Defining Israeli Zionist Racism: Part 9

by Kim Petersen and B.J. Sabri / January 7th, 2008

Section 1: (Continuation: G: Israeli Zionist Racism in their Own Words)

Having previously discussed certain aspects of the Zionist practice that routinely rejects or tries to prove false the veracity of racist quotations (verbal or written) attributed to Israeli figures, we are going to give you a review some of these quotations.

Brief Review of Racist Zionist Quotations

• “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.” [Golda Meir, March 8, 1969]1“Israeli quotes about Palestinians” by IsraelForum.com

• “The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war.” [Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Haaretz, 19 March 1972]2“Israeli quotes about Palestinians” by IsraelForum.com

• “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. 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?” [David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), p. 121]3“Israeli quotes about Palestinians” by IsraelForum.com

• “We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return.” [David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar’s Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet (Prentice-Hall: 1967), p. 157]4“Israeli quotes about Palestinians” by IsraelForum.com

• “We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.” [David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, (Delacorte, New York: 1978)]5“Israeli quotes about Palestinians” by IsraelForum.com

• “We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters.” [Yitzak Rabin’s description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet. Uri Lubrani, PM Ben-Gurion’s special adviser on Arab Affairs, 1960. From The Arabs in Israel by Sabri Jiryas]6“Israeli quotes about Palestinians” by IsraelForum.com

• “There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance; and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry out surveillance over the activities of a neighbor than over those of a tenant. [I] tend to support the latter view and have an additional argument:…the need to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish…with a non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this fundamental position as early as 1940 [and] it is entered in my diary.” [Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency’s Colonization Department. From Israel: an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5]7“Israeli quotes about Palestinians” by IsraelForum.com

• “Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment… Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” [Theodor Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine, Complete Diaries, 12 June 1895 entry]8“Israeli quotes about Palestinians” by IsraelForum.com

• “One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” [Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, 27 February 1994 Source: New York Times, 28 February 1994, p. 1]9“Israeli quotes about Palestinians” by IsraelForum.com

• “May the Holy Name visit retribution on the Arab heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them.” He added: “It is forbidden to have pity on them. We must give them missiles with relish, annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones.” — Haaretz, 12 April 2001. The influential Israeli Rabbi Ovadia Yosef exclaimed during a sermon preceding the 2001 Passover holiday”10“A Page of Quotations,” What Really Happened.com.

• “The Intifada is the Palestinian’s people’s war of national liberation. We [Israel] enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the Occupied Territories, engaging in theft and funding justification for all these activities … we established an apartheid regime.” — Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel, 1993-1996.11Michael Ben-Yair, “The war’s seventh day,” Haaretz, 3 March 2002.

• “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, colonization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.” — Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Ahronot, 14 July 1972.12“Sourcing Quotes the Pilger Way,” HonestReportingUK, 23 August 2006. John Pilger was rebuked for use of allegedly inaccurate quotations. In this case, Pilger attributed the quotation-in-question (which, itself, was unchallenged) to Ariel Sharon in “The real threat we face is Blair,” New Statesman, 21 August 2006.

• “The only solution is Eretz Israel [Greater Israel], or at least Western Eretz Israel [all the land west of Jordan River], without Arabs. There is no room for compromise on this point … We must not leave a single village, not a single tribe.” Joseph Weitz, Director of the Jewish National Fund, the Zionist agency charged with acquiring Palestinian land. — Machover Israca, 5 January 1973, p.2.13Wikiquote (Israel): Joseph Weitz, entry in his diary for 1940 (quoted in his article: “A solution to the Refugee Problem: An Israeli State with a small Arab Minority,” Davar, 29 September 1967.

• “Jewish blood and a goy’s blood are not the same.” — Israeli Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, Inferring that killing isn’t murder if the victim is Gentile. Jerusalem Post, 19 June 1989.14Quoted in Scott McConnell, “A Real Plan,” New York Press, 29 May 2001. The New York Press is a free alternative weekly in New York City that competes with Village Voice.

• “Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the 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, 15 November 1998.15We located this also at Samantha M. Shapiro, “The Unsettlers,” New York Times, 16 February 2003.

There is a plethora of quotations emanating from Zionist figures, and anyone interested can easily find a number of websites offering Zionist quotations. But readers must be wary and read with a skeptical mind. Important, as well, is the context within which a quotation is made. To be certain of a quotation’s authenticity, some research is required. We did check out a huge number of quotations, and we rejected many quotations. Still, some of the quotations we cite might be inauthentic, and this would be unsurprising. Given the myriad racist quotations, there is no need for people who support social justice for Palestinians to create false quotations.

The existence of false quotations best serves Zionist interests by providing a means to discredit media that publish false Zionist quotations. Nonetheless, the existence of some false purported Zionist racist quotations should not detract from the genuine quotations that adduce racism.

In the next installment, we will analyze if the Zionist media’s method in proving that racist Israeli quotations are false holds water.
Read all Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.

Kim Petersen is an independent writer and can be reached at kimohp at gmail.com. B.J. Sabri is an observer of the politics of modern colonialism, imperialism, Zionism, and of contemporary Arab issues. He can be reached at b.j.sabri@aol.com. Read other articles by Kim and B.J..

