More like terrorised the hell out of their homes, lands, towns, and cities.

Most of the quotes below are shockingly shameless and the peak of depravity and wretchedness. All of them should be lynched to death (the ones who are alive).


David Ben Gurion
Prime Minister of Israel
1949 - 1954,
1955 - 1963

Quote :

""We must expel Arabs and take their places.""

Quote :

""There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?""

Quote :

""Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.""

Quote :

""Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.""

Quote :

""If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.""

Golda Meir
Prime Minister of Israel
1969 - 1974

Quote :

""There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist.""

Quote :

""How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.""

Quote :

""This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.""

Yitzhak Rabin
Prime Minister of Israel
1974 - 1977,
1992 - 1995

Quote :

""We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!""

Quote :

""[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat.""

Yitzhak Shamir
Prime Minister of Israel
1983 - 1984,
1986 - 1992

Quote :

""The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It's that simple.""

Quote :

""(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." -- Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988"

Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister of Israel
1996 - 1999

Quote :

""Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories." -- Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989."

Ehud Barak
Prime Minister of Israel
1999 - 2001

Quote :

""I would have joined a terrorist organization." -- Ehud Barak's response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha'aretz newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian."

Ariel Sharon
Prime Minister of Israel
2001 - 2006

Quote :

""It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands." -- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998."

Quote :

""Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don't grab will go to them." -- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998."

Quote :

""Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.""

9/8/2010 7:06:19 PM

Quote :

"If you don't think this is an attempt to crush their will to resist Israel's agenda then I don't know what to tell you."

I think that's exactly what it is. However, "crushing the will to resist" does not by any means equate to genocide.

Quote :

"Trying to remove them from the region (via violence, crushing their economy, keeping them in poverty, filthy, and misery) is trying to erase them as a group."

I don't think they are trying to remove them from the region, at least not the vast majority of Israelis. I've seen little reason to believe that Israel would be unwilling to coexist with a peaceful Palestinian state.

http://www.america.gov/st/mena-english/2009/July/200907021105032SAdemahoM0.6612164.html

Based on this around 3/4 of Israelis find a the two-state solution to be "essential or desirable." That's not consistent with eradication.

9/8/2010 7:25:01 PM

Yes, many Israelis want a two-state solution. This doesn't change the actions of its government, however, or extremist settlers.

Quote :

"I've seen little reason to believe that Israel would be unwilling to coexist with a peaceful Palestinian state."

How about the entire history of the country?

9/8/2010 8:12:22 PM

Quote :

"The creation of Israel as a political state was no surprise to anyone."

Haha I missed this gem in the OP. Really?

9/8/2010 9:05:41 PM

Quote :

"It started in the 1880s because the Ottoman empire closely regulated the number of immigrants, which generally kept peace there. The Turks knew the people and how to keep peace in the area. It wasn't until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and subsequent attempted rule by the british a continent away that the confusion really started to set in. The jews began immigrating in mass and terrorizing and pushing away the local population. The jews just started building a massive terrorist army aimed at attacking innocent people and just general terrorism against the british rulers there. They started importing guns and bombs, bombing government buildings and assassinating the british there. Not only were they terrorists, but far more effective and violent ones than the palestinians have become."

LOL, what? Nice history lesson there, Kris. "Massive terrorist army aimed at attacking innocent people"? You don't honestly believe the bullshit that you typed out here, do you? Surely you are trolling.

You have things backwards. It wasn't the Jews that were terrorizing the "local population". The Jews immigrated legally (based on the League of Nations and the Palestine Mandate) before and during WWI. They bought land from the Arabs and set up communities on this legally purchased land. It was the Arabs who led riots against the Jewish communities. These Arab mobs attacked Jewish men, women and children indiscriminately, and local police joined in to attack the Jews. The violent Arab riots of Nebi Musa, Jaffa and Hebron in the 20's is what spurred the Jews to create defense organizations, primarily Haganah and Etzel. In fact it was OEPII1's favorite, David Ben-Gurion, head of the Haganah, who championed a policy of restraint (Havlagah) in response to the violent Arab attacks on Jews in the region. The smaller Etzel militia, however, rejected the policy of restraint, choosing to respond to Arab attacks in kind.

It was only when the British stabbed the Jews in the back starting in the 30's in order to curry favor from the Arabs in the region (read: the White Paper) combined with the events of WWII and the Holocaust, that the Jews realized that they were backed into a corner with no allies, and had to fight for their survival. At a time when hundreds of thousands of stateless Jewish refugees and holocaust victims were fleeing Europe, Britain was issuing edicts banning Jews from immigrating to or purchasing land in Palestine. The British turned away immigrant boats sailing for Palestine, often forcing them right into the clutches of Hitler and the Nazis. After the war ended they also directed illegal Jewish immigrants, many of whom were concentration camp survivors, into internment camps at Cyprus. The British were using taxation of the Jewish communities to fund this oppressive and draconian rule of the region. It was around this time that the defense militias banded together and the Jewish Resistance Movement took shape, which has many parallels to our own country's Revolutionary history. Not to brush aside the sabotage and bloodshed that took place in the late 40's in Palestine and what became Israel, but the Jewish Resistance Movement was no more violent or bloody than any other independence movement.

Now, 60+ years later, having been attacked again and again both by their neighbors and from within, the Israel has evolved into one of the most ruthless and battle-hardened nations in the world, primarily because force is the only language that the Arabs seem to understand. But let's not distort history. The reality is that the Jews have been attacked almost from the time that they set foot in the region, and their nation's bloody history is the inevitable result of this.


[Edited on September 9, 2010 at 2:52 AM. Reason : 2]

9/9/2010 2:41:09 AM

Quote :

"How about the entire history of the country?"

How about you show me a period in that history where Palestine and/or Israel's neighbors were peaceful for any appreciable period of time?

Quote :

"This doesn't change the actions of its government, however, or extremist settlers."

