Kurdel
1701
That is far from an “Ethnic cleansing”. “Forced population displacement” is a better term.
Ethnic cleansing: the planned deliberate removal from a specific territory, persons of a particular ethnic group, by force or intimidation, in order to render that area ethnically homogeneous.
Much of what happened in 1948 is similar to population movements in any large conflict. About half of the refugees in the Palestinian exodus left prior to the creation of the state of Israel. So it’s hard to blame the state of Israel for refugees prior to the actual creation of the state itself. The other half of the refugees? Some were forcibly expelled by Israel during a war between Israel and the Arabs. Sometimes there were good military reasons for this (can’t have hostile troops cutting off supply lines in your own country). More often, there weren’t good reasons. Yet not all the refugees left due to the actions of Israel.
Some left at the behest of their own leaders. Some left voluntarily. The numbers of these are not insignificant. But not all Arabs were expelled and Israel did offer to let 100,000 refugees (with the Arab states taking the rest) back into the country, so the term “ethnic cleansing” doesn’t seem to be entirely accurate to the 1948 situation. If ethnic cleansing was the goal, letting refugees back into the country wouldn’t further those aims. There certainly are significant elements within and outside the Israeli government that advocate ethnic cleansing, but I don’t know of any systematic, global effort to achieve those aims.
As for apartheid, Arab citizens of Israel have the exact same rights as anyone else. Same voting rights, etc. That in itself tends to dismiss that claim. The traditional definition of apartheid is systematic discrimination against a particular group to maintain a regime. There’s no doubt that Israel does discriminate against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. But is apartheid the right term? Israel is not trying to maintain a regime in the West Bank or Gaza - at least not all of it. But it cannot reach a peace nor land agreement with the Palestinians, who are not Israeli citizens and many of whom do not live on Israeli-claimed land. Is Israel obligated to give equal treatment to non-citizens who do not live within the borders of Israel? Jordan doesn’t treat Palestinian refugees the same as Jordanian citizens, yet there are no claims of apartheid leveled against Jordan. As such, I don’t think apartheid is the correct term either.
While Israel has acted badly - and at times shockingly so - so has every other major party involved in this 60 year fiasco. The Palestinian people. The USA. The Arab states. So tossing around terms like “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid” might sound good, but not only are they likely incorrect, they’re counterproductive as they indicate that the blame should be applied to one party and one party alone. That’s certainly not the case now or ever.
Kalle
1703
No, it isn’t. Ethnic cleansing is precisely the term to use to describe the forcible expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people because they belong to a certain ethnic group. It
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing
Kurdel
1704
I would say that it “precisely” describes a forcible expulsion of a certain group, but it does fit under the very large umbrella definition from Wikipedia.
I know that you probably posted this before reading, but you’re selectively reading your own Wiki link.
“In order to render that area ethnically homogeneous” is a requirement for ethnic cleansing. Yet you’ve offered nothing that suggests that was the aim of the population movement in 1948. In fact, I’ve shown above that much (and likely the majority) of the population movements in 1948 could not be the fault of the state of Israel.
Kalle
1706
Since you’re mentioning numbers without specifying “the rest” I feel I should add that while Israel was willing to take back 100,000 refugees that was on the condition that the Arab states took in the remaining 650,000. Just so that we are clear on the proportions here
The offer to let back in just over 1/8th of the refugees seems like a diplomatic sacrifice that is still well in line with the aim of making the jews the majority population in then-Palestine.
Keeping the Jews in Israel (it was no longer Palestine at that time) the majority was most certainly the aim. However, refusal of re-entry is most certainly not the same thing as ethnic cleansing.
And note that approximately 400,000 of that 750,000 number left before the creation of the state of Israel (and more left voluntarily after), so why should Israel be expected to admit entry to those who weren’t even in the country the day it was created? As such, I don’t see the number as 1/8th at all. It’s more like 1/3rd, which could have easily been negotiated higher had the Arabs opened talks. However, they refused to do so because it would have implicitly recognized the state of Israel. And do you blame Israel for not letting in 750,000 Arabs, who would have most certainly been armed by the surrounding Arab countries and incited to “push the Jews into the sea” (which implies some real ethnic cleansing)?
Again, your example of ethnic cleansing falls apart. It’s just a term designed to inflame and apply blame to one party, making it counterproductive to any real discussion or solution.