This article was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 5:02am and is filed under Israel, Prejudice, Racism, Zionism.

40 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. Ralph Ray said on January 7th, 2008 at 6:01am #

    Another racist quotation from a major Zionist figure is Ehud Olmert’s June 2006 assertion that “Israeli lives are worth more than Palestinian lives.” Here are excerpts from an article by Donald Macintire (“Olmert: Israeli lives worth more than Palestinian ones”) in the June 23, 2006 online edition of The Independent:

    “Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, expressed ‘deep regret’ for army operations that have killed 14 Palestinian civilians in Gaza in just nine days but said the lives of Israeli citizens threatened by Qassam attacks were ‘even more important.'”

    “Mr Olmert said last night in Caesarea, “I am deeply sorry for the residents of Gaza, but the lives, security and well-being of the residents of Sderot is even more important.”

    “Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, this week called on Israel to ensure its responses were ‘proportionate and do not put civilians at great risk.’ Almost three times as manyPalestinian civilians have been killed in Gaza in the past nine days as Israeli civilians in Sderot killed by Qassam rockets in the past five years.”

    to read the full article go to http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1095841.ece

  2. Ralph Ray said on January 7th, 2008 at 6:53am #

    Here is yet another example of Zionist racism. In May 2007, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu called for the “carpet bombing” of the Gaza Strip to stop Qassam rocket attacks on Sderot. Here are a few excerpts from the story (titled “Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza”) that appeared in the online edition of the May 30, 2007 Jerusalem Post:

    “Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.”

    “According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire population is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Qassam rockets.”

    “The former chief rabbi also said it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews in Sderot or the lives of IDF soldiers for fear of injuring or killing Palestinian noncombatants living in Gaza.”

    “. . . Eliyahu’s son, Schmuel Eliyahu, who is chief rabbi of Safed, said his father opposed a ground troop incursion into Gaza that would endanger IDF soldiers. Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the general area from which Qassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life.” “If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand,” said Schmuel Eliyahu. “And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still dont stop we must kill 1000,000, even a million. ”

    “. . . Eliyahu quoted from Psalms. “I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them.”

    To see the full Jerusalem Post article go to:
    http://www.jpost.com/servlet

  3. Ralph Ray said on January 7th, 2008 at 6:58am #

    Here is the complete URl for the above Jerusalem Post story:

    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?
    cid=1180527966693&pagename=JPost&2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

  4. jaime said on January 7th, 2008 at 9:05am #

    Nice going , Ralphie. Wow, you sure like to flog that one little out-of-context quote to death don’t you?

    I guess we can look forward to it being quoted back to us until you get terminal carpal tunnel syndrome.

    Meanwhile, this above made the most sense yet:

    “…some of the quotations we cite might be inauthentic, and this would be unsurprising. Given the myriad racist quotations, there is no need for people who support social justice for Palestinians to create false quotations….”

    I interpret this as a disclaimer; that none of what was posted by way of ‘”Jewish quotations” till now and probably after to buttress the authors’ article is necessarily true; and is done strictly for propaganda and agitation purposes anyway, with no thought or concern for the well being of the Palestinians or resolution of the conflict.

  5. Michael Kenny said on January 7th, 2008 at 10:25am #

    The final point about “false flag” quotes is a very good one. I suspect that there is an awful lot of false flag material about. Indeed, wasn’t that what was done to Dan Rather? One example I encountered was a claim, last year, that a Palestinian had raped a “70-year old Holocaust survivor”. Whoa! If she was 70, she was born in 1937. The Holocaust took place from 1942 to 1945, which means that she was between 5 and 8 when she was taken to the camps. Problem: the Nazis immediately gassed anyone unfitted for heavy work. What are the chances that a girl between 5 and 8 would have survived?

    You always need to analyse these claims and, most importantly, ask yourself why the person making the claim would want you to believe it.

  6. Hue Longer said on January 7th, 2008 at 1:41pm #

    The old days are easier to examine because it was a time when racism and exceptionalism was fully out of the closet for all in the US and Europe to admire. Now we have Dershowitz who, although says appalling things, would never admit to the honesty presented by Guirion concerning taking land.

    I’ve never seen the guy presented with that quote, but I’m sure he’d do what jaime does and start screaming about how the person presenting it wants to kill the Israelis as their final solution

  7. Ralph Ray said on January 7th, 2008 at 2:17pm #

    Jaime wrote: “None of what was posted . . . is necessarily true; and is done strictly for propaganda and agitation purposes.”

    Malcolm X once said that all criticism is autobiography. I haven’t made up my mind whether Malcolm was right about this, but in the case of Jaime’s statement it seems to be accurate. His comments about the article quite accurately describe his own posts and his own cavalier attitude toward the truth or falsity of what he says.

  8. jaime said on January 7th, 2008 at 2:35pm #

    Well you can spend all day looking for old outrageous sounding quotes, or you can quickly look up what Israel’s and other world leaders have to save about the current situation.

    The Ben Gurion quote, if he even said that is so out of context and touch with today as to be meaningless, and obviously presented in a spiteful way. You guys want to stay stuck in the mud, that’s your business.

