Zionism and History

by **AlicetheCurious** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:04 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>I don't know what to make of your quote.<hr></blockquote> I didn't think so.

by **Dreams End** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 12:38 pm

Alice you are playing games now...not arguing. You tossed out a dozen quotes...I spent quite some time refuting them then you tossed up your hands and said, "Oh, they were just about the futility of quotes." At the same time, I tossed out a bunch of quotes from the Grand Mufti, and you ignored them. No snide little comments from me when you failed to address them. You are really a disappointing debating opponent here...and sadly I haven't had as much time since this started last weekend to go further, though I still plan to and if this thread has sunk too low I'll start another one. Now, just because I want others to see how analysis works...I'll answer your question about the quote. In Israel, believe it or not, there are a variety of political views. Weirdly, they have a righting, a leftwing and stuff in between. It's weird and no place else in history has such a political spectrum existed. The remarks, of course, are abhorrent. But I don't need to defend the far right of Israel to suggest that your characterization of Israel as a whole is wrong. that's just ridiculous. Many of the settlers and groups like Kach (Kahane's party) are clearly a part of the problem. Eitam withdrew from government in 2004 to work in a far right coalition. Thankfully, unlike Alice, the article gives a variety of perspectives...all of the Israeli. Israel is not Kahane, even if Sharon played litle games with the settlements. I found very interesting the remarks of Etkes, an Israeli peace activist who runs an organization opposed to the settlements. He personally stopped some Israeli soldiers who were torturing Arab prisoners. He, too, is Israeli. He has this to say about Zionism: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>“Zionism is my life,” he told me. “I’m alive because of Zionism. If my grandfather hadn’t come here from Germany in 1936—” He paused. “It’s not Zionism that I’m talking about. It’s the racist, colonialist elements in Zionism.” Etkes’s revulsion at the chauvinism of the settlers helped drive him from religion; today, he wears no kipa, and says that he does not believe in God.<hr></blockquote> Kahane and Eitam are part of religious Zionism..they are fundamentalists who take the Bible literally and I'll bet you that our Christian Zionist counterparts provide them support. And, again, I have acknowledged and lamented the rise of the rightwing in Israel and will hopefully be looking into what role my own country has had (assuming they have, and I imagine that's a safe assumption) in promoting the Israeli right. Ultimately, of course, what I want to know is what role my own country plays in this...but it's not as simple as so many are making it out to be. By the way, folks should CONTINUE to read the article as the same writer goes to interview Hamas. It starts with discussion of a woman who blew herself up, leaving behind two babies because, as she put on her "martyr tape" <blockquote>Quote:<hr> “God gave me the ability to be a mother of two children who I love so. But my wish to meet God in paradise is greater, so I decided to be a martyr for the sake of my people. I am convinced God will help and take care of my children.”<hr></blockquote> This does not strike me as admirable, and smacks of brainwashing to me. Continuing, from the article Alice provided (really interesting, actually). <blockquote>Quote:<hr>If the extremists among the Jews suffer from a Moriah complex, then the extremists among the Palestinians are in the grip of a Moloch complex. Jewish children are among the targets of sacrifice, but some extremists sacrifice their own children as well, dispatching them on suicide missions, and using them as shields when they attack Israeli soldiers. In Gaza three years ago, I witnessed Hamas gunmen firing at Israeli jeeps from behind a screen of children throwing rocks. The Israelis, faced with the choice of retreating or returning fire, returned fire. They hit at least two children with rubber-coated steel bullets, injuring them seriously. This shoot-out took place during school hours. Almost five hundred Palestinian children under the age of eighteen have been killed by Israelis since 2000. Not all of them were shot by soldiers who were under fire. Palestinian children, even those throwing stones, are not in themselves threats to armed soldiers in tanks, and many were simply bystanders. <hr></blockquote> Here's some quotes from Hamas founder Yassin: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Hamas’s covenant doesn’t differentiate between settlers and other Israelis—in fact, it doesn’t mention settlers at all. It reads, “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. . . . It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine. . . . The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said, ‘The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews.’ ” I asked Yassin whether this was propaganda or policy—whether the enemy was the occupation, or Israel. “There were some Jews who lived in Palestine before Zionism,” Yassin said. “The children of these Jews will be allowed to stay under the protection of Islam. But the rest of the Jews must be defeated, or they must leave.<hr></blockquote> Yassin was assassinated by Israel. I am opposed to state assassinations and will not defend them. But I thought the remarks of his successor were relevant to this thread...in fact they go to its heart: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Two months after our conversation, Yassin was assassinated in an Israeli missile strike. Abdel Aziz Rantisi was appointed the new leader of Hamas in Gaza. In January, I had met with Rantisi, who was a pediatrician; I asked how he could justify harming Israeli children. He told me that Israel has forced Hamas to commit these acts. Then he said, “The Jews are worse than Hitler. I believe the Nazis did not break the bones of children with rockets. I believe Hitler wouldn’t bulldoze homes on civilians when they were screaming inside. It’s impossible to say that Hitler would do that. I believe that more than fifty per cent of the world doesn’t believe in the HoloI caust, and I am one of them. The Israelis practice terror against our people and say to the world that we are terrorists. I believe that they did the same thing to Hitler. The Germans were the victims of the Jews.”<hr></blockquote> Alice...it was YOUR link. So you tell me, should I judge Hamas by these remarks? And the man who made them was the leader of Hamas, not just a rightwing member of a coalition government. Or is it your belief that the Germans were the victims of the Jews? (Of course I don't think you believe that....I'm making a point about your selective use of quotes.) Learn from this...please. I will willingly and unswervingly denounce groups like KACH and the Jewish Defense League (mentioned in the article). And I have explained that I don't much like that the Israeli right is running the show and as an American its a sad and familiar phenomenon repeated in countries all over the world. The US supports the farthest right of a country to offset any potential gains of the left. I maintain that this is what has happened in the Middle East as well.

