Interesting, but not very surprising. As Joe Sobran wrote "that the saintly Professor Einstein, a man of “humane and democratic instincts,” was a relentless fellow-traveler who defended even Stalin’s macabre 1938 Moscow show trials; the anti-Communist philosopher Sidney Hook recalled in his autobiography, Out of Step, that getting Einstein to criticize the Soviet Union was like pulling teeth."
"Einstein, a professed believer in political liberty, virtually refuses to criticize the Soviet government and justifies the murders and creation of slave labor camps. The closest Einstein comes to criticism of the Soviet government is contained in the first sentence of the following quote. However, the next sentence speaks for itself. According to Einstein in 1948, “I am not blind to the serious weaknesses of the Russian system of government and I would not like to live under such government. But it has, on the other side, great merits and it is difficult to decide whether it would have been possible for the Russians to survive by following softer methods” (Einstein quoted in Hook 1987, p. 471).
My point is that if you want to use Einstein's prestige, it is necessary to get a fuller picture of his political beliefs. And what you find is not very pretty.
Posted by: Sundar | Nov 19, 2012 7:52:51 AM
The Deir Yassin massacre, to which this letter refers, is an indefensible instance of terror. That Einstein was nevertheless an active, committed zionist is what is most telling about his views of the arab-israeli issues of Palestine. So if anything, this letter reminds us of the justness of Israel's presence in Palestine, and of the moral soundness of supporting Israel despite the moral mistakes its members have made in the past, just as the members of any nation have made mistakes in their pasts. Every angel has a past, every sinner has a future.
For a fuller picture of Einstein's complicated relationship to zionism, here is a good Guardian article on his efforts to convince Nehru to support Israel in its 1947 UN vote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/feb/16/israel.india
Posted by: Max | Nov 19, 2012 9:22:06 AM
So Einstein, like Edward Said, believed that there were legitimate claims to territory on both sides of the dispute but that neither side had a right to tell the other to get out. No one can look at the photos and video footage coming out of Gaza and say that Einstein would have supported anything like that. Someone of Einstein's level of conciousness is a human being first, and a Jew, Christian, or Arab, second. We can't bring him down to our level with all the documents in the world.
Posted by: Larry | Nov 19, 2012 9:43:45 AM
@Max: Very interesting article by Benny Morris on the Einstein/Nehru correspondence. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Sundar | Nov 19, 2012 10:22:29 AM
Perhaps I misread the letter, but Einstein appears to be laying the second level of responsibility for a Palestine catastrophe on the "Terrorist organizations build [built] up from our own ranks," whom he considers "misled and criminal people."
Who was he referring to as "our own ranks?" Would that be the the Jewish people, the Israelis, or the organization with whom he is corresponding, The American friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel? It would seem to be the latter, would it not? If so, then Einstein apparently saw a mortal danger to Palestine stemming from her American supporters.
My knowledge of these people and events is extremely limited; therefore Einstein's concerns would more comprehensible to me if I knew more about Israel's American supporters in the 1940s. Was there indeed a misled and criminal faction among them? Is there still? Are Einstein's fears valid today?
Posted by: Susan | Nov 19, 2012 12:41:00 PM
Interesting. Sundar, a supporter of Israel, uses Einstein's support for the Soviet Union as a reason to dismiss his view of the Deir Yassin massacre. Then Max, also a supporter of Israel, condemns the massacre but says that it essentially doesn't matter; it was merely a "moral mistake." No one, it seems, wants to address the content of Einstein's letter, which accuses the perpetrators of the massacre of being criminal terrorists—which they were. Einstein's view of the Soviet Union is irrelevant to the question of whether the people he was referring to were criminal terrorists; and the roots of Israeli independence in terrorist acts is not irrelevant to the mindset that sees fit to create massive suffering in Gaza through an illegal blockade. Hamas and its rockets don't serve the people of Gaza, but it's easy to see why oppressed people would oppose their oppressors.
@Joseph: Good point. I didn't know that the letter was about the Der Yassin Massacre. In fact, I didn't even know about the Deir Yassin Massacre.
Posted by: Sundar | Nov 19, 2012 3:23:40 PM
@Joseph: I did not say or in any way shape or form imply that Deir Yassin massacre "essentially doesn't matter." Please don't put words in my mouth. Einstein rightly calls the acts criminal. But, to recapitulate the point I made in my comment, which I wish you would read and think about, we should not forget that despite recognizing these instances of barbarity, Einstein was still a zionist and defender of establishing a state in Israel (read the linked article). Thus, if you wish to cite Einstein as a moral guide as Abbas Raza has done by posting this letter, you should also note Einstein's belief that it is possible to reconcile acts of barbarity with the legitimacy and justness of the Israeli state. Nor ought it be an unfamiliar sort of reconciliation as every single nation in existence today has blood on its hands. Indeed, many nations that are Israel's most vociferous critics have far more blood on their hands and far more barbarous recent histories.
