I hadn't before known that Theodore Herzl was an atheist! Oh this is priceless, PRICELESS!
Thanks for such a great list of informative books on such a complex subject. I doubt that I will live long enough to read all of them closely, but I certainly can read a few even considering my tired eyes and aging brain. **LOL**
Please note that just because Herzl was an atheist does not mean that he was not also Jewish. Belief in God is not central to Judaism in the way that it is in Christianity. There is no statement of faith in Judaism comparable to the Nicene Creed. I’m not saying this to defend or deflect from any of Herzl’s actions. He did what he did. Just pointing out that being an atheist does not make him in any way a “fake” Jew.
I wasn't suggesting that Herzl was not Jewish. The irony behind my aforementioned statement is that the propaganda in the West supporting Israel emphasized a re-instatement of Israel as part of Messianic prophecy or a return of the Messiah, essentially an Evangelical Christian POV. Also the romanticism about Israel in such works as Leon Uris' "Exodus" and the related movie with the blued eyed Paul Newman as the lead and Kirk Douglas in "Cast a Giant Shadow" has been received gleefully by the (American) public as part of the politico-social support of Israel.
...where one of most ironic stories is that 'Kirk Douglas' from 'Cast a Giant Shadow' was not 'shot by a confused guard', but actually assassinated by a group of IDF commanders for writing a letter to David Ben Gurion, in which he complained about their incompetence and corruption, plus mass murder and looting by their units..
That's why it's so good to read Green's 'Taking Sides'...
I recently read of the true fate of Aluf Mickey Marcus, but I don't recall the source just now. The tidbits of actual history vs. the romantic dramatizations confirm Mark Twain's famous quote: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't.”
Sorry to belabor the point some more; please indulge me **LOL** . . . but there are some small number of Jews who are anti-Zionist. I recall watching some decades ago on the boob tube (TV) an Orthodox Jew of one of the small Ultra-O sects who declared that the modern state of Israel is in now way Messianic. Nonetheless, I found a website online that discusses anti-Zionism within the Jewish community:
Apparently there are two small sects of Ultra-O Jews, the Neturei Karta and a Hasidic group, the Satmar, who are anti-Zionists. The Satmar in particular do not recognize the State of Israel and say that the Messiah must return first before the messianic state could be revived.
Whatever you do, don't tell the Evangelical Christian community, among whom exist very strong supporters of modern Israel, that there are anti-Zionist Jews in existence. As Captain Renault would say, "I'm shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here."
I can think of no nation on earth that was not founded on a sea of blood.
Last year, in the USA, there was a conference of Jews either opposing or critical of Israel, or Zionism, or something of that kind... can't recall any more.
40,000 people came together. The media didn't report a single word.
Anyway... my point is not pro or contra this or that, but about facts. Fact is: that the 'standard' argumentation 'pro Israel' stands no proof whatsoever. It's entirely unsubstantiated. Equal to consciously and intentionally lying to ourselves.
And that's not all. Supporting an ongoing genocide in the 21st Century is nothing but a shame, completely discrediting the notion of 'civilised West'.
If we are acting that way, we've got absolutely no right to explain anything to anybody, no matter where on this planet, and we've got no right to complain - for example - about such acts like Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Okay, Tom. You've gathered information (hopefully from more than one perspective) , thought about it and critically evaluated it in good faith,( I offer you the benefit of the doubt) and reached your conclusions. You are therefore entitled to your opinion and say it in public. I respect that.
But what do we do now? By 'we' I mean those of us who want to see some kind of nonviolent solution at least roughly in line with international law and human rights for everyone involved?
I am hopeful that generational change in the US (euphemism for the dying off of the baby boomers and the growth of a nonwhite majority) will lead to positive changes. Could a less one-sided US policy could finally bring peace? Kamala Harris calling for a Palestinian state at the Democratic convention was a very hopeful moment and a sign of new Arab American political leverage.
Oh, I've got no problem to agree: my conclusions are 'one-sided'. Because I know no Arab historians offering similar quality of information, and all the Israeli authors listed above are in agreement that Zionism not only stole Palestine, but is based on little else but a pile of lies.
Re. what do we do now to find a peaceful solution: stop gauging and guessing on basis of racist and religious prejudice, and grant everybody exactly the same rights and privileges.
And, re. Harris: I do not expect anything useful from her. Although that's kind of 'unrelated', alone gauging by the fact her program is stipulating further decrease in taxation of super-rich (that's where I grew fed up of reading it) is indicative of same dilettantism that is characterising the US foreign policy at least since Nixon (if not since Kennedy). With other words: her babbling about a Palestinian state is just the usual hogwash. Nothing of that kind would ever be necessary if everybody there in the Middle East is granted exactly the same rights.
"...stipulating further decrease in taxation of super-rich...."