by **AlicetheCurious** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 6:21 am

DE, you miss my point entirely. Of course, on every side, there is a spectrum of opinions, from the most rational and humane, to the most extreme. Both Zionists and Arab / Muslim nationalists have their nutcases. But while Zionists with the more liberal views have been the ones who are publicized and used for pr purposes, particularly in propaganda aimed at the West, it is the most extreme nutcases who have been permitted to actually implement the policies of the Zionist state with regard to the Palestinians. In other words, THEY ARE THE ONES WHO ACTUALLY HAVE THE POWER TO ACT! They are implementing their genocidal dreams, with the full backing of the Zionist state, and access to its enormous resources, against the helpless and captive Palestinian population. While the West is shown the moderates as the face of Israel, it is the most fanatic, racist elements who are financed, armed and sent to live in fortified illegal settlements among Palestinians. Those racists and advocates of genocide are the ones who are making Israeli government policies that have devastated Palestinian society. As for Hamas, earlier I explained how Israel actually suppressed the dominant Leftist/secular/liberal elements among the Palestinian nationalists and PROMOTED Hamas, so they could have a bogeyman to point to, as you have. And this bogeyman, I might point point, is only useful for pr purposes, since to all intents and purposes, it exists in a cage built by Israel and in no way presents any kind of threat to the Zionist state. It's silly to pretend that there is any equivalence between the weak, starving, poor and laughably armed Palestinian resistance, whatever their views, and the Israeli behemoth, armed with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, in addition to the most advanced conventional arsenal, which it has used to ruthlessly herd the Palestinians into concentration camps and bantustans. The actual facts on the ground, when examined objectively, reveal nothing less than ethnic cleansing. These facts include the expansion of Jewish-only settlements throughout Palestinian lands, the destruction of olive groves and orchards, and other measures designed to starve the Palestinian people, including the denial of access to water, the racist laws which are applied only to Palestinians and not to Jews, and the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians, all of which empower one ethnic group at the expense of another, all of which amount to a policy of genocide. That's why Israel does not permit foreign journalists to report from the occupied Palestinian territories, denying permits, even shooting at them, even killing many. That's why Israel kicks out even foreigners who are married to Palestinians or who are engaged in humanitarian work with the Palestinians. Israel does not want first-hand witnesses to what it is DOING, it wants tame reporters stationed in Jerusalem who dutifully report Israeli government or military press releases as 'news'. It's a classic sleight of hand, but more and more people around the world are tuning out the patter and watching the hands. This isn't Nazi Germany, there are good people within Israel and among the Palestinians who are carefully documenting what's being done, and smuggling the news and the images out. You can only pretend not to know if you wilfully ignore the facts. Israel's abuses have reached a such a degree of savagery that they have become impossible to deny for any but the most brainwashed. This, and not your ridiculous hypothesis about "Nazi infiltration of the Left", is why Israel and its abhorent racism are arousing revulsion and outrage against the Zionist project.

