"Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences, no dialogs." Abdullah Azzam
In more than a century of the Zionist enterprise, Arabs made no concessions while the Jews gave way continuously. Triumphant return to the Promised Land immediately degenerated into buying land from Arabs; that’s not what Joshua ben Nun did. When the Ottomans titled unused land in the coastal plains, Arab notables rather than Jews got it through legal machinations; speak of Jewish lawyers and simpleton Arabs. Jews settled mostly the lowlands without significant Arab presence, drained marshes and cultivated sand dunes instead of claiming the land from aborigines. Jews did not significantly protest when the British stole most of the land they guaranteed us in return for our support in WWI and established Jordanian princeling in two-thirds of Palestine. Jews accepted yet another partition in 1947 which created a second Palestinian state beside Jordan. Jews won every war with Egypt but returned Sinai, a place where Hebrews received the law which molded them into a nation and a place of critical strategic importance to Israel. Jews prevailed in every conflict against Syria and now all but accepted to return the strategically indispensable Golan Heights. Palestinians – an insignificant enemy – pressed Israel for sweeping concessions even while they keep shelling Jewish towns. The Arabs did not give way on a single issue.
Arabs protested Jewish settlement of Palestine; most Jews were unsympathetic to Zionist idea. Arabs always rejected massive Jewish presence while Zionist leaders implored Arabs to stay in the Jewish state. Sadat pressed Begin to evacuate Jewish towns from Sinai; Sharon concurred then and demolished Jewish villages in Gaza years later. Arabs refuse to accept Jews in their countries, but successfully insist that swarms of Arabs be citizens of the Jewish state.
The Arabs consider the land rightfully theirs and fight for it. Smart and critical Jews rejected religion and doubt their right to the land. The balance of will favors the righteous.
I wish we were Arabs.
Hear hear
I wish we were Bnei Israel again..
Better than arabs, closer to our real force..
Bush to force Olmert to forfeit Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. What insanity this place has become. Freakin nonsense!!!!
Obadia, stop distorting the History.
JEWS are the aborigines of Israel, the Arabs are invaders there, as well as throughout the whole of Arab Occupied Middle East and North Africa, with the exception of Arabia maybe.
As you should perfectly well know, their name, Pelishtiniim, means just that — INVADERS.
If the Portugese had taken Australia in 16th century and expelled the Australian aborigines from Australia, they would still remain just that, the aborigines of Australia.
And would the British had taken Australia from the Portugese, they would still be invaders in that land.
Aaron:
Bnei Israel are the HEIRS of the land, not the aborigins. The term aborigins is not a simple one, as you explain. But Pelishtiim mean invaders?
Waht you mean? The old Sea People? Because they invaded this shores before the Hebrews arrive…
So human groups move with time. No one can claim by legal means the land, just by force. That is what Bnei Israel did. Ethnic cleansing of 7 peoples, because G-d ordered so. All the tales about aborigins is BS.
I understand Ovadiah says here, we are in the Middle East, let's play by the local rules..
And would the British had taken Australia from the Portugese, they would still be invaders in that land, even if it happend 300 years ago, or a frigging 1300 years - as long as there still are aborigines who still claim their ancestral Homeland.
Now would the new inhabitants had welcomed them to settle the lands, all would be good. But would they resist by trying to deny History and make a lying claims of their primality, and by acting on it with the genocidal actions and propaganda, the aborigines would rightfully resist them, and protect their rights to the Land.
And the Justice would have been on THEIR side.
Eric: don't whish to be a murderer, and a liar. Justice and Right is on OUR side. You don't have to be religious to believe that. The history of Jews in Israel is undeniable. The problem is, the media is pushing on the population the Arab propaganda of Arab primality, and the CIA/USA continues with the KGB high-grade black propaganda of peace out of their strategy of "engaging" (er, appeasing) the oil rich Arabs and their (the US) STRATIGIC COMMITMENT to the 242 resolution - FORCING Israel to WITHDRAW from the territories.
And there is NO effective Jewish counter-effort to any of this.
Chaim: the root Pe-le-sh means: has invaded.
It's Hebrew.
Pelesh-tini may be interpreted as he-who-has-invaded.
The Sea people invaded the shores (and more) not long before the Hebrews arrived, and maybe even at the same time.
As for aborigines - it's who claims he is, and were the oldest on the Land. That's Jews. Arabs came about 2,000 years AFTER the Jews did, and the so-called (today) "Palestinians" weren't calling themselves by that silly name even in the 1950s.
The claim is not legal. There is no legality in history, There is only a self-understood Right and conviction of the people.
That right may or may not be self-evident, or ridiculous and degenerate as is the case with the Arab claims to their primality in the Land of Israel, which can not be sustained without Lies, Fabrications, Denial of factual Truth, and Destruction of archeological evidence - all their favorite pastimes of the Arabs there.
And you don't have to expel no welcoming population who stand to gain greatly by your arrival and peaceful coexistence. But when they choose war, you should fight that war, absolutely.
You should expel your enemy who tries continually to murder you disregarding all your offers of peace. But that doesn't mean you have to engage in mass murder.
There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between deportations (to a friendly state of same language/culture/ethnicity), and mass murder. I'm sure the Jews of Europe in 1943 would gladly take the first option. I know I would.
This is a stale debate, because the basics are these:
The Arabs want the land, or rather - just want us out of it as a matter of principle.
If we want the land, we have to fight for it.
The only place where this debate matters is if we have to convince ourselves that we should fight for this land.
Aaron has good arguments for fighting, and so does Chaim, so it is all ok.
As long as we're fighting the enemy, and not each other.
