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Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 1.
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Saturday, 25th September 2010
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission: Israel “expelled Arabs” across Palestine in 1948
In a little noticed article on page 19 of the September 1 edition of Maariv, the Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, assailed the actors and artists who have refused to perform at the theater in the Jewish settlement of Ariel. As a proud advocate of Greater Israel and professed friend of even the most fanatical members of the settlement enterprise (see his remarks at the recent funeral of murdered settlers in Kiryat Arba), Rivlin’s attack would not have been significant if he hadn’t revealed some uncomfortable facts in the process.
Seemingly lost in his anger at the lefty artists, Rivlin conceded that the founders of Israel, the cream of the kibbutznikim, had carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing to a massive degree. “I say to those who want to boycott – Deer Balkum ['beware' in Arabic],” Rivlin said to Maariv. “Those who expelled Arabs from En-Karem, from Jaffa, and from Katamon [in 1948..] lost the moral right to boycott Ariel.”
So according to one of the most powerful politicians in Israel, the official story of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which denies that Palestinians were forced from their homes in 1948 (they “abandoned their homes…at the request of Arab leaders,” the ministry’s website claims), is false. The Nakba happened after all.
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Message 2
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 25th September 2010
ShaneONeal
You may know the gentleman better than me, but personally I have tried to avoid taking things said in anger (which you say this was) as more than an indication of the emotion that it was chosen to convey..
And I am not sure that such an outburst could be taken as revealing "facts". I do not see that this statement would be inconsistent with Jewish settlers arranging by proxy for Palestinians to leave their homes..
A woman in the USA was executed a couple of days ago for getting some men to kill her husband and stepson.
Moreover David Camerons' gaff this year when he referred to the Alliance between the UK and the USA in 1940 shows that current political leaders do not necessarily know their history.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 3
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Sunday, 26th September 2010
Good research Shane.
David Ben Gurion, then Chairman of the Jewish Agency (1937), rather gave the game away when he argued that Zionism could not achieve its aims by buying little tracts of Palestinian land, but would need to engage in wholesale "population transfer" (forced ethnic cleansing of Arab Palestinians, in modern parlance) if Israel was ever to be more than a dream.
The cleansing duly happened, Israel was born.
See:
and
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Message 4
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 26th September 2010
U32
You may well be right.. But "population transfer" also applied to the clearing of Britain's slums by moving the people into supposedly better accommodation in keeping with the ideas of Robert Owen's "New Society": and also to the partitions of India with 20 million people deciding to move into or out of the new Muslim state.
As I have said before this was part of the global nature of a very instable and chaotic age; as demonstrated by the changing nature of the UK since the forties.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 5
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Sunday, 26th September 2010
We are with Robert Bolt's depiction of the dilemma of Sir Thomas More here: If the Earth is flat and the Pope declares it to be round, what is the Truth?
That fact that somebody does not make it true or false.
The precise events of the niqab have been argued over by reputable scholars and their works have been published. You cannot just pick the authors you agree with from the shelf and say "See! I'm right!"
One thing is clear: The Holy Land suffers from far too much History, and the solution to its problems lies in the best outcomes for future generations, a peaceful and prosperous Middle East built on good relations between all states in the region and beyond, not in the tedious desires of Judean Peoples Front types to right the perceived wrongs of the past however painful they were at the time.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 6
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Sunday, 26th September 2010
tedious desires of Judean Peoples Front types to right the perceived wrongs of the past however painful they were at the time.
We are not dealing with a tedious episode of 'yesteryear'.
The Palestinians are still being displaced, now, as we type:
see:
By tomorrow morning Israeli hotheads will probably be calling for yet more illegal West-Bank settlements.
All this might seem very tedious to you. For people of your grand-father's generation there were probably many who said,
"Lvov ghetto, Warsaw ghetto, who cares; not much we can do about the German encirclement"Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 7
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Sunday, 26th September 2010
Cass (4)
But "population transfer" also applied to the clearing of Britain's slums by moving the people into supposedly better accommodation in keeping with the ideas of Robert Owen's "New Society"..
