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Old 03-06-04, 08:17 AM   #21
schmooky007
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I find that really hard to believe ..just look at the pics....blind freddy could have seen her
oh really? and how would you know? i urge you to read some of statements about rachel corrie's death on the ISM website. most of the stories there about this incident rely exclusively on what ISM members saw that day. according to joseph smith, an ISM member who was part of the group of people who were with corrie, ms. corrie "dropped her bullhorn and sat down in front of one of the bulldozers." isolated from the other members of the group, ms. corrie then climbed on top of a small mound of soil the bulldozer created and kneeled. it is there when she lost her balance and fell to the ground. the fact that she sat down, kneeled, and fell to the ground right in front of the bulldozer suggests that she was indeed out of the driver's line of sight. in an interview with an israeli newspaper, mr. smith confirms that "the driver lost sight of her and continued forward. Then, without lifting the blade he reversed and Rachel was underneath ... she wasn’t run over by the tread."

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Rachel was run over while attempting to save the house of a pharmacist, Dr. Samir Nasrallah of Rafah in the Gaza strip
maybe stop quoting things from the ISM website and make it look like they're your own words. yeesh... and besides, so what? abdel aziz rantisi was a pediatrician, yet that didn't prevent him from being a mass murderer who spearheaded a terrorist organization that targets and murders israeli children. being a lawyer didn't stop hanadi jaradat from massacring 21 israelis, wiping out 2 entire families with children and infants, in a restaurant in haifa. working as a medic for the palestinian red crescent didn't stop wafa idris from becoming a homicide bomber who killed an israeli teen and wounded over 100 others. she was dispatched by a palestinian terrorist who was an ambulance driver for the palestinian red crescent. so you see, just because they happen to have fancy or important jobs doesn't mean they're not involved in terrorism.

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Strangely, given the publicity that attended this tragedy, the Israeli Army has never shown any evidence of a tunnel in Dr. Nasrallah's house,
not everything is released to the public and certainly the IDF doesn't need to justify anything to a bunch of retarded anarchists. if the ISM want access to more material perhaps they should petition the israeli courts.

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proof?
after the homicide bombing in the port of ashdod, israel closed the karni crossing. this crossing was once the main route to get arms into gaza. but because of its recent closing and the strict israeli crackdown for several years, the only realistic way the rifles and explosives could have made it through to the gunmen is to be smuggled from egypt through the tunnels. of course, we need to remember that according to the oslo accords the palestinians are not permitted to have such weapons. the international community never criticized the PA about this.


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Yeah right, she was truly hard to miss wearing a fluo orange jacket and screeming through the top of her lungs on a loudspeaker
those pics were fake. the associated press published them and later retracted them.

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You are right on this, nobody told her she had to do that but she did to try to protect innocent ppl and got killed for it
the ISM have a history of sheltering terrorists. they keep coming up with silly excuses to justify the circumstances.

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Palestinians are not terrorists, they are only humans being like you and me
true.. at least some of them. still, palestinian opinion polls show otherwise. most palestinians support terrorism, believing that the ethnic cleansing of jews from the west bank and gaza is only the beginning of the liberation of all of "palestine". from river to sea, as they put it.

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trying to protect what land is left to them in anyway possible since they don't get 3 billions a year to protect themselves like those murderers do.
nothing should be left to them because nothing is theirs. there was never an independent palestinian state from which these lands were seized from. israel took control of these areas during war, a war meant to destroy the jewish state launched by the arab world as a collective. the parties who controlled these areas prior to the war and lost them, egypt and jordan, have renounced their claims to it. the arab residents of these areas, the so-called palestinians, can move to jordan, egypt, saudi arabia, iran, just to name a few places. there is no shortage of muslem countries in the middle east that they can move into. and considering that most palestinians are islamists, living in a fascist muslem state would fit them quite well i reckon.

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Yeah, Nick Berg behedding was a shock to the world and it was considered a bloody murder... How come Rachel Corrie in your views, murder, is considered less?
that's the stupidest thing you've said yet. how can you compare the brutal beheading of an innocent civilian, nick berg, for the use of islamic propaganda, with the accidental death of rachel corrie, who belonged to a group of terrorist sympathizers who was stupid enough to play hero and got killed as a result?

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1. The Israelis stop indoctrinating their youth with the idea the goi are all animals who have not even the right to life ect...
wtf are you talking about?
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Old 03-06-04, 08:58 AM   #22
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Excerpts from: The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict THIRD EDITION (including Intifada 2000) PUBLISHED BY JEWS FOR JUSTICE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Early History of the Region

Before the Hebrews first migrated there around 1800 B.C., the land of Canaan was occupied by Canaanites."
Between 3000 and 1100 B.C., Canaanite civilization covered what is today Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon and much of Syria and Jordan...Those who remained in the Jerusalem hills after the Romans expelled the Jews [in the second century A.D.] were a potpourri: farmers and vineyard growers, pagans and converts to Christianity, descendants of the Arabs, Persians, Samaritans, Greeks and old Canaanite tribes." Marcia Kunstel and Joseph Albright, "Their Promised Land."

