If you honestly believe that then respectfully you know nothing about Israel or the Israelis. The defining event for the people of Israel was Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the Jewish nation/tribe/community/fill-in-the-blank.
Shamir’s point was that even the Peace Now types wouldn’t countenance a million Jews being left at the mercy of the Palestinians.
I’m sure since you’re so knowledgable about the conflict you know about the famous tomb and what happened to it.
Now on another thread, in response to someone arguing what was the harm in letting Israel whine for the release of Jonathan Pollard you angrily stated
Now, leaving aside your curious choice to use “Jew” instead of “Israeli”, your suggestion that Israelis are these sly, craft negotiators who can’t be trusted in a negotiation and you dare not give an inch to is grossly ignorant as well as being arguably anti-Semitic.
In fact, among the merchants of East Jerusalem, selling rugs and other items, well-off Ashkenazis in Israel are famous for being trusting marks(though not as bad as American or European tourists) who have no concept of how to haggle or “Handle”(to use a yiddish expression).
However, they do hold Jewish lives very, very close to their heart which is why they give such lopsided deals freely countless prisoners to free even one or two Jewish POWs.
So no, Yitzhak Shamir was most certainly not “tripping balls” but showing a profound understanding of the Israelis.
Arabs living in East Jerusalem can have Israeli citizenship if they renounce all other citizenships. Even the USA over half a century ago gave up the idea of orcing new citizens to renounce their old citizenship. (Several of my family have 3 citizenships). Forcing people to renounce their old citizenship is just a dig to either humiliate them or knowing the circumstances, ensure they do not apply. That is not a coincidence or oversight, it’s deliberate policy.
Israel claims Old Jerusalem is their territory. Nobody else recognizes it.
All the more reason fo the Arabs to not renounce old citizenship, in case Israel eventually did give up the territory as Palestine wants, where would that leave Israeli-only citizen residents in non-Israeli territory?
Editorial - Israel has the upper hand, they are going to have to make the first concession. Palestine being weaker, they won’t give up any of their cards unless they have a guarantee that it will get a concession from Israel.
Consider the current mess - Israel reneges on the deal to release prisoners, with the excuse “when Palestine agrees to extend the talks”. Israel then announces intent to expand the settlements. Palestine retaliates by applying for membership in various treaty organizations, effectively asking for state recogniion. Israel blames Palestine for starting the mess, then insults Kerry for pointing out the obvious.
My obsevation, as a distant and uninvolved Canadian - really, where does Israel expect to be in 50 years? Same as now? Or a Palestinian state that has given up half its territory, still has foreign troops on its eastern borders, did not get Jerusalem or part of it as a capital, and has no right of return or compensation, no mechanism to settle land confiscations of the last half century? Why would the Palestinians every agree to such conditions?
I know, that’s why I said “for understandable reasons” though there are others as well.
Germany does the same thing.
They have people living there for three generations who still aren’t allowed to be German citizens because to do so they’d have to renounce all their other citizenships.
I’d never heard of that. I don’t doubt you (after all Japan had colonized Korea and were doing pretty atrocious thing in Asia generally, and of course this doesn’t justify the internment of Japanese Americans who had nothing to do with Japan for generations) but I don’t see how that is at all like what the Israelis are doing.
I’m guessing you’ve never talked with any Iraqi or Moroccan Jews.
The victims of ethnic cleansing don’t generally believe in turning the other cheek even if anyone was dumb enough to repeat the parable to someone who’s Jewish.
It is to guess you have not either, not for Moroccan Jewish community. They were not expelled. You confuse the history there with that in the Mashrek like Egypt or Iraq where they were. There was not ethnic cleansing in Morocco.
This strikes me as nonsense. Since when does the stonger party in negotiations have to make the first concessions?
Consider what the demands are - that Israel give up its capital city, Jerusalem, or at best to make a Berlin Wall-like division of the city. I can’t think of a single case in which the winners in war have handed over their capital city to the losers, and demanding that just strikes me as defying reality. Jerusalem was divided before, and the experience was terrible for everyone. Divided cities don’t work well.
As for renouncing other citizenships - there are many countries that require that, and in this situation, there are very good reasons for doing so - it is a declaration of loyalty.
Not in the traditional sense but they definitely fled due to persecution and fears of much worse. When a community that’s lived there for centuries drops from around 250,000 to perhaps 20,000 then it’s hard not to argue that they weren’t kicked out.
And yes, that’s how the Moroccan Jews I’ve talked to view it.