    Here’s what today’s PM of Israel has to say:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5013864.stm

    “The roadmap was and remains the right plan. The Palestinian leadership that fulfils its commitments and obligations will find us a willing partner in peace. But if they refuse, we will not give a terrorist regime a veto over progress or allow it to take hope hostage. We cannot wait for the Palestinians forever.

    Our deepest wish is to build a better future for our region, hand in hand with a Palestinian partner. But if not, we will move forward – but not alone.”

  9. Hue Longer said on January 7th, 2008 at 2:58pm #

    jaime is appealing to those who understand history (1950’s is still considered current) to forget it as meaningless and start over again as if today were the new 0 mark?

    Odd coming from someone who believes a supposed ownership of land going back 2000 years is more relevant than who’s possessed it since then

    You’re not very good at this, jaime

  10. Ralph Ray said on January 7th, 2008 at 3:11pm #

    “The Palestinian leadership that fulfills its commitments and obligations will find us a willing partner for peace.” Ehud Olmert

    Why does Israel get to define for the Palestinians and their leadership what its commitments and obligations are? Don’t the Palestinians get to say anything about it? As Joseph Massad points out in Part 3 of this series, the main commitment that Israel asks from the Palestinians is that they recognize Israel’s right to exist as a racist state that discriminates by law against Palestinians and other Arabs and grants differential legal rights and privileges to its Jewish citizens and all other Jews everywhere. Olmert knows full well that the Palestinians are unlikely to agree to his Zionist notions about what their obligations and commitments are. Olmert’s (and the Israeli government’s) belief that Israel has the right to define for the Palestinians what their obligations and commitments are (rather than allowing them to define them for themselves) is clearly racist.

  11. jaime said on January 7th, 2008 at 4:39pm #

    Very cute Hue!

    However if you’re looking for an improvement in the situation with the Palestinians today, then you’re better off being concerned with someone who’s at least nominally in power now rather than 60 years ago.

    In any case, I never said the PAST was meaningless. You have misinterpreted what I posted. That’s OK, I’m used to that in this asylum.

    Do I have to explain EVERYTHING to you twice, Ralph? I suppose so.
    Yeah well, the Abbas regime has to toe a certain line to get that 7 billion $$$, and it’s not just Israel that’s defined what that line is.
    They don’t HAVE to meet those commitments, but if they want a shot at the moolah and a go at joining the rest of the world..uh yeah they do..

  12. dan elliott said on January 7th, 2008 at 6:23pm #

    “Jaime”, whoever he is, posted approx. 40 lines of his ludicrous clowning as a comment on this article. Since I like to be “humorous” too, I’ve decided to clown around at approx. the same length myself, with the assistance of one of “Jaime”s jeros:

    Vladimir Jabotinsky, “The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs),”
    Rassvyet (Berlin), November 4, 1923

    [Note: The article 1st appeared in English, captioned as below,
    in South Africa’s 11/26/37 Jewish Herald. – LB]

    The Iron Wall
    Colonisation of Palestine
    Agreement with Arabs Impossible at Present
    Zionism Must Go Forward
    By Vladimir Jabotinsky

    It is an excellent rule to begin an article with the most important
    point. But this time, I find it necessary to begin with an
    introduction, and, moreover, with a personal introduction.

    I am reputed to be an enemy of the Arabs, who wants to have them ejected from Palestine, and so forth. It is not true.

    Emotionally, my attitude to the Arabs is the same as to all other
    nations: polite indifference. Politically, my attitude is determined by
    two principles. First of all, I consider it utterly impossible to eject
    the Arabs from Palestine. There will always be two nations in Palestine;
    which is good enough for me, provided the Jews become the majority.

    And secondly, I belong to the group that once drew up the Helsingfors
    Programme, the programme of national rights for all nationalities
    living in the same State. In drawing up that programme, we had in mind
    not only the Jews, but all nations everywhere, and its basis is
    equality of rights.

    I am prepared to take an oath binding ourselves and our descendants that we shall never do anything contrary to the principle of equal rights,
    and that we shall never try to eject anyone. This seems to me a fairly
    peaceful credo.

    But it is quite another question whether it is always possible to
    realise a peaceful aim by peaceful means. For the answer to this
    question does not depend on our attitude to the Arabs; but entirely on
    the attitude of the Arabs to us and to Zionism.

    Now, after this introduction, we may proceed to the subject.

    Voluntary Agreement Not Possible

    There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind,
    they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the
    voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting “Palestine” from
    an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority./// [to be continued, next time I come across more good straight lines from my 2nd banana pal “Hymie”, as we say “en inglese”;)]

    BTW if anyone is unclear about Jabotinsky’s key role in paving the way for the series of ultra-right fanatics who have “governed Israel” since Menachem Begin came to power, it’s something you need to investigate.
    I’ll try to help by posting more excerpts from this seminal article authored by the founder of the currently hegemonic Revisionist strain of Zionism. This document plays a role in Isreali ideology something like the Declaration of Independence plays in the “Land of the Free & Home of the Brave”, or the Communist Manifesto has played in various other locations.

