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Remembering the Nakba

T

tangentlama

Nameless voices crying
Sandy Tolan, who has served as an oral history consultant to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and produced dozens of documentaries for NPR as well as authoring "The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East" (Bloomsbury, 2006), introduces this important commemorative event better than I can. His full article is worth reading. I've only published a small portion of it below.
Sandy Tolan said:
A Case of Never Again Gone Mad

The Nakba is so little known in the west, and its central narrative so contrary to the familiar "Uris history," that I went to extraordinary lengths in my book to document it. My source notes alone come to 30,000 words. My most compelling sources on the expulsions for Western readers will be the Israelis themselves. Rabin, in his memoir, described how in the critical days of mid-July 1948, he asked Ben-Gurion what to do with the civilian population of Ramla and Lydda, and that the prime minister had "waved his hand in a gesture which said, 'Drive them out!'"

Yigal Allon, writing in the journal of the Palmach in July 1948, described the military advantages of the mass expulsions: Driving out the citizens of Ramla and Lydda would alleviate the pressure from an armed and hostile population, while clogging the roads toward the Arab Legion front, seriously hampering any effort to retake the towns. Allon also described in detail the psychological operations whereby local kibbutz leaders would "whisper in the ears of some Arabs, that a great Jewish reinforcement has arrived," and that "they should suggest to these Arabs, as their friends, to escape while there is still time… The tactic reached its goal completely

The refugees from Ramla and Lydda arrived in exile, transforming the Christian hill town of Ramallah into a repository of misery and trauma. One hundred thousand refugees crowded into school yards, gymnasiums, convents, army barracks, or slept in olive groves, caves, corrals, barnyards, and on open ground along the roadsides. They would, in the end, join more than 600,000 other refugees to form an ever growing, ever more desperate Palestinian diaspora.

In the coming years, the rage, humiliation, loss, and longing for home of the exiled refugees would coalesce around a single concept: Return. This, in turn, helped build what the Palestinians would call their liberation movement, whose tactics ever since would be considered the heroic acts of freedom-fighters by one side, and terrorism by another.

The trauma of the Nakba has shaped the identity of Palestinians, honed their fury, and built a memory album around stone arches, rusted keys, golden fields, and trees that now no longer exist, and whose mythically abundant fruits grow more bountiful in the imagination with each passing year.

In the most recent Israeli attacks on Gaza, as in countless explosions of battles past, the trauma is only re-engaged. Fifty-eight summers after the Nabka -- as Palestinian women again sell off their gold to buy olives and bread; as Israeli planes again drop leaflets with dire warnings for Arab civilians; as doctors lacking medicines or electricity again struggle to rescue the wounded -- a déjà vu settles over the old men and women of the refugee camps, and in the vast diaspora beyond, reminding them of yet another bitter anniversary year.

The latest attacks by Israel in Gaza, ostensibly on behalf of a single soldier, recall the comments by extremist Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, in his eulogy for American Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 slaughtered 27 Palestinians praying in the Cave of the Patriarchs, part of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. "One million Arabs," Perrin declared, "are not worth a Jewish fingernail."

Israelis, too, are a traumatized people, and Israel's current actions are driven in part by a hard determination, born of the Holocaust, to "never again go like sheep to the slaughter." But if "never again" drives the politics of reprisal, few seem to notice that the reprisals themselves are completely out of scale to the provocation: for every crude Qassam rocket falling usually harmlessly and far from its target, dozens, sometimes hundreds of shells rain down with far more destructive power on the Palestinians. For one missing soldier, a million and a half Gazans are made to suffer. Today, Israel's policy is a case of "never again" gone mad".
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http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/27995.html

An Israeli group called Zochrot works to raise awareness of the Nakba and make information on it accessible to the Israeli public.
Zochrot said:
Zochrot works to make the history of the Nakba accessible to the Israeli public so as to engage Jews and Palestinians in an open recounting of our painful common history. We hope that by bringing the Nakba into Hebrew, the language spoken by the Jewish majority in Israel, we can make a qualitative change in the political discourse of this region. Acknowledging the past is the first step in taking responsibility for its consequences. This must include equal rights for all the peoples of this land, including the right of Palestinians to return to their homes.
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Geography
http://www.birem.org/english/index.html
http://www.palestine-net.com/geography/cleansed/
http://www.plands.org/

Testimony
http://www.alnakba.org
http://www.nakba-archive.org/index.htm
http://www.acrossborders.ps/PORTAL/Reflecting.cfm

Right to return
http://www.al-awda.org/
http://www.al-awda.org.uk/
http://www.al-awda.ca/

My aim in creating this thread is to provide a place where we can discuss The Palestinian Catastrophe (Al-Nakba) away from the rhetoric of politicians and propagandists on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict and away from it's use as a political tool.