Posted by: Max | Nov 19, 2012 4:06:20 PM
My understanding is that Einstein was a Zionist of the binationalist Martin Buber / Judah Magnes kind, that is, that Israel should be a land for Jews and Arabs, not a land for Jews.
Posted by: Sagredo | Nov 20, 2012 6:42:32 PM
@Sagredo, Israel IS a land for jews and arabs. Just over 1 in every 5 israeli citizens is a non-jewish Arab. Arabs are accorded all the rights & privileges of fellow Jewish citizens (despite what the "apartheid" accusing ignoramuses shriek about). Arabs hold high positions in Israeli society, including judgeships and political office. Arabic woman in Israel can - Shock! - even drive cars and vote! Crazy idea! If I were told that I am to be reincarnated as an Arab born in the middle east, I would pray to Allah day and night to be born in Israel.
Posted by: Max | Nov 20, 2012 9:22:14 PM
Israel is a land for Jews and Arabs? Really?
But the Palestinian Arabs are being oppressed and aren't allowed to rule themselves? How interesting!
Perhaps one set of rules applies within the "green lines" where yes, Israel is a democracy and another set of rules applies in the Occupied Territories where if it's not apartheid now, it's pretty damn close with the settler-only roads..... ?
If you want any credibility for Israel as the "only democracy in the Middle East", you need to end the Occupation and establish a viable state of Palestine. Sooner or later it will be too late for the two state solution and then there's only one-state, which is either democratic and non-Jewish or Jewish and non-democratic--hmmm dilemma for the Zionists, right?
@Kabir, Sagredo's point was about Israel, and my post in response was about Israel. No one claimed Gaza or Westbank is a land for Arabs and Jews. This is Arab land. Please read my comment more carefully. It seems your points depend on mixing up what is the state of Israel and what is not the state of Israel.
Posted by: Max | Nov 20, 2012 11:44:30 PM
Max,
Actually all of "Occupied Palestine" is Arab land! The Jews illegally (with the help of the British) set up shop in land that did not belong to them! But then it was " a land without a people for a people without a land", too bad there were already people there!
Anyway, now "Israel" exists and nothing can be done about that. The least you people can do is get the hell out of the West Bank, stop blockading Gaza and learn to share!
Kabir, no one denies that Arabs resided in Palestine for centuries b/f 1948. But you too cannot deny that many Jews resided there as well. You cannot deny that there was a wave of European Jewry immigrating to Palestine starting back in 1880; that many more later immigrated as refugees and victims themselves from an even greater conflict, a conflict the proportions of which the Palestinian Arabs cannot imagine, which no people can imagine. And of course you don't deny that much of the land of Palestine was owned by absentee landlords in Cairo, and that much of this land was legally purchased from the Arabs. And of course you know of the Balfour declaration, and the partition plan, and the Arab rejection, and the subsequent invasion of Israel by Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, AND Egypt, and that Israel fought them off in its war of independence. And of course you must find it odd that Egypt had complete control of Gaza and Jordan of the Westbank for decades, yet they never encouraged Palestinian nationhood or immigration/integration into their own societies, but instead did everything the could to perpetuate the misery of the Palestinians in order to use them as Pawns in an on-going proxy war against Israel. And we all know that while might does not make right, it certainly does make borders, and, as you correctly seem to suggest, it benefits no one to rehash centuries old grudges about abstract "claims" to land when instead energy could be directed at reconciliation and stopping terrorist activity so that Israel does not need to be the domineering babysitter of Gaza it is forced to be, which leads to the needless suffering of innocent Palestinians. And of course the irony of your demand that Israel "learn to share!" is not lost on you, given that Israel is a measly 8,367 sq. mi. whereas the Arab/muslim territories of the ME & N.Africa number in the millions of sq. mi. I am sorry, but maps don't lie (http://tinyurl.com/27zr8n).
Posted by: Max | Nov 21, 2012 9:00:57 AM
Max,
I know the history. But the original sin of Israel's creation remains. A Jewish nation-state should not have been created in the heart of the Arab world--that was a recipe for disaster, as we have seen. The British colonial masters had no right to allow a Jewish "nation" to be created in Palestine, without consulting the Palestinians. The UN Partition plan gave the Jews more territory than was due to them as a percentage of the population, yet the Zionist still coveted more land and ethnically cleansed the Palestinians to get it. Sorry, your country is born out of terrorism and ethnic cleansing and you are continuing to use those tactics against the rightful owners of all of that land--the Palestinian Arabs. The truth may hurt but it is still the truth.
