The following was an interview I used for a paper, and after it passed, I decided to publish it on my own blogspot. Due to the heated discussions, I witnessed earlier, I decided that this interview should be published (with the kind permission of Comrade Renegade) over here. I hope it stimulates not only debates, but incourages people to dwell on the history of Palestine... MFL
Introduction
In his book, Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, the Israeli scholar Benny Morris divided the famous brutal Palestinian Exodus into 4 major waves. Even though the exodus started as early as 1923, the 1948 was divided into four stages. The Ramli town was supposed to suffer the most horrific exodus of all the four waves. By the time of the third wave in 1948, the Hagganah became known as the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and launched an offensive on the Lydda (currently known as Lyd) since it contained an airport. Afterwards, the IDF halted and allowed the terrorist militia Irgun to run an offensive on Ramli, which is not far away from Lydda. The Palestinians there were villagers with minimum military infrastructure. The militants were poor peasants with barely any weaponry and any military experience, but successfully blocked two Irgun offensives till the IDF itself decided to invade the Ramli town and crush all resistance. After Ramli fell to Israeli occupation, the IDF forced 50,000 of its people to go walking from Ramli to Ramallah. Plenty died on the road from Ramli to Ramallah. The map can be found here.
The Interview
Interview with a Survivor of the Ramli Exodus(Benny Morris’s Third Wave)The following interview is with a daughter of a pharmacist and a municipality in Ramleh. His wife, who was in 1953 Vice President of the Women’s Arab Palestinian League, which was active on varieties of activities. These people are survivors of the Exodus. The daughter will answer some questions concerning the exodus, and sheds light as a case study from the eyes of a survivor.
What do you remember of the Exodus, since you lived it in 1948?
“It was in March 1948, when we left the Lydda Airport, and we arrived to Beirut. My father left us in Beirut, after renting a house, and returned to Ramli because he did not want to leave his homeland. He kept visiting us from time to time. When Ramli fell in 1948, and its people were forced to walk from Ramli to Ramallah, my father was in Beirut visiting us. He knew that Ramli fell to Israeli hands, and I remember it very well, because it was like a funeral to us. My father and mother kept crying, and one of my older sisters: “Are we poor? How can we survive?”.
Did you hear of the enforced exodus on Ramli?
“We knew directly when we saw our parents crying, and during this time, two of my uncles, who were refugees, came from there, and lived with us. We were about 30 people in an average house. We furnished bed sheets everywhere, in the kitchen, and in the living room. I was seven years old, but we were too young to think about our fate, but I knew that my father left his degree from the Syrian Protestant Collage (Currently American University of Beirut), and everything there. I remember very well the shock of them talking that there is no longer a home to return to. Afterwards, so many of our relatives arrived, from those who survived the terrible march to Ramallah. They told us that the Israeli Army placed a large sheet on the ground, and forced the women to throw their jewelry and accessories in it before leaving, which left them with nothing that may have a value to sell in the future. They robbed everyone before starting the great march.”
What did you hear from the survivors of the great march from Ramli to Ramallah?
“Many children and sick people died with no proper burial. The Israeli soldiers never allowed them to perform a proper funeral, the marching refugees used to cover the deceased’s face with a handkerchief or a small sheet. The ones who underwent the Exodus were actually the women, children, and the elders in a most brutal manner. The young were detained in Ramli, and one of them was my second cousin. They took away there weapons, and then imprisoned them. They were tortured later, and then afterwards they were used as exchange prisoners."
Your Second Cousin (a Palestinian Christian) was detained, and why is that for?
"My cousin "hidden name" was his name. He was in the military informal command for the defense of Ramli against the Jews. He was wounded in the battle for Ramli, and I remember they operated on him (the Red Cross), without pain relievers. Being blond with blue eyes, one of his Jewish friends, after six months smuggled him to Ramallah, by hiding him in the Red Cross vans.
Do you remember anything on the encounters of your cousin against the Israelis?
“We avoided talking to him about the topic because it brought bitter memories of a lost home, fortunes, relatives, and friends. All he mentioned was that the King Abdullah of Jordan said that they should resist and the next day they will receive re-enforcements. In the same evening, Ramli fell.”It is funny because history mentions that Ramli, twice blocked an Irgun invasion, and the King never arrived, didn’t your cousin suspect Arab treason?“All we remember that our surviving relatives kept saying that Palestinian tragedy was an Arab treason within plenty of other Arab treasons.”