This thread is for people who care for reconciliation and reparations as part of the pathway to peace between the two peoples.
 
This is powerful stuff, tangentlama. Excellent links.
Mr. SANDY TOLEN (Author): Dalia's family came from Bulgaria in late 1948. They were Bulgarian Jews who emigrated to Israel, got on a boat, sailed seven days and arrived in the Israeli port town of Haifa. Her father Moshe heard of a town called Ramallah, so they were among the first 300 Jewish immigrants to arrive, mostly from Europe, and they came to this town and they saw this nice house with a lemon tree in the backyard and they moved into it.

BERKES: So both Dalia and Bahsir were young children when one left the house and the other moved in. Both had very different perceptions, though, about why and how Bahsir's family left. You quote a letter that Bahsir wrote to Dalia many years later about why his family left, and I wonder if you wouldn't mind reading that.

Mr. TOLEN: We were exiled by force of arms. We were exiled on foot. We were exiled but we left our souls, our hopes and our childhood in Palestine. We left our joys and sorrows. We left them with each lemon fruit, with each olive. We left them in the flowering tree that stands with pride at the entrance to our house in Ramallah. We left them hoping to return.

BERKES: And Dalia had a completely different view of this and she spoke with you about that for your radio documentary. Let's hear Dalia's side of that story.

Ms. ESHKENAZI: From time to time I would ask my parents and other people, who were the people who lived in these Arab houses before and why did they leave? And yeah, we were always told, yeah, people fled and left the boiling soup on the table. So it sounded like some kind of a cowardly escape.

BERKES: It's actually 19 years before Bahsir has the opportunity to go back and visit his former home, and Dalia answers the door and invites him in and that meeting begins the sort of lifetime of conversation.

Mr. AL-KHAIRI (Through Translator): Dalia said I have never seen people like you. You are strange. You don't just like your homeland, you adore your homeland. You adore the trees, you adore the fruits. You adore the earth, everything. I don't understand this attachment. I told her I think I have an answer for that. For us the lemon fruit is not just the fruit. This lemon is homeland. This lemon is Ramallah. This lemon is Palestine.

Ms. ESHKENAZI: And I am a child of Zion. For me Zion means something very different than it means to him. For me Zion is the mountain of God. For me it is an expression of my very ancient longing. For me it's a word that symbolizes a harbor for my people and our collective expression here and for him it is a regime of terror.
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http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/transcripts/2006/jun/060604.berkes.html

Such a difficult situation. And from what I read on the 'other' thread, a situation not made any easier by the telling of false tales to Israel's Jewish inhabitants and to the wider world and it's Jewish population.
 
One of the most tragic aspects of the naqba is how the history of the event has been so distorted by the winners, ie Israel, and its supporters.

The naqba was a premeditated act of ethnic cleansing in which around 750,000 Arabs were forced out of Palestine. But, you'd be forgiven for thinking this wasn't the case, even though all the key zionist claims about the events of 1947-48 have been demonstrated to be lies by historians.

1) The claim that Arab leaders ordered the Arabs to evacuate was shown to be false as far back as the late 50s when Walid Khalidi and Erskine Childers went through (BBC and CIA) radio and newspaper monitoring records for the period. They found not a shred of evidence for any Arab broadcasts.
2) The claim that the naqba wasn't ethnic cleansing and that the Arabs voluntarily left has been debunked by the existence of the zionist forces' plan (Plan D, 10 Mar '48) to expel the Arabs of Palestine and is substantiated by a mountain of sources such as IDF archives, the official histories of the zionist armed forces, diary entries, oral testimony (Arab and Jew)
3) The claim that the expulsions took place in the context of war is disproved solely by the timings. The Arab armies entered Palestine at the beginning of May 48. By that time, and since December 47, the Haganah et al had emptied around 200 Palestininan villages of Arabs, carried out numerous massacres including Deir Yassin, and cleared whole cities, such as Haifa, by means of violence. (NB: of the 5 Arab armies that entered Palestine 2 did not go further than the area allotted to the Arabs by the UN and the strongest, the Jordanians, did a deal with Ben Gurion to annexe the West Bank and to give the Zionists freedom of action elsewhere)
 
Some quotes. The long-standing zionist desire to ethnically cleanse Palestine and the operational orders to its armed forces in Mar '48 to do so . . . .

The desire for expulsion of the Arabs in the words of its architects

“The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.” Ben Gurion, diary, 12 July 1937

“Transfer does not serve only one aim – to reduce the Arab population. It also serves a second purpose by no means less important, which is: to evict land now cultivated by Arabs and to free it for Jewish settlement . . . The only solution is to transfer the Arabs from here to neighbouring countries. Not a single village or single tribe should be let off.” 1940, Yossef Weitz (member of Ben Gurion’s Consultancy, head of settlement dept of JNF and formerly involved in compiling the Village Files), My Diary, vol 2 , p181

The operational orders for the Haganah to carry it out - Plan D of 10 Mar 1948 (an excerpt).