Kabir, what original sin? Conflict? Dispossession? Virtually every single nation in existence on this earth was forged in the crucible of conflict and injustice. I am sorry, there really is no place for concepts such as "rightful owners" of land when talking about international geopolitics. Look at the map. EVERYTHING is the product of conquest, land-grabs, unfair deals, oppression, etc etc etc. History is not a fair place of justice and butterflies.
The fact that it happens everywhere throughout all time is no excuse for it, but it is a reminder as to the standards we apply to everyone else, and the standards we ought to also apply to Israel if we want to be consistent and credible. As it stands now, there is one criteria of justice applied to Israel, and another applied to USA, another applied to the Arab countries, another applied to Europe, another to China, another to Russia, and so on. And of all these Israel is held to the highest standards. It is flattering, but frustrating when used as a weapon to demonize this most liberal and democratic of states in the ME. If Israel evicted Roma/Gypsy people from their homes as Sarkozy recently did in France, the world would be in uproar over Israeli apartheid action. America illegally invades Iraq and kills and otherwise causes death of hundreds of thousands of innocent muslim arabs, and the world shouts for a while, and then a decade later it is more or less forgotten - hardly any UN resolutions, no int'l outcry, no media outcry - just faint wimpers. Russia has a decades long occupation and conflict in Chechnya, causing tens of thousands of casualties and untold suffering and misery that is orders of magnitude greater than the conflict in Palestine, and this gets a tiny fraction of the attention paid to Palestine. China has been oppressing the people of Tibet for centuries, and in the 50s and 60s conducted a terror and dispossession campaign that killed around 1 million tibetans and destroyed much of their cultural heritage and occupying their land and oppressing their people to this day, and the int'l outcry to this ongoing injustice is virtually non-existent RELATIVE to the outcry over Palestine. Look at the map. Look at history. Think about it. Then, and only then, talk to me about Israel and try to justify the attention we pay to this conflict in Palestine. I don't begrudge innocent Palestinians the int'l attention and disproportionate aid funding, but at some point you have to feel sorry for the hundreds of other poor, refugee, dispossessed, and victim groups around the world.
Posted by: Max | Nov 21, 2012 11:49:41 AM
We pay attention to this conflict in Palestine because every single Muslim in this world feels for our Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine and resents the fact that the Jews stole Muslim Arab land (with the help of the British colonial masters). Israel is a settler colonial state for European Jews. Muslims and Palestinians had nothing to do with your Holocaust! Why should we pay by having our land taken over by Jews? If you wanted restitution, you should have built a "Jewish state" in Germany! That would really have shown the Germans.....
This is not responsive to the points I made in the previous comment, so I really have little to say in response other than please read and respond to the points I made, and also perhaps this: if it was as you say with the help of the British colonial masters that the greedy jews stole arab land, and, let's face it, it is really the western european colonial forces that cruelly and arbitrarily carved up the ME post WWI for their own strategic advantages, and played all the local interests against each other for their own gain, why is there absolutely ZERO responsibility being levelled today at England and the other Euro powers, and 100% on Israel? Europeans were the all powerful forces meddling and manipulating the ME and bequeathing us this mess, weren't they? Shouldn't they share some blame? Shouldn't UN resolutions be passed demanding UK make reparations to the Arabs of Palestine?
Posted by: Max | Nov 21, 2012 12:28:15 PM
"We pay attention to this conflict in Palestine because every single Muslim in this world feels for our Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine and resents the fact that the Jews stole Muslim Arab land"
This is the default position for most of the ummah, it's ingrained from birth. The Kurds are similarly 'Muslim brothers and sisters' but their land was carved up by Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. They have a unique, well documented lingual, cultural and archeological history going back thousands of years. Not even a partition was offered to them and the response from the Islamic world is a hypocritical silence. Perhaps the emphasis is placed on Palestine because 'the Jews stole Muslim Arab land' and all the Muslims and Arabs stole, was Kurdish land.
The colonial powers do share the blame. Why else are the UK and the US running around trying to solve the conflict? It's a different matter that the US by always taking Israel's side isn't really a neutral arbiter anymore. It is Israel's mouthpiece.
But the Arab world has changed and Arab publics will no longer accept Zionist aggression against the STATELESS Palestinians. There are already calls for Egypt and Jordan to tear up their peace treaties with Israel, recall their ambassadors and let the Zionists know--no more messing with the Palestinians.
