Israel's Campaign of Targeted Assassanations Apparently is Working

[Chris Alger]

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"Land confiscations only began after Arab terrorist attacks on Jewish villages started after 1967....

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What a ridiculous lie. "Israel" is a synonym for "land confiscation." Nasser Abufarha: "The Palestinian land confiscation for Jewish settlement started well before the establishment of the state Israel. The British Authority in Palestine was preparing the country for the creation of the Jewish national homeland. The mandatory authority introduced the Woods and Forest Ordinance in 1920, which was designed to confiscate lands that were largely utilized as grazing grounds by the Bedouin community and the rural population. These lands were then classified as state forest owned by the state. ... With the establishment of the state of Israel on May 15, 1948, these lands were regarded as Israeli state lands. As Israel took control of all the territories that were allocated to the Jewish state in addition to nearly 50% of the territories allocated to the Arab state under the 1947 UN partition plan, a total of 15,025,000 dunum were considered state lands. These lands include the lands that were classified as forest by the British Authority and any other lands that were not titled to individuals i;e village lands (Jiryis, 1973). The state also implemented measures and passed various laws that were employed to transfer the land ownership to the Jewish agencies and settlements."

In 1947, Zionists owned less than 7% of Palestine. With the establishment of the Jewish state, Zionists were able to use state power, violence and terror to steal most of the rest. "As a result of the 1948 war and the armistice agreements Israel reached with Egypt and Jordan, Israel controlled 20.5 million dunums of the total land of Palestine, representing 78% of the land. The vast majority of these lands were owned by Palestinian residents who were evacuated from their villages or who fled their homes during the war." Abufarha. Note that this 78% does not include the occupied territories, which were next on the menu.

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and even then, land was confiscated only for military defence purposes and villager protection."

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If you would limit your lying to facts which aren't refuted with a moment's search on the internet, you might not appear to be so foolish.

"Israel has used a complex legal and bureaucratic mechanism to take control of more than fifty percent of the land in the West Bank. This land has been used mainly to establish settlements and create reserves of land for the future expansion of the settlements." B'Tselem

"During the first 6 months of 1999 alone, Israel confiscated 2500 acres of land for the purpose of settlements and their infrastructure, and a total of 3500 acres have been leveled in order to facilitate the further expansion of settlements and bypass road construction." MIFTAH

[ComedyLimp]

"Incidentally, what is the difference between Great Britain, the UK, and England?"

England is the country England

Great Britain = England + the countries Wales and Scotland

United Kingdom = The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Our passports and citizenship (although actually we are "subjects") are for the UK.

"The British Isles" = the group of islands just off the coast of mainland Europe that form the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland and have no political significance.

[Gamblor]

How fitting: You use as your prime source an organization that supports the Palestinian cause, including the ability of Palestinians to fight Israel "by any means of their choosing". If they feel that way about terrorism, imagine how far their moral compass swings away from lying.

But, in reality, it is the argument one must attack, and I noticed little mention of Jewish lands in Hevron, Shechem, and elsewhere in Yehuda and Shomron that Jews were simply expelled from. The appropriation of Arab-owned land was given the full blessing of the early United Nations, yes, the United Nations that was as yet untainted by the mass admission of dictatorial Arab regimes.

The Israeli laws regarding land appropriation were in direct response to the use of those lands for Arab terrorist attacks on Jews.

I also noticed that you refused to analyze why that land was needed for settlements and bypass roads. Perhaps it was the snipers.

[Gamblor]

What is the political/historical significance of those names?

i.e. in terms of international relations and even cultural consciousness?

[Chris Alger]

"You use as your prime source ..."

Your "prime source" is yourself, one who's been caught lying here so many times I've lost count. Why should anyone believe your version of anything?

[Gamblor]

Your "prime source" is yourself, one who's been caught lying here so many times I've lost count.

Only caught by the same Palestinian propagandists and clueless, blind-to-reality human rights advocates you constantly cite.