It certainly does lend credence to the idea that Israel is not perpetrating a genocide. The government generally seems amenable to a two-state solution. I have said before that the Israelies should rein in their settlers the same way Palestinians should rein in their own extremists.

9/9/2010 2:50:34 AM

Quote :

"How about you show me a period in that history where Palestine and/or Israel's neighbors were peaceful for any appreciable period of time?"

They maintained the cease-fire in the 40's for 4 weeks, long enough for Israel to thoroughly reorganize its army. Not that it really mattered though, seeing as how the early attacks were token gestures at best led by Abdullah. He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the fight and dragged his feet, mostly taking up symbolic gestures to calm other Arab kings down (he had even done business with the settlers before which caused some political fallout -- he rented something like 25 square miles of land to Jewish farmers).

Once Syria and Egypt became involved the fighting was initially outside of the mandated UN lands for Israel; but if you knew anything about the history, you'd know that Ben-Gurion was open and honest about Israeli ambitions for expansion. Irgun had been talking about it as if it were a fact of life, that they would take all of the land they needed and this is precisely what has happened. If Israel stuck to the original agreement there would be no way they could accommodate unlimited immigration; rather than limit it, they just dogpiled the region and then expanded violently.

Arab nations weren't ignorant to this fact. Israelis didn't hide their ambitions whatsoever. They mostly objected to unbounded immigration of military-aged men, for obvious reasons.

It's not like they were simply against Jews being there. They were for LIMITED Jewish immigration to the region, not a cessation of immigration whatsoever. What the early Zionists demanded (this is a matter of public record it's not my fault you fuckers don't care to find out) was unlimited immigration (including those fit for military service) for the express purpose of taking back all of their "ancestral lands". Enough with the revisionist bullshit. You have the time to find out. Do it or stop opining about the subject; spreading misinformation about history is basically just blindly serving modern-day political interests. You're better than that.

Quote :

"I have said before that the Israelies should rein in their settlers the same way Palestinians should rein in their own extremists."

The Palestinians have no power to do this, and really, no realistic incentive to try.

Quote :

"LOL, what? Nice history lesson there, Kris. "Massive terrorist army aimed at attacking innocent people"? You don't honestly believe the bullshit that you typed out here, do you? Surely you are trolling."

Looks like you need to read a book again. I wish I could respond to you in a more intelligent way, but you've really set the ceiling here. How are we supposed to have a historical discussion with somebody who's ignorant of the history? You're flat-out wrong. Sorry. Read more, opine about shit you don't know less. ~~~DA SOAP BOX~~~

Quote :

"You have things backwards. It wasn't the Jews that were terrorizing the "local population". The Jews immigrated legally (based on the League of Nations and the Palestine Mandate) before and during WWI. They bought land from the Arabs and set up communities on this legally purchased land. It was the Arabs who led riots against the Jewish communities. These Arab mobs attacked Jewish men, women and children indiscriminately, and local police joined in to attack the Jews. The violent Arab riots of Nebi Musa, Jaffa and Hebron in the 20's is what spurred the Jews to create defense organizations, primarily Haganah and Etzel. In fact it was OEPII1's favorite, David Ben-Gurion, head of the Haganah, who championed a policy of restraint (Havlagah) in response to the violent Arab attacks on Jews in the region. The smaller Etzel militia, however, rejected the policy of restraint, choosing to respond to Arab attacks in kind. It was only when the British stabbed the Jews in the back starting in the 30's in order to curry favor from the Arabs in the region (read: the White Paper) combined with the events of WWII and the Holocaust, that the Jews realized that they were backed into a corner with no allies, and had to fight for their survival. At a time when hundreds of thousands of stateless Jewish refugees and holocaust victims were fleeing Europe, Britain was issuing edicts banning Jews from immigrating to or purchasing land in Palestine. The British turned away immigrant boats sailing for Palestine, often forcing them right into the clutches of Hitler and the Nazis. After the war ended they also directed illegal Jewish immigrants, many of whom were concentration camp survivors, into internment camps at Cyprus. The British were using taxation of the Jewish communities to fund this oppressive and draconian rule of the region. It was around this time that the defense militias banded together and the Jewish Resistance Movement took shape, which has many parallels to our own country's Revolutionary history. Not to brush aside the sabotage and bloodshed that took place in the late 40's in Palestine and what became Israel, but the Jewish Resistance Movement was no more violent or bloody than any other independence movement. Now, 60+ years later, having been attacked again and again both by their neighbors and from within, the Israel has evolved into one of the most ruthless and battle-hardened nations in the world, primarily because force is the only language that the Arabs seem to understand. But let's not distort history. The reality is that the Jews have been attacked almost from the time that they set foot in the region, and their nation's bloody history is the inevitable result of this."

Read: books, old news articles

God damn dude who pumped you full of this bullshit? Is this fantasy? Like I don't know how to respond to this pile of misleading horseshit.

Edit: Seriously curious where you cherrypicked your misinformation

[Edited on September 9, 2010 at 10:37 AM. Reason : .]

9/9/2010 10:18:04 AM

Quote :

""Massive terrorist army aimed at attacking innocent people"?"

What would you call Irgun and Lehi? They would just walk up to the first arab man they saw and shoot him, or put down land mines into a crowded market, or throw a hand grenade into a coffee shop. These are things that happened whether you like it or not.

Quote :

"The Jews immigrated legally (based on the League of Nations and the Palestine Mandate) before and during WWI."

The Palestine Mandate and the League of Nations were not even in existence until after WWI. Besides that, there were massive illegal immigration operations that occured, MASSIVE.

Quote :

"who championed a policy of restraint (Havlagah)"

Of course, Haganah was the face for other organizations that did their dirty work, enemies in public but friends in private.

Quote :

"choosing to respond to Arab attacks in kind"

You realize you're talking about killing innocent people right? We're talking about things like finding a crowded bus and just killing everyone in it.