So.. I ask again, by your logic, shouldn't UN resolutions be passed for UK to pay reparations to the Palestinians? Or is your point that the way UK is paying for their cruelty and crimes against humanity is by "running around trying to solve the conflict?" A lot of other countries that have nothing to do with the region are also running around trying to "solve the conflict." I don't get your position.
You say "But the Arab world has changed and Arab publics will no longer accept Zionist aggression..." What exactly has changed? It seems the Arab world and its "publics" have not accepted any zionist presence in the ME since their failed 1948 attempt to kill the infant in its crib.
Posted by: Max | Nov 21, 2012 11:09:41 PM
What has changed?
Oh, I don't know, Max, Hosni Mubarak is gone for one! Or hadn't you noticed?
The previous Egyptian regime would not have sent a delegation to Gaza, but Morsi did! He spoke out against Israel's aggression against the Gazan people. Post Arab Spring, he's somewhat accountable to the Egyptian people and they aren't going to stand for more Zionist aggression
"failed 1948 attempt to kill the infant in its crib"--More Zionist lies and distortions. Illan Pappe's "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" tells the real truth about how the Jews had planned to take more than what the UN had allotted to them....
Kabir, you're pinning a lot of hope on a Morsi led government representing a sizable shift in its relationship with Gaza and Israel. A lot of analysis suggests the status quo will prevail with the MB led government not sacrificing their long-term goals for short term populist gains. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds, but thus far nothing indicates a radical shift in Egyptian policy.
Omar Shaban from the Pal-Think for Strategic Studies in Gaza questions the new relationship as the "new status quo". Far from Egypt taking on the Zionists, he foresees more considerable problems in the Egypt/Gaza relationship.
And others see the new Morsi regime as possibly being less supportive of Gaza than Mubarak and that the aggression against Israel was actually a message to Cairo.
But Troy, as the elected president of Egypt, Morsi has to be somewhat cognizant of the mood of the Egyptian people. He's not a dictator. He had to balance his need to be on the good side of the US with the anti-Israel feelings of his people. So far he's managed to balance it. But if the Zionists had launched a full ground invasion a la Cast Lead, there would have been much pressure in Egypt to scrap the peace treaty with Israel....
He appears to be an astute political operator Kabir and he has quickly put Egypt back on the diplomatic map in the M/E. I don't doubt he could sell his people bagels if required and he would of balanced his constituency with his western allies had a ground war taken place. Maybe at most, opened Egypt's border with Gaza. You seem to put great emphasis on the recalled ambassador (which bought Morsi some time with his people and Arab neighbors) but Israel/Egypt intelligence services worked closely over the past week to ensure required outcomes. In the end Morsi came up roses in Israel, the US, Gaza and Egypt. The MB in Egypt have long-term objectives, which they won't sacrifice for short term popularity and I expect Morsi to find a way under all circumstances. I'm not sure if I subscribe to the theory fully, but some are casting Morsi as a stronger ally than Mubarak, when it comes to Israel/Palestine, security in the Sinai and maintaining the integrity of Egypt's border with Gaza. Time will tell.
Posted by: Troy | Nov 22, 2012 7:28:47 AM
Kabir, regimes come and go. Morsi or Mubarak, the Egyptian approach to the Israel-Palestine issue will always be largely the same, largely a moderate one, so long as they are being bribed by the Billions the US sends it in hand outs.
How is the fact that 5 arab armies invaded the infant state and tried to kill it in its crib a "zionist lie"? If a historical fact conflicts w/ the moral superiority you feel, then it must be a zionist lie, huh? Anyway, this debate is degenerating. You still haven't replied to my challenge from a few comments up, and there really is no point to this if you keep repeating empty slogans peppered with invective like "zionist lie" this, thieving jews that, etc. Hope you can swallow your bitterness and grudges for at least 1 day and have a happy thanksgiving.
"The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.
"I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East.
"The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people.
"These dictators’ atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars.
In the past, we have talked about why some Israeli soldiers attack and mistreat Palestinians. Also, we saw Israeli planes and tanks attack various Arab countries. But, do these attacks match the current atrocities being committed by some Arab states against their own people."
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Comments
Interesting, but not very surprising. As Joe Sobran wrote "that the saintly Professor Einstein, a man of “humane and democratic instincts,” was a relentless fellow-traveler who defended even Stalin’s macabre 1938 Moscow show trials; the anti-Communist philosopher Sidney Hook recalled in his autobiography, Out of Step, that getting Einstein to criticize the Soviet Union was like pulling teeth."