What about those who arrived to Lebanon, how did they manage to live?
“The ones who were educated, they started working with the same rights the Lebanese, while the poor ones lived in camps relying on Arab aid, and they kept hoping that they will return back. Actually till now, a lot still have the keys to their houses over there in the hope that they will return back home.”
What about the camps and your mother working with them, anything happened over there?
“Many groups and delegates used to visit people from Europe in the camps. One day, members of the British Parliament were visiting the Sabra camp, and my mother was one of the escorts/guide through out the camp. She was explaining to them the bad situation in the camps, when she told them: ‘if you do not find a solution to these poor people, in few years to come, you will find the Red Flag rising over all the refugee camps.’ The British MP looked her with a smile, and replied: “They will never become Communists, they are all Muslims. Their religion will not allow them”. He was rather confident about it, and I think currently it is their imperial view during the mandate over our homes before 1948. I remember in a funny way my mother coming back to the house in Beirut and swearing at him, and bad mouthing his entire family. I was proud of her that she tried to help the refugees who had fathers being sick, children with tuberculosis, and so on to assist them, and he with his sarcastic smile as if answering her: ‘Those? Communists? That is a joke.’”
Any last words you want to say concerning the topic of Palestine or the Exodus?
“Currently, it is a lost case, we had some hopes when Abdul Nasser came, but now, it is a lost case.”
MarxistFromLebanon
22 comments:
It is very unfortunate what happened to them. Israelis evicted them the way Jews themselves were evicted from Russia and many parts of Europe. It is a common human nature. Arab treason is nothing new. Most of the regimes are poodles of West. The best part was the Brit MP's reply. It was completely true. Thats why Reagon was able to ignite the jihadi war in afghanistan by inviting arab millitants. Anyway, it is pathetic that their Alla is hiding somewhere in sand instead of helping these unfortunate people!
Maybe it would be a good idea to have an introduction in one paragraph on what the Ramli Exodus was. Don’t assume people know what you are talking about.
Renegade – write him an into….
A very important insight into something that has been hidden from Western eys for too long. Israel is content to play on our natural emotions regarding the Holocaust. Zionists are not too keen to have their own history and origins discussed and they don't want close scrutiny of their current activities either. Shine the light into the dark corners!
if you do not find a solution to these poor people, in few years to come, you will find the Red Flag rising over all the refugee camps
There is something almost surrealistic in a Palestinian woman expelled from her home by Israelis threatening a British MP that the Arabs will become followers of Marx (a Jew) and Engels (a Brit)...
Such a threat would have also greatly amused most Israeli Jews, many of whom had just escaped from Communism in Eastern Europe and saw first hand how the Communist system destroys the fabric of a country from inside. They would say: 'Let's hope all Palestinian and all Arabs become Communists and wreck their own economies, it will be so much easier to defeat them...'
Dear Sonia,
again your western fanaticism amazes me.
Plenty of Arabs and all the communists seperate Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a racist extremist nationalist movement.
My grandmother (a Palestinian Christian if you care) was gambling on the bi-polar world to bring funds to the desperate homeless refugees. The stalinist empire was threatening everywhere that opposed the (then clearly free market led United States) as people had enough. What part people are desperate for a loaf of bread you do not get. Such logic is too extremism and non-humanitarian. Communism is not Stalinist Russia, but again you still are stubborn to do your objective research. It was the Communists who announced May Day and Workers' Women Day. Actually, it was in the late 19th Century the first womens' demonstration occured. Again, what was emancipated, it was due to the marxist and anarchist movements. Please for the zillionth time, be objective. (btw Trotsky was a Jew :P)
Although the British MP was correct that the Arabs would never be united since as Ramo said they will never be united, now of course I tend to disagree it is due to Islam. I tend to say it is due to lack of evolution of the societies, moving from one imperial force to another did not give the people to develop trade unions.