    I can’t wait to read what “Jaime” will say about old Ze’ev J;)

  13. Reader said on January 7th, 2008 at 6:48pm #

    Dan,
    In your closing, you pose the right question to the wron person. Jaime, a fanatic Zionist without clue or dialectical, would only go round and round and round and round…then never gives you a straighfoward answer…

  14. Reader said on January 7th, 2008 at 6:50pm #

    Correction:

    Dan,
    In your closing, you pose the right question to the wron person. Jaime, a fanatic Zionist without political clue or dialectical skill, would only go round and round and round and round…then never gives you a straighfoward answer…

  15. Neal said on January 7th, 2008 at 7:09pm #

    One has to ask, once again, what we get from these quotes. Is it claimed they are representative of Israeli thinking at any time? If so, where is the proof?

    Here, to note, is some proof that the quotes are not representative. Rabbi Ginsburg, who said that Jewish and non-Jewish blood is not equal, was indicted for racist incitement by Israel. His viewpoint is the view of a small number of lunatics and is not representative – as his indictment suggests.

    Further, many of these quotes are obvious frauds, just as the author is forced to admit. So, why print something without knowing its truth? Likely because Kim does not care whether these quotes are truthful or taken in context or representative. His goal is to smear, not to analyze. Why, Kim? Why not honest advocacy?

    Further, many of the quotes state reasonable things, when understood in context. For example, Golda Meir’s comment: “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to” is perfectly understandable at the time. All one needs to do is read UN 242, which does not contemplate any land going to Palestinian Arabs. Rather, it concerned states and mentions helping refugees from the conflict. And, Jordan had no valid claim. So, the question was – since the issue was one of states -, who to return the land to. It should be noted that, at the time, the Arab states had not considered the idea of a Palestinian Arab state. In fact, they opposed the idea.

    As for Jabotinsky, his views varied from time to time. His considered view was for power sharing with the Arabs, akin to what exists in Lebanon. So quoting him seems pretty ignorant. Once again, it is Kim using dishonest tactics.

    The real goal in analysis is to find quotes or actions that are representative. Official political programs (e.g. the Hamas covenant, since Hamas is the leading Palestinian Arab political party) are representative. Quoting a lunatic rabbi indicted by the Israelis for inciting racism is dishonest quoting for propaganda purposes, unless, of course, the goal is to examine what lunatics think. And that, I am afraid, is what Kim is doing.

  16. hp said on January 7th, 2008 at 7:48pm #

    Dershowitz should be arrested for impersonating a Semite.

  17. Hue Longer said on January 7th, 2008 at 8:08pm #

    The Ben Guirion quote is legit (or I have yet to hear anyone say otherwise-jaime excluded, but c’mon). Keep in mind it was said in a time when Zionists had the full, out of closet racist support of all good white people who certainly hated “doon coons” more than white European Jews.

    I think suggesting that it was out of context is weak (I know you didn’t mention this one specifically–but it is the most damning due to its honesty) since the quote explains itself. This is a very delusional if not dishonest attempt on your part, Neal

    If I may interject with a suggestion regarding what you asked Mr. Petersen…It sounds as if in the next chapter he’ll be addressing your cries to see if they hold water

  18. Ekosmo said on January 7th, 2008 at 8:26pm #

    Like Neal,
    I’d also like to ask — where we do we get these quotes by “lunatic” Israeli Rabbis and apoplectic Zionists from…?

    “Lunatics” preaching to God-knows how many other lunatics in their ‘flocks’, who are out all day in the fields, praising the “Word of the Lord” whilst busily heisting yet another Palestinian hill-top and valley in “Judea und Samaria”,

    or others serving in the IDF, who, with the words of the “lunatics” still ringing in their ears, become incurable “lunatics” themselves and feel compelled to empty a full chamber of bullets into a Palestinian kid’s skull, or smash a one tonne payload of Amurcan-made missile into a sleeping civilian-refugee apartment block…

    BOOOM…!

    Lunatics moreover, subsidized by shed-loads of US taxpayer’s money, and thus free to continue preaching large-scale ethnic-cleansing and/or good all round mass murder as a ‘Final Solution’

    — this to ensure both the Zionist Utopia and their escalating health-care costs…

    It really is quite shocking however, because it upsets poor little Neal’s delicate sensibilities while the semi- trained rottweiller down at the sauna moon-wails under the bathwater…

    Come along now Kim, I’m afraid this “smearing” must STOP at once

    you, Dissident Voice, and its readers should desist from posting these “obvious frauds” immediately…

    er…. do you hear me Kim…?

  19. Ralph Ray said on January 7th, 2008 at 9:25pm #

    Neal, You write that “many of these quotes are obvious frauds, just as the author is forced to admit.” Actually, the author never admits any such thing. Reading is fundamental, Neal. I would strongly suggest that you read articles more closely in the future so that you can avoid embarassing yourself in this way again. The author actually goes out of his way to present quotations that are NOT frauds, but he does discuss how Zionist propagandists, such as you, specialize in claiming that past racist statements by well known Zionists are “frauds.”