by **Dreams End** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 1:13 pm

Holy Crap...we agree on something! Well, sort of. Neither one of us likes Hamas. That's a start. The "Nazi infiltration of the left" is actually my strongest case...believe me. It's not really on topic here but is actually what I'm looking into a lot for my own blog. If you have interest (which I don't think you do) you can learn about "third positionism" and the "red-brown" alliance. There's plenty out there about it and I'll be writing about it a pretty good deal. The case is extremely solid as much of it is not really "hidden." The only thing different about my perspective is that I've found there are intelligence types involved with at least some of it. But that's another story. In fact, I'll give you an inside scoop. Just for you as at least you've stuck with this conversation while others with your viewpoint have stayed on the sidelines. Google "workers world party" and "rcwp". You'll find some of this exposed on rightwing sites, but you should find some left critique as well. That's all I'm saying for now. But our thread was Zionism and history and once again you posted a quote and once again backed off of its significance, which I knew you would do but played along anyway. You NOW say the point was that there are Jewish extremists (agreed) who have all the power to do anything. You sort of forgot to prove that second part, though I have acknowledged the quite obvious rightward shift in Israeli politics since '67. But as I said, this thread is "Zionism and history" so really, suggesting the radical right has all the power now (while oversimplified) still really doesn't get at the historical roots of Zionism. Now, I'm going to post this graphic but it really is NOT directed at you. It is from overthrow dot com (I don't want people linking by clicking here...as that will bring those guys to this forum as they check the stats on their site and see this board as a referrer. We had enough "fun" when Stromfront paid us a visit or two.) overthrow dot com is run by Bill White, who has a very "good" explanation of third positionism which I will be linking to on my blog. It's "good" in that it confirms just about everything I have learned about them, and it is from within the movement itself..it is not an "expose". But that's for another time...in the next day or two. In any event, everyone please remember my "ridiculous hypothesis". It won't look at all ridiculous very soon. Here's the graphic. Again, I'm not saying you are a nazi, Alice, but I'm trying to show that there are at least SOME rightwingers who quite readily embrace the islamic right. And since White is specifically a member of the growing brown-red alliance I've been talking about, it is particularly relevant. All for now. <img src="http://www.nsmamerica.com/magazine/october2006/answp1006.jpg" style="border:0;"/>

by **AlicetheCurious** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 5:39 am

Dream's End, I'm fast losing my temper at your moral vacuousness. You strike me as someone who would be digging through the Torah and the Talmud during the Nazi genocide, to find quotes that "prove" that the Jews do, indeed, represent an enormous threat to the "goy" or gentile. You would be accusing the African National Congress of anti-White racism at the height of its struggle against apartheid. People like you make me sick. You may think you have no blood on your hands, but you make a big stinky cloud over the facts that obscures the truth, especially for the ill-informed, so that the murders and the injustice can continue unimpeded. That stupid picture you posted is supposed to justify the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, is it? Does it, in your opinion, explain why Jewish-only settlements are being built on land stolen from Palestinians, and that those same Palestinians are being deprived of water for agriculture and bathing and drinking, so that Jewish-only settlements can have lovely swimming pools? Does it justify the starving of an entire population and the violation of all international laws and Geneva Conventions on the treatment of civilians? How do you explain the fact that Israel, despite documented war-crimes and crimes against humanity, has been able to simply refuse to allow any international investigation of its actions? And gets away with that? "No, we won't let you investigate." and that's it? Can any country other than the US demand and receive impunity for whatever horrors it inflicts on the population it holds captive? Israel is a racist, Jewish-supremacist state: it has all the accoutrements, including racist laws, the denial of basic human rights to people because of their ethnicity, and the actual bloody implementation of ethnic cleansing in the form of indiscriminate killing, mass starvation and expulsion. You know what? You go ahead and argue that black is white and white is black. You go ahead and insinuate that Nazis are behind any opposition or resistance to Israel's mass murder and land theft of Palestinians. Your position is becoming less tenable every day, and DECENT people around the world are waking up to the horrible reality. I'm going to go have some coffee. By the way, I may not like Hamas, but unlike you, I certainly don't demonize them. In fact, I make it a point to carefully listen to what their spokesmen say, and I do sometimes agree with their positions. They are HUMAN beings, struggling to resist a horrible, inhumane occupation. Almost all of them have been imprisoned and tortured in Israeli prisons, almost all of them have had loved ones killed and watched the murderers rewarded. Almost all of them have woken up to the rumble of Israeli tanks and bulldozers crushing everything in their path, including homes and even people. All of them have listened to the echoing silence of the international community after they begged for help and protection. So, I tend to consider them with some respect, unlike how I view supercilious pseudo-scholars who probably scream if they get a paper cut, and call the police if the neighbours have their stereo too loud. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=alicethecurious>AlicetheCurious</A> at: 9/25/06 6:14 am

