Ilan Pappe, senior lecturer in political science at Haifa University, Counterpunch, October 27:
"No Israeli government in history, backed by the US, has offered equal rights to the Palestinians, either in Israel or in the occupied territories. Israel has always demanded a Jewish majority and exclusivity in the shared land, while allowing, in the latest peace proposal, an impossible Palestinian state over a fragmented 8% of historic Palestine. More generous Israelis offer a few more percent.
"Snippets of Palestinian territory, reminiscent of South African Bantustans - as the failed Oslo accords have proven - is a recipe for more bloodshed. It will drag the United States even more deeply into an endless conflict - one which could be solved today by embracing the very values Americans hold dear: equal rights and justice for all."
"No Israeli government in history, backed by the US, has offered equal rights to the Palestinians, either in Israel or in the occupied territories. Israel has always demanded a Jewish majority and exclusivity in the shared land, while allowing, in the latest peace proposal, an impossible Palestinian state over a fragmented 8% of historic Palestine. More generous Israelis offer a few more percent.
"Snippets of Palestinian territory, reminiscent of South African Bantustans - as the failed Oslo accords have proven - is a recipe for more bloodshed. It will drag the United States even more deeply into an endless conflict - one which could be solved today by embracing the very values Americans hold dear: equal rights and justice for all."
6 Comments:
I did not, though I support much of Pappe's work.
Anthony, The Israeli Government acknowledges that most (over 50%) left at the urging of Israeli forces or because they were frightened, not because of the quick massacre promised by Arab armies.
'Why should Israel accept the Palestinian ‘refugees’'
Ummm... because Israelis are sitting on their land? Radical thought I know, but if you try, you might be able to imagine how a people dispossessed militarily by another people, might one day want to return to their birthright.
' this occurred not within the framework of a premeditated plan but in the heat of battle'
Complete and utter bullshit. I can give you a week's worth of quotes from BenGurion thru to Sharon that make the premeditated nature of aggression against the native population crystal clear.
There is the simple recognition of the basic need to rid the place of Arabs before a Jewish state could take root; and the corollary realisation that this must be obscured, lied about, denied.
You might also want to quote from sources other than those approved by AIPAC and the Jewish Virtual Library if you want even a veneer of independence. Like I said, I got a million of 'em if you really want to see them, the vast banality and ugliness of Israeli racism on display. But then the thread degenerates into the sort of endless quoting and counterquoting you guys love as it diffuses the facus away from the central issue of Israel's state racism and terror, and the uncomfortable facts of it's creation.
anyone who has bothered to read Benny Morris's definitive account of the Palestinian Refugee Problem ("the Origins of the Pal. Ref. Prob. revisited") knows that there were multiple factors that contributed to the Palestinian exodus including expulsions, the war itself, the early exodus of the urban elite etc. No one specific cause can be said to be the sole cause for the exodus. Secondly, Morris concludes that whilst the Yishuv spoke of Transfer prior to the 1948 war, the Pal. refugee problem was not a result of a pre-meditated plan to transfer Palestinians.
Right on Joe.
Additionally, why should Israel give the palestinians any rights? Aren't rights reserved for citizens? The Israeli Arabs have equal rights.
Thank you Anthony. Allway good to read the full account.
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