Wait a moment. At the time, Korea was part of Japan–and the US recognized it as such, AFAIK. Wouldn’t those Koreans living in the US still have been considered Japanese citizens and also hauled off to the camps?
Well, do they want peace or a perpetual stalemate that perpetuates the difficult state that Israel finds itself in? Israel is “riding a tiger”. They may have the upper hand, but the traditional allies are getting more and more annoyed about their unwillingness to make concessions. (Witness the recent Turkish flotilla to Gaza. Turkey used to be one of their more friendly states.)
Note the recent issue over Palestine applying for membership in the UN and a number of international treaties. the fear in Israel is that the rest of the world wills tart to back up requests for the International Court to prosecute Israelis for war crimes for violating the UN agrements. Note the recent movements to ban or boycott settler-area agricultural output and products in the west. And so on…
As the side with the upper hand, Israel can start with a few good-faith concessions without losing as much. Maybe releasing the prisoners they already promised to release would be a good start? maybe promising to not build any more settlements would be a good start?
Yeah, I seriously don’t expect Israel to give up control of Old Jerusalem completely if at all. In their wildest dreams, I would expect maybe they’d allow an international force to provide security and administration in a joint effort. In my wildest dreams… But, to get the Palestinians to go along with Israel keeping Jerusalem, I would expect they would have to concede on a HUGE number of other areas - like giving back the territory that belongs to the Palestinians from the end of 1948, settle compensation in lieu of right of return, relaxing border controls (which requires the Paelstinians to ensure and insure serious security guarantees and reign in their own dangerous nutbars). Nobody expects to get there overnight.
The Turks have troubles rather closer to home, and that doesn’t look likely to change.
Moreover, Turkish-Israeli relations are troubled by a lot more than the Palestinian issue. Burbling under the surface, as it were, is the issue of exploitation of underseas natural gas, with Israel backing (legitimate) Cyprus and claiming, in essence, all of the find between the two of them - with Turkey backing its invasive outpost on Cyprus and refusing to allow development unless it gets a cut.
The vast majority of Turkish rhetoric is about Palestinians, not Cypriots, but I’m willing to bet that in their heart of hearts, the powers that be in Turkey care a lot more about gas dollars than they do about Palestinians. Particularly as Russia, main gas exporter in the region, is screwing up so badly these days …
Again, recent events demonstrate rather forcefully that the threat of sanctions, let alone concerted action, is highly unlikely to add up to much (something that the Israelis learned rather forcefully way back in 1967, when the UN tamely withdrew its peacekeepers). That lesson was reinforced with interest by the current limp response to Russia grabbing Crimea.
Personally, I think ceasing settlements would be a good idea, whatever the Palestinian position is.
It is highly unlikely that the Israelis would agree to withdraw to 1948 borders. Otherwise, I agree, that would be a good basis for a long-lasting settlement.
Thing is, the Palestinains have little to offer the Israelis (by “offer” I mean barganing chips). Their ability to disrupt Israel with terrorism isn’t as great as it once was. Time was that Israelis relied on Palestinian labour, but not so much any more. Their international support, in terms of local countries, is markedly less - Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq are all in turmoil. International outrage and sanctions? That’s a weak reed.
End of 1948 borders are the start of 1967 borders - pretty much the original borders.
Sanctions can work or not work, depending on your definition. Same with moral outrage. Sanctions certainly haven’t toppled Iran or Saddam but neither Iran nor Iraq were great places to be economically. We can debate what they did or didn’t do for Burma, South Africa, and Rhodesia, but none of those governments - like Iran or Iraq - had any danger of losing to internal foes.
The generation that remembers the holocaust is growing old. The current crop of western idealists is growing up not seeing a reaction to the Final Solution, but a country that refuses to make reasonable cmpromises and appears to be earning the troubles it reaps. We don’t yet have boycotts of banks that lend settlement mortgages, companies that own property on occupied territories, sports team boycotts, cultural boycotts, etc. BUt, it is possibly coming. Suggestions of such actions are often countered with accusations of anti-Semetism; however, as the expression"using the race card" in the USA has shown, sooner or later such counter-arguments lose their efficacy.
the only saving grace in the Israel situation is that it is a real democracy, with a significant bloc that is not so willing to ignore Palestinians. It may be that eventually this faction will get the upper hand and meaningful dialog may result if it is not too late.
It probably depended on their age and when they came over or if they were born in the US. They made a point to distinguish themselves from Japanese Americans.
