I guess this assessment would be correct if we assume that 1) The United States remains the world's ONLY superpower. 2) the regimes hostile to Israel remain weak forever and ever. 3) the Palestinian security threat can be definitely neutered and the millions of Palestinians inconspicuously quartered.

But as you know the dynamics of "who's king of the hill" remain in flux in the Middle East or in the world for that matter. I mean, Five years ago Who thought of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt?

So hugs and kisses for the world's only superpower could be putting all the eggs in one basket.

I guess this assessment would be correct if we assume that 1) The United States remains the world's ONLY superpower. 2) the regimes hostile to Israel remain weak forever and ever. 3) the Palestinian security threat can be definitely neutered and the millions of Palestinians inconspicuously quartered.

But as you know the dynamics of "who's king of the hill" remain in flux in the Middle East or in the world for that matter. I mean, Five years ago Who thought of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt?

So hugs and kisses for the world's only superpower could be putting all the eggs in one basket.

It appears the One State Solution folks will listen to opposing views

Academic conferences don't "advocate" a particular policy, because many people will be in attendance and they don't necessarily agree on every particular.  I can't speak for the other attendees, but in my own case, I'll be there to explain why I think the two-state solution is still the best outcome and to talk about why I think it has not been achieved.  Academic conferences don't require that everyone who participates agree with each other; we are there to express our individual views, to discuss and/or debate them, and try to learn from each other and from the discussion with the audience.

What baloney! Why not look into the eyes of a Zionist Jew and ask him (or her), how do you feel about taking land from a people who’ve lived on it it for hundreds of years? How do you feel about denying them the right to vote? to self determination?

What self-centeredness you show!! Man, oh man, you Jews, for claiming to be such a ‘smart people’ are the most arrogant people the earth has ever known. Why can’t you put yourselves in their place and feel the frustration & anger 60 years of occupation produces?

Temple mount? What temple? There is not a shred of evidence that Solomon ever built a temple, or in fact that he ever existed, notwithstanding the little ivory pomegranate that the Israel Museum paid 650 000 USD and which was supposed to prove the existense of the temple but, after being exhibited at the Museum for years, turned out to be a fake? The Old Testament is not a history book. It is a book of religious myths. Not a shred of it has ever been archaeologically proven.

If Jews had always been a presence in Jerusalem, why is it that when the Muslims conquered Palestine for the first time, one of the first thing they did was to clean up the temple area, which had become a rubbish tip? Tradition says that the conqueror al Malik, carried away the first rubbish in the folds of his robe. If the temple area was so important to the Jews, why had it been allowed to become a rubbish dump?

Noone denies that Judaism did develop in the region. But it was hardly the only religion in the area. Basically, Jews were just another bunch of goatherders among other goatherders. By the way, it would enlighten you to read some travel books to Palestine dating from the 19th Century. At that time the place where Jews sacrificed their children to Baal was on every traveler's route. It was still on the route in 1895; when did it become unpopular?

Thank you for your condescending reply. I don't see what makes it a silly question.

If academic conferences do not advocate policies, then perhaps this is not an academic conference. If you go to the website for the conference (onestateconference.org), you would see they have a section entitled Vision & Goals. In that section, the conference laments that the "only Israel/Palestine solution that has received a fair rehearsal in mainstream forums has been the two-state solution." The conference then sets the goal to "help to expand the range of academic debate on this issue. Thus, our main goal is to educate ourselves and others about the possible contours of a one-state solution and the challenges that stand in the way of its realization."

So this conference sets a goal of mainstreaming the one state solution and overcoming the challenges standing in the way of that "solution" occurring. If that is not advocacy, at the very least it's a workshop for advocacy. Consistent with that, there is a panel entitled "Building A Global Movement." They sound very interested in exploring different viewpoints.

Mr. Walt, perhaps you'll speak in favor of a two-state solution. But you seem to be doing so at the wrong place.

Perhaps I've just misunderstood you though, like so many others have before. Maybe you genuinely do care about Israel. It's sometimes hard to see that though.

You don't believe that Moses (Moshe) walked up that mountain (hill) and spent there time (alone) talking to God (G-d)? And that God (G-d) told him that a specific region/area/land (Canaan) is given to the Chosen People (namely the later Jews)?

Don't you believe that the place where you live right now is MINE? ... because I've been told directly by the Almighty that it belongs to me. And I have 12 friends who believe my story. And they will help me fulfill the prophecy and get "your" MINE place, if you want or not. I'll simply take it.

And if 10 of my friends won't be willing to continue the struggle, because they understand it's a criminal act, then I'll continue with just the other 2 who are still very committed. And I'm still going to get your place no matter what.

After all, whether Jews have had connection to Temple Mount is completely irrelevant.

The “historical connection” talking point was concocted to downplay the fact that the Zionists lack any legal standing to assert a claim to the territory of Palestine during the Post-WWI peace conferences at Versailles and San Remo. The Principle Allied Powers decided there were no bases for a legal entitlement, so Lord Balfour suggested that some polite words about the “historical connection” of the Jewish people be added to the Mandate instead. The travaux préparatoires of the British Foreign Office Committee that was tasked with drafting the Mandate reveal that the Allies did not consider the historical connection as a basis for any Jewish claim:

“It was agreed that they had no claim, whatever might be done for them on sentimental grounds; further that all that was necessary was to make room for Zionists in Palestine, not that they should turn “it”, that is the whole country, into their home.

– See PRO FO 371/5245, cited in Doreen Ingrams, Palestine Papers 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict, George Brazziler, 1972, pages 99-100

The General Assembly resolution that you cited not only excluded the bulk of Judea and Samaria from the Jewish state, it prohibited the inhabitants of the Jewish state from obtaining citizenship and moving there:
no Arab residing in the area of the proposed Arab State shall have the right to opt for citizenship in the proposed Jewish State and no Jew residing in the proposed Jewish State shall have the right to opt for citizenship in the proposed Arab State.
— United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, November 29, 1947, Chapter 3: Citizenship, International Conventions and Financial Obligations

>> Because of Arab terror, that's why.

Menachem Begin, a former ISraeli prime minister and terrorsit leader, boasted that he introduced terrorism to Palestine.

>> When Jews stated returning to Palestine in greater numbers during the 18 th century, the purchased land legally.

First of all, Jews did not start migrating to Palestine in large numbers until the 1930's and even though many of the land purchases were exposed as illegal or fraudulent, Jews only acquired 7% of the land by 1948.

>> Remember that the area was under Ottoman rule, not Palestinian (because there were no Palestinians).

False. It was under Ottoman rule and every person who lived in Palestine was considered a Palestinian.

>> The Arab population rejected then, as they do today, that this place was the historic homeland for the Jewish people.

No one acceptecd that the creation of Jewish homeland had anything to do with Palestine being the historic homeland for the Jewish people.

The problem is that the typical Zionist doesn’t realize that the terms “Judea and Samaria”, which you cited from the text of UN General Assembly resolution 181(II), were actually used to exclude those regions from the State of Israel (Medinat Yisrael), i.e.:

The boundary of the hill country of Samaria and Judea starts on the Jordan River at the Wadi Malih south-east of Beisan and runs due west to meet the Beisan-Jericho road and then follows the western side of that road in a north-westerly direction to the junction of the boundaries of the Sub-Districts of Beisan, Nablus, and Jenin.

BTW, the term you used, “historical connection”, was concocted to downplay the fact that the Zionists lack any legal standing to assert a claim to the territory of Palestine during the Post-WWI peace conferences at Versailles and San Remo. The Principle Allied Powers decided there were no bases for a legal entitlement, so Lord Balfour suggested that some polite words about the “historical connection” of the Jewish people be added to the Mandate instead. The travaux préparatoires of the British Foreign Office Committee that was tasked with drafting the Mandate reveal that the Allies did not consider the historical connection as a basis for any Jewish claim:

“It was agreed that they had no claim, whatever might be done for them on sentimental grounds; further that all that was necessary was to make room for Zionists in Palestine, not that they should turn “it”, that is the whole country, into their home.

– See PRO FO 371/5245, cited in Doreen Ingrams, Palestine Papers 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict, George Brazziler, 1972, pages 99-100

The General Assembly resolution that you cited not only excluded the bulk of Judea and Samaria from the Jewish state, it prohibited the inhabitants of the Jewish state from obtaining citizenship and moving there: no Arab residing in the area of the proposed Arab State shall have the right to opt for citizenship in the proposed Jewish State and no Jew residing in the proposed Jewish State shall have the right to opt for citizenship in the proposed Arab State.

— United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, November 29, 1947, Chapter 3: Citizenship, International Conventions and Financial Obligations

So the Arabs had no reason to recognize the place as the historic homeland of the Jewish people.