Quote :

"that the defense militias banded together and the Jewish Resistance Movement took shape, which has many parallels to our own country's Revolutionary history"

We never blew up an entire hotel or slaughtered innocent people, but apparently all one has to do is compare it to the american revolution. Let me try it. The struggle in the Palestine has many parallels to our own country's Revolutionary history.

Quote :

"primarily because force is the only language that the Arabs seem to understand"

It's the only language that is ever tried, and it's certainly not working considering how long this has gone on.

Quote :

"The reality is that the Jews have been attacked almost from the time that they set foot in the region, and their nation's bloody history is the inevitable result of this."

One could also say that the Jews have attacked the arabs "almost from the time that they set foot in the region, and their nation's bloody history is the inevitable result of this".

Quote :

"How about you show me a period in that history where Palestine and/or Israel's neighbors were peaceful for any appreciable period of time?"

Sure. How about when the Ottoman empire ruled? The Ottoman Empire was able to keep relative peace in the entire arab world. In Palestine they strictly regulated jewish immigration, it was when this was abolished that we opened pandora's box.

9/9/2010 10:45:55 AM

^ More patient than me.

It's worth pointing out that by 48 you have around 3, 4 thousand members of Irgun (iirc).

I also like how gentrification and subsequently violent expansion has been glossed as "legal immigration". There was a long period of time in between the Balfour declaration and Truman's recognition of the state of Israel (pre-empting everybody else irresponsibly and unilaterally) where Jewish illegal immigration to the region was out of control.

Quote :

"Besides that, there were massive illegal immigration operations that occured, MASSIVE."

Haha my girlfriend's grandparents were involved in running illegal immigrants into the country. They arrived by flotilla, in a funny bit of irony.

[Edited on September 9, 2010 at 10:55 AM. Reason : .]

9/9/2010 10:49:28 AM

McDanger--

All of the first paragraph in response to me seems like temporizing in answering the question. Four weeks at the very beginning is a token period of time and you know it; the rest seems to say, "Yeah they fought but they didn't do it very hard!"

Quote :

"you'd know that Ben-Gurion was open and honest about Israeli ambitions for expansion."

I'm aware, but expansion isn't the easiest thing in the world to do without an excuse. In those early days when our support for Israel was so tenuous it strikes me as unlikely that we would have continued to offer it if the Israelis had made unprovoked attacks to seize land. As it happens, some of the neighbors provided a provocation. This was decidedly not in their best interest, nor in that of the Palestinians.

Quote :

"They were for LIMITED Jewish immigration to the region, not a cessation of immigration whatsoever."

And they had no business dictating the immigration policies of another country, newly independent though it may be. I've no doubt that, especially in the early days, the goal was to take back the ancestral lands of the Jews. I've also no doubt that an Arab community that showed some early competence could have used simple balance of power politics to throw cold water on that.

Quote :

"The Palestinians have no power to do this, and really, no realistic incentive to try."

Oh really? Hamas is made up of Palestinians, operates in Palestine, and relies on other Palestinians to function. I'd say they have plenty of power to rein them in. And their incentive is that if Israel stops getting attacked it will lay off.

9/9/2010 1:33:24 PM

Quote :

"All of the first paragraph in response to me seems like temporizing in answering the question. Four weeks at the very beginning is a token period of time and you know it; the rest seems to say, "Yeah they fought but they didn't do it very hard!""

Hungry, destitute people do not fight very hard. What makes you imagine Arab powers had all these troops to spare? Iraq had Kurds to deal with; not to mention intra-Arab power struggles in the sudden vacuum left by the Brits.

Quote :

"I'm aware, but expansion isn't the easiest thing in the world to do without an excuse. In those early days when our support for Israel was so tenuous it strikes me as unlikely that we would have continued to offer it if the Israelis had made unprovoked attacks to seize land. As it happens, some of the neighbors provided a provocation. This was decidedly not in their best interest, nor in that of the Palestinians."

This analysis makes little to no sense. US support for Israel supplied a lot of momentum into forcing the rest of the world to recognize it as a state. Up until that point, a two-state solution was being worked out by the U.N. and while both sides seemed unwilling to accept the compromises at the table at the time, there was little reason to believe something couldn't be worked out. After all, there was a case to be made that Jewish settlers in that region should self-govern; even Arabs understood that fact, but just didn't want Jewish immigrants rushing in and flooding the entire region, violently pushing Arabs out (which happened).

The Israelis certainly pushed unprovoked attacks. Rather than letting something strike you as unlikely, why not let a book strike you in the face? There's no reason you haven't looked into this by now. Why opine if you know you don't know?

You're giving me an argument for how you think events might have gone based on what you consider reasonable. What happened is written down. Go get it.

Quote :

"And they had no business dictating the immigration policies of another country, newly independent though it may be."

Come on man. Think. This was their position before Israel was founded; clearly once it was founded, they had no control over the immigration policies of that region. Arabs in that region did not want unchecked Jewish immigration (under the Ottomans and British) precisely because they didn't want to be displaced (violently and otherwise). It's not hard to put together.

Also: once the US decides the Jews get their own state, Arabs have to shut the fuck up and tolerate a massive flood of people who would obviously conquer them? You realize that the situation there was murky at best, as when the British left, there was no plan for what to do with the land at all? This doesn't mean people didn't own land and have a life there. What people in this thread are arguing is that (1) rich people should be able to roll into a region and buy everything up (doing business with the elite), literally kicking people out of ancestral house and home and (2) those very some people should be able to take whatever they want, however they want, in the resulting days using retaliatory violence against them as a flimsy excuse?

Zionists at the time had no such pussy-footing, defensive, limp-wristed justification on their minds. They were out for blood and land and made no bones about it. It was written down and we can still read it today. Why do you continually try to revise their actions and motives?

Quote :

" Oh really? Hamas is made up of Palestinians, operates in Palestine, and relies on other Palestinians to function. I'd say they have plenty of power to rein them in. And their incentive is that if Israel stops getting attacked it will lay off."