Ironically, Kamala Harris' campaign TV commercials have her supposedly addressing the rich by saying angrily that they have to pay their fair share of taxes. Ho hum. OK, yes. Sure! Politician bloviating. Nothing new here.
Tom, please do better. 'Better' in the sense of a more specific answer and one with a goal in mind.
What does 'stop gauging and guessing on basis of racist and religious prejudice' specifically entail? That's guidance on what not to do, but vague to the point of unhelpfulness in regards of what *to* do.
A one state solution (and with what kind of state)? A two state solution (ditto)? Three or more states? A zero state solution (Put the whole area under UN or some international administration, say?) Some hybrid (Egypt administers Gaza, Jordan administers West Bank)? Complete ethnic cleansing of one side or the other (which one to cleanse is in the eye of the beholder)?
This is fundamentally a political problem about distribution of land and resources. What political solution do you propose and how to get there? Politics is the art of the possible, so please suggest something possible and with a feasible route to implementation.
I'm genuinely interested in your proposals. Thanks.
No solution. As I see it the whole case is more or less about an absolute failure in triggering the next widespread Arab-Israeli conflict: everybody (Iran excluded) is 'happy' to see Israel bashing up Iranian sockpuppets all around instead.
With that any chance for any 'Palestine' with Iranian support (not like Hamas was ever about that, though: providing such trigger to these events is a clear evidence for that) gone and with only a so mauled 'independent' Palestinian authority left they are just fish on the chopping block.
Face it: for good or bad, Israel is established by now, and most of their neighbors accepted that political reality and acts accordingly. Got the news about preaching for Palestine got banned in SA? I expect more states to follow the example. No more 'Arabs' for this case.
If you needed a clue that humanity did not learn a damn thing from history and we are exactly just like before, then you just got one.
I want to see the UNSC passing a resolution and assembling a army to destroy the nuclear stockpile and nuclear forces, and the establishing a "no fly zone" from Rafah to Beirut.
And a sea blockade to forbid any country tl receive ammo and military supplies.
And bomb the hell out of any unit that bombard civilians gathered in a place.
But that's not going to happen, so we are going to see increasing military expending, preparations and wars in the next ten years from now, as the UN dissolves (more, it if is possible).
Just one question, that seems to matter here: you say that Palestine was densely populated, but what i have come across few times is that i was not that densely populated and jews accounted to as much as 17% of the population?
Otoman records say half a million, cenzus 1931 is one million total…
No, you stated that at the time of zionist movement initiative, Palestine was “densely populated land” and not “land without people”.
These records, if true, show that it was not densely populated and not empty either. As Western “architects” draw other middle eastern states that still exist today in one or another form , so they did for Izrael a bit later. And east European just before that.
None of that warrants deportatiins and mass killings, of course.
Is there a way out from Current situation- aftwr Netanyahu is gone?
There is, but it would require from all parties going through the process the Poles, the Ukrainians etc went through after 1945: accept the borders have moved, accept you live where you live now, you won't go back to your grandfather's farm, but you have your own state and you focus on developing it. Obvsl that requires genuine Palestinian statehood, and a lot of money being spent on recompensation.
they (you?) don't wan't to face the reality of what the poles did to the minorities in the 1930s and keep demanding Ukraine to rewrite its history. Sadly, Poland will block Ukraine on our way to NATO/EU because of its internal insecurities. This is what I mean by saying that the poles didn't move on.
Discussing our victimhood is a key topic in Polish national culture, so there is no chance it will vanish in the predictable future. As long as Polish school teaches Polish literature with the texts of Mickiewicz and Slowacki, victimhood will always be part of our national spirit.
However, the "accept the borders have moved, accept you live where you live now, you won't go back to your grandfather's farm, but you have your own state and you focus on developing it" is simply ingrained in Polish thinking, and questioning would immediately out one as a Soviet asset.
Also, see the official Eastern Policy of Republic of Poland
And of course I do not think that Ottoman empire existed in 1931, i just mentioned two cenzus figures from the past, both at least 10 times lower than the population in that area today (both jews and arabs)
"the Ottoman Empire was a rapidly developing constitutional monarchy with free elections and self-governance, run by a cosmopolitan meritocracy"
is just a minor point, wasn't the rapidly developing, free and constitutional Ottoman empire conducting a major massacre of Armenians once every few years, culminating in what happened after 1915, with Greeks and Assyrians slapped on as well for good measure?
It's a fact that the Brits and French made a string of deals with everyone and then proceeded to screw them all, but the Ottomans had hardly been humanitarians either.
Not sure there was one every few years - at least not in the 19th Century: actually, the Ottomans considered Armenians 'their most loyal non-Muslim subjects'.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was the actual reason for specific Ottoman commanders to become as beasty in handling Armenians during the First World War, though. Even more so because by the time the Empire was full of millions of refugees from Europe - all survivors of what the Russians, Bulgarians, Serbs, etc. were doing to European Muslims between around 1860 and 1914, (Except, of course, you would like to explain all the millions of 'Turks' that used to live in the Balkans and along the western coast of the Black Sea 'miraculously vanished'...)