>> The Arabs declared multiple wars on the Jewish people and lost.

No, they only declared war in 1973, but yes they lost.

Israel was created by using the tools of war and terror.

>> Only once you have visited the site will you realize that Islam came long after and built on top of the Jewish Temple.

Having been there, I can say that Islam built on top of Roman ruins, but there is no evidence they built on top of the temple. After all, it was the Romans who were alledged to have destroyed the Temple, not the Muslims.

>> The greatest fear that the Palestinians have Kassandra, is that in the rubble and earth on top of which now stand the Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, are archeological gems that connect the site to Jews.

Israel's greatest fear is that there are no such gems there. Like the City of David project, Israel has found nothing on the site, and keeps reminding us that the only reason they have turned up nothing is that they haven't found it yet - this is in spite of 70 years of archeologial excaavations and digging.

>> Jews believe that the Holy of Hollies, which contained the Ten Commandment tablets, may still be berried in the rubble of the Temple Mount. Therefor Jews have forbidden any digging, the site being so holy.

Yeah, that's also a convenient way of maintaining a myth and not risking having it exposed as a myth and nothing more.

>> Jews are forbidden to walk in areas that may be connected to the Temple as not to stand on sections so holy.

That's based on religious supersition, not evidence or facts.

>> In sifting through the rubble, many Jewish items of interest were found.

Actually, none of any archeological significance, which is why you haven't bothered to name any.

Recently, coins have been discovered under the Wall (there was a cistern – or a hole where a cistern had been – into which they had fallen) which date from 16/17 CE. This casts serious doubt upon – I’m inclined to say disproves – the idea that the wall was part of Herod’s Temple, the last monument of Judaism in the area, since Josephus is so emphatic that this design, including the outer buildings, was completed on time and under budget ‘within 8 years’ by Herod. There’s more to the discussion than that, as you know, but the proposition that the Wall is not a Jewish monument is not at all absurd.

Josephus wrote that only the western wall of the city was left standing, not the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. The Madaba Map doesn’t even include the Wailing Wall, so it's likely that it was finished by the Romans or Byzantines.

http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/mad/index.html

>> The fact is Kassandra that the entire site is full of sections from the Jewish Temple.

No Gliad, the ntire site is full of sections from the Roman structures. There are still Jewish and Christian archeologists and scholars who dispute the connection of the so-called Western Wall to the sites of the ancient Jewish Temples, e.g. http://www.templemount.org/theories.html

In fact, Ze'ev Herzog from Haaretz reprted that following 80 years of intensive excavations in the area, archaeologists have found out that there is no mention of the empire of David and Solomon, nor of the source of belief in the God of Israel.

you can reform. Not the ideas one, two, or no state, but the notion "control of discourse by Jews inimical to American interests" is blameworthy. Why defend Mr. Atzmon (do read that book of his)? Even Prof. Mearsheimer, who likely never read the "work", can recognize its folly. Read Wikileaks. Learning that the center of political disputes but rarely involves Jews is an eye opener. Why, you might even be able to see new realms, such as disputes between Hindus & Muslims, Copts & Salafis, Shiites & Sunnis, Buddhists & Hindus.

>> Neoleft is also prepared to discredit the Dead Sea Scrolls that speak in detail about the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

No, I said that the Jewish connection to Jerusalem had nothing to do with the allied power's decision to create a Jewish National Home in Palestine.

>> is ready to disregard the Bible, New Testament and Old.

As are most historians and archeologists. The Bible is a work of fiction.

>> Missing from all your rants Neoleft is talk about the ancient people called Palestinians.

Again irrelevant, but the Philistines (one of the predecessors of Palestinians) were indeed an ancient people. The other predecessor of the Palestinians were the Hebrews.

So yes, they did exist.

>>Enough with your cutting and pasting of titbits of information Neoleft.

You mean, enough with the facts right?

>> Until you can argue the case for Jews, and convincingly, you will remain a product of Palestinian and Islamic propaganda.

And you remain a Hasbra troll.

Less than 400 years ago, all stories were metaphors and symbolic of the abstract.

Israel was never a physical place. Only in the modern mind of embracing blut und boden ideologies. That started about 170 years ago in central Europe. Tied in with romanticism, ideas of "Heimat." Stuff like that.

And that spawned justifications of the more "modern" Colonial enterprises, all of which used religion as a justification. And Israel is a relic of this colonialist and ultimately racists mind set.

Even in his prophecy and argument for establishing a state for the Jews- in Der Judenstaat (1896) - Herzl was not trying to return to the promised land of the Jews, rather he was merely dreaming of a new land, any land- not necessarily Palestine, he would have settled for a place in Uganda or Russia for that matter – that could well be the home for a new society of emancipated seculars like himself.

The Zionists could have settled somewhere else than Palestine, Uganda for example, as Herzl had proposed at the Sixth Zionist Congress

Uganda? Are you kidding?

"Neoleft fails tio understand what Jerusalem means to Jews and why this is so."

You don't need to tell me that Giladg; I've been debating this nut on another blog for months. He also believes that the Jews rejected the 1947 partition, started the war and the Arabs had wanted peace. Also believes that there was no threat to Israel in June 1967, and that Israel attacked the USS Liberty on purpose, among other things.

>> Neoleft fails tio understand what Jerusalem means to Jews and why this is so.

If Jerusalem was such a big deal, then why did the Zionist leaders accept UN181, which explicitly stated that Jerusalem was not to be part of the Jewish state?

Either Jerusalem wasn't that important, or the Zionists never intended to honor the partition resolution.

>> For thousands of years, at the end of the Passover meal, Jews call out "Next Year in Jerusalem".

For a start, it's irrelevant becasue the Jerusalem they were referring to was not the literal Jerusalem.

Secondly, Jerusalem wasn;'t even built by the Jews.

Thirdly, why are they still calling out "Next Year in Jerusalem" 4 decades after seizing control of it?

>> Thank you for showing those neutrals how the Arab brain ticks and malfunctions when it comes to any recognition of Jewish history and heritage.

And I should thank you for demonstrating the messinic cult called Zionism.

"We are not obliged to state the limits of our State. After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine." [Ben Gurion]

Israeli military historian David Tal says:

"the Jews initial acceptance of the Partition resolution was not mere rhetoric; the strategic planning of the war against the Palestinians was based upon it." He also said that the Jews had no intention whatever of accepting the internationalization of Jerusalem as stipulated by the partition resolution.
See David Tal, War in Palestine, 1948: strategy and diplomacy, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 071465275X, page 471

In "Scars of War Wounds of Peace", Schlomo Ben Ami said the same thing. He said that Ben Gurion's apparent acceptance of partition was only a tactical maneuver. He categorically rejected a Jewish state in anything less than all of Eretz Israel or the finality of the borders of partition both before and after the adoption of the UN resolution. A few days after the UN had adopted the resolution, Yigal Allon said the borders of partition cannot be for us the final borders. The partition plan is a compromise plan that is unjust to the Jews. We are entitled to decide our borders according to our defense needs.

Four days after UNSCOP held its first public hearings, the Jewish Agency sent a letter that came to be known as The Status-Quo Agreement. See Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present, Itamar Rabinovich, Jehuda Reinharz, UPNE, 2007, page 57.

It was addressed to the Ultra-Orthodox World Agudat Israel organization and explained that the establishment of the State required the approval of the United Nations. Ben Gurion said that it would not be possible unless the State guaranteed freedom of conscience and full equal rights for all of its citizens in advance, but he pointed out that no organ could dictate the terms of the State's constitution after the fact and the State would be able to adopt a constitution according to the wishes of the people. Israel subsequently lied about the incorporation of equality and minority rights in its fundamental laws of state in order to gain approval on its application for membership in the UN. Then it lied again in 1950 and claimed it had never provided the necessary declaration to the UN.

The Status Quo Agreement is a graphic example of bad faith and proof that the Yishuv never intended to comply with the requirement for constitutional protection of equality and minority rights in accordance with the General Assembly resolution. The UN most definitely was an organ that had the authority to dictate the terms of Israel's constitution because the Jews were asking for jurisdiction over the Arab minorities in their own homeland. So, the UN placed their rights under UN protection as a condition for granting Israel title to part of the Palestinian territory.

people, and yet you insist that you speak for all Jews, and refer to those who disagree with you as self hating? Are you not being a hypocrite?

>> In 1947 the Jews in Palestine were divided on accepting the partition plan. There were those, like Ben Gurion, who said rather accept something than nothing at all.

Partly true. Ben Gurion said rather except something temporarily as a stepping stone to taking the rest by force later.

But at least you agree that the creation of the state of Israel had nothing whatsoever to do with any historical yearning for Jerusalem or Israel.