MFL,
a Palestinian Christian if you care
Actually, I don't. I care equally about the suffering of Muslims, Christians or any other religious group. It's the racist in me, I guess...
was gambling on the bi-polar world to bring funds to the desperate homeless refugees
They were gambling and they lost. Counting on Communism to help the poor is a bit like counting on Hitler to help the Jews...
What part people are desperate for a loaf of bread you do not get
Oh, I get it. My own father was a Communist agitator whose job was to convince the 'Wretched of the Earth' that their salvation lied in Communism. And many people believed him. Most lived to regret it. Others died....
Communism is not Stalinist Russia
You're right. Under Stalin, people at least were scared enough to work... Under his successors, they just drank (I lived under Communism for two years, MFL, so don't try to sell that system to me... a lost cause)...
Dear Sonia
it amazes me that you can never put yourself in a situation living in tents with minimum health, and your people are in immediate need of bread. There is a big difference between Stalinism and nazis, but if you (again still subjective) don't bother to know the difference fine. At least bother to read a bit about Trotsky. In any case, they didn't gamble, they welcomed any help in the camps, imagine yourself you just lost your home with no money to have (or you didn't read the article). Again, second time you admit yourself being racist within, so tell me why we are debating?
Again you say they bet? Actually they begged Western Civilizations to give them aid, but they looked to the other way. Tell them to be organized in tents? You are not being realistic nor academic in your approaches, check Dr. Edward Said's Orientalism, because it speaks mainly of people like you.
I wonder what Sonia would do if she had to walk from Ramli to Ramallah, may be then she would preach Democracy as being kicked by IDF soldiers in the face. Just consider yourself lucky for not living where hell beyond imagination is taking place in the 21st century
MFL
I'll try not to step on toes here, your mother's memory and testament is important and I thank you for posting it. It is true that the state of Israel was established in a violent and oppressive way. It is unfortunate however that this violent and oppressive wave of evictions began in Germany, and larger, Europe and Russia. I.e., and I do not mean to excuse al-nakhba, there is a universal element here besides the particular experience of eviction and exile.
The experience of WWII had made it obvious that Jews needed an armed collective to defend themselves, that no one else would do it, not their 'proletarian brothers' and certainly not their fellow German and European citizens. This is how Zionism, which you describe as a reactionary movement, gained all of its strength and the will to overturn the British blockade and occupation, starting the 1948 war. Zionism was the outcome of the failure of the first world revolutionary wave, and that is its most important attribute.
It follows that your mother's considerations dissapoint me when she finishes with what she considers 'hope' in the person of Abdul Nasser. Nasser was first and foremost a populist reformer who introduced universal education, built roads etc. while trying to pinion a larger Arab nationalist block around Egypt's orbit. While he was in power, the Egyptian communist party was banned by the way. He was also fiercely dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel, a state that had been built by Jews to protect themselves from future holocausts.
Later, after Jews had fled Egypt following the introduction of the company laws and other measures to expel Jews from the country:
"At the start of the 1967 Six Day War, only 3,000 Jews remained. Nasser ordered the incarceration of Jewish adult males in the notorious detention camps of Abu Zaabal and Tura. The incarcerated Jews were tortured and humiliated for up to three years, until 1970, when nearly all were deported from Egypt provided they promised not to return."
http://www.arabsforisrael.com/articles/jewishrefugee.html
So that is what your mother's hope is and was. The fact that she can say at this late date that Nasser was the best hope for a resolution to the conflict is a testament to the depth of her inability to grasp it.
sphinx
Ramo, you said:
"Arab treason is nothing new."
What do you mean by that?
MFL,
it amazes me that you can never put yourself in a situation living in tents with minimum health
Why does it amaze you ? Democracy is a good idea whether people live in tents or in palaces. Don't worry, even people with 'maximum' health get fooled by ruthless dictators like Nasser, Arafat or Saddam, who promise them freedom and victory, but only deliver defeat, misery and oppression.
There is a big difference between Stalinism and nazis
Of course, there is a huge difference. Stalin would kill rich Jews for being rich. Hitler would kill them for being Jewish. It's an enormous difference!
At least bother to read a bit about Trotsky
Yes, Trotsky, the man who fought capitalism all his life, who defended Communism all his life, only to find himself begging for shelter in capitalist countries to escape from Communist assassins who eventually split his head with an ax. And his assassin got a hero's welcome in Cuba by Castro...
second time you admit yourself being racist within
You've never heard about sarcasm, did you ?
