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No Jews Speech
The US State Department condemned this speech. The message from State was that “it is wrong to say we support ethnic cleansing when what we really want is just to see all of the Jews eliminated from the region . . . one way or another.”**
** May not be an exact quote, but it expresses the same sentiment.
Published in General
It depends on whether the residents left because obeying the instructions of the legal government (Israel) or of a genocidal illegal invasion force and its propaganda arm. Other reasons to leave would be rumor, guilty conscience (when we win we’ll murder them all so they’ll do that to us if they win) or just running from impending or actual fighting.
Ben Gurion in August 1948 from Mitchell Bard’s article I linked above:
[quotation from Bard continued below]
[continued from #211]
Secondary sources:
And:
This was a classic gaffe. Atiyah here ascribes partial responsibility to the Arab press before the genocidal invasion of 1948, but later more or less completely blamed the Zionists. He was backtracking in response to being cited by Katz, who described Atiyah as “the leading Arab propagandist” of the day.
All this, and my suspicion that @zafar employs a double standard when writing about Israel, led me to search Ricochet for “zafar” and “occupation.” I thought I remembered numerous comments containing that word. If my memory does in fact serve, the internal search utility at Ricochet is worse than useless. I got very few hits. So I did a google advanced search for “zafar” + “occupation” on the ricochet.com domain, understanding that this would only return main feed posts and comments. This, too seemed incomplete. (Ricochet support: any input here?) Also, @zafar (I know you’re a busy man, I’m not expecting you to provide full citations of your Ricochet output,) did these searches miss something?
In those searches: Israel/Palestine came up, as did Iraq. I think also post WWII Japan and Germany. China’s occupation of Tibet, Jordan’s post 1948 occupation of the “West Bank” didn’t come up.
@zafar made very interesting comments on the Treaties of Versaille and Lausanne in a discussion of the disassembly of the Ottoman empire and the “population exchanges” that created the more ethnically homogeneous states we have today.
All of the above maintained an irenic tone.
Not so with Israel.
@zafar, IIRC you described Israel’s establishment as “illegitimate.” Does this original sin apply to its existence today? Is this because you consider the vision of ethnic/national self-determination that established Kemalist Turkey and other modern nations including Israel to be fundamentally wrong? Am I missing something here?
Yes, Zafar hatred of the Jews. He doesn’t hate the Arab Lebanese who fairly well cleansed out the Christians, a French Mandate. Iraq which has also gotten rid of most of their Jews and Christians and are now busy killing each other, another French Mandate. Syria and Jordan are British mandates appointed with their Kings and thugs, also pretty well cleansing their lands of Jews and Christians and killing each other. These Mandated countries are fully legitimate countries, seemingly doing as they darn well please and the world doesn’t seem to sanction them or care, least of all Zafar. But that tiny little strip of Israel, a British Mandate can do nothing right in Zafar’s eyes, they are the worlds worst evil and mistreat everybody within their fought for and won borders. In the 3 years I’ve been a member of Ricochet I do not remember Zafar ever giving Israel positive credit for anything. Almost all of his posts regarding Israel are negative responses when another member post something positive about Israel.
Wikipedia:
Jordan broke its word and lost territory. Egypt and Jordan occupied territory.
Without the attempted genocidal jihad, there’s no Nakba.
@ontheleftcoast – First of all I’m flattered (should I be?) at your researching my posts.
No, lots of countries were begotten in sin. What shores up or undermines Israel’s legitimacy today are its actions and positions today. Its attitude to/understanding of its past informs these.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with ethnic self-determination – but at the same time it’s not an over-riding moral imperative.
In heterogenous situations it leads, very often, to discrimination, bloodshed and ethnic cleansing. Iow, it’s a bad idea.
Consider Turkey itself – not ethnically or religious homogenous in 1923 – and after almost a century of ethnic cleansing and suppression of minority religions and languages it still isn’t.
Kemalist founding ideology did not fit the country, and attempts to make the country fit the ideology have been brutally violent.
Wrt comments on Israel – nobody writes approving posts on Ricochet about these other countries and how they were formed.
I respond to what is posted.
You notice it (perhaps?) because it is at odds with majority consensus.
@Podkayneofisrael – I would honestly much rather just have a conversation with you.
Where one of us makes a claim that turns out be unsupported (me: no Arab Leaders asked Palestinians to leave; you: there were radio broadcasts urging the population to leave and promising them they could return to a conquered Jewish people) we should just acknowledge it and move along in the conversation rather than getting defensive (I know, easier for me because it’s not my country) or moving the goal posts/massaging our definitons.
It’s a good point. But how come you have so few, compared to 1946? Also a good question, right?
Again – arguably yes. But at the same time they don’t have equal rights to you.
I haven’t said that.
If you need a straw man what does it say about your argument?
That’s not how you’ve been making your case, though. You always point back to the claim that the Palestinians were forced out. That’s the entire excuse for Palestinian terrorism.