I'm talking about the last few decades of the empire, when it was already modernizing in other aspects. Abdul Hamid instigated a few of these in the 1890s. The Young Turks performed another one in Adana, 1909. Casualties were in the hundreds of thousands in total. I understand that Muslims were being expelled from the Balkans in droves, that Greece was doing its own salami slicing of Ottoman territory, that Russia was eyeing the capital and pushing forward in the Caucasus where local Armenians asked for their protection (upper-class Armenians of Istanbul were well-integrated into the empire - poor rural Armenians would suffer frequent abuse as infidels), but still, it was genocide. And what happened in 1915 was not up to local commanders, but happily overseen by the authorities of the time, ie. Enver and Talaat. Even if they really were about only "moving problematic population out of the conflict zone, leading to unfortunate collateral damage", they would still be in the same league with Stalin.
True, however this was a direct result of a war that Turkey was pushed, dragged into. That they still deny this happened is embarrassing, but understandable, see: genocide and Native Americans.
This was a pan-Balkan exercite în genocide. The Greeks started it în 1830 by killing any Turk man, woman and children they could put their hands on. The Turks retaliated but the Turkish population în Greek state was gone by 1840. All Balkan states took detailed notice. The Bulgarians expelled (and killed) Turks, Greeks and Serbs. Serbia did the same with Turks and Bulgarians. This was before The Armenian genocid. România got into diplomatic agreements to relocate Vlah population near the Black Sea. It still ran a blood feud with Bulgaria over a piece of land and each side slaughtered civilians.
Telling the Israelis "you are a made up people" makes just as much sense as Putin telling the same to the Ukrainians (or some Jewish extremist nationalists claiming that Palestinians are a "made up people"), and will be received with the same, justified, derision.
Wrong address. Please, go and tell that to Sand, Pappe and others drawing such and similar conclusions based on decades of research and thousands of documents.
I'm sure that your beliefs are going to promptly convince them they're entirely wrong.
I'm not disputing the basis on which they made these conclusions. I'm just saying that the conclusion is worthless / irrelevant.
Every nation is just as real as long as it is ready to fight for its right to exist. And the Israelis are more than ready. The fine details of the history of the Zionist movement are completely irrelevant to the Israel's right to exist, just as the fine details of the history of the Palestinian national movement are irrelevant to their right to their own state.
That's why it's right to explain that the 'Israelis' have the 'historic right to Palestine as their homeland' and support Israeli aggression on neighbours and a genocide on the native population.
I'm not supporting it. Neither do I support the Hamas terrorism. I'm just saying that history isn't the tool to solve this conflict. Respect of international law and principles of national self-sovereignty are.
The history is the tool. Because it's teaching one that the natives can live peacefully next to each other - if only left at their own device, instead of being subjected to another colonial experiment conducted by foreigners.
Firstly, that's not really the history of the Middle East under the Ottomans (who were also "foreigners" in Palestine).
Secondly, this is irrelevant because you can't turn back the clock. Just like you can't turn back the clock in Eastern Europe and reverse the post-WW2 population transfers. And the key to Germany, Czechia, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine living in peace with each other was the acceptance of that.
"..the natives can live peacefully next to each other - if only left at their own device..."
I wonder how does the thwarting of the accomplishments of the Arafat kind of Palestinian statehood by Iranian influence (which then led to the apparent abandonment by the Arab League) counts?
I see the truths in your point but I can't see the necessity to stop at the 'West' only.
Thank you for this history lesson. I must say I am impressed by your reading ability. I obviously need to read more on this myself. I think this is very useful to know, and first and foremost as you say to stop lying to ourselves. And also stop meddling. Which is damned hard. Btw, your reputation will survive.
That ancient kingdom of Israel was established a bit over 3000 years ago and utterly destroyed at least twice, the last time almost 2000 years ago. I wouldn't call modern Israel's connection to them a lie - there is a degree of obvious cultural continuity - , but it's indirect at best.
Canaanite / Aramaic habitation of the region is of course much older, but practically any group around can claim descent of those.
The only thing that matters is the fact that only 4% of locals were Jews before the start of Zionist colonisation. If you want to redraw maps according to which groups lived where 5000 years ago, you probably need to leave your house and city… as Israeli have forced Palestinians to do
Yes, and they did so together with other people, confirmed as living there for 14,000 years.
As confirmed by the fact that the Persians called _all_ of them the 'Jehud' - which the Zionists conveniently misinterpreted into 'Jews', in order to explain that only the Jews were living there.
