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  1. #11
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    Default Re: The Balfour Declaration -a different view

    Quote Originally Posted by DaphneCruz View Post
    I didnt think you were attacking me, so youre good. Im leaving my replies short because in the matter of Israel and Palestine, you cant really argue against Israel.
    Why can't you argue against Israel? Argue away. I don't see the point in pretending you can't when you clearly can.


    Last edited by broncofan; 01-04-2018 at 06:13 AM.

  2. #12
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    Default Re: The Balfour Declaration -a different view

    Quote Originally Posted by DaphneCruz View Post
    I didnt think you were attacking me, so youre good. Im leaving my replies short because in the matter of Israel and Palestine, you cant really argue against Israel.

    But simply put, Israel is 100% completely wrong and Palestine are the victims of foreign invaders. The Balfour Declaration simply made it official to give Palestine to the Jews in order to get the US into the war.
    I don't want to seem hostile or aggressive with you or I feel what you have said will have been a self-fulfilling prophesy. You seem to think you are not able to say anything critical against Israel (what you think the repercussions are I don't know) and yet you feel perfectly comfortable saying "Israel is 100% completely wrong". What is it you wanted to say that was more extreme than this?

    Yes it's a short sentence and a mere conclusion, but it's difficult to think of a conclusion more stark than this. You might have come down on the side of the Palestinians yet still discussed the history of Jewish immigration to the region, the presence of some Jews in the region, and the events that led to Jewish immigration, as well as the many injustices and hardships experienced by the Palestinians. Yet you seem more interested in implying your viewpoint is suppressed while at the same time expressing the most extreme view one can; correct me if I'm wrong but 100% is as high as percentages go and you cannot apportion Israel 110% of the blame.

    So maybe you feel I've expressed myself to directly to you, but why don't you just say what it is you are thinking? You've already said elsewhere that you think HIV does not cause AIDS and that the polio vaccine was not that effective against polio...so it's not like you can say something that would be shocking to people who read those posts. Just please say whatever it is you're interested in saying.



  3. #13
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    Default Re: The Balfour Declaration -a different view

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavros View Post
    On the one hand you can describe the settlers as 'foreign invaders' on the basis that they were born, say, in the US; that there was an international agreement between Israel and Jordan in 1949 following the war in 1948 that established the geographical division ('Green Lines') between Israel and the Palestinian territories (formally part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan which to this day has legal authority over the Haram es-Sharif in Jerusalem) that was violated by Israel's invasion in 1967, and therefore that the subsequent occupation in all its forms is illegal in international law. This formed the basis of the negotiations that led to the Treaty between Israel and the PLO that was signed in 1993 but left some issues -such as the status of Jerusalem- unresolved.
    I agree, but I am curious whether Daphne intended to describe settlers in illegally occupied Palestine as foreign invaders or any Jewish person who made his way to the region as an immigrant before the state of Israel was formed. My interpretation was that he was describing any Jew who came to the region as a "foreign invader" and as well as any Israeli whose forebears immigrated there at some point in the 20th century.

    In the spirit of avoiding censorship and encouraging discussion, I do not want to stigmatize any views but would rather discuss whether some buzzwords greatly simplify this history and make the actions of Jewish immigrants seem more malign than they were.

    The Holocaust itself places no obligation on the Palestinians or exculpation for Israelis. But would it be fair to say that these people who arrived in the region and were mostly repelled by the British were "foreign invaders"? Did they arrive with the intention to form a conquering army or because this was one of few places they were allowed to settle? https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article...uleId=10005459

    There is no doubt that some of them fought in the 1948 war, but this war was not itself a invasion by Jews or Israelis, whatever one thinks of the partition plan and subsequently resolution 181.



  4. #14
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    Default Re: The Balfour Declaration -a different view

    As Michelle Obama put it last year, 'words matter', and nowhere are they as bland or toxic as in the Middle East.

    One notes, for example, that the Balfour Declaration refers to a 'Jewish National Home' rather than a 'Jewish State' even though the author and his audience were well aware that political Zionism had been well publicised by Theodor Herzl's book The Jewish State. The use of 'home' rather than 'state' was the signal that in reality the British had no intention of creating independent states in the Middle East, whereas in continental Europe the defeated empires were succeeded by independent states.

    The whole point of the Mandate system was to hand control to the imperial powers in order to protect their interests. During the war the French government had been lobbied fiercely by the textile merchants of Lyon who had invested in the industry in Beirut and Damascus, and thus saw the opportunity to both underline the commercial interests of the merchants while extending French authority in the Middle East where before it had been limited to investments in what is now Turkey and Syria.

    The British were primarily concerned to protect the land and sea route to India, though interest in the oil resources of Iran and the emerging Iraq were viewed as strategic interests, but mostly after 1919.

    As for for the contemporary situation, international law rejects Israel's claims over the West Bank because the Charter of the UN makes the acquisition of territory by force illegal, yet the word 'invasion' and 'invaders' is not common. As both Israeli and Palestinian authorities refer to 'settlers' and 'settlements' this is clearly an accepted use of words that describes the movement and the people concerned.