In fact, Jabotinsky, Weizmann, Herzl, Ruppin, and Ben Gurion ridiculed ordinary Jews in the Diaspora and used derogatory terms to describe them, like Yid, eunuchs, Orientals, & etc. These were "Zionist people" who claimed they were inventing a "new Jew" and they even attempted to employ eugenics in pursuit of their goals. So it is hardly ludicrous to give them credit for inventing a new people. See for example Etan Blooms dissertation on Arthur Ruppin, the Father of Jewish Settlement in Palestine.

http://www.tau.ac.il/tarbut/tezot/bloom/EtanBloom-PhD-ArthurRuppin.pdf

I've quoted Ben Gurion himself on this point. He and the majority of the founders of the State of Israel didn't believe in the God of the scriptures or offer prayers about returning the exiles to Zion.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Quote/bg6.html

Chaim Weizmann thought that the majority of the exiles in Europe were little more than human dust with no future ahead of them. He had no intention of bringing them to Palestine.
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1940v03&isize=M&submit=Go+to+page&page=837

>> Neoleft likes to quote Jews who are self critical and also those of the self hating type, and interprets their comments as if they represent the entire Jewish people on the planet.

No, I simply quote those who tell the truth. Giladg refers to those who don’t hold their tongue and put their tribal allegiance before truth as self hating.

>> Inside Israel there quite a few others of the same type. They do not represent the mass of the Jewish people.

The majority of Jewish people refuse to live in Israel. That tells us all we need to know.

>> By the way, one of the reasons Jews still say next year in Jerusalem, is because the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was and is the holiest site for Jews, and it was the place where Jews strove to elevate themselves to be better people and to serve G-d.

No, the reason the Jews say next year in Jerusalem is because their religion has told them that God would deliver the new Jerusalem.

Find a Jewish friend, look him in the eyes, and ask him if Palestinians are human beings with the same human rights as any Jew.

Ask him if the Cherokees should have North Carolina returned to them and its present inhabitants expelled, by force if necessary.

Ask him if the actions of the Irgun and the Stern Gang, such as liquidating entire Palestinian villages, have the same moral value as liquidating a kibbutz full of Jews.

Ask him if any ethnic or religious group that has ties to a particular plot of land keeps title to that land for all eternity, regardless how long they've been gone.

They used mass terror to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians.

A fact proven by Israeli historians.

When will that be? The Second Coming?

>> In 1948 the Arab leaders were encouraging the Palestinians to leave the country.

Benny Morris debunked this claim.

>> 70% fled without seeing an Israeli soldier at all. The Arab leaders promised them to purify the country from Jews.

Also false. Most did come face to face with Zionist miltias. After all, those 500 Arabs villages didn't destroy themselves.

>> haha, again nice assertion without any proof neoleft

According to the Israeli historian Benny Morris:

'In general, during the first months of the war until April 1948 the Palestinian leadership struggled, if not very manfully, against the exodus: "The AHC [Arab Higher Committee] decided .... to adopt measures to weaken the exodus by imposing restrictions, penalties, threats, propaganda in the press [and] on the radio .... [The AHC] tried to obtain the help of neighboring countries in this context ..... [The AHC] especially tried to prevent the flight of army-age young males," according to IDF intelligence'. (Benny Morris, p. 60)

'Whatever the reasoning and attitude of the Arab states' leaders, I have found no contemporary evidence to show that either the leaders of the Arab states or the Mufti [Hajj Amin al-Husseini] ordered or directly encouraged the mass exodus during April [1948]. It may be worth noting that for decades the policy of the Palestinian Arab leaders had been to hold fast to the soil of Palestine and to resist the eviction and displacement of Arab communities'. (Benny Morris, p. 66)

'In Kafr Saba [early May 1948], the locals, under threat from Haganah attack, wanted to leave, but were ordered to stay by the ALA [Arab Liberation Army] garrison. According to Haganah sources, the ALA, with the population of Ramallah about to take flight, blocked all roads into the Triangle: "The Arab military leaders are trying to stem the flood of refugees and taking stern and ruthless measures against them." Arab radio broadcast, picked up by the Haganah, conveyed orders from the ALA to all Arabs who had left their homes to "return within three days. The commander of Ramallah assembled the mukhtars [official leaders] from the area" and demanded they strengthen morale in the their villages. The local ALA commanders turned back trucks which were coming to take families out of Ramallah. .... Haganah intelligence on May 6 reported that "Radio Jerusalem in its Arabic broadcast (14:00 hours, 5 May) and Damascus [Radio] (19:45 hours, 5 May) announced in the name of the Supreme Headquarters: 'Every Arab must defend his home and property .... Those who leave their places will be punished and their homes will be destroyed.'. The announcement was signed by [Fawzi al-]Qawukji.' (Benny Morris, p. 68-69)

Similarly, Simha Flapan (the Israeli writer and politician) stated according to declassified Israeli document and to the November 6th, 1948 edition of the Israeli newspaper Davar:

". . . after April 1948, the flight acquired massive dimensions. Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary general of the Arab League, and King Abdullah both issued public calls to the Arabs not to leave their homes. Fawzi al-Qawukji, commander of the Arab Liberation Army, was give instructions to stop the flight by force and to requisition transport for this purpose. The Arab government decided to allow entry only to women and children and to send back all men of military age (between eighteen and fifty). Mohammad Adib al-Umri, deputy director of Ramallah broadcasting station, appealed to the Arabs to stop the flight from Jenin, Tulkarm, and other towns in the Triangle that were bombed by the Israelis. On May 10, Radio Jerusalem broadcasted orders on its Arab program from Arab commanders and AHC to stop the mass flight from Jerusalem and the vicinity." (Simha Flapan, p. 86-87)

This link is the original letter sent by the Arab Higher Committee [AHC] on March 8, 1948 urging the Egyptian government to deny entry for the Palestinian refugees unless in emergency situations.

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General/Story2667.html

'The various National Committees issued bans on flight. The Ramle National Committee set up pickets at the exits to the town to prevent Arabs departing. The inhabitants of the villages east of Majdal (Beit Daras, the Sawafirs, ..etc) were warned not to allow in with their belongings. On 15 May [1948], Faiz Idris, AHC's "inspector for public safety," issued ordered to militiamen to help the invading Arab armies and to fight against " the Fifth column and the rumor-mongers, who are causing the flight of the Arab population' (Benny Morris, p. 69)

'On 10-11 May [1948], the AHC [Arab Higher Committee] called on officials, doctors, and engineers who had left the country to return on 14-15 May, repeating the call, warned the the officials who did not return would lose their " moral right to hold these administrative jobs in the future." Arab governments began to bar entry to the refugee -as happened, for example, on the Lebanese border in the middle of May'. (Benny Morris, p. 69)

'The fall of Safad and the flight of its inhabitants shocked the [Palestinian] Arab villagers of the Hula Valley, to the north. [Yegal] Allon launched a psychological warfare campaign ("If you don't flee immediately, you will all be slaughtered, your daughters will be raped," are the like), and almost all the villagers fled to Lebanon and Syria.' (Righteous Victims, p. 213)

According to a Jewish Agency's Arab section report from January 3, 1948, at the beginning of the flight:

"The Arab exodus from Palestine continues, mainly to the countries of the West. Of late, the Arab Higher Executive has succeeded in imposing close scrutiny on those leaving for Arab countries in the Middle East." Prior to the declaration of the "Jewish state," the Arab League's political committee, meeting in Sofar, Lebanon, recommended that the Arab states " the doors to . . . women and children and old people if events in Palestine make it necessary." (Simha Flapan, p. 85)

Farther proof of ethnic cleansing (as if more evidence is needed) comes from Glubb Pasha, the British officer of the Jordanian army during the 1948 war, was on the spot at the time and therefore was in a position to know what is going on. He said:

"The story which Jewish publicity at first persuaded the world to accept , that the [Palestinian] Arab refugees left voluntarily, is not true. Voluntary emigrants do not leave their homes with only the clothes they stand in. People who decided to leave house do not do so in such a hurry that they lose other members of their family -- husband losing sight of his wife, or parents of their children. The fact is that the majority left in panic flight, to escape massacre. They were in fact helped on their way by the occasional massacres--not of very many at a time, but just enough to keep them running." (Bitter Harvest, p. 95)

>> However, that does not debunk the fact that about 70% of Palestinians never saw a single Israeli soldier in 1948.

Yes it does because at least 50% of the population of Palestiniasn lived in the villages that were destroyed. The 70% figure was an invention.

from Arab countries. Most were migrating to Israel for messianic reasons.

>> the Jews were ethnically cleansed from Jerusalem in 1948.

After Israel has expelled 800,000 Palestinians. The Israeli war criminals were never punished.

