oneworld2Yep, that's the clip and you will find the " Bad News From Israel" to be a solid work based on much research of media framings/commentary wrt the I/P conflict.
The tide is slow but it is catching up with Israeli actions/crimes imo There is a PR/image war going on which Israel has been winning hands down for decades. That is beginning to change and many American Jews hold a negative view of the actions/policies of the state that acts as though it represents ALL Jewish people. That turning will be critical going forward imo Wait until people realize that the two state solution was killed by Israeli illegal settlements and outright racism and the only game in town is a civil rights fight for equality in the land from the river to the sea
oneworld2
Yeah, the book is only £5.00 but the shipping will be just over £17.00! I am not willing to pay £22.00+ for a paperback book. I'll head down to the municipal library and see if I can find it or get it on an inter-library loan. Therefore reading this book will be a work in progress I'm afraid.
Thanks for the reference however.
Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
It's naive to think that there can exist an "unbiased", "objective", "clearer and less slanted" media or organization. Everyone is biased.This a a reasonably good video explaining why mainstream media present a pro-Israel bias in reportage about the I/P conflict and why independent media have so much trouble dealing with organised blow-back for trying to be more objective than the mainstream media giants they share reportage with.
The video is not perfect, as twice it uses the very slanted word "god-father(s)" (with a clear mafioso connotation) to describe David Ben Gurion and other early leaders of the Zionist project. But aside from these two transgressions, the video presents a very clear and remarkably accurate view of the organised media manipulation done by partisan organisations (cited often by posters in this forum, including myself) and the self-censorship of media organisations plus their censure of reporters who go against the self-censorship in the wake of that media manipulation.
How can clearer and less slanted media coverage of the I/P conflict be achieved and how can the media manipulation be hamstrung to allow more view points and greater truth of different dimensions of this conflict to be reported in this hotly contested area? The very language and vocabulary of reportage is now a battlefield in the reportage!
Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
As I had pointed out to you long before you made this post, "The simple fact is that Arabs greatly outnumbered Jews both within Palestine and even more obviously in the region as a whole, so imagining that the Jewish organizations wanted warfare seems absurd on the face of it, and does not seem to be supported by the facts." "Early violence between Jews and Arabs was predominantly instigated by Arab groups (eg. 1920 Nebi Musa riots, 1921 Jaffa riots, 1929 Buraq riots and the Black Hand organization in the early 1930s)." These are what I like to call logic and specific facts. By contrast all you've offered is vague propaganda, nothing even specific enough to look up for ourselves. Exactly what "terrorist activities and paramilitary activities" were Zionists engaged in "by the turn of the 20th century"?Sephardic Jews lived in the Levant in small numbers for much of the modern era. However when the Zionist project got started an ever accelerating stream and later deluge of Ashkenazi Jews from Europe moved in, displaced and disrupted local Arab lives and by the turn of the 20th Century were actively involved in terrorist activities and paramilitary activities in support of the Zionist project.... The Jews claimed the land as their historical homeland based on their own perceptions of history and religion and by wilfully ignoring the fact that there were people who were non-Jews living on that land when the Zionist bandwagon got rolling.
As I had pointed out to you long before you made this post, "The simple fact is that Arabs greatly outnumbered Jews both within Palestine and even more obviously in the region as a whole, so imagining that the Jewish organizations wanted warfare seems absurd on the face of it, and does not seem to be supported by the facts." "Early violence between Jews and Arabs was predominantly instigated by Arab groups (eg. 1920 Nebi Musa riots, 1921 Jaffa riots, 1929 Buraq riots and the Black Hand organization in the early 1930s)." These are what I like to call logic and specific facts. By contrast all you've offered is vague propaganda, nothing even specific enough to look up for ourselves. Exactly what "terrorist activities and paramilitary activities" were Zionists engaged in "by the turn of the 20th century"?
There were significant numbers of Ashkenazi Jews in Palestine long before the advent of modern Zionism. Again as I had suggested to you previously (albeit much more vaguely in this case) "If the 'holy land' hadn't held such religious importance to Christians and Muslims, and strategic significance as the gateway between continents, odds are there would have been an Israel centuries ago; there've been enough migration waves of Jews to Palestine over the millennia to make it an otherwise-inevitable and potentially peaceful demographic transition. Instead their numbers were kept down by intermittent and often violent oppression, for reasons which I'm sure you would agree were not exactly compelling." You did not express agreement that the reasons for intermittent and often violent oppression of Jews in Palestine were inadequate; instead, a few days later in a different thread you are championing the importance of that artificially-lowered proportion of Palestinian Jews, deriding the ongoing Jewish search for refuge from from oppression elsewhere in the world as a mere 'bandwagon' and implying (contrary to facts) that Palestine was already at its population capacity.
