Oh man that is just hilarious. You seriously are just taking the piss now, aren’t you?
The bomb killed innocent civilians, including people outside of the hotel and in other buildings. Using Wikipedia’s list of deaths, (over half were) “49 were second-rank clerks, typists and messengers, junior members of the Secretariat, employees of the hotel and canteen workers”.
When other countries show an utter disregard for innocent lives it is referred to as terrorism. The King David Hotel bombing is no different in the regard.
Your ignorance and inchoate anger? No, not hilarious, just kinda par for the course.
The target of the King David Hotel bombing was the British military headquarters and the central offices of the British Mandatory Authority. Military headquarters and command and control are valid, not terrorist targets. This is, in fact, a recognized fact of the 4th Geneva Convention which goes on to stress that the presence of civilians is not a bar to the targeting and destruction of valid targets of war. It does, of course, speak to an interesting start to the history of the region as the British put their military HQ in a civilian building, but irony is generally something that some folks don’t notice.
In any case, that’s to say nothing of the fact that the bombing of legitimate targets happened at a time when the British were taking Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and putting them in displaced persons camps, most notably those they caught coming into the region. In some cases they were actually taking Holocaust/concentration camp survivors and sticking them right back into new camps to prevent them from gaining access to the region. Again because they granted the Arabs’ desire to limit Jewish immigration and disarmed Jews while allowing the Arabs to arm and attack Jews pretty much with impunity.
And despite your (again, not hilarious but par for the course) factual error, there was no disregard for innocent life shown as two separate warnings were called in for civilians to evacuate the premises. So we have the bombing of valid targets of war coupled with deliberate attempts to get civilians to evacuate ahead of time… versus your fact-free (but outrage laden) claims that it was really an act of terrorism.
Agreed. The Jews in Palestine were by no means only engaged in terrorism. But then, the Palestinians of today aren’t ONLY engaged in terrorism either.
And I think that was the point of Dick’s analogy, underneath all the hyperbole: that complete elimination of acts of terror isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for successful negotiations.
Yup, I get how that works, but… in that case, is it really true, as you said above, that it’s in the interest of both the US and Israel to continue US aid as it stands? If the Israeli people are essentially being forced by their extremist minority and the structure of their government into policies that most of them don’t want, shouldn’t we provide them with some leverage (like threatening cessation of aid) to improve their bargaining position? Maybe if the stakes for making easy promises to Religious Zionist coalition parties about supporting settlement expansion suddenly became much higher by putting aid money at risk, it would shift the balance of power away from the extremist minority.
Ad hoc military head quarters in civilian buildings is hardly terribly remarkable. The Americans ran their North African campaigns out of Hotel St George, I once charmingly had a room next to the room
That says fuck all about whether one calls it a terrorist bombing or not (and it seems to me that if - as it is typcical - one calls the Pentagon strike by Al Qaeda terrorist, this bombing so qualifies, even though it was a legitimate target), regardless of your characterisations, discussable as they are.
Irgun claims notwithstanding, it has long been denied by British authorities and parties of the time that in fact the warnings were received. I do not doubt they were intended, but we hardly give the IRA a pass on not being terrorists for their ‘warmings.’
Your sarcasm is as least misplaced and ironic his.
A bit more context: remember that the British had tried to stop Jewish immigration at the urging of the Arabs of the region. And they were also stopping Jews who were fleeing war-torn Europe and trying to immigrate to Israel, and sticking them into displaced persons camps.
Sometimes, they were literally putting them back into concentration camps. The British were rather notorious for using Bergen Belsen itself to re-imprison Jewish refugees. Seriously. It was not unique that former concentration camps were used as displaced persons camps, sometimes with the survivors of the first camps imprisoned in the ‘new’ camps. Seriously. I don’t use the word ‘imprisoned’ lightly, many of the DP camps kept their inmates in via measures like armed guards and barbed wire. Seriously. This includes the British camp of Bergen Belsen.
No I’m not. Jewish terrorist groups bombed buses, markets, police , hotels, assasination of diplomats in European countries, you name it. That’s historical fact. It doesn’t matter that the King David hotel they bombed was full of British military. The guys who blew up the US Marine barracks in Lebanon were terrorists, right? Even though that was a military target. Either way there’s a long record of Jewish terrorism from the 1930s onwards whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. You’re the last person I’d have expected would be an apologist for terrorism.
In 1940, Lehi proposed intervening in World War II on the side of Nazi Germany. It offered assistance in “transferring” the Jews of Europe, in return for Germany’s help in expelling Britain from Mandate Palestine. Late in 1940, Lehi representative Naftali Lubenchik was sent to Beirut where he met the German official Werner Otto von Hentig. Lubenchik told von Hentig that Lehi had not yet revealed its full power and that they were capable of organizing a whole range of anti-British operations.
