response 376 of 604:

May 11 07:08 UTC 2002

The key phrase may be 'at taxpayer expense'. Those 'bunch of
new people' have indeed 'squated' on land that they have no legal
claim to and are funded by taxpayers of both Israel and the USA.
They personally have no legitimate claim to the property and
are 'defended' by an inordinately large number of IDF troopers
ALSO paid for by Israeli taxpayers and ultimately by US as well.

response 378 of 604:

May 11 18:03 UTC 2002

Marcus, on one hand I'm glad to see that you've dropped some of the ridiculous
threads you made previously, but before we leave these behind us I want to
make sure that you've realized the absurdity of those claims:

>>> The "palestinian arabs" claim roots going back to the canaanites.
>>> The moslems originally "invaded" in 517 ad; if they displaced

The Moslems arrived in the 630s and the Arabs of today have no roots
going back to the Canaanites.  Agreed?

>>> If you want to argue with my palestian sources, show how their numbers,
>>> dates, and places are wrong. Neither [sites] mention 1880, but both
>>> years not long after

>> Sorry, but the 1922 census you cite is long after 1880.
>> There's a good reason you won't find Arab sources talking about the size of
>> the population prior to 1880. But I've already hinted at that in this item
>> and discussed it at much greater length in Winter item 20 (resp. 344-347)

Did you look at Winter item 20 or should I repost that information?

> the 19th century, they were called "Arab Fellahin" aka "local peasants".

Yes, some were, but many either arrived in the late 19th century (AFTER the
start of Jewish revival). Whereas in the mid-19th century the Arab population
of "Palestine" was in decline, can you explain how the Arab population grew
by 10x over the span of about 2 generations?

But were all the Arabs "Fellahin" a homogeneous group?

As recounted by the 1911 Britannica, different Arab communities were
discernable in "Palestine", including Egyptian, Sudanese, Kurds, Persians,
Afghanis, Bosnian, Romani, Turkomans, Algerians (all as distinct from the
"pure" Arab bedouins). This before waves of Arab immigration from Lebanon,
Syria, Transjordan, Iraq and Egypt during the Mandate period between the
world wars.

So contrary to your lengthy discussion about assimilation and that it was
> impossible to sort out the real natives vs. the foreign invaders,
it appears as if these different, recent, communities were distinguishable.
The Britannica even specifies this about the Egyptian immigration wave (1840):

        In the I9th century the short-lived Egyptian government introduced
        into the population an element from that country which still persists
        in the villages. These newcomers have not been completely assimilated
        with the villagers.

> In the middle ages, most jews lived in EUROPE.

That may be true, but so what? Your original claim was that:

>>> The center of the jewish world in the medieval period was definitely
>>> europe.

As I've said, Jews -- out of necessity -- moved around a lot in Europe. What
type of nebulous "center" was this? So now you're clarifying that you meant
that the majority lived in Europe. Perhaps, but so what? Don't the majority
of Catholics live in South/Central America? Does that mean that the center
of the Catholic world is not in the Vatican and that Nazareth, Bethlehem and
Jerusalem are not important to Catholics?

>>> Israelis have no interest documenting the existance of Palestinian Arabs
>>> in Israel, except as a distinct minority in modern Israel--token diversity.

Have you gotten those myths out of your system -- or will you explain what
you mean by "token diversity"?

>>> Interesting that you should use that word Judea and "Jewish" land.
>>> That land has been claimed by the egyptians, the phillistines, the romans,
>>> the greeks, the persians, the turks, the british, and probably the french.

>> So does that make Paris "German land" because it was conquered by the nazis?
>> Each of the conquerors you list were FOREIGN invaders.
>> ONLY the Jews constituted a local government.

Do we agree on these basic facts?

>> Tell, me, why wasn't an independent Palestinian Arab state established in
>> 1947/48 (in accordance with the UN compromise)? Why not between 1949-1967
>> -- when the disputed territories were held by Arab states? Why was it that
>> Transjordan "unified" itself with the West Bank and (since it was no longer
>> just Transjordanian/eastern Palestine) renamed itself Jordan? 

Don't care to hazard a guess?

> at least one of those "Palestinian" sites was in Australia

Check again and let us know which one that was.


So now let's focus on the "settlements":

> You are the one arguing historic ownership trumps current ownership; 

No. I'm arguing that historic ownership trumps current NON ownership:

>> These villages are situated on lands that have NEVER been owned by Arabs
>> or which were legally purchased.

