Joe, How can I choose? They are both so damned good and persuasive!! Whichever one I'm reading is the best!!

Sometimes I agree with den Beste, sometimes I disagree. Often I don't bother to find out, because often I'm as familiar with the issues he's discussing as he is, and I don't need to read five thousand words reiterating the basics. Other times he can be interesting (to me), but still suffers uncontrollabe prolixity, never using a single word where 500 words will do (having read many thousands of manuscripts as a professional editor, I'm familiar with all manner of common writing problems).

In this case, I'm not sure there's much contradiction between the two analyses you gave. I was pretty much in agreement with everything I read den Beste saying, though I only skimmed the fourth fifth, and just stopped reading by the fifth fifth, life being short, so I might have missed something there.

The only disagreement I spotted was a common one I find, which is reducing "Palestinians" to a singular, homogenous, group of people with a single opinion, which is nonsensical and ignorant. Certainly Palestinians are less free than Israelis to speak their mind, and perhaps arguably somewhat less diverse, but they're still pretty diverse, and there's a fairly wide range of opinions amongst them, as anyone who either reads a range of their literature, or speaks to a bunch of Palestinians, knows. Reducing them to a single generality of what "they" believe or want is almost as foolish as doing the same for "Israelis." (Not to mention that what any people believe or want is dependent to a fair degree on circumstances of a given time, which changes.)

Otherwise I was in agreement with den Beste, while finding Colt's look at bit on the only-the-most-negative-interpretation-is-right side. Of course, that view is most often the safe bet in Israeli/Palestinian relations, so I'm hardly going to say this is wrong, either.

I know that Steven's piece was written some months ago, but a number of the things he wrote aren't accurate (or at least, they aren't any more). For example, while PLO and Fatah money is being poorly spent (read: skimmed by local leaders), Hezbollah has been picking up the slack, buying up al-Aksa Martyrs cells all over Gaza and the West Bank.

Last week, two infiltrators were caught in the Negev, having crossed from Gaza. In mid-March, two suicide bombers were smuggled through from Gaza to Ashdod, where they killed 11 people. With time to re-arm, and protection from the IDF and Shin Bet, their missiles will become more dangerous, and have a longer range - especially in Gaza. There remains the possibility of tunneling, of course.

Coming back to the two Ashdod bombers, they were using a new explosive thought to have been designed by Hezbollah (or, more likely, the Iranians in the Bekaa). They were metres away from a "mega-terror" attack. Had they detonated next to the chemical vats they were asking directions for, we could be talking about hundreds or even thousands of casualties.

Now, of course the fence makes things easier to stop. A jihadi can't just walk in to Kfar Sava any more. I'm in favour.

When Arafat finally dies, I expect Steven is right and there will be 'in-fighting'. Whoever wins, though, will be another Arafat or Yassin. There's no way around that. There are no pro-two-state factions. The fight isn't about whether to make peace with Israel, but who gets to destroy it.

I'd be surprised if the Hashemite monarchy lasts the decade - Palestinians are not only a majority in Jordan, but also in the Jordanian army. The Jordanian Parliament is still dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Ba'ath. Jordan is a ticking bomb.

Last, I question the Bush administration's resolve to fight against Palestinian terror groups. Steven mentions the list of attacks on Hamas/PIJ/PFLP/Fatah targets, and the surrounding of Arafat's compound, but neglects to mention that the Bush administration was either opposed to the hits, or more recently, just acknowledged that Israel has the right to self defence. Bush called for the IDF to halt Operation Defensive Shield, the one thing that has brought down the number of successful Palestinian attacks on Israel. Bush has re-opened PLO offices in the US (an order signed, incidentally, the same day as three Americans were murdered in Gaza - probably by a PLO faction).

BTW, thanks very much for the linkage, Joe :-)

The truth is, nobody can be sure...

Safe enough, well-considered, and appropriately thoughtful. Nonetheless, it ought to be absolutely evident, without the shadow of a doubt, that given the short-term and ultimate goals of those who call the shots in the Palestinian leadership, the violence will continue. And continue. And continue.

Until Israel decides it's had enough.

And that that violence will burn higher or lower, as the case may be. Granted, none of the foiled terror attempts are reported in the mainstream media (e.g., Debka's headline that "Total of 72 Palestinian terrorist attacks thwarted since January, 10 pulled off. Most 42 terrorist activists captured belong to Arafat’s Fatah"), the better to channel news reporting in the desired direction.

This will be so even if one claims, rightly or wrongly (or irrelevantly), that there is no Palestinian "they." (Noting that the level of Palestinian opposition to their leadership is not exactly impressive; but one can rationalize that away with ease, certainly.)

Just why will that violence continue as long as it's allowed to?

Because it's working exceedingly well. The interim goals have been achieved; and the final goal, given a bit of optimisim, imagination and steadfastness, is well within sight.

Yes, it's really that simple.

I suppose it's not really adaquate, in the long run, to simply say "what's the alternative?" But even if Den Beste's option only has a 10% chance of being accurate that's a lot better than no chance. In examining common pool resources Elinor Ostrom emphasizes the need for an "authoritative image" of the problem in its entirety. One seemingly insurmountable aspect of the Palestinian/Israeli issue is that the only authoritative image that Palestinians have is that of the terrorists, who tend to take Barry Meislin's perspective that, although difficult to reach the "goal is in sight."

Ostrom uses the example of the water problem in the Central Valley of California, and the authoritative image was provided to both sides in he form of a graphic scientifically-based analysis that if things continued as the were the end result would be a draw-down of the resource to the point that no use of the region could be sustained. Catastrophic drought.

What's needed, in the case of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is an authoritative image demonstrating that, if things don't change, the end result will be the annihilation of the Arab/Palestinian population completely. The goal of the "Palestinian militants" is genocide, and if they are allowed to continue to provide the authoritative images to the Palestinian people, they'll eventually be able to achieve it. Unless Israel decides to intervene to stop it. And if they can't stop it in any other way then they'll clearly have to match genocidal intent.

What we're talking about, here, is at least one of the last exits. There's some finite chance of diminishing the authority of the terrorists to the point that they can be replaced by someone else, who can in tern provide a different authoritative image of the problem as well as some different alternatives.

How is there really a "choice" except in the purely abstract sense? At minimum the choice is between a 90% chance of a genocidal outcome, and a 100% chance. The odds comparison may not actually be that bad, but even if it were worse the choice would still be pretty obvious.

