Regardless of whether the British Protectorate in the 1920’s should have become “Israel” or simply remained “Palestine” - ultimately, who cares? I mean to say, besides ego, what’s in a name, really?
What counts is this… Israel, (if it was left in peace) without all the threats and meddling by it’s neighbouring countires, is a prosperous, stable democracy trying to make the best out of a harsh land with limited water. It aspires to a high quality of lifestyle and a wealthy middle class with a modern multi-faceted industrial base. All of these factors entitle the country to respect and support in my opinion.
The issues pertaining to religion are largely a moot point if you ask me. My understanding is this - after WW2, 2.8 million jewish refugees poured into Palestine in just 3 years. Obviously, this profoundly upset the natural demographics of the region immeasurably - and we’re still seeing the ripple effects. But oddly, if the Palestinians had not “fled in protest” in equal numbers to those who were evicted for supporting the 1948 war, things would have been incredibly different today. I believe that there is no law in Israel which prevents Arab descendants or non Jewish peoples from running for Parliament.
In many respects, the Palestinians have brought their troubles upon themselves and continue to do so.
Now, if I’ve got that little summation of history wrong, then please correct me. But I’d like to think I’m pretty well read up on the matter.
I think this reprint of the same article may clarify things, London. The longer text below seems to be the author’s interpretation.
Also, if you do a Google search, you will find that the shorter quote is attributed to Fulbright, while the longer one (which you posted) is attributed to Dulles.
Regardless, the “message” they were conveying remains the same.
I don’t want to be pedantic, leander but it’s important to get the attribution correct. I quoted the shorter of the two passages, the one by - I’m still pretty sure - Fulbright (the attribution is *before * the piece, perhaps you were misled by that)
slipster, nice post, as usual. Just a couple of minor comments. First, IIRC, it is true that the Truman administration showed some wavering regarding the creation of Israel in 1948, but when the time arrived to vote for the partition of Palestine in the UN General Assembly, and the pro-partition camp lacked the required number of votes, the US stalled the voting, and the US administration and US bussinessmen put pressure on small countries (Haiti, Liberia, Philippines and perhaps others) so they would change the intention of their vote. So at the critical time of the vote in 1948, Truman clearly supported the creation of the state of Israel.
[nitpick]
It is not quite accurate to say that the US has used the veto power at the UNSC more times than any other permanent member. That honor corresponds to the USSR/Russia, as you can see in this table, but only because they used it massively during the 1946-1965 period, many times to ban membership to other countries, as you can see here. On the other hand, it is true, as the previous links show, that since the lates 60’s, the US - never to be outdone by those commies - has used the veto power more times than the rest of the permanent member of the USNC combined, and Israel was often at the center of the vetoed resolutions.
[/nitpick]
Sam Stone, I would like to address some of the points you raise:
First, the question of U.S. support to Israel is not simply a yes/no question (not that I think you regard it like that). There is the issue of the amount of help (economic, military), and the conditions under which that help is provided. Israel, a country of about six million people and GDP per capita around $20,000, is by far the largest recipient of US foreign aid. Certainly, Israel faces a number of unusual challenges, but I think it is fair to ask what are the criteria the US uses to determine the amount of economic support it gives to different countries.
Furthermore, the US has the freedom of setting the conditions under which that support will continue. A proposal I have read a number of times (in The Economist most recently) is that the US conditions the economic aid (or part of it) to a freeze of the settlements in the occupied territories. It seems reasonable to me, and I would like to hear the opinion of other Dopers. [And yes, before you ask, I think the EU is late in having an outside auditory on the use of the money it gives to the Palestinian Authority].
As for your other point, I completely agree that Israel receives a disproportionate amount of criticism for her behavior in the occupied territories, if you compare it with other conflicts around the world. I think part of it is simply that the media dedicates a disproportionately large amount of time (say, per number of deaths, if you accept that macabre way of comparing conflicts) to the Israeli/Palestinian situation. I have lived in three countries (in three continents) and that is my impression, regardless of whether the particular TV station/newspaper tends to side more with the Palestinians or the Israelis. Why many media outlets tend to zoom into this particular conflict, leaving others out of the camera, is certainly an interesting debate, but I think that the fact that they do goes a long way to explain why people “scream more about Israel”.
I am afraid I am not following you. The question is definitely not about names, but (among other things) about how to divide the land and among whom. Do you favor the Great Israel originally envisioned by some Zionists, with borders up to near Damascus? Or a two state partition, along the UN 1948 borders? Or the pre-1967 borders? Or a single state for both Jewish and Arabs? Or the Jewish being “thrown out to the sea”, and the Arabs retaking the land? Different people in the region have different takes, and sort of feel strongly about them.
