From: David Lubkin (extropy@unreasonable.com)
Date: Thu Apr 18 2002 - 19:06:21 MDT
At 12:47 PM 4/18/2002 -0700, jeff davis wrote:
>The Brits and the zionists joined forces to 'make' a nation--a jewish
>homeland--Israel--on land that wasn't theirs to make such decisions about.
> :
>No, Brian, the reason is that the Palestinians didn't have the military
>capability to prevent the zionist colonial conquest of their land,
>promoted and militarily facilitated by the British during their League of
>Nations Mandate 'stewardship' of Palestine, and buy the US thereafter.
The British attitude toward the Zionist movement was lukewarm at best, and
hostile at worst. Their policies during the Mandate were, to the contrary,
clearly pro-Arab. Jewish immigration was sharply curtailed, even in the
wake of the Holocaust. Passengers were sent back to die or
languish. Jewish access to weaponry was severely limited by the British,
which made the Arab riots in the 1920's more horrible than they would have
been had the Jews been able to defend themselves. The British did nothing
to stop the riots and little to punish the criminal rioters. They often
conducted raids to seize Jewish weapons and arrest those found with them,
and did not similarly restrain the Arab population.
As WW II darkened, the British and Haganah formed an uneasy alliance to
fight Hitler while the Arabs applauded the Axis. (Which continued to this
day. Sadat and Arafat, for example, used to give speeches praising
Hitler. (NOT the usual "smear your opponent by calling him a Nazi" -- I
have copies somewhere and I'm sure you can find them on the web.))
>I am not well versed in the specifics of the legalities of land ownership
>and transfer in Palestine in the period 1859-1920 under the Ottoman Turks,
>and then 1920-1947, under the British Mandate. I have read however, that
>the Ottomans, at the end, were deeply in debt to the Europeans, and
>changed their laws in 1859 to permit the sale of land. So did the
>Ottomans sell from under the Palestinians, the land that they had lived on
>for generations? There are land sales and there are land sales.
The land that the Jews acquired in Palestine from the first wave of
immigration in the late 1800's to the end of the Mandate was entirely
purchased from individual Arab natives at well-above market rates, not from
the Ottoman Empire or the British. The Jews paid premium prices for swamp
land, which they braved malaria to drain and then farmed. During Ottoman
and Mandate years, the government placed restrictions on how much land
could be sold to Jews.
BTW, although some of the initial Jewish settlements in Palestine were
attacked by local Arabs (see the story of Tel Hai), relations between Arabs
and Jews were sometimes very friendly, during the first few waves of Jewish
settlement. Moshe Dayan's autobiography, for example, tells of the
friendships he forged. In later years, the Jews were shocked to be
attacked by people they had considered friends.
This is all stuff that we had to read chapter after chapter about, full of
specifics and copies of British or Ottoman source documents.
>PS I checked into www.camera.org ;
>israel-is-always-right-the-arabs-are-always-wrong political correctness
>thought police; but skillfully done. I wonder where they get their funding.
Similar to the questions of drug efficacy, liberal media bias, or the
utility of shall-issue CCW permits, the validity (or lack thereof) of
CAMERA's findings can be ascertained by rigorous analysis, without regard
to the tenor or funding of the organization. I've seen several CAMERA
reports that give a detailed numeric analysis of media coverage of the
Middle East. They explain their sources and methodology in sufficient
detail as to allow independent confirmation.
Another issue that I haven't seen discussed here (and rarely elsewhere) is
the life of an Israeli Arab compared to the life of, say, a Syrian
Arab. An Israeli Arab, while not as well-off as an Israeli Jew, still has
far more freedom, economic prosperity, and life expectancy than an Arab in
almost any other Arab country. (Not to mention how well off the Bedouin,
Druze, Ba'hai, and Christians are. While Arabs can vote and be elected to
the Knesset, they are not trusted enough to serve in the
military. Military service is not mandatory for the Bedouin and Druze as
it is for Jews, but they do have the option of enlisting, and many have.)
And if we're talking extropianism, the values and culture of Israeli
society would seem to be beyond question far more worthy of support than
those of its foes, and far closer to our ideals. Speaking as someone who
lived there for five years, I probably know better than most of you how
short they fall, but they're closer, and heading in the right direction.
-- David.
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