The wall isn't a permanent solution, because all walls are eventually breached. The solution resides in the images available to the Palestinian people, and what they choose to do with them.

And in a broader sense, if there's a general reformation and liberalization in the Middle East, that will eventually reach and influence the Palestinians. And by the same token, if that liberalization fails, so also will the last exit in Palestine.

Scott:

I wouldn't worry about the Palestinians being wiped out (at least by the Israelis). Of all the options open to Israel, should things get rapidly worse, 'transfer' is about the most extreme they'd implement IMO.

"I'd be surprised if the Hashemite monarchy lasts the decade - Palestinians are not only a majority in Jordan, but also in the Jordanian army."

You certainly might be right; I wouldn't bet my farm on Abdullah's survival.

But your above statement also held in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's (through Black September), 1980's, and 1990's, so I wouldn't bet my farm on the other way, either.

Gary:

Up until recently, the army was dominated by the Jordanians (ie, Bedouin-led tribes). As mentioned, they're now a minority within the military.

With the fence up in Israel, the PLO/whoever may turn their attention to the Hashemites. Having an economy and modern military equipment to back up the jihad would certainly be handy as far as the Palestinians are concerned.

If, say, Fatah (let alone Hamas) managed to take over the Jordanian government, how would that go any better than the Lebanon adventure did?

Bloody for a bit, sure, but would Israel tolerate it? I suspect only if it were, indeed, to be used as a pretext for either transfer or amalgamation with parts of the West Bank as a Palestinian state, but Israel still wouldn't tolerate an armed militant leadership.

It's fairly unclear that any of the other Arab states would look with fondness on a Palestinian-run Jordan, as well, for whatever that's worth (not so much, probably, but not nothing, either).

If, say, Fatah (let alone Hamas) managed to take over the Jordanian government, how would that go any better than the Lebanon adventure did?

Hamas (less so Fatah) are extremely popular in Jordan. More importantly, there are fewer ethnic/religious groups. It could get ugly, but probably not Lebanon ugly.

Bloody for a bit, sure, but would Israel tolerate it? I suspect only if it were, indeed, to be used as a pretext for either transfer or amalgamation with parts of the West Bank as a Palestinian state, but Israel still wouldn't tolerate an armed militant leadership.

Post-Lebanon. intervention seems unlikely. I'm not sure what the IDF could do short of conquering Jordan. Occupying Jordan would probably cost more than the Israelis would be able to afford.

It's fairly unclear that any of the other Arab states would look with fondness on a Palestinian-run Jordan, as well, for whatever that's worth (not so much, probably, but not nothing, either).

Wherever there's a power vacuum, other Arab powers will get involved. There's not much they could do short of invasion. Ultimately, that's how the Syrians won in Lebanon.

I'm more worried about our own media shilling for the Islamofacists.
Deborah Orin, Washington Bureau Chief of the New York Post, has a must-read column in today’s edition, titled Reporting for the Enemy. You can read it on my Blog, where I have posted it along with a link to the original article.
For links to news, views, politics, and government, bookmark All Things Political.

Joe, I am unable to see much difference between these two analyses. Both authors have obviously an impressive command of details, in the selection of which they seem equally one sided.

I think a common sense analysis of the whole manoeuvre around Gaza is that Sharon is throwing out a herring to catch a codfish, as we say in Dutch. The handful of settlers in Gaza is being 'sacrificed' in order to make the far greater number of them on the West Bank more secure, at the expense of the Palestinians whose habitat starts to look more and more like a patchwork quilt.

Your authors seem to also share the now fairly common American disdain for the European view of things which I find usually explained as based on anti-semitism and/or fear for the electoral power of islamic minorities.

As it so happens the place I hail from, the Netherlands, used to be vehemently pro Israel. Golda Meir once enthused that Israel had been 'adopted' by one of the finest peoples of Europe (her words not mine). At the time of the Six Day War Dutch people were queuing up to donate blood for Israeli soldiers.

However that war also seems to have been the high- and turning point as far as sympathy for Israel is concerned. Gradually, very gradually, the facts about the reality of the Occupation and what it entails in misery for the Palestinians have seeped in among the more informed part of the population. Dutch people, differently from Americans, know at first hand what an occupation is like.

It would be incorrect to claim that there is a strong anti-Israel tone in the Dutch public realm. But the fervour of the early days is gone and there is a far more nuanced view of things.

It seems to me that in the USA things have gone exactly the opposite way. There wasn't much enthusiasm for Israel until the Six Day War. Israeli military prowess displayed in that war changed things. This tiny country now seemed to be a potentially useful ally in the Cold War.

It is also after 1967, as Peter Novick has argued, that there has been a far greater American interest for the holocaust which now seems to have an intensity not matched in Holland - though the Dutch, and not the Americans, lost virtually all their Jewish compatriots.

My earlier experience with American blogs has been that any letter which doesn't seem one hundred percent sympathetic to the Israeli cause comes in for a fair amount of abuse. This too seems to me part of the American Israel-syndrome.

Arie Brand

Arie:

Gradually, very gradually, the facts about the reality of the Occupation and what it entails in misery for the Palestinians have seeped in among the more informed part of the population. Dutch people, differently from Americans, know at first hand what an occupation is like.

As far as occupations go, I know which one I'd rather live in. Can the Dutch really not tell the difference?

Quite possibly, more Americans than Europeans have begun to realize that as far as the Palestinians are concerned, there are really two "occupations"---all of those lands conquered by Israel as a result of the 1967 war and all of those lands occupied by Israel before the 1967 war---and that the campaign to regain the former is part and parcel of the campaign to regain the latter as well. What is referred to as the "phased plan" of Israel's destruction.

Quite possibly, more Americans than Europeans have begun to realize that there can never be an agreement because should Israel withdraw from all of the West Bank and Gaza, the issue of Jerusalem will continue to fester, accompanied by violence made more terrible because of Israel's shrinking borders. And that should Israel agree to withdraw from East Jerusalem, then the issue of repatriating all Palestinian refugees to within Israel's pre-1967 boundaries will continue to fester, likewise, with violence.

