Discovering Israel — Part 1
What I learned from the Book: Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe is the first book my book club with Merton PSC chose to read. The book is very well researched. I would highly recommend it.
Let me start by introducing you to something I’ve called ‘Slav-wonna-bes’. This has helped me understand the issue that is Israel. In Bosnia (Eastern Europe, one of the ‘Slav’ countries) I’ve heard lots of stories about two groups considered ‘unwise’: Lukavi Latini — guileful Latins, and Slinavi Slaveni — snotty or slimy Slavs. Both of these have existed for centuries, back to Roman times, before Jesus, i.e. no one really knows when they came to be. Both groups are recognised by their behaviour. So nothing else, not religion, or social standing, or wealth, or anything else plays a role in putting a person into one of these groups. Generally speaking, Slavs are smart and good people, but among them there are these two categories of individuals that are not so smart, and they have no morals. Legend has it that people used to avoid being labelled as one of these. Now, it seems like people (those in power at least) are competing who will be more deserving to belong to one or both of these groups.
While there are numerous behavioural characteristics that could be mentioned, I will mention only the main one for each group. Lukavi Latini are famous for sitting on two chairs at the same time — i.e. they play for both teams. This should not be confused with being indecisive. They are very capable of making a decision. However, that requires values. They don’t have values. They have objectives and when a situation is uncertain, they support both sides until they see who is winning. Once they’re certain who is winning, they will skilfully ignore being on both sides, and talk ONLY about how they supported the winner. This skill of removing parts of the story that doesn’t serve them, and filling in the gaps by repeating the parts that serve them is something they use in daily life. To them, it’s like second nature.
Slinavi Slaveni are famous for their ability to complain. Oh my goodness, no one can whine the way they can. When I read ‘shoot and cry’ tactic among the soldiers in Israeli army, I was certain that we have a huge case of Slinavi Slaveni on our hands. No one’s pain matters, only their pain matters. Even when the situation is clear and they are inflicting pain, they will claim that it is painful to cause pain so everyone should feel sorry for them. And, if you do not feel sorry for them, you are evil. Which means they will complain even more. And they can complain about everything, all the time. They will turn anything into a source of pain for them. However, that’s only because they are heroic. I have no idea how they managed to bring the two together, but Slinavi Slaveni are brilliant at whining and claiming they are heroes, at the same time, in the same sentence.
After so many centuries, you’d think these two groups wouldn’t be so easy to see. They are. Croat politicians are more like Lukavi Latini, while Serb politicians are more like Slinavi Slaveni. That’s not to say that Croats don’t know how to complain. If complaining will get them what they want, they are almost as good at whining as Slinavi Slaveni. And they can turn anything into a complaint. Also, Serbs are not that good at ‘sitting on two chairs’, but they will give it a try, and they will accomplish it to some level.
There are some things these two groups have in common. Again, I’ll name only one: Desire for Glory. They are fanatical about glory. The world ‘Slavs’ is derived from the word Slava, meaning glory. And, since they have no values of their own, for them glory is that others hold them in high esteem. And if you give them this kind of respect once, you better not try and take it away from them no matter how much you think they don’t deserve it. It’s kind of like, what you give to them, it was never yours. It always belonged to them. So don’t expect any gratitude, let alone your right to take it back. It doesn’t matter what they do, you must recognise their right to what you have given them as something that was always theirs.
Everything I’ve just said exists only in spoken word. I’ve never seen it written anywhere. However, it is something I’ve heard many times since I was a child. It exists somewhere in my being as something to help me tolerate the political chaos in Bosnia. And then I read Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. It all came back to me, loud and clear. I cannot believe the similarities between Israeli government and Serb/Croat governments. In fact, they’re not similar, they are identical.
Israeli government is a bunch of Slavs, and always has been.
Page 206: “He (Bechor Shitrit, Israeli politician who showed an empathy towards the possibility of Jewish-Palestinian co-existence) had served as a judge in the British Mandatory and years later would become Minister of Justice. Shitrit was a token Mizrahi minister in an overwhelming Ashkenazi, i.e. Easter European, government…”
— Eastern Europe is Slavs. We know this because our languages, though different, were clearly one language at some point in time. Yes, most of Eastern Europe, with the exception of Hungary, Greece and Albania, speak languages that were clearly one language many centuries ago.
On page 137 of the book there is a quote of some guy called Ambar who killed Palestinians during the ethnic cleansing of 1948, and he refused to talk about it but when he was pressed he said how Germans were the worst enemy the Jewish people ever had (he fought the Germans in World War 2, and then went back to Palestine to do to Palestinians what Germans did to Jews), and he also said
“The Germans did not kill Prisoners of War, they killed Slav Prisoners of War, but not British, not even [when they were] Jewish.”
So clearly this whole ‘Slav’ thing is important to them.
And then there is their behaviour, as well as their arguments. They have managed to combine the worst parts of Lukavi Latini and Slinavi Slaveni.
Their fanatic need for glory is second to none. While they have no idea about the true meaning of glory. To them, glory and fame are the same. In fact, in many of our Slav languages, slava has come to mean both fame and glory.
Their ‘shoot and cry’ tactic, mentioned in numerous places in the book, was a shock for me. I thought only Serbs did it. Serbian soldiers could become civilians in the moment they are shot. In other words, Serbian soldiers went to battlefield to win, if they didn’t win or they were killed, they were civilians. To these ‘Slav-wonna-bes’ that’s perfectly fine, perhaps even smart. I guess it depends on your definition of ‘smart’.
‘Shoot and cry’ tactic is basically playing the victim while causing harm, i.e. abusing another person’s empathy to get away with bad behaviour. I think we’ve all met individuals who use something like this on a much smaller scale. It’s annoying, right? No one in their right mind would think well of such people. If it wasn’t for our legal system preventing us from slapping the heck out of such individuals, we’d be slapping them senseless. Now imagine this sort is given weapons and the right to kill. They’re not what we’d call a soldier, right? What kind of soldier would use this tactic? I mean, courage alone should prevent a person from using this, let alone self-respect, or dignity. Yet it somehow worked for Israeli army. They managed to get the reputation of a ‘noble’ and ‘moral’ army, even though they’ve use this tactic since 1940 at least.