Tell them to be organized in tents? You are not being realistic nor academic in your approaches
Got it. It's very unrealistic to expect people living in tents to be organized. That's very good news for the Israelis.
check Dr. Edward Said's Orientalism, because it speaks mainly of people like you
Yes, I am sure that somebody who is 50% Polish Catholic, 25% French Catholic and 25% Native Pacific Islander (like me) would be the main subject of Edward Said's book about Orientalism...
I wonder what Sonia would do if she had to walk from Ramli to Ramallah
My feet would be sore, but I definitely wouldn't embrace a totalitarian dictatorship for that reason. Democracy is still better, even with bleeding feet...
Just consider yourself lucky for not living where hell beyond imagination is taking place in the 21st century
I agree. We both should consider ourselves lucky for not living in North Korea...
Dear Sphinx
I am happy you enjoyed reading the interview with a person who saw the world from ordinary eyes. I would like to thank you for your contribution to the discussion; however I do disagree with you on plenty of issues with what you said. I will pin-point them out, and if you do not want to discuss them, feel free to add me on msn (same as my name and likewise applies to others as well.
For starters,
Back in the early days of the 19th century, the Jews were divided into two trends. The first trend were the assimilationists: ie convinced they are part of the society present in Europe. For example French or German Jews just as there are Catholic French or Germans. The other side, there were the Isolationists, they are the ones who disregarded every one and decided they are a race rather a religion. The isolationists viewed themselves a race.
Zionism was not demanding a nation, they believed that: "Palestine is Jewish just as France is French and England is English". No matter what happens, the eviction of a whole race is not justifiable.
You tell me that what happened in WWII caused the exodus of the Jews to Palestine is a lie. Of all the jews who migrated, only 100,000 went to Palestine, while the rest wanted to go to the United States and else where on the American Continent despite the fact that Ben-Gurion and Ben-Horin encouraged the Jews to go to Israel. This means the Zionists are a minority in their own sect. Not everyone views Jews as a race, but rather as a religion.
There defence collective was forged by Britian, then later USSR, and in the end the United States. Israel would not have risen on the ashes of the Palestinian civilians if it were not for Britain helping them to build the Haganah in 1936, and training them in Night Squads in 1937. Again, the movement was intigration and assimilation. Hitler did not only kill Jews, but gypsies, greek, communists (actually communists were second most killed) and so on.
Zionism was not a failure of anything. It was existant in the 19th century, and they had strong bargaining ties with Germany and England. Actually, Zionists got close to strike a deal with the Germans for Palestine during WWI rather London.
It is true what you said about Nasser regarding hi political platform, but you forget when thing. You are indirectly justifying that the Palestinian Holocaust is justified due to the Nazis on Jews. This is wrong. The Jews, Muslims, and Christians lived in Harmony in palestine till the zionists came. If Jews are a race according to the Zionists, then they too are racists.
They gave the Arabs of Israel a Class B citizenship, and in any case special thanx to the absentee property law, they confiscated properties of Palestinians while still there. Mind you, when the UN partitioned Palestine, the Jews were a minority even in the Jewish section. In 1920 the Jews were 9%, you can never justify the existence of Israel, not in this form and brutality.
As for Jamal Abdul Nasser, well yeah he rose hopes for a singular Arab united nations. Remember, the arab street view Israel as Occupied Palestine, while its people are scattered around on their land. Just as there is an EU, Nasser's theoratical plan was similar to that (with of course him in power). I oppose all forms of Nationalism myself, but you can't expect the Arab masses recognize Israel as a legitimate state, most still call the land invaded Palestine. Again, your logic does not stand regarding the rise of Israel as it is a racist ideology, while at the same time it undermines the Palestinians as a lower race. There is no justification whatsoever to the matter. So why be surprised if the Arabs wish the destruction of Israel? It brought the source of turmoil to the region, a non-existant country that was shoved in a location that shouldn't be. If the Israelis were not racists and brutal, they wouldn't have been hated. Remember, the massacres of Palestinians are still taking place and the whole world is looking the other way.
