# pro-Palestinian thread, part 2 **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 11, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232 "2009-11-11T21:27:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/241 "2009-11-20T03:15:08Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > Whether the population hs increased or not over the last half century is irrelevant. No, actually, it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/242 "2009-11-20T03:15:24Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > Yeah, just the first thing with you too. > > What part of Israeli-Arab don’t you understand? The village was on the Israeli side of the border. You know Dick, it’s a sign of an impending meltdown when you write things that don’t make any sense (Yeah, just the first thing with you too. -errrm, what?), can’t keep up with your own arguments and reply to things not actually written. [Qibya](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11782421&postcount=128), in Jordan, remember? The link is to your own post if you’ve forgotten about it. I know you don’t mean Kafr Qasim since they didn’t “take the entire village out,” and it’s already been pointed out to you that Israel jailed its own soldiers, apologized, and paid reparations over it. > [@](#): > > But I’ve got to ask this. Are you seriously claiming that 20-30000 people only were kicked out? Even the Israelis admitted the number was something like 700 000. Wow, how the hell did you get this out of what I wrote in response to your own cite claiming 30,000 expelled from '49-56. I’d suggest you read it again. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/243 "2009-11-20T03:24:44Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > You know Dick, it’s a sign of an impending meltdown when you write things that don’t make any sense (Yeah, just the first thing with you too. -errrm, what?), can’t keep up with your own arguments and reply to things not actually written. [Qibya](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11782421&postcount=128), in Jordan, remember? The link is to your own post if you’ve forgotten about it. I know you don’t mean Kafr Qasim since they didn’t “take the entire village out,” and it’s already been pointed out to you that Israel jailed its own soldiers, apologized, and paid reparations over it. > > Wow, how the hell did you get this out of what I wrote in response to your own cite claiming 30,000 expelled from '49-56. I’d suggest you read it again. I do mean Kafr Qasim. I specifically used the phrase “take the entire village out” to see if anybody would reply by saying ‘they didn’t take the _entire_ village out’ and somebody did. Bonus for complementing them on handing out several months in prison and compensation. Unbelievable. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/244 "2009-11-20T03:25:44Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > No, actually, it isn’t. OK, then. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/245 "2009-11-20T04:10:34Z")
For those curious by the way, Falk is a Troofer. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/246 "2009-11-20T05:02:52Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > I do mean Kafr Qasim. Well, is it on the Israeli side of the border or is it in Jordan? This seems to be somewhat central to your point. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/247 "2009-11-20T05:07:16Z")
It was on the old border between Israel and Jordan. [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafr_Qasim_massacre) is a wiki article on the event. > [@](#): > > The Kafr Qasim massacre took place in the Israeli Arab village of Kafr Qasim situated on the Green Line, at that time, the de facto border between Israel and Jordan on October 29, 1956. It was carried out by the Israel Border Police (Magav) and resulted in 48 Arab civilians dead, including 6 women and 23 children aged 8-17. Arab sources usually give the death toll as 49, as they include the unborn child of one of the women. > > The border policemen who were involved in the shooting were brought to trial and some served short prison sentences. The case established an important legal principle on when security personnel should disobey illegal orders. > [@](#): > > On the first day of the Suez War, Israel’s intelligence service expected Jordan to enter the war on Egypt’s side [1]. Acting on this intelligence, soldiers were stationed along the Israeli-Jordanian frontier [1]. > > From 1949 to 1966, Arab citizens were regarded by Israel as a hostile population, and major Arab population centers were governed by military administrations divided into several districts. As such, several battalions of the Israel Border Police, under the command of Israel Defense Forces brigade commander Colonel Issachar Shadmi, were ordered to prepare the defense of a section close to the border officially known as the Central District, and colloquially as the Triangle. It contained seven villages close to the border, not far from Tel Aviv, where about 40,000 Israeli Arab citizens lived. It was regarded as a strategically weak point by Israel, and regularly patrolled by soldiers to halt infiltration of fedayeen and other Arabs across the border. > [@](#): > > Timeline > > On October 29, 1956, the Israeli army ordered that all Arab villages near the Jordanian border be placed under a wartime curfew from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. on the following day. Any Arab on the streets was to be shot. The order was given to border police units at 3:30 before most of the Arabs from the villages could be notified. Many of them were at work at the time. That morning, Shadmi, who was in charge of the Triangle, received orders to take all precautionary measures to ensure quiet on the Jordanian border. On Shadmi’s initiative, the official nightly curfew in the twelve villages under his jurisdiction was changed from the regular hours. Shadmi then gathered all the border patrol battalion commanders under his command, and reportedly ordered them to ‘shoot on sight’ any villagers violating the curfew. Once the order was given, the commander of one of Shadmi’s battalions, Major Shmuel Malinki, who was in charge of the Border Guard unit at the village of Kafr Qasim, asked Shadmi on how to react to those villagers who were unaware of the curfew. > > Malinki later testified as follows: > > ``` > '[Shadmi said] anyone who left his house would be shot. It would be best if on the first night there were 'a few like that' and on the following nights they would be more careful. I asked: in the light of that, I can understand that a guerilla is to be killed but what about the fate of the Arab civilians? And they may come back to the village in the evening from the valley, from settlements or from the fields, and won't know about the curfew in the village - I suppose I am to have sentries at the approaches to the village? To this Col. Issachar replied in crystal clear words, 'I don't want sentimentality and I don't want arrests, there will be no arrests'. I said: 'Even though?'