by **erosoplier** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:23 am

Over 2400 posts Dream's End - that's a lot! It's funny, your name and your 'experience,' combined with your studied obliviousness on this thread and the other, had me racking my brains trying to find some ulterior motive to explain your behaviour. Was he trying to coax us somewhere, I wondered? Somewhere he couldn't, for some reason, say straight-out? To cut a long story short I found myself reading, nearly in full, for the first time ever, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I hope some people out there find this a little bit humorous. (And in passing, if a film like Salo has a right to exist, then so do The Protocols. Not that I'd choose to compare them directly. I would choose to compare the Protocols to books like Brave New World and 1984, though they're obviously not in the same league. If you can treat the Protocols as a controversial piece of "literature" - as the challenges to its authenticity would lead us to do, given the consensus that it is derived from earlier non-Jewish-specific works - then it can definitely be said to contain food for thought). But still I don't know where Dream's End is coming from. Are you just a brainwashed bigot, Dream's End? Or what? If we take you at your word, then it is obvious that an Arab life is worth less in your estimation than an Israeli life. And that sort of thing doesn't agree with me. At any rate, the more you say, the more I am driven to take a serious look at the work of the "revisionist" historians. Not a task I relish. I hope you know what you're doing. ****************** p.s. I wrote the above yesterday, but didn't click on 'send.' "The Germans were the victims of the Jews" - is this a thesis that Dream's End wants us to explore? Of course he pretends that no reasonable person would for a moment consider the possibility ("Of course I don't think you believe that...." he says to AlicetheCurious) But Jewish business leaders declared economic war on Germany in 1933 (2 months after Hitler came to power, in response, I surmise at this point, to Hitler's swift moves to remove Jews from positions of authority in the public sector (Jews were at that point in time vastly over-represented in the public service, on a per-capita basis, I am lead to believe)) so there alone is some strong-sounding evidence with which to begin an enquiry. Why were the Jews over-represented? What effect did this have? Why didn't Hitler like it? Was Hitler's move to reduce their over-representation "fair"? Was the Jewish response "fair"? What exactly was the Jewish response beyond international economic sanctions? etc. So many questions that garden variety history books have only less than adequate answers for. And here, to add insult to the injury of discovering that the history of this period is both complex and under-exposed, one finds oneself immediately open to various odious condemnations. What is a simple boy from the suburbs to do? I've explored enough to know that there are some seriously bent-out-of-shape people who fall under the "revisionist historian" label, so I'd appreciate any tips on good sources in this area (pm me if you wish). And also I realise that this line of questioning promises perhaps to head straight into cordoned off territory for this list - maybe some feel it already has. I do, of course, wish to respect the rules of this discussion board.

by **slimmouse** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 10:16 am

I should imagine that if anyone were to go behind the scenes of National American Socialist worker, or whatever those peeps proffess to be, that the whiff of standard issue CIA eau de cologne would quite literally be emanating from the pages. Strange how that seems to escape your skewed reasoning As for the leftist friends who are tending to fall for the blame Israel/ the Jews for everything card, Dreams End, I can fully appreciate your efforts to contain this plain fallacy. But that being said, to suggest that this is simply the result of the intel disinformation department, and nothing to do with the clearly horrendous actions, racism and influence upon American society and Govnt of AIPAC, JINSA, the ADL et cetera, along with little things like the Israeli army having just left an estimated 1 million cluster bombs in the Lebanon simply beggars belief in any rational thinking persons mind. Alice has plainly illustrated how it is that any informed mind might tend to understand leftist anti israeli sentiment based upon ACTIONS and not words, and yet this sails over your head like a phosporous missile heading for Qana. If I didnt think I knew better, I might relate your kind of thinking to something I would expect from the ADL itself.

by **Dreams End** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 10:29 am

this is what it sounds like...when threads die..(apologies to Prince) <blockquote>Quote:<hr> "The Germans were the victims of the Jews" - is this a thesis that Dream's End wants us to explore? <hr></blockquote> No, that was the Hamas guy. I have the radical belief that the Jews were victims of the Germans. I guess I'm just a revisionist that way. <blockquote>Quote:<hr> That stupid picture you posted is supposed to justify the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, is it?<hr></blockquote> The picture is to illustrate that, as I've said, nazi-types are supportive of movements like Hamas. Even if everything you said about Israel were 100 % true, this should still make people on the left cautious in their support. In general, the racist right seems split on this point of view as a little time I spent browsing the Stormfront discussion board showed. Some were appalled at the idea but some saw the Islamic militants as allies. A lot of this gets back to the red-brown alliance that, shockingly, Alice was not interested in finding out about. I'm learning a lot about it, however, and am happy to report principled rejections of this line from elements of the left. as a movement, it primarily emanates from Russia and Europe but it is having its effect here as well. As for my "studied obliviousness"...I asked for facts and logical arguments. You all are having trouble providing them and Alice has finally begun to completely rely exclusively on attacks. This thread was your chance to show the Zionist project was a genocidal effort from the beginning. You haven't. If your case is that strong, here would have been the place to make it. But with Alice's personal attacks and the pliers bringing up the Protocols and looking for my "ulterior motives" this thread is heading where these threads usually head. However, I will congratulate all of us for having made it this far. For this topic, three pages before the Protocols arrive and the accusations fly is an accomplishment of sorts.

by **AlicetheCurious** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 3:52 pm