If only unemployed, destitute, starving, sick people without power, working hospitals, any option to work, or any option to leave could rise above the constant violence from foreign occupiers and local thugs to reason in an abstract, calm, and rational way like you.

Quote :

"I've no doubt that, especially in the early days, the goal was to take back the ancestral lands of the Jews. I've also no doubt that an Arab community that showed some early competence could have used simple balance of power politics to throw cold water on that."

What's the relevance of this?

[Edited on September 9, 2010 at 2:20 PM. Reason : .]

9/9/2010 2:17:02 PM

get ready to be blown away

i suggest you fetch a glass of water, a towel and a depends before watching this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5drXEXkf9s&feature=player_embedded#!

9/10/2010 1:22:46 AM

^that's nothing out of the ordinary. IMO, a good teacher is one who presents all the information from both sides of a situation and lets you develop your own conclusion and what is right and what is wrong. But let's say you have a political science teacher who tells you that Republicans are always right and Democrats are always wrong...you wouldn't give much credit to that teacher, right? But there is a large group of Jewish academics (including Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, and that horrible Terry Ginsberg that NCSU had a couple years ago) who do exactly that with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

What we're doing in this thread is argument and discourse, but what they do is straight up attempt to indoctrinate their students with their own personal beliefs and don't give them the chance to argue back.

9/10/2010 12:45:47 PM

Quote :

"What makes you imagine Arab powers had all these troops to spare?"

I didn't say they did. Review the discussion. I said, "Israel hasn't gotten a lot of peace from their neighbors." You said, "They had four weeks of peace at the beginning and the Arab powers didn't fight very hard." How hard they fought is irrelevant. But if I'm a long-suffering people that just got out from under a genocide, I'm liable to overreact to even half-assed violence.

Quote :

"Rather than letting something strike you as unlikely, why not let a book strike you in the face? There's no reason you haven't looked into this by now."

You have not hesitated on this board to claim expertise based on your educational background. Perhaps rather than arrogantly espousing my ignorance it bears mentioning that international politics and modern political history are my bailiwick. You may rest assured that at some point in years of specializing in this area of study the subject has come up a time or two.

Quote :

"Arabs in that region did not want unchecked Jewish immigration (under the Ottomans and British) precisely because they didn't want to be displaced (violently and otherwise)."

That would "otherwise" says a great deal. People in the region were perfectly willing to accept Jewish money for land, they just didn't want a lot of, you know, Jews to move in on it.

Quote :

"What people in this thread are arguing is that (1) rich people should be able to roll into a region and buy everything up (doing business with the elite), literally kicking people out of ancestral house and home and (2) those very some people should be able to take whatever they want, however they want, in the resulting days using retaliatory violence against them as a flimsy excuse?"

1) People should be able to buy no more than what other people are willing to sell, which is how things started. I've been kicked out of rental places because ownership of the house has changed hands, and the same principle applies no matter how long your family has lived in a certain vicinity. You don't have a right to live in a place you don't own, and if you do own it, you don't have to sell it to anybody.

2) I've not claimed that Israel was a shiny happy example of all that is right. I've called them assholes and I'll do it again. They are assholes. The only substantial point of disagreement that started this whole fracas was your claim that they were assholes to the point of perpetrating genocide.

Quote :

"What's the relevance of this?"

This situation is the product of two interacting groups, not just one guy bursting in and saying, "Look at me, I'm King Asshole!"

9/10/2010 3:15:13 PM

Quote :

"I didn't say they did. Review the discussion. I said, "Israel hasn't gotten a lot of peace from their neighbors." You said, "They had four weeks of peace at the beginning and the Arab powers didn't fight very hard." How hard they fought is irrelevant. But if I'm a long-suffering people that just got out from under a genocide, I'm liable to overreact to even half-assed violence. "

Except it had nothing to do with retaliation and everything to do with unchecked expansion. It's almost like you don't care what their stated intentions were. Why do you keep trying to revise their motives?

Quote :

"You have not hesitated on this board to claim expertise based on your educational background. Perhaps rather than arrogantly espousing my ignorance it bears mentioning that international politics and modern political history are my bailiwick. You may rest assured that at some point in years of specializing in this area of study the subject has come up a time or two."

Then why do you display ignorance? I don't require a degree in international politics and modern political history to read books and old news articles. In fact, reading those books and articles is tantamount to expertise on this issue, and you show very little evidence of having done either. Education is not merely "in the classroom"; anybody who demonstrates statistical competence or expertise, for instance, as a result of having educated themselves using the plethora of methods available, is qualified in that subject.

Quote :

"1) People should be able to buy no more than what other people are willing to sell, which is how things started. I've been kicked out of rental places because ownership of the house has changed hands, and the same principle applies no matter how long your family has lived in a certain vicinity. You don't have a right to live in a place you don't own, and if you do own it, you don't have to sell it to anybody."

Arabs are not a unified hive mind. People were getting rich selling their less fortunate, destitute cousins under the bus. This suddenly gets Israel off the hook and makes it okay/right? How exactly do you use this fact to shift blame to the poor people who were being driven from their lands?

Quote :

"2) I've not claimed that Israel was a shiny happy example of all that is right. I've called them assholes and I'll do it again. They are assholes. The only substantial point of disagreement that started this whole fracas was your claim that they were assholes to the point of perpetrating genocide."

This fact is definitional. Either you accept the definition of genocide or you don't.

Quote :

"This situation is the product of two interacting groups, not just one guy bursting in and saying, "Look at me, I'm King Asshole!""

It's more than two interacting groups; Arab interests were fractured along a few lines in those early days. I have no idea why you lump in the upper and lower classes together as if they form some homogenized whole that failed in bargaining with Zionist settlers (whatever that means).

[Edited on September 10, 2010 at 3:40 PM. Reason : .]