Why should anyone believe your version of anything?

I've been there. I've stared down the barrel of a rifle, and I've held a human being at gunpoint. I have Arab friends and Arab enemies. I know what the average person thinks, on both sides, and I've read media in Hebrew. I've been a member of a relatively right-wing Israeli organization and I've had enough shouting matches with peaceniks and Gush Shalom fools that you are like arguing with a mouse. You post so much inane Arab propaganda that I only respond so the typical reader understands exactly why you've decided to believe one version of events more than the other. But I don't feel like going there, because all you'll do is shout and whine and complain that us Likudniks are vicious evil barbarians and we have no right to take whatever action we deem necessary to defend ourselves. But voters don't lie, and Sharon is still Prime Minister.

That is why Americans pay part of their incomes towards Israeli defence - because deep down, they have known that its the Arab nations who want to murder, its the Arab nations who have been belligerent against Jewish immigration and its the Arab nations who have demanded Arab control of the entire Middle East since the 18th century. In the same way the Americans use Israelis as pawns on the front lines of the "War on Terror", all of the Arabs use the "Palestinians" as pawns in the war on Israel. If there were one iota of acceptance in the Arab heart, they would have sacrificed a strip of barren land for a people who simply didn't have anywhere else to be safe, and we'd all be living there happily, Jews, Arabs, everyone. But they have never treated Jews as equals because they've never had any reason to.

The moral argument, the political argument, and the legal argument all support Israel, and the only way for the Arab cause to further itself is to spin/lie/propagandize its way into public consciousness and to totally reverse the history of events. Even the notion of a Palestinian nation is so absurd when you consider that the only characteristic of their national identity is pure unadulterated hatred and opposition to Israel's existence.

THAT is the biggest joke of all.

[Utah]

we seem sometimes to overlook that most of thepeople we talk about are in fact good kind people. its the leaders that rile them up and teach them to be killers or fanatics.

I always like to think people are accountable for their own actions.

[Chris Alger]

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I've stared down the barrel of a rifle, and I've held a human being at gunpoint.

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If this was pursuant to the criminal occupation that the whole world considers an affront to humanity, then you're just another terrorist, on the same moral plane as Arabs who would invade Israel to do the same, using the same preposterous line that you do, that Israel is an "illigitimate" country and therefore "up for grabs." This is hardly surprising since you belong to an organization, Betar, that applauds terrorist "martyrs." As for my "Arab propaganda," most of my sources are Israeli government sources and Israeli and Jewish scholars, whom you dismiss out of hand simply because the facts they cite can't be reconciled with your sick worldview. This thread is another example of the dozens where you offer no specific refutation of the facts cited and instead relying on the usual racist slander (e.g., "its the Arab nations who want to murder").

[Gamblor]

If this was pursuant to the criminal occupation that the whole world considers an affront to humanity, then you're just another terrorist, on the same moral plane as Arabs who would invade Israel to do the same, using the same preposterous line that you do, that Israel is an "illigitimate" country and therefore "up for grabs."

This was pursuant to the capture of a man planning and issuing orders for murderous terrorist attacks. Israel was established pursuant to UN resolution. "Palestine" was not established at the request of the people expected to form its population. Therefore, Israel is an established, sovereign state, and Palestine is not.

As for my "Arab propaganda," most of my sources are Israeli government sources and Israeli and Jewish scholars, whom you dismiss out of hand simply because the facts they cite can't be reconciled with your sick worldview.

MIFTAH, Al-Awda, electronic-intifada? And Avi Shlaim, the laughingstock of Israeli academia? Even Benny Morris has admitted he hadn't fully and properly researched his first book, and Efraim Karsh has shown them both for fools. Nevermind that the archives of every single Arab nation are hidden from public scrutiny, and the only thing you or I get to hear from them is whatever "sick worldview" happens to fit their strategic interest - the destruction of the Jewish State. Ironically, the only reason Abdullah of Jordan dislikes the fence? He might have to deal with Palestinian Arabs who immigrate to Jordan. The Lesson? The only people who feel bad for the Palestinian Arabs are pseudo-intellectuals who disguise their bigotry with lies and academic-sounding lies: essentially, people who read the newspaper and simply don't know. Nobody who has ever dealt with their leadership directly has ever had any sympathy for them. Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, and Lebanon are prime examples.