People are mad like: « if you don’t support the Eastern European power with nuclear weapons attacking and occupying its neighbours in the name of defence, why don’t you support the Middle Eastern power with nuclear weapons attacking and occupying its neighbours??? »
People can’t see to see the blatant double standards
Yes, I see that some people are really crazy because they don't see cause and effect. Well, accordingly, they cannot make the right conclusions for themselves. All these Middle Eastern topics have nothing to do with Ukraine's conflict with Russia. There they have their own separate game, which has its own historical background, reasons and confrontations. By the way, about double standards: do you consider Iran's occupation of the territory of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to be an occupation or not? I hope you will not argue with the fact that the parliament of Iraq is in the hands of Shiites, who are puppets of Iran? The same goes for what is left of Syria and Lebanon. By the way, it was the USA and the idiot Obama that helped the Shiites to hold power there and fight ISIS and the Sunnis who opposed Iran's plans in all these territories. That's why it's funny to me now to watch for you how the USA, having created such a problem, is trying to save Israel. Iran's goal is to destroy Israel. This is clearly stated in their constitution. Accordingly, Iran uses its proxy forces in all these countries to carry out its plans. Give me at least one reason why I, as a citizen of Ukraine, should support Lebanon or Palestine, which fulfill the will of Iran, which in turn is helped by China, because the entire economy of Iran is in the hands of the Chinese, which provides weapons that kill Ukrainians?
By the way, if you didn't know, China is behind Iran and Russia. It is very profitable for China to use such regimes as North Korean, Russian and Iranian as irritants in order to destroy the existing world order and impose its Chinese order economically or by force. It is very profitable for China to humiliate and destroy the remnants of the West's authority in the world. China also receives cheap energy resources for its economy from these countries for loans. These countries are simply a gift from heaven for China and the Chinese are using it very skillfully.
This is also a good read - The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World's Most Dangerous Terrorist Power. Interesting info on the Shah's relationship with Israel.
Strange that those greedy commercial sods have left the oil price to remain at such a low level today and are not using Middle East war fears to drive up the prices, currently around 20% lower than a year ago.
Eran Elhaik is an Israeli and American genetics. He proved that Jews don't have Semitic origin, but Jews are Turkic people. So Jews and Arabs haven't family ties, but Jews and Armenians, Turkish, Azeri and many other Turkic people have. It's not the history science with information which everyone could turn in his way, it's the genetic science with information in DNA. I admit that it's hard to understand if you believe that Jews are Semitic people. BTW if the adjective 'Semitic' doesn't refer to Jews, the adjective 'antisemitic' doesn't refer to Jews too. You can't be antisemitic if you're talking about Jews, but you're antisemitic if you're talking about Arabs.
For the Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking audience of this blog, there is a good historical analysis of this matter on YouTube. Zionism and the emergence of modern Israel https://youtu.be/mAgKw__y88I?si=G9Sc-AXgyGKW4pa3
It mentions everything that Tom talked about. In short, the Jews gradually migrated to Palestine, consistently and methodically bought up land, displaced the Arabs, engaged in ethnic cleansing, terror and genocide in order to consolidate their scraps of territory into something coherent. They very skillfully used the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, the USA, France and everyone around them to achieve their goal and build their own state.
Yes, and this is also another side of the truth. The Jews clearly and consistently, by their own forces and the forces of the diaspora, managed to take advantage of their chance to build a normal, technologically developed state. The Jewish diaspora around the world and the oligarchy are also very effective in lobbying for Israel's interests in the world.
....have requested you to stop trolling... sigh...
I hadn't before known that Theodore Herzl was an atheist! Oh this is priceless, PRICELESS!
Thanks for such a great list of informative books on such a complex subject. I doubt that I will live long enough to read all of them closely, but I certainly can read a few even considering my tired eyes and aging brain. **LOL**
Stop trolling.
Please note that just because Herzl was an atheist does not mean that he was not also Jewish. Belief in God is not central to Judaism in the way that it is in Christianity. There is no statement of faith in Judaism comparable to the Nicene Creed. I’m not saying this to defend or deflect from any of Herzl’s actions. He did what he did. Just pointing out that being an atheist does not make him in any way a “fake” Jew.
I wasn't suggesting that Herzl was not Jewish. The irony behind my aforementioned statement is that the propaganda in the West supporting Israel emphasized a re-instatement of Israel as part of Messianic prophecy or a return of the Messiah, essentially an Evangelical Christian POV. Also the romanticism about Israel in such works as Leon Uris' "Exodus" and the related movie with the blued eyed Paul Newman as the lead and Kirk Douglas in "Cast a Giant Shadow" has been received gleefully by the (American) public as part of the politico-social support of Israel.
...where one of most ironic stories is that 'Kirk Douglas' from 'Cast a Giant Shadow' was not 'shot by a confused guard', but actually assassinated by a group of IDF commanders for writing a letter to David Ben Gurion, in which he complained about their incompetence and corruption, plus mass murder and looting by their units..
That's why it's so good to read Green's 'Taking Sides'...
