It varies between 14-19 inches.
First, on whether my initial post was a “hijack”, I don’t see how one can answer a question like the OP’s << Where the Palestinians peaceful before WW2? What country was it? >> without defining “peaceful” or “Palestinian.” So no, it is not possible to answer this question with a simple “yes” or “no,” one must give some history and context.
Second, let me be clear on some points. Collounsbury (presumably) believes that “unbiased” means treating all things as equal. Sorry, I disagree. There are numbers underlying my over-simplifications, and three is not the same as three hundred.
Little vs none
I originally said the Arab nations gave “no” aid to the Arab refugees. Collounsbury corrected me to say “a little.” I said this was a minor change, and Collounsbury said it was a major change. Fine. The fact is that more aid came to the Arab refugees FROM ISRAEL in the period from 1950 to 1970 than came FROM ALL THE ARAB STATES combined – Egypt, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia. The amount of aid from the Arab states was so insignificant, that I’m not sure there was a difference between
“no” and “a little.”
Violence before 1948
Collounsbury corrected me that the inter-communal violence preceeding 1948 was not completely one-sided. No, I agree, it wasn’t. For every hundred or so Arab attacks against Jews, there was one or two Jewish attacks against Arabs.
Violence after 1948
In the period following 1948, and specifically since 1970, Israeli attacks against Arabs have been primarily focused on the military, terrorist HQs, and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian attacks against Israel have been mainly focused on civilians in malls, restaurants, and buses.
Now, of course, there have been some civilian casualties from Israeli attacks, and there have been some military casualties from Palestinian attacks. So I suppose Collounsbury would say that equating the two would be “unbiased.” I disagree; I think there is a difference between accidental civilian deaths and deliberately targeted civilian deaths.
Justice and rule by law
No, the Israelis are not perfect. In the last fifty years, there have been perhaps as many as four instances (I only recollect three) when the Israeli military mistreated or murdered Arab civilians. IN ALL THOSE INSTANCES, the Israeli soldiers responsible were brought to trial – public trial.
I exclude from these the questions of rock-throwing mobs attacking Israeli soldiers and the soldiers responding. Mobs are not, to my mind, “innocent civilians.”
How many times have the Arab world brought a terrorist to justice? Well, every so often, Arafat makes a big display of arresting someone, and then lets them go a week later. Pfaugh. To the contrary, I understand that Arabic TV usually shows the families of the suicide bombers celebrating the glory of the martyrdom of their sons.
Democracy
I had said that most Arabs use the term “occupied territories” to mean “all of Israel.” Collounsbury denied this (or corrected my use of “most” to “a majority” and said that I could not represent the majority view of the Palestinians. No, there is no one and no way to represent the views of the Palestinians, since they (like all the Muslim nations) are not democracies. They have no freedom of speech, no free press, and no free elections.
Thus, I represent their intent partly by what is allowed to be publsihed. And the Palestinian charter still calls for the destruction of Israel. That seems to me to be sufficient evidence.
Biased toward which side? I side with Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, and as I read through the info I kept thinking to myself ‘hmmm…bias toward Arabs, no, bias toward Israel’. The article is mostly facts with a bit of subjective analysis thrown in.
Also, I found the info about Jordan’s role particularly interesting, with King Hussein juggling allegiences with both sides to ensure his and his nation’s security. While the article did mention a smattering of PLO violence directed toward Jordan, I wonder why there isn’t more of an uprising in that area, considering that Jordan, established around the same time as Israel, does occupy most of the original Palestinian territory, and Hussein did eject Palestinians from its borders.
2 small corrections.
1- Israel/Palestine/Whatever has never been peaceful. Mark Twain visited it during the 1880’s, and described it in The Innocents Abroad . It was swarming with bandits, crooks, military deserters, crooked/homicidal military governors & every other brand of riff-raff you could name. This place was and is at war with itself. Always has been. From the earliest days of pre-history, through the Roman Imperial era, through the Middle Ages, to today, this area in particular has been soaked in human blood.
2-Collounsbury said
The 70’s & 80’s reeked without any help from Dex .
[hijack]
Come now, Dex, be honest. Tamerlane didn’t have any trouble doing so. Your post, by contrast, has a paragraph beginning,
You and C are currently discussing such diverse matters as democracy and justice in Israel, whether Arab states gave financial support to the refugees and what the Palestinians mean when they say "occupied territories. Your most recent post even discusses “Violence after 1948” How is this relevant to the OP’s question, “Where [sic] the Palestinians peaceful before WW2?”