Quite possibly, more Americans than Europeans have begun to realize that Palestinian suffering is a most effective, and therefore necessary, instrument in the Palestinian propaganda war, a war that Israel has been losing with disastrous consequences. And that the effectiveness of Palestinian suffering in the pursuit of Palestinian goals means that the strategy will continue to be implemented by the Palestinian leadership. Which is why, despite the rhetoric bitterly complaining of such suffering---and exaggerating it whenever possible---anything that leads to a lessening of Palestinian suffering, until Israel disappears, is against the interests of the Palestinian leadership. Which is why the violence will continue, burning hot or low, depending on Israel's ability to interdict Palestinian attacks.

Quite possibly, more Americans than Europeans have begun to understand that the terror war planned and initiated against Israel invites repercussions; that actions have consequences; that if you start a war, you ought to expect to have a war fought against you; that if you threaten a country with extinction and act on it, then you may be targeted in return.

Quite possibly, more Americans than Europeans are able to see through the plethora of lies emanating from Palestinian leaders and their spokesmen. To perceive the yawning gap between Palestinian word and deed. To apprehend the tortured logic of their demand that Israel either agree to dismantle herself or have herself dismantled.

Quite possibly, Americans, after 9/11 and active participation in the WOT, have increasingly dwindling use for the nuanced or sophisticated world views that significantly distort reality, twist history and ignore context.

Quite possibly, Americans are increasingly outraged at being blamed for all the woes of the world, while being proffered no credit for any worthy achievement; and have begun to see the unquestioned castigation of the Jewish state for all the ills of its neighbors---or the blaming of Jews generally for all the world's problems---in a similar light.

Then again, quite possibly not.

Colt:

I think it would be fair to say that most Dutch survivors of the second world war only knew of the genocidal activities of the Germans in their country at second hand. I believe that when they think of the war it is, first and foremost, of their personal troubles in those miserable years. I know of no study comparing the two occupations we are talking about, but off hand I would say that the German occupation, as far as the non-Jewish Dutch were concerned, was probably characterised by more outrageous violations of personal liberty than is the case on the West Bank (as for instance in the ‘razzias’ to obtain slave labour for German industry) but that, on the other, there was, until the last winter of the war (the so-called ‘hunger winter’), less disruption of daily life and less unemployment than is the case in Israeli-occupied territory. Mind you I am speaking here about Holland. The German occupation of Eastern Europe offers a far more horrendous picture.
I should add that most of the information on the nature of the Israeli occupation, with its daily humilation and intentionally caused delays at the roadblocks of Palestinians, its collective punishment in the wilful destruction of houses, its seemingly intentional negligence in causing ‘collateral damage’ in the attacks by Apache helicopters, its obstruction of daily life of ordinary Palestinians to the point of starvation, comes from Haaretz. If, as Barry Meisner claims, “Palestinian suffering is a most effective, and therefore necessary, instrument in the Palestinian propaganda war” the Israelis seem to be particularly eager to provide them with the daily material for that war – not in the form of these newspaper articles per se but in creating the factual material for these. And this brings me to Barry’s letter.

I think it was Robert Fisk (whose very name is anathema to certain Americans) who once said that if it was not for the Israeli press he would hardly have a clue to what is going on on the West Bank because he certainly wouldn’t be able to pick up this information from the American press. Are you aware, Barry, that according to a survey of world press freedom by the “Reporters without borders” the American press ranks below that of Costa Rica and certainly below that of most West European countries? I think it owes this ignominious place mainly to its self censorship as far as the Israel-problem is concerned. Was it for this reason alone it seems to me prima facie somewhat implausible that Americans at large are blessed with superior insight in this matter.

Future historians will have quite a task to figure out how it came about that a tiny nation managed to get a mighty republic with approximately fifty times its population and four hundred times its territory to represent so fanatically its interests, at considerable financial cost and massive political cost to that Republic itself – because there is little doubt that it is mainly the Israel policy of the USA that is responsible for a great loss of international goodwill. Where should such a historian start? Tracing, bit by bit, the image of Israel in the American public realm seems an obvious strategy. Kathleen Christison, who is billed as a former CIA-analyst, has made, in 1998, an interesting start with this in a two part study in the Journal of Palestine Studies. Speaking about the fifties and sixties she says “...Israel’s hold on the hearts and minds of the American public intensified as it was portrayed repeatedly in books, movies and the press as a small pioneering nation embodying Western values and besieged by huge armies of implacably hostile Arabs. The 1960s saw at least ten movies in which Israelis and or Arabs figured, the former always favorably, the latter always unfavorably. Leon Uris’s 1958 novel Exodus and the 1960 movie based on it had a particularly strong influence on public opinion...” Etc. As I said earlier the Six Day War seems to have massively accelerated this image formation as it also engendered more American political interest.

At the risk of outstaying my welcome I would like to make a few short points about your claim that the Palestinians continue to demand that “Israel either agree to dismantle herself or have herself dismantled”. This statement seems to me at odds with the following facts: to the best of my knowledge the PLO recognized, in 1988, Israel’s existence and accepted the two state formula, with Yasser Arafat publicly affirming “ the right of all parties concerned in the Middle East conflict to exist in peace and security...including the state of Palestine, Israel, and other neighbors”. When Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo agreement in 1993 the PLO recognized, again, Israel’s existence. In 1996 the PLO rescinded its charter calling for the destruction of Israel.

You can of course call these things all lies but if the only evidence for this is your alleged superior insight as an American I reserve the right to remain sceptical. As I was sceptical about the Afrikaner claim that the ANC was after their destruction as a people. A claim widely believed until De Klerk and Nelson Mandela initiated the moves which gave the lie to it.

Arie Brand

Re: the PLO's attitude about the destruction of Israel, certainly the official record is mixed at best. The PLO has never produced a new text of its National Charter which removes those clauses, despite promises to do so on several occasions.

I cannot speak for decades of (up and down) relatinship between the US and Israel, but I can speak for my own experience there in the 1980s. I spent time and worked with Israelis and also spent time and spoke with Palestinians on the West Bank and in the old city quarters of Jerusalem during my stay there. (Which BTW got me detained by the Border Patrol for some questioning when I was on my way home.)

I left the region after a trip in 1987 with the distinct attitude of "a pox on them all". However, as I watched events unfold, it became clear to me that Israel as a whole was trying, with differing success, to find a solution to the situation in the Middle East, and that the Palestinian leadership was not - at least, not a peaceful solution that would include a Jewish state.

We Americans feel strongly about religious identity when it is under attack from others who would not extend the same rights they themselves want, to others of a different religion. That fact, and the essentially democratic nature of Israel, goes a long way to explaining the support of many Americans for Israel as a country.