This info has meant so much to me, that I have been unable to stop thinking about the 6-day war in 1967. The book doesn’t talk about that because it is about the events of 1948. But in 1967 apparently a number of Arab countries came together, attacked Israel, and lost the war in 6 days. I don’t care that Israelis were trained by the British, I don’t care that Israelis had better weapons, a number of Arab countries came together and lost the war against ‘shoot and cry’ soldiers in 6 days. If that’s not fishy, I don’t know what is. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Moral virtues exist only in their adverts. In reality, I doubt they’ve ever seen a moral compass let alone have one. We’ve all seen how easily they throw out a family from their home and just move in. There are already videos of Israelis gathering around Gaza, like vultures, to take whatever they can. And that’s the way they’ve always been.
Page 205: “The level of ransacking in Jaffa reached such intensity that even Yitzhak Chizik (military governor of Jaffa) felt he had to complain, in a letter on 5 June 1948 to Israel’s Minister of Finance, Eliezer Kaplan, that he could no longer control the looting. He would continue to protest, but when in the end of July he sensed his remonstrations were totally ignored, he resigned, stating that he surrendered to the uncontrollable ongoing crusade of pillage and robbery.”
There are so many examples of theft, on individual as well as government level, it is impossible to quote them all. But it’s not even just the stealing. Page 206 “the soldiers preferred to break in” — as in they could have had the key, but they preferred to break in. So Palestinians who evacuated, left their keys with someone, that someone was willing to hand the key to the army, however, not only did the army refuse, the army broke the door and then some of those Palestinians that had the key, given to them by the owner of the property, were charged with holding illegal property. It is literally like WTF.
And they are determined to ignore their crimes and believe in their victory. It would be like turning Auschwitz into a museum of German victory. It is beyond human comprehension, but this book has made some sense of the psychotic state that is Israel. However, Slav-wonna-bes cannot create anything but a psychotic state.
So, how did these ‘Slav-wonna-bes’ get so much? It all started with this document
The document implies two concerns:
1. The safety of non-Jews already in Palestine
2. Safety and wellbeing of Jews in other countries
Did anyone bother to follow up on these? Israel is not exactly famous for honouring agreements.
The document also clearly states a number of important facts:
1. The land of Palestine.
2. The people of Palestine, though it only mentiones non-Jews. I.e. it is not listing who those people are, but they are not Jews, and it says nothing about Jews in Palestine.
3. Jewish Zionist aspirations. Jewish aspirations and Zionist aspirations are two different things.
The first question we have to ask is: why did Britain give them this? What did Britain gain from this? Britain had colonised other countries, and while I do not agree with colonisation, at least having benefited from those colonies as a country, makes some sense. Colonising Palestine and then just gifting it to another group, any group, seems a bit insane. Even if we think of it in terms of charity, it’s a bit much.
And it wasn’t just a gift of land. Britain brought in a bunch of policies that were so against the local population they caused a revolt. 1929 Palestinian uprising was due to failed promise to keep democratic values. After this uprising, Labour government in London appeared to be inclined to embrace Palestinian demands, but then Zionist lobby stepped in, leading to even more problems and an even bigger uprising in 1936. British officials responded by sending more troops to Palestine than to the Indian subcontinent. Three years of brutal and ruthless attacks on Palestinian countryside, British military killed off the revolt. Palestinian leadership was exiled and the paramilitary units of Palestine were disbanded.
And it didn’t stop there. Up to the very end of the British Mandate, Britain assisted Zionists in their ‘goals’, turning a blind eye to murder and destruction that Zionists were causing, even when Zionists attacked the Brits like the attack on British headquarters in Jerusalem, the King David Hotel, after World War II, the British forces responded relatively mildly.
The role of Britain is perhaps best summarised by this paragraph:
Page 98–99: “…British stance here indicates how very different the fate of many Palestinians would have been had the British troops elsewhere intervened, as both the imperatives of the Mandatory charter and the terms of the UN partition resolution required them to do. British inaction was the rule, however, as Khalidi’s frantic appeals highlight as regards the rest of Jerusalemite neighbourhoods, especially in the western part of the city. These areas had come under repeated shelling from the first day of January (of 1948) and here, unlike in Shaykh Jarrah, the British played a truly diabolical role, as they disarmed the few Palestinian residents who had weapons, promising to protect the people against Jewish attacks, but then instantly reneged on that promise.”
– this last part is exactly what happened in Srebrenica genocide in July 1995, except the Dutch forces did it; they disarmed the local population promising them protection, and then they handed them over (literally) to the killers.
In short, there were instances where the British army acted to protect law and order, however, turning a blind eye was more common, and then there were instances where the British assisted in the murder of Palestinians. However, what is extremely clear is that overall British ignored their own values for the sake of Zionists.
To make matters even worse, it seems that the population of Palestine didn’t mind being colonised by Britain. It seems that Palestinians didn’t think too much about this ‘change of government’, and went on with their lives. In fact, it seems that they had high hopes for prosperity, and that the ethnic cleansing took place when there was social improvement. They certainly trusted the Brits:
Page 94 “Previous correspondence between them (Arab Leaders of Haifa) and Stockwell (British commander) shows they trusted him as the keeper of law and order in the city.”
If it is true that Palestinians did not rise against the ‘new’ government, working with Palestinians could have been of great benefit to Britain. So why did our government go against people who were not against us?
To me, this seems like an act of a corrupt leaders. Nobody is that stupid. I would very much like to see facts and figures behind such decisions.
While it is impossible for me to tell you why the British made such horrific decision at a huge cost to Britain (we sent more troops to Palestine than to the Indian subcontinent, for crying out loud), one thing is absolutely clear, this group of Jews were treated like royalty. I can’t think of another group that got a country just by lobbying for it. It is unheard of. If you’ve heard of such a thing, please let me know. In short, while one group of Jews were facing increasing amount of hate, that lead to the Holocaust, another group was treated with more respect than any other group in the world, ever. This is very important because it seems to be happening again. In fact, it seems like the ‘royal’ group of Jews are telling the ‘victim’ Jews to shut up. And our government is once again on the side of the ‘royal’ Jews. Not to mention that our government, for one reason or another, turned these Jews into ‘royalty’. They never deserved any such special treatment.