Kalle
1708
Maybe you should ask yourself why they were leaving. It could have something to do with the fact that there was a civil war brewing. There were attacks by jewish terrorist groups against both civilian Arabs and British mandate officials, there was paramilitary raids on both jewish and arab villages, propaganda warning civilians to flee or they’d be killed, etc. The Israeli declaration of independence wasn’t the starting point. Also, according to Wikipedia(citing a written source) your numbers are off. Under the headline “Second Phase of the Exodus” it claims that 175,000 Palestinians had fled two weeks before the Israeli declaration of independence.
Were these people leaving voluntarily? Sure, they were given a voluntary choice of fleeing to safety or staying in a war zone where they might get shot for having the wrong last name. It was voluntary in the same way that you are free to refuse to give me your wallet if I ask for it while holding a gun to your head.
so why should Israel be expected to admit entry to those who weren’t even in the country the day it was created?
Because the reason they weren’t in the country was because they had run off, or been driven off, by the violence or threat of violence from jewish military and paramilitary forces. The very same people who created the state of Israel.
Yet below it shows 400,000 left in April-May, while Israel wasn’t declared independent until mid-May. Yet another reason why Wiki isn’t the end-all be-all of the discussion - remember, you’re the one who linked to it. The numbers are unreliable at best. :)
Sorry, but your version of events is absolute rubbish.
Yes there were attacks by Jewish groups, just like there were attacks from Palestinian groups. In fact, the first accepted casualties of the civil war were Jewish, not Palestinian. Both sides were trying to kill each other with equal ferocity. If you read anything about the 1947-1948 civil war, you’ll realize that both sides were both agitators and defenders. It’s not like Abd al-Qadir or Amin al-Husayni were fighting a defensive battle!
So I don’t understand your point. Israel should be blamed for “ethnic cleansing” prior to the creation of the state because its founders were involved in a fight for their survival that was instigated equally by Arabs?
Jag
1710
Your link does not provide any support for current ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. It does, however, provide many examples of other ethnic cleansings, including those against Jews.
Speaking of providing support for the current ethnic cleansing, how about those right wing religious organizations in Israel and the United States!
Hey-o.
Andrew
1712
The original using of the phrase was with regards to 1948, which is cited as an example in the Wikipedia page.
Kalle
1713
Other numbers quoted are Benny Morris’ 250k-300k and Keesing’s Contemporary Archives that have it at 300k. Still don’t see your 400,000 anywhere.
Sorry, but your version of events is absolute rubbish.
Yes there were attacks by Jewish groups, just like there were attacks from Palestinian groups. In fact, the first accepted casualties of the civil war were Jewish, not Palestinian. Both sides were trying to kill each other with equal ferocity. If you read anything about the 1947-1948 civil war, you’ll realize that both sides were both agitators and defenders. It’s not like Abd al-Qadir or Amin al-Husayni were fighting a defensive battle!
Sure. And had they won, who knows what would have happened. I don’t doubt that the jews of Palestine would have suffered, though to what degree we’ll never know. What I do know is that the jews won, and the state of Israel displaced three quarters of a million people because they were the wrong ethnicity.
So I don’t understand your point. Israel should be blamed for “ethnic cleansing” prior to the creation of the state because its founders were involved in a fight for their survival that was instigated equally by Arabs?
Yes. Israel should be blamed for the ethnic cleansing that took place as part of the establishment of the state of Israel. The people who orchestrated these acts did so for the sake of a future Israeli state and went on to take prominent places in Israeli society and politics. These people didn’t suddenly stop being responsible for what they did because they changed hats and now served a newly declared nation.
And even if you’re still too willfully stubborn to admit Israeli responsibility for those actions the policy of ethnic cleansing of arab villages didn’t suddenly stop when Israel declared independence. Is Israel not to blame for that either? We’re still talking about hundreds of thousands of people.
And then there’s the simple fact that Israel forbid them all to return. They had houses and property waiting for them and it was taken away. For no other reason than that they were not jews, and had fled the violence.
Ethnic cleansing, and Israel is to blame.
OK, 300,000…and the point doesn’t change. Many Palestinians left prior to the formation of the state of Israel. Interestingly, I don’t hear anything about Jews who left/were driven from Palestinian lands. Ya know, that also happened. Shit like that tends to happen in a civil war.