Your description of that support as unthinking and monolithic is so removed from my 50+ years experience here, however, that I conclude you have no real firsthand knowledge of my country, its people or its policies.

Arie Brand:

I should add that most of the information on the nature of the Israeli occupation, with its daily humilation and intentionally caused delays at the roadblocks of Palestinians, its collective punishment in the wilful destruction of houses, its seemingly intentional negligence in causing ‘collateral damage’ in the attacks by Apache helicopters, its obstruction of daily life of ordinary Palestinians to the point of starvation, comes from Haaretz.

There would be no roadblocks or checkpoints if the Palestinians weren't regularly trying to carry out mass murder. The semi-petulant "they're doing it on purpose" is absurd. The Israelis put their own lives before the convenience of the Palestinians. Sorry.

The 'wilful' destruction of houses is legal and, in my opinion, justified. The houses that are targetted for destruction are either the homes of terrorists or used by terrorists, ie, the exit of smuggling tunnels, buildings to shoot from, bomb labs, etc.

The IAF Apaches use some of the most advanced weapons systems in existence. They lead the field in military aviation electronics. But all the expertise in the world won't prevent an explosion spreading shrapnel. There are numerous instances of Israel using smaller munitions than required, to save Palestinian lives (the first attempt on Yassin and Rantissi comes to mind). Morally and legally, the responsibility for civilian casualties lies with Hamas and the others for operating from civilian areas.

As already mentioned, the PLO has never actually shown anyone their amended charter. What's more, their activities directly contradicts their "promises". All the pledges in the world don't trump the hundreds of PLO employees involved in terrorist attacks, with the full knowledge and even orders from the PLO leadership.

Robin:

It seems to me that the official record is as clear as one can expect under the circumstances.

In 1996 the PNC voted 504 –54 to annul anything in the Charter that contradicted the Oslo agreement. The amended version seemed to satisfy Yitzhak Rabin’s cabinet. It was mainly at the insistence of Rabin’s successor, Binyamin Netanyahu, that the whole thing had to be done again – as it was, in December 1998, during the presence of President Clinton.
Apparently the Israeli cabinet of the time was satisfied with the proceedings. A briefing by the Israeli foreign ministry, dated Febr.1 1999, states: “Israel was pleased to note that at a meeting in Gaza on 14 December 1998, the PNC adopted a resolution amending the PLO charter, as required by its outstanding obligations from: the exchange of letters between Chairman Arafat and Prime Minister Rabin dated September 1993, the exchange of letters attached to the Gaza-Jericho agreement of May 1994, the interim agreement of September 1995 and the Note for the Record attached to the Hebron Protocol of January 1997.” (see htp://www.isrinfo.demon.co.uk/artic186.htm).
It was again Netanyahu who insisted that the annulment of certain clauses in the Charter was not enough and that the whole Charter had to be presented in its revised form. Since then he has been repeating, ad nauseam, that this has not been done – a complaint echoed in a hundred voices (mainly American ones) on the internet.
Arafat had to pull the whole exercise off in the face of opposition from other factions in the PLO and to insist that the whole revised Charter would be presented was just one bridge too far, particularly as Israel was not living up to its own obligations, for instance regarding the release of prisoners, as Netanyahu knew fully well. The point is, however, that the relevant PNC decision of December 1998 has, since then, not been revoked by a body of similar authority, whatever versions of the Charter might be posted on the internet by God knows who.

Colt:
Your version of the occupation seems quite unreal to me (for one thing: do you remember the demolition of a whole apartment block to get at a few suspects?. The characterisation of that occupation by somebody who is apparently a bit nearer to the scene than you, the Israeli historian Benny Morris (who has recently improved his credentials with the right)), sounds a bit more realistic: From the start, Morris wrote, “like all occupations, Israel’s was founded on brute force, repression and fear, collaboration and treachery, beatings and torture chambers, and daily intimidation, humiliation and manipulation” (Righteous victims. p.341). Or the statement in a petition by the 60 Israeli army reservists as published in Yedioth Ahronot: “We will no longer fight beyond the Green Line for the purpose of occupying, deporting, destroying, blockading, killing, starving and humiliating an entire people”.

The basic fact is not Palestinian violence ( which is, in terms of numbers of victims, anyway responded to by far more massive Israeli violence) – the basic fact is the fundamental injustice inflicted on a people whose land was robbed and the greater part of whose habitat was destroyed. The analysis has to start from there.

I regard the Zionist enterprise as a basically ‘unholy’ one by, originally, mainly East European Jews. You might or might not know that the only member of the then British cabinet who, frantically, tried to prevent the Balfour Declaration was the Secretary for India, Edwin Montagu, a Jew. He believed that this enterprise could only lead to Jews being driven back to the Ghetto as Israel now has indeed become. The only difference is that it is itself building the walls for it.

Arie Brand

do you remember the demolition of a whole apartment block to get at a few suspects?

Yes. Salah Shehadeh, leader of Hamas in the West Bank, was responsible for the following crimes:

June 1, 2001: At a seaside disco [the Dolphinariam] in Tel Aviv, 21 dead.

Aug. 9, 2001: At the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, 15 dead.

Dec. 1, 2001: In a pedestrian mall [Ben Yehuda Mall] in Jerusalem, 11 dead.

Dec. 2, 2001: On a bus in the coastal city of Haifa, 15 dead.

March 9, 2002: At the Moment cafe in Jerusalem, 11 dead.

March 27, 2002: At the Park Hotel Seder in Netanya, 29 dead.

March 31, 2002: At a restaurant in Haifa, 15 dead.

May 7, 2002: At a pool hall in Rishon Letzion, south of Tel Aviv, 15 dead.

June 18, 2002: On a bus in Jerusalem, 19 dead.

Plus numerous shooting attacks, roadside bombs, etc.

The fact is that Shehadeh surrounded himself with children to prevent such an attack. That is a war crime, makes all civilians killed in an attempt on his life his own responsibilty.

The characterisation of that occupation by somebody who is apparently a bit nearer to the scene than you

You found a historian who is anti-"occupation"? Congrats. Are you sure you want to quote someone who would advocate ethnic cleansing?