    Other words can be used as weapons for those with a mission. Because, going back in time, the Arabs did not always refer to themselves as Arab some Zionists have argued that Palestinian Arabs originated in the Arabian Peninsula along with all the other Arabs and thus have no natural claim to this land of Palestine as they call it. On the other hand, when people refer to the Jews as 'invaders' there may lurk in that identity a link to the view that not all Jews have a natural right to even be in Israel because they cannot claim ancestry from the 'twelve tribes' but are descendants of converted Jews. It doesn't help that Israel has made several attempts to define a Jew in law and never succeeded in reaching a definitive conclusion.

    As for the word 'terrorist'...HAMAS- a movement that was welcomed by Israel when it was founded- has used 'terrorist' methods to attack Israel, yet the population claims descent from Palestinians who lived in the Jaffa area, and may be classified in 'national liberation' terms as 'freedom fighters' even if there is no realistic scenario in which they 'return' to their homes.

    The diverse reality of Israel and the Occupied Territories means that many nurses, domestic servants -probably more per capita in Israel than there are in either the US of the UK- and agricultural workers are from the Philippines, Thailand, China and Sri Lanka; there are 'refugees' or migrants from the Horn of Africa (whom Netanyahu wants expelled from the country), and under occupation, those communities of Coptic, Armenian, Greek, Russian and Latin Christians who have maintained a presence in Jerusalem and Bethlehem for over 1,000 years.

    Provocative words and labels have caused enough trouble, we must move on to the real issues, or the conflict will go on and on and on.


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  5. #15
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    Default Re: The Balfour Declaration -a different view

    You cannot make any case against Israel without eventually being called an anti-semite.



  6. #16
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    Default Re: The Balfour Declaration -a different view

    Quote Originally Posted by DaphneCruz View Post
    You cannot make any case against Israel without eventually being called an anti-semite.
    You can of course, but you can't also say stuff like you did in the national socialist thread and not have people make the connection. The following is what an anti-semite tends to say:

    "You need to get your own symbols and call it something else. You're just tarnishing Hitler's great legacy. He'd be ashamed of today's wannabe Nazis."

    Why is it that it's always people who are undeniably anti-semitic who say this. In the Labour party in Britain for instance there was a private facebook group that Jenny Tonge, David Ward, and Jeremy Corbyn were members of. They had all posted in it and they had to get special permission to enter by the administrator who was linking David Duke articles and calling him a smart guy. Other people in that party did the same kind of gaslighting you were doing where they claimed nobody can talk about Israel w/o being called anti-semitic and that they've never seen anti-semitism EVER in the party even while new examples were popping up daily. But here's a link to it....the members of this group were anti-zionists in the sense you are.
    http://david-collier.com/wp-content/...art1_FINAL.pdf



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  7. #17
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    Default Re: The Balfour Declaration -a different view

    Quote Originally Posted by DaphneCruz View Post
    You cannot make any case against Israel without eventually being called an anti-semite.
    I was not going to respond to this, because it is a superficial remark that provokes confusion in an already crowded field of debate, accusation and manufactured lies.

    My purpose in the OP was to expose what I feel was the deceitful manner in which the British managed the transition of the Ottoman Empire's Arab lands into the League of Nations mandates that were ruled by Britain and France. Contrary to what Melanie Phillips has said I don't believe the British ever made a sincere commitment to the World Zionist Congress on the establishment of a 'Jewish National Home' and their conduct of the Mandate to me is proof of this. Decisions that were made at a time of war took on their own dynamic after it, by which time the British had lost control of Palestine.


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  8. #18
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    Default Re: The Balfour Declaration -a different view

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavros View Post
    I was not going to respond to this, because it is a superficial remark that provokes confusion in an already crowded field of debate, accusation and manufactured lies.
    I understand that tack but the context is just too obnoxious for me to avoid. This will be my last post in the thread and I will gladly read your informative posts afterward. It is an interesting thread, but one where most people probably don't know enough about the dealings at the time to offer an informed view. So in that sense your posts are very much appreciated.

    In my view, Daphne has basically said the same thing four times in one form or another without actually offering much in the way of an explanation or a viewpoint.

    His last post came after 2 months of the thread being cold. The only other post of his in this forum is one where he said Hitler had a great legacy. I have trouble believing that he is so muzzled with concerns of being called anti-semitic that he can't even express a coherent view on this subject but yet can also freely say Hitler had a "great legacy." He has the tone of the hunted man in one thread and in another identifies with hunters.

    I am sure some people acting in good faith have been called anti-semitic and we should deal with that as inappropriate and wrong. But I can't actually believe that anyone would in good faith do the things I see so many people doing; saying things that reflect hostility and animus, that marginalize their movement and destroy their credibility, and offer nothing to the Palestinians either.



  9. #19
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    Default Re: The Balfour Declaration -a different view

    Quote Originally Posted by broncofan View Post
    In my view, Daphne has basically said the same thing four times in one form or another without actually offering much in the way of an explanation or a viewpoint.
    It is throwing a smoke bomb, or in this case a stink bomb into a room just to get a reaction. The Balfour Declaration probably deserves more thought, but it will not be forthcoming from those with an alternative agenda. Not much more I can say.



  10. #20
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    Default Re: The Balfour Declaration -a different view

    Point proven.



    I would seriously love to give my point and my case (something I have studied intently for more than 4 years and have devoted my life to it) but what is the point. it will go nowhere. I have fought this battle. it goes nowhere. It has already gone nowhere. Its impossible. So why do you pretend like youre open minded?

    learn history. that is all. I have no agenda.


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    Last edited by DaphneCruz; 03-12-2018 at 09:20 AM.

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