You’ve got a strong point of view and that’s fine. But the ultimate answer to every single question regarding the mid-east isn’t “Because the Palestinians are dedicated to the destruction of Israel.” FTR, you’re certainly not the only one who does this, but it’s nonetheless inappropriate to try and drag every thread on the mid-east off in this direction.
[/hijack]
Well, well, get a little busy and look what happens, the phaugh lifts.
Well, Dex as it happens I have two “pitches” to make in the next two weeks and thus have to bury myself in excel sheets so I am going to have to temporarily forgo the pleasure and entertainment of examining your biases. Two or three weeks I will be happy to marshal some data and the like, relying on the recent **Israeli scholarship ** on this matter, as opposed to the nationalist agitprop that some of us like to repeat in such a wonderful cut and paste manner.
Now, I do think we owe it to the rest of the board to attempt to bring a bit of meat to the discussion, which means trundling off to the scholarship for some more substantive numbers, rather a pissing contest.
However, let me do try to alleviate some misrepresentations of myself here, if only for the amusement value.
Ah yes, we want details but only the flattering ones for one’s POV. Quite reasonable. Else, what Truthy old man said.
Well, I believe rather strongly in arriving at the strongest position as supported by the documentary evidence, regardless of what nationalistic feelings and holy oxes may be gored in the process. Unlike many, I ain’t got much beyond my sense of fairness and accuracy tied up in this, as I could give a flying pig fuck about Jerusalem and the soi-disant Holy Land.
However, as in race, I like to follow the scholarship.
What I am implying here is your “3” to “300” ratios are none too fucking accurate, but let us not piss on each other, we can make a date for 2-3 weeks and have some scholarly numbers as our mutual pissing contest of assertions has run its course.
Well, given a whole bunch of contextual items such as relative per capita income, access to funds/capital and so forth, I rather think it is rather important not to bandy about characterizations in such a manner as to deliberately cast aspersion beyond what context requires. It reminds me of the prior specious and judgemental comparisons in re buying lands, utterly abstracting away from issues of (a) corruption/chaos in re the land register (b) access to capital and funds.
Or to state more clearly, I rather dislike characterizations which are clearly playing on stereotypes and nationalist mythologies – you do recall from the temp board either you or Zev carrying on about with all the oil wealth, forgetting to mention in the context of 1948 there wasn’t any yet? (for the Arabs, not the 7 sisters). The Arab reality (in re the incompetence and corruption of their governments) is bad enough without putting through the fun house mirror.
Further, of course, we need to check our numbers. Which we will do we I get me two presentations done. But I do reiterate, when one places things in the context of relative per capita income none and little are vastly different things. I note this in reaction to your unnecessarily harsh and ultimately distorting characterization and not to take away from the bankruptcy of Arab regimes in this connection. None and little remain words with different meanings.
Ah yes, numbers again. Well, here we have to go back and check our numbers. I know we are predisposed to see Haganah as darling little angels, and Irgun as well perhaps slightly misguided, but my reading of recent (Israeli) scholarship suggests a starker picture which makes your characterization stink rather of the 1970s.
Now we’ll have to forgo the real fun, but for the moment I will note that I have issues with your ratios and those problems derive from my reading of reputable recent scholarship. Bald assertions will have to be checked.
Now, it is hard in this sort of exchange to not to begin to look like a bad guy picking on the Israelis. The irony of this being that even accepting for the sake of argument some of the starker, bloodier versions of 1948 (in re critical of Zionist –in the technical sense, not the stupid abusive Arab sense – actions, I nonetheless feel that they were more or less pursuing the only policies which would have brought them to their goals. That is to say, given the situation they did what had to be done.
I make this argument despite what some of the scholarship says in re the effective acquiescence of much of the P pop c. 1948, as opposed to Arab neighbors ‘cause ultimately there was no keeping out interveners.
Now I will note an issue I have with an item I passed over before, the inflammatory and ultimately piss-poor analogy to the American South and blacks. Now I believe this was in re the 1900-1948 period.
I see the analogy as insulting to blacks. See, unlike Jews, they had no recourse, no relations and no arms. And I saw bully to those Jews, who did set up Haganah, who did their best to utilize the Mandate, but in no way was that comparable to the American South.
Now if I am mis-recalling and this in re 19th century Ottoman rule, we do get closer, but it remains a piss-poor analogy, insofar as Jews were able to live under their own rules, had fairly free access to capital and freedom in economic realms generally. There was the tint of discrimination as has been discussed earlier on this board: the occasional outbreaks of violence, the legal discrimination (although some legal discrimination was a boon in disguise, e.g. hated military service they were barred from – but then they were also forbidden to carry arms). That is quite true, and in comparison with Western Europe it wasn’t good at all. In comparison with Eastern Europe (both contemporaneous) it was better – indeed I would say the situation in Eastern Europe comes far, far closer to an analogy with the American South.