The comparison between early opposition to Zionism and modern American nativism/Trumpism is not exact, but it's certainly interesting. From everything I've read it seems that while there were certainly some Zionists, particularly those still in Europe, whose rather vague attitude towards Palestinian Arabs (when they considered them at all) might reasonably be described as colonial, in terms of actual actions on the ground the cycle of violence was initiated and perpetuated mostly by Arab nativism and fears of what might happen if the Jews were left 'unchecked.'
Self-determination is about as fundamental as moral rights can be, and the Jewish people in particular have suffered extensively for the lack of it, in both Christian and Muslim regions and obviously including the 19th and 20th centuries. The Holocaust was different only in scale and efficiency from hundreds of earlier and later bouts of persecution or permanent oppression, including against Jews in Arab regions both before and after WWII. If the 'holy land' hadn't held such religious importance to Christians and Muslims, and strategic significance as the gateway between continents, odds are there would have been an Israel centuries ago; there've been enough migration waves of Jews to Palestine over the millennia to make it an otherwise-inevitable and potentially peaceful demographic transition.
Wikipedia suggests that Jews were already around 8% of the population by 1890.The number of Jewish people living in Palestine at the turn of the 20th century was commonly thought to be between 2-5%. With the advent of Zionism those numbers grew rapidly so at the time of the UN Partition Plan the percentage was around 33%, mostly European immigrants escaping European antisemitism.
As I suggested, it seems that in terms of actual actions on the ground the cycle of violence was initiated and perpetuated mostly by Arab nativism and fears of what might happen if the Jews were left 'unchecked.' Some basis for those fears can be found in other histories as you suggest and even in the statements of some Zionist leaders themselves. But they were still just fears, still below (far below) even the 1967 threshold of pre-emptive violence which many folk critical of Israel insist was a case of Israeli 'aggression.'To make out that these people didn't have an agenda to dispossess and displace the Palestinians via warfare or other means, because of their initially low numbers, is something of a historical truism within settler colonialist history. We see it occuring in the Americas and in the ANZAC regions where peace treaties and protection agreements were the order of the day UNTIL the settler colonialists had the numbers/firepower to make their move to dispossession and displacement of the local populations.
What cherry picking?The cherry picking of the list is highly enlightening btw
Wikipedia suggests that Jews were already around 8% of the population by 1890.
There's simply no way of knowing what would have happened if the local Arab people and leaders had remained peaceful. Or - a shocking thought - what if they'd been actively welcoming and freely offered a fifth of the Palestinian mandate as an undisputed Jewish homeland
I would argue that Arab hostility and British mismanagement were the two biggest causes of the whole conflict,
Organizing a single group migration of tens of thousands is a difficult and rare occurrence; there's a surprise! And history rarely records a family of ten or twenty at a time, or even a steady trickle of those families. Another shocker. With a total population generally near or below two hundred thousand for most of Byzantine and Islamic history, even a single wave of a few thousand would have noticeably altered the demography of the Palestinian region they settled in, and there are many such waves specifically identified within the limits of recorded history. It seems little short of asinine to suppose that they would not over time have resulted in a natural Jewish majority, were it not for A) intermittent persecution, massacres or expulsions of Jews from the land - or at times parallel efforts to prevent emigration from Europe; you seem to believe that such a papal edict was issued in response to something that scarcely even existed! - and B) the hotly-contested nature of the 'holy land' itself.The pre-Zionist aliyah of the Jews, with the notable exception of the 538 BCE return from the Babylonian Captivity were mostly small scale affairs involving a few thousand or hundreds of immigrants at a time. Demographically they (each Aliyot) had little impact on the Levant, but they are important to Jewish history and to Judsism as both historical and religious milestones, which have had more cultural impact than the immigrations actually had demographically.
In what way do you think that's relevant? Prior and to a lesser extent after its immigration reforms of 1924 America was indeed the renowned 'land of opportunity' while Eretz Yisrael - particularly prior to the Balfour Declaration and formal British mandate in 1920 - was objectively little more than a romantic ideal, a tiny backwater province of the Ottoman Empire. After 1939 trans-European/Mediterranean migration was exceptionally hazardous for obvious reasons, and Palestine specifically either had British-imposed tight limits on immigration or had later been turned into a war zone by the hostility of surrounding Arab states. On the other hand inside that optimal window of opportunity, between 1932 and 1939 about as many European Jews chose Palestine as their refuge of choice as all the other and larger countries of the world combined (~46% according to your source), despite considerably larger Jewish communities (and hence likely far more emigrants having relatives in) America or even the UK than in Palestine.It is notable that despite the best efforts of a Zionists and later the state of Israel, a majority of modern Jews have preferred to migrate to America than to Eretz-Yisrael. They preferred descent with opportunity to ascent with conflict. (Aliyah means ascent btw).