>> Fifty eight of the fifty nine Jewish synagogues were destroyed, and the Jews were forcible evicted.

And today, Israel is destroying Mosques and forcibly evicitng Palestinians from EJ.

Pro Palestinian activists like Neoleft have a stealthy weapon in their arsenal: the charge of “Nakba Denial” i.e., denying that the Jews of Palestine woke up one fine day and expelled and ethnically cleansed some 600-700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes to create a “Greater Israel.” Thus, any suggestion that the Yishuv accepted the partition, that there was a war of aggression waged by the Arabs against the Yishuv the moment after the partition passed, that the overwhelming number of refugees fled the fighting that followed the Arabs’ war of aggression (which they were in fact winning by late March 1948), or that the Yishuv were fighting for their lives, is the equivalent of denying that there was a Holocaust.

What follows here is attempt by me to refute this insidious slander, to discern what really happened in the first Arab-Israeli War and what caused the flight of the refugees, and, hopefully, to meaningfully contribute to the discussion occurring here.

This post addresses the first stage of the Civil War stage of the war from November 30, 1947 to April 2, 1948. My next one will address the period of April 2, 1948 to May 15, 1948.

***

I) PRELUDE TO WAR: NOVEMBER 29, 1947--DECEMBER 14, 1947

The first Arab-Israeli War is divided into two stages: the “Civil War” stage (November 30, 1947—May 15, 1948) between the Yishuv and various Arab militias inside Palestine, and the “International” stage between May 15, 1948 and the armistices of early 1949 between Israel and the surrounding Arab states after they invaded Palestine.

After the passing of the partition on November 29, 1947, the Arabs, both in and outside Palestine, rejected it and declared it illegitimate, which they had been saying from the beginning. Arab UN delegates warned that any attempt to implement the partition would lead to war; after the partition vote was taken, the Arab delegations in the UN walked out of the plenum.

Eliahu Sasoon, of the JAE, who was worried and doubtful about the Yishuv’s ability to win an all-out war against the Arabs, sent Azzam Pasha, the Arab League secretary, a letter in early December 1947 expressing the Jews’ desire to avoid conflict, and implored the Arab League to accept the Jewish state; the letter was unanswered. The previous September, Pasha had rejected Abba Eban’s offer of Jewish-Arab conciliation and cooperation, telling him that the Jews were foreigners, their presence in Palestine was only temporary, and that their only hope was to abandon Zionism and statehood and accept Arab rule in a unitary state.

Arab attacks in fact began on November 30, the day after the partition vote. On that day, a Jewish ambulance en route to the Hadassah Hospital came under fire, a group of Arabs ambushed a Jewish bus traveling from Netanya to Jerusalem, killing five and wounding seven, and attacked another Jewish bus en route to Jerusalem from Hadera, killing two. A Jewish person was murdered in Tel-Aviv’s Camel Market, in the prison at Acre Arab prisoners attacked Jewish ones, who were forced to barricade themselves in their cells before the British intervened, in Haifa Jews passing through Arab neighborhoods were shot at, and Jewish vehicles were stoned all over Palestine.

Over the next several days there were shootings, stonings, and rioting, bombs tossed into cafes, Molotov cocktails thrown into shops, killing and maiming scores. Young Arabs commandeered the offices of the local national committees demanding weapons, and the AHC proclaimed a three day strike to begin the next day, enforcing closure of Arab shops, schools, and businesses and organized and incited Arab crowds to attack Jewish targets. On December 2, a mob of several hundred Arabs ransacked Jerusalems’s Jewish commercial center, looting, burning, stabbing, and stoning all before them.

Up until December 4, most of the Arab violence was scattershot and the result of intifada-like incited mayhem. It was on December 4, however, that the real Palestinian Arab assault began in earnest, when some 120-150 armed Arabs attacked the Efal kibbutz, the first small unit military attack on a Jewish settlement, and on December 8 Hasan Salame, commander of the Lydda front, launched another large-scale attack on the Hatikva quarter in south Tel-Aviv. Two days later there was another abortive assault on the Hatikva, and an armed assault on the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.

All these company-sized attacks were repulsed, but they set the pattern for the conflict, which was evolving from mob rioting and armed clashes to more military/guerilla style small unit operations. It was not until December 9 that the Hagana’s head of operations, Yigael Yadin began responding in kind to consolidate and protect crucial Jewish transportation arteries. The war had begun, and the Arabs were attacking the Yishuv, not the other way around. At the Arab league summit in Cairo, it was decided to send one million Egyptian pounds and 10,000 rifles to the Palestinian war effort.

Arab violence in response to the partition was hardly limited to Palestine; violence literally exploded in all the Arab capitols, with thousands taking to the streets chanting anti-Jewish and anti-Western slogans. There were also physical attacks on British and American legations, so much so that the British government had to make arrangements to evacuate British citizens from Syria. In Cairo, the ‘ulema of Al-Azhar University (one of Islam’s supreme authorities) proclaimed a “worldwide jihad in defense of Arab Palestine.”

The Arabs attacked the Yishuv in response to the partition vote the day after the vote was taken. They attacked not only because they rejected the partition, but because they rejected any independent, sovereign Jewish entity in any part of Palestine, whatever its size, and were determined to crush it. They had long vowed to do so, and made no secret of it. There were bitter disagreements between the various Arab governments about the timing, means and methods by which the war against the Yishuv in Palestine was to be waged, but certainly no disagreement about whether or not to do so. The questions debated between them were a matter of when, and how, not whether or not. The conflicting strategies, loyalties, and agendas would doom the Arab war effort. But all were united in viewing the crusade for Palestine as a matter of principle and honor, and they honestly and honorably believed in their cause.

II) THE OPPOSING SIDES

After the 1948 war both sides subsequently argued that they were the weaker side; the Israelis to emphasize the extent of their triumph, the Arabs to excuse the extent of their defeat. In demographic terms, the Arabs had an overwhelming edge: some forty million Arabs and 1,200,000 Palestinian Arabs against some 650,000 of the Yishuv. The Arabs/Palestinians’ edge in land mass, economic resources, and potential economic resources were even greater.

The Yishuv, however, had prepared for war, and the Arabs had not. The Yishuv was a highly motivated, and political and economically cohesive entity, and this cohesion was reflected in the Haganah’s superior organization, leadership, and tactics. Nonetheless, there were weaknesses, the Haganah were in the process of reorganization when the fighting broke out, and they reacted slowly to developments. Their superiority, such as it was, was only in relation to the Arabs’ inferiority in numbers, cohesion, and equipment.

The numerous Palestinian militias lacked a central organizing authority. Scattered all around Palestine, they were mostly local (and tribal) in character and formation, being any where from squad, platoon to company level size, armed with pistols, rifles and small stocks of ammo. There was little co-ordination between the militias, though neighboring villages would often assist each other.

Outside of the local militias, the main Arab/Palestinian fighting forces consisted of the Arab Liberation Army commanded by Fawzi al-Qawuqji, and the most prominent Palestinian militias were commanded by Abd al-Qader Husayni of the Jerusalem front, and Hasan Salame of the Lydda front, and both were answerable to the Mufti.

The Palestinian war effort was plagued from the beginning by disorganization, lack of equipment and resources, lack of cohesion and effective command, divided allegiances, and intense political and military inter-Arab rivalries. As Morris wrote, “There were simply too many diverse Arab units and too many bodies pulling the strings from the outside.”

III) THE FIRST CIVIL WAR STAGE: DECEMBER 1947—APRIL 2, 1948

The small-scale violence of the first several days were incited and encouraged by Arab leaders both inside and outside of Palestine, and the military attacks on the settlements were launched by company-sized Arab and Palestinian militias. Throughout December and January the military attacks on the roadways and settlements continued to escalate in scale, frequency, intensity, and sophistication.

Said Benny Morris: “At the start of the civil war, Whitehall (the British Foreign Office) believed that the Arabs would prevail. ‘In the long run the Jews would not be able to cope…and would be thrown out of Palestine unless they came to terms with the Arabs,’ was the considered judgment of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff.”

Prospects of a Jewish victory were not rated high at the time among the US intelligence community, either: “The Jewish forces will initially have the advantage. However, as the Arabs gradually coordinate their war effort, the Jews will be forced to withdraw from isolated positions, and having been drawn into a war of attrition, will gradually be defeated.”

The Haganah, in the midst of a rigorous process of reorganization, was caught flat footed by the outbreak of hostilities the day after the partition vote. They thought the attacks were just more “disturbances.” Only really by January, with increasing numbers of Arab militias and armed groups attacking Jewish communities and roadways, did they realize that the war that they had long feared had in fact begun.

On December 14, Arab forces attacked a major convoy to Ben-Shemen and the settlements of Kfar Yavetz (December 27).