Sadly it’s been awhile since I read Takaki’s book, which I highly recommend.
Sanctions are always subject to cost-benefit analysis. They work well when (a) they are hard-hitting, (b) they are targeted at some specific bad behaviour the sanctions-imposer wants modified; (c) the costs of appeasing the sanctions-imposers are relatively low, (d) they are concerted.
The problem with imposing sanctions here is that (a) aside from petty and symbolic stuff, there is little appetite in the West for these; (b) what the sanctions-imposers would want is by no means specific (give up Jerusalem? Stop settlements? Withdraw to the 1948 borders? Accept all refugees as citizens of Israel? Pay compensation? Some or all of these?) - the problem being, there is nothing that everyone agrees that the Israelis should do, akin to “dismantling apartheid”; (c) the costs of doing what the sanctions-imposers would want may be very heavy compared with the rewards (is it “worth it” to give up their capital city, pay huge indemnities and move their borders, so that Israeli academics can freely attend conferences on deconstructionism in European universities?); and most significantly (d) in a world in which the Europeans are currently being menaced by the Russian bear (and seemingly unable to reach consensus on what to do about that), imposing sanctions on Israel isn’t a high priority outside of “western idealist” circles - getting consensus for concerted action will be difficult or impossible.
This is why I really do not see momentum as being on the side of the Palestinians here. In fact, never in their history have conditons for them to impose leverage been worse.
Which isn’t at all to say Israel should not make a deal with them. It clearly is in everyone’s interests to do so, and moreover, I think it is morally right. But a deal has to be based on a realistic assessment.
No this is not the case. You are ignorant of the history.
It is not at all the case if one is not ignorant of the history of Morocco. The Maghreb is not like the Mashrek and Morocco has a very different history in its relations with Jewish populations in the 20e century. You are speaking from ignorance and spreading false informations.
Of course millions of Tarifite origins Moroccans went to France and Europe in the same time, is it that they too were ‘kicked out’ or did they go to flee from bad economic situations and poverty when they could get visas?
Morocco never expelled nor did it pressure its Jews to leave, but in fact the government in the 20e century has been very supportive. Popular discrimination in ignorant levels of society has existed but it has always be fought by policy. Jews who have left Morocco have done so mostly for the same reasons that millions and millions of Muslim moroccans and particiluary those of the Berber speakers emigrated in the same period, for much better opportunities outside of Morocco and escape of poverty and some discrimination. But this is not expulsion nor violances nor expropriations and it is offensive to make it seem that the Moroccan case is like Iraq or Egypt which the state committed crimes againts the Jewish citizens.
ETA the last paragraph there is wrong it is by 1971 not 1956 wikipedia
In Morocco Jews from independence to the present have regularly and frequently been elected as parlaimentarians and appointed as royal governors and ministers.
it is not to be denied there are some people who are anti-Jewish and that discrimination has occured but the idea that Jews were expelled or threatened and left Morocco as like what has happened in Iraq and Egypt and other Mashrek countries is false and baseless.
Even now there is a great tourism trade of Moroccan origin jews who vacation and even hotels like the berber owned Idou chain that almost specialises in this.
It is not the view of my Moroccan jewish neighbours or friends either in France or there. So my anecdote to match yours.
Oh, I’m sure they distinguished themselves in such a fashion. What I’m questioning is if the US government did the same. After all, US citizens born in the US who just so happened to be born to citizens of Japan were incarcerated simply based on their ethnicity (actually the citizenship of their parents or grandparents).
Er… yes, I’m very well aware of how the government of Morocco has dramatically differed from others but that hardly means that Moroccan Jews didn’t face quite a large amount of discrimination and hatred from most Moroccans which often erupted into violence.
The Royal family deserves credit for that but that hardly means that the Jews of Morocco didn’t flee to escape persecution or discrimination.
As one Moroccan writer, Said Ghallab, in 1965 put it.
Not surprisingly polls continue to show high levels of anti-Semitism with 88% of all Moroccans saying they had an “unfavorable” attitude towards Jews compared to just 16% of all people in France(a country which while hardly being Hungary has it’s own anti-Semitic problems).
Your own article notes several pogroms which occurred and that the situation got so bad that the King of Morocco felt the need to have proclamations read in Synagogues promising them protection.
Sorry, but when people flee due to pogroms and because they’re afraid of violence and discrimination that’s what’s called “ethnic cleansing”.