I wonder why we’re not hearing anything about that? Perhaps because facts like those might interfere with your presentation of this as entirely a one-sided conflict and falls more in line with my assertion that there’s more than enough blame to go around?
And this is where you go off the deep end again. Tell me again how the state of Israel displaced three quarters of a million people when many left even before the formation of Israel? Chicken/egg…methinks you have it backwards.
Since it wasn’t ethnic cleansing by any accepted definition, I stopped reading right there. Words have meaning. I suggest you learn the meaning before using them, otherwise your point is lost. Which, in this case, happened about 5 of your posts ago.
At this point, there’s no use in any attempt to further the conversation unless you want to modify your rhetoric. Your insistence in using terms incorrectly and trying to paint decades of horrendous behavior on both sides as an entirely one-sided affair grows rather stale. There’s no use in discussing this with someone who adheres to such a jaundiced view despite presented evidence to the contrary.
Dejin
1715
I do have concerns about a country which is created for people from a specific religious background or ethnic group. Surely one of the greatest advances western society has made is the advancement of civil rights. This has at core the concept that all people should be treated equally, that a person’s race should not make a difference in how they are treated or how they are viewed by the law. In the US we have made tremendous progress on civil rights based on race and gender and are struggling hard to advance civil rights so that people are treated the same regardless of their sexual orientation or their religion.
You may argue that Israeli law does treat its citizens the same regardless of their race or religion. However, having the country charter explicitly say that the state is created for people from one religious or ethnic background is treating citizens differently, even if they are treated the same in all other respects. A member of ethnic minority can never feel like a fully-accepted citizen in a country designated as the homeland for some other group. Moreover, designating the country as created for a specific ethnic or religious group can’t help but empower bigots within the society to mistreat members from other groups.
I realize that at the time of Israel’s creation, western society had not advanced to the level it currently is at. The US Civil Rights movement didn’t occur until the 50s. Gay Rights did not exist. But we have moved forward and are continuing to push further still, and our society is the all the better for it. How many of Israel’s current problems are because it is a society which designates one group above other groups?
Israel’s supporters talk about how Israel provides an example of a western democracy for the rest of the region. How much better of an example would it be for Israel to change it’s charter and say that we are a society for all people and for all our citizens equally – Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Atheist. It would maintain its strong judicial and civil government and its democracy but would make itself entirely neutral on race and religion.
Jag
1716
In a perfect world maybe all states could be neutral, but remember what had just happened at Israels creation. I don’t think we have come as far as you do. Possibly because I believe pure evil exists and history can repeat itself.
Generations of hatred and threats of extermination make the existence of Israel a necessary reality (even though its current actions continue and reinforce that hatred).
You rather seem to be begging the question. He wants to argue that what was done was ethnic cleansing. That’s kind of the point that his other points lead towards. If your starting assumption is that nobody who uses the words “ethnic cleansing” to describe the actions of Israel can be communicated with, you’ve assumed, independent of the evidence, that his argument is wrong. That’s your right, I guess. But it seems a little… strange to adopt a position which is unresponsive to fact or evidence and then blame other people for not being able to move the conversation forward.
It’s not?
Ethnic cleansing is a term that has come to be used broadly to describe all forms of ethnically-motivated violence, ranging from murder, rape, and torture to the forcible removal of populations.[1] A 1993 United Nations Commission defined it more specifically as, “the planned deliberate removal from a specific territory, persons of a particular ethnic group, by force or intimidation, in order to render that area ethnically homogenous.”[1] The term entered English and international media usage in the early 1990s to describe war events in the former Yugoslavia, particularly Kosovo and Bosnia.
Note there’s no justification or who started it first involved - pretty much every combatant in the former Yugoslavia did it to some extent. As did the US to its native population. As did both Arab and Jewish groups leading up to the founding of Israel (although on nowhere near the scale of the US). All it takes is intentionally running out a certain group, which precursor groups on both sides did, and afterwards those groups were welcomed with open arms by the new governments.
Israel is building settlements there, therefore it can not be a temporary military occupation. It’s Israeli territory, whatever claim they’re making today. Therefore, all residents need some sort of voting rights in some sort of government.
As to apartheid - the settlers are treated as Israeli citizens, everyone else on an explicitly ethnic basis is treated as foreigners in a temporary military occupation. Which again it can’t be, because then what are the settlers doing there? Without them legally it’d be “state keeps knocking over neighboring state to keep it in anarchy”, but you wouldn’t hear people calling it apartheid.