I recently read of the true fate of Aluf Mickey Marcus, but I don't recall the source just now. The tidbits of actual history vs. the romantic dramatizations confirm Mark Twain's famous quote: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't.”
Indeed. According to Pappe, wast majority of Zionists are non-religious.
However, 85% of them are firmly convinced 'God granted them the Land of Palestine'.
Thanks to Herzl.
An atheist...
Makes helluva lots of sense for all those supporting Israel for religious reasons, so I'm sure...
Sorry to belabor the point some more; please indulge me **LOL** . . . but there are some small number of Jews who are anti-Zionist. I recall watching some decades ago on the boob tube (TV) an Orthodox Jew of one of the small Ultra-O sects who declared that the modern state of Israel is in now way Messianic. Nonetheless, I found a website online that discusses anti-Zionism within the Jewish community:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/anti-zionism-among-jews#:~:text=of%20Jewish%20statehood.-,Ultra%2DOrthodox%20Jews,Zionist%20Hasidic%20sect%20of%20Judaism.
Apparently there are two small sects of Ultra-O Jews, the Neturei Karta and a Hasidic group, the Satmar, who are anti-Zionists. The Satmar in particular do not recognize the State of Israel and say that the Messiah must return first before the messianic state could be revived.
Whatever you do, don't tell the Evangelical Christian community, among whom exist very strong supporters of modern Israel, that there are anti-Zionist Jews in existence. As Captain Renault would say, "I'm shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here."
I can think of no nation on earth that was not founded on a sea of blood.
Last year, in the USA, there was a conference of Jews either opposing or critical of Israel, or Zionism, or something of that kind... can't recall any more.
40,000 people came together. The media didn't report a single word.
Anyway... my point is not pro or contra this or that, but about facts. Fact is: that the 'standard' argumentation 'pro Israel' stands no proof whatsoever. It's entirely unsubstantiated. Equal to consciously and intentionally lying to ourselves.
And that's not all. Supporting an ongoing genocide in the 21st Century is nothing but a shame, completely discrediting the notion of 'civilised West'.
If we are acting that way, we've got absolutely no right to explain anything to anybody, no matter where on this planet, and we've got no right to complain - for example - about such acts like Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Okay, Tom. You've gathered information (hopefully from more than one perspective) , thought about it and critically evaluated it in good faith,( I offer you the benefit of the doubt) and reached your conclusions. You are therefore entitled to your opinion and say it in public. I respect that.
But what do we do now? By 'we' I mean those of us who want to see some kind of nonviolent solution at least roughly in line with international law and human rights for everyone involved?
I am hopeful that generational change in the US (euphemism for the dying off of the baby boomers and the growth of a nonwhite majority) will lead to positive changes. Could a less one-sided US policy could finally bring peace? Kamala Harris calling for a Palestinian state at the Democratic convention was a very hopeful moment and a sign of new Arab American political leverage.
Oh, I've got no problem to agree: my conclusions are 'one-sided'. Because I know no Arab historians offering similar quality of information, and all the Israeli authors listed above are in agreement that Zionism not only stole Palestine, but is based on little else but a pile of lies.
Re. what do we do now to find a peaceful solution: stop gauging and guessing on basis of racist and religious prejudice, and grant everybody exactly the same rights and privileges.
And, re. Harris: I do not expect anything useful from her. Although that's kind of 'unrelated', alone gauging by the fact her program is stipulating further decrease in taxation of super-rich (that's where I grew fed up of reading it) is indicative of same dilettantism that is characterising the US foreign policy at least since Nixon (if not since Kennedy). With other words: her babbling about a Palestinian state is just the usual hogwash. Nothing of that kind would ever be necessary if everybody there in the Middle East is granted exactly the same rights.
"...stipulating further decrease in taxation of super-rich...."
Ironically, Kamala Harris' campaign TV commercials have her supposedly addressing the rich by saying angrily that they have to pay their fair share of taxes. Ho hum. OK, yes. Sure! Politician bloviating. Nothing new here.
Tom, please do better. 'Better' in the sense of a more specific answer and one with a goal in mind.
What does 'stop gauging and guessing on basis of racist and religious prejudice' specifically entail? That's guidance on what not to do, but vague to the point of unhelpfulness in regards of what *to* do.
A one state solution (and with what kind of state)? A two state solution (ditto)? Three or more states? A zero state solution (Put the whole area under UN or some international administration, say?) Some hybrid (Egypt administers Gaza, Jordan administers West Bank)? Complete ethnic cleansing of one side or the other (which one to cleanse is in the eye of the beholder)?
This is fundamentally a political problem about distribution of land and resources. What political solution do you propose and how to get there? Politics is the art of the possible, so please suggest something possible and with a feasible route to implementation.
I'm genuinely interested in your proposals. Thanks.
Check the latest feature ('Doctrinal Revisions'). It explains also why do I not intend to do it 'better'.