  20. Ralph Ray said on January 7th, 2008 at 9:36pm #

    Neal, You also write “Quoting a lunatic rabbi indicted by the Israelis for inciting racism is dishonest quoting for propaganda.” I presume the “lunatic rabbi” you are referring to is rabbi Goldberg. I don’t know who quoted him, but it wasn’t me. The “lunatic rabbi” I quoted, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, has never been indicted by the Israelis or anyone else as far as I know. There is, of course, that little matter of his advocating genocide, calling for the carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip and the eradication of as many as a million innocent noncombatant lives. But you don’t regard him as a lunatic and you apparently approve of his sentiments since you will not denounce them. You continue to deny that he actually said what he said. I guess the Jerusalem Post made the whole thing up. Is that what you are claiming. Are you denying his statements just for “propaganda purposes”?

  21. Neal said on January 7th, 2008 at 10:12pm #

    Ralph,

    What Kim actually stated is “We did check out a huge number of quotations, and we rejected many quotations. Still, some of the quotations we cite might be inauthentic, and this would be unsurprising.”

    So, I stand corrected by minor degree. Still, a person who is anything but a propagandist would be embarrassed to write what I just quoted.

    The first ben Gurion comment does not sound like him at all. He was an atheist. The quote has him speaking about God a bit too much. That suggests to me that someone has put words into his mouth. I have not, however, read the book from which the quote is taken and note that, looking on line, the quote is never explained and the context is never explained. Moreover, the book is written in French, so who knows whether the French has been correctly translated.

    I am aware of ben Gurion saying things somewhat akin to what is stated, attempting to explain the Arab position (as he did in a speech in 1938) to his party members. However, such is always ben Gurion explaining what Arabs thought, not what he thought. In fact, his views on the matter were rather different.

    It is possible that the quote, if it is accurate at least in part, is part of an attempt to explain the Arab position. Again, no context is provided at all so there is not way to be sure.

    The second ben Gurion quote. sounds like a phony quote for sure. Such is a common phenomena. Ben Gurion’s thinking on the matter was not simple minded in the way shown in the quote.

  22. Hue Longer said on January 7th, 2008 at 10:32pm #

    Ben was an atheist but understood the importance of religion as a race for justifying what he and his cohorts did to Palestinians (isn’t that obvious?).

  23. Rosenfeld said on January 7th, 2008 at 11:02pm #

    Israel = Apartheid

    Apartheid = racism.

    If you defend/support Israel in anyway, you are a racist.

    You can hem and haw and distort and kill-the-messenger all you want.
    Reality is reality.

  24. Ralph Ray said on January 8th, 2008 at 6:58am #

    Neal, Just because you don’t want to believe something does not make it propaganda. The truth is often ugly. Grow up and face reality. Ben Gurion and rabbi Eliyahu (and his son) were/are Zionist racists.

  25. Neal said on January 8th, 2008 at 9:07am #

    To my critics,

    I believe that one goes by evidence. Evidence does not consist of statements made by people without understanding the context. Again, the Rabbi was indicted for racial incitement. That suggests that his views are not representative of most Israelis. The ben Gurion statements are not likely authentic, for reasons already given.

  26. jake snyder said on January 8th, 2008 at 9:52am #

    The comments made by both sides in this debate show why many people despair over the future of the Mideast-both sides seem determined to “prove” a point rather than attempt to find some workable solution to the mess-Moreover the attempt by both sides to rewrite the past is particularly disturbing-to all the the Hamas fans-the Nazis never used the word genocide in any document concerning the Jews instead they used the phrase “final solution of the Jewish question” and yes children did survive the extermination camps- but when hamas executed the Fatah fighters when they consquered the Gaza Strip:Were they the oppressors or the oppressed???? for isreali fans-if Isreal is such a peace loving people how do you explain the 1957 war? or the Isreali tactic of destroying the homes of the families of Palestinian fighters-(remember the old English concept of “corruption of the blood”)-it simply seems the the two sides are hell bent on exterminating the other side and are desparately trying to come up with a moralistic justification for doing so-the only sure thing which will come out of this is oceans of blood.

  27. Ralph Ray said on January 8th, 2008 at 9:53am #

    Neal, Once again you are trying to confuse the issue. Neither the former Sephardi chief rabbi, Mordechai Eliyahu, nor his son, Schmuel Eliyahu, rabbi of Safed, have been indicted for their call for the genocide by carpet bombing of as many as one million Palestinians living Gaza. Probably they should be indicted for their hateful and murderous statements, but they have not been, nor are they likely to be indicted (after all, the government of Israel has pretty much followed their advice and is currently engaged in genocide against the people of Gaza). Why do you keep prevaricating about this. When Zionist apologists like you use dishonest tactics to confuse the issue, you only succeed in making yourself look bad and in weakening your attempt to defend Zionist racism. Quit prevaricating!!!

  28. Ralph Ray said on January 8th, 2008 at 10:00am #

    Neal, Continually asserting that something is taken “out of context” without explaining or providing “evidence” that it in fact it is taken out of context is dishonest; reflexively and mindlessly asserting that something is taken out of context (sans evidence to prove that it is) is one of the most commonly employed tactics by Israeli Lobby trolls like yourself. Unless you can explain exactly how something is taken “out of context” you should be still. Unless you have evidence supporting your claims, stop with the strident and false assertions!!!