On January 10, the ALA attacked the settlement of Kfar-Szold, and on Kfar Uriah on January 11. On January 14 a Palestinian militia attacked Etzion Bloc, taking heavy casualties, but, in the next two days, wiping out a platoon of 35 Jewish fighters sent in as reinforcements. On January 20, the ALA attacked Yechiam. Other attacks were launched on Tirat Svi (February 16), Magdiel (March 2), Ramot-Naftali (March 4). They also successfully ambushed three major Jewish convoys (March 27, 28, & 31), attacked Mishmar-Haemak (April 4), Ramat Yohanan (April 13), and, in Galilee, there were there were further Arab Liberation Army attacks on the Jewish kibbutzim of Dan, Dafna, Kfar-Szold (again), Ramat-Naftali (again), and Maayan-Baruch in the first week of May.

There were certainly acts of intimidation and terror against Arabs/Palestinians Between the passing of the partition Nov.29, 1947 and April 2, 1948, there were certainly retaliatory attacks (actually, revenge killings) by the Haganah on Khisas in Galilee on December 19, Balad ash Sheik and Hawasa on Dec.31-Jan.1, and the Semiramis Hotel in west Jerusalem on January 5-6 (in which some 26 civilians died). There were also certainly a series of small counter-assaults on other small targets in this period, but the Haganah was, by and large, on the defensive in this period. The Stern and Irgun terrorists also targeted civilians in numerous bombings in the next three months following the partition vote, and all of these were answered in kind by Arab retaliations. But there was, on the part of the Yishuv, nothing any where near the scale of the Arab attacks on the Jewish settlements and roadways.

Arab forces, most of whom were from outside Palestine, were engaging in far more attacks than either the Haganah or the Stern/ Irgun terrorists. This was also the consensus view of the international community at the time.

In any event, the tit-for-tat bombings by both Jewish and Arab terrorists in the urban areas from December 1947 thru March 1948 were largely a sideshow; the real war at this stage was taking place in the Jewish settlements and the roadways. And here the Arab forces were on the attack, and were attacking quite successfully.

A NY Times article of January 29, 1948 noted,

“(N.Y, Times, Jan, 29) describes Jerusalem as virtually isolated behind a curtain of fear. The dangers of travel are cutting the city off from its normal markets: supplies are short, prices are fantastically high, and many shops, both Jewish and Arab, are closed. Within the walls of the Old City, the plight of 400 Jewish families, surrounded by Arabs, is becoming more desperate each day.”

An AP report on the same day noted,

“Cairo. Jan, 29 - According to an A.P. report quoted by the N.Y. Times, 'Assad Dagher, chief of the Arab League's press section, said today that Palestine may have an Arab government by the time the British leave. He said that an Arab regime might ask for the help of regular armies of the seven near-by Arab states to prevent creation of a Jewish nation. His statement modified a previous assertion that the Arab states would occupy all of Palestine with regular armies after British troops leave.”

http://domino.un.org/pdfs/AAC21P4.pdf

A January 17 editorial in the British New Statesman excoriates the United States for not lending a stronger hand toward implementing the partition with the taunt that the Mufti and the Arab High Committee were confident that “they have got the Americans where they want them, talking Zionism at home, and practicing in Palestine a non-intervention that works against the Jews.”

Here is a Manchester Guardian editorial of Jan. 31, 1948 excoriating the Atlee government for failing to support the Jews under assault, and which would make its present anti-Israel editors cringe:

“At present we are still treating Jews and Arabs on the same footing, though the Jews are fighting to defend a decision of the UN, and the Arabs are fighting to defeat it.”

A February 2 1948 London Times editorial excoriating the Atlee Government for its Palestine policy and urging on the activity of the UN Palestine Commission to implement the partition, noted that,

“the members of the UN responsible for the decision on partition have exposed the Jews in Palestine to difficulties and dangers and they cannot leave them in the lurch.”

http://domino.un.org/pdfs/AAC21P21.pdf

On February 16, 1948, the United Nations Palestine Commission reported to the Security Council:

“Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein.

The main facts controlling the security situation in Palestine today are the following:

a. Organized effect by strong Arab elements inside and outside Palestine to prevent the implementation of the Assembly’s plan of partition and to thwart its objectives by threats and acts of violence, including armed incursions into Palestinian territory.

b. Certain elements of the Jewish community in Palestine continue to commit irresponsible acts of violence which worsen the security situation, although that Community is generally in support of the recommendations of the Assembly.”

The report also recounts, in detail, on the activities and attacks of the various Arab militias and the Arab Liberation Army that had been infiltrating from neighboring countries.

http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/FDF734EB76C39D6385256C4C004CDBA7

A March 17 NY Times article similarly notes Arab military activity in the Nablus-Tulkharm-Jenin triangle, saying that “the army’s strength was reported to have reached close to 8000 men, with more arriving daily.”

It also records Abd al-Qader al-Husayni, the Mufti-appointed commander of the Jerusalem front of the Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas (“Army of the Holy War”) as saying he was “not willing to consider a truce under any circumstances.”

http://domino.un.org/pdfs/AAC21P33.pdf

Fawzi al-Qawuqji, commander of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA), told Al-Ahram on March 9, 1948 that the ALA was fighting for “the defeat of the partition and the annihilation of the Zionists.”

The Mufti told the Jaffa daily Al Sarih on March 10, 1948 that preventing partition was not enough, and that they “would continue fighting until the Zionists were annihilated and the whole of Palestine became a purely Arab state.”

A March 28 NY Herald Tribune report has Hussein Khalidi, Secretary of the Arab Higher Executive Committee for Palestine pouring scorn on “what he termed ‘sudden Jewish efforts’ to obtain an international force to protect the Holy Land’s Shrines,” and that this was “due to a realization by the Jews that they could not protect their 100,000 people in Jerusalem.”

http://domino.un.org/pdfs/AAC21P37.pdf

The sentiments expressed above by al-Qawuqji on March 9, the Mufti on March 10, by Abd al-Qader al-Husayni on March 17, and Hussein Khalidi on March 29 all gave voice to the well founded confidence among the Arabs that they were winning the war against the Yishuv at this stage. As is indicated above, this was also the consensus view in the international community at the time; the editorials of the London Times, the Guardian, and the New Statesman, all pleaded with the Atlee government (and the U.S.) to intervene more decisively in the conflict to rescue the Yishuv from their desperate plight. A British report in late March similarly commented:

“The intensification of Arab attacks on communications and particularly the failure of the Kfar Etzion convoy (March 27-28), probably the Yishuv’s strongest transport unit, to force a return passage has brought home the precarious position of Jewish communities both great and small which depend on supply lines running through Arab controlled country. In particular, it is now realized that the position of Jewish Jerusalem, where a food scarcity already exists, is likely to be desperate after 16 May.”

Another British report in early April read:

“It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Yishuv and its leaders are deeply worried about the future. The 100,000 Jews of Jerusalem have been held to ransom and it is doubtful that the Arab economic blockade of the city can be broken by Jewish forces alone. If the Jewish leaders are not prepared to sacrifice the 100,000 Jews of Jerusalem, then they must concede, however unwillingly, that the Arabs have won the second round of the struggle which began with a Jewish victory in the first round on the 29th of November.”

This then was the dire situation facing the Yishuv in early April of 1948. After the successful ambush of the latest Jewish convoy to Jerusalem on March 31, it was precarious to say the least. The sabotage of the convoys was increasing, the strangulation of the roadways and all arteries of communication between the scattered communities of the Yishuv were sharpening, the attendant shortages of basic commodities and weapons inside Jerusalem were growing, and the siege around the city was tightening. When US Rep to the UN Warren Austin announced in late March that the war in Palestine proved that the partition was impossible, thus indicating a backtracking of American support, it only added to the gloom and the increasing demoralization of the Yishuv.

As Benny Morris wrote, “Given the state of the Yishuv after the terrible losses along the roads, it had no choice: Either it went on the offensive, or it would lose Jewish Jerusalem, and, perhaps, the war.”

***

So, as long as we are discussing inarguable facts of history that cannot and should not be denied, let’s add one more to the mix: The fact that the Mufti and his Arab High Committee, along with the nations of the Arab League, through their respective proxy armies inside Palestine—the Arab Liberation Army for the League, the Arab Legion from Jordan, the Muslim Brothers from Egypt, and the Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas (“Army of the Holy War”) for the Mufti and the AHC—were all waging full scale war on the Yishuv in an open and unabashed attempt to overrun and destroy the Jewish settlements, strangle the roadways between them, besiege Jewish Jerusalem, and, ultimately, to abort the implementation of the partition and the creation of a Jewish state by force. Both the Mufti and al-Qawuqji of the ALA also made perfectly clear that merely preventing the partition was not enough; they had frankly expulsionist ambitions in store for a defeated Yishuv, the Mufti pointing out more than once over the years that all the Jews who came to Palestine after 1917 would have to leave.