Really!? That analogy is laughable.
Owen was a reformer trying to improve conditions for the poor of his own nation.
The Israelis are (in the main) incoming settlers who wish to drive people from their homeland.
They aim to "steal it" as Ben Gurion admitted, see page 393 of Benny Morris, "1948". Yale Uni Press.
also to the partitions of India with 20 million people deciding to move into or out of the new Muslim state.
That's more to the point, a bloody carnage in which millions died, the after-shocks of which, rumble on today.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 8
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) ** on Sunday, 26th September 2010
There are hundreds of families from Northern Ireland who were burned out of their homes there in August 1969. The UK has still not returned those people to their houses.
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Message 9
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Sunday, 26th September 2010
The Palestinians are still being displaced, now...
...Yes. The only way to stop that is to support the peace process and the two-state solution which will hopefully end with the only way a Palestinian state will ever be economically viable, by its trading with Israel as its principle import and export market and supplier of most of its services.
The Holy Land is overdosing on History. Banging on about 1948 helps no one.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 10
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 26th September 2010
U32
If my analogy is "laughable" then so is your assumption that a "population transfer" can mean only one thing: or perhaps you have never actually been involved in any responsible action that involves trying to make reality work. Life involves a great deal of fitting square pegs into round holes.
Actually I am not sure that the Welsh Owen thought himself of the same nation as the slum dwellers of Glasgow: and what he was showing above all else was how he made his New Lanark Mills a great commercial success. I dare say that recruiting the "lowest of the low" and accommodating them in something like military barracks on the mill site proved very sound economics.After all what he was offering was a much cheaper solution to poverty than paying outdoor relief.
Unfortunately the whole concept of "nations" and "nation states" was associated with this idea of shuffling people around because more of less no existing state actually fitted the concept.. This was dealt with by Dr.Julian Huxley in an article "Race in Europe" in 1939.
And so the Jewish nationalism that emerged at the same time as other ones- German, Italian, Irish, Scottish etc-- inevitably involved moving from the status quo. But the idea of the nation state was central to the attempts to settle both world wars : and the "United Nations" was set up as a club for those who have managed to achieve that particular status- thus making "nation state status" still something to be fought for and over.
It goes along with a culture of ownership and rights, rather than one of responsibilities and duties to "the brotherhood of man".
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 11
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Monday, 27th September 2010
I have to side with U32 on this.
To compare deliberate mass expulsion from the country to slum clearance is pushing the use of words beyond their limits.
It is also bizarre to justify expulsions in Palestine because similar expulsions occurred in Pakistan. Both of these were clear examples of ethnic cleansing. A crime is a crime wherever it occurs.
The waters are muddied in Palestine by the fact that SOME Palestinians obeyed an instruction to leave from their own leaders, whilst others were forced out at bayonet point. Both groups would have been aware of massacres carried out by Jews (though, note, I do not deny there were killings by Arabs as well). They would also have known that the Arabs were losing the war, and that further massacres were not only likely, but likely to be worse.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 12
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 27th September 2010
Tim Track
I did not compare them. I merely pointed out that words have various meanings in various contexts.
During the Reign of Terror it was apparently quite standard for the citizen judge to pronounce "Set Madame/Monsieur Free".. At which they were escorted to the street door, and murdered out in the street.
And just looking at the pictures of Jewish settlements in disputed land, presumably there would be no objection from the Palestinians should any agreement result in the population movement of the present Jewish occupants out of these buildings and there being taken over by Palestinians.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 13
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Monday, 27th September 2010
I did not compare them
If you were not comparing them I see no reason to mention it at all unless you are making some useless semantic point.
should any agreement result in the population movement of the present Jewish occupants out of these buildings and there being taken over by Palestinians.
That would depend on which particular settlements we are talking about. International law, as recognised by the UK government regards many such settlements as illegal. Reversing an illegality is in no way the same as removing populations from lands held by people since time immemorial.
Removing illegal settlers is not much different than expelling squatters from your home, at least in principle.