So why do you have a problem with Jews living in areas that previously were
barren parts of Judea (or if you prefer, what for 19 years was Transjordan's,
eastern Palestine's, "West Bank")?

> out of living memory

Want a clever way to argue that one should go back in time 36, but not 35
years.  But is 1947 out of living memory? No. So let's not turn the clock back
to 1967 but to 1947, before the term "west bank" was coined and when Jews were
legally living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (in full accordance with the League
of Nations' Mandate. Note also that the 1947 UN Partition guaranteed the
rights of these Jews to continue living were they were).

> there are bunch of people there, who have been there since "time
> immemorial" (16th century is certainly out of living memory), that are
> of mainly arab background.  There is also a smaller bunch of new people

Once again you are letting your fancy replace facts. Only the most "ancient"
of the Arabs have been there since the 16th century (whereas Jewish communities
in Hebron and elsewhere predate that by thousands of years). Many of the Arabs
who are there are also 20th century arrivals!

Note that I'm not saying that the Arabs don't have a right to live there, but
to the contrary you are saying that the Jews don't have a right to live there!

response 380 of 604:

May 12 07:22 UTC 2002

Or at least the Pope.

response 382 of 604:

May 12 13:10 UTC 2002

Most of the groups listed above as 'Arabs' have never spoken Arabic:
Kurds, Persians, Afghanis (Persian-type languages);  Bosnians (Slavic), Romani
(Gypsies, language related to Sanskrit and Hindi).  I presume they were
referring to Muslims.

response 384 of 604:

May 12 17:12 UTC 2002

Sindi, you are absolutely correct. But these (not the Canaanites and not
the 7-11th century Arab dynasties) are the origins of many of what today
are known as the Palestinian Arabs. In the 20th century, they would be
joined by immigrants from Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, Egypt and I
believe even some north African Arab countries.

For reasons that Marcus has yet to specify, he appears to believe that
these 19th & 20th century immigrants (who, ironically, were drawn to the
area by Jewish development) have more rights than Jewish immigrants from
the same period. That it's OK for an Iraqi Arab to settle in Hebron, but
not for an Iraqi Jew. That it is OK for an Arab American to move into
Neve Yaakov (a Jewish neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem whose population
was cleansed by Arab armies in 1948), but it's not OK for a Jewish American.

response 386 of 604:

May 13 04:35 UTC 2002

Either that, or "moo" is all Marcus can contribute.

He can't detail which of his 5 Arab sources was "Australian".

He can't say if he still insists that the Palestinians are Canaanites.

He can't explain why no historical (or archeological) source mentions
Canaanites from about 700 BCE until the first Arab invasion of 630 CE.
(Nor, needless to say, after 630 CE.)

He can't explain how the Muslim invasion of 517 could predate Islam. (This
should be an indication of the lack of reliability of his sources, but Marcus
can't be honest enough to distance himself even from this obvious nonsense).

He can't explain how 1880=1922=1860, or how there could be a "census" of a
region that wasn't defined as such.

He can't explain how the "Arab fellahin" in the early 20th century were
uniform rather than a hodge-podge of foreign immigrants. (Yes, a few date
back to the 16th century, some Egyptians to the 1840s, but many were recent
arrivals, drawn by Jewish development in the latter part of the 19th century.)

He can't specify any people (other than the Jews), over the course of 2000
years, who were LOCAL (not FOREIGN) rulers of the territory.

He can't explain why he relies upon Biblical sources -- only when convenient.

He can't explain why he wants to turn the clock back to 1967 but not 1968, to
1949 but not 1948 -- in contradiction to his living/recent memory argument.

He can't explain why it's OK for an Iraqi Arab to settle in Hebron, but not
OK for an Iraqi Jew to do the same.