Well, Dex, nice little bait and switch to try and paint me in a rather different light, eh no? Not the slightest use of an inflammatory straw man to paint old collounsbury as a supporter of terrorism. Well, I have a sense of humor so I’ll play the game, even when I know that the dealer has stacked the rhetorical cards.
I was unaware that I was arguing post-1948, however, accepting your straw man for its entertainment value if nothing else, I will note that I am of many minds about terror tactics. Take up to 1948: Jews used them against the Brits and Arabs, sometimes with great gusto. Arabs used them against the Jews and Brits. Leverage.
My emotional side, especially after certain personal experiences arising from recent events would like to dismiss this. But reality is far more complex.
Well, I am going to go off on a tangent if I pursue this. I have often recommended the film The Battle of Algiers as I thought if enough SDMB folks watched it we could have a discussion on the ambivalence of terror tactics.
**Justice and rule by law **
No, the Israelis are not perfect. In the last fifty years, there have been perhaps as many as four instances (I only recollect three) when the Israeli military mistreated or murdered Arab civilians. IN ALL THOSE INSTANCES, the Israeli soldiers responsible were brought to trial – public trial.
[/quote]
Again, Dex seems to trying to smear me as here as I have little argument with this point, anything I would say would be quibbling, except of course for the raw numbers. Certainly there have been more than four instances, many more. It is rather the nature of the situation. But the Israeli army has done a far, far better job than anyone has any reason to expect. I do think, I may add, that many measures of collective punishment are not only counterproductive, but also not legal. Nonetheless, I understand why they have been used, but from a practical POV, time has come for changes in tactics.
Israel is not perfect, yes, and admitting warts in this kind of forum does no harm, only good.
Ahhhhhh. Yes, well I expect you would have had little problem with a certain British officer in India and his methods of treating “Indian mobs” Went a little too far once with those MGs though. – my, my Dex I hadn’t thought of you as having the colonial mentality but viola.
Oh yes. Again we have wonderful comparisons. I may refrain from noting the justice meted out to the terrorists who killed old Count Bernodotte some years ago.
And this has what to do with our prior discussion? Not that I could not intelligently discuss this, but really Dex, is your desire to bring in the neighbor’s kitchen sink to delegit my argument really so great?
I would point the reader to what I actually wrote, including my message in regarding observed usage as well as my distinguishing between Arab usage ex-Palestine, and Palestinians.
Ah. Dex has absolutely no issues in this regard. All the Muslim nations. Now I do recall correcting this once or twice. I wouldn’t suppose if would be uncharitable to note that it’s precisely this sort of venom, disconnected from balance, that has driven me despite my dislike for this topic (Israel-P-Land) to respond to Dex – I still recall you “Mohammedan” posting, an offensive usage if there was any.
Certainly Senegal and Mali, Muslim both, are democracies. Free presses, all that. Dirt poor of course, but admirable, and the former longstanding as a democracy, although it had 2 touchy decades there of de facto one party rule, but then so has Japan. I suppose one could make arguments in regards to Bangladesh, a bit dodgy, and Indonesia is sort of a stumbling new democracy, but we all have to start somewhere. Egypt, well, democratic trappings but not really. Iran, well, a sort of half-democracy which has frozen itself in between one system and another. Bahrain, now Bahrain has become fairly democratic, have to see if it lasts. Press is relatively free.
Eh Dex, I don’t understand your logic, if I can be so charitable in my usage, here? You hold that what? Domestic newscasts in Arabic are deliberately making the distinctions that I noted in my message to fool their populaces? Rather the contrary of your point, I think. Of course, your inability, or rather worse, your unwillingness, to distinguish between “Arabs” and the P-charter is a trifle troublesome for me.
Your prejudices rather get away with you, as they did on the Saudi initiative.
In re Bosda’s stunningly uninformed and in truth ignorant assertion in re regional violence and history thereof, I can only refer him to a number of postings on this very concept by our own Tamerlane who has relied on rather more than an ahistorical quote from our dear Sam.
Don’t mind me, I’m just passing through to clean up the dripping sarcasm and condescension from that post.
<mop><mop>
Carry on.
[question out of the blue]
Collounsbury, if I am following along correctly, you refer to people who live in Lebanon as Lebs. Is this just an abbreviated way of referring to them or are they a group of people called Lebs?
[/question out of the blue]