And, yes, I do recognise that reality may be somewhat more difficult, both in defining ilegality, and in the human cost of such an exercise. But, if human cost was ever a consideration, we would not be where we are with regards to Palestine.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 14
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) ** on Monday, 27th September 2010
Both of these were clear examples of ethnic cleansing. A crime is a crime wherever it occurs.
So that's Israel and Palestine and India and Pakistan told - for their actions in the 1940s.
International law, as recognised by the UK government regards many such settlements as illegal.
So what's the UK's excuse with regard to the violent, ethnically-based, population displacements within the UK during the 1960s?Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 15
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 27th September 2010
Tim Track
The matter arose because there was an assumption that the words could only mean one thing..
I am not sure that this applies to very many words in English.
And a population transfer or movement may happen whether it is legal or not. Whenever a population moves for whatever reason- as for example I have mentioned before when the world was awash with refugees. there is a population movement or transfer.
As for "human cost", I think that one can not discount the sense of guilt, reparations and atonement that was such a feature of the post-war world generally after a war that had killed 55 million people- and caused massive destruction.
Clearly this affected both the attitude of Jewish people to their own fate and the attitude of the "international community" towards taking really decisive action now when it was too late to do anything to save the six million who had died in the Holocaust.
If only it was possible to calculate happiness and sorrow as Jeremy Betham postulated.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 16
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 27th September 2010
Further to the question of the use of language- I go back often to this phrase in the official history of the Soviet Communist Party:
"The Red Army was used in every conceivable way to educate the peasants politically".
This was how it described the elimination of the kulaks.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 17
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Monday, 27th September 2010
So that's Israel and Palestine and India and Pakistan told - for their actions in the 1940s.
Are you trying to make a point ?
So what's the UK's excuse with regard to the violent, ethnically-based, population displacements within the UK during the 1960s?
Again, I am not sure of your point.
Northern Ireland does not excuse the actions of another group elsewhere.
There are, of course, some similiaritites. Both situations involved two ethnic groups, for whatever reason, resorting to violent methods to remove another group from their locality. In the case of Israel, a clear winner emerged, un-like NI.
But the UK government did not remove Catholics, any more than they removed Protestants, who were also burnt out. Neither did the British state refuse to allow displaced Catholics the right to return to ANY part of Britain. British Catholics from NI remain welcome to live in ANY part of the UK. Their nationality is not in question (well, not by the British government). The government, however, has not been able to contain the violence of either side. That is a very different thing.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 18
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Monday, 27th September 2010
A bit of historical context: at the same time as Arabs were being forced out of Israel a similar number of Jews were forced out of the neighbouring Arab states.
The expelled Jews became Israeli citizens, while the expelled Arabs became permanent asylum seekers, forced to live in refugee camps in order to embarrass Israel.
Meanwhile in the rest of the world: ethnic Germans were forced out of Eastern Europe and Poles out of Russia, and Hindus and Muslims were forced from their homes as part of the post-colonial partition of India
If one of these is ethnic cleansing then so are all the rest.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 19
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
at the same time as Arabs were being forced out of Israel a similar number of Jews were forced out of the neighbouring Arab states.
You are trying to skirt round the fact that Israel did not exist until and unless the Palestinians had been 'forced out'.
Jews were expelled from Arab countries as an act of revenge.
The two events were not simultaneous as you imply.
One CAUSED the other.
Germans were treated badly immediately after WW2 not because of 'bad luck' or amazing coincidence, but because their forces had acted like shameless arrogant psychopaths and there wasn't a lot of sympathy for them.
The Palestinians did not cause Auschwitz, remember?Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 20
Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
Israel did not exist until and unless the Palestinians had been 'forced out'.
Not true. Jews had been settling in Israel since the late 19th century. After WW1 there were several unsuccessful attempts to divide up the region fairly between Jews & Arabs.
Meanwhile the Arab population of Palestine more than doubled due to the economic opportunities created by Jewish settlement and land clearance. The 'ethnic cleansing'/Nakba followed the war of 1948 which was of course started by Arab states that wanted to destroy Israel.