No solution. As I see it the whole case is more or less about an absolute failure in triggering the next widespread Arab-Israeli conflict: everybody (Iran excluded) is 'happy' to see Israel bashing up Iranian sockpuppets all around instead.
With that any chance for any 'Palestine' with Iranian support (not like Hamas was ever about that, though: providing such trigger to these events is a clear evidence for that) gone and with only a so mauled 'independent' Palestinian authority left they are just fish on the chopping block.
Face it: for good or bad, Israel is established by now, and most of their neighbors accepted that political reality and acts accordingly. Got the news about preaching for Palestine got banned in SA? I expect more states to follow the example. No more 'Arabs' for this case.
If you needed a clue that humanity did not learn a damn thing from history and we are exactly just like before, then you just got one.
Iran excluded - but IRGC included.
It might help if we stopped providing military support and instead applied sanctions similar to those on Russia.
I want to see the UNSC passing a resolution and assembling a army to destroy the nuclear stockpile and nuclear forces, and the establishing a "no fly zone" from Rafah to Beirut.
And a sea blockade to forbid any country tl receive ammo and military supplies.
And bomb the hell out of any unit that bombard civilians gathered in a place.
But that's not going to happen, so we are going to see increasing military expending, preparations and wars in the next ten years from now, as the UN dissolves (more, it if is possible).
Well, you are not antisemitic as you complain about all mass murder the same, e.g. Syria.
There are just plenty of antisemites that are only complaining when Israel is killing Muslims, but don't care when Muslims slaughter Muslims.
Problem is, your stance is, though to my mind the right humanitarian one, a tiny minority.
Thank you Tom.
Just one question, that seems to matter here: you say that Palestine was densely populated, but what i have come across few times is that i was not that densely populated and jews accounted to as much as 17% of the population?
Otoman records say half a million, cenzus 1931 is one million total…
https://israeled.org/resources/documents/census-of-palestine-1931-an-invaluable-glimpse-at-palestines-population/
Sorry but: except you think the Ottoman Empire was still existent as of 1931, where's the question?
You can't understand they've stuffed ever more people into ever less space?
Recommendation: visit Hong Kong. I think you would be amazed to see what's possible in that regards.
Sigh... I've warned about trolling, and said there will be no further warnings... 🙄
No, you stated that at the time of zionist movement initiative, Palestine was “densely populated land” and not “land without people”.
These records, if true, show that it was not densely populated and not empty either. As Western “architects” draw other middle eastern states that still exist today in one or another form , so they did for Izrael a bit later. And east European just before that.
None of that warrants deportatiins and mass killings, of course.
Is there a way out from Current situation- aftwr Netanyahu is gone?
There is, but it would require from all parties going through the process the Poles, the Ukrainians etc went through after 1945: accept the borders have moved, accept you live where you live now, you won't go back to your grandfather's farm, but you have your own state and you focus on developing it. Obvsl that requires genuine Palestinian statehood, and a lot of money being spent on recompensation.
Except the Poles didn't move on and keep playing the victimhood card
Lol, what?
they (you?) don't wan't to face the reality of what the poles did to the minorities in the 1930s and keep demanding Ukraine to rewrite its history. Sadly, Poland will block Ukraine on our way to NATO/EU because of its internal insecurities. This is what I mean by saying that the poles didn't move on.
Discussing our victimhood is a key topic in Polish national culture, so there is no chance it will vanish in the predictable future. As long as Polish school teaches Polish literature with the texts of Mickiewicz and Slowacki, victimhood will always be part of our national spirit.
However, the "accept the borders have moved, accept you live where you live now, you won't go back to your grandfather's farm, but you have your own state and you focus on developing it" is simply ingrained in Polish thinking, and questioning would immediately out one as a Soviet asset.
Also, see the official Eastern Policy of Republic of Poland
https://www.gov.pl/web/diplomacy/eastern-policy
and Giedroyc doctrine, formulated in 1970s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giedroyc_Doctrine
We definitely moved on.
And of course I do not think that Ottoman empire existed in 1931, i just mentioned two cenzus figures from the past, both at least 10 times lower than the population in that area today (both jews and arabs)
Thank you, Tom. As your reading list suggests, the history is incredibly fractured. I now need to extend my reading list (again)!
Thanks for the post, highly interesting.
However, while this:
"the Ottoman Empire was a rapidly developing constitutional monarchy with free elections and self-governance, run by a cosmopolitan meritocracy"
is just a minor point, wasn't the rapidly developing, free and constitutional Ottoman empire conducting a major massacre of Armenians once every few years, culminating in what happened after 1915, with Greeks and Assyrians slapped on as well for good measure?
It's a fact that the Brits and French made a string of deals with everyone and then proceeded to screw them all, but the Ottomans had hardly been humanitarians either.
I doubt this rosy view of the Ottoman Empire is shared by many in the Balkans, for example...
