Um, so? Weren’t they well within their right to do so, being the sovereigns of the land? Let me point to compulsory purchase of land by the government in the US.
Again, the reason why they fled is irrelevant. The fact is that they did, and the land was therefore legally acquired. May I also point out that Deir Yassin happened in a time of de facto war, and the Arabs that fled never claimed citizenship of Israel in the first place?
I fail to see what this has to to with the determination of their future. They already have their own territory, and they seem to be determining to terrorist Israel. Why was their right to self-determination violated by the partition? They were never self-ruling in the first place: First the Turks, and then the British. I highly doubt either were very democratic. In fact, now, they are their own sovereigns, which happen to be the PLO. The partition GAVE them the right to self determination.
Yes, being sovereigns of the land, they were. But is that right justifiable? I don’t believe it is.
Absolutely not. The reason they fled is vitally important both to understanding how Israel acquired land beyond the borders set by the UN partition and why the Palestinians demand the right of return today and are willing to fight for it. Israel’s seizure of lands decreed to the Arabs is a gross injustice.
OK, let me get this straight. Israel slaughtering 400 civilians in a time of war is acceptable, but Palestinians slaughtering civilians in a time of war is execrable? I mean, do you really think the ten-year-old girl in Deir Yassin whom Jacques de Reynier found half-dead and mutilated by an Irgun hand grenade in her own home was part of a military force?
Which is far less than they were given by the UN!
I don’t agree with their tactics. But terrorism is not the inexorable or logical outcome of fighting back against oppression.
My point! The Palestinian Arabs have never ruled themselves, and they deserve the right to do so. It took the Ottomans until 1878 to grant a constitution, sovereign power was handed over to the British after World War I, then Palestine got to watch as Jordan and Iraq were given self-rule while they were told by the UN what was going to happen to their lands. Their right to self-determination has been grossly violated because it’s never been given to them in the first place.
No, it did NOT. The partition was decided without any Palestinian participation whatsoever. They were told by others “You will live here and the Zionists will live here”. That’s not self-determination by any stretch of the imagination.
lavenderlemon, I cede the point. There seem to have been nationalist currents as early as 1911 that called everyone who lived in the area “Palestinians”, but the narrower and current definition of the word as we know it did not apply back then.
I’m pretty sure I’ve said elsewhere, on the boards if not in this thread, that I find the treatment of Jews in Arab countries to be just as detestable as Israeli treatment of Palestinians. I haven’t, however, yet made it clear that my support for the Palestinian cause does not translate into support for all Arab countries and the governments that run them. I don’t see this as an Arab vs. Jew situation because there have been examples of Arab governments shitting on the Palestinians, just as there have been examples of Israel’s government shitting on the Mizrahim. I stand with the right of Palestinians to return to the lands they were expelled from in 1948; I stand against the oppression of Palestinians by Israel, which is fuelled financially and militarily by the United States. I stand against the maltreatment of any section of a country’s populace by that country’s government. I stand for the right of Jews, Arabs, black, white, Asian, whoever, to live wherever it suits them. I stand against people violently exercising that right at the expense of others living in the same area, which is how Israel was founded.
Finally, I wasn’t asserting that you called me a liar; if you’ll notice, that section of my post was in reply to one of the less vitriolic posts from GaWd and not directed at you.
Rune, dude, with all due respect - fuck that shit. Bigotry isn’t inbred, it’s learned.
Perhaps. But my original point was that the British had the right to “dispose” of the territory as desired. If you think that the sovereign having that right unjustifiable… well, you might want to think about why the government can stop you from building a nuclear reactor in your back yard. Just sayin’.
Um, why do they deserve to do so? Do you think that democracy is the God given right of all humans? Take a hint - most Arabic countries are not functioning democracies. They would not be self-determining by any stretch. If you mean governed by their own people, well, you have the PLO.
I’m sorry, but does self determination include the right to say what is part of my country and what is not? Well, I claim Utah, then. And California. It’s my God given right to self determination, including claiming territory that people of my same ethnic type inhabit, you know. Oh, and your government makes you pay taxes whether you want to or not. Damn, they even put you in prison if you cause trouble, where you lose the freedom to riot and kill other people! Like, totally seperated from the people that need to be protected from you. Guess you’re not really self determining, either. Oh, and Pakistan was kicked out of India. Wow, real lack of self determination there, guess the Pakistanis are still getting kicked around by the Indians, and without self-determination.
What IS your definition of self determining, anyway? After partition, aren’t they self-determining? (or would be, if the PLO would get it’s act together) As in, the have a government that listens to them (ha) and does what they want (haha) and they get to decide how they want to live through their government?
Sorry for being a page late again (stupid job interfering with my real life…) but thanks for being a good sport.
:smack:
I think I’ll check out of this one, the thread is moving fast while my brain struggles to keep up.
;j
…by the way, where’s the Happy Orthodox Palestinian smiley? :eek:
FinnAgain, I’m still trying to find a page with the whole “The Arabs intend to conduct a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.” speech/interview so I can see it in context (I’ll find it) but it does indeed seem that these words were spoken.
I do. One country deciding the affairs of another is an elemental component of imperialism. The UN, in agreeing to create a partition plan instead of saying “Let the Palestinians themselves, both Arab and Jew, decide what form of government they should have”, merely acted as a willing tool for imperialism, allowing the established superpowers (Britain and France) and the newly emerging ones (the US and the USSR) to dictate the affairs of other regions around the world.
There is a vast difference between preventing a people from choosing their own form of government and preventing individuals from constructing devices that require a background of specialized training to maintain properly and which carry a serious risk of environmental catastrophe with them.
