Talk:History of Israel
This page discusses the history of modern Israel. I assume it is simply because the initial source was the CIA factbook.
Is this the right page for the history of ancient Israel? I'm wondering where to put links like David, Solomon, Rehoboam, and related. History of Levant seems too broad. --Alan Millar
I would sugget ancient Israel. Something to keep in mind, though, is that for a time Israel was only the northern of two Hebrew kingdoms, and I would be suprised if you weren't intending to discuss both.
Good idea. I'm going with History of ancient Israel and Judah. --Alan Millar
Don't you think that History is implicit in ancient?
I can think of exceptions. For example an entry on "Ancient Rome" might give a description of the layout of the city, promonent landmarks, etc., without much discussion of history, but perhaps this example is irrelevent. :-)
The two articles on the page need to be integrated; and we need to decide how history of Israel, Palestine, history of Levant and history of ancient Israel and Judah relate to each other. They all overlap, though they cover different material. (The first two concentrate more on the modern period, while the later two on the ancient; but even Palestine has some info on the ancient period as well.) Finally, I think people need to be careful, especially when discussing modern history, to try to avoid bias towards either side. I must admit I myself have probably been a bit biased towards the Palestinians, though maybe not as much as say Joseph Saad; some other editors (RK for instance) have a quite strong pro-Israel bias. We need to work hard to make sure the articles remain neutral in the current conflict, such that a supporter of either side could read them, and mostly agree with what is said within. Of course one result of this is we will spend much more time writing about what each side says happened, than what actually happened; but that is inevitable when the history is at the centre of so much dispute. -- Simon J Kissane
This page seems a bit deficient on the actual creation of the state of Israel. I will try and flesh this out a bit because it is fairly important. sjc
I'm going to remove yet again the parenthesised assertion that Zionism does not enjoy universal support of Jews even today. While technically true, it's grossly misleading in the context of the relevant sentence. The controversy of Zionism 100 years ago was very different from disagreements that exist today. Back then the very idea of a Jewish state was questioned by many if not most Jews; thus Zionism was controversial. Today, Zionism in the sense "belief that Jews should have a state of their own somewhere in the historical homeland" is no longer controversial among Jews, as a result of the Holocaust and some subsequent events; even Jews who don't support Zionism in the stronger sense (i.e. they don't immigrate to Israel themselves) almost unilaterally support the idea of Israel and its right to exist. While there are Jews who reject the legitimacy of Israel and its right to exist, they form extremely small fringe groups, and no real controversy exists. The sentence in its current form equates the very real disagreements then with the extremely fringelike disagreements now, thus creating an entirely wrong impression in the reader's mind. The result is propaganda.
There's no reason for that addition in the first place; to assert that Zionism was controversial then and to say nothing about now is the right solution, since the article speaks of history of Israel, not of contemporary beliefs of worldwide Jewry. --AV
AV: Do you like the new version better?
I think the fact that some Jews today, even if they are only a small fringe (and I don't deny they are), oppose Zionism is important. If even a few Jews oppose Zionism, it proves that opposition to Zionism isn't necessarily grounded in anti-Semitism, something many Zionists would want people to believe. A Jewish anti-Semite is a contradiction in terms. Though I agree that sort of discussion doesn't belong in the History of Israel article.
- Yes, that's much better, thank you. I think it's quite acceptable to me.
- Jewish anti-Semitism, alas, is not a contradiction in terms, and has been known to happen. You're right that anti-Zionism doesn't necessarily imply anti-Semitism; on the other hand, it's just as true that often today anti-Semitism hides itself behind the banner of anti-Zionism. But I digress... ;) --AV
Since the article this points to has been deleted, took it out of the article. On the other hand, it is true that Israelis have become frustrated with the peace process (as have the Palestinians), but we need a real discussion of why, not just some anti-Palestinian propaganda piece:
- Israelis have become somewhat less supportive of the peace process in recent years, in part because some leaders in the Palestinian Authority has been teaching that the Peace treaty with Israel is a temporary measure only.
--SJK
Would someone please tell me the name of the "peace treaty" which is regarded as temporary? I am thinking of changing all the Peace treaty with Israel is a temporary measure references to an article which has:
- a neutral-sounding name, like "Arab-Israeli Peace Treaty of 1994" or "Blah Blah Accord"
- discussion of how various named critics view the treaty
This should satisfy Larry's valid point about NPOV and also what I and some others feel is an equally valid point about a possible lack of good faith on the part of certain parties.