Jews were expelled from Arab countries as an act of revenge.
The two events were not simultaneous as you imply.
One CAUSED the other.
This may be true but persecution of Jews in these countries goes back long before 1948, including pogroms that led thousands of Jews to leave those countries for Israel. My point was to compare the way Jewish & Palestinian refugees were treated by the countries they went to.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 21
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) ** on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
Both of these were clear examples of ethnic cleansing. A crime is a crime wherever it occurs. So that's Israel and Palestine and India and Pakistan told - for their actions in the 1940s. Are you trying to make a point ?
Yes. To see if the same criteria which are expected of those countries are also expected of the UK.
International law, as recognised by the UK government regards many such settlements as illegal. So what's the UK's excuse with regard to the violent, ethnically-based, population displacements within the UK during the 1960s? Again, I am not sure of your point.
Northern Ireland does not excuse the actions of another group elsewhere.
There are, of course, some similiaritites. Both situations involved two ethnic groups, for whatever reason, resorting to violent methods to remove another group from their locality. In the case of Israel, a clear winner emerged, un-like NI.
But the UK government did not remove Catholics, any more than they removed Protestants, who were also burnt out. Neither did the British state refuse to allow displaced Catholics the right to return to ANY part of Britain. British Catholics from NI remain welcome to live in ANY part of the UK. Their nationality is not in question (well, not by the British government). The government, however, has not been able to contain the violence of either side. That is a very different thing.
This is the point. The UK always seems to be at the front of the queue when it comes to condemning other countries regarding ‘crimes’ and pompously citing ‘international law’. But when the shoe is on the other foot, and it is the UK which is under the spotlight, then there are always plenty of excuses given.
For example those people burned out of their homes were obviously not allowed to return to ‘any part of the UK’ otherwise they would have immediately returned to the very homes they were driven out of. They didn’t.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 22
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
"otherwise they would have immediately returned to the very homes they were driven out of. They didn’t."
They'd have been burnt out again. Besides they were all resettled in the city not far from where they were 'cleansed', not so the Palestinians who were forced out of their country into neighbouring countries.
They should be allowed to return home; one day they will - perhaps when the US and Europe decide to uphold the democratic and civil rights ideals they profess to hold dear...Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 23
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
There I was thinking that the reference was to the fire bombing of English-owned properties in Wales.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 24
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
It would if the Welsh were driven out of their country by a foreign invasion, had their homes demolished over their heads, and had their land taken by foreign settlers.
All overseen by the worlds only superpower support meakly by quisling European poodles.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 25
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) ** on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
they were all resettled in the city not far from where they were 'cleansed'
All of them? So none went to live in Craigavon or Larne or Downpatrick etc? And none went to live in the Republic of Ireland or Scotland or England or Wales etc? And none went to live in America or Canada or Australia or New Zealand etc?Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 26
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Tuesday, 28th September 2010
Indeed they went to all these countries, but they are FREE to RETURN to their country if and when they please. See the difference?
Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 27
Posted by Andrew Host (U1683626) ** on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
Hi all,
I'm happy to leave this discussion open for members to discuss the the history of the Middle East - however I do ask you to steer clear of solely discussing the present-day situation as current affairs debate is off-topic for these boards.
Many thanks
AndrewLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 28
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
Just looking at Bruno Bettelheim again for something that I am writing and noting that the founders of the 'kibbutz' in the inter-war period had to post guards to keep night vigils against Arab attacks..
My classroom experience is that the "he started it first" approach very rarely gets one very far.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 29
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
Still searching for the general context, perhaps one could compare the 'kibbutz' movement and the Jewish settlements in British mandated Palestine to the contemporary migration away from European/British cities into the "White Highlands" of Kenya..
This was variously associated with the "Great Groundnut Scheme" but also with the potential for investment in coffee growing.. Thus inward investment created meaningful permanent land use, the development of transport infrastucture and all that meant about access to "civilisation" and paid employment for whole families.