. To that he answered me in Arabic, Allah Yarhamu, which I understood as equivalent to the Hebrew phrase, 'Blessed be the true judge' [said on receiving news of a person's death]'. > > ``` > > Shadmi, however, denied that the matter of the returnees ever came up in his conversation with Malinki. > > Malinki issued a similar order to the reserve forces attached to his battalion, shortly before the curfew was enforced: “No inhabitants shall be allowed to leave his home during the curfew. Anyone leaving his home shall be shot; there shall be no arrests.” (ibid., p.141) > > At 4.30 p.m., the mukhtar (mayor) of Kafr Qasim was informed of the new time. He asked what would happen to the about 400 villagers working outside the village in the fields that were not aware of the new time. An officer assured him that they would be taken care of. When word of the curfew change was sent, most returned immediately, but others did not. > > Between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., in nine separate shooting incidents, the platoon led by Lt. Gabriel Dahan that was stationed in Kafr Qasim all together killed nineteen men, six women, ten teenage boys (age 14-17), six girls (age 12-15), and seven young boys (age 8-13), who did not make it home before curfew. [2]. One survivor, Jamal Farij, recalls arriving at the entrance to the village in a truck with 28 passengers:- > > ``` > 'We talked to them. We asked if they wanted our identity cards. They didn't. Suddenly one of them said, 'Cut them down' - and they opened fire on us like a flood.'[2] > > ``` > > The many injured were left unattended, and could not be succoured by their families because of the 24 hour curfew. The dead were collected and buried in a mass grave by Arabs, taken for that purpose, from the nearby village of Jaljuliya. When the curfew ended, the wounded were picked up from the streets and trucked to hospitals. [3] > > No villagers in other villages under Shadmi’s control were shot, because local commanders gave direct orders to disobey Shadmi’s and Malinki’s orders by holding fire. Also, among the platoons stationed in Kafr Qasim itself, only the one led by Dahan actually opened fire > [@](#): > > Legal impact > > The Kafr Qasim trial considered for the first time the issue of when Israeli security personnel are required to disobey illegal orders. The judges decided that soldiers do not have the obligation to examine each and every order in detail as to its legality, nor were they entitled to disobey orders merely on a subjective feeling that they might be illegal. On the other hand, some orders were manifestly illegal, and these must be disobeyed. Judge Benjamin Halevy’s words, still much-quoted today, were that “The distinguishing mark of a manifestly illegal order is that above such an order should fly, like a black flag, a warning saying: ‘Prohibited!’.” (Lippman, Bilsky) > > The incident was partly responsible for gradual changes in Israel’s policy toward Arab citizens of Israel. By 1966, the military administration was abolished. Basically it was a fuckup…sort of like the Kent State massacre. It wasn’t part of any official Israeli plan or some dark Jewish conspiracy. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/248 "2009-11-20T09:20:02Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > I do mean Kafr Qasim. I specifically used the phrase “take the entire village out” to see if anybody would reply by saying ‘they didn’t take the _entire_ village out’ and somebody did. Bonus for complementing them on handing out several months in prison and compensation. Unbelievable. So I fell into your trap of taking what you wrote to mean what you wrote? How very devious of you, you should be working for those devious Israelis in their plan to ethnically cleanse their country via the diabolical means of letting the Arab population explode and not actually doing it! My apologies for thinking that you meant Qibya since it fits the description of “took the entire village out” much better than Kafr Qasim since Qibya was mortared and assaulted in darkness by half an infantry battalion. Not that either actually resulted in taking the entire village out. Thanks for my bonus points! Do I have to give you some if Hamas even bothers with the formalities of charges its own for unlawfully killing civilians? Lord knows I’m willing to, but I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/249 "2009-11-20T13:02:25Z")
That’s a pretty creepy story, and I’m prepared to accept that events were even more malicious than described. I still back Israel, though, as the overall better choice in that region. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/250 "2009-11-20T15:47:15Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Basically it was a fuckup…sort of like the Kent State massacre. It wasn’t part of any official Israeli plan or some dark Jewish conspiracy. Thanks for the information. Sounds more like My Lai than Kent State, but I concur that it was more likely a massive cluster fuck rather than an implementation of policy. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/251 "2009-11-20T23:16:26Z")
