The state of Israel is born. David Ben-Gurion (the first Prime Minister of Israel) had written in his dairy after the United Nations vote to partition Palestine into two states: "In my heart, there was joy mixed with sadness: joy that the nations at last acknowledged that we are a nation with a state, and SADNESS that we LOST half of the country, Judea and Samaria, and , in addition, that we [would] have [in our state] 400,000 Arabs." As the UK leaves the region, Israel declares independence and ethnically cleanses large areas of its allocated territory forcing over 1,000,000 Palestinians into refugee camps in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. 500 Palestinian villages are depopulated and destroyed. The Israelis attack parts of the territory allocated to Palestine and clear West Jerusalem of its Arab residents. After the dust settles, 68% of the indigenous people of Palestine have been expelled and Israel ends up with 78% of the territory after having been allocated less than 57%. The United Nations mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, is assassinated by Jewish terrorists. Yitzhak Shamir (a later Israeli minister) is implicated. One of the most notorious incidents occurs in the small Arab village of Deir Yassin, near Jerusalem, on 9-10 April 1948. The massacre is carried out by the Irgun and is designed to spread terror and panic among the Arab population of Palestine to frighten the people into fleeing their homes. The vacated land could then be confiscated for the use of Jewish colonialist settlers. 254 people are killed. The dead include 25 pregnant women (many of which are bayoneted in their abdomens while still alive), 52 children (who are decapitated) and babies. Many bodies are mutilated, some before death. 150 women and girls who survive are stripped and placed in open cars. They are driven naked through the streets of the Jewish section of Jerusalem, where onlookers cheer. In the following days, Israeli forces use loudspeakers to warn Arabs to leave their villages or suffer the fate of Deir Yassin. Menachem Begin (leader of Irgun and later Prime Minister of Israel) describes what happened: "the Arabs fought tenaciously in defense of their homes, their women and their children." and justifies the action: "The massacre was not only justified, but there would not have been a state without the victory of Deir Yassin." Arnold Toynbee (UK historian) describes it as "comparable to crimes committed against the Jews by the Nazis." Many similar operations are carried out around Palestine by heavily armed Jewish groups (mainly Haganah and Irgun): Balad Esh-Sheikh (60 villagers killed). Saâsaâ (20 houses are blown up over their inhabitants, 60 Arabs killed, most of them women and children). The Kattamon Quarter of Jerusalem (Arab women working in the St. Simon Monastry as servants are killed). Lydda Town (250 killed as Jewish fighters shoot anything moving in the streets; up to 100 killed in the Dahmash Mosque; most of the town's 60,000 Arabs are expelled; these expulsions are approved by David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin). Houla (a border village near Lebanon - the men surrender and request that they be allowed to stay - 50 are killed; only a thousand of the original 12,000 inhabitants remain). Dawayma (near Haifa - between 50 and 100 are killed; some women are kept as sex slaves before being killed; many old people are killed when the mosque is blown up while they shelter inside). The Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem is blown up burying its residents in the rubble; the killers shooting people as they fled. At least 200 people are killed in Tantura, near Haifa. 1,500 residents are expelled. The village was later demolished to make way for a car park for a nearby beach kibbutz (cooperative farm). Beit Daras (women and children are killed as they surrender). Salha (105 people are lined up in the mosque and shot dead). Israel has always stated that the Palestinians who left did so because of the war between Israel and Jordan, Syria and Egypt. This war did not begin until after the initial ethnic cleansing was well under way. The Haganah states that: "[Palestinian Arab] villages inside the Jewish state that resist should be destroyed .... and their inhabitants expelled beyond the borders of the Jewish state. Meanwhile, Palestinian residents of the urban quarters which dominate access to or egress from towns should be EXPELLED beyond the borders of the Jewish state in the event of their resistance." Since the creation of the State of Israel, the West's often uncritical support lays the foundations that would reverberate for decades. The USA immediately recognises