  29. Neal said on January 8th, 2008 at 10:37am #

    Ralph,

    If you examine my initial comment, it concerned Yitzhak Ginsburg, who was indicted.

    As for the call to carpet bomb Palestinian Arabs who shoot rockets at Israeli in order to kill and terrorize them, I note that such is exactly what the US, the UK and Great Britain did in WWII and it, more or less, is what the US did in Fallujah. Was Roosevelt a racist, for ordering such actions? I think not.

    And, I note that the noted rabbi did not actually call for the killing of 1 million people. What he said was actually that the Israelis should do whatever is necessary to protect Israelis. That is a very different sort of statement, even if he did cite numbers – as in 100 or 10,000 or 1 million. If he actually meant to kill 1 million people, he would have said so directly.

  30. Neal said on January 8th, 2008 at 10:51am #

    Ralph,

    I speak about context because words have meaning in a context. Hence, in a war, people say things that, if said in a time of peace, sound belligerent but, in the context of a war, may actually amount to a proposal for peace.

    So, one needs to consider context whenever you look at a quote. The major problem with these quotes is that many of them are obvious forgeries and many others mean something quite different in context.

    This is not to deny that some Israelis may and do say nasty things. That is human nature. Some people are nasty.

    The argument, however, by people like Kim is that these statements tell us something about Israel, not about the individuals who make the statements. And, frankly, you cannot make the argument he makes by citing quotes the way he does.

    Consider the statement, made in the context of a war. “We shall have to invade them on their religious holiday. This way they will be on the defensive.” That sort of statement could have been made by Anwar Sadat. However, if one examines his actual views, it becomes obvious that his view was that (a) it was not possible, at his time, to conquer Israel but (b) the only way to bring Egypt along toward Sadat’s hopes to regain the Sinai yet end the dispute with Israel was to start a war.

    And, if one investigates Arab history carefully, one finds support for what Sadat did. It finds roots in the sulha [reconciliation] custom. The condition for a such a reconciliation is that the side perceived to have caused an injustice to the other side must, in some way, to pay for it. Full reconciliation occurs at the sulha ceremony where the payment is actually made.

    But consider, in the abstract, planning and starting a war is not a nice thing. His war killed a thousand Israelis and thousands and thousands of Egyptians. So, any statements he made supporting such a war would be nasty. But, they led to a peace of sorts.

    Again: words and actions must be understood in their context, not in the abstract. By contrast, what Kim does is pure propaganda – agitprop of the worst kind. It is disgraceful.

  31. Ralph Ray said on January 8th, 2008 at 12:31pm #

    Neal,
    What I find hypocritical and racist in your comments regarding context is that while you never look at or attempt to understand the words or writings of Palestians in terms their context, you nevertheless insist that any statement which shows Israel or Zionism in an unfavorable light has been taken out of context. If you were fair-minded and objective and intellectually honest in the way you apply the notion of context I could take your comments seriously. But you continue to employ double standard in the way you apply the notion of context, one way for Israel and Israelis and another way for the Palestinians. You have previously posted page after page of passages from the so-called “Hamas Covenant,” but in your analysis of these passages “context” played no role at all. In fact, you attempted to read into the passages you cited (but failed to convincingly do so) a threat by Hamas to commit genocide against Jews (even though no such explicit statement appeared in any of the cited passages). You certainly did not take “context” into account, however. But when I presented you with a clearcut example of an explicit call to genocide by a former Sephardi chief rabbi (I presented much of the news story from the Jerusalem Post and gave the URL so readers could read the entire story and get the full CONTEXT) you dishonestly claimed that I was ignoring context. I have repeatedly pointed out that you are employing a double standard in your analysis, but you never even acknowledge the observation, you just keep employing the same old dishonest and racist double standard. Can anyone really be as obtuse as you seem?

  32. Ralph Ray said on January 8th, 2008 at 12:57pm #

    Neal,
    Your defense of former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu’s call for genocide against the Palestinians has so disgusted and appalled me that I must again reply, even though I am tired of continually responding to obtuse and ignorant stupidity. And yes, the lunatic racist rabbi actually did call for the mass murder of fellow human beings (even though he obviously considers them his inferiors). He explicitly called for the “carpet bombing” of the Gaza Strip, without regard to “injuring or killing Palestinian noncombatants.” He opposed a ground invasion of Gaza because that would endanger the lives of the IDF soldiers (whose lives he holds to be of more value than Arab life; what a racist!!!) And he explicitly said there “was absolutely no moral prohibition” in Jewish war ethics against the “indiscriminate killing of individuals.” You are right that Mordechi Eliyahu did not call for the murder of one million Palestinians. It was Schmuel Eliyahu, his son, who explicitly called for the genocide of up to a million noncombatants. Mordechai did say, however, that Israelis should have “no compassion” for the slaughtered Palestinian noncombatants. Did you even bother to read the Jerusalem Post story before you began accusing me of ignoring context or, what is even more dishonest on your part, denying outright the statements that the two murderous and racist rabbis actually did make. Before you post anything else on this matter, Neal, you should at least read the news story and get the actual CONTEXT. That is what all of your previous brainless comments have lacked. You were so busy accusing others of your own failing (lack of context) that you failed to get the context. Have you always been so obtuse?