"These operations can be carried out in the following manner: either by destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their debris) and especially of those populations centres which are difficult to control continuously; or by mounting combing and control operations according to the following guidellines: encirclement of the villages, conducting a search inside them. In case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state."
 
Of course, even if one sets aside the mountain of fictions manufactured about the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from their lands, we are still faced with the issues around Palestinian refugees, around return and/or recompense, and around the constant harping of the (especially North American) media for Palestinian refugees to assimilate within the nation-states and cultures they are refugees within.
I've been pondering the matter of assimilation over the last few days, after another poster made repeated ill-informed comments on the subject, and it occurred to me to look at the question of assimilation through the prism of nationalist-Zionism. Assimilation of the Palestinian Arabs into other cultures would, of course, be a boon to the ZioNationalists. It would, in one fell swoop, eliminate a large "blockage" to the conclusion of a phase of their expansionism and set a precedent for the (to use a rather mild euphemism) capture and clearance of other territories.
It struck me that much as the ZioNationalists preach the assimilation sermon with reference to the Palestinian Arabs, it's a sermon they loath when it is directed at them, we only have to look at the tensions between Ashkenazim and Misrahim, between "white" and "black" Jews, to see an illustration of this. ZioNationalism is not a politics of compromise and inclusivity, it is a politics of exclusivity, predicated on denying the humanity and dignity of the people being excluded. In this way it echoes all previous authoritarian ideologies.
 
Yes, it was a sad and chaotic event however, blame should be placed where it truly lies: with Arabs, most of all those calling themselves "Palestinians."

Everyone loves to toss out accusations of Ethnic Cleansing and they do without really knowing what they are even talking about. In that era, the late 1940s, borders all over the world were being redrawn, crossed out, and redrawn again.

What happened on Cyprus? In Albania? Yugoslavia? Chezk ? Slovakia? I can go on probably all day really but the facts should be quite clear. As nations were being drawn up populations shifted, both by volition and by coercion (of varying degrees).

However, in what is now Israel, almost all ethnic SHIFTS were undertaken by the Arabs themself. Accounts by all powers of the region as well as actual survivors recount how the local Arabs were innundated with anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish propaganda broadcast by sourrounding Arab Nations.

We are all well aware of the advice given to Arabs residing in what was belived to be advancing corridors, to vacate temporarily, perhaps for a week, and then return to enjoy their independant homeland.

That they left and then found themselves with the short end of the stick is no fault of ISrael's. How could it be?

One must keep in mind that Israel is now home to more than 2 million Arab CITIZENS. These pople are either people who chose not to leave or take up arms against their Jewish neighbours, or are their descendants.

If Israel engaged in Ethnic Cleansing, how does it now have more than 2 million Arab citizens? A full 20% of the entire population? Does not sound like any population expulsion that I ever heard of!

OF course there WERE indeed cases, isolated, where Israel and its predecessor, the Yishuv, DID forcibly eject Arabs, less than 13 villages. I consider this to be a crime (took place in early 50s on sensitive border areas) but it should be examined in its proper context. Tens of thousands of Jews living in Arab nations were forced to flee at the same time.
 
Spion: Actually, less than 450,000 Arabs left the land and almost all did so, as I stated previously, by their own volition.
As for your "Diary,"c. I would advise you to gain your sources at legitamate sites,etc, rather than relying on propaganda mills. Do you read Hebrew? If not, how could you ever read his diary? You instead rely on translations that come from any number of sources.

As for your "Haganah Plan," accurate save for the last sentence. No order was EVER given for non-combatant explusion. Might I ask you to share what source you found these "smoking guns" at?

Panda: "Reperations or returnin." Who should return? People living at the time? Or their descendants?

Why reperations when "Palestinains" were offered just that n 49 as long as they swore obesiance and laid down arms? Now they should again be offered it? Ridiulous. Such things as consequences do exist, yes? If I refuse to live peaceably with you, attack you, refuse your offer for peace and coeistence and/or recompense and then try to claim it after blanket refusal more than half a century later, who would listen? It is crazy.

They made their bed, let them lie in it and be thankful they will have Gaza aand the "WB," as both are Jewish lands.

"Assimilation of 'Palestinians' into other Arab Nationsd would be a boon to Zionists." Of course it would, but it would be an even greater boon to those "Palestinians" themselves

After all they have no distinct differences. Arabs in Israel, Gaza, and the "WB" speak the same exact dialect of Arabic as those in northern Egypt, western Syria, and just about all of Lebanon. They have no distinct cuisine, customs, religious practices, or anything else setting them as apart. In fact,until 48 they called themselves "Southern Syrians."