Dream's End said: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>I asked for facts and logical arguments. You all are having trouble providing them and Alice has finally begun to completely rely exclusively on attacks.<hr></blockquote> Hello. You confuse information you wish to suppress, with 'attacks'. I've provided plenty of facts and logical arguments, and if all you can perceive in them is "attacks", then I suggest that this is a problem with your ability to process information rather than with my posts. May I point out that in your previous post, your "argument" consisted of the cover of a Nazi magazine; is this the kind of "logical arguments" and "facts" you mean? I asked you some questions, which you have ignored. I stated some facts, which you have ignored. Do you actually see them, or is this a selective blindness kind of thing? Let's make an experiment: see if you can read, understand and respond to, say, this paragraph: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Does it, in your opinion, explain why Jewish-only settlements are being built on land stolen from Palestinians, and that those same Palestinians are being deprived of water for agriculture and bathing and drinking, so that Jewish-only settlements can have lovely swimming pools? Does it justify the starving of an entire population and the violation of all international laws and Geneva Conventions on the treatment of civilians? How do you explain the fact that Israel, despite documented war-crimes and crimes against humanity, has been able to simply refuse to allow any international investigation of its actions? And gets away with that? "No, we won't let you investigate." and that's it? Can any country other than the US demand and receive impunity for whatever horrors it inflicts on the population it holds captive? Israel is a racist, Jewish-supremacist state: it has all the accoutrements, including racist laws, the denial of basic human rights to people because of their ethnicity, and the actual bloody implementation of ethnic cleansing in the form of indiscriminate killing, mass starvation and expulsion.<hr></blockquote> Your prediction of the imminent demise of this thread is a mite premature, in my opinion.

by **Dreams End** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 5:12 pm

My bad, Alice. I thought the following looked a lot more like an attack than facts: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Dream's End, I'm fast losing my temper at your moral vacuousness. You strike me as someone who would be digging through the Torah and the Talmud during the Nazi genocide, to find quotes that "prove" that the Jews do, indeed, represent an enormous threat to the "goy" or gentile. You would be accusing the African National Congress of anti-White racism at the height of its struggle against apartheid. People like you make me sick. You may think you have no blood on your hands, but you make a big stinky cloud over the facts that obscures the truth, especially for the ill-informed, so that the murders and the injustice can continue unimpeded.<hr></blockquote> I guess we just have different definitions. But no, you don't post facts...you posted quotes which I THOUGHT you were arguing as fact, but when I went to research them you admitted they were NOT fact and merely examples of how hard it is to verify quotes. (Actually, it's not. You should try it sometime.) Then you wanted to test my reading comprehension with this: <blockquote>Quote:<hr> Does it, in your opinion, explain why Jewish-only settlements are being built on land stolen from Palestinians, and that those same Palestinians are being deprived of water for agriculture and bathing and drinking, so that Jewish-only settlements can have lovely swimming pools? Does it justify the starving of an entire population and the violation of all international laws and Geneva Conventions on the treatment of civilians? How do you explain the fact that Israel, despite documented war-crimes and crimes against humanity, has been able to simply refuse to allow any international investigation of its actions? And gets away with that? "No, we won't let you investigate." and that's it? Can any country other than the US demand and receive impunity for whatever horrors it inflicts on the population it holds captive? Israel is a racist, Jewish-supremacist state: it has all the accoutrements, including racist laws, the denial of basic human rights to people because of their ethnicity, and the actual bloody implementation of ethnic cleansing in the form of indiscriminate killing, mass starvation and expulsion.<hr></blockquote> Perhaps you are unaware that there is a difference between facts and rhetoric. Typically, an argument consists of an assertion, some analysis and some evidence. Lots of assertions here...not much else. The one exception from you is the timeline. Again, it was just a cut and paste from somewhere else, but it's worth working on. I just haven't gotten to it yet, though I did make some preliminary comments. Don't get me wrong, I could easily paste a competing timeline from an Israeli perspective, but then we have dueling paste-ups...not an argument ("argument" in the constructive sense.) In fact, some of what I have posted came from a very comprehensive timeline, which included criticisms of Deer Yassin and also admissions that there were evictions of Arabs from villages during the war of '48. You accuse me of switching "black and white" which is, again, you proving my point. These things are not black and white...there's lots of gray. What I've done is pointed that out. And you also have trouble staying on topic. There's no rule against discussing the current situation in Israel...but this thread is about it's historic roots, and specifically the role of Zionism in history. I will be a little short of facts and analysis myself for a bit as it is the workweek and I have less time. this bit is typed as I sit in a coffeehouse between appointments.

