--- In [email protected], wmurphy77 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > the *JEWS* bought most of the land from > absentie lanlords (Arabs), it was nothing but barren. The JEWS made > it what it is today....isn't that reason enough? (Plus having been there since the beginning of time).
--- In [email protected], "Cliff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My answer was > quite serious. Anyone who thinks that God had more to do > with the initial Jewish invasion of the "Promised Land" than the > better weapons and strategy employed by the Jewish people > when they arrived is not thinking rationally. > > They [Jews in Israel] invaded a land that was already occupied and > quite productive and killed or enslaved pretty much everyone > there. Because "God gave it" to them? Well, you both can't be right! :) As usual, its a bit more complex and nuanced. Some additional and contracting views, plus a bit of history. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/01/02/MN70515.DTL Compensation for Palestinians has long been a thorn in Israeli-Palestinian relations. In 1948, from 430,000 to 650,000 Palestinians left or were forced to flee their homes inside what was known as 'the Green Line,' or present-day Israel minus the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians insist that any final settlement with Israel include a 'right of return' for the now 3.5 million refugees and their descendants, in accordance with U.N. General Assembly resolution 194, which also mandated compensation for those not wishing to go home. They estimate the compensation bill at $550 billion. Israel, which has no intention of altering its demographic balance between Arabs and Jews, has long insisted that it has no moral or legal responsibility to allow Palestinians to return to their old towns and villages. It argues that most refugees left of their own accord or at the behest of Arab leaders. Suggested Israeli solutions have included starting a compensation fund and allowing small numbers of Palestinians to reunify with their families. Last year, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak set limits on how many Palestinians could return to areas within Israel proper. But unlike the vast majority of Jews who fled their homes and prospered in Israel, most Palestinians ended up in poverty in Arab lands. Israel charges those nations with cynically manipulating the refugees for a wider political agenda. 'In a time of peace, Israel will be ready to take part in the effort to heal the wounds of war out of goodwill, friendship and good neighborliness -- and under no circumstances out of feelings of guilt or responsibility for causing the conflict,' Barak told Parliament last year. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/refugees.html The Palestinians left their homes in 1947-48 for a variety of reasons. Thousands of wealthy Arabs left in anticipation of a war, thousands more responded to Arab leaders' calls to get out of the way of the advancing armies, a handful were expelled, but most simply fled to avoid being caught in the cross fire of a battle. Had the Arabs accepted the 1947 UN resolution, not a single Palestinian would have become a refugee and an independent Arab state would now exist beside Israel. The beginning of the Arab exodus can be traced to the weeks immediately following the announcement of the UN partition resolution. The first to leave were roughly 30,000 wealthy Arabs who anticipated the upcoming war and fled to neighboring Arab countries to await its end. Less affluent Arabs from the mixed cities of Palestine moved to all-Arab towns to stay with relatives or friends. All of those who left fully anticipated being able to return to their homes after an early Arab victory, as Palestinian nationalist Aref el-Aref explained in his history of the 1948 war: The Arabs thought they would win in less than the twinkling of an eye and that it would take no more than a day or two from the time the Arab armies crossed the border until all the colonies were conquered and the enemy would throw down his arms and cast himself on their mercy. By the end of January1948, the exodus was so alarming the Palestine Arab Higher Committee asked neighboring Arab countries to refuse visas to these refugees and to seal the borders against them. Meanwhile, Jewish leaders urged the Arabs to remain in Palestine and become citizens of Israel. The Assembly of Palestine Jewry issued this appeal on October 2, 1947: We will do everything in our power to maintain peace, and establish a cooperation gainful to both [Jews and Arabs]. It is now, here and now, from Jerusalem itself, that a call must go out to the Arab nations to join forces with Jewry and the destined Jewish State and work shoulder to shoulder for our common good, for the peace and progress of sovereign equals. On November 30, the day after the UN partition vote, the Jewish Agency announced: "The main theme behind the spontaneous celebrations we are witnessing today is our community's desire to seek peace and its determination to achieve fruitful cooperation with the Arabs...." http://www.ngo-monitor.org/editions/v3n06/NGOsPromotePalestinianPositionOnRefugeesPart1.htm Refugee claims, resulting from the 1947-1948 and 1967 wars, are among the most divisive and intractable issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the Palestinian political leadership consistently claims a 'right of return', (often couched in terms such as "historic justice") others see this as equivalent to seeking the destruction of Israel. (Legal Aspects of the Palestinian Refugee Question, Ruth Lapidoth) In many cases, prominent NGOs that claim to focus on human rights and humanitarian issues have added their voices and formidable resources in support of the Palestinian position on this very sensitive subject. Similarly, they often repeat Palestinian claims regarding the numbers of people involved (the number of refugees from the 1947/8 war was approximately 650,000; estimates regarding the number of descendants vary