"Academic conferences don't require that everyone who participates agree with each other".

Well, not directly, anyways.

But in a happy coincidence, 98% of academics subscribe to same stale, left-wing ideas as Walt.

Readily admit that Jews emigrated from Arab states to Israel. They were not expelled at gun point like the Palestiniasn were.

Without going into great detail, (but I will, if necessary) and using Israeli government statistics, it is not hard to demonstrate that the experiences of the Palestinians and Arab Jews or Mizrahim, were very different, and that the latter were encouraged and provoked by the Zionist leadership to make aliyah in order to provide the new state with a cheap labor force.

The Mizrahim of course, not been included in the Ashkenazi Zionists’ deliberations and were treated as second class citizens from the moment of their arrival and dumped in what were called “development towns,” which were deliberately left unprotected from attacks by the Palestinian fedayeen.

Moni Takim, a Mizahi, and one of the founders of the Israeli Black Panthers, once described how he gained political consciousness of what was going on when he found himself building defenses for the Ashkenazi kibbutzim (which did not accept Mizrahim as members) whereas the town in which he lived had no protection whatsoever.

Deliberately leaving the Mizrahim exposed and more vulnerable to Palestinian attack was one of the ways that Ben-Gurion and the Zionist leadership, sought to de-Levantize them, to break their cultural links with the Arab world, and make them more susceptible to anti-Palestinian propaganda. It worked.

The day after UNGAR 181 was passed. The very next day, Zionist militias began expelling Palestinians, and by May 1948, Israel had expelled 300,000 Palestinians before a single Arab army set foot inside Palestine.

>> Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and one of the initial members of the Muslim Brotherhood, became a Nazi agent after meeting Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, in 1937.

False. Not only did al-Husseini have nothign to do with the Holocaust, but the reason he was in Gemrnay in 1937 is becasue he was in exile from Palestine and never returned. He had no authority in Palestine. He was never elected by Palestinians (in fact he lost the election).

The Mufti was part of the British leadership. It's important to remember that the Muslim Committee responsible for voting on the list of candidates in the run-off elections for the position of Mufti awarded the most votes to Jaralla, followed by Khalidi and Budayri.

Since High Commissioner Herbert Samuel was only supposed to consider the top three candidates, Al-Hajj Amin Al-Husayni was shut-out. However, Samuel appointed Husayuni as Grand Mufti despite his election loss. See Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem: Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement, Columbia University Press, 1988, page 25.

The Arab Higher Committee (AHC) and the Mufti were not the formal or elected representatives of the people of Palestine after WWII. Avi Shlaim noted that when the Arab Higher Committee (AHC) was reestablished in 1946 after a nine-year hiatus, it was not by the various Palestinian political parties themselves, as had been the case when it was founded in 1936, but by a decision of the Arab League of States. See page 1 of Avi Shlaim, The Rise and Fall of the All-Palestine Government in Gaza, Journal of Palestine Studies. 20: 37–53. (2001)

In February of 1948 the Council of the Arab League decided not to recognize the AHC or the Mufti as the representatives of the Palestinian people. Thereafter, all of the Leagues’ affairs were handled through its own Palestine Council, not through the Mufti or the AHC. See Politics in Palestine: Arab factionalism and social disintegration, 1939-1948, By Issa Khalaf, University of New York Press, 1991, ISBN 0-7914-0708-X, page 290.

1. The Mufti did not enjoy much popular support and all his efforts to organize a popular resistance to the Partition Resolution were unsuccessful. According to Ian Bickerton, Carla Klausner, "A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict", 4th Edition, Prentice Hall, 2004, few Palestinians joined the Arab Liberation Army and many Palestinians favored partition and indicated a willingness to live alongside a Jewish state (page 88).

2. Ben-Gurion rebuffed the various efforts of more pragmatic Palestinian Arabs to reach a modus vivendi since it was his "belief ... that Zionist expansionism would be better served by leaving the leadership of the Palestinians in the hands of the extremist Mufti than in the hands of a 'moderate' opposition. 'Rely on the Mufti' became his motto." Blocked by Zionist policy from officially expressing their opposition to war, the Palestinian Arabs arranged "non-aggression" pacts with their Jewish neighbors. The relatively few who did take up arms did so primarily to defend themselves against feared attacks by the Jews. See the review of Simha Flapan's The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities

3. Ezra Danin worked in various capacities in the Jewish Agency and the Arab department, "Sherut Yediot", the "Information Service" of the Haganah. In January of 1948, Danin wrote "I believe the majority of the Palestinian masses accept the partition as a fiat accompli and do not believe it possible to overcome or reject it." See Document 90, page 128 "Political and Diplomatic Documents Central Zionist Archives/Israel State Archives, December 1947- May 1948, Jerusalem, 1979.

In the final analysis, the Arab leaders who advocated negotiations and co-existence with the Jews from the very beginning ended up governing the overwhelming majority of the territory of the former Palestine mandate in the East and West banks.

..left without seeing a single Israeli soldier.

The number is purely propaganda and based on nothign but lies.
>> All of those who left fully anticipated being able to return to their homes after an early Arab victory, as Palestinian nationalist Aref el-Aref explained in his history of the 1948 war:

False. None left willingly, and certainly none left believing that they would return to their homes after an early Arab victory. Most Palestinian villages had signed non pacst for non violence and were in favor of a partition.

>> By the end of January1948, the exodus was so alarming the Palestine Arab Higher Committee asked neighboring Arab countries to refuse visas to these refugees and to seal the borders against them.

There was no exodus, it was an axpulsion. In Jabnuary, the Hanaganah were setting off bombs in hotels in Jafa and Jersualem. During the first 3 months on 1948, the Zionsits were responsible for dozens of bombings in cities and villages and killings on roads, carried out by Mistaravim (disguised as Arabs). They blew up homes, and planted explosives at night.

>> Meanwhile, Jewish leaders urged the Arabs to remain in Palestine and become citizens of Israel.

False. Ben Gurion was actually ordering the Hanaganh to expell the Palestinians and to prevent any from returning. Ben Gurion not only wanted to expell the Palestinians , but also feared that those who remained would enact revenge, so they were also forced out.

Ben Gurion even set up a trasnfer commitee in May 1948, with the aim of overseeing the removal of Palestinian Arabs from their towns and villages, and preventing their return.

In addition to this, the Village Files project was a particularly macabre project, whereby the Zionists collected information about every village in Palestine, mainly detailing the advantages of taking them over or destroying them. Details like the quality of the land, how wealthy the populations were, the output of the crops, the political affiliations of the population, how difficult it would be to occupy it.

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/it-took-a-village-1.363015

As early as 1937, Ben Gurion revealed his plans to his son in a letter, in which he revealed that the partition was only a stepping stone to reclaimiing all of Palestine.

"[I am] satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state--we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 107 & One Palestine Complete, p. 403)

Ben-Gurion commented on the proposed Peel Commission Partition plan as follows in 1937:

"We must EXPEL ARABS and take their places .... and, if we have to use force-not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places-then we have force at our disposal." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 66).

Note the premeditated plan to ethnically cleanse the Negev and Transjordan which were not allocated to the Jewish State by the Peel Commission?

On February 7th, 1948, while addressing the Mapai Council he responded to a remark that the "Jews have no land in the Jerusalem corridor" with the following:

"The war will give us the land. The concept of 'ours' and 'not ours' are only concepts for peacetime, and during war they lose all their meaning."
(Benny Morris, p. 170 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180)

And on February 8th, 1948 Ben-Gurion also stated to the Mapai Council:

"From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema [East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood]. . . there are no [Palestinian] Arabs. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been Jewish as it is now. In many [Palestinian] Arab neighborhoods in the west one sees not a single [Palestinian] Arab. I do not assume that this will change. . . . What had happened in Jerusalem. . . . is likely to happen in many parts of the country. . . in the six, eight, or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180-181)

In a speech addressing the Zionist Action Committee on April 6, 1948, Ben-Gurion clearly stated that war could be used as an instrument to solve the so called "Arab demographic problem". He stated:

"We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area, even if only in an artificial way, in a military way. . . . I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of [Palestinian] Arab population." (Benny Morris, p. 181 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 181)

Like Jabotinsky, BDG believed in the forced colonization of both banks of the Jordan, he simply tried to conceal his long term ambition to redeem 100% of the territory of the Palestine Mandate and settle Jews on both sides of the Jordan. Here is how one Zionist historian summed it up:

"As a historian of Zionism, Gideon, you must know Ben-Gurion’s words in the 20th Zionist Congress in 1937 (this time in Zurich not in Basel): ‘If I had been faced with the question: a Jewish state in the west of the land of Israel (note the emphasis of the ‘west of the land of Israel’ meaning there is also a ‘east of the land of Israel’) in return to giving up on our historical right to the entire land of Israel I would have postponed the (establishment) of the state’. And he added (as far as I know, to applause from many of the delegates): ‘No Jew is entitled to give up the right of the Jewish nation to the land. It is not in the authority of any Jew or of any Jewish body; it is not even in the authority of the entire nation alive today to give up any part of the land’. This sentence has won great attention also in the St. James committee. He concluded by stating the view of the majority (then) in the Zionist movement: ‘this is a standing right under all conditions. Even if, at any point, the Jews choose to decline it, they have no right to deprive future generations of it. Our right to the entire land exists and stands for ever’. In view of the things that are being said today, it is hard to avoid the gloomy realisation that, sixty years after Ben-Gurion announced Israeli independence, the current Israeli president, Prime Minister and not a small coalition of Knesset Members seem willing to relinquish this historic claim. If nothing else, they have no right to do so because this land belongs to those who have left us, and those who are yet to come. Without them, it is impossible to make a decision."

http://www.jewishquarterly.org/issuearchive/article0831.html?articleid=332

In 1946 the Jewish Agency under Ben Gurion’s leadership, claimed that the mandate was indivisible and that the Jewish people still had a secured legal interest in the territory of Transjordan and that the provisions of the mandate with regard to the Jewish national home had only been “temporarily waived”. The Agency claimed that the plans for Transjordan’s independence violated Article 80 of the UN Charter. See the Palestine Post, April 9th, 1946, page 3

http://www.jpress.org.il/Default/Skins/TAUEn/Client.asp?Skin=TAUEn&Enter=True&Ref=UExTLzE5NDYvMDQvMDkjQXIwMDMwMA%3D%3D&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom&AW=1329128636375&AppName=2

The fact that Palestinisn were expelled at gun point and massacred is beyind dispute.

In his Biograhy, Soldier of Peace, Rabin openly admitted his complicity in serious crimes against humanity in connection with the ethnic cleansing of Lydda & Ramla. Menachim Begin openly admitted that he intentionally targeted the civilian population of Jaffa too. See Menachem Begin, ‘The Revolt – story of the Irgun’. Translated by Samuel Katz. Hadar Publishing, Tel Aviv. 1964. Page 355 – 371.

So, we know perfectly well that those refugees did not voluntarily flee their land or abandon their properties. Despite Rabin’s apparent remorse, the fact remains that he was unwilling to compensate or resettle Palestinian refugees; encouraged the military to break the bones of demonstrators during uprisings; employed targeted killings, forced disappearances, and torture; employed closures and curfews as collective punishments; used political prisoners as bargaining chips; condoned the military’s “neighbor” policies & etc. The Israeli High Court subsequently ruled that many of those tactics were criminal. In the cases that were decided during the Rabin administration, the Knesset refused to set up commissions to investigate the Premier. See for example Israel Declines to Study Rabin Tie to Beatings.

There is no getting aroudn the fact that The Zioniosts had laid plans for the conquest of Palestine from the very beginning. The connection between the policies of early Zionists, like Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky, and the colonization of the Occupied Arab territories after the Six Day War has been established by many historians. The Zionist leadership determined as early as 1910 that reliable and permanent political control could only exist when Eretz Israel was juridically, economically, and actually under Jewish control. See for example the article on Israeli Land Acquisition In Occupied Territory, 1967-77, by John Ruedy Professor of History at Georgetown University in the exhibits of the US Senate hearings on Israel’s colonization of the West Bank, pdf file page 124. The Jewish Agency pressed for many of the divisive policies of separate development that were pursued by the mandatory administration. See Barbara Jean Smith, The roots of separatism in Palestine: British economic policy, 1920-1929, Syracuse University Press, 1993.

Benny Morris, Shlomo Ben Ami, and David Tal had documented the fact that Weizmann and Ben Gurion viewed partition as part of a phased plan to take over the whole of Palestine. Even Ben Gurion’s biographer, Shabtai Teveth, admitted that Ben Gurion had made up his mind that the only relationship between the Jews and the Arabs would be a military one and that economic, social, and geographical partition (de facto apartheid) were inherent in Ben Gurion’s conception of Zionism. See pages 10, 12, 43-44, and 179-184 of “Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs”, Oxford University Press, USA, 1985. Teveth informs us that Ben-Gurion, inspired by the Peel Report, considered “a Jewish state in part of Palestine as a stage in the longer process towards a Jewish state in all of Palestine.” Lecturing to Mapai activists on 29 October 1937, Ben-Gurion explained that the realization of the Jewish state would come in two stages: the first, “the period of building and laying foundations,” would last ten to fifteen years and would be but the prelude to the second stage, “the period of expansion.” The objective in both stages was “the in-gathering of the exiles in all of Palestine.” It is because of these views, Teveth tells us, that Ben-Gurion made no attempt to contact Palestinian leaders after 1936. We also learn from the official history of the Haganah that in the summer of 1937, ten years before the UN partition resolution, Ben-Gurion ordered the Haganah commander of Tel Aviv, Elimelech Slikowitz (“Avnir”), to draw up a plan for the military takeover of the entire country in anticipation of Britain’s eventual withdrawal from Palestine expected in the wake of the Peel Report. Despite all of that evidence, you claim that the victims are to blame because they rejected the UN partition proposal, but fail to mention the fact that the Jewish Agency itself rejected the Peel plan and the UNSCOP majority and minority plans and asked for a larger territorial allocation. In any event, the Security Council and the President of the United States stated that the UN Charter did not permit the plan of partition to be imposed on the Palestinian people by force.

We seen that you did not derive your views from Benny Morris. Morris reports from the start that the operations against the towns were designed to induce civilian panic and flight. Karsh never mentions the repeated entries in Ben Gurion’s diary which said that “Ramle and Lydda had to be destroyed” or the reports to Ben Gurion and the militia commanders about the efficacy of the air attacks conducted by the Haganah air arm in generating serious and general civilian flight (Benny Morris, The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem revisited, page 425) . Karsh also does not mention the earlier terror bombing of Ramle’s market; the massacre of Arab workers on the outskirts of the Ramle by the IZL; and the fact that, even before the first truce, the Israeli authorities had thought of the towns offensively and conducted operations against them (page 424). Morris reports “The intention, from the first, was to depopulate them (page 435). Neither Morris nor Karsh give an adequate explanation for the massacre of the detainees or explain how inhabitants of the proposed Arab state could have “rebelled” against Jewish forces by defending themselves.

So, Israel invaded the territory of the proposed Arab state, drove off the inhabitants, and then employed an absentee property law in the second half of the 20th century to strip people of their private property. That violates the accepted law of nations reflected in Article 144 of the Treaty of Sèvres, 1920. It puts Israel on par with the Turkish government that was responsible for the Armenian genocide – long after those sort of legal tactics were no longer acceptable state practices.

from Arab states in his article, "Hitching a ride on the magic carpet".

He explains the whole narrative of Jewish refugees was invented in the 1970's by Yaakov Meron, head of the Justice Ministry's Arab legal affairs department of the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC).

At the time, Meron's thesis was considered radical and extreme.

He claimed Jews were expelled from Arab countries under policies enacted in concert with Palestinian leaders - and he termed these policies "ethnic cleansing."

Vehemently opposing the dramatic Zionist narrative, Meron claimed that Zionism had relied on romantic, borrowed phrases ("Magic Carpet," "Operation Ezra and Nehemiah") in the description of Mizrahi immigration waves to conceal the "fact" that Jewish migration was the result of "Arab expulsion policy." In a bid to complete the analogy drawn between Palestinians and Mizrahi Jews, WOJAC publicists claimed that the Mizrahi immigrants lived in refugee camps in Israel during the 1950s (i.e., ma'abarot or transit camps), just like the Palestinian refugees.

The organization's claims infuriated many Mizrahi Israelis who defined themselves as Zionists. As early as 1975, at the time of WOJAC's formation, Knesset speaker Yisrael Yeshayahu declared:

"We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations."

Shlomo Hillel, a government minister and an active Zionist in Iraq, adamantly opposed the analogy:

"I don't regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."

In a Knesset hearing, Ran Cohen stated emphatically:

"I have this to say: I am not a refugee." He added: "I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee."

The opposition was so vociferous that Ora Schweitzer, chair of WOJAC's political department, asked the organization's secretariat to end its campaign. She reported that members of Strasburg's Jewish community were so offended that they threatened to boycott organization meetings should the topic of "Sephardi Jews as refugees" ever come up again. Such remonstration precisely predicted the failure of the current organization, Justice for Jews from Arab Countries to inspire enthusiasm for its efforts.