But what appeared to be "wilderness" was often land that the Kikuyu tribe had traditionally used in either of those African farming systems that involved impermanence of settlement- pastoralism which involved exhausting pastures and moving on or back to fresh pastures, or slash and burn where an area of scrub was cleared and then used for a period of ten years of so.
The Kikuyu resented the loss of lands that they had used traditionally and this "White" idea of permanent ownership and in depth development. This developed into Mau Mau terrorism in which isolated "white" households had to be permanently be on their guard against night attacks with arson and murder. Given the superior military force at the disposal of the settlers the use of that force in those circumstances also produced attrocities as the British tried to suppress Mau Mau terrorism.
For a long time Kenya was held up as an example of how such tragedies can yet have happy endings.
And I suppose President Obama would second that.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 30
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
Bad things happen in history, and this is one of those situations....
It does seem a bit of a waste of time to discuss whether Israel were right to take the land from the Palestinians or not. We may as well discuss whether Europe was right to conquer most of the world over the past five centuries.
The problem lies in finding a solution to these historical problems that suit both sides as best as possible. I've tried hard to stay within Andrew's guidelines of avoiding talking about the present-day situation as much as possible.
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Message 31
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
posted by ShaneONeal
Indeed they went to all these countries, but they are FREE to RETURN to their country if and when they please. See the difference?
Interesting in this concern might be the article from the Irish Times about Irish Citizenship:
Sounds a bit complicated, but understandable for the right to be "FREE to RETURN to their country if and when they please." Most interesting when it comes to Irish descent people, living since generations in countries Vizzer mentioned. If some person do nut fulfill the conditions to get Irish citizeship, he/she can only "return" to Ireland as a foreign national. Sometimes a bit tricky, because some of those families are more Australian, American, and so on than considering themselves as being Irish. What a mess for them, if they can´t claim for Irish citizenship.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 32
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
Thomas (31)
Most interesting when it comes to Irish descent people, living since generations in countries Vizzer mentioned. If some person do nut fulfill the conditions to get Irish citizeship, he/she can only "return" to Ireland as a foreign national. Sometimes a bit tricky, because some of those families are more Australian, American, and so on than considering themselves as being Irish. What a mess for them, if they can´t claim for Irish citizenship.
What has any of that waffle got to do with the middle east?
Please read Andrew's message 27 about staying on topic.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 33
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
U3280211,
Already cheered up yourself, eh?
If you want to find out what that - as you said - "waffle" got to do with the middle east, consider what is behind the principles running through the posts in this thread.
You could read the article, for a change.
From now on, as for you haven´t a nickname, I´ll call you "Unhold" if you agree to this.
Awaiting your comment.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 34
Posted by Andrew Host (U1683626) ** on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
Hi all,
A reminder to everyone to make sure you keep things civil. It would do no-one justice should this descend into a tit-for-tat.
Many thanks
AndrewLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 35
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Wednesday, 29th September 2010
"It does seem a bit of a waste of time to discuss whether Israel were right to take the land from the Palestinians or not. We may as well discuss whether Europe was right to conquer most of the world over the past five centuries."
Presumably we can all agree that it is always wrong to force people out of their homes and expell them from their country, and when those people are able to return safely to their country they are legally entitled to do so.
Important to point out tht many of those expelled are still alive.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 36
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Thursday, 30th September 2010
"Presumably we can all agree that it is always wrong to force people out of their homes and expell them from their country, and when those people are able to return safely to their country they are legally entitled to do so.
Important to point out tht many of those expelled are still alive."
Or perhaps some here disagree with the above?Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 37
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Thursday, 30th September 2010
ShaneONeal,
It depends always on the circumstances and the conditions of the country the people would like to to turn back and on the fact to which county their former home belongs in the present. In many cases, your suggestion would cause more international trouble than it would be worth, let alone in Central and East Europe.
I can´t decide whether to agree or to disagree with you in general. I can just agree on the term "it is always wrong to force people out of their homes and expell them from their country" in general as a principle, but even in this there is to be pay attention on the circumstances that led to such measures.
