From: ziad@eng.umd.edu (Ziad K. Cheiban)
Subject: Re: MONEY
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 92 21:19:46 GMT
Organization: Project GLUE, University of Maryland, College Park

In article <1992Dec11.165924.6465@cs.brown.edu> hm@cs.brown.edu (Harry Mamaysky) writes:
[....]
>
>Without getting into a historical argument once again, the
>Palestinians were merely one in a line people who illegally ocuupied
>Israel after it was captured from the Jews around the year 70.
>
There were occupants other than Jews in the year 70 and before.
After the Islamic conquest the population was arabized and 
partly islamized. Besides not all Jewish tribes were kicked
out after the second revolt. Some stayed behind and part of them
converted to Christianity and then part of those converted to Islam.
In other words: Today's Palestinians have a much better claim
to having the 'blood' of ancient Jews. Approximate quote (from memory)
from Maxime Rodinson.
Besides the claim that Ashkenazi Jews are direct descendants of
the Jews that lived in Palestine at that time is very weak. 

[....]

>The land of which you speak was largely a swamp when the Jewish
>settlers got there. Tel Aviv rose out of a swamp. God, the majority
>of Israel did. The 80% of which you speak was some of the most
>sparsely settled land on this planet.
>

Palestinians don't exist! "A land without a people for a people without
a land" 
I remember hearing and seeing those somewhere. Perhaps you should 
get your information from other sources than Zionist propaganda
booklets. You`ll be surprised! 
The majority of Palestine was a swamp????
Interesting theory! See above about Zionist propaganda.

[...]
>What !?! Israel is one of the most humanitarian nations on this Earth.
                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>For some reason, you can not see that. Why don't you open your eyes
>and see the power hungry corruption which is at the head of most Arab
>states. Israel is the complete antithesis of this.
>
While not denying the corruption of Arab states,
claiming that "Israel is one of the most humanitarian ..." is
patent nonsense. Have you ever been to a refugee camp? 
Did you know such things existed? Do you know how many civilians
were killed by Israel's "surgical" bombing during the 1982 invasion
of Lebanon? Did I mention anything about Zionist propaganda booklets? 

[....]
>
>Oh come on. Israel has no grand scheme of silencing Palestinians.
>Israel wants peace. As soon as the Palestinians begin wanting the same
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Israel wants peace if it can get it without making any concessions
the balance of power tilts heavily in Israel's favor and this is
expected to become more so as time goes on. Therefore Israel has
no real incentive in having peace at this moment. Sure it'd be 
nice for PR and to improve Israel's image that was tarnished 
because of the Intifada, and it might save some money too
but all of this doesn't compare to being able to bully and
manhandle all your neighbors and I don't think the military
-industrial complex and the 'hawks' that are so preminent
in Israeli politics are too eager to stop the flow of money
coming their way. In other words the Israeli citizens may be 
tired of war but the leadership isn't and sees that if they
can go on in a state of war time is on their side.
It is a myth that the Arabs don't want peace but the Israelis
(leadership) does. Back in the late 50's there were secret
negociations between Gamal Abdel-Nasser and the Israeli
prime minister (I forgot his name) but David Ben Gurion 
who had stepped aside just for a short while torpedoed everything.
With the help of his supporters who were still in power.
Also in 1948 the Israelis only accepted the partition plan to
have a foothold and a legal status so that they would be able
to expand militarily later. 
Because they knew they were way better armed and trained than all
the Arabs put together (and had more numerous
armed forces contrary to a generally held opinion.)
Of course it is much nicer for propaganda reasons to portray
the Israeli victory  as a miracle and to allude to David against
Goliath etc... and the weak but victorious Jews v/s the nasty 
Arabs who wanted to destroy Israel, and who were armed to the teeth 
(they weren't) etc... I don't need to continue you've seen all that
in one of those nice booklets I mentioned above.


[...]
>
>Harry.


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