Why is the alleged voluntary temporary departure of Palestinians even an argument?
"They left of their own free will, so now let them face the consequence."
A civilian is by definition one who doesn't wish to stay in a place that is soon going to become a battlefield, or that is in all likelihood next on the path of creeping terrorist militias who blow up sleeping villagers at night en masse.
In any other part of the world, being a civilian who leaves his home for fear of a looming war, hoping to return once the war is over, makes you a regular refugee with all the rights a civilian refugee, including the right of return, because that's what a refugee is; THATS' HOW REFUGEES ARE MADE REFUGEES.
In Israel's book however, it apparently makes those civilians sinister Jew-killers, because by removing their civilian bodies from the battlefield, they increased the odds that the victim of an Arab soldier's fire will be a Jewish soldier: "They left to make way for Arab soldiers to engage Jewish soldiers instead of staying and acting as a deterrent (human shield) against those Arab soldiers? To hell with them." Or maybe because in their hearts, the fleeing Palestinian civilians were hoping for their side to win, as if any civilian ever hoped for the enemy's army to win.
And what difference does it make if there was some organization to this civilian flight from the soon-to-be battlefield?
In what moral universe does the alleged role of a military in coordinating the evacuation of their civilians from a battlefield strip those civilians of their civilian rights?
There is no symmetry. Where else in the world does “having a history” in some land in the distant past give one national rights to that land over its current and long time inhabitants?
Even assuming that Jews are a race (which is exactly what the Nazis wanted us to believe), how does that give them rights over a land some of whose inhabitants where of that race a long long time ago? Do the British have the right to establish a national homeland in Germany because the Saxons came from there, or in France because some of their ancestors were Franks?
Do all Aryan peoples in Europe, the Americas, and India have a right to establish a national homeland in southern Russia because that’s where they supposedly came from thousands of years ago? Why don’t native Americans have a right to china and eastern Russia because they supposedly originated there 12000 years ago?
However, Jews claiming “national rights” to Palestine is in fact more like Japanese Buddhists claiming national rights to India (because Siddharta was from India) or like Mexican Catholics claiming the right to establish a “national homeland” in Italy because of the historical connection of “The Catholic People” to the Vatican, or like african American protestants from Georgia claiming national rights to Germany because Protestantism bagan there.
Heck if you are right, why shouldn’t all of us who believe in the values of Democracy, pack up and go colonize Greece and establish a national homeland for “The Democratic People”?!
In what sense can one call the Arab Jewish migration to Israel "forced emigration" when
(and correct me if I'm wrong)
1- This emigration was the ultimate goal of Zionist organizations at the time and in many cases, it happened with the aide of Zionists actively lobbying local rulers and kings to "allow" this emigration, and offerring financial rewards to the emigrant for moving to Israel.
2- Some Arab countries in fact used legal means to discourage and limit the emigration of Jews since they saw it as the continuation of the Zionist project, and when they finally gave in, they did so reluctantly.
3- In the French colony of Algeria, Jews where automatically granted French nationality, and were from a legal standpoint effectively equivalent to the French occupiers in matters of legal discrimination against Muslim Algerians. The gradual outflow of Algerian Jews in the 1950's should therefore be seen in the context of the Algerian revolution against French occupation.
4- Unlike the expulsion of Palestinians, in the Jewish emigration there were no organized military units chasing people through the desert, or into the sea, there where no loud-speakers on the back of trucks playing sounds of screaming women and children to scare civilians to flee their homes, and there were no paramilitary units exterminating entire villages overnight ahead of military invasion.
The Jews for the most part grabbed their tickets, and (when they had one), their European passports, went to the port and got on their ships; over a span of several years.
And Netanyahu somehow has the chutzpah to call this the other refugee problem in 1948.
"I’m unclear why the Ashkenazi Jews have no history in the area while the Sephardic Jews do. Where did the Ashkenazi come from–Mars?"
Where did Filipino Christians come from? That's right. From the Philippines. Not from Vatican or Bethlehem.