**
Again, I am lost. You are not saying that the fate of the Palestinians doesn’t count, are you? And since you mention the limited water in the region, I invite you to read about the water situation in the occupied territories. For instance, you can go to the B’Tselem webpage, and on Subjects, choose water crisis.
Those wacky Palestinians, voluntarily leaving houses, lands and jobs behind…Could you please provide a serious cite for this claim?
Indeed, there are Arab parties in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament). Something between 15% and 20% of the Israeli population are Arabs. And there are also parties in the Knesset that favor “transfer” of the Palestinians. Your point being…?
I’m probably going to get flamed for my response, but so be it:
General European view is simple: money.
I believe there’s a saying in the US (got this from my boss, who spends a lot of his time in the sates), you can’t win the presidency elections withput NY, and you can’t win NY without the jewsh vote.
Which means that thr Jewish lobby in NY is huge, and have a lot of money to throw around.
So people running for presidency, need the Jewish vote, and therefor make promises in regards with Isreal (support, money, weapons, etc).
That is why Israel is so important.
To say that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East…in name, yes. To me it more or less looks like a police state, just like the US is fast becoming one. It is US support of the Israeli cause against the plastinians that has angered so maney Arab countries, as they see the Palestinians being oppressed, with US approval. This is maybe put very black and white, but that is how they see it.
As for being a strategic ally, the Saudies, Egyptians and Turks are probably more for the US cause than the Israeli’s are.
This is just silly. No one ever says that you can’t win the presidency without NY in America.
Bush won in 2000 without New York. Bush won in 1988 without New York. Nixon won in 1968 without New York. Clinton would have won in 1992 and 1996 with or without New York. Same with Reagan in 1980 and 1984, Johnson in 1964 and Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. In fact, the only two elections where New York’s support was key to the winning candidate since Israel was created were Kennedy in 1960 and Carter in 1976.
Neurotik’s got it. Jews are a minor constituency in America, and most definetely not a critical one to any canidate except in some local elections. Jews are simply nto a huge portion of the US population, and are diverse within their community.
And, while I hate to generlize or stereotype, I think elfje’s post, if true, reveals more about the European attitudes about Jews than it does anything about America. But hey, Europeans have rarely understood thid country without coming to settle here permanently, and often not even then. C’est la Vie.
Anyway, America supports Israel largely because, well, we like them. They’re trying to be a good, free and fair people in an awfully difficult situation. They are constantly living with the possibility of death, and no one really sees a a way out. Palestinians seem to now hate them more to hate them than any substantial material reason; the terror groups in Palestine are effectively political parties and local mobs in one.
Strangely, despite Nixon’s documented anti-Semitic comments, his policies were considerably more supportive of Israel than JFK’s or Lyndon Johnson’s. Go figure.
More than anything else, Americans supported the creation of Israel because of the horrors of the Holocaust. That’s partly because of guilt (the U.S. was far from eager to take in Jews fleeing Hitler before the war) and partly because, after seeing what happened at Dachau and Auschwitz, it seemed difficult to argue that Jews didn’t need a safe haven of their own. It was pretty obvious that Jews were uniquely hated (no other ethnic group has so many people, all over the world, who want them dead), and that a Jewish homeland would give them a chance to survive.
don’t feel too alone in that, anti semitism was rampant all over Europe in the interbellum (between WWI and WWII). America may have supported the creation of the ISrael state, but it was the British (as usual) that had control of the area before they “gave” it to the Jewish, and this happened before WWII. I strongly recommend visiting this website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/israel_and_palestinians/timeline/
that will give you a time line history about the Israeli’s and the Palestinians.
In short, everything you need to know about this conflict…
Not true. Such parties are banned by Israeli law, I believe that’s been on the books since 1984 or so. That’s why the Kach party of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, to give one example, has no representation in the Knesset.
According to this and this and this and this, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in Feb. 1957 is quoted on p.99 of Fallen Pillars by Donald Neff as saying:
According to this and this and this, Senator Fulbright said the following on CBS’ “Face the Nation” (10/07/1973):
I believe you missed the quote above Senator Fulbright’s name. The attribution is after the piece.
No big deal, though. It may be important to get the attribution correct (though we both probably appear pedantic:)), but their views are clearly very similar.
Firstly alenar, let me say I really enjoy reading your posts. You’re extremely well read and knowledgeable and I learn an awful lot when I read your posts. Personally, in answer to your question above, I have no opinion on what borders should exist, or are right, in terms of being “righteous”. Every arguement, for or against, on this issue has so many compelling “emotional” heart-tugging responses that, honestly, I truly don’t have the right to say who is right, or who is wrong.