But, who are we kidding? This is not about Jews, is it? We need to focus on Zionism; a movement created by a group of Jews to ‘deal’ with the ‘issue of Jews’ and persecution of Jews. From where I’m sitting, Zionists protect Jews as much as Communists protect ‘community’. And, far more importantly, we are led to believe that Zionism equals to Judaism. If this is not blatant abuse of religion, I don’t know what is.
Zionism does NOT equal to Judaism.
1. Not all Jews are Zionists. Many Jews, around the world (including in Palestine where Israel chose to steal the land), have stated that they are against Zionism.
2. Not all Zionists are Jews. Many Muslims, Christians, even atheists and non-Abrahamic religions are Zionists.
3. Zionists abuse language left, right and centre. I could give MANY examples but my biggest annoyances are with the way they call Palestinian hostages Israel holds captive ‘prisoners’, how they use the word democracy for apartheid, they have assaulted the word ‘Semites’, and don’t even get me started on what these ‘Slav-wonna-bes’ have done to the words equality, dignity and peace. They have no respect for true meaning of words, therefore, we must examine everything they say with facts. Hence, considering the first two points, and in light of the third point, we have no grounds on which to say Zionism equals to Judaism.
As someone who respects language and true meaning of words, I cannot use Zionists and Jews as synonyms. Therefore, in this article, I will use Zionists, except when I am quoting parts of the book. And, of course, I’ll continue to use ‘Slav-wonna-bes’, because that defines them more clearly in my mind. When I say ‘Slav-wonna-be’, I know exactly what sort of people I’m talking about.
Zionists have found motivation in religion or at least in what they believe. There are various example of their religious fanaticism, perhaps page 144 sums it up the best
“This realisation (failure of Arab forces) created a euphoric mood, which is clearly reflected in the orders of the twelve brigades of the Israeli army to start considering the occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights and southern Lebanon. On 24 May, after Ben-Gurion had met with his advisers, in his diary entry he sounds triumphant and more power-hungry than ever before:
We will establish a Christian state in Lebanon, the southern border of which will be the Litani River. We will break Transjordan, bomb Amman and destroy its army, and then Syria falls, and if Egypt will still continue to fight — we will bombard Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo. This will be in revenge for what they (the Egyptians, the Aramis and Assyrians) did to our forefathers during Biblical times.”
Here we have a few words from the man himself, the mastermind of ethnic cleansing, Ben-Gurion. From this small entry in his diary we see a number of important pieces of information: his faith in his power to recreate that part of the world, the need for revenge (revenge is never in line with justice), his faith in connection to the Bible (almost as if he’s there to correct a wrong), and his vision of his forefathers. Ben-Gurion was from Poland. Like Auschwitz. Auschwitz is in Poland. Creation of the Bible was NOT in Poland. Bible came to Poland (and many other countries) years later. Just because Ben-Gurion read the Bible (if he did), does not mean that his forefathers were any part of it.
And just when you think they are completely delusional about geography, you read:
Page 161 and 162 “The file stated that the village had some Samaritans in it who may originally have been Jews, but who, in the 1940s, had converted to Islam. For the Zionist historian and leading politician of the Zionist movements, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, this was enough to show that there had been continuity of Jewish presence along Palestine’s coast.
This search for continuity was one of the main obsessions of the Zionist academia at the time. Ben-Zvi himself published a book (in Yiddish) with Ben-Gurion as early as 1918 in which they claimed that the Arab fallahin (peasant farmers) were the descendants of Jewish peasants who had stayed behind in Palestine after the Roman Exile… he argued that the villagers in the Hebron mountains were actually Jews who had converted to Islam.
In July 1948, proof of continuity did not mean that the people of Kfar Lam were entitled to remain as citizens of the new Jewish state, only that their village was now ‘rightfully returned’ to the Jewish people.”
Let’s try and figure out what’s going on here. So we have Zionists trying to prove continuity, in fact, for some reason, they become obsessed with showing continuity of Jews in Palestine. My guess would be that in the 1910s they needed it as an argument in their lobby efforts. They found continuity in the idea that some people in Palestine were Jews who converted to Islam, i.e. became Muslims. That part makes perfect sense. But then, a guy from Poland comes along and claims that those ‘former Jews who have continuity’ have no right, but he has right because he/his ancestors converted to Judaism? In other words, continuity that was vital in the 1910s, becomes irrelevant in 1940s? Well, doesn’t that stink?
And just when you think that the whole thing must be religious, oh no! There was a group of Muslims, Druze, who sided with Israel and helped in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. While on page 153
“In 1950s, after the intervention of the Pope in Rome, the Christians were offered the opportunity to move back but refused to do so without their Muslim neighbours.”
And just like that you realise that it’s not a religious thing at all. This is what we call ‘101 humanitarian thing’ where religion is used as a diversion. No wonder Communists were willing to help.
Right after the quote from page 144:
“On that same day, the Israeli army had received a large shipment of modern, brand new 0.45-calibre cannons from the Communist Eastern bloc… Israeli Communist Party was instrumental in arranging this deal.”
The way I understand this is that in the 1940s, Israel got some very cool bombs from the Communist Eastern block to fight the ‘Arabs’. And we thought Capitalists and Communists didn’t agree on anything back in the 40s. I wonder if Communists got a good deal, or if they, like Britain (it seems) gave this to Zionists as an act of charity. At least by 1940s there was a somewhat decent number of Zionists in Palestine.
In 1918 only 5% of the population in Palestine were Zionists. Apart from the diabolical situation in which the British government supported a minority to get rid of a majority of the population (not exactly a democratic thing to do, is it?), this is noteworthy for two reasons:
1. A popular claim of Zionists at the time was that Palestine was a land without people. Clearly that was a lie. Palestine was NOT a land without people, if it was there would have been no revolts or uprising, or demands, or anything of the sort. In fact:
Page 150: “…the Israeli troops were more determined than ever to resort to summary executions and any other means that might speed up the expulsion. One of the first villages to fall prey to this strategy was the village of Mi’ar, today location of several Jewish settlements built in the 1970s: Segev, Yaad and Manof. The irony is that part of the land taken by force in 1948 remained uninhabited for decades, and was even cultivated by Palestinians living nearby until it was re-confiscated in the 1970s, as part of what Israel calls ‘the Judaization of the Galilee’, a brutal attempt by the government to de-Arabise the Galilee, which was still, in some areas, equally divided demographically between Jews and Arabs.”