The basic fact is not Palestinian violence ( which is, in terms of numbers of victims, anyway responded to by far more massive Israeli violence) – the basic fact is the fundamental injustice inflicted on a people whose land was robbed and the greater part of whose habitat was destroyed. The analysis has to start from there.

Let's see here. The violence pre-dates 1967 by decades, yet the post-1967 situation is the root cause. Do the Arabs have the ability to see in to the future?

I regard the Zionist enterprise as a basically ‘unholy’ one by, originally, mainly East European Jews.

Then you're unaware of the Sephardic reclaimation of the land that began decades before the Zionist conference.

You might or might not know that the only member of the then British cabinet who, frantically, tried to prevent the Balfour Declaration was the Secretary for India, Edwin Montagu, a Jew.

An anti-Zionist Jew. Er, so?

He believed that this enterprise could only lead to Jews being driven back to the Ghetto as Israel now has indeed become. The only difference is that it is itself building the walls for it.

What a wonderful sentiment. Don't build your own country in case they put you in ghettoes. Sure, you're mostly already in ghettoes, but...

Or the statement in a petition by the 60 Israeli army reservists as published in Yedioth Ahronot: “We will no longer fight beyond the Green Line for the purpose of occupying, deporting, destroying, blockading, killing, starving and humiliating an entire people”.

How about the statement from 10,000s of Israeli soldiers, border guard and policemen who see through such BS?

"Starvation"? There are more aid workers (not to mention journalists) per capita, per square mile, per anything you want, in the West Bank and Gaza than anywhere else in the world. The question is, how did 60 soldiers dumb enough to believe people were starving in such an area manage to last that long in the IDF?

I regard the Zionist enterprise as a basically ‘unholy’ one

That shone through, Arie.

Colt:

Re: "How about the statement from 10,000s of Israeli soldiers, border guard (sic.) and policemen who see through such bs".

Moral entrepreneurs, Colt, are always few and far between. The '10,000s'you are referring to keep their mouths shut, because there is their future career and there are, possibly, the wife and children, or parents, to worry about.And some just engage unthinkingly, mainly egged on by peer pressure, in that type of collective cruelty. Away from this environment they might come to their senses as, for instance, the ex-sergeant who recently gave in Haaretz hairraising details about the practices engaged in at the checkpoints.

This type of post facto confession is not uncommon.The last soldiers of the Dutch army in Indonesia left the country in 1950. Almost twenty years later one of them (a former officer who had become a professor of psychology) started to talk about war crimes committed by his unit. This opened the sluice doors to a stream of information coming from military men who wanted to unburden themselves.

In the Israeli situation a lot of that information is already available. Those 61 reservists (half of them officers) have since been joined by many more. The American press is habitually silent about these things.As far as Israeli realities, as apart from propaganda, are concerned it is just about the most uninformative press in the western world(there are honorable exceptions though among the journals).

I can only regard it as the effect of a daily diet on that press that some of you guys sit there seriously discussing the danger of genocide - not of the Palestinians, who seem to be the most obvious candidates for this, but of the Israelis for chrissake. One of the largest and best equiped armies in the Western world confronted by a comparatively unarmed population - and then genocide. I wish I could say 'you must be joking' but unfortunately you don't seem to be.

Arie Brand

P.S. I didn't address one of your points which is nevertheless of some importance. When I talked of people whose land had been robbed and whose habitat had been largely destroyed I did not just refer to the post 1967 situation but to the Zionist enterprise as such. This makes your remark about "Arabs seeing into the future" irrelevant.

Also: the 19th century Jewish reclamation of the land, that you call 'sephardic', was insignificant in terms of population numbers.

Finally, I would appreciate your reference for the data on the demolition of that apartment block.

Arie Brand

I can only regard it as the effect of a daily diet on that press that some of you guys sit there seriously discussing the danger of genocide - not of the Palestinians, who seem to be the most obvious candidates for this, but of the Israelis for chrissake. One of the largest and best equiped armies in the Western world confronted by a comparatively unarmed population - and then genocide. I wish I could say 'you must be joking' but unfortunately you don't seem to be.

No-one expects the Palestinians to commit genocide. But why is the idea of Arab states allying to invade and destroy Israel so hard for you to accept? It has already happened three times.

Moral entrepreneurs, Colt, are always few and far between. The '10,000s'you are referring to keep their mouths shut, because there is their future career and there are, possibly, the wife and children, or parents, to worry about.And some just engage unthinkingly, mainly egged on by peer pressure, in that type of collective cruelty. Away from this environment they might come to their senses as, for instance, the ex-sergeant who recently gave in Haaretz hairraising details about the practices engaged in at the checkpoints

Can you provide a link?

When I talked of people whose land had been robbed and whose habitat had been largely destroyed I did not just refer to the post 1967 situation but to the Zionist enterprise as such. This makes your remark about "Arabs seeing into the future" irrelevant.

Ah, so any Jews living in Israel is the actual point. Thanks for clearing that up.

Also: the 19th century Jewish reclamation of the land, that you call 'sephardic', was insignificant in terms of population numbers.

Er, no. Thousands (especially when compared with the figures after the first Zionist conference) are not small numbers. Sephardim, by the way, are Jews who were expelled from Israel to Arab countries. Guess what - the Arabs treated them far worse than the IDF treats the Palestinians.

Finally, I would appreciate your reference for the data on the demolition of that apartment block.

You mean the attacks he was responsible for? I'll get it for you.

You really should read From Time Immemorial. The 'displacement' of Arabs, for example, just didn't happen. Jewish agriculture brought more Arab fellah (peasants) from across the Jordan, Arabs who settled in British Palestine after their Jewish employers. This happened usually at a ratio of 10 Arab families for every Jewish family.

Can you explain the UN's definition of a "Palestinian" as being anyone who lived in British Palestine for more than two years? Given the huge migratory patterns of Arab peasants (hundreds of thousands), not to mention the massive illegal immigration of Arabs that the British turned a blind eye to, this seems a strange way of classifying someone.

Why Israel Had to Kill Hamas Sheik Salah Shehadeh: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2109

There was also suggestion a year or so after the attack that he was working on bringing WMD in to Israel. I've looked for the link, but I can't find it.

Colt:

Thanks for the reference.

I definitely want to react to your other points but it is pretty late in the evening here (that is Sydney, Australia) and I will hold my fire until tomorrow.

However for now I want to put an edited version of Edwin Montagu's memorandum to the British cabinet on this thread because of the curious construction you put on my remarks about it.