"Einstein, a professed believer in political liberty, virtually refuses to criticize the Soviet government and justifies the murders and creation of slave labor camps. The closest Einstein comes to criticism of the Soviet government is contained in the first sentence of the following quote. However, the next sentence speaks for itself. According to Einstein in 1948, “I am not blind to the serious weaknesses of the Russian system of government and I would not like to live under such government. But it has, on the other side, great merits and it is difficult to decide whether it would have been possible for the Russians to survive by following softer methods” (Einstein quoted in Hook 1987, p. 471).
My point is that if you want to use Einstein's prestige, it is necessary to get a fuller picture of his political beliefs. And what you find is not very pretty.
Posted by: Sundar | Nov 19, 2012 7:52:51 AM
The Deir Yassin massacre, to which this letter refers, is an indefensible instance of terror. That Einstein was nevertheless an active, committed zionist is what is most telling about his views of the arab-israeli issues of Palestine. So if anything, this letter reminds us of the justness of Israel's presence in Palestine, and of the moral soundness of supporting Israel despite the moral mistakes its members have made in the past, just as the members of any nation have made mistakes in their pasts. Every angel has a past, every sinner has a future.
For a fuller picture of Einstein's complicated relationship to zionism, here is a good Guardian article on his efforts to convince Nehru to support Israel in its 1947 UN vote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/feb/16/israel.india
Posted by: Max | Nov 19, 2012 9:22:06 AM
So Einstein, like Edward Said, believed that there were legitimate claims to territory on both sides of the dispute but that neither side had a right to tell the other to get out. No one can look at the photos and video footage coming out of Gaza and say that Einstein would have supported anything like that. Someone of Einstein's level of conciousness is a human being first, and a Jew, Christian, or Arab, second. We can't bring him down to our level with all the documents in the world.
Posted by: Larry | Nov 19, 2012 9:43:45 AM
@Max: Very interesting article by Benny Morris on the Einstein/Nehru correspondence. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Sundar | Nov 19, 2012 10:22:29 AM
Perhaps I misread the letter, but Einstein appears to be laying the second level of responsibility for a Palestine catastrophe on the "Terrorist organizations build [built] up from our own ranks," whom he considers "misled and criminal people."
Who was he referring to as "our own ranks?" Would that be the the Jewish people, the Israelis, or the organization with whom he is corresponding, The American friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel? It would seem to be the latter, would it not? If so, then Einstein apparently saw a mortal danger to Palestine stemming from her American supporters.
My knowledge of these people and events is extremely limited; therefore Einstein's concerns would more comprehensible to me if I knew more about Israel's American supporters in the 1940s. Was there indeed a misled and criminal faction among them? Is there still? Are Einstein's fears valid today?
Posted by: Susan | Nov 19, 2012 12:41:00 PM
Interesting. Sundar, a supporter of Israel, uses Einstein's support for the Soviet Union as a reason to dismiss his view of the Deir Yassin massacre. Then Max, also a supporter of Israel, condemns the massacre but says that it essentially doesn't matter; it was merely a "moral mistake." No one, it seems, wants to address the content of Einstein's letter, which accuses the perpetrators of the massacre of being criminal terrorists—which they were. Einstein's view of the Soviet Union is irrelevant to the question of whether the people he was referring to were criminal terrorists; and the roots of Israeli independence in terrorist acts is not irrelevant to the mindset that sees fit to create massive suffering in Gaza through an illegal blockade. Hamas and its rockets don't serve the people of Gaza, but it's easy to see why oppressed people would oppose their oppressors.
Posted by: Joseph Hutchison | Nov 19, 2012 1:52:12 PM
@Joseph: Good point. I didn't know that the letter was about the Der Yassin Massacre. In fact, I didn't even know about the Deir Yassin Massacre.
Posted by: Sundar | Nov 19, 2012 3:23:40 PM
@Joseph: I did not say or in any way shape or form imply that Deir Yassin massacre "essentially doesn't matter." Please don't put words in my mouth. Einstein rightly calls the acts criminal. But, to recapitulate the point I made in my comment, which I wish you would read and think about, we should not forget that despite recognizing these instances of barbarity, Einstein was still a zionist and defender of establishing a state in Israel (read the linked article). Thus, if you wish to cite Einstein as a moral guide as Abbas Raza has done by posting this letter, you should also note Einstein's belief that it is possible to reconcile acts of barbarity with the legitimacy and justness of the Israeli state. Nor ought it be an unfamiliar sort of reconciliation as every single nation in existence today has blood on its hands. Indeed, many nations that are Israel's most vociferous critics have far more blood on their hands and far more barbarous recent histories.
Posted by: Max | Nov 19, 2012 4:06:20 PM
My understanding is that Einstein was a Zionist of the binationalist Martin Buber / Judah Magnes kind, that is, that Israel should be a land for Jews and Arabs, not a land for Jews.