Obviously, prior to the end of WW2, Arabs in the region opposed a Jewish influx, but in Palestine itself, they lacked a unifed leadership. This, in reality, has always been the root cause of their problems it seems to me - at least in terms of having an authorised voice which “world opinion” (nebulous term that that is) would listen to.
In April of 1946, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry recommended that 100,000 refugees be admitted immediately, that restrictions on Jewish land purchases in Palestine be lifted, and that a binational Jewish-Arab state be established under United Nations trusteeship.
By Febrruary 1948, skirmishes and terrorist bombings had claimed hundreds of both Jewish and Arab lives. Even though the UN’s original recommendation was to divide Israel into two independant but economically unified states, it seems to me that the Palestinians insisted on letting their cause be hi-jacked by the Arab League - who openly viewed partition as an act of war.
Obviously, no party is more “right” than anyone else on this matter. The “Haganah” (Jewish Militia) had won control of all of the Jewish territory and more than a few positions in Arab-controlled territory by mid 1948 and as such, the cyclical “we did it because you did it” mindset was firmly entrenched.
I maintain, nonetheless, that there is no evidence that David Ben-Gurion initially sought to dominate the Arab partition of Israel. It seems to me that the Palestinians were quite happy to let the Arab League meddle and interfere and openly declare war instead of simply accepting the reality of the times and choosing to work peacefully WITHIN the framework which was originally designed by the United Nations.
Even though the Arab forces slightly out-numbered the Israeli forces during the 1948 war, they were hobbled by their leader’s disunity and their own widespread lack of discipline. (Unenthusiastic Iraqi conscripts were sometimes chained to their machine guns it is said). This really sums up to me how poorly the Palestinian’s played their cards. They let a motley crew fight a war on their behalf when it truly wasn’t necessary and then they sealed their fate right from the get go.
By early 1949 the Israeli’s had beaten back it’s exhausted attackers and started claiming formerly Arab held ground. And it’s worth noting that Transjordan transformed into the state of Jordan during this mess and the Palestinians lost out big time on not one, but two scores.
Now I’m not Jewish, and I have no inclination whatsoever at a religious level, but I gotta say, if I was in the same position, at a military level? I would have done the same thing the Israelis did.
Obviously, the big losers at this time were the Palestinian Arabs. In just a few years, up to 70% became refugees and left their homelands. The consensus is 720,000 I’m told. This left Israel with a massive Jewish majority at a democratic level. Moreover, it got even worse over the next decade when Arab League nations, in vengeance, drove half a million Jews from THEIR homelands into exile - where they ended up in Israel.
The place has unravelled now into a morass of cyclical recrimination and we see what see nowadays. Still, in terms of the Palestinian cause, as I see it, they brought their fate upon themselves - big time. And now, with extremist calls for the “eviction of all Jews out of Palestine” by maniac groups like Hamas, well, the Palestinians are just doing everything possible to play their cards the wrong way I have to say.
Why do people keep making the link between jew and israel?
Jew <> israel
Just like, muslim <> indonesia and christian <> italy.
Israel may have Judeism as the main religion, but there are other religions in Israel and there are many jewish people around the world. It seems to me that the Jewish people are the ones that are being given a hard time by everyone, when people should be focussing on the country.
Are sure about that? The Israeli MP who was assasinated a couple of years ago, was definitely a transferist. Are you sure the law doesn’t refer only to the transfer of Israeli-Arab citizens?
Yasser Arafat is not responsible for the suicide bombings, I don’t have any particularly love for him, but I just find it bizzarre the way the Israelis and their supporters use him as a central hate-figure.
Israel delibrately targetted civilian areas in it’s clearance of the Arabs before the PLO was even founded. Barrel Bombs were roled into urban Arab markets as a terrorist measure to drive the Arabs out of Israel.
cmkeller, thanks for your comment. However, we still don’t seem to agree. There are parties in the Knesset, and members of the previous and current Israeli government, that are for transfer.
For instance, Moledet, founded by the assassinated Reehavam Zeevi, favors three types of transfer, as you can read at
His current party chairman, Benny Elon, was Tourism Minister in the previous and in the current government. During 2001, the party ran a campaign on billboards that read “Only transfer will bring peace”.
Also, Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Minister of National Infrastructures with the previous Government and the current Minister of Transportation, has toyed in public with the idea of transfer of Israeli Arabs who refuse to sign a loyalty oath to Israel.
Perhaps the law you are referring to is the 1985 amendment to the Basic Law, which bans from elections lists that (among other things) “incite racism”. According to this site, that amendment has its origin in a dispute between Kach and the Central Elections Committee.