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Message: 12
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 09:55:05 EST
From: DBachmozart@…
Subject: Hatfields and McCoys, or right and wrong

The Zionist movement never sought to merely colonize Palestine in the way
that for example, England colonized India –to exploit the population as cheap
labor and steal precious resources. Their aim was the REMOVAL of the native
Palestinians and to REPLACE them with a new settler community.

The original sin of Zionism was the slogan, “a land without people for a
people without land”.Political Zionism was born in the 1890s in Europe during
the imperialist seizure and carving up of Africa, China and India. The racism
that justified this (”white man’s burden”) was contagious and infected the
Zionist movement. There WERE people in Palestine, but they were only Arabs!

In 1917, there were 56,000 Jews in Palestine and 644,000 Palestinian Arabs.
In 1922, there were 83,794 Jews and 663,000 Arabs. In 1931, there were
174,616 Jews and 750,000 Arabs. In order to build a Jewish state in a land where
Jews were a small minority, the non Jewish/native Palestinian population would
have to be removed somehow. In the 1930s the so-called “Labor” Zionists had
a “buy Jewish/hire Jewish” campaign to try to starve the Palestinians out by
denying them employment and boycotting their produce. Jews who bought Arab
goods or employed them were shunned, and sometimes physically attacked. By 1947
however, Jews owned only 6% of the land of Palestine and comprised 31% of
the population, 630,000 against 1.3 million Palestinians.

Despite this, the UN, with the strong support of British and US imperialism
as well as Stalin’s USSR took it upon itself (without consulting the
Palestinian people) to partition Arab Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. The
Jewish state (with 1/3 the population!) was to receive 54% of Palestine, which
just happened to include the most fertile land. But before the partition could
take effect, Zionist terrorists — Irgun, Stern gang and the Haganah —
seized 3/4 of the land and expelled 750,000 Palestinians. In 1948, 385
Palestinian villages and towns out of a total of 475 were razed to the ground, reduced
to rubble.

On April 9, 1948 Irgun terrorists (whose leader Menachem Begin was to one
day become Israel’s leader) murdered 254 men, women and children civilians in
the village of Deir Yassin, just outside of Jerusalem. (Years later, Begin
bragged about the importance of this “victory” in his book, The Revolt - Story
of the Irgun). After word of this massacre spread, Arabs would flee at the
sight of invading Zionist forces, screaming “Deir Yassin!”.The Zionist
falsifiers of history have long maintained that the Arab governments went on the
radio and told the Palestinians to leave, so as not to get hurt when the Arab
armies marched in and “wiped out the Jews”. But NO dates or texts of these
messages nor names of the radio stations involved have ever been cited. The BBC
monitored all radio broadcasts throughout the Middle East in 1948, and the only
messages they have on record was of pleas for the Palestinians to STAY PUT!

In 1940, Joseph Weitz, the head of the Jewish Agency’s Colonization
Department wrote,

“Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples
together in this country. We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in
this small country. There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here
to neighboring countries — all of them. Not one village, not one tribe
should be left.” (Joseph Weitz, “A Solution to the Refugee Problem,”
Davar,9/29/67, cited in Documents From Israel 1967-73,page 21.)

Four million Palestinian Arabs make the dream of a Jewish state impossible,
but the last 57 years have been a nightmare for the native people. A
terrible crime was committed and it must be addressed and corrected. This is NOT a
Hatfields vs. McCoys feud with equal blame for both sides. There is a right
and a wrong and the issue of the right of the Palestinians to return to their
homeland will not go away. No one is suggesting sending the Jews of Israel
back to where they originally came from. The struggle is to de-Zionize Israel
and create a democratic, secular society, open to all. Strategies promoted by
the likes of Ted Glick denying the right to return and consigning the
Palestinians to nothing more than isolated “Bantustans” are beneath contempt.

Dennis Kobray

In a message dated 11/5/2005 2:12:30 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
JerryBails@… writes:

In a message dated 11/5/05 12:18:03 AM, DBachmozart@… writes:

< <
In a message dated 11/4/2005 3:18:26 PM Eastern Standard Time,
JerryBails@... writes:

We all inherit the s--- of those who came before us. If we
obsess on correcting the injustices of the past we will just create more
s---.
As much as we love and empathize with those close to us, their pain is not
cleansed by our inflicting new pain on others.

response -

So all we have to say to the Palestinians' expulsion from their land and
their wish to return is, "s--- happens!" Way to go Jerry! >>

I am sorry that my meaning was so unclear that you could draw such
conclusions from what I wrote. I was talking about escalating violence,
teaching
children to fear and hate, and compounding injustice over generations.

I support reparations, and believe that the first principle in all cases of
injustice is to try to restore the harmony, justice and health to the
afflicted
parties. I was speaking out against vengeance and arguing that in cases
like
the Hatfields and the McCoys, the feuding went on so long that the
descendents had no idea who started the feud or how it all began (although
both sides
certainly attempted to put history on their side).

It is the self-righteous declarations of piety and the arrogance of claiming
that only the other side has sinned that bring on the Hundred Year Wars.

There is a marked difference between ‘’obsessing over past injustices'’
(however real) and attending to existing inquities while avoiding continuing

violence.

The Zionist pedagogical use of the pogroms against Jews through European
history and especially the Holocaust as a justification of the establishment
of an
oppressive theocratic state in the Levant is one example of a general
principle that we have seen over and over. The persecuted too easily become
the
persecutors when they come to power, and they justify their actions by
referencing
their past sufferring.

The Africaners of South Africa used that same argument in support of Aparthe
id. There is no question that Dutch settlers in S.A. were very brutally and
inhumanely treated by the British in the Boer War (c1900), but that, I
maintain,
did not justified the Apartheid regime when the Africaners came to power.

One of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century was the fact that
Nelson Mandela managed to stem the tide of retribution and reciprocal
violence
when he came to power in South Africa.

You see reparations as inflicting pain or punishment on those who have
profited from past injustices. If I had stopped to think that this is what
some
might think, I would have chosen different words. I don’t consider the
opportunity to restore harmony and justice to afflicted people as painful.
Look in the
face of Jimmy Carter when he talks of the wonders his foundation has
achieved
in restoring health to the poor around the world. He is enriched by his
sharing.

When I put together swimming parties back in the 1950s to integrate Swope
Park’s public swimming pool in Kansas City, I wasn’t in any pain. Putting
things
right can give the greatest satisfaction. I don’t view it as painful at all.

I would be delighted — even overjoyed — if America would follow the Quaker
example and help to restore the broken lives of people America has harmed in

Vietnam, Iraq and a dozen other places, including the Wetsrern Hemispere.
It
would cause me less pain than dropping bombs and trying to prove that we are
the biggest bully in the world.

If I had my druthers, I’d replace the so-called Dept. of Defense with the
Department of Reconciliation. I hate being ruled by bullies, who mistake
injury
as a justification for their power trips. The War on Terror is an oxymoron.

War is terror and it breeds more of the same.

Those of us who have the benefits of choices need to help others find a way
out of eternal feuds and xeonphobia.

Working for peace and justice does not require us to teach our youth to hate
and kill.

–Jerry

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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