As for the Arab Jews, the biggest exodus was from Iraq to Israel as a reaction to the massacres on the Palestinians. You still give legitimacy to Israel and disregard the others.
MFL
PS: Sonia just for saying Hell is in Korea rather the Palestinian who barely finds bread to eat shows how racist you are and seriously live in a different world than this one. You got my pity.
I am in no way making light of your informative post about your mother, MFL, but I just can't help but answer this question,
Q: I wonder what Sonia would do if she had to walk from Ramli to Ramallah?
A: Several possibilities for Sonia the nudist.
1) In the winter, she might get nasty frostbite.
2) In the summer, she might get a horrendous sunburn.
3) In probably any season, she'd get plenty of offers of: "Do you need a ride?'
This is a great post. Personal stories always carry much more weight in my opinion
Sadly, their lives is still under threat. I am going to interview a 90 year old lady regarding the exodus soon ....
Thank you all :)
Sadly,I had never heard of this episode.And if I had to guess,I would say foreign policy analysts here in the US haven't either.But i am aware of the terrible conditions the palestinians exist in today and the total lack of peaceful options available to obtain justice.Do not expect understanding from Sonia, she lives in a Lockean Utopian Dreamworld of formal, as opposed to real, Freedom and Democracy.
Dear Troutsky
I have no problems with Sonia, as Renegade Eye said earlier, that blogs should stimulate discussions. Problem is I hope interactions encourage people to interact and see the other perspective and dwell on it academically.
I know Democracy is currently an over-rated concept that covers up blunders of states. Democracy actually is the means to reach an end, not an end itself. I know Sonia will hate me for this quote but I will borrow it from Trotsky and Marx:
1) Democracy needs Socialism Just as the Human Body needs Oxygen (Trotsky)
The current democracy under capitalism is what Marx would call:
2)The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
And then I add also to Marx:
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. (Marx)
And
Regarding real democracy just as Trotsky stated:
Democracy is the road to socialism. (Marx)
MFL
MFL,
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them
As opposed to the oppressed NOT BEING ALLOWED to decide anything...
But you're also missing the larger point - that democracy is MORE EFFECTIVE than dictatorship. Democratic systems have mechanisms to remove ineffective leaders and replacing them with effective ones. That's why Israel always wins wars against Arab states, ever since 1948...
Dearest Sonia
You are missing the point, Democracy's only road is socialism, when the workers are emancipated.
Your idea of Communism as twizted dictatorship is totally 100% wrong
MFL
PS: Where did you disappear :)?
Good comment from Sphinx tho eh?
not really Will, check my reply to him, and check my blog for a nice quote regarding the issue for Jim Higgins
MFL
MFL,
I am unfortunately losing confidence in your ability to discern the most basic truths from history. Before I go any further, I did not come here to justify the existence of the Israeli nation. I was criticizing in a very specific way the comments of your mother and made no judgments as to the morality of the Zionist armed forces like the Irgun etc. (who engaged in terrorism and played an instrumental role in ethnic cleansing), I'm not here to justify anti-Arab racism, like you justify anti-Jewish racism. That said, I do believe that an armed collective of Jews was necessary after (and before for that matter!) the shoa given the historical path of anti-semitism in Europe and the instrumental and thorough desire for extermination that the Nazis pursued.
I get the feeling you believe that such a collective was not necessary, and this leads you to say very strange things:
"Zionism was not demanding a nation, they believed that: "Palestine is Jewish just as France is French and England is English". No matter what happens, the eviction of a whole race is not justifiable."
Let me first note that you speak of Zionism as if it is disembodied, without actors or subjects. Actually Zionists were demanding a nation, that was the entire basis of the appeal that they had. The Arabs who were evicted from Israel were also not a 'race', which is a strongly nationalist concept to begin with, they were variously Palestinian, a people.
Next you have your facts wrong:
"Of all the jews who migrated, only 100,000 went to Palestine, while the rest wanted to go to the United States and else where on the American Continent despite the fact that Ben-Gurion and Ben-Horin encouraged the Jews to go to Israel."
Actually, if we are only considering the period directly after the holocaust (where of course the majority of European Jewry had been murdered), according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah#Immigration_from_1948-1950)
600,000 Jews emigrated to Israel, with no figure on the amount of specifically European immigrants. Even considering that the British were capping the immigration of Jews into Palestine up until the end of the mandate, tens of thousands of Jews managed to immigrate during the blockade. Yes, Zionists were a minority, but not to the extent you're exaggerating.