Of course it is not. The contemporary Russian PRBS took care to replace the reality by mythology.
Not sure there was one every few years - at least not in the 19th Century: actually, the Ottomans considered Armenians 'their most loyal non-Muslim subjects'.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was the actual reason for specific Ottoman commanders to become as beasty in handling Armenians during the First World War, though. Even more so because by the time the Empire was full of millions of refugees from Europe - all survivors of what the Russians, Bulgarians, Serbs, etc. were doing to European Muslims between around 1860 and 1914, (Except, of course, you would like to explain all the millions of 'Turks' that used to live in the Balkans and along the western coast of the Black Sea 'miraculously vanished'...)
I'm talking about the last few decades of the empire, when it was already modernizing in other aspects. Abdul Hamid instigated a few of these in the 1890s. The Young Turks performed another one in Adana, 1909. Casualties were in the hundreds of thousands in total. I understand that Muslims were being expelled from the Balkans in droves, that Greece was doing its own salami slicing of Ottoman territory, that Russia was eyeing the capital and pushing forward in the Caucasus where local Armenians asked for their protection (upper-class Armenians of Istanbul were well-integrated into the empire - poor rural Armenians would suffer frequent abuse as infidels), but still, it was genocide. And what happened in 1915 was not up to local commanders, but happily overseen by the authorities of the time, ie. Enver and Talaat. Even if they really were about only "moving problematic population out of the conflict zone, leading to unfortunate collateral damage", they would still be in the same league with Stalin.
True, however this was a direct result of a war that Turkey was pushed, dragged into. That they still deny this happened is embarrassing, but understandable, see: genocide and Native Americans.
This was a pan-Balkan exercite în genocide. The Greeks started it în 1830 by killing any Turk man, woman and children they could put their hands on. The Turks retaliated but the Turkish population în Greek state was gone by 1840. All Balkan states took detailed notice. The Bulgarians expelled (and killed) Turks, Greeks and Serbs. Serbia did the same with Turks and Bulgarians. This was before The Armenian genocid. România got into diplomatic agreements to relocate Vlah population near the Black Sea. It still ran a blood feud with Bulgaria over a piece of land and each side slaughtered civilians.
Not to mention the ongoing Circassian, etc genocide by the Russian Empire in the Caucasus.
Telling the Israelis "you are a made up people" makes just as much sense as Putin telling the same to the Ukrainians (or some Jewish extremist nationalists claiming that Palestinians are a "made up people"), and will be received with the same, justified, derision.
Wrong address. Please, go and tell that to Sand, Pappe and others drawing such and similar conclusions based on decades of research and thousands of documents.
I'm sure that your beliefs are going to promptly convince them they're entirely wrong.
I'm not disputing the basis on which they made these conclusions. I'm just saying that the conclusion is worthless / irrelevant.
Every nation is just as real as long as it is ready to fight for its right to exist. And the Israelis are more than ready. The fine details of the history of the Zionist movement are completely irrelevant to the Israel's right to exist, just as the fine details of the history of the Palestinian national movement are irrelevant to their right to their own state.
Yup. Historic facts are entirely irrelevant.
That's why it's right to explain that the 'Israelis' have the 'historic right to Palestine as their homeland' and support Israeli aggression on neighbours and a genocide on the native population.
I'm not supporting it. Neither do I support the Hamas terrorism. I'm just saying that history isn't the tool to solve this conflict. Respect of international law and principles of national self-sovereignty are.
The history is the tool. Because it's teaching one that the natives can live peacefully next to each other - if only left at their own device, instead of being subjected to another colonial experiment conducted by foreigners.
Firstly, that's not really the history of the Middle East under the Ottomans (who were also "foreigners" in Palestine).
Secondly, this is irrelevant because you can't turn back the clock. Just like you can't turn back the clock in Eastern Europe and reverse the post-WW2 population transfers. And the key to Germany, Czechia, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine living in peace with each other was the acceptance of that.
"..the natives can live peacefully next to each other - if only left at their own device..."
I wonder how does the thwarting of the accomplishments of the Arafat kind of Palestinian statehood by Iranian influence (which then led to the apparent abandonment by the Arab League) counts?
I see the truths in your point but I can't see the necessity to stop at the 'West' only.
So you support the UN borders of 1947??
Just as strongly as I support the 1939 borders of Poland.
Thank you for this history lesson. I must say I am impressed by your reading ability. I obviously need to read more on this myself. I think this is very useful to know, and first and foremost as you say to stop lying to ourselves. And also stop meddling. Which is damned hard. Btw, your reputation will survive.
Its just that the "made-up people of Israel" have been living there for 5000 years.
That ancient kingdom of Israel was established a bit over 3000 years ago and utterly destroyed at least twice, the last time almost 2000 years ago. I wouldn't call modern Israel's connection to them a lie - there is a degree of obvious cultural continuity - , but it's indirect at best.