In short, it wasn’t a land without people until Zionists made it a land without people, and then abused their power and gave more rights to migrants than to the local population. So much for the Balfour Declaration.
2. Another popular claim of Zionists is that if Jews are majority they would be protected. While this sounds logical, Zionists themselves are evidence that that’s not true since this small minority carried out ethnic cleansing only 30 years later. Bosnia is yet another example that being majority offers no protection.
Zionists have a habit of making arguments that sound logical until you spend a moment or two to think about them, and then you realise that there is no logic. Unfortunately, too many people act like they were programmed to say ‘Amen’ to anything that any Israeli official comes up with. I mean: ‘Self-defence’! Come on! Every psycho who has carried out mass murder claimed ‘self-defence’, as well as some idea how the mass murder will lead to ‘improvement’. It is mindboggling that anyone would still use this as an argument, let alone that someone would fall for it.
And these illogical arguments are just all over the place. I am struggling to understand why was Israel created, why does it exist. There are numerous ideas. The most popular reason is for Jews to have a safe place. While this sounds noble and great, I see no evidence of this. In fact, there is (and always has been) so much crime in Israel that Israel doesn’t even see as crime, in fact, many crimes are rewarded, it is shocking how any normal person could have a sense of security in such a place.
That’s not to say that everyone in Israel is a criminal. We should never ever generalise like that. If we want justice in the world, we must put effort into it and judge each and every person individually no matter how hard that may be. No cutting corners when it comes to justice. However, having said that, there are reasons to believe that Israel ‘prefers’ a specific type of person.
In the book we learn how some murders were blessed by the Israeli leadership retrospectively. I.e. there were people who came to Palestine and they didn’t need to be told to kill, they killed out of their own will and desire. This sort of thing was then encouraged by not punishing it. In fact, the airport in Israel is called after Ben-Gurion, a Slav-wonna-be, mastermind behind the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and someone who needed a ‘war’ to accomplish getting rid of Arabs. I don’t think Ben-Gurion is a type of person a country should be proud of, and if they are, it says a lot about that country.
Furthermore, thanks to the magic of the internet, we learn from young Jews from all over the world, who were raised in Zionist families to believe that Israel is ‘divine’, but as soon as they started asking questions, they were not exactly welcome in Israel. You don’t have to be a genius to put the two together. There must be a screening process of some sort. A mind that thinks for itself is not what Israel is looking for. What does that tell you? Combine that with the idea that murderers are encouraged and the picture looks real f-ing gloomy.
And indeed, when we hear what significant number of Israeli citizens have to say, what they believe in, what they think is completely fine and normal, it is shocking. I’ve already mentioned their inclination to take other people’s property. What makes it even worse is how easily they say things like ‘kill them all’, ‘they should be starved’, ‘even their children are not innocent’, ‘we are the chosen people’… In fact, their idea of being the chosen people concerns us all because the assumption is that we must serve them. However, it concerns the citizens of Israel/Palestine the most.
None of this implies any security. It would be like saying that prisons are a secure placed because there are guards. Like a prison, Israel is full of criminally-minded individuals, and the guards are on their side. So the argument that Israel exists for the safety of Jews — give me a break!
Then we have the argument that Europe wanted to get rid of Jews. Apparently, some think and argue that Israel exists because Europe wanted to get rid of Jews. If that’s what Europe wanted, why the heck didn’t they do that? Surely it was easier to take the trains of Jews to Israel (actually, Palestine) rather than Auschwitz. I am very much against that, but given a choice, Palestine was better than Auschwitz, at least for Jews. Not for Palestinians though. Considering what Palestinians have been through in the last 75 years, oh my word. Yeah, we can compare it to a concentration camp experience.
Then we have religious fanaticism, things like Jews have to be there so that the Messiah can come. I have no idea why the Messiah can’t come to Palestine, but apparently he can’t. Apparently he can come only if Zionists take over and create Israel. Also, who decides if Messiah has come? I mean, anyone can claim he’s the Messiah, he can have a following, it is reasonable to assume that some people will believe in him, others will not, so what happens if people accept or reject him?
Another religious fanaticism listed among the reasons for the existence of Israel is that Palestine is the Promised Land to Zionists. 1. No it was not. This is one of the reasons (the other being their need to hide behind the word Semitism) why Zionism must be seen as equal to Judaism. Well, we all know only too well how atheists abuse religion. To be perfectly honest, chances are that the promise was made to the ancestors of some of the Palestinians, whether Muslims, Christians or Jews. Not to some Slav-wonna-bes. Though even that’s not much to go on. However, since the argument was put forward, and it is being considered, then at least we should take all the facts into account. 2. Land not country. Land and country are two very different things. 3. Why and how did they ever lose it? Wait, no they didn’t lose it, Slav-wonna-bes never had it, but clearly want it. Or, they want what it represents: Being chosen! Oh my goodness, can it get more ‘glorious’ than that?
I should note that the book doesn’t talk about why Israel exists, but it has made me wonder, and I’ve looked into it. In this book we find out that while Zionists think of Palestine as their ‘holy land’ they also don’t like it. They don’t like date and olive trees, so they cut those, and then plant pine trees, which are not happy there. However, Zionists are hell-bent of turning the land into Europe, so they persist to plant pine trees.
But, perhaps far more worrying is this:
Page 253–254 “The colonialists dreamed of massive Jewish immigration to strengthen their hold, but the Holocaust reduced the number of ‘white’, European Jews and, disappointingly from a Zionist point of view, those who had survived the Nazi onslaught preferred either to emigrate to the United State or even to remain in Europe itself, despite the recent horrors. Reluctantly, Israel’s Ashkenazi leadership then decided to prompt one million Arab Jews from the Middle East and North Africa to join them in the enclave they had carved for themselves in the land of Palestine.”
Once again we have a paragraph just full of vital information. So not all Jews are the same to Zionists. I kind of guessed this from the way an Israeli told us in Bosnia that ‘our Jews are not real Jews’ — I think I wrote about it in one of my previous articles.
