# They're already attacking Israel again? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 25, 2005, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585 "2005-08-25T17:38:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/41 "2005-08-26T16:20:08Z")
> [@Neurotik](#): > > Yeah, I can’t imagine why the Arabs were pissed off, especially since the Jews had been evicting Arab peasants off their land for the previous 25 years as they immigrated in to be replaced by Jewish settlers. Most of it wasn’t the Palestinians’ land…Ottoman landholding law was what contributed to the tragedy. Most of the land in Palestine was held by absentee landlords, and rented or sharecropped by native farmers. So when Zionist settlement groups came in, they bought the land from the owners, and didn’t have much use for the Arab farmers, so they evicted them. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/42 "2005-08-26T17:48:21Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I understand the “bottom up” approach to support from a mixture of terrorism and social services. What does the “top down” approach look like? While the two groups aren’t quite ideologically black and white ( one reason PIJ doesn’t do more social work is that Hamas warned them off when they tried some later small-scale experiments in that area ) it would appear that PIJ believes that straight militant pressure based on decentralized cells is the best prompter for revolution - i.e. the best proselytization is action, not social work ( though they do have their own “preachers” in some mosques ). What they appear to be shooting for is provoking a massive ( i.e. population-wide and millions strong ) violent revolt by the Palestinians in the event ofd which their trained cadres would step in and assume leadership based on their merit and experience. In addition there is something to be said for not being distracted by the limitations of having a large constituency to which you are then beholden too ( it seems more and more Hamas does have to give the occasional _appearance_ of being semi-reasonable - they have, unlike PIJ, at times accepted the possibility of a seperate Palestinian state, though I believe they have always qualified that by saying such would result only in a temporary truce ). But while operationally that might be the case, I can’t imagine committed PIJ ideologues are not interested in running the final show _their way_, because they really do have a distinct ideology. PIJ ( and the other Islamic Jihad branches ) are actually pretty odd ducks ideologically - Sunni Khomeinists if you will. They were inspired by the Iranian revolution and it is suggested that they even favor a type of Sunni version of velayat-e faqih, which is rather…odd, for Sunni Islam. Whereas Hamas really seem to be Palestinian nationalists first, Islamists second, PIJ seems in some respects to be the reverse. They just firmly believe that Muslim unification must start in Palestine. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/43 "2005-08-26T17:51:18Z")
Neurotik: > [@](#): > > No shit they were happy to have half (55% actually), considering they were only 33% of the population. Oh right, Arab refusal to accept Israel’s existence was just a _numbers_ game, they would have been just peachy with a Zionist state that precisely reflected the population percentage. :rolleyes: On top of the fact that the only percentage the Arabs would have been (and many still would be) happy with is 100%, there’s also the issue of land usability. The partition plan was arranged up so that large blocks of each ethnicity’s population would be included in their territory, and most of the excess involved was desert wasteland. The value each side was apportioned was (at the time) roughly equivalent. > [@](#): > > And most of them were newcomers considering that in 1922 the Jewish population was only 11%. True, though many of the Arabs of the time were newcomers as well. The population of all of Palestine before the Zionists started settling there was miniscule. It ballooned when the Zionists started building and farming projects which caused Arabs in the surrounding areas to immigrate in search of economic opportunity. So while it’s true that the percentage of Jews in Palestine rose during that time period, that does not mean that the Arabs - even a majority of them - were long-time residents being suddenly displaced. > [@](#): > > And the Zionists were hardly universally happy to have 55% of the land. That’s right, it wasn’t universal. It’s been over 3300 years since Jews were unanimous about _anything_. Still, there was a sizable majority who were. > [@](#): > > Menachim Begin violently opposed it and said, “The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized … Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for ever.” Of course, he later became Prime Minister and said in 1977, “The Jewish people have unchallengeable, eternal, historic right to the Land of Israel including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the inheritance of their forefathers” when he began his policy of settlements. Yet he was also the one who ended up making peace with Egypt,as soon as they indicated they were interested in peace. I hate to sound like I’m making light of the settlement policy, which in my opinion was wrongheaded, but he was talking tough and acting tough so that Israel’s starting position would be as strong as possible when negotiations would eventually be initiated. If the Israeli government was going to eventually get an acceptable peace deal…whether with Jordan, Syria, or the PLO…they were going to have to start by having something they were willing to give up in a bargaining session, not by first ceding everything and then hoping (against all available evidence) the other side would out of the goodness of their heart give Israel what it wants without demanding anything more. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/44 "2005-08-26T17:57:20Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > So when Zionist settlement groups came in, they bought the land from the owners, and didn’t have much use for the Arab farmers, so they evicted them. Correct. I was somewhat unclear there and trying to speak from the Arab peasant’s POV, many of which undoubtedly saw the land as “theirs” due to the amount of time spent on it. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/45 "2005-08-26T18:17:06Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Oh right, Arab refusal to accept Israel’s existence was just a _numbers_ game, they would have been just peachy with a Zionist state that precisely reflected the population percentage. I didn’t say that. I’m stating why the Zionist movement was pretty happy, considering they wound up with far more land than was “fair” going by population. Even happier since even David ben-Gurion considered the initial state to be just the base for later Israeli expansion. > [@](#): > > The value each side was apportioned was (at the time) roughly equivalent. Which, again, meant that the Jews got far more arable land per person than the Arabs. > [@](#): > > So while it’s true that the percentage of Jews in Palestine rose during that time period, that does not mean that the Arabs - even a majority of them - were long-time residents being suddenly displaced. Fair enough, although, I submit that after years of colonization by Turks and Europeans, the Palestinian Arabs were far less enthusiastic about the mass influx of European Jews onto their lands than other Arabs (double whammy there - both seeming European colonization and Zionist colonization). > [@](#): > > That’s right, it wasn’t universal. It’s been over 3300 years since Jews were unanimous about _anything_. Still, there was a sizable majority who were. I doubt there was unanimity about anything even 3300 years ago… And there is a question about whether that sizable majority was actually happy with the partition as anything except a foothold for future expansion. Although, let me clarify that I’m talking at the leadership level here. I have little doubt that the average Jewish refugee from Europe was completely content with a secure parcel of land in his own community and matters of expansion of the state registered only in a distant, theoretical sense. > [@](#): > > Yet he was also the one who ended up making peace with Egypt,as soon as they indicated they were interested in peace. Of course he was. Sinai is not part of Eretz Israel (that I know of), so there were no religious or ideological objections to land for peace from Begin’s perspective. Indeed, he would have been foolish not to do so. > [@](#): > > If the Israeli government was going to eventually get an acceptable peace deal…whether with Jordan, Syria, or the PLO…they were going to have to start by having something they were willing to give up in a bargaining session, not by first ceding everything and then hoping (against all available evidence) the other side would out of the goodness of their heart give Israel what it wants without demanding anything more. I understand that, but there’s a difference between not giving up the disputed territories, and actively settling them with the idea of expanding the borders of your state into them. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/46 "2005-08-26T18:52:56Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > PIJ ( and the other Islamic Jihad branches ) are actually pretty odd ducks ideologically - Sunni Khomeinists if you will. They were inspired by the Iranian revolution and it is suggested that they even favor a type of Sunni version of velayat-e faqih, which is rather…odd, for Sunni Islam. I’d say they’re a lot more inspired by Qutb than by Khomeini (and the same is true of Hamas). I’d just say they’re a radical strain of the Brothers. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/47 "2005-08-26T19:09:58Z")
Neurotik: > [@](#): > > Which, again, meant that the Jews got far more arable land per person than the Arabs. That’s actually the opposite of what I meant. Three-quarters of the partition-plan Jewish state was desert ([cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_UN_Partition_Plan)). > [@](#): > > I doubt there was unanimity about anything even 3300 years ago… I was being ironic, I know not everyone here believes in the Sinai event. Kind of like saying (to a not-exclusively-Christian audience) “You can’t get pregnant without sex, only one known exception” > [@](#): > > Sinai is not part of Eretz Israel (that I know of), so there were no religious or ideological objections to land for peace from Begin’s perspective. Neither, quite frankly, is Gaza. But there were Israelis who settled and/or invested in Sinai when it was in Israeli hands just as was true of Gaza. People get attached to where they are and invest it, rhetorically, with more history or sanctity than truth would require. (The West Bank is somewhat different in this regard.) > [@](#): > > I understand that, but there’s a difference between not giving up the disputed territories, and actively settling them with the idea of expanding the borders of your state into them. I very much agree. However, even the settlements were meant only as a bargaining chip…a very cynical one, which is going to end up hurting the people that the Israeli government encouraged to settle there and the people displaced by them, but a bargaining chip nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![reckful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@reckful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reckful)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/48 "2005-08-26T19:21:52Z")
In other news the number of Number of West Bank settlers has grown by more than 9,000. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle\_east/4188216.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4188216.stm) When will Israel learn that the Palestinians are not going to just disappear? If they want that land (West Bank) they will have to accept the death of the Jewish state. There is no way around this. ---