The present-day Palestinians' ancestral heritage
"But all these [different peoples who had come to Canaan] were additions, sprigs grafted onto the parent tree...And that parent tree was Canaanite...[The Arab invaders of the 7th century A.D.] made Moslem converts of the natives, settled down as residents, and intermarried with them, with the result that all are now so completely Arabized that we cannot tell where the Canaanites leave off and the Arabs begin." Illene Beatty, "Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan."

The Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods in ancient Palestine
"The extended kingdoms of David and Solomon, on which the Zionists base their territorial demands, endured for only about 73 years...Then it fell apart...[Even] if we allow independence to the entire life of the ancient Jewish kingdoms, from David's conquest of Canaan in 1000 B.C. to the wiping out of Judah in 586 B.C., we arrive at [only] a 414 year Jewish rule." Illene Beatty, "Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan."

More on Canaanite civilization
"Recent archeological digs have provided evidence that Jerusalem was a big and fortified city already in 1800 BCE...Findings show that the sophisticated water system heretofor attributed to the conquering Israelites pre-dated them by eight centuries and was even more sophisticated than imagined...Dr. Ronny Reich, who directed the excavation along with Eli Shuikrun, said the entire system was built as a single complex by Canaanites in the Middle Bronze Period, around 1800 BCE." The Jewish Bulletin, July 31st, 1998.

How long has Palestine been a specifically Arab country?
"Palestine became a predominately Arab and Islamic country by the end of the seventh century. Almost immediately thereafter its boundaries and its characteristics - including its name in Arabic, Filastin - became known to the entire Islamic world, as much for its fertility and beauty as for its religious significance...In 1516, Palestine became a province of the Ottoman Empire, but this made it no less fertile, no less Arab or Islamic...Sixty percent of the population was in agriculture; the balance was divided between townspeople and a relatively small nomadic group. All these people believed themselves to belong in a land called Palestine, despite their feelings that they were also members of a large Arab nation...Despite the steady arrival in Palestine of Jewish colonists after 1882, it is important to realize that not until the few weeks immediately preceding the establishment of Israel in the spring of 1948 was there ever anything other than a huge Arab majority. For example, the Jewish population in 1931 was 174,606 against a total of 1,033,314." Edward Said, "The Question of Palestine."

The British Mandate Period 1920-1948

The Balfour Declaration promises a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.
"The Balfour Declaration, made in November 1917 by the British Government...was made a) by a European power, b) about a non-European territory, c) in flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority resident in that territory...[As Balfour himself wrote in 1919], 'The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant (the Anglo French Declaration of 1918 promising the Arabs of the former Ottoman colonies that as a reward for supporting the Allies they could have their independence) is even more flagrant in the case of the independent nation of Palestine than in that of the independent nation of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country...The four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land,'" Edward Said, "The Question of Palestine."


Gandhi on the Palestine conflict - 1938
"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French...What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct...If they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs... As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of nonviolence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds." Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in "A Land of Two Peoples" ed. Mendes-Flohr.

Statehood and Expulsion 1948

Ethnic cleansing of the Arab population of Palestine
"Joseph Weitz was the director of the Jewish National Land Fund...On December 19, 1940, he wrote: 'It must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country...The Zionist enterprise so far...has been fine and good in its own time, and could do with 'land buying' - but this will not bring about the State of Israel; that must come all at once, in the manner of a Salvation (this is the secret of the Messianic idea); and there is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer them all; except maybe for Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem, we must not leave a single village, not a single tribe'...There were literally hundreds of such statements made by Zionists." Edward Said, "The Question of Palestine."

Ethnic cleansing - continued
"Following the outbreak of 1936, no mainstream (Zionist) leader was able to conceive of future coexistence without a clear physical separation between the two peoples - achievable only by transfer and expulsion. Publicly they all continued to speak of coexistence and to attribute the violence to a small minority of zealots and agitators. But this was merely a public pose..Ben Gurion summed up: 'With compulsory transfer we (would) have a vast area (for settlement)...I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it,'" Israel historian, Benny Morris, "Righteous Victims."