Marcus is just mooing into the wind.

response 388 of 604:

May 13 13:54 UTC 2002

That's because it was the Orthodox Christians who couldnt hold Easter 
services and they are a minority of the Christian population in this 
country. In other words, I am sure they were bitching but CNN probably 
just chose not to cover the story because too many Americans would get 
confused about why Easter was in May when they had already had Easter 
in March. 

response 390 of 604:

May 14 02:03 UTC 2002

The reason I didn't bother to document the australian site, is because
it's obvious from the URL.  Regarding Leeron's other issues, because I
don't have time.  Most of those issues *are* irrelevant to the modern
problem, aren't going to change Leeron's mind, don't pay any bills, and
I doubt are of interest to anyone else on grex.  I've learned some
things about jewish and palestinian history, which I do appreciate.
It's probably just as well that what I learned didn't conform to
Leeron's One True Vision, because I can't see any way to go from his
statements to any sort of peace that does not involve mass genocide
first.  I just wish I'd seen something that led me to believe there was
any other path to peace that didn't also involve a lot of killing first.

response 392 of 604:

May 14 07:03 UTC 2002

It appears as if Marcus has sunken to Scott's level. Marcus raised many
of the points to which I responded. Once the falsehoods were exposed,
Marcus doesn't have the time to deal with the issues he originated because
they are irrelevant. He can't even focus on a few of the points that he
now considers relevant.

Marcus doesn't have time to specify which URL was the "Australian" site,
but the one of 5 sites he mentioned that wasn't obviously an Arab site
(fortunecity.com, a hosting service based in NY) has this credit at the
bottom of the page: "Palestine Information Centre (c), 1997-98"

Oh, I remembered another point Marcus introduced but can't defend:
That Europe was the "center" of Judaism in the middle ages, ostensibly
because that's where the majority of Jews resided. Never mind that the
Jews, out of necessity, moved about Europe so that at best this is a
nebulous "center", but if we applied the same errant logic to Catholicism
we'd quickly conclude that it is centered in South/Central America, not in
the Vatican, and that Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth are of no importance.

When you have more time, Marcus, or when you're feeling more honest,
perhaps you can resolve some of the errors and contradictions I pointed
out in response #386.

Marcus, If there are any points you made which you think I have ignored or
not answered sufficiently, feel free to point them out.

response 394 of 604:

May 14 10:41 UTC 2002

It's true.  I have ESP.  I can predict Scott's next response, so I can
rise to that level.  In this case, I predict Scott will accuse me of
writing too long a response.

Trying to convince people of the truth of your argument by accusing them
of being "dishonest" is self-defeating.  You might as well attempt to
convince someone of your peaceful intentions by driving a tank through
their living room.  I admit it, dates in the middle east don't roll off
the tip of my tongue.  I should have known the moslems had their start
about 610 AD & didn't get to jerusalem until 638; the Persians who got
to Jerusalem in 614 were of course not (yet) moslem nor were they,
strictly speaking, Arabs.

None of this matters and you are merely wasting my times (and yours) by
bringing this up; unless you truely believe historic rights trump
current rights.  If you believe that, then when you make your arguments
to me, you had best recognize you are making them to a descendent of
(mainly) English "Invaders" who lives on land "stolen" from american
indians.  My ancestors problem come from at least one tribe of american
indians (we think--and not local), several sorts of german tribes, the
celts, the romans, the normans, and the norse, and my ancestors have
within historic memory lived on both sides of this continent, the
british isles, and continental europe.  At best, your historic argument
is meaningless to me; at worst, you are giving me at least 6 reasons why
I should dispossess myself of my own land, and none for keeping it.

Naturally some of my sources are Palestinian.  They probably have a
reason to buy web space to put up a whole bunch of historic facts.  They
may even be (perish the thought) biased.  I'm neither Jewish nor
Palestinian.  The argument "it's Palestinian" does not automatically
make it wrong to me.  That it's biased does not mean there's no element
of truth in it.  I assume that each side has likely done as little lying
as possible, and has merely tried to present the facts that are most
favorable to its case.  Those facts that are "history" have gone through
many other hands, also biased, starting with the person who bothered to
record them (and not record other facts that we might find equally if
not more interesting today).  I could peel a few layers back if I went
to the UM library and found better reference works (takes more of my
time).  I could peel more layers back if I became a globe trotting
scholar and sought the original sources, and the biases of the people
who wrote and preserved those works (takes a *lot* more time).  No
matter how I slice it, baring the invention of a time machine, I am
stuck at some point, making a judgement call, and assigning a level of
credibility to whatever I find.