On the assumption that the destruction of Britain was the Germans’ top objective, the organization offered cooperation in the following terms: From the NMO side: full cooperation in sabotage, espionage and intelligence and up to wide military operations in the Middle East and in eastern Europe anywhere where the Irgun had Jewish cells, active and trained and in some places with weapons. From the German side, the following declarations and actions were demanded: (1) Full recognition of an independent Jewish state in Palestine/Eretz Israel (2) That the ability to emigrate to Palestine be conceded to all Jews, with no restriction of numbers, who, in leaving their homes in Europe, by their own will or because of government injunctions.
On January 11, 1941 a letter by Lehi, which would be later referred to as the Ankara document, was sent from Vice Admiral Ralf von der Marwitz, the German Naval attaché in Ankara, depicting an offer to “actively take part in the war on Germany’s side” in return for German support for “the establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich.”[28][29] There are three possibilities as to how the offer reached the German Naval attaché in Ankara. One is that en route to Germany, von Hentig was delayed in Ankara and delivered his version of the offer orally to von der Marwitz and von der Marwitz wrote the letter using his words. The second is that Colombani (a general in French intelligence) invented the offer because of personal rivalry between himself and other Vichy officials: this rivalry is known from a paragraph in von der Marwitz’ letter, “Colombani is of the opinion that his return to France is a consequence of co-operation of Conti with Minister Pierroton,” or, third, that Colombani wanted the offer to fail: he had co-operated with the Mufti of Jerusalem in Lebanon in 1938-1939 and was also the one who took him in his car through Syria to the Iraqi border in 1939.
In any case, von der Marwitz delivered the offer, classified as secret, to the German Ambassador in Turkey and on January 21, 1941 it was sent to Berlin. There was never any response.
This is a photograph of the top two politicians in Northern Ireland. On the left is a radical cleric who believes that the Pope is the antichrist and that all Catholics will burn in hell for all eternity. On the right is a Catholic Irish Republican who personally carried out terrorist attacks on British soldiers and Ulster Protestants, killing many. They eventually came to a negotiated settlement, despite an ongoing terrorist campaign during the negotiations. When you have repression by one side you’ll always have reaction by the other. The oppressors in this case, the Brits, realised this and pushed ahead with negotiations despite ongoing terrorist violence. That’s been generally the case in every similar negotiated settlement. Saying there’ll be no negotiations until resistance is ended is basically saying that you won’t negotiate at all.
I don’t think anyone is saying it’s all or nothing. The difference, though, is that you had Jews deliberately targeting military targets in the proximity of civilians and disregarding (sort of) those possible civilian causalities, while on the other hand you had (during the same period AND up to the present) Palestinian’s deliberately targeting civilians AND targeting military targets while disregarding civilian causalities.
This is far from a black and white issue here, and no side has a lock on the moral high ground, nor can either side claim to be always in the right while the other is always in the wrong. However, trying to compare the two sides of this, especially when one looks at the context and the history, is like comparing apples to oranges, IMHO.
Leaving aside Dick’s vitriolic, uninformed ignorant hyperbole, I would have to say that at this point, serious and successful negotiations are going to require the elimination of a large percentage of terrorist acts in order to make any progress. There is too much water under the bridge at this point for anything other outcome. Remember, Israel IS a democracy, and any politician who continues serious negotiation in the face of continued attacks against Israeli civilians is not going to stay in power very long…if they ever get to power in the first place. Nor is Israel going to wait around until the Palestinian’s get their shit together…in fact, they haven’t waited and are moving forward. At a certain point you just have to resign yourself that peace is perhaps not going to happen in the short or medium term, and you need to move on. The Palestinian’s have had myriad chances to change the equation, but they have repeatedly pissed them away, starting all the way back at the original partition and continuing to this day. They have proved themselves (as a people, not individually) unable to reign in their rabid factions, and so have allowed Israel a freer hand in expanding into what COULD have been their territory pretty much unchecked.
In order to make progress at this point it’s going to be up to the Palestinian’s to show they CAN reign in their rabid brethren, to demonstrate that they CAN stop the terror attacks and they CAN manage and police the territory they nominally control. IOW, that they are an actual sovereign state, in control and able to maintain control, and thus be treated like an entity worthy of both trust and serious negotiation, not a dysfunctional cluster fuck who can’t keep it’s rabid dogs under leash. And they also have to resign themselves that they are never, ever going to get even half a loaf at this point. They will never get the territory or control that they WOULD have gotten had they simply gone along with the UN partition plan lo those many years ago. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen. That train has left the station and isn’t going to come back. So, they need to set their sights on more realistic demands, and prove that if Israel concedes them, this won’t pose a new security risk to Israel (not to mention they have to prove the same things to their OTHER neighbors, who have also by and large closed their borders to territory nominally controlled by the Palestinian’s).