9/10/2010 3:36:38 PM

Quote :

"People in the region were perfectly willing to accept Jewish money for land"

By "people in the region" do you mean the british? Because they're the ones who allowed it and took the money, but I wouldn't describe them as "in the region" more as "foriegn occupiers"

Quote :

"But if I'm a long-suffering people that just got out from under a genocide, I'm liable to overreact to even half-assed violence."

They were killing innocent people long before the Germans made it cool.

Quote :

"I've been kicked out of rental places because ownership of the house has changed hands"

That's illegal. And just so you know, Israel doesn't buy thier, they haven't done that since the British were in charge. They take it, regardless of whether you own it or not, it's thiers if they want it.

Quote :

"You don't have a right to live in a place you don't own, and if you do own it, you don't have to sell it to anybody."

They didn't own it because it was always a under empirial rule, first under the Ottomans, who did a good job, next under the British, who did a bad job.

9/10/2010 3:57:39 PM

Quote :

"It's almost like you don't care what their stated intentions were."

I'm aware of what those intentions were. I'm also aware that they never could have been pursued so vigorously without provocation.

Quote :

"I don't require a degree in international politics and modern political history to read books and old news articles."

Never said you did, but you can't get or pursue one of those degrees without reading books and news articles. As a result you are invited to quit telling me I haven't read such things.

Quote :

"People were getting rich selling their less fortunate, destitute cousins under the bus."

It sucks to be poor, but there's nothing wrong with selling something you own, and there is something laughable about claiming rights to something that you do not own.

Quote :

"This fact is definitional. Either you accept the definition of genocide or you don't. "

Repeating this does not make it fact. You're calling a horse a zebra, pointing to the part of the definition of "zebra" that refers to a hoofed quadriped, and saying, "It's definitional, it's definitional."

Quote :

"Arabs are not a unified hive mind."

You've had no problem acting as though the Israelis are.

9/10/2010 3:59:22 PM

Quote :

"You've had no problem acting as though the Israelis are."

Outrageous bullshit and baseless. Fuck you. Unlike you keeping up with this problem is not some masturbatory intellectual exercise for me; I have personal investment in it, and know plenty of Israelis and would be foolish to characterize them as moving in lockstep.

Violent Zionists at the start of the expansion were just that, however, and characterizing them as acting according to unified aims, purposes, and principles is something they even admitted to. Again: why are you so interested in revising what happened?

Quote :

"I'm aware of what those intentions were. I'm also aware that they never could have been pursued so vigorously without provocation."

Patently false. They stated clearly expansion was going to happen inevitably. This was the point of boundless immigration. It's like you're choosing not to think about this situation. This is not a philosophical debate where the facts are murky; go figure out what happened.

Quote :

"Never said you did, but you can't get or pursue one of those degrees without reading books and news articles. As a result you are invited to quit telling me I haven't read such things."

You are invited to get your facts straight and stop serving as a mouthpiece for modern political interests. If you read and know then simply speak the truth.

Quote :

"It sucks to be poor, but there's nothing wrong with selling something you own, and there is something laughable about claiming rights to something that you do not own."

There's nothing laughable about the effects of gentrification on the poor (especially in this scenario). Are you this fucking dense, Ian? If legality is all you care about, how about the massive waves of illegal Jewish immigration to the region that allowed them such immense power when the time came to flex it?

Quote :

"Repeating this does not make it fact. You're calling a horse a zebra, pointing to the part of the definition of "zebra" that refers to a hoofed quadriped, and saying, "It's definitional, it's definitional." "

The point of making Gaza miserable is to force them into giving up right of return, and hopefully, to force them into absorbing into the rest of Arab culture. The conditions in Gaza today are simply an extension of transferism, perpetrated by transferists. It's like you have literally no experience with this topic whatsoever and the fact that you want to wave around your useless result of four+ years of debilitating alcoholism as authority is hilarious. Back your shit up or shut the fuck up.

I might like you but that doesn't mean I'm going to give you a pass to pony up foolish revisionism, half-assed white-washing, and apologism / South-Park-style "the truth is in the middle of any two goal-points". Stop trying to pretend things are what they aren't and aren't what they are. It's like you imagine there are no consequences whatsoever for spreading misinformation on this topic, and your willingness to speak inaccurately with no care whatsoever to the accuracy of the statements is despicable. Few people here will call you out because similarly they don't know either.

[Edited on September 10, 2010 at 4:26 PM. Reason : .]

9/10/2010 4:10:57 PM

I just want to point out that the Palestinians never sold their land, they british did, and when the jews, even then, wanted land, they would just push them off of it through violence. The millions who have had their homes confiscated never gave any sort of consent or received payment for it.

9/10/2010 4:55:08 PM

Quote :

"Person A: Historical claim X. Person B: Check your facts, X is at best misleading. Person A: Well, history doesn't matter anyway."

When I said that the history is irrelevant, I meant that this is not the same war anymore. The new generation of soldiers fighting this war don't see it the way it was in 1948, and it isn't about what happened in 1948. They know what they have experience in their own lifetimes, which for most of them now is nothing previous to 1990. We are 5 years away from the average Israeli soldier not being alive for the Oslo Accords or Rabin's assassination.

Its time to stop pointing blame at what started this and that and work towards stopping the madness. Both sides are guilty of killing innocent civilians, making life miserable on both the other side and their own people, and I'm just sick and tired of hearing that one group is any better than the other.

9/10/2010 5:05:24 PM

Quote :

"Outrageous bullshit and baseless."

It's based on your tossing poll numbers out as unrepresentative of what the people polled actually want.

Quote :

"They stated clearly expansion was going to happen inevitably."

Inevitably =/= vigorously. No doubt there were powerful people who had every intention of expanding Israel's borders, but as a practical matter they could not have done so as immediately and explosively without provocation.

Quote :

"If legality is all you care about, how about the massive waves of illegal Jewish immigration to the region that allowed them such immense power when the time came to flex it?"

*shrug* They were criminals and they didn't get busted for it. I'm not going to defend the immigration policies of the Ottomans or the British any more than I'm going to defend instances of Israelis forcibly taking homes.