In this case, I have an additional means of measuring credibility.  I
can toss things up here, and watch Leeron try to take pot shots at it.
So far, he's convinced me I'm occasionally guilty of
over-simplification, and careless on some details.  I plead guilty on
both counts.  He has yet to convince me that all of my "palestinian"
sources are always even palestinian, let alone automatically completely
wrong in every detail.  There's something else I can do with my
"palestinian" sources, and that is I can compare Leeron's statements
with them.  In many cases, they make a horrible complement; they fit
hand in glove with what Leeron says, but the composite picture varys,
often considerably, from what he claims.  If they were lies, I'd expect
there to be internal inconsistencies.  If there are no inconsistencies,
but they are not the truth, then I have to suppose some horribly huge
conspiracy to deceive me, that reads everything Leeron says before I do,
then goes out to all these oodles of web sites and puts up lies that
match.

I think in all of this Leeron is somehow supposing that I'm responsible
for convincing him of some alternate truth, and that I have to come up
with some sort of totally self-consistent picture complete with
impeccable bibliography, before he has to pay it any credence.  This is
not true.  I don't have to prove anything to Leeron.  Leeron is the one
making all the fantastical claims about the Palestinians.  The onus is
on him to present a logical case *to me*, or to all of us here on grex,
that is, if he wishes us to take his claims seriously.  Since most of us
are "English Invaders", arguing historic roots is moo.  That means
arguing over whether Jerusalem was anything more than a spiritual symbol
to most medieval jews is also moo, which is a good thing because the
crusades present awkward problems otherwise.  Arguing over 19th century
arab migration paths is also moo.  My great great grand parents were
part of several 19th century migration patterns involving indians,
irish, and americans.  Most people here on grex, or at least in agora,
have similar tales.

If you (Leeron) want to make an argument that most americans will take
seriously, you need to make one that makes sense to modern
sensibilities.  That means you need to find find a way to recognize the
ethnocentric values of palestinians, and permits them a fair venue to
pursue peace, happiness, and the capitalistic pursuit of wealth and
power in a framework consistent with those values.  You may find it
hard, from a "jewish" standpoint, to accept that Palestinians might have
a right to throw bombs.  Americans come from a race of bomb thowers; we
threw a bunch at the british, and after that, a bunch at each other
during the civil war, and today, we have some of the biggest baddest
bombs in the world.  Bomb throwing is not a problem for us.  The real
problem to most americans is that they're throwing them at shopping
centers, children, busses, and other expensive objects, and they're
treating their own as "disposable" in the process.  Unfortunately, the
Israelis seem to be doing all but the suicide part in response, which
puts Israel on only slightly higher moral ground.

response 396 of 604:

May 14 17:57 UTC 2002

Marcus, 

My problem is that you rush to say things that aren't true, but then can't
be bothered with them. (Scott did a similar thing last winter we he cut &
pasted info from electricintifadah.com but then couldn't defend it from valid
criticism.)

Here's the latest example:

>  the Persians... were [not] strictly speaking, Arabs.

Strictly speaking? The Persians are less Arab than the Italians are Austrians.
They may share a religion and general skin color, but they don't even share
an alphabet.

I'm glad you've repudiated one of your most egregious errors, but I wish you
would "honestly" deal with other issues that YOU raised rather then dismiss
them as "irrelevant" when I refute them. (e.g. are the Palestinian Arabs
descendents of the Canaanites?)

> unless you truely believe historic rights trump current rights.

The problem is that you seem to believe this when it applies to the ME. You
brought up a complicated recent/living memory mechanism, but fail to apply
it uniformly. Why is that?

If we only look at "current rights", then Israel holds the disputed
territories (due to Arab aggression in 1967) and that's that. But I have NOT
advocated that, so what's your point?

Instead you advocate that we should go back to 1967 or 1949 (but not 1968 or
1948), an aberrant period in thousands of years of history when the area was
under exclusive Arab control and Judenrein. Since many are still alive and
remember the period prior to 1949, why don't you apply your recent/living
memory theory?

I have only raised history for context and to dispute false historical claims.
(What is irrelevant is your discussion of your family history going back
hundreds of years and probematic analogies to the US and Native Americans.)

>  The argument "it's Palestinian" does not automatically make it wrong

I never said it does, and to the contrary I specified exactly why the
information provided from these sites was wrong. My criticism was that 5 of
the 5 sites you listed were Palestinian, not exactly a representative sample.
I'm not saying that you should only look at Jewish sites; I have suggested
academic sources (alas, you've mocked my references to scholasticism, choosing
to reference biblical stories that were 1000 years old when they were first
transcribed over a current theory regarding the origin of the Hebrews).