  33. Hue Longer said on January 8th, 2008 at 1:38pm #

    Roosevelt was a racist and carpet bombing civilians was bullshit (though not exactly racist in Germany-dehumanization was involved). Fallujah was a disgrace, Churchill was an extreme racist.

    This defends Israel how?

  34. dan elliott said on January 8th, 2008 at 3:14pm #

    Okay, “jaime”, you’ve chosen to disown Jabotinsky? You claim that he didn’t mean what he said? That he changed and became a “dove” later, interested in living in peace & harmony with his Palestinian hosts?

    I think you are lying. I don’t believe Jabostinky ever said any such thing. But even if he did, how would that make him more believable than his disciple Begin intoning “Peece, Peece, Shalom Shalommm” on the White House lawn, while he was planning the invasion of Lebanon?

    BTW, you don’t seem to have much else to do but post nonsense comments: is it true that you are receiving money from the “Isreali” government?

    How is it, when you’re so proud of your “intellectual” agility, that you don’t seem equally proud of your personal identity?

    At least Kim Petersen is upfront about who he is & what he’s up to; you on the other hand insist on trying to ambush him while remaining hidden by deep cover. Which from here looks an awful lot like a streak of cowardice;)

  35. Neal said on January 8th, 2008 at 6:49pm #

    Ralph,

    Again, my comment was not about Eliyahu. My comment was about Yitzhak Ginsburg. He was, as I said, indicted for incitement.

    I have nothing to say about Eliyahu. If he said what you claim he said, if it is being correctly interpreted and in context, it is a contemptible thing to say. It would be even more contemptible if it represents his real opinion.

    I refer to the Hamas Covenant because it is not an incidental comment or a comment given in an interview. Rather, it is a political document prepared by people who wanted to proclaim a position to the world. That position includes promotion of genocide. It would be akin to the British Labour Party having a campaign platform that advocates genocide. That, no matter the context, is a bad thing.

    By contrast, a nasty or bigoted comment by a politician or religious leader is a bad thing. Projecting that statement as the political platform of a movement, however, is another thing. And, what people like Kim do is claim that mere statements – a few or a lot of them – prove something. My contention is that such statements, unless they are very closely examined, prove very little. That is also true for racist things said by the Hamas.

    But, it is a different thing from a political covenant. That speaks to the goal of a group. And, the context may, in some eyes, justify the political platform. But, the platform is what it is. Hence, one can say they can or cannot, depending on your politics, find acceptable the reasons why Hamas wants to kill Jews. But, that such is the platform of Hamas cannot be denied.

    By contrast, people say all sorts of things in loose conversation. Very little of it means a thing.

  36. jaime said on January 8th, 2008 at 8:18pm #

    Dan wrote:

    1) “Okay, “jaime”, you’ve chosen to disown Jabotinsky? You claim that he didn’t mean what he said? ”

    – What are you going on about this time? I haven’t posted anything one way or the other about Jabotinsky

    2) is it true that you are receiving money from the “Isreali” government?

    – Why? Are you from the IRS or something?

    3) How is it, when you’re so proud of your “intellectual” agility, that you don’t seem equally proud of your personal identity?

    – What’s wrong with being American, Jewish and Queer?

    4) At least Kim Petersen is upfront about who he is & what he’s up to;

    – He’s a hot looking fellow. Not sure if he’s Queer too. Wouldn’t surprise me though. I think I’d like him better if I knew. I hope he’s a “bottom.”

    So what’s your thing Dan? Are you a Man’s Man too???? How about a pic, Sweetie?

  37. Ralph Ray said on January 8th, 2008 at 8:38pm #

    Zionism is a political movement aimed at establishing a political state in the land known as Palestine (and, in the process, necessarily dispossessing much of the indigenous population). Hamas is one wing of a Palestinian liberation movement aimed at regaining the captured land from the people who have dispossessed them. One of these movements is no more legitimate than is the other. Both represent a significant number of people. Both have employed terrorism and violence to achieve their ends, The Israelis, however, have employed much greater violence (and have been far more brutal and uncivilized in their killing) and have killed far greater numbers of Palestinians than Palestinians have killed Israels (before you deny this, look at the comparative statistics of Israeli and Palestinians deaths I have posted on Part 10 of this series). For you, Neal, “context” means looking at justificatory situational factors that might excuse Israel’s terror and violence, but refusing to do so with regard to the Palestinians. You are so busy demonizing Hamas and all Palestinians that you can hardly acknowledge their humanity. Your Zionist racism is so deep-seated that you cannot even empathize with the plight of the Palestinian people after forty years of brutal Israeli occupation and apartheid and assassination and mass murder. Talk about context. But you have never even given it a thought in your simple-minded “Israelis=Good, Palestinians=Bad analysis.