Well, the example chosen is a poor one as the British simply packed up and left, and did so in a manner calculated to hamstring the Jewish population and enable the Arab aggressors. And there does have a be a cessation of acts of terror for negotiations to be successful, otherwise what was negotiated? If Nation A and Nation B sign a “peace treaty” and then go back to shelling each other, were negotiations successful?
And, yet a gain (gasp, shock, surprise!) fact-checking is the rule of the day.
Let’s see if your objection is factual, or if it’s bullshit. In point of fact, while the British did long deny it (with a series of obvious coverups, like claiming that the French had received their warning not five minutes before the bombing, but five minutes afterward). The investigation that the British concluded five months after the bombing concluded not that there had been no warning calls, but that there had been no calls that reached anybody “in an official position with any power to take action.” Thurston Clarke’s (otherwise critical of Irguin) investigation later verified the warnings which were sent.
In any case, one is not required to notify a military target ahead of time that it’s about to be attacked in order for a valid military operation to not be “terrorism”.
Your objection is disingenuous. The reason it wasn’t terrorism is not because of the warning, but yet again, because a valid military objective was the target.
Irgun and the like did in fact target Arab civilians, which cumulated in the Deir Yassine massacre of more than a hundred simple villagers, including women and children.
They were not simply accidentally catching some civilians in a cross fire.
Northern Ireland talks began in quite hotted up moments. The Israelis’ position is mere diplomatic cover for annexationism with plausible deniability.
Jaysus…
Well, that captures the Israeli view. Needless to say the British view rather doesn’t see it that way.
Wonderous the spin that happens around this subject.
Fact checking? I don’t really see highly slanted partisan assertions as being "fact checking, even when they are snidely bundled up as is your want.
Of course it is factual, you may peruse any proper history to that regard.
That is hardly a “cover-up” - it represented an actual understanding.
Some warnings were sent, but British investigations in no way confirmed the bald assertions of Irgun relative to the extent and who they supposedly warned, nor the timing.
Not that warnings by terrorists have much value in the end.
My objection was not “disingenous” despite the evident partisan word playing and smoke blowing, my objection was over the spinning of facts as you presented them, in supposed “context.”
I was not (as was evident I should think) commenting on whether the act of terror was an act of terror because (or not) of claimed warnings, only highlighting your aggressive selectivity in these areas, as to your facts.
So how did a discussion of what is currently happening devolve into a discussion of who-shot-John fifty years ago? Is that in any way important? I heard all these same arguments when I was an undergrad.
The Mandate had a supposed obligation to serve the interests of the then extent population, and there is certainly no moral obligation on the British Mandate to promote Jewish interest over the Arabs of the time, just because the Jews in Europe had suffered from Nazi efforts to liquidate them. There was an obligation to serve displaced Europeans in Europe, period. No different than say if the Zionists had decided they wanted Uganda or Kenya after all, and the bloody Kikuyu would just have to get out of the way.
Leaving aside your tendentious rendition of efforts to take care of the vast numbers of displaced persons at end war.
Only as an illustration of how history is exploited to form a line of argument. The history of other peace negotiations is probably more interesting, if only to put in the light deserved, the Israelis disingenuous terms of even talking.
Oh boy, let’s. You are again (gee, I wonder why?) failing to mention that the groups like the Haganah were formed to defend against Palestinian terrorism, that the Irgun split because of continued Palestinian terrorism, and that the Palestinian terrorist leadership was, in fact, allied with the Nazis to perpetrate a campaign of genocide.
This is unsurprising.
Next to that, you are trying to conflate it with a splinter of a splinter group with, at most, fewer than a hundred members and who, rather than seeking a military alliance with the Nazis (as the Palestinans had towards the end of exterminating the Jews), offered to (keep) attacking the British in the Mandate territories in order to save Jewish lives from Nazi butchery.
Ah, the claims you make, Dick.
Speaking of which, I really can’t agree with you more, people should look at your links. They will note, for instance, the huge swaths of citation-free text. For most people, the big ol “citation needed” is a clue that there’s no verification for the claim. They will also note that the link to the “ankara document” goes to a page with no text, at all. Your own cite points out that the document was most likely a forgery or, at best, a second hand re-writing from memory of an oral conversation. At very best, you have a document, produced by German Intelligence itself, that is, at best, of questionable veracity.
The fact is there is no such proof, the document was likely a forgery, and even if it wasn’t all that it proves is that fewer than 100 people in all of Mandate territory tried to trade attacks on the British for the Nazis sparing Jewish lives and not committing genocide in Israel if they won the war. Your claims are laughable. What, less than 100 people were going to go on a rampage and tilt the war in the Nazis’ favor?
And again, unsurprisingly, you’re attempting to ignore the Grand Mufti’s help in designing the Final Solution and alliance with the Nazis for the purpose of committing genocide and focusing (exclusively) on less than 100 people who may or may not have sent a letter that said they’d keep attacking the British if the Nazis allowed some Jews to live.