Posted by: Sagredo | Nov 20, 2012 6:42:32 PM
@Sagredo, Israel IS a land for jews and arabs. Just over 1 in every 5 israeli citizens is a non-jewish Arab. Arabs are accorded all the rights & privileges of fellow Jewish citizens (despite what the "apartheid" accusing ignoramuses shriek about). Arabs hold high positions in Israeli society, including judgeships and political office. Arabic woman in Israel can - Shock! - even drive cars and vote! Crazy idea! If I were told that I am to be reincarnated as an Arab born in the middle east, I would pray to Allah day and night to be born in Israel.
Posted by: Max | Nov 20, 2012 9:22:14 PM
Israel is a land for Jews and Arabs? Really?
But the Palestinian Arabs are being oppressed and aren't allowed to rule themselves? How interesting!
Perhaps one set of rules applies within the "green lines" where yes, Israel is a democracy and another set of rules applies in the Occupied Territories where if it's not apartheid now, it's pretty damn close with the settler-only roads..... ?
If you want any credibility for Israel as the "only democracy in the Middle East", you need to end the Occupation and establish a viable state of Palestine. Sooner or later it will be too late for the two state solution and then there's only one-state, which is either democratic and non-Jewish or Jewish and non-democratic--hmmm dilemma for the Zionists, right?
Posted by: Kabir | Nov 20, 2012 11:35:45 PM
@Kabir, Sagredo's point was about Israel, and my post in response was about Israel. No one claimed Gaza or Westbank is a land for Arabs and Jews. This is Arab land. Please read my comment more carefully. It seems your points depend on mixing up what is the state of Israel and what is not the state of Israel.
Posted by: Max | Nov 20, 2012 11:44:30 PM
Max,
Actually all of "Occupied Palestine" is Arab land! The Jews illegally (with the help of the British) set up shop in land that did not belong to them! But then it was " a land without a people for a people without a land", too bad there were already people there!
Anyway, now "Israel" exists and nothing can be done about that. The least you people can do is get the hell out of the West Bank, stop blockading Gaza and learn to share!
Posted by: Kabir | Nov 21, 2012 2:14:49 AM
Kabir, no one denies that Arabs resided in Palestine for centuries b/f 1948. But you too cannot deny that many Jews resided there as well. You cannot deny that there was a wave of European Jewry immigrating to Palestine starting back in 1880; that many more later immigrated as refugees and victims themselves from an even greater conflict, a conflict the proportions of which the Palestinian Arabs cannot imagine, which no people can imagine. And of course you don't deny that much of the land of Palestine was owned by absentee landlords in Cairo, and that much of this land was legally purchased from the Arabs. And of course you know of the Balfour declaration, and the partition plan, and the Arab rejection, and the subsequent invasion of Israel by Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, AND Egypt, and that Israel fought them off in its war of independence. And of course you must find it odd that Egypt had complete control of Gaza and Jordan of the Westbank for decades, yet they never encouraged Palestinian nationhood or immigration/integration into their own societies, but instead did everything the could to perpetuate the misery of the Palestinians in order to use them as Pawns in an on-going proxy war against Israel. And we all know that while might does not make right, it certainly does make borders, and, as you correctly seem to suggest, it benefits no one to rehash centuries old grudges about abstract "claims" to land when instead energy could be directed at reconciliation and stopping terrorist activity so that Israel does not need to be the domineering babysitter of Gaza it is forced to be, which leads to the needless suffering of innocent Palestinians. And of course the irony of your demand that Israel "learn to share!" is not lost on you, given that Israel is a measly 8,367 sq. mi. whereas the Arab/muslim territories of the ME & N.Africa number in the millions of sq. mi. I am sorry, but maps don't lie (http://tinyurl.com/27zr8n).
Posted by: Max | Nov 21, 2012 9:00:57 AM
Max,
I know the history. But the original sin of Israel's creation remains. A Jewish nation-state should not have been created in the heart of the Arab world--that was a recipe for disaster, as we have seen. The British colonial masters had no right to allow a Jewish "nation" to be created in Palestine, without consulting the Palestinians. The UN Partition plan gave the Jews more territory than was due to them as a percentage of the population, yet the Zionist still coveted more land and ethnically cleansed the Palestinians to get it. Sorry, your country is born out of terrorism and ethnic cleansing and you are continuing to use those tactics against the rightful owners of all of that land--the Palestinian Arabs. The truth may hurt but it is still the truth.
