Doomed.

[pitchu]

Dave, please let me know your source for contending that it was a country.

 

From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries . . . . — Professor Bernard Lewis, Commentary Magazine, January 1975

 

The truth of the suffering of both Arabs and Jews in the conflict cannot be denied -- no middle ground there. But, as for the historical truth of the events that have taken place there, and how they unfolded, many people have their stories to tell, but documents and contemporaneous journalistic accounts support a very different truth from the bill of goods many of us have been sold.

 

During the period of the [british] Mandate, it was the Jewish population that was known as "Palestinians" including those who served in the British Army in World War II.

<snip>

 

British policy was to curtail their numbers and progressively limit Jewish immigration. By 1939, the White Paper virtually put an end to admission of Jews to Palestine. This policy was imposed the most stringently at the very time this Home was most desperately needed — after the rise of Nazi power in Europe.

<snip>

 

At the same time that the British slammed the gates on Jews, they permitted or ignored massive illegal immigration into Western Palestine from Arab countries Jordan, Syria, Egypt, North Africa. In 1939, Winston Churchill noted that "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied . . . ." Exact population statistics may be problematic, but it seems that by 1947 the number of Arabs west of the Jordan River was approximately triple of what it had been in 1900.

 

The current myth is that these Arabs were long established in Palestine, until the Jews came and "displaced" them. The fact is, that recent Arab immigration into Palestine "displaced" the Jews. That the massive increase in Arab population was very recent is attested by the ruling of the United Nations: That any Arab who had lived in Palestine for two years and then left in 1948 qualifies as a "Palestinian refugee".

 

Casual use of population statistics for Jews and Arabs in Palestine rarely consider how the proportions came to be. One factor was the British policy of keeping out Jews while bringing in Arabs. Another factor was the violence used to kill or drive out Jews even where they had been long established.

 

Both quotes from here:

http://www.tzemach.org/fyi/docs/speak/nopal.htm

[Dave]

Dave, please let me know your source for contending that it was a country.

I can see this is an important topic for you. I'm sorry I cannot share the same concerns. I see it differently and we'll just leave it at that. I have no energy left to get into a long conversation about this. It seems that no matter what I say or do I end up in the middle of a big fight. Now instead of people being mad at me for fighting, they can just be mad at me for not fighting.

[pitchu]

Dave,

 

I never want to get into this discussion.

 

Yet I have, innumerable times, in these forums, and always with a pervasive sense of sadness.

 

The reason I have done so is simply that there are some statements I can't, in conscience, let stand without speaking up. Because, yes, it's an extremely important topic to me.

 

I'm sure that each of us at Ex-C sees particular topics as carrying greater weight and meaning than others, so if this one isn't yours, I accept your bowing out.

[Dave]

I'm sure that each of us at Ex-C sees particular topics as carrying greater weight and meaning than others, so if this one isn't yours, I accept your bowing out.

Thank you.