I haven't said that Jews have license to persecute others; I have critiqued your claim (and its associated rhetoric) that Jews began the cycle of violence in the region. Describing flight from oppression and hope for a better future as "settler-colonialism" seems particularly egregious, but perhaps it's necessary to create that narrative of an abstract 'threat' to justify violent Arab reactions. We've seen something very similar happening with the American right (and the right-wing in many other countries to be fair) in more recent decades, with the most troubling comparisons being in cases of Muslim and Chinese immigration for which proponents can quote-mine and concoct the same kind of sinister motives and conspiracy theories for their nativism.No argument that the Jews have been persecuted, pogromed and brutalised in actual and threatened genocides. But that that does not give licence to some fraction of a persecuted people to persecute others. Israel's settler-colonialism has been going on since the establishment of the first kibbutzim in the Ottoman Levant in the 1890's IIRC the date. The cycle of violence was initiated and is perpetuated by both sides in this religio-tribal conflict over one land and each side's vision of their own versions of manifest destiny.
Like Evilroddy, you're simply assuming generally sinister motives for the waves of 'Zionist' immigration/refugees in order to justify violent Arab reactions. And I would invite you also to consider the comparison with current right-wing nativism in the USA and elsewhere. As I've said previously, there's no question that the attitude of some Zionist leaders - particularly those still in Europe, or after the violence was becoming entrenched - could be reasonably described as colonialist. But I think it's a pretty safe bet that for the overwhelming majority of those who migrated to Palestine, from Russia, Poland, Germany and elsewhere, they were simply fleeing oppression to seek a better life and dominating other peoples was the last thing on their minds! Similarly white nativists these days can doubtless find quotes from Chinese or Islamic 'leaders' to construct their narrative of the sinister "agenda" behind those migrants and the dreaded demographic changes they see in progress.As I said it is only what every other settler colonialist movement has done everywhere else. The tactic is, stay on terms until you have the power not to and then force through your agenda of dispossession and displacement
The character limit is my eternal enemy, especially since they stopped displaying how many characters you actually have and need a third party tool to see! So often I come in at 5500 or 6000. Be sure to include BB codes in your character count if you're over; I've pretty much had to stop using indenting because of the stupid way it forces a new tag for every paragraph now, and quote boxes with all the member and post details can tally up those numbers quite a lot, as well as URLs. A real pain for a subject like this where it'd be nice to reference information a lot more!Mithrae, please accept my apologies for having to hack out much of your post for word count. I did put it into a character counter a few times and it came back well less than the 5000 characters but it still wouldn't let me post it.
I am sure you can work out what is being replied to ect, but apologies anyhow
Like Evilroddy, you're simply assuming generally sinister motives for the waves of 'Zionist' immigration/refugees in order to justify violent Arab reactions. And I would invite you also to consider the comparison with current right-wing nativism in the USA and elsewhere. As I've said previously, there's no question that the attitude of some Zionist leaders - particularly those still in Europe, or after the violence was becoming entrenched - could be reasonably described as colonialist. But I think it's a pretty safe bet that for the overwhelming majority of those who migrated to Palestine, from Russia, Poland, Germany and elsewhere, they were simply fleeing oppression to seek a better life and dominating other peoples was the last thing on their minds! Similarly white nativists these days can doubtless find quotes from Chinese or Islamic 'leaders' to construct their narrative of the sinister "agenda" behind those migrants and the dreaded demographic changes they see in progress.
Odds are the truth, like the chronology, was somewhere in between 18th century colonialism and 21st century refugees/migration, but I'd expect it to be much closer to the latter than the former for several reasons, notably that (as Fishking noted) unlike colonialism Zionism was not attached to any particular nationality or government, and that most Jewish migrants were far closer to being refugees than voluntary 'settlers.'
The character limit is my eternal enemy, especially since they stopped displaying how many characters you actually have and need a third party tool to see! So often I come in at 5500 or 6000. Be sure to include BB codes in your character count if you're over; I've pretty much had to stop using indenting because of the stupid way it forces a new tag for every paragraph now, and quote boxes with all the member and post details can tally up those numbers quite a lot, as well as URLs. A real pain for a subject like this where it'd be nice to reference information a lot more!
The repeated demonstrations of ignorance that lead to confusing British incompetence (of foreign policy) for some devious design of "perfidious Albion" colonialism, just show that being a Brit does not save one from that misunderstanding (as if being a citizen of a country steeped in incompetence of foreign policy would make one an expert on any of it).
The screw-up that Britain engaged upon in the whole ME showed right from the beginning to be so contrary to any "empire" ambitions of colonizing the place, that to hold it all to be some deeper design constitutes the height of lack of comprehension. Britain running from the whole mess with a screech says it all.