When the Zionists failed to get European Jews to migrate to Palestine, they ‘prompted’ 1 million Arab and African Jews to migrate.
1. If that was safe place for Jews, why didn’t they migrate there? Not that I support them migrating there, just wondering. If you and your family are in grave danger, why not go to the place created for your safety? It implies that Jews didn’t trust Israel. And I’m not surprised.
2. How were Arab and African Jews ‘prompted’? What kind of methods were used? Were the same methods tried with European Jews?
3. Were Arab and African Jews in danger before Israel needed their migration?
4. I was under the impression that Zionists were very lucky that the Holocaust happened. It served them well. If it wasn’t for the murder of millions of Jews in Europe, where would Israel be? In fact, it seems Zionist are very lucky that Islamic fanaticism happened. 9/11, for example, seems to work well for them. So if those who survived the Holocaust moved to Israel, would Zionists still need Arab and African Jews? And if it didn’t need them, would they have ‘prompted’ their migration?
Page 23 Ben-Gurion wrote to his son:
“The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.”
What kind of war did he mean? A war in Palestine, or a world war would be better?
I have a book that looks at Zionism during the Holocaust, so I will be studying that. For now, things seem a bit suspicious. Maybe Zionists are simply good at using whatever happens in the world to their advantage, or maybe they (somehow) create events that would be useful for them. Nobody is that lucky to get a World War when they need it, and then decades later they also get Islamic fanaticism just when they need it.
So let’s take a look at a few things that make me wonder about Zionism and safety of the world:
1. Zionists are inclined to blame others for something they are doing themselves. We see it all the time, all over the place. It is what we like to call ‘a public secret’. It’s another of their tactics. However, if we look beyond their accusations, we can see their words as indicators to what they have done or what they are planning to do. Recently they started claiming that some Muslims told Hitler to murder Jews. This could mean that Netanyahu knows that someone did tell Hitler to murder Jews, but it is highly unlikely that it was a Muslim. However, this might be a good time to look into who did. Because, Zionists have just told us that someone did.
2. In 1937, so after the 1936 Palestinian uprising, when Brits were dumb enough to send more troops to Palestine than to the Indian subcontinent to kill off Palestinian leadership and any chance for Palestinians to fight back, Zionists come up with two magic words: Force and Opportunity. Force they got from the British, now they needed a historic moment, like a war, to get on with their plan. And indeed a war happened.
3. While Jews were being murdered in their millions, Zionists sent some troops to help fight the Germans, but their focus was on ‘village files’. Village files were information about every village that Zionists wanted eliminated in Palestine. i.e. they were vital for the ethnic cleansing. I should also mention that Zionists carried out this operation in secret worried that the British might see it as a move against them. And it was. It was deceitful to say the least.
4. Israel is now supporting Croatia against Bosnia. Croats murdered Jews in WW2. However, a small group of Bosnians went to Palestine to try and stop the ethnic cleansing in 1948. Zionists are nothing if not revengeful. As I said, Slav-wonna-bes have no self-control, they are a bunch of fanatics who want glory no matter whether they deserve it or not. Anyone who stands in their way is wrong and should be eliminated. So even though we defended Jews during WW2, Israel is against us, assisting Serbs and Croats. US court has decided that Israeli involvement in the war in Bosnia should be kept a secret. How many Zionists went to the US just before Hitler started killing?
In my view, these four points make Zionists look suspicious, but as I said, I am planning more research. For now, I’ll leave this as a mystery and focus on things we do know.
Suffering of Jews in World War 2 is used as a lesson for humanity. It prompted the invention of the Genocide Convention, protection of human life, respect for diversity, and encouraged equality. And rightly so. I wish we had all these good things before millions of Jews in Europe suffered fascism. I wish it as much as I wish I didn’t suffer at the hands of fascists. However, I and my people suffered at the hands of fascists only 50 years after the suffering of Jews, and we are also in Europe. So I must ask the question: Did the suffering of Jews in World War 2 teach us about humanity or is it there to make us fanatical about the existence of Israel?
Suffering of me and my people is often defined as ‘ethnic cleansing’. In fact, the book starts with the definition of ethnic cleansing. To me, it sounds like genocide. To me, the difference is all semantics.
Page 2 and 3 “The Hutchinson encyclopaedia defines ethnic cleansing as expulsion by force in order to homogenise the ethnically mixed population of a particular region or territory. The purpose of expulsion is to cause the evacuation of as many residence as possible, by all means at the expeller’s disposal, including non-violent ones, as happened with the Muslims in Croatia, expelled after the Dayton agreement of November 1995… The UN’s council for Human Rights (UNCHR) links a state’s desire to impose ethnic rule on a mixed area — such as making of Greater Serbia — with the use of acts of expulsion and other violent means. The report the UNCHR published defined acts of ethnic cleansing as including ‘separation of men from women, detention of men, explosion of houses’ and subsequently repopulating the remaining houses with another ethnic group… Drazen Petrovic has published one of the most comprehensive studies on the definitions of ethnic cleansing. He associates ethnic cleansing with nationalism, the making of a new nation states, and national struggle. From his perspective he exposes the close connection between politicians and the army in the preparation of the crime and comments on the place of massacres within it. That is, the political leadership delegates the implementation of the ethnic cleansing to the military level without necessarily furnishing any systematic plan or providing explicit instruction, but with no doubt as to the overall objective.”
Genocide Convention Article II: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; © Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
In short (and the way I understand it) for ethnic cleansing to be a genocide, the leadership of the killers has to be explicit in their intent. I.e. if the politicians and the army have a telepathic connection, then the murder and expulsion of one ethnic group is ethnic cleansing, but if they don’t have a telepathic connection, and therefore they have to articulate their intent, then it is genocide.
Bottom line is: A psychotic government decides to murder and force out a specific group of people. If you are a member of the group that should die, the pain is the same whether you’re a Jew, a Muslim, black, white, from here or there. I know this because I know the pain that people of Rwanda suffered during their genocide is the same as the pain the people of Bosnia suffered during our genocide.