-- Ed Poor
- The "peace treaty" in questions is basically the Oslo Accords of 1993 (together with Oslo B and Wye Plantation accords). However it this particular case, it is used in a generally broader concept, meaning the enactment of a state of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. --Uriyan
Palestinian and Jewish Refugees, 1948
Until 2001, two competing stories existed to explain how Palestinians became refugees as a result of the creation of Israel in 1948 and how Jewish refugees came to flee to Israel at around that time. Palestinains who reported how they were basically ethnically cleansed before, during and after the war and the Israeli story of they left on their own will, they were encouraged to leave, we asked them to stay.
These two competing stories until recently, when the "new Israeli historians" such as Ilan Pappe, Morris, Sternhall, Avi Schlaim and Tom Segev debunked the established Israeli myths using Israeli archives and declassified material. As an example, after opening the IDF (Israel's armed forces) archives we find a cable dated October 31, 1948, signed by Major General Carmel and addressed to all the division and district commanders under his command: "Do all you can to immediately and quickly purge the conquered territories of all hostile elements in accordance with the orders issued. The residents should be helped to leave the areas that have been conquered."
The truth, which was revealed and documented by direct references to Israeli, American, British and UN archives, by historians like Michael Palumbo and the Israeli historians (Pappe, Shlaim, Segev, Morris, Sternal) not to mention the credible Palestinian historians, was contrary to the Israeli and Zionist propaganda about the war. According to these honest and credible accounts, the truth, which is there for everyone who wants to know the truth, was as follows:
The "War of Independence" did not start on 15 May and in self-defence against the "aggression" of the Arab armies who invaded Israel. The war started in early April by the Haganah, which launched its offensive according to "Plan Dalet". Preparations for this war began immediately after WWII. (I refer you here to the activities of Ben-Gurion that were detailed in Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion: A Biography. New York: Delacorte Press, 1977).
The Zionist leadership was in tacit agreement with Emir Abdullah of Transjordan. According to this agreement, Palestine would be divided between the Jews and Abdullah. Abdullah would take that part of Palestine allotted to the Arabs west of the Jordan Valley according to UN Resolution # 181 (II) of 29 November 1947. This part later became to be known as the West Bank. The rest of Palestine was to be left for the "Exclusive Jewish State". (Documented and intriguing details of this agreement were presented in: Avi Shlaim, "Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, The Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine". New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
Yosef Weitz, Director of the JNF Lands Dept. was very active as of March 1948 in planning for and implementing plans to expel the Palestinians, destroy their villages, and build new homes for the influx of new Jewish immigrants. These activities were given in detail by Benny Morris in his "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem: 1947 - 1949", and "1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians". If the Jewish Community in Palestine was in a state of self-defence and threatened by the "mighty Arab armies" they could not afford the time for Yosef Weitz activities [that were planned and implemented in cold blood].
In his book "The Gun & the Olive Branch," David Hirst describes in detail covert Israeli operations to scare Iraqi and Egyptian Jews into fleeing their homes for the "sanctuary" of Israel. In Iraq they did so by placing bombs in areas frequented by Iraqis who were Jewish, then starting whispering campaigns that scared people into emigrating. The plan worked brilliantly, but then again, Israeli intelligence/covert operatives, had experience with such things from massacres like Deir Yassin. Slaughter 250 people and terrorize hundreds of thousands into fleeing their homes lest they suffer the same brutal fate. In Egypt, the plan had two targets, one, to spur emigration of Egyptian Jews, and two, to damage nascent relations between the Free Officers junta, led by Jamal Abd-un-Nasir and the US and Britain. A series of bombing took place and a handful of Jewish residents, some Egyptian, some foreign, were arrested, tried, and convicted. Two were hung. Again, the whispers started, but few actually left the country.
Despite Israeli protests that the accused were being framed a la Dreyfus, political infighting within the Israeli government over the matter, labelled the "Lavon Affair," after the then minister of defense, Pinhas Lavon, launched a 1960 inquiry that concluded that elements of the Israeli security apparatus, guided by David Ben Gurion, were in fact responsible for the bombings in Egypt. Sadly, after the 1956 Israeli/British/French invasion of Egypt, however, the Egyptian government took the Israeli bait and began ordering the expulsion of large numbers of Jews, some Egyptian, others with foreign citizenship, from Egypt. The number who left is as high as 50,000.