by **slimmouse** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 5:55 pm

For the role of Zionism in history, heres my suggestion. Have a look at the skin colour of the so called descendants of Shem who supposedly reside in their "promised land" Then have a look at the skin colour of those who rule the world today. Then have a look at the pointy white hats of the KKK and similar Aryan brotherhood, Then look at the actions of Israel, the USA, and the real roolers, the elite of the UK. Tell me if the said actions smack of the all too familiar traditions of racism, mass murder, conquest and ethnic cleansing. If you answer "Yes" to the above question, then congratulations !! You have Identified who the real Nazis are, and have identified the role of Zionism in all of this. No one is suggesting of course that your average guy ( including your average Israeli ) has the foggiest idea of how they are being used in this game. In fact, had I personally been duped into believing that I was going to my "promised land" only to find that in order to secure it I had to participate in the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 of the indigenous populus, and in the process make the surrounding populus feel rather miffed, then I suppose I might find a few fighting qualities of my own. But of course theirs nothing new there now is there. Small pox blankets for Native Americans. Machine Guns against spears for the Native Africans. Typhus in the wells for Palestinians. Same basic Modus Operandi. How the Big game is played of course is the preserve of the Chess players rather than the pawns. But I trust that an intellectual such as yourself DE can understand that already. On edit. In order to help you in this quest, might I suggest the following books. Avi Schlaim - The Iron Wall Norman Finklestein - The Holocaust Industry Arthur Koestler - The Thirteenth tribe. Im sure as a confirmed leftist that none of the above reading list will offend your sensibility. A brief while back meanwhile, I posted an image from the front page of "The independent", which paints an extremely clear picture of how the 4th Reich is continuing the work of their forefathers. Regrettably I cant find the link. But I will post the pic again when I find it, just to make it real simple. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=slimmouse@rigorousintuition>slimmouse</A> at: 9/25/06 4:32 pm

by **Dreams End** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:13 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr> Have a look at the skin colour of the so called descendants of Shem who supposedly reside in their "promised land" <hr></blockquote> I got stuck on that one.

by **AlicetheCurious** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:00 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>There's no rule against discussing the current situation in Israel...but this thread is about it's historic roots, and specifically the role of Zionism in history.<hr></blockquote> Let's put it this way, DE. Take Zionism (please!!). No, seriously. If I understand you correctly, you're asking for quotes to support the statement that Zionism was a racist enterprise from the very beginning. Although not denying that the quotes are there (it's disingenuous of you to pretend that all the quotes have been totally distorted or taken out of context in a way that transforms their meaning), I've been arguing that facts and deeds speak louder than words. And the facts are unambiguous. A land in which the Palestinians lived, in which Jews owned a total of less than 7% as late as 1948, was forcibly made into a "Jewish state" by a succession of imperial powers: Britain, then the colonial states that then controlled the UN, and now the United States, sole superpower of the world. Zionism was the misbegotten spawn of European antisemitism, married to European colonialism and giving birth to the virulent anti-Muslim hatred and violence that have created a hell on earth for many innocent people, from Guantanamo Bay and the secret CIA prisons, to the horrors of Iraq and Palestine and Afghanistan and recently, Lebanon. The earth of all these places has drunk deeply from the blood of millions of innocents, and the screams of mothers and wives and daughters and sisters echo day and night through the streets and alleys of the survivors (until the next time death strikes without warning from the sky, from the bedroom or classroom window, from out of nowhere), while from Washington to Jerusalem, this is what they understand: "they hate us for our freedom". Excuse my little flight into rhetoric there -- sometimes only emotional language accurately expresses the truth as I see it. Back to Zionism and history. Zionism wouldn't BE zionism if it weren't for the so-called "right to return", am I correct or am I wrong? Is the 'right to return' historical enough for you? The 'right to return' is a RIGHT that is granted SOLELY on the basis of one's identification as an ethnic Jew (the so-called "grandfather clause", or through conversion to Judaism). If you're not a Jew, you're out of luck. Jews may not be a 'race', but that really is splitting hairs, since I believe that racism can be recognized more by those whom it excludes than by those whom it includes. So, Zionism is deeply dependent on the "right to return", which is indeed racist. I'll wait for you to explain to me how 'the right of return' is either not intrinsic to Zionism, or how it is not racist. By the way, try to avoid explaining how the "right of return" is justified by the Holocaust, since in my view, if that were so, then the "right of return" would have been to Europe, and the price for the Holocaust paid by those who carried it out, not by the Palestinians and other Arabs upon whom Israel was inflicted as "punishment" for Europe's sins.