Then of course, Jordan was actually created out of the Arab portion of the Partition! Why should "Palestinians" NOT assimilate into any one or all of these nations?

"Expansionism." You are ware that we left Gaza more than 2 years ago (along with 15% of the "WB" ), and plan to do the same with 94 to96% of the existing "WB" upon stability? What then does "Expansionism" mean?


"Tensions between Ashkenazi, Mizrachi, and Sephardi Jews...|" It is clear you have never been to our nation. Until the late 60s there was a difference, but there was a difference even among Ashkenazi (those from central Europe fareing far better). With the shared expereinces of war all segments managed to meld together very nicely. Today Israel is a true melting pot in terms of skin color, probably the best example in the world. Having traveled widely I have yet to see a abtter example.I hope one day you might visit that beautiful nation and see for yourself.
 
Rachamim: you cite very few sources compared to others here and use a mendacious argument stating that the re-drawing of borders elsewhere somehow justifies what occured.

"Today Israel is a true melting pot in terms of skin color, probably the best example in the world"

Absolute nonsense. How widely travelled are you?
 
rachamim18 said:
Panda: "Reperations or returnin." Who should return? People living at the time? Or their descendants?
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Both
Why reperations when "Palestinains" were offered just that n 49 as long as they swore obesiance and laid down arms? Now they should again be offered it? Ridiulous.
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Would you swear obeisiance [sic] to another culture?
Not if you were an honest person, although you might if you were the sort of conman who has their eye on the main chance.
Such things as consequences do exist, yes? If I refuse to live peaceably with you, attack you, refuse your offer for peace and coeistence and/or recompense and then try to claim it after blanket refusal more than half a century later, who would listen? It is crazy.
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"Blanket refusal", pardon me?
You might want to revise that in the light of the historical record.
They made their bed, let them lie in it and be thankful they will have Gaza aand the "WB," as both are Jewish lands.
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What, be good little niggers for their Israeli masters? "Yessa massa, I's so grateful you lets me lib in yo back yard".
Despicable.
"Assimilation of 'Palestinians' into other Arab Nationsd would be a boon to Zionists." Of course it would, but it would be an even greater boon to those "Palestinians" themselves

After all they have no distinct differences. Arabs in Israel, Gaza, and the "WB" speak the same exact dialect of Arabic as those in northern Egypt, western Syria, and just about all of Lebanon. They have no distinct cuisine, customs, religious practices, or anything else setting them as apart. In fact,until 48 they called themselves "Southern Syrians."
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None of which obviates the facts, Rachamim. You've made this argument before, it was as bankrupt of fact then as it was now. A raft of ideologically-charged insinuations and half-truths will always be a raft of ideologically-charged half-truths, no matter how many times you repeat it.
Then of course, Jordan was actually created out of the Arab portion of the Partition! Why should "Palestinians" NOT assimilate into any one or all of these nations?

"Expansionism." You are ware that we left Gaza more than 2 years ago (along with 15% of the "WB" ), and plan to do the same with 94 to96% of the existing "WB" upon stability? What then does "Expansionism" mean?
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Expansionism means eaxpansionism, Rachamim, not just the "facts on the ground", the ambition, most recently manifest in southern Lebanon.

"Tensions between Ashkenazi, Mizrachi, and Sephardi Jews...|" It is clear you have never been to our nation. Until the late 60s there was a difference, but there was a difference even among Ashkenazi (those from central Europe fareing far better). With the shared expereinces of war all segments managed to meld together very nicely. Today Israel is a true melting pot in terms of skin color, probably the best example in the world. Having traveled widely I have yet to see a abtter example.I hope one day you might visit that beautiful nation and see for yourself.
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Oh shit, It must have been some other country in the same geographical location as Israel, who'd stole an Israeli passport stamp, that stamped my passport 8 times in the late 1970s and early 1980s. :rolleyes:
Don't make assumptions. It shows you up for a dick.
 
Poi: What sources would youlike?

As for travelled, probably more than 90% of the world. Most of S. America, all of N. America, virtually all of Europe, almost all of Asia (where I am now),never beent o Australia though (want to go one day), and maybe 40% of Africa (been to Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan, Egypt, Morrocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sieera Leono, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Guinea, but really want to go to S. Africa).

Now, have you even been to Israel?
 
Panda "Obesiance" they would have sworn obesiance to a state, soemthing they had never been part of, not a culture. Israelis now a multi-hued culture (our slang and custims are mostly Arab,etc, plus bits of the more than 130 nations some of our Jews hail from). In fact, Jewish Culture is more like Arab Culture than European so it would have been a close fit even if it were Jewish Culture they where being asked to obey.