All of this happened while the shoa was ongoing or directly afterward. The more pressing question however is whether world humanity needed to witness a holocaust of Jews to afford them their own refuge, and the chance to defend themselves. After all, the plans of the SS and its allies were obvious from the advent of the Anschluss, the first point in history where Germany made it clear that the third reich in Europe also meant attacks on Jews anywhere in reach of the Wehrmacht. So is it any surprise that some Jews took it upon themselves to immigrate to Israel at this point (some who would attack Germany in its heart, like Hanna Senesh)?
Wiki: "Between 1929 and 1939, with the rise of Nazism in Germany, a new wave of 250,000 immigrants arrived, the majority of these, 174,000, arrived between 1933-1936, after which increasing restrictions on immigration by the British made immigration clandestine and illegal, called Aliyah Bet."
So with the facts laid as they are, I quote you:
"You tell me that what happened in WWII caused the exodus of the Jews to Palestine is a lie. This means the Zionists are a minority in their own sect. Not everyone views Jews as a race, but rather as a religion."
The definition of who is a Jew is certainly more complicated than who belongs to the religion. After all, anti-semetic laws in Europe and the Middle East were based on repressing the Jewish merchant class and deporting, maiming or killing them when the opportunity was there. Yes, the people who implemented these laws were viewed Jews as a race, but at the same time, refusing to be a Jew offered no salvation for the Jews concerned. If it was simply a matter of quitting the religion of Judaism, the holocaust could not have happened on the scale that it did. Right?
Communists belong to that side of humanity who see people through the choices they make and they classes they belong to, not through racial, earth or blood ties. That doesn't stop us from acting adequately when one sector of society is refused the right to disassociate themselves from what has been assigned to them. The fact is that Judaism in most of the world is a power discourse, of Jews who the fascists have invented (Sartre said this) and who they will not allow to be non-Jews, and Jews who are Jews because of religion, Zionist fervor etc.
"There defence collective was forged by Britian, then later USSR, and in the end the United States. Israel would not have risen on the ashes of the Palestinian civilians if it were not for Britain helping them to build the Haganah in 1936, and training them in Night Squads in 1937."
I'm sorry but you are flat out wrong here. The history itself is correct, the British helped build the Haganah, that's true, but they also did their best to curb Jewish immigration, hunt Zionist terrorists, etc. When the white paper was issued in 1939 after the riots, all of the organizations that you just listed stopped cooperating with the British. How would they then be a tool of British imperialism? It also wouldn't explain how the pre-IDF forces had to get all their arms from Czechoslavakia and elsewhere and couldn't count on any of the major powers for weaponry or why the British army sat still during massacres of Jewish civilians right before the end of the mandate. In fact, when did any foreign imperialism offer substantial assistance to Israel during the 1948 war such as air strikes, weapons etc.? Such support was minimal and had little to do with what turned the war in favor of the Israelis.
The problem with your reading of these events is that Israel's history does not fit a neat mold of 'colonialist extension' which the decaying left likes to teach people. It has elements of colonialism, elements of national liberation, imperialism and socialism. It does not fit into a simple category. Though Israel has obviously always had ties to major capitalist powers, its establishment was by no means inevitable given the forces that lined up against it. But Israel has time and time again failed to be an imperialist asset, both in the Suez crisis, in the first Lebanon war and in the second. These arguments don't hold water.
I quote you again:
"Zionism was not a failure of anything. It was existant in the 19th century, and they had strong bargaining ties with Germany and England. Actually, Zionists got close to strike a deal with the Germans for Palestine during WWI rather London."
You misread me. I didn't claim that Zionism was an outcome of the failure of the first revolutionary wave (although it was only partially), I argued that the establishment of the nation of Israel was that outcome. What's the difference? The Zionists were, as you say, a minority in the Jewish diaspora only getting some attention in the 1930s, up until then they had managed to convince very few Jews to make a hard life in Palestine. It took the holocaust and post-war pogroms in Poland, as well as repression in middle Eastern regimes to give the emigrant impetus, the surge of humanity itself, that armed Zionism and made Israel a reality. Zionism itself never had that strength, it took the exterminatory aims of fascism to make armed Jewish self-defense an obvious necessity. The fetishization of Jews as an object of hatred is of course a key element of fascist ideology, but was only able to develop to its exterminist ends because of the failure of universal emancipation i.e. communism in Europe.