Your statement doesn´t include the people who left their homes and country to flee the theatre of war, because they were not expelled, they were forced to leave by the circumstances of war to safe their own lives. Same effect, but different ways.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 38
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 30th September 2010
Shane
There is also the question of just what constitutes (A)- "a home".. many people have homes that they have no permanent right to.. This is the case of our son.
And (B) the question of just what has been done to establish the status of their country and their status within it... Again our son worries us a great deal, especially should he starts a family for he could offer any child no material security.
William Cobbett was very aware as a teenager of just how much he owed to generations of Englishfolk who had handled the complexities of keeping England a strong and united country- when it needed to be.. It was this English tradition of "doing one's duty" allied with the tradition of "Good naturedness" that Lord Clarendon referred to, and what Europe of the Enlightenment admired as English pragmatism.. Unfortunately the whole "human rights" argument undermined these fundamental secrets of English success.
For example in one of the first speeches of the Second Viscount Palmerston in the Commons in the early 1770's he asserted the the Crown had a clear RIGHT to tax the American colonies, but that those with the power to enforce their rights are often best advised to take into consideration the feelings of the other party.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 39
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 30th September 2010
Further to my last and this question of "one's country" - and at the risk of being misunderstood:-
Today's news about the burden that the Irish Republic now faces over maintaining the support that it has had to give to the banking sector is a reminder that countries that were founded for political and nationalist reasons may face a diifficult hundred -or few hundred -years in practice...
Even Germany in spite of, or perhaps because of, its great power is no exception to the rule.
The EU has served to smooth over and obviate some of the worst problems since 1945, but the difficulties faced by many of the weaker states in the financial crisis of the Autumn of 2008 highlights the problem of this idea that a nation must have, somehow deserves, a state..
As I wrote at that time, it is the job of the nation to supply the strength to the State, and not for the State to bolster the nation.
Hence I felt that the 100% guarantee offered by the Irish Government to all deposits in Irish banks gave a terrible indication of weakness. It assumed that the Irish people were not capable of bearing any share of the risk. They may have been right: and others have explained to me that the weakness of the economy of the Republic has a great deal to do with British under-investment (or worse) during the years that Ireland was in the UK.
But it was also around that time that an Irish near neighbour settled in London for 40 years, told me having visited 'back home', that she was disgusted to find that, while the Irish economy was booming thanks to EU development funds, now that there were taxes to pay in order to give those benefits to others, she found that "everybody" was constantly changing their names in order to avoid paying taxes..
No-one on the MB has as yet confirmed or disproved this piece of hearsay... But it would be an example of the way that modern citizens generally are encouraged to think of what is due to them, and not what is due from them...
"Ask not what your country can do for you...etc" JFK
Be that as it may, to create a State purely as a matter of principle and ideology is to try to build a future on dreams alone. And making a working state takes realism and responsibility-- which could bring me back to Proportional Representation- that often leaves the majority a "hostage to fortune".
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 40
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Friday, 1st October 2010
"It depends always on the circumstances and the conditions of the country the people would like to to turn back and on the fact to which county their former home belongs in the present."
English not your first langauge eh, Thomas B? i think I understand your comment but I don't feel that there are any circumstances in which innocent people could or should be turned out of their homes and their property taken by invaders, this I find to be completely criminal.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 41
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Monday, 4th October 2010
ShaneONeal
... but I don't feel that there are any circumstances in which innocent people could or should be turned out of their homes and their property taken by invaders, this I find to be completely criminal.
Well, that´s just your opinion, but history has plenty of examples where this happened and yet it isn´t to see an end of it.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 42
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Monday, 4th October 2010
No doubt that is true but it doesn't make it right, the Palestinians should be allow to return home...
Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 43
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 4th October 2010
Further to Thomas' point- the inter-war period which witnessed initially the greatest experiment in the rejection of violence, war, and force brute, also then produced World Chaos and then arguably most violent and brutal episode in the whole of history.
It has been pointed out many times that the success of Gandhian non-violence was based upon what Gandhi had seen and taken part in in the UK as a student- namely the power of moral indignation stirred up by media campaigns within a context within which the humane treatment- especially of women and children- within any kind of civilized society was an unquestioned "law of nature".