I have sympathy for the poor and the way everyone fucks them all the time. But "We've lived here for a long time" is not the same thing as "We own this place."

Quote :

"The point of making Gaza miserable is to force them into giving up right of return, and hopefully, to force them into absorbing into the rest of Arab culture."

The point of making Gaza as miserable as it is right now is to get them to kick out Hamas, but yes, it would probably still be pretty goddamn miserable regardless. And yes, a big part of that is getting them to give up the right of return. I don't think they give two shits about whether the Gazans assimilate into some other culture, though. At the very least they want violence directed at them to stop, and at most they want the territory itself.

Quote :

"that doesn't mean I'm going to give you a pass to pony up foolish revisionism, half-assed white-washing, and apologism / South-Park-style "the truth is in the middle of any two goal-points""

Haha, well, it's refreshing to see that not everybody here thinks I'm either an unforgivable leftist or a hardline right-wing fascist. Here, now, we have someone who thinks I'm literally nothing.

I am astonished that this font of ill-will has burst forth just because I said I didn't think the Israelis were committing genocide, which should, at the very least, be debatable. But apparently to you it is a core personal belief that cannot be questioned without producing the frothing rage now visible.

Quote :

"It's like you imagine there are no consequences whatsoever for spreading misinformation on this topic"

This is the wolf web. Of course I don't imagine there are consequences. Everybody here is already set in their position, particularly the four people still bothering to look at this thread. My God, man, half the people on here are saying the exact opposite of what they actually believe, and the person who posts the most sources for his material is an annoying jagoff neither of us can stand.

And yet I am held to a special standard of treating this as internet:serious business. That would make sense if you thought I was smarter than that, but as you say, I have a useless degree attained during four (no "+," I got the degree in exactly the expected period of time) years of debilitating alcoholism. So that can't be it.

9/10/2010 5:37:03 PM

Quote :

"I am astonished that this font of ill-will has burst forth just because I said I didn't think the Israelis were committing genocide, which should, at the very least, be debatable. But apparently to you it is a core personal belief that cannot be questioned without producing the frothing rage now visible. "

Am I not to be astonished when somebody I respect looks at a genocidal situation and decides to rationalize and apologize for it?

Quote :

"This is the wolf web. Of course I don't imagine there are consequences. Everybody here is already set in their position, particularly the four people still bothering to look at this thread. My God, man, half the people on here are saying the exact opposite of what they actually believe, and the person who posts the most sources for his material is an annoying jagoff neither of us can stand."

Oh okay then *fart shit poop*


[Edited on September 10, 2010 at 10:28 PM. Reason : .]

9/10/2010 10:27:37 PM

Quote :

"Am I not to be astonished when somebody I respect looks at a genocidal situation and decides to rationalize and apologize for it?"

I not agree with what the Israelis are doing or have done, and I do not apologize for them. You may rest assured that in a (no doubt horrifying) universe in which I had the power to do so, I would be reminding the Israeli government in no uncertain terms who holds the whip hand -- or the pocketbook, as may be.

To an extent I may be guilty of rationalizing. I look at things from the perspective of my field, which is at times amoral. I don't agree with much of what Israel has done these last sixty years, but I think I at least understand a good deal of why they do it. In a lot of neat and tidy models, it makes perfect sense that they would behave the way they are. It's too often immoral, but it makes sense. On both sides of the equation we see that people who feel overwhelmed by enemies will react unpleasantly, to say the least.

Quote :

"*fart shit poop*"

You and I both know that that would be an improvement on many of the posts in this section. Clearly you think it would be an improvement on some of mine lately.

But I think -- at least hope -- you know what I mean. Certainly I come here to argue about important issues, and I don't like posts that obstruct that. But I'm also under no illusion that my activity here matters as anything other than my own entertainment. Maybe, if I'm lucky, someone else gets a kick out of them sometimes. But if I have to worry that every incorrect thing I say may be causing a cancer on American discourse, it becomes a lot less enjoyable real quick.

9/10/2010 11:17:11 PM

Quote :

"I just want to point out that the Palestinians never sold their land, they british did, and when the jews, even then, wanted land, they would just push them off of it through violence. The millions who have had their homes confiscated never gave any sort of consent or received payment for it."

Resorting to revisionist history again, Kris? The Jews bought Palestinian land from wealthy Arab landowners, not the British. And they only resorted to wide-scale violence and incursions when, in 1940, they were banned by the British in from buying more land, after suffering through the widespread Arab revolts of the late 30's.

Quote :

"By 1947, Jewish holdings in Palestine amounted to about 463,000 acres. Approximately 45,000 of these acres were acquired from the Mandatory Government; 30,000 were bought from various churches and 387,500 were purchased from Arabs. Analyses of land purchases from 1880 to 1948 show that 73 percent of Jewish plots were purchased from large landowners. "

http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm

Keep in mind that they bought up mostly uninhabited coastal swampland, which they later drained and cultivated with citrus trees and the like. They also bought large tracts of arid and semi-arid land from wealthy Arab landowners, and brought with them modern irrigation techniques to cultivate it.

Here are a few excerpts from the Peel Commission:

Quote :

"The Arab population shows a remarkable increase since 1920, and it has had some share in the increased prosperity of Palestine. Many Arab landowners have benefited from the sale of land and the profitable investment of the purchase money. The fellaheen are better off on the whole than they were in 1920. This Arab progress has been partly due to the import of Jewish capital into Palestine and other factors associated with the growth of the National Home. In particular, the Arabs have benefited from social services which could not have been provided on the existing scale without the revenue obtained from the Jews. Such economic advantage, however, as the Arabs have gained from Jewish immigration will decrease if the political breach between the races continues to widen. ... The shortage of land is due less to purchase by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. The Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought. "

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/peel1.html


[Edited on September 10, 2010 at 11:52 PM. Reason : 2]

9/10/2010 11:24:39 PM

Quote :

"http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm"

That quote is not in that link. Interestingly enough, it is however referenced in a wikipedia article noted for poor sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine

[Edited on September 11, 2010 at 12:29 AM. Reason : ]

9/11/2010 12:27:39 AM

Well, I was reading that article from wikipedia, and then following links contained within

I had a couple windows open and must've copied the wrong URL. Here it is:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Arabs_in_Palestine.html

Looking more closely at this link, it does appear to be something of a propaganda website, so forget that. However, it's tough to refute what is contained in the Peel Commission's report. From everything I have read, prior to 1940, when Jewish land purchases were made largely illegal, the Jews were buying the vast majority of their land from wealthy Arab landowners.