Moishe Postone explains very succinctly why:
http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/postone1.html
"It is true what you said about Nasser regarding hi political platform, but you forget when thing. You are indirectly justifying that the Palestinian Holocaust is justified due to the Nazis on Jews."
So let's get this straight. You agree with what I have to say about Nasser, which was one of the most important points I was trying to make about your mother's words, but later say my comment isn't 'good'. Why? Because I am justifying the "Palestinian Holocaust," an equivocation of terms that is really disgusting, and of course first put into practice by the European far right in order to minimize the crimes of the third reich and its collaborators. You use this term very specifically, and obviously with abandon.
I have not uttered a word here to justify al-Nakba, and I think a solution to the refugee crisis is completely possible even on the terrain of the capitalist state. If saying that Israel, as a refuge for holocaust survivors, their descendants, and Jews generally, needs to exist is equivalent to justifying al Nakba in your eyes then certainly I am a justifier.
Finally, you close by justifying Nasser.
"I oppose all forms of Nationalism myself, but you can't expect the Arab masses recognize Israel as a legitimate state, most still call the land invaded Palestine."
There's so much sickening Leninist logic in this statement that I don't know where to start. First, have you ever met someone from 'the masses'? Is that how you address them to their face? When does someone become a mass to you? When they're too ignorant to understand the scope of universal history, the globe, and the need for immigrant populations to arrive from areas of genocide? When? Am I part of 'the masses'? Where can I go to hear the next great man deliver a speech?
'You can't expect' the Israeli masses to give up their settler lands. There, a reverse. An equally ridiculous position to match yours.
Last:
"So why be surprised if the Arabs wish the destruction of Israel? It brought the source of turmoil to the region, a non-existant country that was shoved in a location that shouldn't be. If the Israelis were not racists and brutal, they wouldn't have been hated."
And you finally show what a non-dialectician you are. Israel is the 'source of turmoil', Israelis are 'racist and brutal' but the Mufti of Jerusalem and the Arab Higher committee weren't, Nasser wasn't. Wiki again:
"The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni, the Chairman of the Arab Higher Committee collaborated with Nazi Germany during the Second World War. In 1940, he asked the Axis powers to acknowledge the Arab right, "to settle the question of Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries in accordance with the national and racial interests of the Arabs and along the lines similar to those used to solve the Jewish question in Germany and Italy."[citation needed] He spent the second half of WWII in Germany making radio broadcasts exhorting Muslims to ally with the Nazis in war against their common enemies. In one of these broadcasts, he said, "Arabs, arise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."[19] [20] In the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, such statements by Arab leaders (along with the Mufti's violently antisemitic history) led to a widespread belief that the Jews were facing a new “warrant for genocide.”
To conclude, I am not surprised at all that many Arabs wish for the destruction of Israel, not because they are 'lower beings' or idiots or anything but because this history was obvious from the early 20th century, from leaders like the Mufti and Nasser (who you are careful to defend), who were dead set on defending the existing semi-feudal relations and the false promise of nationalism. What surprises me, although I am getting dull to it, is the fervent energy put out by those on the 'revolutionary left' to justify the genocidal solution to the 'only crisis that matters' proposed by middle-eastern states and their ruling classes, and their total ignorance of who they are lining up with.
sphinx
Ok Sphinx, let's dance...
It is obvious that we misunderstood each other.
For starters, I despise Nasser, I am explaining to you what the masses think, after all Palestine was the heart of a nation among nations of similar cultures that got abolished, its people kicked out to neighboring nations and a whole set of chain reaction took place, caused again by the Zionists.