This thread is another example of the dozens where you offer no specific refutation of the facts cited and instead relying on the usual racist slander (e.g., "its the Arab nations who want to murder").

I have a 3 arms.

How do you refute something so twisted and manipulated that it simply can't even be addressed?

[ComedyLimp]

"What is the political/historical significance of those names?"

Historically (not my strongest point) England and Wales were more or less one country politically, if not culturally, under the rule of the English monarchy. Scotland was sometimes independent but mainly ruled by the English the two countries had a few hundred years of battles, the odd massacre and a kiss and make up via marriage of the two royal families that lead to periods of uneasy peace. This was all wrapped up with the Catholic/Protestant religous wars and persecution that dominated Europe in the middle ages and early rennaissance period.

In 1707 the new fangled Parliament put an end to this with the Act of Union which combined the two countries into the "United Kingdom of Great Britain".

Ireland we basically invaded and oppressed (with varying degrees of brutality) for some 400 years until into the 20th Century when Ireland was allowed its independence but was paritioned and Northern Ireland created from the six Northern counties with substantial Protestant majorities. This created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Indidentally when the British ruled Ireland they basically only bothered with Dublin and often left the rest of the country to descend into lawlessness and poverty. To keep any "undesireables" out they built a big fence around Dublin which was called The Pail (from Palisade) and gives us the expression "Beyond the Pail" to indicate someone/something undesireable.

"i.e. in terms of international relations and even cultural consciousness?"

There is a strong Scottish and (to a lesser extent) Welsh tradition of campaigning for independence and they have Nationalist parties predicated on this view. The Blair government introduced a form of Devolution whereby there is a Scottish parliament which has some powers over its own affairs (including the ability to raise taxes to a limited extent) but Scotland still send MPs to the UK Parliament in London where they represent Scotland within the United Kingdom. Its an odd sort of compromise half way between the original Act of Union and full Scottish independence.

Although Scotland also send MPs to the European Parliament, in terms of international politics only the United Kingdom (ie Blair and his government) has any significance.

Culturally it's all very interesting. The Welsh, Irish and Scots all have a long history of a very strong cultural identity of which they are very proud (and rightly so). The English rather bought into the Act of Union and subsumed a lot of what it meant to be English into the idea of Great Britain and the British Empire. Many English people flip flop between the ideas of English and British without much thought -- which annoys the Scots in particular becuase of the percieved dominance of Britain by the English -- leading to a general loss of sense of "Englishness".

Culturally the idea of Britishness rather declined with the British Empire post-WW2. This was fine for the Scots and Welsh as they had never really felt British and were quite happy being Welsh and Scottish. The English however has something of a cultural void to fill -- and unfortunately, while the majority were insisting that Britain was still great, the idea of Englishness was grabbed by the extreme right and acquired connotations of fascism, racism, skinheads, etc.

Lately some people have advocated reclaiming Englishness from the hard right and, notably, veteran leftist balladeer Billy Bragg has campaigned a great deal for the idea of Englishness as a somethign to be proud of. He hopes to redefine it based on our tradition for tolerance and freedom (which we do have depiste our colonial baggage) and by emphasing the diverse and multi-cultural nature of modern England to reclaim the notion of English (including English symbols like the flag of St George) from right wing nationalism.

For example:
http://www.billybragg.com/releases/a...f_english.html http://www.billybragg.com/releases/a...nion_jack.html

If you want to know more about the English historically and culturally I can highly recommend Jeremy Paxman's book "The English" -- if only becuase he correctly sums up the Church of England as an institution defined by the view that God is simply the ultimate "good chap" [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Matthew