by **snowlion2** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 7:05 am

I hate to get between you two (well, a little afraid to, actually), but in the hope of educating myself, in addition to the links you both provided, I went to the old standby, Wikipedia. Not always reliable, I know, but while Zionism in modern day Israel does denote a right of return, historically it was more about a desire to return...the term predates the Holocaust by 60 years or so: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>From Wikipedia:  Rise of modern political Zionism Before the 1890s there had already been attempts to settle Jews in Palestine, which was in the 19th century a part of the Ottoman Empire, inhabited (in 1890) by about 520,000 people, mostly Muslims and Christian Arabs—but including 20-25,000 Jews. Pogroms in the Russian Empire led Jewish philanthropists such as the Montefiores and the Rothschilds to sponsor agricultural settlements for Russian Jews in Palestine in the late 1870s, culminating in a small group of immigrants from Russia arriving in the country in 1882. This has become known in Zionist history as the First Aliyah. Aliyah is a Hebrew word meaning "ascent," referring to the act of spiritually "ascending" to the Holy Land. While Zionism is based heavily upon Jewish religious tradition linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, the modern movement was mainly secular, beginning largely as a response to rampant anti-Semitism in late 19th century Europe. Moses Hess's 1862 work Rome and Jerusalem; The Last National Question argued for the Jews to settle in Palestine as a means of settling the national question. Hess proposed a socialist state in which the Jews would become agrarianised through a process of "redemption of the soil" that would transform the Jewish community into a true nation in that Jews would occupy the productive layers of society rather than being an intermediary non-productive merchant class, which is how he perceived European Jews. Hess, along with later thinkers such as Nahum Syrkin and Ber Borochov, is considered a founder of Socialist Zionism and Labour Zionism and one of the intellectual forebears of the kibbutz movement. Auto-Emancipation by Pinsker, 1882 Early Zionist groups such as Hibbat Zion were active in the 1880s in the Eastern Europe where emancipation had not occurred to the extent it did in Western Europe (or at all). The massive anti-Jewish pogroms following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II made emancipation seem more elusive than ever, and influenced Judah Leib Pinsker to publish the pamphlet Auto-Emancipation in 1882. In 1890, the "Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria and Eretz Israel" (better known as the Odessa Committee) was officially registered as a charitable organization in the Russian Empire and by 1897 it counted over 4,000 members. American Protestant Christian Zionists such as William Eugene Blackstone also pursued the Zionist ideal during late 19th century, especially in the American Blackstone Memorial (1891). Theodor Herzl A key event said to trigger the modern Zionist movement was the Dreyfus Affair, which erupted in France in 1894. Jews were profoundly shocked to see this outbreak of anti-Semitism in a country which they thought of as the home of enlightenment and liberty. Among those who witnessed the Affair was an Austrian-Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl, who published his pamphlet Der Judenstaat ("The Jewish State"<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"> in 1896 and described the Affair as a turning point—prior to the Affair, Herzl had been anti-Zionist, afterwards he became ardently pro-Zionist. In 1897 Herzl organised the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, which founded the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) and elected Herzl as its first President. <hr></blockquote>