Are you really sticking with your statement that the Jews bought the majority of their land from the British? Or that "millions" had their homes confiscated? That sounds pretty hyperbolic.


[Edited on September 11, 2010 at 12:48 AM. Reason : 2]

9/11/2010 12:41:13 AM

There also seems to be a lack of mention in this thread that a lot of the violence committed by Jews in Palestine between 1920 and 1948 was against the British, mainly for not letting a lot of Jews in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Exodus in case you don't know about it)

9/11/2010 12:48:08 AM

Quote :

"From everything I have read, prior to 1940, when Jewish land purchases were made largely illegal, the Jews were buying the vast majority of their land from wealthy Arab landowners."

You keep bringing this up but what's the relevance? Is that supposed to make what happened okay?

Was slavery in the US okay because African chiefs were selling their own people?

9/11/2010 4:11:21 AM

Also: glad to see you guys found the time to attempt to cherrypick propaganda websites hahaha

What is so wrong about actually researching the issue deeply?

9/11/2010 4:12:33 AM

Quote :

"From everything I have read, prior to 1940, when Jewish land purchases were made largely illegal, the Jews were buying the vast majority of their land from wealthy Arab landowners."

And from everything I've read it's been the opposite, thus why I knew not to trust your link, which I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on, but expect you to keep your sources in line. I'm not in the habit of making things up and while I don't have the evidence, as I haven't done any research on the topic for several years, I do trust my memory to a great degree.

Quote :

"Are you really sticking with your statement that the Jews bought the majority of their land from the British? Or that "millions" had their homes confiscated? That sounds pretty hyperbolic."

Even if it wasn't true, you're really only talking about a small window in which they could have purchased land, during the other periods it was stolen.

Quote :

"There also seems to be a lack of mention in this thread that a lot of the violence committed by Jews in Palestine between 1920 and 1948 was against the British, mainly for not letting a lot of Jews in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Exodus in case you don't know about it)"

Cool, so they murdered and terrorized two races of people and not just one.

9/11/2010 10:43:24 AM

^that's not what i said at all. at least i've acknowleged that there are two sides to this situation, but all I keep hearing in return is "Israel is wrong and Palestine has every right to do all the carnage and killing that they've been doing for 60 years"

Hamas wants their own people to suffer. They let it continue because it makes them look righteous. But really they are the ones stockpiling weapons in hospitals, churches, and schools and paying off terrorists (or their families after they strap a bomb to themselves). If they keep their own people weak, they keep their people violent. The rest of the Arab world, most notably Syria and Iran, also want to see Palestine suffer so that Israel will continue to look bad. Palestinians are the ugly ducklings of the Arab world, but none of their so called brothers want to see them evolve into that swan.

9/11/2010 11:33:45 AM

Quote :

"at least i've acknowleged that there are two sides to this situation, but all I keep hearing in return is "Israel is wrong and Palestine has every right to do all the carnage and killing that they've been doing for 60 years""

Do you need me to tell you about the instances of terrorism under the flag of palestinian independence? I'm sure you know about them. The difference here is we can hold Israel responsible. It's just the fact of the matter. Just like the US must tie it's hands behind it's back sometimes, Israel must as well. We can force Israel to respect human rights, we can't do that for the palestinian terrorists.

9/11/2010 11:48:14 AM

It sounds like you're saying we can hold Israel accountable for their actions but we can't blame Palestinian terrorists for what they do. If Israel "ties its hands behind its back" as you put it, then those terrorists will just continue to attack with no repercussions. Palestinians need to hold their own leaders accountable for what they allow to happen. I really thought things would get better after Arafat was gone...Abbas seemed much more likely to support the people and not the terrorists, and I truly believe that's how he wants it to be...but he is too weak to control them.

9/11/2010 12:33:18 PM

Quote :

"You keep bringing this up but what's the relevance? Is that supposed to make what happened okay? Was slavery in the US okay because African chiefs were selling their own people?"

The relevance is that Kris stated unequivocally that the Palestinians never sold land, it was taken by force or bought from the British, etc. I thought that this was a gross mischaracterization of what actually happened. Now the validity of some of these land purchases may be scrutinized, and many of the large tracts were purchased from wealthy foreign Arab landowners instead of native Palestinians, but nevertheless, we are discussing the history of the country and it is a point of contention. Why are you trying to equate land purchases to slavery? What is the relevance to that analogy?

From reading the Peel Commission, it seems clear that many of the Palestinian gripes at the time about land theft and the like were quite unfounded, but rather there was a significant anti-semitic undertone in the region and they simply did not want to share the region with the Jews. Of course I can understand the Palestinian frustrations with unchecked immigration and foreign communities encroaching on the native population, but I reject this characterization of Zionist land procurement:

Quote :

"Palestinians never sold their land, they british did, and when the jews, even then, wanted land, they would just push them off of it through violence."

[Edited on September 11, 2010 at 1:14 PM. Reason : 3]

9/11/2010 1:12:32 PM

Well some Arabs were getting in trouble socially and politically due to their willingness to rent land to Jews, including King Abdullah. Not that this matters one iota.

The overwhelming majority of Israeli holdings nowadays are stolen and not "purchased". When something like a half a million Arab civilians were displaced during the violence, encroaching immigrants moved onto their land.