Jews of course are asked to obey cultural mores in almost every nation on Earth. We manage to do it mostly peacefully. Should not be a problem. in fact, the more than 2 million Israeli-Arabs DO manage it fine.

" Palestinian Right of Return." I do not think descendants should. I do think those who fled for whatever reason pesonally, and their wives and minor children (as if) should eb allowed IF they agree to obesiance. Why admit terrorists?

"Revision due to historical record." Sorry, I do not understand. Do you mean they ever accepted peace? they refused to even progress in Oslo which was tilted in their facor (as are basically all plans really).

They have had better offers than us (for most of the years) and for as long as us, and have never ccepted even basic responsibility.

"House blacks." Um, why would they need to act in that fashion, Israeli-Arabs do ot wo why would an independant "Palestinian" EVER have to?

If you mean any Arab in Israel, do you think a Jew in the UK is a house black? It is actually Kahani doctrine so I am interested in your answer.

"Ideological half truths." But none are Panda. All the claims I stated are absolutely correct. Some make claims of a distinct dialect with two different letters being prnounced differently from Standardised Arabic but it is the same exact dialect of most of Lebanon, N. Egypt outside the cities, and parts of Syria.

Cusine: In fact, taking it even further, if you eat "Palestinian" food, you are eating Mizrachi food. No donstinction.

Literarture and Art: No distinct forms and in fact had none until the turn of the 20th Century.

Religion: We know that one so it is not neccessary. No distinction.

Customs: None.

"Exapansionism." How was Lebanon06 expansionism? It has stated objectives of which Job 1 was completed . We have no presence there, now did we negotiate one. We do not want it.

The only real expansion is in the Jerusalem Consolidation but that is annexed land that Israel has always maintained will never be ceded. It is to be exchanged for an equal amount of fully arable Israeli Proper land so it should not be an issue.

15% of the "WB" is already theirs full and square. They get the rest when they act like adults. Gaza might have kept another nation from even talking to them.

Sorry Panda, but if you HAD been there even once you would not be parroting (Israeli) 1960s hard left rhetoric (well maybe YOU would) but it makes no sense. Seeing as sofar I do not peg you as delusional, and know for a fact that you are not stupid, there is no way that you could EVER mitake Israel since 73 as anything near racist with anyone, certainly not its onw Jewish majority.

I am not only an Israeli citizen, but am Sephardic (half but raised 100percent) and had a Mizrachi wife. My kids are Mizrachi. Not one iota of skin colored nonsense goes on there, save perhaps for some Russians, or even Russian Jews who have less than a year there but then that was the USSR. They shed it soon enough or at least learn to keep it to themselves.

In the old days the Yekkes hated Galitz, who hated Sephardim, who in turn actually hated all Ashkenazim alot more (most moruned their kids who married Ashkenaz), and all hated Mizrachi. Even among Mizrachi, Yemeni hated those from Aden, who hated those from Libya and so on.

War changed it al. the danger becomes an Israeli identity that outshines a Jewish identity and it is happening to a degree but that is the price of extreme cohesiveness.
 
Hey Rach, if you think I've never been to Israel, even though my passport and memory say different, you're even more up your own arse than I thought.
 
Anyone without a record and without an intel dossier can go. No visa even from this country. The point is your claims about the nation (cultural, even Israelis hold more radical political views than you). Racism exists everywhere. Israel though has no real issue with it. I have never expereinced it but then I am very fair,etc. My 3 kids there are black however (as is 3 of my nephews and nieces on my side) and none have ever expereinced it in any form (we talk alot about the world and such issues).

Again, were you talking of the late 60s or anytime previously, without a dobut, absolutely correct.

The nation has umpteenth problems, just not that one (thank G-D).
 
The Palestinians have a distinct culture, a culture that is steeped in the history of the region, with celebrations/festivals that are peculiar only to that region as well as being directly linked to the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Some of their folk traditions are distinctly Jewish in origin. For example, the Palestinian festival called Nabi Rubin (Reuven/Ruben) is proof of the folk traditions of the Palestinian people, (who were not always Christian or Muslim). This festival, to honour the Prophet Reuven/Reuben, consisted of pilgramage to the shrine of the Prophet, and is believed to be mentioned in classical Jewish texts.

Today, only the shrine and a mosque remain: http://www.palestineremembered.com/al-Ramla/al-Nabi-Rubin/index.html and http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/maps.php and http://www.alnakba.org/villages/ramla/rubin.htm. The inhabitants were expelled and the village destroyed by the Givati brigade.

There are other exclusively Palestinian religious/folk festivals, such as Nabi Shueb, Nabi Hud (is this Eber??), and Nabi Yamin (Binyamin/Benhamin), Nabi Sham’un (Simon).