But the pain of victims doesn’t stop here. Our legal system is such that the burden of evidence, i.e. proving this curtail intent, is on the victim. The victims of ethnic cleansing have to show that the killers intended to kill them. Ethnic cleansing, or genocide does not happen by accident. Intent, in my opinion, should be assumed when we see clear evidence of one group being murdered. The killers should be burdened with proving that it was not intended, that it just happened.
Furthermore, when it comes to the justice system, this isn’t the only problem. Punishment of murdering 1000s of people is far less than murdering one. I.e. crimes against humanity do not deserve a great punishment. We have a Croat dude in Bosnia (friend to the HDZ political party that is currently assisted by the German man in the Office of High Representative) who has served half his sentence, has returned to Bosnia, and has said that it was all worth it and he would do it again. Considering the protection of the HDZ, and the power the Germany is giving to HDZ, this murderer could do it all again. I mean, it’s enough to see what Croats have done in Croatia, what they have done in Bosnia in the past, Muslims in Bosnia should want them far, far away even without them saying they would do it again.
In short, as victims of ethnic cleansing in our own country, we do not feel like we have any special respect. Getting justice is one heck of a battle; as if it was created to be as hard on the victim and as easy as possible on the killers. In fact, our killers have been given power so that the victims, the survivors, have to be at the mercy of those who want them dead. It’s like living in a minefield. At the same time, we’re dealing with grief, fighting for justice for our loved ones who were killed, making a living for our loved ones who’ve survived, fixing the damage to our property that the killers caused, and we should clean up the mess that America caused with Dayton Peace Agreement by convincing those who want us dead that we should live together. To add insult to injury, Dayton Peace Agreement came when our army was strong enough to liberate us. So it was enforced to make sure we, the victims, don’t have any chance of having a normal life. (I wrote about this in the ‘lessons from Bosnia’, I’ll leave the links at the end for those who want to know more). As victims of crimes against humanity, we in Bosnia have been punished.
So far, it does not seem like the lessons from World War 2 are about humanity, does it? Humanity seems to be irrelevant. Even if we take into consideration the court cases and rulings. Sometimes, those seem more like a smokescreen rather than a fight for justice in the world.
This is where I’m supposed to say something about the ICC and ICJ, right? What can I say? Great idea needs great humans to come into being. That’s ICC/ICJ. We’ll know it works when there is more justice, less murder in the world. And it will start working when it gets great humans to bring it to life. While we live in a world where people know the value of justice but fail to practice it, expecting justice is naïve.
But then, let’s just consider the ‘power’ of Zionists in the world. Even back then, in 1948, when the events of this book took place, Zionists had power. It seems that even they were surprised by how much power they had, or rather the willingness of Europe and America to forget their own values and play along.
Page 26: “…Zionist leaders never discussed the possibility of any resistance from the local population: their chief concern was the British and, maybe, the international response. This is not accidental. The Zionist leadership was aware of the total collapse of the Palestinian leadership after the Second World War and the hesitant position of Arab states as a whole were displaying on the Palestinian question… But worse was to come as Europe prepared to compensate the Jewish people for the Holocaust that had raged on its soil with a state in Palestine, ignoring at the same time that this could only come about at the expense of the indigenous Palestinians.”
Page 191: “Ben-Gurion reports at one point to his government that he had secured French approval for such an operation (attack on West Bank which would have been in breach of the tacit Israeli-Transjordanian understanding), but that he was apprehensive of a possible British retaliation. As we all know, these plans were eventually reactivated in June 1967, when the Israeli government exploited Gamal Abdel Nasser’s brinkmanship policies to wage an attack on the West Bank as a whole.”
Page 203: “…on 11 November 1948, Red Cross officials reported dryly that POWs (Prisoners of War) were exploited in the general local effort to ‘strengthen the Israeli economy’. This guarded language was not accidental. Given its deplorable behaviour during the Holocaust, when it failed to report on what went on in Nazi camps, on which it was well informed, the Red Cross was careful in its reproach and criticism of the Jewish state. But at least their documents do shed light on the experiences of the Palestinians inmates, some of whom were kept in these camps until 1955.”
Page 235–236: “In mid-1949, the United Nations stepped in to try to deal with the bitter fruits of its 1947 peace plan. One of the UN’s first misguided decisions was not to involve the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) but to create a special agency for the Palestinian refugees. It was Israel and the Zionist Jewish Organisations abroad that were behind the decision to keep the IRO out of the picture: the IRO was the very same body that was assisting the Jewish refugees in Europe following the Second World War, and the Zionist organisations were keen to prevent anyone from making any possible association or even comparison between the two cases. Moreover, the IRO always recommended repatriation as the first option to which refugees were entitled.
This is how United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) came into being in 1950. UNWRA was not committed to the return of the refugees as the UN General Assembly Resolution 194, from 11 December 1948, had stipulated, but was set up simply to provide employment and subsidies the camps. It was also entrusted with building more permanent camps for them, constructing schools and opening medical centres. In other words, UNWRA was intended, in general, to look after the refugees’ daily concerns.”
Page 156–157: “Neither did help come from the UN observers, scores of whom roamed the country at close hand ‘observing’ the barbarisation and killings, but were unwilling, or unable, to do anything about them.
One United Nations emissary was different. Count Folke Bernadotte had arrived in Palestine on 20 May and stayed there until Jewish terrorists murdered him in September for having ‘dared’ to put forward a proposal to re-divide the country in half, and to demand the unconditional return of all the refugees. He had already called for the refugees’ repatriation during the first truce, which had been ignored, and when he repeated his recommendation in the final report he submitted to the UN, he was assassinated. Still, it is thanks to Bernadotte that in December 1948, the UN General Assembly posthumously adopted his legacy and recommended the unqualified return of all the refugees Israel had expelled, one of the host of UN resolutions Israel has systematically ignored. As president of the Swedish Red Cross, Bernadotte had been instrumental in saving Jews from the Nazis during the Second World War and this was why Israeli government had agreed to his appointment as a UN mediator: they had not expected him to try to do for the Palestinians what he had done for the Jews only a few years before.”
While I could quote huge chunks of this book, I think these five quotes show Israeli power in the world back then, and it has only increased over time. Plus, it shows how the world gave this power to Zionists.