So you see Amos, the story about Jewish refugees being expelled from Arab lands was DOA even in Israel. God only knows why you insist on repeating it.

I think you guys should know that Neoleft is not only an unhinged anti-Zionist from the lunatic left, he’s also a serial plagiarist.

In the passages he writes above,

“Benny Morris, Shlomo Ben Ami, and David Tal had documented the fact that Weizmann and Ben Gurion viewed partition as part of a phased plan to take over the whole of Palestine. Even Ben Gurion’s biographer, Shabtai Teveth, admitted that Ben Gurion had made up his mind that the only relationship between the Jews and the Arabs would be a military one and that economic, social, and geographical partition (de facto apartheid) were inherent in Ben Gurion’s conception of Zionism. See pages 10, 12, 43-44, and 179-184 of “Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs”, Oxford University Press, USA, 1985.”

And,

“In his Biograhy, Soldier of Peace, Rabin openly admitted his complicity in serious crimes against humanity in connection with the ethnic cleansing of Lydda & Ramla. Menachim Begin openly admitted that he intentionally targeted the civilian population of Jaffa too. See Menachem Begin, ‘The Revolt – story of the Irgun’. Translated by Samuel Katz. Hadar Publishing, Tel Aviv. 1964. Page 355 – 371. “

This is copied verbatim from a commenter on Mondoweiss named “Hostage.” I know this because it actually comes from a post from Hostage that was addressed to me on May 6, 2011:

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/04/arab-spring-fatah-and-hamas-reportedly-reach-deal-for-interim-govt-elections-in-a-year.html/comment-page-1#comment-316574

Btw, I was recently banned from Mondoweiss for disputing Hostage’s dubious assertion that the Haganah perpetrated the Deir Yassin massacre. This was an instance of “Nakba Denial,” which is banned on MW.

So Amos, you’ll be happy to know you were the recipient of a recycled attack that was originally directed at me!

Your quoting the biggest mass murderer racist in history in Hitler.
This shows how deranged you are.
What next, quoting from Pol Pot.

nothing you say disputes the logic of my argument or the facts upon which it is based.

The problem was never absence of opposition to Jews, but words of Jews who did not think Jews should become corpses. The Dearborn Independent, when published by Henry Ford from '19-'27, had a '25 circulation exceeded only by the New York Daily News. Father Coughlin's radio addresses reached 30,000,000 pairs of ears. This particular journal is part of the media, but so are http://www.counterpunch.org/ , http://www.sabeel.org/ , http://www.aljazeera.com/ , http://www.truthtellers.org/ , http://www.davidduke.org/ , http://www.rense.com/ , http://www.ifamericansknew.org/ , http://www.wrmea.com/, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

Cries of victimization by Jew baiters fascinate. In 1963, Senator Fulbright held months of hearings to discern the Jewish octopus that threatened the United States. http://irmep.org/ila/Senate/default.asp One can only imagine what being investigated by the US Senate meant to American citizens who were singled out because they were, well, Jewish! Notwithstanding this outstanding attempt to denigrate American citizens when virtually no aid was provided to Israel, Senator Fulbright had the longest career in US history as chief of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: http://www.foreign.senate.gov/about/history/ , he is deemed a viictim of Jewish intrigue when he was defeated. http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v20/v20n4p-6_Okeefe.html http://www.qsc.cc/fulbright.htm http://tinyurl.com/87vymov http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Israel/TheyDareToSpeakOut.html
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2007/10/02/who_runs_american_politics
http://watchingamerica.com/News/77038/who-will-be-liberated-first-america-or-palestine/

If you can be the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee longer than anyone else in history after a brutal assault on Jews, you cannot really be said to be their victim can you?

years and have failed. The more they throw at Walt and Meareshimer, the more credibility they give to their paper.

6 years have passed and not one of them has been able to make a case against their ground breaking thesis. The only way they can make a case is by lying about what W&M have written in their book.

Walt and Meareshimer wounded the lobby with their paper and the hasbrats are hell bent on exacting revenge.

Please note that you are not answering the argument. The use of letter writing campaigns | boycott = the exercise of free speech. "The Israel Lobby" argues that such are dangerous to American interests. W |M are interested in legal restrictions upon the rights of Jews.

One might question what appropriate discourse in the interest of the nation might be. Perhaps one might remember that heaven is to some the absence of crows. That the crows might complain is part of the reason heaven is thieir absence.

Free speech does not include the right to limit the free speech of others.

>> "The Israel Lobby" argues that such are dangerous to American interests. W |M are interested in legal restrictions upon the rights of Jews.

False. They actually state that the Lbby's activities, while damaging to US interests, are perfectly legal and legitimate.

And seeing as the Lobby does not represent Jews, there is certainly now suggestion of imposing legal restrictions upon the rights of Jews.

The problem being, his followers are not interested in rational discussion from the outset. They are an intellectually barren, dishonest bunch who have never let a fact get in the way of their bigoted agenda.

Martial inadvertently brings up the valuable point that Walt has made a direct and blatant appeal to the morons who still deal and trade with the old Protocols of Elders of Zion bullshit.

Martial didn't seem to differentiate between the blatantly anti-Semitic tracts of yore and Walt's present position. He certainly wasn't criticized by the Walties for making the connection. In fact it was encouraged.

So when people accuse Walt of being an antisemitic shill, it is not a point of debate. Its a badge of honor.

not of private individuals or actions thereof. In the paper, searches for words "legal" & "legit" in the paper, which include all sentences with"illegal", 'legitimate", "illegitamate", yields:

. . . warning that the policies of Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were “one?sided and illegal.”

The Times occasionally criticizes Israeli policies and sometimes concedes that the Palestinians have legitimate grievances . . .

. . . they question its [Israel's] behavior towards the Palestinians, which is a legitimate criticism . . .

Denying the Palestinians their legitimate political rights certainly has not made Israel more secure . . .

The Daily Star, January 31, 2005; James J. Zogby, “A Dangerous Appointment: Profile of Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense under Bush,” Middle East Information Center, April 18, 2001; “Israeli Settlements: Legitimate, Democratically Mandated, Vital to Israel’s Security and, Therefore, in U.S. Interest,”

________

No where are "manipulations of the media", the exercise of free speech rights, said to be legal or legitimate. Instead, argument for legal restrictions of these freedoms are made:

Moreover, the Lobby’s campaign to squelch debate about Israel is unhealthy for democracy. Silencing skeptics by organizing blacklists and boycotts—or by suggesting that critics are anti?Semites—violates the principle of open debate upon which democracy depends. The inability of the U.S. Congress to conduct a genuine debate on these vital issues paralyzes the entire process of democratic deliberation. Israel’s backers should be free to make their case and to challenge those who disagree with them. But efforts to stifle debate by intimidation must be roundly condemned by those who believe in free speech and open discussion of important public issues.

_________

Free speech relates only to government action, not to the actions of private persons. The "blacklisted" have abundant platforms from which to speak. David Duke can be found everywhere on the net.

That the Hasbrats have been throwing everything they have at him for six years and are still trying.

I can't stop laughing at idiots like Spood and Martial, who try so desperately to argue against W&m's thesis, in spite of admissions and boasting by the likes of Haim Saban and AIPAC, that they do endeavour to control Congress and the media.

Saban went so far as to buy a newspaper to do it.

>> The problem being, his followers are not interested in rational discussion from the outset

Says the only person on planet Earth who thinks Iran built and now operates a nuclear power reactor for the sole purpose of tricking the world into believing their are producing nukes, whole not producing them.

>>. They are an intellectually barren, dishonest bunch who have never let a fact get in the way of their bigoted agenda.

Says the same idiot who pulls the Protocols of Elders of Zion segment, even though it has never been mentioned by Walt or Meareshimer.

>>Martial didn't seem to differentiate between the blatantly anti-Semitic tracts of yore and Walt's present position.

He's be wrong either way.

>>So when people accuse Walt of being an antisemitic shill, it is not a point of debate. Its a badge of honor.

For the Hasbra trolls who have no substantial argument to make, perhaps.

Giald complain that I am providing too many sources and you're complaining that I haven't provided enough.

You Hasbats are like headless chickens.

FYI. The sources I have provided thus far are from

1. Israel in the Middle East by Itamar Rabinovich and Jehuda Reinharz (Brandeis University Press)
2. Doreen Ingrams, Palestine Papers 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict, George Brazziler, 1972
3. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, November 29, 1947, Chapter 3: Citizenship, International Conventions and Financial Obligations

So if you fail to see one piece of information I provide that is sourced to counterpunch or haaretz, then you can't read.