**Author:** ![reckful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@reckful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reckful)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/49 "2005-08-26T19:34:14Z")
> [@reckful](#): > > In other news the number of Number of West Bank settlers has grown by more than 9,000. That is to say that the number of number of West Bank settlers has grown by more than 9,000 **so far this year**. There are already around 446,000 settlers currently in the West Bank. This seems a lot like 9,000 out of Gaza then into the West Bank. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/50 "2005-08-26T19:36:01Z")
> [@](#): > > the settlements were meant only as a bargaining chip…a very cynical one And to add a small bit, a bargaining chip that no one had anticipated would be on the table very long. Land for peace was presumed to be so logical a deal for the Arab powers to accept that no Israeli government could accept that “No, no, no”\* really meant no. “Ach, it’s only going to be a few years til they come around, give the settler bloc a bone to keep them in our coalition. What’s a couple of settlers?” Who knew it would be decades later and a generation calling it home? \*The Khartoum Arab Summit two months after the Six-Day War: “No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel.” ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/51 "2005-08-26T20:45:23Z")
> [@Neurotik](#): > > And of course, David Ben-Gurion himself stated in a speech in 1938, “After we become a strong force as the result of the creation of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine. The state will only be a stage in the realization of Zionism and its task is to prepare the ground for our expansion. The state will have to preserve order – not by preaching but with machine guns.” I’d like a cite for this, please. It sounds eerily close to some of the “quotes” that the late-lamented **Aldebaran** swore by, but couldn’t/wouldn’t provide a provenance to. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/52 "2005-08-26T20:47:34Z")
Thanks, as usual, **Tamerlane**. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/53 "2005-08-26T20:51:44Z")
> [@bizzwire](#): > > I’d like a cite for this, please. It sounds eerily close to some of the “quotes” that the late-lamented **Aldebaran** swore by, but couldn’t/wouldn’t provide a provenance to. A quick Google search just putting a portion of that between quotation marks returned hundreds of documents. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/54 "2005-08-26T20:55:10Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > A quick Google search just putting a portion of that between quotation marks returned hundreds of documents. Yea, but most of those documents seem to be ones about how evil Israel and Zionism are. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/55 "2005-08-26T21:07:16Z")
Of course, but it doesn’t lool like he pulled it out of his butt or something, which I figured was the accusation. Nothing on Snopes about it, I’m afraid. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/56 "2005-08-26T21:19:41Z")
> [@newcrasher](#): > > I was going to post a thread similar to this. My premise was going to be, “If 1,000 suicide bombers drove Israel our of Gaza, will 100,000 drive them out of Jerusalem?” Who cares what the suicide bombers think? Pulling out from Gaza was the right thing to do. And as much as I hate terrorists, I don’t think Israel (or the U.S for that matter) should continue to pursue a wrong path purely to spite the terrorists. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/57 "2005-08-26T21:25:48Z")
I wonder if that quote was cited by [Benny Morris](http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,803417,00.html), an Israeli historian who wrote a book on the Palestinian “transfer” or relocation that many have equated to ethnic cleansing. Just a guess. ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/58 "2005-08-26T21:39:20Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > I wonder if that quote was cited by [Benny Morris](http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,803417,00.html), an Israeli historian who wrote a book on the Palestinian “transfer” or relocation that many have equated to ethnic cleansing. Just a guess. No. It’s from Schoenman, _The Hidden History of Zionism_ ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/59 "2005-08-26T22:02:13Z")
Hrm. Half the Amazon reviews think it’s great, the other half (the better-written half, at that) think that book is absolute nonsense. Not much help. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2005, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585/60 "2005-08-26T23:36:52Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > Of course, but it doesn’t lool like he pulled it out of his butt or something, which I figured was the accusation. Nothing on Snopes about it, I’m afraid. Not so much an accusation as much as due dilligence; I did a quick google search (shoulda thought of that) and beside the usual suspects found creditable sources quoting this ever-so-quotable quote. Such as Noam Chompsky. While everyone refers to it, I just wanted to pin it down to a reasonably contemporaneous source. Even taken at face value, I say…“so what?” Note the date; **1938**. This was long before the UN resolution providing for the establishment of a Palestinian and Israeli state. The area was under British control.The Arabs (not to be confused with the “Palestinians”) wanted it for themselves and the Zionists wanted it for _themselves_. Tensions were-to put it mildly-high, and I’m willing to accept the veracity of this quote (although the internet is awash in some very similar-sounding quotes of dubious origin). OK, fine,… Ben Gurion was talking tough. No shock considering the tit-for-tat violence that raged between the two camps. I could scare up even more horrific quotes from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. (hint; do a google search of “Grand Mufti Kill Jews”) Implying that Ben Gurion’s pre-1948 comments are reflective of current Israeli policy is a very, very cheap shot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/theyre-already-attacking-israel-again/318585.md?page=4)