the new state. The USSR also recognises Israel. The USA would arm and finance Israel and protect the state from United Nations criticism. Between 1948 and 1960, over 1,000,000 more Jews would migrate from Europe, North America and North Africa to Israel. "The main thing is the absorption of the immigrants. . . for many years, until. . . . a regime takes hold in the [Arab] world that does not threaten our existence. . . . The state's fate is dependent upon 'Aliyah [Jewish Immigration to Palestine]" (David Ben-Gurion) Israel finds justification in the Old Testiment of the Bible: "Destroy all of the land; beat down their pillars and break their statues and waste all of their high places, cleansing the land and dwelling in it, for I have given it to you for a possession" (Numbers 33:52,53) "And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city both men and women, young and old and ox and sheep and ass with the edge of the sword." (Joshua 6:21)
Why does the United States support Israel's ethnic cleansing? Broadly speaking, the reasons boil down to two factors. One isIsrael's role as a USA proxy in the Middle East and its integration into the USA security system, which encompasses not only keeping the Arab world in line, but also providing services like supplying arms to the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, the Pinochet government of Chile, Mobutu, Idi Amin, apartheid South Africa, and the Guatemalan and Argentinian terror states. Because of these services, Israel's victims are not merely unworthy, they also become 'terrorists' and part of the 'Islamic threat' for the USA political elite and mainstream media." "The second factor is the exceptional power of the pro-Israel lobby, which for many years has bought and bullied politicians and the media, so that they all vie with one another in genuflections to the holy state. This bullying is especially strong and effective in Canada and the United States, but it applies widely, and the distinguished British reporter Robert Fisk, describing the abuse he has suffered in reporting on the Middle East, says that 'the attempt to force the media to obey Israel's rules is now international'." ___________________________________ So you would agree then....The US is not attacking Iraq for oil? This is my point....If it was all about Oil why would we support Israel? You answered my question very nicely....It's not about Oil..if it was about oil, we could tell Israel your on your own and belly up to the Arabs..Instead, we infuriate the Arab countries with israeli support in SPITE of the oil implications. thanks for the post
Just so we know the objectivity of the author of this article, let's take a look at a collaborator of his: Manufacturing Consent A Propaganda Model excerpted from the book Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky Pantheon Books, 1988 http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman /Manufac_Consent_Prop_Model.html You read only those who support your own agenda, hence any thing you cut and past reeks of bias and agenda. You spend your time reading equal amounts of commentary by Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingrahm, Anne Coulter, Pat Robertson, and other extremist conservatives...don't you? That way you can look at both sides of the story, and come to your own conclusion, right? Oh, wait.....you believe that the conservatives are all the same, and all they write is propaganda, and only the authors you quote have a lock on the truth, isn't that about it? Hmmm....sounds like the dearly departed Wild.
There is nothing personal in the posts.. As I always said to you I have nothing against jews and some good friends are jewish. Now, when you look at how Israel was created and the terrorist state it is till today one ahs to be honest... I am not saying palestinian are perfect.. But there are certainly 10 times more palestinian killed than Israelis... Now, is it a point on which arabs focus??? YES... as long as injustice will continue... Peace my friend... Defending a guy like Sharon is not the solution. I may understand the suffering of the jewish people, but I also understand the pain of palestinian mothers... Today, whenever, you have an anti war demonstration , many people shout free palestine... And I can tell you there are more and more demonstrations against war and for a free palestine... Peace is the only issue.
All those arte historical facts.. not from my own creation!!! Or may be you have never learned history??? Wake up... If you consult the archives, you will read all what I posted..
YES or NO....The possible war with IRAQ is ALL about OIL????? Or is it possibly the larger battle of Muslims vs Christians and Jews?