The Palestinian peoples' folk heritage bears witness to the Jewish roots of their native folk tradition - these folk traditions were around before and continued long after Muslims rulers entered the land, and long before the Palestinian peoples' relatively recent (in the long history of the peoples of that land) conversion to Islam. Their Palestinianian-ness (i.e. their belonging to this region) ought not to be in doubt.

Furthermore, distinct costumes were once especial to each town/district. Songs, stories, and other aspects of folk culture go to making up the Palestinian identity - and this is important for Israelis to realise - they are not 'Arab interlopers' and it's totally wicked to downplay their heritage.

Distinctive dress of a Woman of Ramallah
Distinctive dress of a Bethlehem Woman
 
Invisible: "Palestinians have a distinct culture." Please demnonstrate some unique traits, not generally found in neighbouring (or even distant) Arab Cultures.

Jewish type: well seeing as how Jews are not only the indigenous people of the region and have never been absent from the land, OF COURSE.

Howqever, one ALSO sees suuch influences in all parts of the Arab World including Hejaz not suprising seeing as how we were th dominant culture even there until the Islamic Advent.

Fact is, until the Nablus Riots of 1834 there was no common identity at all on the part of local Arabs. Even then, as I have said many times, they insisted on identifying themselves as Syrians and later as Southern Syrians. This is not suprising since Sunna in Syria posses almost an identical culture.

"Honour the Prophet Rueven/Reuben." There is no such Prophet in either Judaisim or Christianity. I would also commit to Islam as well but seeing as how they believe Muhammed flew to heaven on a winged horse after flying from Hejaz to Jerusalem, I will reserve judgement. I have studied Islam extensively but cannot remember theie take on whom is and is not a Prophet.

"Grave mentioned..." There are tradional places but if they are there they are because Jews made it so. That some usurpers now want to claim its reverence for their own does not mean athing.

"Not always Muslim." I have adressed this ssue many times, the most recent being 2 days ago in Mid-East Forum. Only approximately 8% of "Palestinians" are dewscended from Jews. Not even 90% of the Muslims have been on the land long enough to come close. Almost all have less than 350 years there with the majority only having less than 150. This is a fact. You often speak of DNA and the Genome. Surely you are aware of this uncomfortable fact as well.

You can clame they are Canaanite, Pheionician, Jews, or whatever but the fact remains. They are Arabs from Hejaz who can only measure their time in my country for the most part 5 generations. You can also offer a festival as prof of a distinct cultural trait but then that does not work does it> Prior to 48 there no real distinct boundires there. Arabs and others came and went in what is now Israel, PA Lands, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and of course Syria.

Syria was seen as the best the region had to offer and as a result local Arabs idealised themselves as Syrian. Can you find any listing in English, Arabic, or any other language talking of Arabs calling themselves "Palestinian" prior to 1910?


"Villages each had their distinct costumes." Listen, that just proves my case. They had no unified self image. This same phenomenon is found all over the world. It is here where I now live. I saw it in Peru, Chile, and am told it exists in Bolivia as well. You can tell tyhe village of a woman by her hat style. I saw it in china and in parts of India...UNIFIED CULTURE did not exist among local Arabs until 1834 CE/AD and really not until the first 2 decades of the 20th Century CE/AD when they adopted the label "Southern Syrians."

"Palestinians" did not exist as a People under that paticular label until 1948, and only because Israel was REestablished...Ironically...
 
Father to Son, Keys to Palestinian home cherished

AIN AL-HILWEH, Lebanon (Reuters) - The portrait of Hussein Saleh al-Me'ari holding a slim iron key and the legend "We will return" hangs on a wall with peeling paint in a tiny room at the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.

His 45-year-old son, Salah, was born and later married in the camp. Salah's four children and extended family live in a few cramped rooms in the sprawling, decrepit camp which is Lebanon's largest and houses about 70,000 Palestinian refugees.

There is no immediate prospect for any of them to return to the family home in what is now Israel, even as Israelis and Palestinians prepare to meet in the United States next week for talks on a Palestinian state.

Yet Salah still keeps 18 carefully folded, yellowing pages of land documents that show his father and grandfather own 67 hectares (170 acres) of land in the small Palestinian village of Akbarah, near Safed town north of the Sea of Galilee.

Salah's grandfather and father fled along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war in which the state of Israel was created.

"It was winter. A rainy and bitter cold day in February. The Arab armies told them just two weeks or 15 days and we'll bring you back," Salah said nostalgically in the room where his father Hussein died in January.

Hussein's traditional Arab headdress and black cloak hang next to his portrait and a black-and-white photograph of Salah's grandfather, Saleh. Three copper coffee pots that Saleh used in Akbarah occupy the corner of the poorly furnished room.