If you want to expect a nation, the nation should not exist on the expense of another. For me, I seperate between Zionsm and Judaism. I already know how the Jews suffered due to sectarianism, but to do something aweful is worse. The Marxist scholars actually believe that there shall be no peace with Israel as long as its government is zionist (ie racist). Again, keep in mind, whenver the word Israel is mentioned, this nation was built on the blood and ashes of others. So you tell me Nasser was racist? Haven't you heard he is a reaction to a reaction? Again, from 1948 to 1957, Israel remained butchering Palestinians to kingdom come, and you expect neighboring countries to simply give it flowers as "welcome home?". It is the same case between Cyprus and Turket... imagine if Turkey invaded fully Cyprus but only difference with international support.
Now moving along, The White Paper and the Peel Commission came at a circumstance you totally failed to express. The Paper didn't cripple Jewish immigration out of racism to Jews. The Paper came in the end of a 3 year demonstration and rebellion from the Palestinian side because they had enough from British brutality and Zionists kicking them out of their own homes. Remember, a home is sacred, so again yes the AHC would be aggressive (even though 100% corrupt between the struggles of the Amins and Nashasheebis) because in the end 20 years ago (1920) their citizens were not under the threat of being kicked out, specially Mr. Chaim was only giving them a warning that ONLY 70,000 Jew would come and take their place. Again, you fail to think from the perspective of the invaded. There is no universal fact regarding Palestine and Israel except one, Israel was built on the blood of others and still unpunished.
Now the Zionists were not a Colonial force? Sphinx of all the ones I debated, I respected you at least you are doing extensive research, but the Wiki is just a shadowy outline, and barely displayed 5% of the crisis of which we are debating. The Zionists were organized in Europe and their first enemies were the Socialists and Marxists because the leftists were assimilationists and internationalists. They opposed all forms of nationalism. The Zionists argued that (specially the Yishuv aspect) that only through labor Palestine can be ripped off from the Arab Palestinians. The Zionists were organized in Union manner, got the latest state of the Art technology (Review Chapter 2 from Lebanon, Israel, and Class Struggle on my blogspot) and most importantly, kick out locals and take their place. If this is not Colonialism, then I am the King of Honolulu.
The Zionists could have saved extensively their people (actually 100,000 travelled during WWII) but refuted. They shot down the Jewish Refugee Act in 1939 in the United States, specially the majority of the Jews wanted to go to the States as a first option, and afterwards struck deals with the Nazis (Check Chapter 3 of Origin of the Jews by Yossi Shwartz).
The Sterns and the Irguns which you called Terrorist turned out by 1950 were part of the military operations. They were the ones responsible for the massacres where the IDF couldnt commit in 1948 to gain UN sympathy. Turns out actually, they were responsible 15% of the operations during 1948, and got compensated by the Ministry of Defence. Worse, those terror gruops got intigrated in the IDF itself (interesting).
Again, right wingers like Nasser and Mufti Hajj Amin are reactionaries to a reaction called Zionism. I do not defend anyone, I just put the facts clear. Again, "all Zionists demanded a nation for the Jews" is totally illogical. You mean to tell me that a Jew can be French, English, whatever country he lives, and in defecto Israeli once he or she steps its soils? While the inhabitants for 2 millenium are not allowed to live? Actually if anything, best case scenario have a Class B citizenship? Does that sound logical?
Then you tell me Israel is not colonial because it failed all those events? Allow me to explain one thing. Israel allied with the Syrians to bomb the Palestinian PLO in Lebanon (Pre-Rejectionist Front) even though both (Assad and Israel pitched in the Jordanian war to assist the King). Colonialism is to replace one people with another (like France and Algeria only difference the Zionists were more brutal).
Israel is not a failed Proxy Imperialism (if we think of it in relations with the USA). It remained the balancer of power to US foreign policy. No matter how you "call it failed", remember the massacres they did all those events, which is enough for me to say that such Proxy Imperialism damages the Proletariat and hurts them.
As for my conclusion, I would like to tell you currently, with descendants of the Jewish founders of Israel, I can't just go with the logic of "Dump'em in the Water" since that is a racist logic and similar to the Zionists and Nasser (again, what gave you the perspective I am defending Nasser?) The only solution is the unity of the Arab and Jewish Proletariat against their leaders (that requires a post on its own though).
So if you want to go more on the matter, add me, and we will chat :)
Hasta La Victoria Siempre
(oh yeah, again, who said that we are pro-genocide?)
MFL
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