It was the failure of the Nazis to recognize this that made the British people accept the need for a war for Christian Civilization on which those ideas of civilized conduct were largely based.
But the Victorian dream of Christianizing both the world and Britain remained unfullfilled, and we face a modern reality in which selfishness and self-interest seems to dominate the internal affairs of "The West", while other Non-Christian traditions and ideas about the rights of individual, and the group in its relations to other individuals, provide much of the dynamic force.
Hence, while "The West" is trying to cope with its Decline and Fall through investing in areas of economic dynamism, those areas are much more likely to be basing their judgements and world view upon their own strand of history- be they Jewish, Arab, Islamic, Hindu, or Chinese.
Events in Tibet have shown, for example, that the Chinese attitude to 'civil disobedience' and human rights is very different, because of the longstanding Chinese priority given to obedience, respect for all authority, and duty. On the basis of a fairly brief flowering of Western Civilization people in such regions have very little cause to regard our judgements and arbitrations as having any real significance.
D.H.Lawrence saw all of this modern industrial age as a kind of cancerous growth that was covering over the Earth: and in the end of "The Rainbow" he saw it all being peeled away to reveal a fresh new creation.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 44
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Monday, 4th October 2010
posted by ShaneONeal
No doubt that is true but it doesn't make it right, the Palestinians should be allow to return home...
Following what might be right or wrong, you could go back in history for several thousend years.
This all can be only soleved in an peace process with an lasting peace in which the Palestinians at first have to stop their assults on Israel.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 45
Posted by ShaneONeal (U14303502) on Tuesday, 5th October 2010
"Following what might be right or wrong, you could go back in history for several thousend years. "
Its not about 'several thousands of years' its about people who were thrown out of their homes recently and are not allowed to return.
If your neighbour was turfed out his home by the mafia, would you stand before him spouting nonsense about 'several thousands of years'? You would surely support him in his efforts to take back his home and his life; stop supporting fascism and start supporting the weak and vulnerable.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 46
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 5th October 2010
Shane ONeal
The trouble with that is that for those of us who watched the Six Day War from a distance it looked like the Israelis were presumed to be the "weak and vulnerable" when all of the surrounding Arab states set out to crush Israel and destroy it..
Perhaps it was an unfortunate moment to have the live conflict and the killings right before our eyes at "an impressionable age"- But the attitude to Israel -like the militarism of resurgent Germany in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries- must be understood in terms of their history of being attacked. All of the Arab states that launched that war face a responsibility for creating a "fortress mentality", but it often seems that insecure nature of their own governmental systems makes it difficult or impossible to take the kind of action that would help to resolve the Palestinian issue. Perhaps they respect the Bible enough to have picked up the political stratagem of washing one hands of a problem.. But as I have said the British Government perhaps did some hand washing too.
I pick out the 1967 war because it really does seem to have been a watershed.. In the summer of 1960 we played lots of volley ball with a group of young men from the Lebanon at a time when it really seemed to be a gem in the Eastern Mediterranean. But things changed. In 1967-8 I had a bedsit in a house with an upstairs neighbour from Iran/Persia who was studying architecture. She was really enjoying the Swinging Sixties, and I recall one young man having to scramble out of her back window when her brother called unexpectedly..(not me) Close call. If he had found the young man,she explained he might have cut her throat.
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 47
Posted by Thomas_B (U1667093) on Wednesday, 6th October 2010
ShaneONeal,
I recently came across this:
I haven´t finished to read the whole of this document, but it kept me interested because there are many links to historical matters in NI, from where you are and where you live (that´s what I´ve noticed).
I´ve set up that link just to show you how your principles would had its affects on the sensitive situation in NI, because there were times in Ireland, when people were as well driven from their homes and nobody didn´t care, except the Irish Republicans, about those Irish people. The document brings up the opinions from the Unionists side, which is quite another point of view as those opinions I´ve read since I´m interested in Ireland and its history. The sources about Irish matters are either from history books or the opinions from the Republican side.