"The 15 days have become 60 years," Salah said.
​
 
"Not always Muslim." I have adressed this ssue many times, the most recent being 2 days ago in Mid-East Forum. Only approximately 8% of "Palestinians" are dewscended from Jews. Not even 90% of the Muslims have been on the land long enough to come close. Almost all have less than 350 years there with the majority only having less than 150. This is a fact. You often speak of DNA and the Genome. Surely you are aware of this uncomfortable fact as well.

You can clame they are Canaanite, Pheionician, Jews, or whatever but the fact remains. They are Arabs from Hejaz who can only measure their time in my country for the most part 5 generations. You can also offer a festival as prof of a distinct cultural trait but then that does not work does it> Prior to 48 there no real distinct boundires there. Arabs and others came and went in what is now Israel, PA Lands, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and of course Syria.
Click to expand...

More myth-making? One of your tricks is to resort to this hair-splitting and pointless nit-picking. You still cannot provide proof for your claim that isn't based upon a myth or a bit of hearsay.
 
Tangent: "Father to Son...": PRay tell, what was the point to the article? IF Israel were responsible (beyond it merely existing of course) for every miserable "Palestinian" in the world, then maybe it would be meaningful. As it is Israel is hardly responsbile for any of it.

I dare say that IF the "Palestinians" concentrated even 10% less on whining, and applied that motivation towards founding a national entity they would have had their homeland along, long time ago.

This sounds as if it is harsh but the truth sometimes is.

Nino: Study a little thing called Y Chromosmal Modality/ies and patrilineal DNA.
 
rachamim18 said:
They are Arabs from Hejaz who can only measure their time in my country for the most part 5 generations.
Click to expand...
Abraham's people came out of Arabia. What of it. I disagree very strongly with your genetic determinism and attempt to force a living person back to the place of their genetic ancestors. Africa and Arabia (etc) would be a very crowded place if we were to follow this crazy way you propose. If 5 generations is not long enough, then why aren't the settlers pushed back to Lithuania? Latvia? Hungary? Poland? Russia? You're reasoning is not true reasoning and actually undermines the claims of Jewish settlers. It's actually propaganda that you've been fed, and not TRUTH.
rachamim18 said:
Tangent: "Father to Son...": PRay tell, what was the point to the article? IF Israel were responsible (beyond it merely existing of course) for every miserable "Palestinian" in the world, then maybe it would be meaningful. As it is Israel is hardly responsbile for any of it.

I dare say that IF the "Palestinians" concentrated even 10% less on whining, and applied that motivation towards founding a national entity they would have had their homeland along, long time ago.

This sounds as if it is harsh but the truth sometimes is.
Click to expand...

It may be your truth, but it is not THE truth.

The truth is the Palestinians are entitled to their narrative as much as any other group is, and this narrative needs to be expressed openly because as ever, there are some myths and some truths within the memory of events. There are also counter-propagandas which have sought to divert attention of Israelis and prevent them from realising the truths about their modern nation's history, and these too need to be expressed and set straight. There are wrongs which need righting, and there are inalienable rights which are being denied, and denying these has the potential to create a worse condition for both peoples than the potential conditions that are currently feared were the narratives to be openly explored and reparations, compensations and reconciliations to be undergone.

It is important to recognise that for those Palestinians who were exiled into disaporah or herded into Gaza, that this - The Nakba - was the worst thing that could have happened, regardless of the agitations of their so-called leaders at that time. And yet both HaShoah and Al-Nakba must not be taken out of context of World History.

Sadly, my aim (in creating this thread is to provide a place where we can discuss The Palestinian Catastrophe (Al-Nakba) away from the rhetoric of politicians and propagandists on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict and away from it's use as a political tool) has been ignored, and although I made this thread for people who care for reconciliation and reparations as part of the pathway to peace between the two peoples, I see already that those affected by propaganda insist on adding their voice to this thread, and so I admit to you, I cannot counter all the mistruths and propaganda believed by those on both sides of the divide, and perhaps it is useful to have that aspect of the narrative aired and discussed here.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Of course, even if one sets aside the mountain of fictions manufactured about the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from their lands, we are still faced with the issues around Palestinian refugees, around return and/or recompense, and around the constant harping of the (especially North American) media for Palestinian refugees to assimilate within the nation-states and cultures they are refugees within.
I've been pondering the matter of assimilation over the last few days, after another poster made repeated ill-informed comments on the subject, and it occurred to me to look at the question of assimilation through the prism of nationalist-Zionism. Assimilation of the Palestinian Arabs into other cultures would, of course, be a boon to the ZioNationalists. It would, in one fell swoop, eliminate a large "blockage" to the conclusion of a phase of their expansionism and set a precedent for the (to use a rather mild euphemism) capture and clearance of other territories.
It struck me that much as the ZioNationalists preach the assimilation sermon with reference to the Palestinian Arabs, it's a sermon they loath when it is directed at them, we only have to look at the tensions between Ashkenazim and Misrahim, between "white" and "black" Jews, to see an illustration of this. ZioNationalism is not a politics of compromise and inclusivity, it is a politics of exclusivity, predicated on denying the humanity and dignity of the people being excluded. In this way it echoes all previous authoritarian ideologies.
Click to expand...