Memorandum of Edwin Montagu on the Anti-Semitism of the Present (British) Government - Submitted to the British Cabinet, August, 1917

I have chosen the above title for this memorandum, not in any hostile sense, not by any means as quarrelling with an anti-Semitic view which may be held by my colleagues, not with a desire to deny that anti-Semitism can be held by rational men, not even with a view to suggesting that the Government is deliberately anti-Semitic; but I wish to place on record my view that the policy of His Majesty's Government is anti-Semitic in result and will prove a rallying ground for Anti-Semites in every country in the world.
This view is prompted by the receipt yesterday of a correspondence between Lord Rothschild and Mr. Balfour.
Lord Rothschild's letter is dated the 18th July and Mr. Balfour's answer is to be dated August 1917. I fear that my protest comes too late, and it may well be that the Government were practically committed when Lord Rothschild wrote and before I became a member of the Government, for there has obviously been some correspondence or conversation before this letter. But I do feel that as the one Jewish Minister in the Government I may be allowed by my colleagues an opportunity of expressing views which may be peculiar to myself, but which I hold very strongly and which I must ask permission to express when opportunity affords.

I believe most firmly that this war has been a death-blow to Internationalism...

It is in this atmosphere that the Government proposes to endorse the formation of a new nation with a new home in Palestine. This nation will presumably be formed of Jewish Russians, Jewish Englishmen, Jewish Roumanians, Jewish Bulgarians, and Jewish citizens of all nations - survivors or relations of those who have fought or laid down their lives for the different countries which I have mentioned, at a time when the three years that they have lived through have united their outlook and thought more closely than ever with the countries of which they are citizens.
Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom. If a Jewish Englishman sets his eyes on the Mount of Olives and longs for the day when he will shake British soil from his shoes and go back to agricultural pursuits in Palestine, he has always seemed to me to have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship and to have admitted that he is unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain, or to be treated as an Englishman. I have always understood that those who indulged in this creed were largely animated by the restrictions upon and refusal of liberty to Jews in Russia. But at the very time when these Jews have been acknowledged as Jewish Russians and given all liberties, it seems to be inconceivable that Zionism should be officially recognised by the British Government, and that Mr. Balfour should be authorized to say that Palestine was to be reconstituted as the "national home of the Jewish people". I do not know what this involves, but I assume that it means that Mahommedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine. Perhaps also citizenship must be granted only as a result of a religious test.

I lay down with emphasis four principles:
I assert that there is not a Jewish nation. The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have no sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or less degree the same religion. It is no more true to say that a Jewish Englishman and a Jewish Moor are of the same nation than it is to say that a Christian Englishman and a Christian Frenchman are of the same nation: of the same race, perhaps, traced back through the centuries - through centuries of the history of a peculiarly adaptable race. The Prime Minister and M. Briand are, I suppose, related through the ages, one as a Welshman and the other as a Breton, but they certainly do not belong to the same nation...

I claim that the lives that British Jews have led, that the aims that they have had before them, that the part that they have played in our public life and our public institutions, have entitled them to be regarded, not as British Jews, but as Jewish Britons. I would willingly disfranchise every Zionist. I would be almost tempted to proscribe the Zionist organisation as illegal and against the national interest. But I would ask of a British Government sufficient tolerance to refuse a conclusion which makes aliens and foreigners by implication, if not at once by law, of all their Jewish fellow-citizens.
I deny that Palestine is to-day associated with the Jews or properly to be regarded as a fit place for them to live in. The Ten Commandments were delivered to the Jews on Sinai. It is quite true that Palestine plays a large part in Jewish history, but so it does in modern Mahommedan history, and, after the time of the Jews, surely it plays a larger part than any other country in Christian history. The Temple may have been in Palestine, but so was the Sermon on the Mount and the Crucifixion. I would not deny to Jews in Palestine equal rights to colonisation with those who profess other religions, but a religious test of citizenship seems to me to be the only admitted by those who take a bigoted and narrow view of one particular epoch of the history of Palestine, and claim for the Jews a position to which they are not entitled...

I have always recognised the unpopularity, much greater than some people think, of my community. We have obtained a far greater share of this country's goods and opportunities than we are numerically entitled to. We reach on the whole maturity earlier, and therefore with people of our own age we compete unfairly. Many of us have been exclusive in our friendships and intolerant in our attitude, and I can easily understand that many a non-Jew in England wants to get rid of us. But just as there is no community of thought and mode of life among Christian Englishmen, so there is not among Jewish Englishmen. More and more we are educated in public schools and at the Universities, and take our part in the politics, in the Army, in the Civil Service, of our country. And I am glad to think that the prejudices against inter-marriage are breaking down. But when the Jew has a national home, surely it follows that the impetus to deprive us of the rights of British citizenship must be enormously increased.

Palestine will become the world's Ghetto.

Why should the Russian give the Jew equal rights? His national home is Palestine. Why does Lord Rothschild attach so much importance to the difference between British and foreign Jews? All Jews will be foreign Jews, inhabitants of the great country of Palestine.

...the Jew will have the choice, whatever country he belongs to, whatever country he loves, whatever country he regards himself as an integral part of, between going to live with people who are foreigners to him, but to whom his Christian fellow-countrymen have told him he shall belong, and of remaining as an unwelcome guest in the country that he thought he belonged to...

I feel that the Government are asked to be the instrument for carrying out the wishes of a Zionist organisation largely run, as my information goes, at any rate in the past, by men of enemy descent or birth, and by this means have dealt a severe blow to the liberties, position and opportunities of service of their Jewish fellow-countrymen. I would say to Lord Rothschild that the Government will be prepared to do everything in their power to obtain for Jews in Palestine complete liberty of settlement and life on an equality with the inhabitants of that country who profess other religious beliefs. I would ask that the Government should go no further.
E.S.M.
23 August 1917
Source: Great Britain, Public Record Office, Cab. 24/24, Aug. 23, 1917.

Colt:

I couldn't find the link you asked for but here is the story which I had on file:

I Punched an Arab in the Face - Gideon Levy, Haaretz Weekend
Magazine - 21/11/2003

Staff Sergeant (res.) Liran Ron Furer cannot just routinely get on
with his life anymore. He is haunted by images from his three years
of military service in Gaza and the thought that this could be a
syndrome afflicting everyone who serves at checkpoints gives him no
respite. On the verge of completing his studies in the design
program at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, he decided to drop
everything and devote all his time to the book he wanted to write.
The major publishers he brought it to declined to publish it. The
publisher that finally accepted it (Gevanim) says that the
Steimatzky bookstore chain refuses to distribute it. But Furer is
determined to bring his book to the public's attention.