by **Dreams End** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 12:02 pm

Thanks snowlion. Saved me the trouble. Alice the original Zionists did not even have Palestine as a necessary location. I have pointed that out already when I looked up your Herzl quote. And you give more rhetoric. As for this: <blockquote>Quote:<hr> The earth of all these places has drunk deeply from the blood of millions of innocents, and the screams of mothers and wives and daughters and sisters echo day and night through the streets and alleys of the survivors (until the next time death strikes without warning from the sky, from the bedroom or classroom window, from out of nowhere), while from Washington to Jerusalem, this is what they understand: "they hate us for our freedom".<hr></blockquote> What are you even talking about? You want now to blame all wars on Zionism. That's not even hyperbole..it's just falsehood. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>And the facts are unambiguous. A land in which the Palestinians lived, in which Jews owned a total of less than 7% as late as 1948, was forcibly made into a "Jewish state" by a succession of imperial powers: Britain, then the colonial states that then controlled the UN, and now the United States, sole superpower of the world.<hr></blockquote> Hey, it looks like you are trying to state a fact. No reference...no proof...but still. Surely you realize by now that there are no facts in the Arab Israeli conflict beyond dispute. First off, remember how this even came about. Jews were coming to Palestine in larger and larger numbers as they fled European anti-semitic attacks. I can't speak for many of them, but speaking for myself, things would have to be pretty bad before I'd pick up and make a move like that. As tensions rose, Britain did two things. First, they greatly LIMITED Jewish immigration to Palestine. Second, they came up with a plan of partition, and ultimately the UN accepted this partition idea. The Zionists did not like the partition plan, but signed it anyway. Arabs rejected it altogether. <blockquote>Quote:<hr> The partition plan took on a checkerboard appearance largely because Jewish towns and villages were spread throughout Palestine. This did not complicate the plan as much as the fact that the high living standards in Jewish cities and towns had attracted large Arab populations, which insured that any partition would result in a Jewish state that included a substantial Arab population. Recognizing the need to allow for additional Jewish settlement, the majority proposal allotted the Jews land in the northern part of the country, Galilee, and the large, arid Negev desert in the south. The remainder was to form the Arab state. These boundaries were based solely on demographics. The borders of the Jewish State were arranged with no consideration of security; hence, the new state's frontiers were virtually indefensible. Overall, the Jewish State was to be comprised of roughly 5,500 square miles and the population was to be 538,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs. The Arab State was to be 4,500 square miles with a population of 804,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews.3a Though the Jews were allotted more total land, the majority of that land was in the desert. Further complicating the situation was the UN majority's insistence that Jerusalem remain apart from both states and be administered as an international zone. This arrangement left more than 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem isolated from their country and circumscribed by the Arab state. Critics claim the UN gave the Jews fertile land while the Arabs were allotted hilly, arid land. This is untrue. Approximately 60 percent of the Jewish state was to be the arid desert in the Negev. The Arabs constituted a majority of the population in Palestine as a whole — 1.2 million Arabs versus 600,000 Jews. The Jews never had a chance of reaching a majority in the country given the restrictive immigration policy of the British. By contrast, the Arabs were free to come — and thousands did — to take advantage of the rapid development stimulated by Zionist settlement. Still, the Jews were a majority in the area allotted to them by the resolution and in Jerusalem. In addition to roughly 600,000 Jews, 350,000 Arabs resided in the Jewish state created by partition. Approximately 92,000 Arabs lived in Tiberias, Safed, Haifa and Bet Shean, and another 40,000 were Bedouins, most of whom were living in the desert. The remainder of the Arab population was spread throughout the Jewish state and occupied most of the agricultural land.5 According to British statistics, more than 70% of the land in what would become Israel was not owned by Arab farmers, it belonged to the mandatory government. Those lands reverted to Israeli control after the departure of the British. Nearly 9% of the land was owned by Jews and about 3% by Arabs who became citizens of Israel. That means only about 18% belonged to Arabs who left the country before and after the Arab invasion of Israel.6 <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf3.html">Evil Zionist version of history</a><hr></blockquote> Here's what the proposed partition plan looked like: <img src="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/maps/partitionnick.gif" style="border:0;"/> Don't you agree that this is an awful strange way for the imperialists to gain their objectives? Add this unworkable map with the limitations on Jewish immigration EVEN DURING WW2, and ADD to this the fact that Britain split off all of what was then called Transjordan earlier, which had been understood to be a part of the land promised under Balfour, and it gets hard to make the case that Britain's agenda was pro-Zionist and part of some genocidal plan. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Nearly 80 percent of what was the historic land of Palestine and the Jewish National Home, as defined by the League of Nations, was severed by the British in 1921 and allocated to what became Transjordan. Jewish settlement there was barred. The UN partitioned the remaining 20-odd percent of Palestine into two states. With Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank in 1950, and Egypt's control of Gaza, Arabs controlled more than 80 percent of the territory of the Mandate, while the Jewish State held a bare 17.5 percent.6a<hr></blockquote> By the way, I'm curious how you explain the USSR's support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine if it were all a western imperialist plot: In May 1947, however, Soviet delegate Andrei Gromyko said: <blockquote>Quote:<hr> The fact that no Western European State has been able to ensure the defense of the elementary rights of the Jewish people and to safeguard it against the violence of the fascist executioners explains the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own State. It would be unjust not to take this into consideration and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize this aspiration.9<hr></blockquote> (All quotes so far are from the Evil Zionist Link above.) I don't know that the whole thing would have happened without the Holocaust...certainly not as quickly and dramatically. Many Jews opposed Zionism and the left argued that the correct approach was to build class solidarity no matter the religion or ethnicity...not to pick up and leave. However, in so many ways, the Jews were unique in history. It seems like every time Jews adopted the idea of blending in with their surrounding non Jews, along came some sort of pogrom or expulsion. I would say that the argument that it is impossible for Jews to live alongside non-Jews in Europe gained a lot of credibility after World War 2. I don't think it is inherently true, but how the hell would you argue that after the Nazi genocide...which was repeated in smaller ways in so many other places in Europe? The problem for the Marxist left, I think, is not realizing that due to historical circumstances, traditional class analysis not only didn't get at the irrational emotions behind anti-Semitism, but also led to an analysis of Jew as "other" that even Zionists leftists accepted. The Jews were anomalous in terms of class. The Labor zionists had a sort of weird idea that "proletarianizing" Jews in Palestine would allow the class struggle to develop naturally. This is a lot of the rationale behind the actions of the Histradut...actions which were incorrect, such as excluding Arab laborers. Ironically, the other extreme would be a colonization perspective, of utilizing only cheaper Arab labor. Nothing was a monolith. So Jewish leftists, like their non-Jewish counterparts, often tried to squeeze Jews into Marxist analysis that, despite believers claims, was not "scientific" and did not take into account the truly unique historical conditions of the Jews, the various non-economic aspects of power as exercised by the Church such as its ideological hegemony which became deeply ingrained in Christian culture, including the anti-Semitic feelings, and the centuries of scapegoating and manipulation by various kings and queens which played on underlying irrational fears of the populace along the same lines that the witch trials did. I don't say this as an anti-Marxist...I just think of Marxism as political philosophy, not science as it clearly does not fit the definition of science in any way. Human history is complex and Marx was mostly right about the role material conditions play in determining how societies are shaped. But he wasn't completely right. There are other elements. Ideas really do have power...so Hegel wasn't completely wrong and there are other elements in play as well, including mass psychology. I just don't think you can explain the Holocaust in purely material terms. And I don't think...no I KNOW you can't explain the level of anti-Jewish feeling in the Middle East based purely on the history of Zionism. There's a lot more in play here. And it is vital that we get it sorted out.

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