This is such a good post, I want to quote it for posterity.
 
rachamim18 said:
"Villages each had their distinct costumes." Listen, that just proves my case. They had no unified self image. This same phenomenon is found all over the world. It is here where I now live. I saw it in Peru, Chile, and am told it exists in Bolivia as well. You can tell tyhe village of a woman by her hat style. I saw it in china and in parts of India...UNIFIED CULTURE did not exist among local Arabs until 1834 CE/AD and really not until the first 2 decades of the 20th Century CE/AD when they adopted the label "Southern Syrians."

"Palestinians" did not exist as a People under that paticular label until 1948, and only because Israel was REestablished...Ironically...
Click to expand...

It's irrelevant what they called themselves now. The national aspirations of one group necessitated the national aspirations of the other, and the fact that each region had made distinctions through dress and social ritual is important to those whose traditions have been fractured by the rise of nationalistic movements in the Middle East.

That there was no unified self image is also irrelevant - ironically, as I undestand it, what you describe began as State vs. Rome based nationalistic movement which began in Europe in the 16th Century as states saw to sever their relationships with Rome, and continued throughout the early 17th Century in civil wars in France and Britain, reaching becoming fixed in the 18th and 19th Centuries as the last remnants of feudal hierarchies were replaced and state-nationalism was established.
 
rachamim18 said:
What happened on Cyprus? In Albania? Yugoslavia? Chezk ? Slovakia? I can go on probably all day really but the facts should be quite clear. As nations were being drawn up populations shifted, both by volition and by coercion (of varying degrees).
Click to expand...

what you seem to dismiss is actually significant.

the situation is as follows really, if they were isreali citizens then Isreal is being discriminatory towards an ethnic part of it's population meaning that it's abhorant with in any civilised idea of decent society or it's an occupying force which has extended it's reach into neigbouring territories and establhished permenant structures and participated in population transfer which is a war crime.

It doesn't matter which of those versions you ascribe to really they both equal the same thing problems for Palestinians and as a result problems for israelis...

if these lines of a redrawn nationhood were to be accepted then one must also highlight that under the resolution Israel cannot exist with out also acvknowledging Palestines existance. it was after all one division in on threaty which created both states... in which case both new countires are obligated to be accomidating tot hose who find themselves on the arbitary side of some poltictions line, regardless of personal intend or ownership...

again this hasn't happened nor has israel acknowledged their cousin state.

Until this happens i'm afraid the ripples from the Nakbah will continue...
 
Nino: "Bullshi$$er.": So, you maintain that Y Chromosomal Modality does not exist? That is has not identified specific mutations that prove we were in the land when claimed,etc? Be specific as opposed to just boorish with usual ad homs that you have used every time you have engaged me since my first day in 2004. Thanks in advance.
 
Tangent:"Abrahans people came out of Arabia.": Uh, no, they came out of Mesopotamia, quite a bit away from that but I can see your confusion since Arabs occupied that part of the world udring the First Jihad so...

"Gentic Determinism.": Except you neglect, or are unaware as to why I even discuss this issue. It is claimed by a few on ths board that Israelis are Colonialists and usurpers. My point is that we have been there, continuosly,albeit in minority since Byzantium Occupation, for 4000 odd years.

These genetic markers prove this beyond a doubt.

I also discuss it because a minority on the board claim that Jews form a religion but not a nationalor ethnic group and this is why I remind them that there is a close gentic link as well as more than 4000 genetic diseases either specific to or mainly afflicting Jews.
 
rachamim18 said:
Nino: "Bullshi$$er.": So, you maintain that Y Chromosomal Modality does not exist? That is has not identified specific mutations that prove we were in the land when claimed,etc? Be specific as opposed to just boorish with usual ad homs that you have used every time you have engaged me since my first day in 2004. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Could you please tell me how this is relevant to anything at all? Can you also tell me how this does not foster notions of separateness and Otherness? You can't.

You'll be repeating that shite about "cranial dimensions" next.

You're one of those who thinks race actually exists. You're living in the past and, truth be told, you're no better than Strom Thurmond.
 
rachamim18 said:
So, you maintain that Y Chromosomal Modality does not exist?
Click to expand...

that exists it does not however except int he minds of sumpremacists prove anything other than sexual abnormalities usually or the pretencity to get cancer.

To extrapoliate it to it having
identified specific mutations that prove we were in the land when claimed
Click to expand...

is entirely fictious. not science. and utterly unproved.
 
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