    “People say all sorts of things in loose conversation. Very little of it means a thing.” Correction, Neal. With you very little of it means a thing if the speaker is an Israeli Jew. But if the speaker is a Palestinian or, god forbid, a member of Hamas, all of it means a great deal. And you go on and on about it, even reading all kinds of meanings of your own into it. Until you can acknowledge this obtuse, hypocritical behavior on your part, I can find very little reason to continue this discussion. Words like “context” and “nuance” are for you and other Zionist defenders of Zionism simply convenient ways of excusing the crimes of Zionists. When you talk about Israel’s enemies or its critics you forget about the context or that things tend to be nuanced. In short, Neal, you are what you continue to falsely accuse Kim Petersen of being, you are a shill for an evil ideology, a propagandist for Zionism, the mouthpiece for a racist and violent political movement.

  38. Neal said on January 8th, 2008 at 9:26pm #

    Ralph,

    The Zionist political movement is intended to end the oppression and suffering of Jews in European and Arab lands. Neither region provided equality for Jews. Both regions oppressed their Jewish populations.

    The thought was to establish a state in a land only minimally settled. It was also thought, from the beginning, to reach a political compromise with those living on the land, as appears clearly in the public and private writings of both Herzl and Jabontinski.

    This is not to say that every word of the two was kindly toward Arabs. Nonetheless, their considered positions – as shown both in public and private writings – favored a compromise with Arabs.

    The Zionist movement, in the early days, had substantial support among Arabs. This, of course, was before the rise of Nazism. With the rise of Nazism and its direct connections with the the Mufti of Jerusalem – a Nazi supporter and confidant of Hitler who lived in Nazi Germany for quite a while and is a Nuremberg indicted war criminal for his work on behalf of Hitler -, substantial agitation occurred in the region that was directed at Arabs willing to work with Jews. Large numbers of such Arabs were massacred by Nazi sympathizing Arabs.

    Circumstances led to confrontation between Arabs and Jews in any event. In due course, the Arab side clearly chose to side with the Nazis and worked hand in glove with the Nazis.

    A substantial number of Nazi ideological themes were fed into the seemingly permanent thinking of the Palestinian Arab side (e.g. as in the Hamas covenant which borrows at length from Nazi writings and propaganda written by the Nazis). In fact, many of the Islamist themes, generally speaking, appear to derive from Nazi propaganda from the 1930’s.

    In any event, the sides could not get along and, in due course, there was shooting on a larger scale than had occurred due to disagreements in the early days. In that neither side found a way to accommodate the other side’s needs, the world’s nations thought it best to divide the land up. The Arab side rejected the compromise. The Jewish side accepted it.

    That is more or less where things remain although, from time to time, there are Palestinian Arabs who have flirted with the idea of a compromise. The Arab side attacked the Jewish side and lost. As a result, roughly 1.7 million people were displaced – about 700,000 or more Arabs and about 1 million Jews from Arab lands.

    My view, for what it is worth, is that there are two legitimate political movements. However, the political position adopted by the Palestinian Arab side, which has its direct connection with Nazism mixed with Islamist bigotry, is, at present, aimed at killing off the other side – i.e. genocide. When and if the Palestinian side rejects the likes of Hamas – a group which has adopted the Nazi formula mixed with Islam, and copied directly into the Hamas covenant -, there could be room again for discussion. Until then, the Palestinian Arab side deserves condemnation.

    No doubt you will say that no one asked Palestinian Arabs if they wanted immigrants. In the US, no one asks the public either. Many in the public, at various times in history, say they do not want immigrants. Such people are normally called bigots. And, in the US today, those who oppose the illegal immigration to the US of people are called racists. So, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

  39. Ralph Ray said on January 9th, 2008 at 6:36am #

    Neal,
    Probably the single most contemptible (as well as laughable) action of the Israel Lobby in recent years has been its silly and dishonest attempt to portray Palestinian opponents of their Zionist dispossessors and oppressors as “Islamofascists” or, when the Lobby gets really looney (as you seem to have done), to claim that the Palestinian liberation movement is “Nazi inspired.” What nonsensical horseshit!! Shame on you for sinking to such a level that you would actually promote such crap!!
    In fact, it is Zionism that is a fascist movement. The Israeli Likud party grew out of the Zionist terrorist gang known as IRGUN–a fascist organization created by Vladimir Jabotinsky. This is the terror gang that, under the leadership of Menagim Begin, blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and committed scores of other terrorist acts against both the British occupiers and the indigenous Arab population all over Palestine throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Benjamin Netanyahu, whose father was secretary to Jabotinsky and a leader of his New Zionist Organization, is the currently the principle spokesman for the Likud Party. If you are really concerned about the rise of fascism in the middle east, Neal, forget about the Palestinians (some of them are Islamicists to be sure , but Islam is not fascism, much less Nazism) and give your attention instead to the fascist roots of Zionism and the Likud Party. Are you a Ziofascist, Neal? If not why do you remain silent about Israeli fascism and Zionist racism?

  40. Dissident Voice : Defining Israeli Zionist Racism: Part 11 said on January 9th, 2008 at 9:04am #

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