considerably.) In Part 1 of its analysis on this issue, NGO Monitor surveys the position of prominent international NGOs, including policy regarding Jewish refugees who fled Arab countries after 1947. Part 2 will examine BADIL, and other Palestinian NGO organizations that promote the "right of return". INTERNATONAL NGOs Amnesty International covers issues related to Middle East refugees in great detail, including Iran and Iraq. Regarding the Palestinians, this NGO calls on Middle East governments to "Ensure that the right to return or compensation for Palestinian refugees is respected: these rights should be given a high priority in the Middle East peace process." http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/pubs/19990802ftr.html 2 August 1999When asked what the solution to the Arab-Israeli water conflict might be, Thomas Stauffer, guest speaker at a 22 July 1999 Center luncheon meeting, responded with swift, authoritative candor: The solution, he proclaimed, is "war." However grim, Stauffer's insights into what he calls the "zero-sum game" of Arab-Israeli water rights are as informed as they are stark. An internationally recognized authority on energy and water issues, he is currently involved in an initiative to develop formulas for compensating Palestinians whose resources have been expropriated by Israel. This is made more difficult by the fact that Israel refuses even to recognize that it has illegally occupied Palestinian land. In fact, Israel clearly maintains that it should never be held accountable for stolen resources. If such an accounting were made, Israel would insist that "someone else" should pay for it. Stauffer's comprehensive approach to this poorly understood subject is grounded in international law. Stressing that the complexity of the issues fueling the Arab-Israeli conflict and the compelling scarcity of water resources demand painstaking research and documentationparticularly as the peace process approaches "final status" negotiationsStauffer bemoaned the absence of such attention to detail on the Palestinian side, referring to Palestinian negotiators "who do less homework than most freshmen." Stumbling as they are toward a virtual surrender of their national aspirations, these negotiators would do well to buttress their legitimate claims with facts. Barring this, the diametrically opposite position of Israel, clearly the more powerful party, will seal the Palestinians' fate and leave them beholden to their occupier. Should this happen, Israel's possession of what Stauffer calls the "spoils of [the 1967] war" will become legitimized by an international agreement. "The price of peace," said Stauffer, will then become apparent. For if Israel is to compromise on its control of water resources, it will do so only with compensation, as was the case with Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai after the 1967 war; while mandated by international law, this withdrawal was ultimately secured with U.S.-paid compensation for oil fields the Israelis were "giving up." Similarly, if the Palestinians manage to broker a deal involving access to water or compensation for expropriated resources, Israel would likely not have to pay. http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2000/428/428p14.htm I am a card-carrying Palestinian. The card is a small orange identity card. This card doesn't so much prove my Palestinian identity as mark me out as a subject of Israel's occupation. The card decides where I can and can't go in the land of my people. The Israeli authorities use it to stop me from going to Jerusalem or wherever else I please. The Palestinian refugees, officially numbering 4 million out of an estimated total world Palestinian population of 8.5 million people, have spent 50 years living as refugees. Various institutions acknowledge Palestinians as refugees, but few have acted in any significant way to solve their plight. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), for example, is used by Israel and its allies to keep the refugees' heads just above water sometimes not even that. Most discussion about refugees revolves around compensation and resettlement. The vast majority of Palestinian refugees express the opposite desire: repatriation remains their main goal. UN General Assembly resolution 194 is the foundation of the refugees' claim. It provides options of return and compensation, and compensation and resettlement for those who do not wish to return. Importantly, it does not dictate to the Palestinians their choice, as is being done in the "peace process". The right of return for the refugees must remain an inalienable right. This is one of the main things Palestinians and those who are in solidarity with the Palestinian people are struggling for. http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1948to1967_un_194.php The third session of the General Assembly refused to accept any decision altering the Partition Resolution of the preceding year, nor did it decide on ways of its implementation. Instead, on November 12, 1948, with Resolution 194 (III)it decided to set up a United Nations Conciliation Commission, reiterated the decision on internationalization of Jerusalem, and laid down several principles on the refugee question. Since the War of Independence was still going on, most of Resolution 194 deals with seeking a diplomatic solution to the conflict, including setting up an international Conciliation Commission to mediate between the parties. The refugees are mentioned only in Article 11, which resolved: * ... that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible. Article 11 also instructed the Conciliation Commission: * ... to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation. Palestinian Arabs constantly repeat claims of rights based on Resolution 194, in particular the right to return to lands that are now part of the State of Israel. That position has no basis, certainly not in Resolution 194. General Assembly resolutions, unlike those of the Security Council, are non-binding and