1. They knew Palestinians were unable to offer any kind of resistance. This is what made Zionists feel powerful — going to war with unarmed population. It’s like the war in Bosnia when we were attacked by one of the more powerful armies in Europe, yet the world decided to give us arms embargo. Of course the Slav-wonna-bes (in this case Serbs) felt powerful.
2. Zionists had some concerns about the British and the international response, while Arab countries seem less than interested. As we all know, it’s not just lack of response to Israeli murder, the world assists Israeli murder. Why?
3. Europe compensated the Jewish victims of its atrocities by enabling atrocities to be carried out against Palestinians! How is this compensation? Why poor Palestine? And why would they be compensated with a country? As I mentioned, in Bosnia we are facing a Europe (and America) that refuses to let us have our country. Serbia and Croatia attacked Bosnia. To this day Serbian and Croat politicians talk about dividing the country. Not one has any Serbian or Croat politician spoken about unifying the country. Not once. They openly claim how they don’t want to live with other groups. Which any idiot can figure out from the way they were killing during the war. Serbs carried out a genocide. Now they claim how they don’t want to live with survivors. Serbia exists. No one will force them to move, but they are free to move if they wish. However, their objective is to destroy Bosnia. It is shocking to see how many diplomats around the world support them. Dayton Peace Agreement, written by Americans, denied us democracy we wanted, and gave power to those who want to destroy Bosnia. Bosnia is older than Serbia or Croatia, we’ve been here longer, yet we have to argue with Europe and America to just stop rewarding a genocide carried out against us with a country that we have had for longer than the idea of countries has existed. My theory (right or wrong) is that it’s all about the lobby. So I have to wonder was lobby behind this insane idea that Jews of Europe should be compensated with Palestine. Why not France? Germany? Even America?
4. ‘French approval secured’ — I’m guessing lobby was (yet again) at work? Lobby is probably the root of all evil at political level of this day and age. And the main force behind it seems to be the Zionist movement.
5. Israelis themselves couldn’t believe how much the British supported them.
6. Fanatical persistence is the key. I could write books about this. Croats in Bosnia are determined to turn Bosnia into Croatia. They are hell-bent on changing the Elections Act to make Bosnia even more undemocratic, but would give these Croats power, so their demand should have been ignored from the word go, yet they fanatically mention this every time they open their mouth. It is psychotic. It’s another tactic — talk about it until you drive normal people so crazy they either start a war or give you what you want. Either way, they win. This has to be stopped. Diplomacy has sunk so low, it’s like a parent giving into a spoiled little brat.
7. Exploitation of a policy (or an event) to get away with murder. We see that today where the attack on 07th October is used to excuse the genocide Israelis are carrying out in Gaza.
8. POWs! Israel had concentration camps, turned Palestinians into slave labour to strengthen their economy. Red Cross knew about this, yet failed to report because of the horrific mistake they made reporting the Nazi treatment of Jews in concentration camps. Maybe this mistake that Red Cross made during World War 2 was intentional? It is clear how it assisted Israel.
9. Israelis stole Palestinian land, killed and tortured Palestinians, then forced them to work so that Israel could have more money; probably to bribe corrupt politicians around the world. Some Palestinians were exploited like this for many years right after World War 2. The world did nothing to stop it.
10. Nazi camps can obviously be compared to the Israeli camps.
11. Why did the Red Cross repeat the mistake they made in World War 2? How many more times have they made such a mistake?
12. Zionists had the power to tell the UN not to involve IRO. IRO would have done more for Palestinians than UNWRA ever could. However, today, UNWRA is facing funding cuts. It is worse than denying refugees any funding. In fact, Palestinians were denied the rights of refugees afforded to all other groups of people, and now they are denied even basic help. What do we say to that?
13. Zionist had the power to order the UN to create an agency that doesn’t work towards honouring UN Resolutions. In fact, how many UN resolutions has Israel honoured? Only the ones that Israel has put forward in the first place? So the UN exists to serve Israel, and Israel has no responsibility to honour the UN in any way, shape, or form?
14. UN creates an agency that act as a screen. UNWRA is just an excuse so that the real needs of Palestinians can be ignored. It’s almost as if Palestinians didn’t have the right to be called refugees, to have that kind of status. This wouldn’t surprise me. Even today Israelis are refusing the reality of what they did in 1948. Serb do the same. Survivors of genocide in Srebrenica are still alive, we have court decision that it was a genocide, there is a big graveyard of people whose remains were discovered in mass graves, yet Serbs insists that there was no genocide. And this genocide took place in July 1995. No amount of evidence is good enough. Their fanatical persistence is present in their denial.
15. Israel is persistent in ignoring UN resolutions. So, even back then Israel had no respect for the UN, but they had power in the UN? And the UN continues to try and make some kind of agreement with Israel, hopes for their cooperation? Is the UN stupid?
16. Israel kills one of the most honourable international workers for peace and the only response from the leaders of the world is declarative support (that is obviously just declarative and has never come into being) for his recommendations.
17. Israelis kill a man who helped save Jews in World War 2 just because he believed in equality of human life! Isn’t this supposed to be one of our values? While we are using the brutal murder of Jews during World War 2 to learn the value of humanity, Zionists are not learning the same lesson. The strange thing is, our leaders have also failed to learn the lesson we’ve learned, but they seem to be very good at what Zionists are teaching.
I believe this shows that Zionists have had power in the world for many years now. And this doesn’t even mention how much money they get especially from the US. Sometimes it seems like Israel says it needs money, and the US is like ‘how much, is $14bil enough, would that be OK?’ So, while American citizens don’t have healthcare, huge amounts of their tax money goes to Israel. And it’s not just the US. Israel has managed to get money from everywhere.
Considering the power Zionist have in the world, has the world been affected? Have we all come to live in an environment that is increasingly Zionistic? Let’s take a look at some indicators:
Democracy — are we seeing a fall in democracy, one of our great values? I believe we are. What are your thoughts? Because, as we’ve seen, Israel has its own version of democracy that we would call apartheid.