Israel declares that Jerusalem is its capital in violation of the United Nations partition. No other country accepts this declaration. 1953 In Israel 75 Palestinians are killed in Kibya, an Arab village near the Jordanian border. The attack involves 700 Israeli soldiers using mortars, machine guns, rifles and explosives against civilians. 42 houses are blown up as well as the school and mosque. The attack was authorised by Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion and planned by Ariel Sharon (who would later be Prime Minister). Father Ralph Gorman, editor of the Sign, National Catholic Magazine of the USA writes: "Terror was a political weapon of the Nazis. But the Nazis never used terror in a more cold-blooded and wanton manner than the Israelis in the massacre of Kibya. Women and children as well as men were murdered deliberately, systematically, and in cold blood." Israel attacks the Gaza Strip, in Egypt. 1956 In Egypt, President Nasser nationalises the Suez Canal then owned by a joint UK-French company. The canal had been built while Egypt was a colony of the UK. The UK, France and USA impose economic sanctions on Egypt. Israel invades Egypt taking the Gaza Strip. This is supported by the UK and France, who bomb Egypt from the air. In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces massacre 275 people in a refugee camp at Khan Younis. Another 60 people die in Gaza City after the city centre is shelled. All of the invaders are eventually forced to withdraw by United Nations pressure after 18,000 Egyptians had died. The USA becomes the dominant power in the Middle East after this time and proposes international control of the canal. 49 Palestinians are massacred in the Arab village of Kafr Qassim near the Jewish settlement of Betah Tekfa in Israel. Israeli Frontier Guards arrive at the village at 4:45 pm and inform the Mukhtar (village council leader) that the curfew in the village was from that day onwards to be observed from 5:00 pm instead of 6:00 pm, and that the inhabitants were required to stay at home from that time. The Mukhtar informs the soldiers that some villagers were working outside the village and would not know about the change in the curfew. The soldiers tell him that they would take care of that. The people in the village comply with the curfew. Meanwhile the guards post themselves at the village gates. As the villagers return, unaware of the new curfew times, they are shot at by the soldiers. The wounded are then finished off. The victims include men, women and children.
So what's the problem TraderFut? I don't understand what you are driving at. What does the origin of Israel, regardless of how it is portrayed, have to do with Iraq today?
1958 General Abdul Karim Kassem overthrows the Western backed monarchy in Iraq and establishes a republic that is neutral in the Cold War. The USA makes plans to invade Iraq with Turkey. The USA CIA director, Allen Dulles, states that the situation in Iraq is "the most dangerous in the world today". The UK have oil interests in the nearby semi-dependency of Kuwait and fear an independently minded Iraq. The UK Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, sends a secret telegram (number 1979, dated 19 July 1958) to the UK Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, saying "The advantage of [immediate British occupation] would be that we could get our hands firmly on Kuwait oil [however] the effect upon international opinion and the rest of the Arab world would not be good." He goes on to say that it would be better to set up "a kind of Kuwaiti Switzerland where the British do not exercise physical control" but must be prepared to "take firm action to maintain our position in Kuwait" as well as the other Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar) and that the USA agrees with the UK "that at all costs these oil fields must be kept in Western hands". Six months earlier, when considering partial independence for Kuwait, Lloyd had stated that "The major British and indeed Western interests in the Persian Gulf were: (a) to ensure free access for Britain and other Western countries to oil produced in States bordering the Gulf; (b) to ensure the continued availability of the oil on favourable terms and for sterling; and to maintain suitable arrangements for the investment of the surplus revenues of Kuwait; (c) to bar the spread of Communism and pseudo-Communism in the area and subsequently beyond; and, as a pre-condition of this, to defend the area against the brand of Arab nationalism under cover of which the Soviet Government at present prefers to advance."
The leader of Iraq, Abdul Karim Kassem, is overthrown in a coup and summarily executed. The USA gives the new regime (the Ba'ath Party - soon to be headed by Saddam Hussein) the names of communists who are then killed. Thousands die. Kassem had helped found the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in an attempt to curtail Western control of Arab oil. He had been planning to nationalise the Iraq Petroleum Company in which the USA had an interest. Iraq had also disapproved when Kuwait had been given independence by the UK with a pro-west emir (king) and oil concessions to Western companies. A few days before the coup, the French newspaper La Monde had reported that Kassem had been warned by the USA government to change his country's economic policies or face sanctions. British government papers later declassified would indicate that the coup was backed by the USA and UK. The new government promises not to nationalise American oil interests and renounces its claim to Kuwait. The USA recognises and praises the new government.