Canaanite / Aramaic habitation of the region is of course much older, but practically any group around can claim descent of those.
The only thing that matters is the fact that only 4% of locals were Jews before the start of Zionist colonisation. If you want to redraw maps according to which groups lived where 5000 years ago, you probably need to leave your house and city… as Israeli have forced Palestinians to do
Yes, and they did so together with other people, confirmed as living there for 14,000 years.
As confirmed by the fact that the Persians called _all_ of them the 'Jehud' - which the Zionists conveniently misinterpreted into 'Jews', in order to explain that only the Jews were living there.
Delightful little history lesson with the bonus of some reading homework. I will keep this.
People are mad like: « if you don’t support the Eastern European power with nuclear weapons attacking and occupying its neighbours in the name of defence, why don’t you support the Middle Eastern power with nuclear weapons attacking and occupying its neighbours??? »
People can’t see to see the blatant double standards
Indeed, the best of all are Ukrainians cheering the Israeli onslaught on Lebanon with, 'Israel is going to enforce the UNSC Resolution 1701'.
....and, who is going to enforce the UN Resolution 181?
...and if nobody is ready to do that, then why shall we then support Ukraine?
Yes, I see that some people are really crazy because they don't see cause and effect. Well, accordingly, they cannot make the right conclusions for themselves. All these Middle Eastern topics have nothing to do with Ukraine's conflict with Russia. There they have their own separate game, which has its own historical background, reasons and confrontations. By the way, about double standards: do you consider Iran's occupation of the territory of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to be an occupation or not? I hope you will not argue with the fact that the parliament of Iraq is in the hands of Shiites, who are puppets of Iran? The same goes for what is left of Syria and Lebanon. By the way, it was the USA and the idiot Obama that helped the Shiites to hold power there and fight ISIS and the Sunnis who opposed Iran's plans in all these territories. That's why it's funny to me now to watch for you how the USA, having created such a problem, is trying to save Israel. Iran's goal is to destroy Israel. This is clearly stated in their constitution. Accordingly, Iran uses its proxy forces in all these countries to carry out its plans. Give me at least one reason why I, as a citizen of Ukraine, should support Lebanon or Palestine, which fulfill the will of Iran, which in turn is helped by China, because the entire economy of Iran is in the hands of the Chinese, which provides weapons that kill Ukrainians?
By the way, if you didn't know, China is behind Iran and Russia. It is very profitable for China to use such regimes as North Korean, Russian and Iranian as irritants in order to destroy the existing world order and impose its Chinese order economically or by force. It is very profitable for China to humiliate and destroy the remnants of the West's authority in the world. China also receives cheap energy resources for its economy from these countries for loans. These countries are simply a gift from heaven for China and the Chinese are using it very skillfully.
This is also a good read - The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World's Most Dangerous Terrorist Power. Interesting info on the Shah's relationship with Israel.
Yup. Wanted to add that book (by Bergman), but haven't found a suitable spot.
Beautifully summarized. I am glad to see mention of Deir Yassin, which most people have not heard of.
True, but it is one of the least known.
Strange that those greedy commercial sods have left the oil price to remain at such a low level today and are not using Middle East war fears to drive up the prices, currently around 20% lower than a year ago.
Eran Elhaik is an Israeli and American genetics. He proved that Jews don't have Semitic origin, but Jews are Turkic people. So Jews and Arabs haven't family ties, but Jews and Armenians, Turkish, Azeri and many other Turkic people have. It's not the history science with information which everyone could turn in his way, it's the genetic science with information in DNA. I admit that it's hard to understand if you believe that Jews are Semitic people. BTW if the adjective 'Semitic' doesn't refer to Jews, the adjective 'antisemitic' doesn't refer to Jews too. You can't be antisemitic if you're talking about Jews, but you're antisemitic if you're talking about Arabs.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=B19w0l4AAAAJ&hl=en
Elhaik did not prove what you claim.
From your link "Genetic studies attempting to infer the ancestry of European Jews yielded inconsistent results."
Please, study closely his publications and science searches. You can read not only headlines but full-texts entire. His works in public access.
For the Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking audience of this blog, there is a good historical analysis of this matter on YouTube. Zionism and the emergence of modern Israel https://youtu.be/mAgKw__y88I?si=G9Sc-AXgyGKW4pa3
It mentions everything that Tom talked about. In short, the Jews gradually migrated to Palestine, consistently and methodically bought up land, displaced the Arabs, engaged in ethnic cleansing, terror and genocide in order to consolidate their scraps of territory into something coherent. They very skillfully used the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, the USA, France and everyone around them to achieve their goal and build their own state.
Yes, and this is also another side of the truth. The Jews clearly and consistently, by their own forces and the forces of the diaspora, managed to take advantage of their chance to build a normal, technologically developed state. The Jewish diaspora around the world and the oligarchy are also very effective in lobbying for Israel's interests in the world.