"You can adopt the most hard-line political positions, but no parent
would agree to his son becoming a thief, a criminal or a violent
person," says Furer. "The problem is that it's never presented this
way. The boy himself doesn't portray himself this way to his family
when he returns from the territories. On the contrary - he is
received as a hero, as someone who is doing the important work of
being a soldier. No one can be indifferent to the fact that there
are many families in which, in a certain sense, there are already
two generations of criminals. The father went through it and now the
son is going through it and no one talks about it around the dinner
table."
Furer is certain that what happened to him is not at all unique.
Here he was - a creative, sensitive graduate of the Thelma Yellin
High School of the Arts, who became an animal at the checkpoint, a
violent sadist who beat up Palestinians because they didn't show him
the proper courtesy, who shot out tires of cars because their owners
were playing the radio too loud, who abused a retarded teenage boy
lying handcuffed on the floor of the Jeep, just because he had to
take his anger out somehow. "Checkpoint Syndrome" (also the title of
his book), gradually transforms every soldier into an animal, he
maintains, regardless of whatever values he brings with him from
home. No one can escape its taint. In a place where nearly
everything is permissible and violence is perceived as normative
behavior, each soldier tests his own limits of violence
impulsiveness on his victims – the Palestinians.

His book is not easy reading. Written in terse, fierce prose, in the
blunt and coarse language of soldiers, he reconstructs scenes from
the years in which he served in Gaza (1996-1999), years that, one
must remember, were relatively quiet. He describes how he and his
comrades forced some Palestinians to sing "Elinor" - "It was really
something to see these Arabs singing a Zohar Argov song, like in a
movie"; the emotions the Palestinians aroused in him - "Sometimes
these Arabs really disgust me, especially those that try to toady up
to us - the older ones, who come to the checkpoint with this smile
on their faces"; the reactions they spurred - "If they really annoy
us, we find away to keep them stuck at the checkpoint for a few
hours. They lose a whole day of work because of it sometimes, but
that's the only way they learn."
He described how they would order children to clean the checkpoint
before inspection time; how a soldier named Shahar invented a game:
"He checks someone's identity card, and instead of handing it back
to him, just tosses it in the air. He got a kick out of seeing the
Arab have to get out of his car to pick up his identity card ...
It's a game for him and he can pass a whole shift this way"; how
they humiliated a dwarf who came to the checkpoint every day on his
wagon: "They forced him to have his picture taken on the horse, hit
him and degraded him for a good half hour and let him go only when
cars arrived at the checkpoint. The poor guy, he really didn't
deserve it"; how they had a souvenir picture taken with bloodied,
bound Arabs whom they'd beaten up; how Shahar pissed on the head of
an Arab because the man had the nerve to smile at a soldier; how
Dado forced an Arab to stand on four legs and bark like a dog; and
how they stole prayer beads and cigarettes - "Miro wanted them to
give him their cigarettes, the Arabs didn't want to give so Miro
broke someone's hand, and Boaz slashed their tires."
Chilling confession
The most chilling of all the personal confessions: "I ran toward
them and punched an Arab right in the face. I'd never punched anyone
that way. He collapsed on the road. The officers said that we had to
search him for his papers. We pulled his hands behind his back and I
bound them with plastic handcuffs. Then we blindfolded him so he
wouldn't see what was in the Jeep. I picked him up from the road.
Blood was trickling from his lip onto his chin. I led him up behind
the Jeep and threw him in, his knees banged against the trunk and he
landed inside. We sat in the back, stepping on the Arab ... Our Arab
lay there pretty quietly, just crying softly to himself. His face
was right on my flak jacket and he was bleeding and making a kind of
puddle of blood and saliva, and it disgusted and angered me, so I
grabbed him by the hair and turned his head to the side. He cried
out loud and to get him to stop, we stepped harder and harder on his
back. That quieted him down for a while and then he started up
again. We concluded that he was either retarded or crazy.

"The company commander informed us over the radio that we had to
bring him to the base. `Good work, tigers,' he said, teasing us. All
the other soldiers were waiting there to see what we'd caught. When
we came in with the Jeep, they whistled and applauded wildly. We put
the Arab next to the guard. He didn't stop crying and someone who
understood Arabic said that his hands were hurting from the
handcuffs. One of the soldiers went up to him and kicked him in the
stomach. The Arab doubled over and grunted, and we all laughed. It
was funny ... I kicked him really hard in the ass and he flew
forward just as I'd expected. They shouted that I was a totally
crazy, and they laughed ... and I felt happy. Our Arab was just a
16-year-old mentally retarded boy."

Assuming those accounts are true, and it contradicts what I've read from even leftist sources, that sounds like one deranged individual. That Gideon Levy picked it up is no surprise.

I'm not sure why you've posted that memo from the Jewish minister. It doesn't prove anything - they're just opinions.

I said:Also: the 19th century Jewish reclamation of the land, that you call 'sephardic', was insignificant in terms of population numbers.

You then said: Er, no. Thousands (especially when compared with the figures after the first Zionist conference) are not small numbers. Sephardim, by the way, are Jews who were expelled from Israel to Arab countries. Guess what - the Arabs treated them far worse than the IDF treats the Palestinians.
…
You really should read From Time Immemorial. The 'displacement' of Arabs, for example, just didn't happen. Jewish agriculture brought more Arab fellah (peasants) from across the Jordan, Arabs who settled in British Palestine after their Jewish employers. This happened usually at a ratio of 10 Arab families for every Jewish family.

Colt:

I have over the last few years encountered three books that have a curious thing in common: they got, at their publication, excited praise from the media, they were praised, in more muted tones, by some professional academics (but then, generally, people who were not at home in the field concerned) and they were thoroughly condemned by real specialists: the first of these books is Bjorn Lomborg’s, The sceptical environmentalist, the second is Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s willing executioners and the third one is Joan Peter’s From time immemorial.

There is, however, also a difference between the first two books and the third one. Lomborg’s and Goldhagen’s publications were merely condemned for not being up to professional standards, Peter’s book was, in addition, rejected as a fraud.