I wouldn’t say “God-given” - the right has to be fought for and won - but it is a right that all humans deserve, yes.
True - and most Arabic countries’ governments weren’t chosen by their own people. Like the House of Saud, or the Ba’ath Party, for instance.
“Governed by their own people” doesn’t mean squat. If that government were installed and/or supported by another country or empire, then the right of self-determination is not being exercised.
How many people in Utah and California support you in your plans? The right to self-determination isn’t an individual right, it’s the right of peoples and/or nations.
You’re right, actually. The partition of Pakistan from India was determined by the Indian National Congress rather than the Hindus and Muslims of Pakistan themselves. Congress’ refusal to let the inhabitants of Pakistan decide for themselves gave the advantage to the communalist movements, which led to greater bloodshed; had the Pakistanis been allowed to decide for themselves there would have been greater potential for Hindu-Muslim unity in the struggles that were occurring.
Allow me to quote from Lenin, writing in an article from 1916:
Now, yes, you’d be absolutely right to say that Palestinians agitating for secession from Israel, even with the territory they have now, would be exercising their right to self-determination. But that right was theirs to exercise before 1947 as well - which I believe they did attempt to do, if my understanding of the aims of the Palestinian National Congress is correct. The Palestinians have a right not to accept the terms of the UN partition, to say nothing of the terms of the Oslo and Wye accords, because those agreements were a basic violation of the right of the Palestinian population as a whole to self-determination under the British Mandate.
The mere fact that you’re laughing indicates that they’re not. Self-determination isn’t the result of other countries dictating your affairs and then leaving you to your own devices; self-determination is the right to choose your own government without outside interference.
I realize this is going to probably open a real hairy can of worms about the Confederacy and the US Civil War. If any of you want to debate on that subject, start a new thread in GD or here in the Pit. I’m staying with the subject of Israel here.
And anybody who bulldozes the houses of civilians is scum.
And anybody who shoots a doctor who provides abortions is scum.
And anybody who forces imprisoned civilians to wear hoods and stand naked in more or less sexually explicit positions with other hooded imprisoned civilians is scum.
And anybody who ties electrodes to another human being, stands them on a box, and tells them they’ll be electrocuted if they fall off is scum.
And anybody who sends soldiers to their deaths over an elaborately crafted lie is scum.
Looks like there’s plenty of scum covering the Earth there, gum. Why single out the Palestinian terrorists for opprobrium? And why blame the Palestinian people as a whole for these actions?
Just to be clear, I am not attempting to defend or condone Palestinian terrorism, nor am I trying to make it seem somehow less offensive by comparison to other acts of terrorism perpetrated elsewhere by others. I just do not see the point of making a special effort to vilify the Palestinians as if they had the monopoly on terror.
I can name other scum, thankyouverymuch. But this thread is about Palestinians shooting a pregnant women and her kids - deliberately - which makes them scum
Uh huh. I do get it. I didn’t see any threads entitled “American scum” after the revelations of torture in Abu Ghraib, though. I don’t recall seeing threads entitled “Israeli scum” after the Rachel Corrie incident. Why paint the Palestinians with so broad a brush, then?
Thanks for the cite. However, doesn’t that cite just establish that there isn’t a uniform position even within the PLO. I don’t believe you are arguing that Arafat never made the declaration.
You’re prejudging the issues by the terms murder and civilian. Recalling that in this discussion your premise was that even if all accusations about the occupiers were true.
Given that premise, it is as plausible that rather than civilians and murder, the persons were engaged in active attempts to deprive the lawful owners of property. It is well established that there is an entitlement to take life in defense of persons and property. QED, those taking the life were engaged in a lawful. albeit regrettable action.
Had not the occupiers the free and open opportunity to leave, which they repudiated. Contrary to what you assert I don’t acknowledge this argument to be weak or false. Rather my sole purpose in making this argument is to demonstrate that the issues are not so black and white as Finn Again asserts.
Oh, and some very interesting articles written at the time by Immanuel Velikovsky
They’re all very good, written at the time of the war of independance, I’d advise reading them all.
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Gum, you’re wrong. Finn Again allowed the premise of the unlawful land grab. Pregnancy and infancy are never defenses to criminality. Try it with shoplifting and see.
I referred explicitly to Finn Again’s premise, although to be fair I didn’t quote it.
Appreciating how vehmently you hold the opinion, it’s only one opinion that it was murder and how it consequently reflects on the perpetrators. Another opinion could equally validly be held on how the facts present.
sevastopol What the hell are you talking about? Pregnancy and infancy are never defenses to criminality?? :rolleyes: She didn’t do a thing. She was driving her car with her three children in it. She didn’t even shoplift, or spit on the street. Just her three kids and her. You know, maybe her kids were asking: “Mo-om, are we nearly there?”.
Well, they were.
To borrow from Rune:
Going up to and purposefully shooting a pregnant women and her small children several times at close range: very fucking wrong! Bragging about it afterwards: sick! Celebrating it in the streets: sick!
I believe Sevastopol was implying that, by living in Gaza and campaigning against Israeli withdrawal, Mrs. Hatuel and her four prepubescent daughters desrved to be shot at close range by automatic weapons.
Tabby_Cat.
I’m about as apolitical as it is possible to be and have a pretty intense dislike of terrorists, particularly Islamic ones. I also have a genuine liking for Israel. Nevertheless, this particular statement is one I take issue with. Someone simply abandoning land is one thing. Fleeing for their life is entirely another.
When the people the original owners fled from then come along and say “well, this land/property seems to be abandoned. I think I’ll take it myself” it smacks of nothing more than armed robbery.
Regards