Posted by: Kabir | Nov 21, 2012 11:18:31 AM
Kabir, what original sin? Conflict? Dispossession? Virtually every single nation in existence on this earth was forged in the crucible of conflict and injustice. I am sorry, there really is no place for concepts such as "rightful owners" of land when talking about international geopolitics. Look at the map. EVERYTHING is the product of conquest, land-grabs, unfair deals, oppression, etc etc etc. History is not a fair place of justice and butterflies.
The fact that it happens everywhere throughout all time is no excuse for it, but it is a reminder as to the standards we apply to everyone else, and the standards we ought to also apply to Israel if we want to be consistent and credible. As it stands now, there is one criteria of justice applied to Israel, and another applied to USA, another applied to the Arab countries, another applied to Europe, another to China, another to Russia, and so on. And of all these Israel is held to the highest standards. It is flattering, but frustrating when used as a weapon to demonize this most liberal and democratic of states in the ME. If Israel evicted Roma/Gypsy people from their homes as Sarkozy recently did in France, the world would be in uproar over Israeli apartheid action. America illegally invades Iraq and kills and otherwise causes death of hundreds of thousands of innocent muslim arabs, and the world shouts for a while, and then a decade later it is more or less forgotten - hardly any UN resolutions, no int'l outcry, no media outcry - just faint wimpers. Russia has a decades long occupation and conflict in Chechnya, causing tens of thousands of casualties and untold suffering and misery that is orders of magnitude greater than the conflict in Palestine, and this gets a tiny fraction of the attention paid to Palestine. China has been oppressing the people of Tibet for centuries, and in the 50s and 60s conducted a terror and dispossession campaign that killed around 1 million tibetans and destroyed much of their cultural heritage and occupying their land and oppressing their people to this day, and the int'l outcry to this ongoing injustice is virtually non-existent RELATIVE to the outcry over Palestine. Look at the map. Look at history. Think about it. Then, and only then, talk to me about Israel and try to justify the attention we pay to this conflict in Palestine. I don't begrudge innocent Palestinians the int'l attention and disproportionate aid funding, but at some point you have to feel sorry for the hundreds of other poor, refugee, dispossessed, and victim groups around the world.
Posted by: Max | Nov 21, 2012 11:49:41 AM
We pay attention to this conflict in Palestine because every single Muslim in this world feels for our Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine and resents the fact that the Jews stole Muslim Arab land (with the help of the British colonial masters). Israel is a settler colonial state for European Jews. Muslims and Palestinians had nothing to do with your Holocaust! Why should we pay by having our land taken over by Jews? If you wanted restitution, you should have built a "Jewish state" in Germany! That would really have shown the Germans.....
Posted by: Kabir | Nov 21, 2012 11:59:42 AM
This is not responsive to the points I made in the previous comment, so I really have little to say in response other than please read and respond to the points I made, and also perhaps this: if it was as you say with the help of the British colonial masters that the greedy jews stole arab land, and, let's face it, it is really the western european colonial forces that cruelly and arbitrarily carved up the ME post WWI for their own strategic advantages, and played all the local interests against each other for their own gain, why is there absolutely ZERO responsibility being levelled today at England and the other Euro powers, and 100% on Israel? Europeans were the all powerful forces meddling and manipulating the ME and bequeathing us this mess, weren't they? Shouldn't they share some blame? Shouldn't UN resolutions be passed demanding UK make reparations to the Arabs of Palestine?
Posted by: Max | Nov 21, 2012 12:28:15 PM
"We pay attention to this conflict in Palestine because every single Muslim in this world feels for our Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine and resents the fact that the Jews stole Muslim Arab land"
This is the default position for most of the ummah, it's ingrained from birth. The Kurds are similarly 'Muslim brothers and sisters' but their land was carved up by Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. They have a unique, well documented lingual, cultural and archeological history going back thousands of years. Not even a partition was offered to them and the response from the Islamic world is a hypocritical silence. Perhaps the emphasis is placed on Palestine because 'the Jews stole Muslim Arab land' and all the Muslims and Arabs stole, was Kurdish land.
http://www.institutkurde.org/en/institute/who_are_the_kurds.php
Posted by: Troy | Nov 21, 2012 6:35:51 PM
Max,
The colonial powers do share the blame. Why else are the UK and the US running around trying to solve the conflict? It's a different matter that the US by always taking Israel's side isn't really a neutral arbiter anymore. It is Israel's mouthpiece.
But the Arab world has changed and Arab publics will no longer accept Zionist aggression against the STATELESS Palestinians. There are already calls for Egypt and Jordan to tear up their peace treaties with Israel, recall their ambassadors and let the Zionists know--no more messing with the Palestinians.