In his book "Ben Gurion's Scandals" Naeim Giladi (an Iraqi Jew and ex Zionist) discusses the crimes committed by Zionists in their frenzy to import Jews from Iraq to Israel in the 1950s. He lives in New York now after he left Israel and he wrote to 'The Link' about his book saying "About 125,000 Jews left Iraq for Israel in the late 1940s and into 1952, most because they had been lied to and put into a panic by what I came to learn were Zionist bombs. But my mother and father were among the 6,000 who did not go to Israel.."
Here are relevant quotes from the horse's mouth on refugees.
"Before [the Palestinians] very eyes we are possessing the land and the villages where they, and their ancestors, have lived...We are the generation of colonizers, and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel we cannot plant a tree and build a home." Israeli leader Moshe Dayan, quoted in Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, "Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel"
In an article in the Haaretz newspaper, Danny Rabinovitz wrote, "What happened to the Palestinians in 1948 is Israel's original sin. . . . Between the 1950s and 1976, the state systematically confiscated most of the land of its remaining Palestinian citizens."
Testimony of an Israeli soldier who participated in the massacre at al Duwayima Village, on 29th October 1948. Quoted in Davar, 9th. June 1979:
"Killed between 80 to 100 Arabs, women and children. To kill the children they fractured their heads with sticks. There was not one house without corpses. The men and women of the villages were pushed into houses without food or water. Then the saboteurs came to dynamite the houses. One commander ordered a soldier to bring two women into a house he was about to blow up… Another soldier prided himself upon having raped an Arab woman before shooting her to death.
"Another Arab woman with her newborn baby was made to clean the place for a couple of days, and then they shot her and the baby. Educated and well-mannered commanders who were considered "good guys" became base murderers, and this not in the storm of battle, but as a method of expulsion and extermination. The fewer the Arabs who remain, the better."
Only a small number of Arab Jews supported Zionism and most immigrants were not refugees but immigrated to Israel in the 1950 (long after the war). The same for Russian or Polish Jews (are not termed refugees but migrants, immigrants). Zionists of European origin, like David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Abba Eban often made derogatory statements regarding Arab Jews who they considered to be inferior to themselves.
The Jewish communities had flourished in Arab lands for thousands of years, and they contributed greatly to Arab culture, as did all other peoples who settled in the Arab World. Off the coast of Tunisia, on a small island of Djerba, a Jewish colony lived that traced its presence there to at least 1000 BC.
According to Rabbi Moshe Schonfeld, "Some Djerban rabbis who were not to be fooled nor intimidated by the Zionists were harassed, threatened and even beaten." (Schonfeld, "Genocide in the Holy Land, 508)
Rabbi Schonfeld also wrote about the same tactics used to get the Jews of Iraq to flee to Israel. Zionists tried to convince these Arab Jews that it was the Arabs who were exploding bombs in their neighborhoods, but it was the Zionists who dreamed of populating Israel with Jews form all over the world.
Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former CIA operative, wrote about the Zionist crimes against Arab Jews in Iraq (Feuerlicht, "The Fate of the Jews," 231). Jewish author, Alfred Lilienthal, wrote about the oppressive treatment by Ashkenazi (European) Jews in Israel of the Sephardic Jews (Semitic Arab origin) in his book "The Zionist Connection." Jews in the Arab World were always treated with respect and civility throughout history. Any mistreatment they received was in the hands of the Zionists in Israel. In either case, Arab countries continues to have a policy of welcoming emigrants back to those countries.
As to absorption of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries, that is against International law and becomes complicity with a war crime. Jewish immigrants are absorbed in Israel as part of the Zionist dream and this is not the same thing as indicated above (i.e. not an issue of population exchange). For example, there was no population exchange when one million Russian Jews came to Israel. In either case, the right of those people to return to their countries is preserved by International law which is very clear about forcible movement of people.
Nathan Chofshi, wrote: "We came and turned the native Arabs into tragic refugees. And still we have to slander and malign them, to besmirch their name. Instead of being deeply ashamed of what we did and trying to undo some of the evil we committed...we justify our terrible acts and even attempt to glorify them." (Jewish Newsletter, New York, 9 February 1959, cited in Erskine Childers, 'The Other Exodus' in Spectator, London, 12 May 1961)
Martin Buber, Jewish Philosopher, addressed Prime Minister Ben Gurion on the moral character of the state of Israel with reference to the Arab refugees in March 1949: " We will have to face the reality that Israel is neither innocent, nor redemptive. And that in its creation, and expansion; we as Jews, have caused what we historically have suffered; a refugee population in Diaspora"
This apparent propagandist troll doesn't belong to this article (and is probably copyrighted). The issue is indeed of importance, but it needs a real discussion, not what was brought above. --Uri