essentially are only suggestions. Resolution 194 does not use the language of "rights" or "right of return". The resolution does not specify the nationality of the refugees; recall that the Palestinian Arab refugees, who voluntarily left Israel at the urging of their leaders, are approximately equal in number to the Jews who fled persecution from Arab countries. Any "right of return" or right to compensation is equally present in Resolution 194 for Arabs and Jews. Since the resolution also specifies that its recommendations would apply to refugees who wish "to live at peace with their neighbors," Arabs would be excluded. It was the Arabs who began the war in 1947 and they continue to be at war with Israel today. The present-day insistance on a "Right of Return" by Palestinians is a transparent attempt to eliminate Israel by means other than war. If all the refugee Palestinian Arabs, and their descendents, are given the right to return to Israel, then Israel quickly becomes a country with a Jewish minority. The majority Arabs would put an end to Israel without delay. Therefore, any ultimate resolution of this issue will certainly be in terms of limited return (perhaps limited to the few living Arabs who actually once resided in Israel) plus a forumula of compensation for both Arabs and Jews who were displaced by events surrounding the 1948 War of Independence. http://www.aish.com/Israel/articles/the_refugee_issue_p.asp In the 1948 war, 600,000 Jewish refugees were expelled from Arab lands including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco -- leaving behind an estimated $30 billion in assets. These Jewish refugees were welcomed by Israel, and with their 2 million descendants, they now comprise a majority population of the State of Israel. In the same war, an equal number of Palestinians refugees fled to Arab countries, primarily Jordan and Egypt. From 1948-67, these refugees were left in squalid camps by their host society, Jordan and Egypt. The United Nations estimates that they and their descendents now number about 3.7 million -- living in the West Bank and Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan, and throughout the Western World. Yasser Arafat demands the "right of return" for all 3.7 million Palestinians to within the borders of the State of Israel. Israel maintains that these refugees primarily left of their own accord, and that Palestinian demands that these refugees be absorbed into the State of Israel is just a political move to destroy the Jewish state through demographics. In the Gaza Strip today, 420,000 Palestinians still live in squalid refugee camps, under full jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. Who is responsible for these refugees? IN THEIR OWN WORDS Did Israel forcibly evict these 600,000 Arabs from their homes in 1948? Or did they leave voluntarily? This is the salient question. Here is a collection of historical quotations from Arab leaders, relating to these Palestinian refugees: On April 23, 1948 Jamal Husseini, acting chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee (AHC), told the UN Security Council: "The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce... They preferred to abandon their homes, belongings and everything they possessed." On September 6, 1948, the Beirut Daily Telegraph quoted Emil Ghory, secretary of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, as saying: "The fact that there are those refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously..." On October 2, 1948, the London Economist reported, in an eyewitness account of the flight of Haifa's Arabs: "There is little doubt that the most potent of the factors [in the flight] were the announcements made over the air by the Arab Higher Executive urging all Arabs in Haifa to quit... And it was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades." The Jordanian daily Falastin wrote on February 19, 1949: "The Arab states... encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies." On June 8, 1951, Habib Issa, secretary-general of the Arab League, wrote in the New York Lebanese daily al-Hoda that in 1948, Azzam Pasha, then League secretary, had... "...assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade... Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property, and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states." On April 9, 1953, the Jordanian daily al-Urdun quoted a refugee, Yunes Ahmed Assad, formerly of Deir Yassin, as saying: "For the flight and fall of the other villages, it is our leaders who are responsible, because of the dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs... they instilled fear and terror into the hearts of the Arabs of Palestine until they fled, leaving their homes and property to the enemy." Another refugee told the Jordanian daily a-Difaa on September 6, 1954: "The Arab governments told us, 'Get out so that we can get in.' So we got out, but they did not get in." Former Prime Minister of Syria, Khaled al-Azem, in his memoirs, published in 1973, listed what he thought were the reasons for the Arab failure in 1948: "The fifth factor was the call by the Arab governments to the inhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and leave for the bordering Arab countries... We brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees by calling on them and pleading with them to leave their land." In the March 1976 issue of "Falastin a-Thaura," then the official PLO journal, PLO spokesman Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen") wrote: "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live." British Foreign Office Document #371/75342/XC/A/4991 records: "Following a visit to refugees in Gaza, a British diplomat reported the following: 'But while they express no bitterness against the Jews... they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states: 'We know who our enemies are,' they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes." ------------------------ Yahoo! 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