9/11/2010 1:16:09 PM

Quote :

"It sounds like you're saying we can hold Israel accountable for their actions but we can't blame Palestinian terrorists for what they do."

We can blame them, but we can't hold them to a higher standard like we can israel.

Quote :

"If Israel "ties its hands behind its back" as you put it, then those terrorists will just continue to attack with no repercussions."

They do that now, or at least they face no repercussions that actually cause them to act any differently.

Quote :

"Palestinians need to hold their own leaders accountable for what they allow to happen."

Why? The leaders don't really have control over anything. The only group that can make any sort of political changes are the terrorist groups who do so through violence. If Israel allowed full sovereignty and removed the blockades perhaps we would see political leadership with some control over it's people.

Quote :

"I thought that this was a gross mischaracterization of what actually happened."

You can think it all you want, doesn't make it true. The native palestinian people lived on settlements which they did not sell.

Quote :

"there was a significant anti-semitic undertone in the region and they simply did not want to share the region with the Jews."

Likewise there was a significant anti-palestinian undertone in the region and they simply did not want to share the region with the native palestinians. This is why once they terrorized the british enough to scare them away they took any land in the region that wasn't nailed down. It was outright theft.

[Edited on September 11, 2010 at 2:16 PM. Reason : ]

9/11/2010 2:10:32 PM

Until we withdraw our unconditional support and equipping of Israel, all negotiations will fail.

9/12/2010 9:50:33 PM

^the equipping of Israel is done through trade, its not like USA throws a shit load of support with nothing in return. I will go through the list of what we get out of it if I need to but don't be that naive.

And Obama is not in unconditional support of Israel. Neither was Jimmy Carter, and although Clinton was a friend of Israel I wouldn't say he wasn't disapproving of poor decision making. Carter with the Camp David Accords and Clinton with the Oslo Accords both worked hard to bring a real peace, but ultimately it failed at no fault of theirs.

9/12/2010 10:50:57 PM

Trade? You poor delusional fool. They buy our weapons with the money we GIVE them. Israel is our #1 "aid" recipient of all time. We give them $3 billion each year, $8 million per day, $500 to each wretched, racist Israeli citizen.

Our aid to the Palestinians is pitiful in comparison, measured in mere millions. Much of which those fucking nazis won't even allow past their checkpoints anyway.

And we speak of peace? Of being an impartial arbitrator? Many say Death to Israel. I say Death to America.

[Edited on September 12, 2010 at 11:03 PM. Reason : ]

[Edited on September 12, 2010 at 11:04 PM. Reason : I don't want what Israel gives in return. I don't want bases in the mid-east.]

9/12/2010 11:03:09 PM

^you don't want what they give in return? your local police officers, fire fighters, doctors, technicians, and computer programmers would strongly disagree with you.

9/13/2010 12:08:04 AM

we give them billions in AID, do you know what AID is?

9/13/2010 12:11:45 AM

Quote :

"each wretched, racist Israeli citizen."

That's as dumb as saying every Palestinian is a terrorist.

Hate the government, not the people. Same to those in the rest of the world who hate all Americans because of our leaders' mistakes.

9/13/2010 12:23:20 AM

I'm sure there is a small liberal minority in Israel that opposes their blatant human rights violations. But they sure aren't making much noise. And if there is a great silent majority that secretly opposes the oppression of the palestinians(which I doubt), their complacency makes them entirely complicit in the atrocities.

9/13/2010 10:06:38 AM

Quote :

"the equipping of Israel is done through trade, its not like USA throws a shit load of support with nothing in return. I will go through the list of what we get out of it if I need to but don't be that naive."

Politicians and arms dealers love the arrangement, sure. The rest of us get things like 9/11.

Quote :

"$500 to each wretched, racist Israeli citizen."

Cut it the fuck out you idiot. If you're posting from America I hope you know you're more wretched by your own standards.

Quote :

"Hate the government, not the people. Same to those in the rest of the world who hate all Americans because of our leaders' mistakes"

Israeli indifference is extremely complicit in this matter, although I don't think it's reasonable to "blame all Israelis".

Go to the beach in Tel Aviv and you'll see what I'm talking about. People chillin' and smokin' hash 24 hours a day, which rocks don't get me wrong, but they're completely unaware of the occupied territories. It's a different world.

Quote :

"I'm sure there is a small liberal minority in Israel that opposes their blatant human rights violations. But they sure aren't making much noise."

This is blatantly false. The media covers what it will and doesn't what it won't. Pretending what's reported on == exactly what happened and no more is ridiculous. Dig your head out of your ass you adolescent little shit and realize you're just as clueless as your opponents on this matter.

[Edited on September 13, 2010 at 10:18 AM. Reason : .]

9/13/2010 10:17:28 AM

If your protests aren't on the news, they didn't happen.

If the state-controlled media won't cover them, it's time to escalate your actions.

[Edited on September 13, 2010 at 10:22 AM. Reason : .]

9/13/2010 10:21:05 AM

Where are your protests and actions? Do you consider your stupid TWW posts to be pulling your own weight?

Until I see you on the news I don't give a fuck what you say by your own standards. Fly away shit-bird.

9/13/2010 10:23:39 AM

I am a coward. But you will see me one day.

9/13/2010 10:25:05 AM

Hurry it the fuck up, your posts gettin' stale homey.

9/13/2010 10:27:33 AM

You know, I think you're absolutely right.

9/13/2010 10:29:29 AM

Quote :

"I'm sure there is a small liberal minority in Israel that opposes their blatant human rights violations. But they sure aren't making much noise."

Just because the American media doesn't cover them it doesn't mean the protests aren't happening and aren't a huge deal. Multiple riots have broken out during such protests, they just aren't talked about because the American media doesn't care what happens just inside Israel, only what happens between Israel and Palestine/the Arab world.

For example, the gay marriage battle inside Israel is escalating by the day, and it is getting incredibly intense, much more so than the American one. But you never hear about it unless you go to Israeli news sources.

9/13/2010 10:35:39 AM