Posted by: Kabir | Nov 21, 2012 10:35:38 PM
So.. I ask again, by your logic, shouldn't UN resolutions be passed for UK to pay reparations to the Palestinians? Or is your point that the way UK is paying for their cruelty and crimes against humanity is by "running around trying to solve the conflict?" A lot of other countries that have nothing to do with the region are also running around trying to "solve the conflict." I don't get your position.
You say "But the Arab world has changed and Arab publics will no longer accept Zionist aggression..." What exactly has changed? It seems the Arab world and its "publics" have not accepted any zionist presence in the ME since their failed 1948 attempt to kill the infant in its crib.
Posted by: Max | Nov 21, 2012 11:09:41 PM
What has changed?
Oh, I don't know, Max, Hosni Mubarak is gone for one! Or hadn't you noticed?
The previous Egyptian regime would not have sent a delegation to Gaza, but Morsi did! He spoke out against Israel's aggression against the Gazan people. Post Arab Spring, he's somewhat accountable to the Egyptian people and they aren't going to stand for more Zionist aggression
"failed 1948 attempt to kill the infant in its crib"--More Zionist lies and distortions. Illan Pappe's "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" tells the real truth about how the Jews had planned to take more than what the UN had allotted to them....
Posted by: Kabir | Nov 21, 2012 11:31:28 PM
Kabir, you're pinning a lot of hope on a Morsi led government representing a sizable shift in its relationship with Gaza and Israel. A lot of analysis suggests the status quo will prevail with the MB led government not sacrificing their long-term goals for short term populist gains. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds, but thus far nothing indicates a radical shift in Egyptian policy.
Omar Shaban from the Pal-Think for Strategic Studies in Gaza questions the new relationship as the "new status quo". Far from Egypt taking on the Zionists, he foresees more considerable problems in the Egypt/Gaza relationship.
http://carnegie-mec.org/publications/?fa=49525
And others see the new Morsi regime as possibly being less supportive of Gaza than Mubarak and that the aggression against Israel was actually a message to Cairo.
http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2012/11/15/Gaza-escalation-a-calculated-risk.aspx
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/08/the-fight-against-tunnels-and-we.html
Posted by: Troy | Nov 22, 2012 2:58:27 AM
But Troy, as the elected president of Egypt, Morsi has to be somewhat cognizant of the mood of the Egyptian people. He's not a dictator. He had to balance his need to be on the good side of the US with the anti-Israel feelings of his people. So far he's managed to balance it. But if the Zionists had launched a full ground invasion a la Cast Lead, there would have been much pressure in Egypt to scrap the peace treaty with Israel....
Posted by: Kabir | Nov 22, 2012 4:32:39 AM
He appears to be an astute political operator Kabir and he has quickly put Egypt back on the diplomatic map in the M/E. I don't doubt he could sell his people bagels if required and he would of balanced his constituency with his western allies had a ground war taken place. Maybe at most, opened Egypt's border with Gaza. You seem to put great emphasis on the recalled ambassador (which bought Morsi some time with his people and Arab neighbors) but Israel/Egypt intelligence services worked closely over the past week to ensure required outcomes. In the end Morsi came up roses in Israel, the US, Gaza and Egypt. The MB in Egypt have long-term objectives, which they won't sacrifice for short term popularity and I expect Morsi to find a way under all circumstances. I'm not sure if I subscribe to the theory fully, but some are casting Morsi as a stronger ally than Mubarak, when it comes to Israel/Palestine, security in the Sinai and maintaining the integrity of Egypt's border with Gaza. Time will tell.
Posted by: Troy | Nov 22, 2012 7:28:47 AM
Kabir, regimes come and go. Morsi or Mubarak, the Egyptian approach to the Israel-Palestine issue will always be largely the same, largely a moderate one, so long as they are being bribed by the Billions the US sends it in hand outs.
How is the fact that 5 arab armies invaded the infant state and tried to kill it in its crib a "zionist lie"? If a historical fact conflicts w/ the moral superiority you feel, then it must be a zionist lie, huh? Anyway, this debate is degenerating. You still haven't replied to my challenge from a few comments up, and there really is no point to this if you keep repeating empty slogans peppered with invective like "zionist lie" this, thieving jews that, etc. Hope you can swallow your bitterness and grudges for at least 1 day and have a happy thanksgiving.
Posted by: Max | Nov 22, 2012 10:15:44 AM
http://www.arabnews.com/arab-spring-and-israeli-enemy
"The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.
"I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East.
"The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people.
"These dictators’ atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars.
In the past, we have talked about why some Israeli soldiers attack and mistreat Palestinians. Also, we saw Israeli planes and tanks attack various Arab countries. But, do these attacks match the current atrocities being committed by some Arab states against their own people."
Posted by: Max | Nov 22, 2012 4:12:43 PM
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