Where did Chinese Evangelicals come from? From China.
Where did Iranian Muslims come from? Iran, not Saudi Arabia.
Most often, it is the religion that "moves" from place to place. Not entire peoples.
Why is the alleged voluntary temporary departure of Palestinians even an argument?
"They left of their own free will, so now let them face the consequence."
A civilian is by definition one who doesn't wish to stay in a place that is soon going to become a battlefield, or that is in all likelihood next on the path of creeping terrorist militias who blow up sleeping villagers at night en masse.
In any other part of the world, being a civilian who leaves his home for fear of a looming war, hoping to return once the war is over, makes you a regular refugee with all the rights a civilian refugee, including the right of return, because that's what a refugee is; THATS' HOW REFUGEES ARE MADE REFUGEES.
In Israel's book however, it apparently makes those civilians sinister Jew-killers, because by removing their civilian bodies from the battlefield, they increased the odds that the victim of an Arab soldier's fire will be a Jewish soldier: "They left to make way for Arab soldiers to engage Jewish soldiers instead of staying and acting as a deterrent (human shield) against those Arab soldiers? To hell with them." Or maybe because in their hearts, the fleeing Palestinian civilians were hoping for their side to win, as if any civilian ever hoped for the enemy's army to win.
And what difference does it make if there was some organization to this civilian flight from the soon-to-be battlefield?
In what moral universe does the alleged role of a military in coordinating the evacuation of their civilians from a battlefield strip those civilians of their civilian rights?
There is no symmetry. Where else in the world does “having a history” in some land in the distant past give one national rights to that land over its current and long time inhabitants?
Even assuming that Jews are a race (which is exactly what the Nazis wanted us to believe), how does that give them rights over a land some of whose inhabitants where of that race a long long time ago? Do the British have the right to establish a national homeland in Germany because the Saxons came from there, or in France because some of their ancestors were Franks?
Do all Aryan peoples in Europe, the Americas, and India have a right to establish a national homeland in southern Russia because that’s where they supposedly came from thousands of years ago? Why don’t native Americans have a right to china and eastern Russia because they supposedly originated there 12000 years ago?
However, Jews claiming “national rights” to Palestine is in fact more like Japanese Buddhists claiming national rights to India (because Siddharta was from India) or like Mexican Catholics claiming the right to establish a “national homeland” in Italy because of the historical connection of “The Catholic People” to the Vatican, or like african American protestants from Georgia claiming national rights to Germany because Protestantism bagan there.
Heck if you are right, why shouldn’t all of us who believe in the values of Democracy, pack up and go colonize Greece and establish a national homeland for “The Democratic People”?!
In what sense can one call the Arab Jewish migration to Israel "forced emigration" when
(and correct me if I'm wrong)
1- This emigration was the ultimate goal of Zionist organizations at the time and in many cases, it happened with the aide of Zionists actively lobbying local rulers and kings to "allow" this emigration, and offerring financial rewards to the emigrant for moving to Israel.
2- Some Arab countries in fact used legal means to discourage and limit the emigration of Jews since they saw it as the continuation of the Zionist project, and when they finally gave in, they did so reluctantly.
3- In the French colony of Algeria, Jews where automatically granted French nationality, and were from a legal standpoint effectively equivalent to the French occupiers in matters of legal discrimination against Muslim Algerians. The gradual outflow of Algerian Jews in the 1950's should therefore be seen in the context of the Algerian revolution against French occupation.
4- Unlike the expulsion of Palestinians, in the Jewish emigration there were no organized military units chasing people through the desert, or into the sea, there where no loud-speakers on the back of trucks playing sounds of screaming women and children to scare civilians to flee their homes, and there were no paramilitary units exterminating entire villages overnight ahead of military invasion.
The Jews for the most part grabbed their tickets, and (when they had one), their European passports, went to the port and got on their ships; over a span of several years.
And Netanyahu somehow has the chutzpah to call this the other refugee problem in 1948.