Discrimination and inequality — This has also been on the rise. But then, apartheid is based on discrimination. In the case of Israel, we see it all over the place whether we talk about the dead or the living. In Balkan, Serbia and Croatia are honoured no matter what. The rest of us are heard only when we agree with Serbia and Croatia. Serbia attacks Kosovo, yet Kosovo is to blame and must work harder to give Serbia what Serbia wants. Same goes for Albania, Macedonia, and Bosnia is even worse because we are attacked by both Croatia and Serbia. As a result, people inclined to bow to Serbia and/or Croatia will be pushed into power. What kind of individuals are these do you think?
Lies and deception — Diplomacy is becoming all about who can lie better. Our governments are increasingly hiding facts. We are seeing manipulation of language to confuse the people, and then complain about lack of ‘strong leadership in democracy’. What is a ‘strong leadership’? Dictatorship? What are we talking about when we talk about ‘strong leadership’ and democracy? Not to mention lies as a tactic. Israel will launch a lie so they can divert attention. Palestinians (and Bosnians) are constantly wasting energy to prove the lies. Why? Because our leaders will trust liars. Where’s the self-respect? To trust a liar is an insult to yourself.
Irrational conclusions, unexamined thoughts and ideas — I’ve just listed one. The idea of ‘strong leadership’ sounds great. We should have a strong leadership. But what is that in a democracy? Can we stop putting democracy down by claiming that the leadership isn’t strong? Can we put some thought into this?
Words are losing their meaning — I’ve never seen someone abuse the meaning of words as much as Zionists abuse the meaning of words and I come from the Balkan. We have a whole bunch of Slav-wonna-bes yet they have failed to abuse language to the level that Zionists have done. ‘Never again’ is like a mantra in Western Europe and America. Yet they rewarded the victims of World War 2 by causing the same suffering to another innocent group. So WTF does their ‘never again’ mean? Have they even tried to honour that or are they full of BS?
Religious fanaticism — certainly on the rise. Some religious fanaticism is more obvious than another, but it seems we should turn against religions in general. I’m sure a whole bunch of Communists will be very excited about this.
Moral values — We are failing at our secular values like equality, WTF should I say about our moral values? One of the lessons from Bosnia, in the ‘Religion’ part is how people do not complain about religious differences, they complain about the lack to things that all religions have in common, things like: don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t cheat, don’t kill etc.
Justice — You’re likely to get more prison years if you kill one person in the UK, than if you kill hundreds or thousands somewhere else. When it comes to incentive to prevent mass murder, we have failed miserably.
Victimhood — the killers have become victims. We have no capacity to think about the real victims or survivors (the dead don’t speak so we don’t hear them) from the voice of the killers claiming they are the real victims. The shoot and cry strategy. It’s become a norm.
The power of complaints and accusations — Diplomacy has become all about who can complain the most, the longest, and the hardest. And if that leads to someone questioning the motives, throw accusations around. The power of accusations is ridiculous no matter if they are based on truth or not. And, usually, the worst accusations by these fanatics are based on lies.
Fanatical persistence — normal people are taught from a very early age to respect others (well, today, many parents are changing this because they don’t want their child to ever feel bad so when the child hurts another person the parents will bend backwards to excuse it and ‘defend their child’, leading to a human who lacks respect for others — but that’s off topic), out of this respect for others we will strive to look for alternatives, to compromise, to find a common ground when we want something. Fanatical persistence does not care for others. They will usually demand things that are damaging to others, but they don’t care. Their strategy is to just press on. It is shocking how often in diplomacy this strategy works. If we don’t change this, we are doomed.
Occupation — In Bosnia, it has already become something that is seen as fine. Serbia and Croatia are clearly occupying Bosnia, invading in every possible way, they will publish fake reports to make it look like Bosnia being occupied is a good thing, the EU and the US will fall for these reports (I’ve already mentioned trusting liars as a norm in the world of diplomacy), in fact, they’ll fall for anything Serb/Croat politicians and lobby tell them including Bosnia is a threat to the EU because of Muslims. Bosnia has 3 million people. Just over half of those are Muslims. That’s about 1.5 million Muslims. Most European countries have more Muslims than Bosnia. But Bosnia is a threat. Let alone that the EU has seen us, has learned for themselves that we are tolerant, that we want a secular country that doesn’t have a religion… Now that I think about it, this might be the problem. If we promote a world where countries don’t have religions, where people have religious freedoms, what would that mean for Israel? However, the truth is that religion was not created for countries. I wrote about this, so if you want to know more read the other article. The point is: Is occupation becoming something normal?
The list could go on, and please feel free to add your own indicators, I’ll stop here.
Is it any wonder that people around the world are saying that liberating Palestine makes them feel liberated? We don’t want to live in Zionistic society. We do not want to tolerate murder of innocent people. When we say ‘never again’, we mean it and hope to do all we can to honour that. We don’t want lies, deceit, insults, confusions, discrimination, corruption and such.
We want to uphold our values of justice, rule of law, and equality.
We want mass murder to be the worst of crimes.
We want the truth.
Enough of the Zionistic power over us. We’ve never agreed to that. We agree to protect Jews, and all others, and we can do that by honouring our values. Why are our governments forcing us to support something that is completely against all our values? Because they claim to be Jewish? So any idiot can convert to Judaism and secure the support of our government? How is that keeping Jews safe? Or any of us?
And for crying out loud, Britain must insist on some sort of gratitude and respect from Zionists. So should America and the UN. Stop just serving them fanatically. We’ve given the impression that we’ll serve anyone. If we serve anyone, we might just be serving those who are completely against all our values.
These are my thoughts and I take full responsibility. It has nothing to do with the author of the book, Ilan Pappe. I highly recommend the book. I think it is exceptionally well researched and informative.
I’ll be doing a series of articles based on books about Israel — I’m tired of adverts about Israel, I want to know the truth. And it seems like many people out there want me to know Israel. I’m not sure they want me to know the truth about Israel, I think they are hell-bent on forcing me to believe the BS in their little adverts. Hence they’ve poked the rebel in me, I’ve started reading all sorts of books, and now I am no longer interested in the fancy blah-blah about how Israel is great.
I don’t know how often I’ll be publishing these articles, as it depends on the book, and some books are so full of information it’s hard to put it in an article. This book is one of those. It is so informative, I’ve struggled to wrap my head around it. I hope I’ve done the book some justice.