That Arab Israelis have full rights, Palestinians none, and Jewish Israelis have “bonus rights” is a complicating factor that doesn’t make it exactly like the South African version, but the fundamental point is along the same lines.
Kalle
1719
There’s more than enough blame to go around alright but in a discussion about Israel and Israeli policies you’ll have to forgive me for not talking about what happened to the jews of Iran or Egypt.
And this is where you go off the deep end again. Tell me again how the state of Israel displaced three quarters of a million people when many left even before the formation of Israel? Chicken/egg…methinks you have it backwards.
Tell me. Why did they leave? You still haven’t been able to answer that one simple question. Why? I’ll ask you for the third time.
They did not emigrate, they were refugees fleeing from the war that created the state of Israel. They had homes they wanted to return to. The majority of them left after the formation of Israel. Israel prevented all of them from ever returning. How can I possibly state this any clearer?
Since it wasn’t ethnic cleansing by any accepted definition, I stopped reading right there. Words have meaning. I suggest you learn the meaning before using them, otherwise your point is lost. Which, in this case, happened about 5 of your posts ago.
By any accepted definition? The wikipedia article on ethnic cleansing cites three different historians who argue that the '48 Palestinian exodus was, indeed, ethnic cleansing. Displacing the arab population of Palestine to make room for jews, confiscating their property, and prohibiting them from ever returning seems to hit all the relevant criteria. Words have meaning, and you do not get to define them.
At this point, there’s no use in any attempt to further the conversation unless you want to modify your rhetoric. Your insistence in using terms incorrectly and trying to paint decades of horrendous behavior on both sides as an entirely one-sided affair grows rather stale. There’s no use in discussing this with someone who adheres to such a jaundiced view despite presented evidence to the contrary.
Oh I have little doubt there’s any use in attempting to continue a conversation with you since you seem to continue to talk past my points. The decades of horrendous behaviour you mention happened after the events of 1948 so how are they at all relevant? The war in '67 is not a post-fact excuse for the war of '48.
As for evidence, you’ve presented none as far as I can tell. No citations, no links, nothing.
They left because there was a war. Shit happens in war. It happens in every war. That doesn’t make it ethnic cleansing (more on that later). It makes them refugees. Big difference.
It was equally the Palestinians and the Arabs fault that prevented them from returning. They refused to even negotiate. Should any country have to let in hundreds of thousands of civilians, backed by foreign governments whose express aim would be to overthrow the government? I think the answer to that is rather apparent.
I don’t have any real sympathy for the Palestinian/Arab actions in 1947-1948. In this case, there was a civil war between different peoples. In fact, it could be easily argued that the group that started it lost. The other group won. The group that won was able to found a nation. You know, kind of like how every single other nation was founded. Two groups fought. One lost. You seem to want to blame the victor for the entire fight. So sorry, too bad. To the victor go the spoils. This certainly wasn’t one superior group with no claim oppressing an inferior group. This was two groups with equal claims and rather equal power fighting over what they both believed was theirs.
I didn’t define the term, you did with your own link. Did Israel try to make their population homogeneous? By all accounts, they did not. Displaced population =/= ethnic cleansing. If Israel had attempted to systematically expel ALL Palestinians, then it would be ethnic cleansing. If you can provide proof that the state of Israel systematically tried to make their population homogenous, then we can discuss ethnic cleansing. Since there’s no evidence of that, it’s not. End of story.
I’m using your own links against you and as such, I don’t need to cite anything else. Plus, I don’t generally cite sources like wiki. It’s lazy and often inaccurate.
You’re so hell-bent on solely blaming Israel for everything that there is no common ground to be had. It takes two to tango and the Arab countries/Palestinians were more than willing to do so. There own actions are not above reproach and in many ways they made the situation what it was and what it is today. They are equally culpable. Until you recognize that fact, and it is a fact, then no rational discussion can be had. But it sounds like you don’t want to have a rational discussion. You want to misuse terms like ethnic cleansing and apartheid because it’s easier to paint one group as wholly evil and corrupt rather than actually discussing the matter rationally. It’s an old tactic - if you can’t win on the merits of your claim, use rhetoric to appeal to emotion. But it doesn’t much work in this case.