In addition the false concept of Zionists having been colonizers (pointing out that fallacy having been ridiculed by the poster in question on here) adds to the lack of logic applied. That Jewish immigration to the territory of the Mandate cannot be equated with, for instance, placing British subjects into what became the Ulster plantation (of conquered Ireland), or French people into conquered lands of North Africa, is so apparent that anyone not seeing this needs to take a course in basic logic.
The territory in question was not conquered by some imagined (sovereign) Zionistan, to then be populated by its government planting a detachment of its people there, all in pursuit of raising the might of the home country.
As to the argument of who was there first (and in what numbers), that does a fat load of good today and certainly cannot serve to solidify any claim to the territory, no matter which side makes it. The same goes for whichever entity at some time in history established a "sovereignly" governed state on the land, in the futile attempt to define what counts as a people and what does not.
The state of Israel exists, period.
A Palestinian people of Arab language and culture (etc.) exist, no matter if they came from the Arab deserts, Mars, or were there before becoming "Arabized", period.
That the latter group is prohibited from governing itself in the form of a sovereign state is the abomination that not only they and Israel need to address, but something the whole world needs to stop ignoring beyond token lip service.
Any post filled with the usual insults as the above, isn't worthy of address.
Even if it contains such funnies as a good education preventing individual thought. Maybe envy plays a role in such ridiculous statements, maybe not. But making such doesn't speak much for having enjoyed any education at all or anyone spouting this nonsense would prevent themselves from so doing.
No matter.
The Arabs are not and were not indigenous to the area subsequently called Palestine, but as already pointed out, that doesn't matter a damn.
Nonsense as usual and, as usual, not worth further consideration.
Jews up until 1948 immigrated into lands they legally bought, as opposed to all colonialism example I know were people immigrated to conquered land.The first British people to set foot in the Australian territory with the aim of staying were there to set up a penal colony.
After Tasmans early visit to New Zealand the next Europeans were there for whaling and trade.
The first European settlers to New England were there to escape religious persecution .
The above are ALL considered to be examples, even if it was later on, of settler colonialism.
The early European Jewish settlement to Palestine, in the period under review, was to escape antisemitc actions ( read religious persecution) in their own nations, predominantly Russia and Poland . As time went by, as with the other examples already cited, that morphed into settler colonialism.
In all of the above examples there were examples of a violent reaction to this ongoing influx of foreigners who were taking/controling more and more territory. The action of the Arabs was/is the same as that of the Australian aboriginals, the Maoris, the first nation Americans.
So, why are you trying to paint the violent reaction of Arabs to European influx as somehow unique or unreasonable AND why do you appear to hold Jewish people to be superior to those others mentioned ? Are they just too good to be thrown in with the other people in the examples given ? Is their religious persecution different from the persecution of Puritans and other European religious groups that sought to escape it ?
You seem to apply different standards to different groups of people so as to fool yourself into believing that
A. Jewish people were/are incapable of engaging in settler colonialism
B The Arab reaction to mass European Jewish immigration is somehow unique
The settler programme/illegal annexations of territory, going on in the OPTs today is ,imo, a quintessential example of blatant settler colonialism today that belongs in that dark past in the examples cited. You appear unable to see that and it looks like it is because of your insistance and wanting to apply an exceptionalism to Jewish actions that just isn't warranted and a demonisation of the Arabs that isn't deserved
In the past half a dozen posts, responding initially to Evilroddy's comments, we've been discussing events from before the 1960s. Emphasizing more recent events as your concluding point seems tantamount to saying that merely because the long-term consequences of the violent conflict initiated by Arabs have been bad for Arabs (even worse than for Jews), that somehow retroactively makes the earlier peaceful Jewish migration/refuge-seeking bad too, or their more organized response to violence. No doubt one could likewise find room for criticism of the occupations of Germany and Japan by the Allied powers following WW2 - and finding faults with the treatment of a defeated hostile group surely is important - but it doesn't change the actual events which led to that outcome.The settler programme/illegal annexations of territory, going on in the OPTs today is ,imo, a quintessential example of blatant settler colonialism today that belongs in that dark past in the examples cited. You appear unable to see that and it looks like it is because of your insistance and wanting to apply an exceptionalism to Jewish actions that just isn't warranted and a demonisation of the Arabs that isn't deserved
You seem to be contradicting yourself, insisting that the 'early' migrations to Palestine were settler colonialism while acknowledging that they only "morphed into" settler colonialism later on.The first British people to set foot in the Australian territory with the aim of staying were there to set up a penal colony.
After Tasmans early visit to New Zealand the next Europeans were there for whaling and trade.
The first European settlers to New England were there to escape religious persecution .
The above are ALL considered to be examples, even if it was later on, of settler colonialism.
The early European Jewish settlement to Palestine, in the period under review, was to escape antisemitc actions ( read religious persecution) in their own nations, predominantly Russia and Poland . As time went by, as with the other examples already cited, that morphed into settler colonialism.
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