Lets face it. The Israelis will get what is coming to them. Despite the heavy taxes and all that they still manage to weasel all the comforts of Ipods and HDTV and you name it, but to get them to wake up to the danger, that is one thing that dosent seem to grab their attention. They will lose the land because they have abdicated all rights to keep it by their apathy. I dont feel sorry for them one bit because they dont feel sorry for themselves.
I agree with Eric, it is time for Jews to stop fighting Jews.
It is a tragedy that the majority of "academia" both in Israel and in the Western country has adopted leftist, pro-Arab and anti-Israeli/anti-Zionist views.
Only among the religious Jews and some fundamentalist Christians there is a strong support for Israel. This does not need to be so! Israel is just as important for the non-religious Jews. Also, Israel is much closer to the "Liberals" and "Leftists", "Progressives" "Human Rightists", "Environmentalists", "Feminists" etc than any is Muslim country.
In my opinion, the most important task is to expand the basis of support for Israel to include the Leftists etc. It is important that religious supporters of Israel, realize that they can have great number of non-religious allies who are willing to fight together with them.
The academics have been seduced by the intellectual idealism such as Marxism. It is time to answer this idealism by more realistic theories such as "Game Theory". If we were to run Israeli politics according to Game Theory, rather than to naive idealism, we would not make all theses concessions.
Finally we agree, Ray
The problem with academics is they have to prove to themselves that they are more intelligent, by constantly arguing with other people over, oh, just about everything.
While simpler, more honest people are able to work together in order to achieve a common goal, petty intellectuals would rather debate a topic to the ground, bringing things like their nation, and their people, down in the process.
You gotta love the human ego. The more you feed it the worse it gets.
Eric,
Unfortunately not ONLY the petty ones among intellectuals are trapped in the idealistic leftist perspective.
This perspective was a product of positivism, that was still the main intellectual current at the time of Karl Marx. People's beliefs, values, and behaviors were seen as products. It was also assumed was that people suffer only because the faults of the social system, which was based on the class struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed.
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It is strange that in the arena of politics, academics are still stuck in positivism, while it has all but vanished from modern physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology.
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My point was that in order for Israel to succeed, WE MUST NOT IGNORE the academics. We need to win the academic war, just like Theory of Evolution won over Creationism, and Copernicus over Ptolemy.
Right now we are losing the battle on the university campuses. The place where our future leaders are being prepared.
We need to use a different approach: The old religions have Zero appeal to the young intelligent people.
Aaron, I'm not denying Philishtiim has the hebrew root for invaders.I know hebrew too.
What I meant was something different. The ones complaining about this invaders were 2 ones (as that time docs has been found): The Egyptian Paraoh and the king of Cyprus. Those people came from Asia minor, as "vikings" of that time, fleeing from natural disasters and famine.
And they invaded actually long time before Bnei Israel reached the Land. Because of that, Bnei Israel had to root out the 7 peoples, among them, the philishtiim.
I don't discuss the origin of the word. BUT, if you try to correct Ovadiah about the truth, check your sources twice.
Also arabs did not reached here 2000 years after the hebrews, but always were in the zone. They just were nomads,"nabatiim" nabateans.
The today "Arabs" just speak arab, they are or Egyptians or Syrians or Crusaders descendants, anything but ethnic arabs.
Anyway, the bottom line is actual arabs have to go.If jews cannot live in arab countries, why they can live here?
Arabs weren't here as a people. That was, clearly, what I meant. Not some individuals. The Arab Muhammadan invasion was in 7th century, right? Jews arrived there about 1300 BCE? 2000 years.
We don't need to call the lying murderers "aborigines" when they are in fact nothing of the sort. We surely don't need to bolster their false propaganda, they have enough support without us as it is.
We are the most ancient people claiming this Land with the most conviction… I mean, we ought to be. To lay my claim to this Land is most certainly CONTRARY to calling some foreign murderous lying cheating plagiarizing invaders "aborigines" of my Land.
Chaim: "Anyway, the bottom line is actual arabs have to go.If jews cannot live in arab countries, why they can live here?"
agreed.
Problem is, the pretentions West would empose blocade and embargo on Israel if it were to try this, branding it "racist" and "fascist" surely. This time with the US support of Security Council Chapter VII binding resolution. In short, b-a-d problems for Israel with the West.
Sometimes I wonder if Israel really got the Bomb or it's all just a bluff.
Islam And The West Accelerated Links For 30 December 2007:
Samson Blinded asks why Jews cannot be as good as Arabs ?
http://kashmiri-nomad.blogspot.com/2007/12/islam-and-west-accelerated-links-for-30.html
See, Aaron, Arabs are invaders only from Jewish perspective. And that perspective is irrelevant to the rest of the world. We the Jews don't need to convince ourselves, so there's no reason to picture the Arabs as intruders.
See, that's what I'm talking about. -NO- counter-propaganda effort. NONE.
OF COURSE the question of who's INVADER here is of UTMOST importance. It's the single most devastating charge laid against the Jewish presence (let alone governance) in the Land of Israel. The situation is so bad, they've got Westerners to use Arabic names now, for Temple Mount, etc.
And of course the MAJOR problem on the inside is precisely that HALF of the Jews in Israel have bought into this Pali narrative of us being invaders in our own Homeland. It is the JEWS of Israel (on the left) who need the convincing the MOST.
Without conviction in your RIGHT there can be no victory.
This Israeli right's abandonment of the poor idiots on the left (however powerful and overbearing they are in their silencing and quashing the right, still…) is precisely what's wrong with the nice and beautiful settlers movement — in the end, it is not enough just to sit there on the hills, the most important job NOT DONE was to convince the left to be more Jewish. The hasbara effort among the left was always NONE-existent, as all the efforts were diverted into the settlement itself.
Now the morons of the left are in charge (for the last 15 years if not more), and convinced in the Palestinian Rights over this Land. Job nicely done.