Honestly, you don’t intend to, but you’re coming across like the Israeli apologists who insist I shouldn’t use the term “ethnic cleansing” to refer to the Nakba because Jewish community leaders repeatedly implored the Palestinian Arabs not to flee.
As for your suggestion that the Jews fleeing Morocco was no different than Moroccan Arabs leaving for economic opportunities, please.
Your own source claims that 90% of the Jewish population left in less than a decade(an exaggeration) and that it got so bad the King had to prohibit Jews from fleeing to Israel.
The Jewish population of Morocco has shrunk from around 280,000 to less that 2500, most of whom are IIRC over 60.
By contrast between 1960 and today Morocco has gone from a country of 11 million to 33 million.
No, both the Palestinians refugees of the Naqba and the Moroccan Jews of Israel can fairly claim to be the victims of ethnic cleansing who fled persecution and discrimination.
No they did not face often irruptions into violence in modern times. The sole incidents even those pages you find on the internet trying to promote the idea of pan Arab and muslim hatred of Jews cite in Morocco is the incidents in the Algerian frontier cities of Oujda et Djerrada, which occured under the French colonial rule.
To say there was large hatred of Jews across all Moroccans is to push a false image.
Moroccan Jews certainly left to escape discrimination and to find better economic opportunity. There was not persecution, the Sultan and then the Kings barred this.
Yes, I know what page on Jews in Morocco you have copied this English from which also likes to promote the idea of violence and hatred but can only cite to Oujda.
So I can find in French Muslim Moroccans saying also much more positive things. The reality of Morocco is very much more complex than your Mashrek based understanding and pretensions that this is universal. There is both discrimination and appreciation, it is a strange mix but very different in all attitudes from the East - the Mashrek where you get your ideas.
One incident in two cities next to each other under the French. Not several pogroms. No systematic violences and in fact significant protection from the state, ever since the independence and even before when the Imams preached against the vichy rules.
It is of utility to actually use this phrase properly and it will be examined.
It is your ignorance that you have not understood I was not refering to Arabs in Morocco at all, and this highlights that you do not have a profound knowledge of this history.
I refered to the Tarifite and also the massive immigration made in this same time for reasons of economic and cultural discriminations and repression, it illustrates that leaving Morocco in those decades of instability and poverty was not unique.
The majority leave from 1950s to 1970s, the source was incorrect in this. Not in ten years.
it is also a strange claim of ethnic cleansing to say the Moroccan government tried to retain them instead which shows the incoherence and false distortion of the claim.
It is quite known that the Mossad actively promoted the immigration because the Moroccan jewish community was so very large, and they promoted both fears of pogroms based on what the Eastern Arab countries were doing and on promoting Israel as a great economic opportunity among the poor Jewish communities, who as all the sources are telling you are the ones that left to the Israel.
That is incorrect, you confuse Morocco with the Yemen or the Iraq. The Jewish schools of Casablanca are quite full and anyone going to synagogue there will see a wealthy young population.
There is no comparison between the Palestinians and the Moroccan Jews, unlike with the case of most other of the Arabe region Jews, like Iraq or like Egypt:
To confirm the meaning of the phrase you are mistakenly using in the usual know-all fashion
There was no systematic forced removal of the Moroccan jews at all, and in fact the government and the elite of the country wished to retain the community and those who have remained are those who are well placed in the economy.
To put the Moroccan case in the same category as the Iraq or the Egypt is to make a gross exageration and present a historically false image.
To try to say that my presention is like that of the apologists of the expulsion of the Palestinians is distort greatly for in that instance there was organised efforts by what would become part of the Israeli government. There is no such history in Morocco, it is the opposite.
I note that I have not written that Moroccan Jews did not face discrimination and did not have motives to leave, but the history is not ethnic cleansing and not like the Iraq or the Egypt.
[QUOTE]
It is quite known that the Mossad actively promoted the immigration because the Moroccan jewish community was so very large, and they promoted both fears of pogroms based on what the Eastern Arab countries were doing and on promoting Israel as a great economic opportunity among the poor Jewish communities, who as all the sources are telling you are the ones that left to the Israel. [/QUOTE
Ah yes, the Jewish population of Morocco dropped from 280,000 to just a few thousand not due to large scale anti-Semitism in. Morocco but due to “the Mossad”.
Are we next going to hear that pew polls showing how virulently anti-Semitic Morocco is are a result of an “anglophone Jewish conspiracy”?
I also notice that your own source contradicts your claims by pointing out that News started fleeing as soon as Israel was established.
If your source is so unreliable then why did you cite it?