I think that pro-Palestinians are racist - against Palestinians. We expect Israel to act like a civilized country, but no matter what madness the Palestinians and their allies perform it’s “What would you expect, they are victims”. Anyone with any moral compass at all would oppose a cause that uses suicide bombing to gain an advantage. If you are trying to show that you are deserving of your own country you need to act in a responsible and civilized manner. If the Palestinians reject violence completely, and stop saying that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist, there would be a Palestinian state in short order. Sure there would be arguments about borders (I’d like to see pre-1967 with Jerusalem a Vatican-like city state), but there will always be border disagreements. The problem is that Palestinians are more concerned about “face” than they are about having a state or the welfare of their children. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/252 "2009-11-20T23:33:40Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Anyone with any moral compass at all would oppose a cause that uses suicide bombing to gain an advantage. I disagree with that. I can respect someone who is willing to sacrifice themselves to advance a good cause. The problem is that the Palestinian suicide bombers are not working to advance a good cause, and are willing to target innocent civilians to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/253 "2009-11-21T00:54:03Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > I can respect someone who is willing to sacrifice themselves to advance a good cause. I know your sentiments are different from the ones I’m about to mention (i.e. in regard to victims), but your comment triggered a memory of reading Barbara Tuchman’s “The Proud Tower” about the anarchist bombings in Paris around 1900. For awhile there were anarchist bombings of businesses, apparently targeting the bourgeoisie. After one such attack a (press?) commentator was quoted as saying “What do the victims matter if it’s a grand gesture?”. The same man was having a drink at a Paris cafe not long afterward when an anarchist bomb went off. He lost an eye. No word on whether he appreciated the ghoulish irony of the situation. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/254 "2009-11-21T01:05:47Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > … > We expect Israel to act like a civilized country, … Doubtless you do. But there is a small minority who are entirely prepared to suffer the continuance of Israel’s ethnic cleansing, West Bank looting and the assocated propaganda barrage in North American media. They consider that Israelis are not morally competent and should be judged as we judge children, the mad or animals. What’s behind this is anti-semitism. Judaism itself has been precarious and overall a religion not significantly worse than a number of others. However it is corrupted as it’s iterations require unqualified backing of Israel. As Israel is frequently a monstrosity or kind of war crime, Judaism is accordingly polluted. Starting as religion, it is made more and more to appear an evil cult. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/255 "2009-11-21T01:07:17Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > … > The problem is that the Palestinian suicide bombers are not working to advance a good cause, > … Seems unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/256 "2009-11-21T01:13:51Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > I think that pro-Palestinians are racist - against Palestinians. We expect Israel to act like a civilized country, but no matter what madness the Palestinians and their allies perform it’s “What would you expect, they are victims”. Anyone with any moral compass at all would oppose a cause that uses suicide bombing to gain an advantage. If you are trying to show that you are deserving of your own country you need to act in a responsible and civilized manner. > > If the Palestinians reject violence completely, and stop saying that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist, there would be a Palestinian state in short order. Sure there would be arguments about borders (I’d like to see pre-1967 with Jerusalem a Vatican-like city state), but there will always be border disagreements. The problem is that Palestinians are more concerned about “face” than they are about having a state or the welfare of their children. As a ordinary Jew I admit this is part of the problem for me. The Palestinians elect leaders who espouse holocaust denial, celebrate people who blow up innocent civilians and litter their airwaves and media with Hitler level hate and accept as allies states like Iran and Saudi Arabia that I find incredibly distasteful. The Palestinian cause repeatedly strikes as me where they want the Israelis gone from what they perceive as their land. Okay fine. But then they seem to want in their place an Islamic fundamentalist state without any Jews. I can’t really say that cause strikes me as particularly important let alone something I should particularly support. I have a lot of relatives who were kicked out of a lot of places. I still can’t see myself telling my daughter that her highest cause in life should be to murder herself and a bunch of civilians sitting in a cafe in Warsaw or Budapest. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/257 "2009-11-21T01:16:45Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > Doubtless you do. But there is a small minority who are entirely prepared to suffer the continuance of Israel’s ethnic cleansing, West Bank looting and the assocated propaganda barrage in North American media. They consider that Israelis are not morally competent and should be judged as we judge children, the mad or animals. > > What’s behind this is anti-semitism. Judaism itself has been precarious and overall a religion not significantly worse than a number of others. However it is corrupted as it’s iterations require unqualified backing of Israel. As Israel is frequently a monstrosity or kind of war crime, Judaism is accordingly polluted. Starting as religion, it is made more and more to appear an evil cult. This from one of the board’s acknowledged experts on Judaism. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/258 "2009-11-21T01:19:45Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > This from one of the board’s acknowledged experts on Judaism. Seen in a certain light this appears to be the \*Ad Hominen \*false argument. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/259 "2009-11-21T01:22:08Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > I specifically used the phrase “take the entire village out” to see if anybody would reply by saying ‘they didn’t take the _entire_ village out’ and somebody did. So you are just baiting other posters? I suggest that you employ different tactics in the future. [/Modding] ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232/260 "2009-11-21T16:25:33Z")
I for one am shocked, totally shocked, that someone might have created a fictional narrative that allows him to justify hate against, what was it… “Israel, Judaism and Jews.” This is without precedent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-palestinian-thread-part-2/517232.md?page=14)