The one who set in her case the ball rolling was an author whose name you will probably pronounce with as much distaste as you did, in your last letter, that of Gideon Levy, namely Norman Finkelstein. He is certainly not a specialist in the demography of the Middle East but he devoted an entire book, his doctoral dissertation I think it was, to a thorough examination of Peters’ handiwork. He systematically tracked down all her references and he came to the conclusion that the book was a deliberate fraud. She had lifted quotations out of context thus misrepresenting their meaning, in other cases she had distorted them, and she had presented her numerical material in an often misleading fashion.

Now, you will say: oh, Norman Finkelstein. But wait: there is the Israeli historian, Professor Yehoshua Porath, who, to my knowledge, has never been accused of anti-Israeli sentiments. In a long review in The New York Review of Books, dated 16th January 1986 (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5249) he politely, but unmistakably, shows Mrs.Peters the door. About the general thesis of her book he has got this to say: “In spite of the Jewish immigration, the natural increase of the Arabs – at least twice the rate of the Jews – slowed down the transformation of Jews into a majority in Palestine. To account for the delay the theory, or myth, of large-scale immigration of Arabs from the neighbouring countries was proposed by Zionist writers. Mrs.Peters accepts that theory completely; she has apparently searched through documents for any statement to the effect that Arabs entered Palestine. But even if we put together all the cases she cites, one cannot escape the conclusion that most of the growth of the Palestinian Arab community resulted from a process of natural increase.”

And in his conclusion he says : “I am reluctant to bore the reader and myself with further examples of Mrs.Peters’ highly tendentious use – or neglect – of the available source material. Much more important is her misunderstanding of basic historical processes and her failure to appreciate the central importance of natural population increase as compared to migratory movements. Readers of her book should be warned not to accept its factual claims without checking their sources. Judging by the interest that the book aroused and the prestige of some who endorsed it, I thought it would present some new interpretation of the historical facts. I found none. Everyone familiar with the writing of the extreme nationalists of Zeev Jabotinsky’s Revisionist party (the forerunner of the Herut party) would immediately recognize the tired and discredited arguments in Mrs.Peters’ book. I had mistakenly thought them long forgotten. It is a pity that they have been given new life.”.

This review had a sequel. In the New York Review of Books of the 27th of March 1986 (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5172) Ronald Sanders and Daniel Pipes , who had both originally been very positive about the book, reacted to Porath’s review. The reaction of Pipes (who cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called a demographer) is interesting. He wrote: “From Time Immemorial quotes carelessly, uses statistics sloppily, and ignores inconvenient facts...The author’s linguistic and scholarly abilities are open to question...eccentric footnotes, and a polemical, somewhat hysterical undertone mar the book...” Nevertheless, he is, somehow, of the opinion that her main thesis has not been disproved. I know of no reputable scholar in the field who would agree with him there. Porath certainly didn’t. In a detailed rejoinder, mainly concerning the demographical data available, he replied to Sanders and Pipes in the same issue.

I will not refer to any other critical literature on Peters’ book (which still enjoys robust sales figures because it clearly responds to a need) which, anyway, you can find for yourself. I would just like to draw your attention to an interesting series of articles on it by an ‘amateur’ who obviously wishes that he could have proven Peters to be right but was impelled to come to the opposite conclusion: I am referring to a six part series in the journal Capitalism Magazine (which is based on Ayn Rand’s philosophy) by its editor Paul Blair.(http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2135) and following.

And now to the matter of Jewish settlement (I wouldn’t use the word reclamation because that would suggest that Palestine was a desert before the Jewish arrival) in the nineteenth century. Unfortunately I have not been able to consult at first hand a book which was called, in a review in The Journal of the American Oriental Society v.114 n1 p106, Jan-March 1994 (not on Google), a work that “will very likely stand as the definitive work on the demography of Palestine before 1948”. I am referring to Professor Justin McCarthy’s book The Population of Palestine:Population History and Statistics of the late Ottoman Period and the Mandate (in which, incidentally, Peters’ book is called “demographically worthless”).

Apparently, McCarthy gives population figures from 1877 onward but the only approximately relevant figure I could glean from the review was that he thinks the Jewish popualtion of pre-war Palestine to be about 60,000 in a total population of 722,000. However by then there had already been considerable Zionist migration into the area and the nineteenth century figure must have been much lower. A German language article by Arjan El Fassed (http://www.kritische-stimme.de/Deu1/Annahmen1.html) mentions for 1893 10,000, or 2 %, in a total population of 497,000, but that seems again a bit low (nevertheless Fassed refers to quite an array of sources in the scholarly literature).

Perhaps more important, in view of the remark made by you about the’sephardic reclamation” as a sort of forerunner of the later fully fledged Zionist immigration, is the quote from Don Peretz which I found in a publication by Jews for Justice in the Middle East. Peretz wrote “Before the 20th century, most Jews in Palestine belonged to old Yishuv, or community, that had settled more for religious than for political reasons. There was little of any conflict between them and the Arab population. Tensions began after the first Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880’s...when they purchased land from absentee Arab owners, leading to dispossession of the peasants who had cultivated it”. In other words, Zionism had from the start the intention to dispossess the original inabitants. There are statements from the early pioneers confirming this.

I had also wanted to react to your remark about the treatment of Jews in Muslim regions but this letter is already a bit long. I will just refer to Porath’s suspicion that Peters deliberately left out the Ottoman empire here because there they were, in general, treated pretty decently by the authorities. I also draw your attention to a review of Peters’ book by Robert L.Wilken, professor of the history of christianity at the University of Virginia (http://www.religion-online.org/gci-bin/relsearchd.dll/showarticle?item_id=1047),in which he castigates Peters for characterising the dhimmi (“protected people” a term referring to Christians as well as to Jews) “as though it was a social structure that singled out Jews for special mistreatment”. “This goes against our best historical understanding”, says Wilken, “Jews experienced greater security under the Muslims than in the West, and they were much more succesful at integrating with the majority in Islamic lands than in Christian countries”.

I will leave it at this.

Arie Brand

As much as I would love to get in to this, I can't - exams.

Some other time, though :-)

Anyone seriously interested in "From Time Immemorial," and the controversy it has aroused, should review Martin Kramer's views on the subject.

Thanks Barry. Not that I got much out of Kramer himself but he referred me to Gottheil whose article on the matter I hadn't seen before. I will have a good look at it.

Arie Brand