It´s just as well as an example to your referring to the "recently driven people" in Palestine. What is the meaning of "recently"? Is it referring to an period of 50, 60, 80 or 100 years, or is it just to the past 10 years, maybe shorter in time?
Its not about 'several thousands of years' its about people who were thrown out of their homes recently and are not allowed to return.
What about the driven Irish people in NI with their right to return? In addition to that question, would they at all be interested to return into a nighbourhood they left during the trouble years?
If your neighbour was turfed out his home by the mafia, would you stand before him spouting nonsense about 'several thousands of years'? You would surely support him in his efforts to take back his home and his life; stop supporting fascism and start supporting the weak and vulnerable.
The mafia is none of my business, it´s the police´s business, so what´s your point there?
I know at least a couple of some troublemakers in neighbourhoods for them I wouldn´t move a little finger to help them.
I´m not supporting fascism, because what you accusing me hereby is utter nonsense. I try to see the matters more different and that´s alone not easy to paint the pros and contras in black and white.
Your comments are made here in general terms, but in its meaning, it only supports your sticking by the Palestinian topic.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 48
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Wednesday, 6th October 2010
Thomas
there were times in Ireland, when people were as well driven from their homes and nobody didn´t care, except the Irish Republicans, about those Irish people. The document brings up the opinions from the Unionists side, which is quite another point of view as those opinions I´ve read since I´m interested in Ireland and its history. The sources about Irish matters are either from history books or the opinions from the Republican side.
The topic of this thread is about the barely concealed anti-Palestinian prejudices of the Knesset speaker.
You are German, is that right?
You have had the astounding 'chutzpah' to give me a lecture on the dangers of anti-semitism. You have told me how important it is to be nice to the Jews of Israel, however their state came into being. You showed yourself completely unable to justify your prejudices on that topic, when challenged to produce data.
My uncle was one of the first British troops to enter Bergen-Belsen.
Now you are trying to give Shane a lecture on Northern Ireland and the 'troubles'. Beams and notes come to mind. (See Bible, Mathew, 7:5)
However bad the troubles were (or may yet become) they pale into insignificance against the backdrop of Auschwitz and Belsen.
Stick to the OP or open your own thread on Northern Ireland, if you have a genuinne interest in the topic.
Please, no more of this nonsense.
Der Unhold.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 49
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 6th October 2010
U32
I must say that I regret the tenor of your last post. I think that it brought you and your efforts to air issue of your conecern no credit.
As I understand it for most of its time Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp for Germans who did not fit in with the Nazis view of what Germans "should be", though by the time that the Allies got there the population had been swollen by "death marches" from the Extermination and Labour camps further East.
And, of course, there were people whose families who had managed to get out of Germany before 1939 who were as keen as anybody else to rid their country of Nazism.
I know that Thomas was not born until several decades after those years. But no doubt like many Germans he is left with the lessons of a period when totalitarian power was in the hands of people with an essentially very childlike and simplistic view of the world.
As for "lecturing" I get the impression that it is rather others who are seeking to impose upon Thomas and make presumptions about what he thinks- as he refuses to do as he is requested.
As for his bringing up other places, I think that Shane has been as responsible as anyone for introducing the idea that certain general laws of conduct, or judgement exist that can be applied to the Palestinian issue.
That is often the case with moral indignation.. One does not need to understand the "whys and wherefores" because the truth is "self-evident".
CassLink to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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Message 50
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Wednesday, 6th October 2010
Cass
I must say that I regret the tenor of your last post
I do not. Tell Thomas how much you value his un-evidenced waffle, by all means.
As I understand it for most of its time Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp for Germans who did not fit in with the Nazis view of what Germans "should be", though by the time that the Allies got there the population had been swollen by "death marches" from the Extermination and Labour camps further East.
You are correct in all particulars. Fascist Germans killed Jews and anyone else who dared to disagree with them.
If you wish to forget that atrocity, feel free.Link to this forum: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin’s admission
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