/24/01 4:17:17 AM Reply	Who are the Palestinians? There is no language known as Palestinian, or any Palestinian culture distinct from that of all the Arabs in the area. There has never been a land know as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs indistinguishable from Arabs throughout the region. Overall, there are 22 Arab countries that cover more that 99 per cent of the land mass in the Middle East. Israel, the size of New Jersey, covers less that one per cent. The only sovereign nation that has ever ruled over the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is Israel. King David ruled over the Land of Israel 3,000 years ago, nearly 1,600 years before Muhammad was born. Since the Romans leveled the Temple 2,000 years ago, committed genocide against the Jews and declared that Jewish sovereignty would be no more, the Land of Israel was ruled by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and the by the British.
Post #10,502 by a6l6e6x 9/26/01 5:07:56 AM Reply	And to sum it all up. Palestine is a name given to the region by controlling outsiders. The people that call themselves Palestinians, don't as such exist (they are just Arabs), and in any case, have no rights or claims to anything. Very neat. Alex Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad. -- Euripides
Post #10,655 by bluke 9/27/01 3:41:48 AM Reply	Show me otherwise You yourself admitted that 100 years ago "Palestine" was desolate
Post #10,854 by a6l6e6x 9/28/01 8:46:25 PM Reply	It takes incredible arrogance... to deny anyone the right to have a name for who they are. Perhaps I have the problem of not understanding because I'm not one the Master Race, er "chosen people". Using your logic -- 60 years ago there were no Israelis, only pockets of Jews here and there all over the world. Therefore, there is no Israel, only Arab lands occupied by Jews. Substituting "variables", it's the same argument you are using. It doesn't wash any more than your argument. I do not deny Israel the right to exist and governing itself in a sane manner. Return the land occupied since the 1967 war, East Jerusalem included, and make peace with your neighbors. Don't quote and interpret for me UN resolutions. Israel ignores UN resolutions it doesn't like. Alex Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad. -- Euripides
Post #10,928 by bluke 9/29/01 4:33:57 PM Reply	They can call themselves Martians ... for all I care. The name is irrevelant. The bottom line is that they have no historic connection with the land of Israel. The Jews onb the other hand do. We have been praying for 2000 years to return, this fact has been almost universally recognized. Read the Balfour declaration (from the British not exactly the most pro-Jewish group around) and all the other documents from that time. They all speak of the historic Jewish connection with the land. The Arabs have 99.6% of all the land in the Middle East why do they need any more?
Post #10,988 by bluke 9/30/01 4:54:30 AM Reply	Palestinians: Israel simply is not yours This is a great article which makes my point better then I have been making. [link\|http://www.suntimes.com/output/steinberg/cst-nws-stein09.html\|http://www.suntimes...stein09.html]
Post #10,999 by wharris2 9/30/01 1:35:44 PM Reply	Hear ye, hear ye Who knows how empty the sky is In the place of a fallen tower. Who knows how quiet it is in the home Where a son has not returned. -- Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)
Post #11,042 by a6l6e6x 9/30/01 9:57:31 PM Reply	"Gaza, West Bank, & E. Jerusalem are Spoils of War". And you expect peace with that? Logically then, Israel can become the spoils of war to the folks that don't like the current state of affairs. Might makes right. Yep. And leveling the buildings of your enemy to the ground, because you can, is right too? It happens on a regular basis to Israeli foes. Where have I seen that, lately? Advancing civilization, one tactic at a time. Alex Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad. -- Euripides
Post #11,060 by bluke 10/1/01 3:39:21 AM Reply	Re: "Gaza, West Bank, & E. Jerusalem are Spoils of War". The fact is in 1967, Israel offered everything back in return for peace. The Arabs responded with the famous 3 no's of Khartoum. The fact is that if you start a war and lose it you pay the price. Let us look at some historical examples: The French took Alsace-Lorraine, in 1945 from Germany. Its consequent occupation must not be rewarded. "A full withdrawal for full peace" should operate here. The US took much of the Southwest by force from Mexico, give it back.
Post #11,063 by bluke 10/1/01 3:57:42 AM Reply	More facts about the "Palestinians" Read this article: [link\|http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=550\|http://www.israelna....php3?id=550] Here are some relevant quotes: "Professor of history Rashid Khalidi, himself a Palestinian Arab admits that "Palestinian identity" was the last garb that the Arabs of Palestine tried on when all other possibilities where exhausted. It was shared "by a relatively restricted stratum and among them, as well as among the rural and illiterate majority of the population, the new sense of Palestinian identity competed and overlapped with Ottomanism and Arabism, as well as older religious, local and family loyalties." ... "Julius Stone wrote in 1970 a must-read paper entitled "Self-determination and the Palestinian Arabs." His arguments are so clear and convincing that it is most effective simply to quote him profusely. He explains that "it twists and parodies both history and justice to present the Palestine issue as a struggle between the Jews of the world on the one hand and the Arabs of Palestine on the other, in which the Jews seized the major share." Stone continues, "The struggle was rather between the Arabs of the Middle East region (including some hundred thousand living in Palestine) and the Jews of the world, in which the Arabs took the lion\ufffds share from which in due course a dozen and more Arab states emerged. Neither at the time of distribution, nor for decades later, moreover, was there any identifiable Palestinian Arab people, much less any center of Arab cultural or political life in Palestine." Rashid Khalidi. Palestinian Identity. Columbia University Press, 1998. Julius Stone. Self-Determination and the Palestinian Arabs. From the book "Israel, the Arabs and the Middle East," Bantam Books, 1972.

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