> I assume that each side has likely done as little lying as possible

I think recent events in Jenin should make you reconsider. I'm also convinced
that if the conflict isn't resolved by then (and even if it is) in 25 and 50
years Arabs will be claiming that there was a massacre in Jenin in 2002 --
and the Marcuses will quote Arab sources and say that they don't have time
to read up on it. Remember, official PA sources claimed 500-3000 dead. Alleged
"witnesses" said they saw the mass executions of hundreds. Then, when there
weren't the necessary bodies (only about 50 dead, most of them illegal
combatants), they dug up bodies from the cemetery and brought them into town
for the benefit of western journalist and they staged funerals for those who
were still alive. In one funeral procession, and this is on film, the "dead"
man fell off the stretcher but managed to climb back on with little help.
Others wanted to pose as dead in their own homes for western photographers,
"proof" of Israeli brutality.

I'm sure Scott can remind you of the doctor who lied about a pregnant woman
with a stillborn child. He claimed the baby died because she was delayed in
getting to the hospital by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. The woman herself
disputed the story and said that the soldiers had done everything they could
to expedite her.

Here's another propaganda lie about Israeli "torture" and "brutality" that
was exposed by Physicians for Human Rights (forensics who investigated the
case at the behest of a Palestinian group. The outcome of the investigation
has not precluded the group form continuing it's false claims):

http://www.phrusa.org/research/forensics/israel/Israel_accident_3.html

And I haven't even gotten to the lies in the Arab press -- from stories of
Jews using Muslim blood to prepare holiday food, to Arafat's claims that
Israel is using depleted Uraniam and HIV to poison Arab children, to the
"fact" that 4000 Jews didn't show up to work at the WTC on 9/11 because it
was destroyed as part of a Jewish conspiracy, to claims that (despite
historical and archeological evidence) the Jewish Temple was not in Jerusalem.
Recall also that the 1929 massacre of Hebron's Jewish population was sparked
by lies, false pictures of Jews having destroyed Al Aqsa mosque.

(Hmmm, could it be that these lies and incitement, not "occupation" and
"brutality" are the "root cause" of terrorism?)

> the Israelis seem to be doing all but the suicide part in response, which
> puts Israel on only slightly higher moral ground.

I guess next time Israel should use artillery and airplanes -- like the US
has in Afghanistan -- rather than condemning the lives of its own soldiers
in order to protect the lives of Arab civilians -- as Israel did in Jenin.
And Israel should tolerate death squads that murder "collaborators", people
with dissenting views.

These are the kind of false equivalences that make me sick. Yes, Jewish
extremists have perpetrated about a dozen acts of terrorism against Arabs in
the past 19 months (though as shown last week Israel is doing what it can to
prevent these and the vast majority of the Israeli public is against such
acts). During the same time period, there have been over 3000 acts of
terrorism perpetrated by Arabs, including over 100 attempted suicide/murder
bombings (and the vast majority of the Arab public supports and cheers such
acts). The PA police has done next to nothing to prevent these (to the
contrary, when Israel under the guise of security cooperation asked the PP
to apprehend certain wanted men, the PP warned them to go underground.) Arafat
has done little to appeal for calm. He's uttered the words "cease fire" a few
times, for the first time 6 months after he first committed to do so in the
Sharem Agreement, but as part of longer speeches that incited more violence.
(His condemnation of the most recent suicide bombing was more strenuous, but
as before he has failed to follow his words with actions.)

As long as terrorists who are intent on destroying the peace process are
harbored by Arafat and the PA, and as long as Arafat and the PA attempt to
use them as a negotiating tool, as leverage to extract unilateral Israeli
concessions, there is no chance for peace.

As recognized by the Mitchell Plan and as agreed to in the Tenet Agreement,
the first step is an immediate cessation of all violence. It is exactly the
step that Arafat "can't/won't" take -- even as it becomes apparent that his
own faction, under the command of leaders who state they are loyal to Arafat,
is behind the majority of terrorist attacks. A faction that is funded by the
PA.

As even Arab (including Palestinian) leaders have been saying in recent days,
the PA must reform itself. It must start gearing itself towards building a
state, not destroying one.

response 398 of 604:

May 15 00:39 UTC 2002

Funny you should say that, Scott.  I've been thinking almost the same 
thing just about every time I bother to read one of his "arguments."

And I'm Jewish!