Ethnic cleansing- continued
"That Ben-Gurion's ultimate aim was to evacuate as much of the Arab population as possible from the Jewish state can hardly be doubted, if only from the variety of means he employed to achieve his purpose...most decisively, the destruction of whole villages and the eviction of their inhabitants...even [if] they had not participated in the war and had stayed in Israel hoping to live in peace and equality, as promised in the Declaration of Independence." Israeli author, Simha Flapan, "The Birth of Israel."

In any case, Palestine was not Britain's to give away; it was already occupied.
"We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish, state here...Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages...There is not a single community in the country that did not have a former Arab population." Israeli leader, Moshe Dayan, quoted in Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi's "Original Sins."

General Considerations

From the horse's mouth
"Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs, We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we came here and stole their country. Why should they accept that?" David Ben-Gurion, quoted in "The Jewish Paradox" by Nathan Goldman, former president of the World Jewish Congress.

More from the horse's mouth
"Before [the Palestinians] very eyes we are possessing the land and the villages where they, and their ancestors, have lived...We are the generation of colonizers, and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel we cannot plant a tree and build a home." Israeli leader Moshe Dayan, quoted in Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, "Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel"

Zionism's 'historical right' to Palestine
"Zionism's 'historical right' to Palestine was neither historical nor a right. It was not historical inasmuch as it voided the two millennia of non-Jewish settlement in Palestine and the two millennia of Jewish settlement outside it. It was not a right, except in the Romantic 'mysticism' of 'blood and soil' and the Romantic 'cult' of 'death, heroes and graves'... "The claim of Jewish 'homelessness is founded on a cluster of assumptions that both negates the liberal idea of citizenship and duplicates the anti-Semitic one that the state belongs to the majority ethnic nation. In a word, the Zionist case for a Jewish state is as valid as the anti-Semitic case for an ethnic state that marginalizes Jews." Professor Norman Finkelstein, "Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict,"

Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel

Jewish fundamentalist rationale for seizing Arab land
"They argue that what appears to be confiscation of Arab owned land for subsequent settlement by Jews is in reality not an act of stealing but one of sanctification. From their perspective the land is being redeemed by being transferred from the satanic to the divine sphere...To further this process, the use of force is permitted whenever necessary...Halacha permits Jews to rob nonJews in those locales wherein Jews are stronger than non-Jews." "Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky's "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel"

Racism
"Gush Emunim rabbis have continually reiterated that Jews who killed Arabs should not be punished, [e.g.]...Relying on the Code of Maimonides and the Halacha, Rabbi Ariel stated, 'A Jew who killed a non-Jew is exempt from human judgement and has not violated the [religious] prohibition of murder'..The significance here is most striking when the broad support, both direct and indirect, for Gush Emunim is considered. About one-half of Israel's Jewish population supports Gush Emunim." "Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky's "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel"

http://www.wrmea.com/jews_for_justice/

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The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History
by Keith W. Whitelam (Author)

Edward Said, The Times Literary Supplement
"The Invention of Ancient Israel is a remarkable work of scholarship, certainly audacious enough, despite its painstaking manner, to undermine many unthinking presuppositions about ancient biblical history . . . the book possesses that keen independence of spirit and vision that is so rare and so invigorating when one encounters it."

Journal of Biblical Literature
"... fascinating ... This is a timely, pioneering study ... ... author is to be congratulated for producing an extremely provocative and, for the most part, faithful mirror in which the discipline of biblical studies may behold its unflattering reflection."

Sunday Times
"This is a brave, fascinating and important book."

Book Description
A controversial and provocative work, The Invention of Ancient Israel chronicles how the true history of ancient Palestine has been obscured. Keith W. Whitelam reveals how ancient Israel has been invented by scholars in the image of a European nation state; one that resembles the state of Israel created in 1948.

This book explores the prospects for developing the study of Palestinian history as a subject in its own right, divorced from the history of the Bible, and argues that Biblical scholars, through their traditional view of this area, have contributed to dispossession both of a Palestinian land and a Palestinian past.
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Old 03-06-04, 04:23 PM   #23
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Originally Posted by schmooky007
oh really? and how would you know? i urge you to read some of statements about rachel corrie's death on the ISM website. most of the stories there about this incident rely exclusively on what ISM members saw that day.
And a few other palestinians, but let's dismiss it because they were labeled "terrorists" by the IDF.

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abdel aziz rantisi was a pediatrician, yet that didn't prevent him from being a mass murderer who spearheaded a terrorist organization that targets and murders israeli children. being a lawyer didn't stop hanadi jaradat from massacring 21 israelis, wiping out 2 entire families with children and infants, in a restaurant in haifa. working as a medic for the palestinian red crescent didn't stop wafa idris from becoming a homicide bomber who killed an israeli teen and wounded over 100 others. she was dispatched by a palestinian terrorist who was an ambulance driver for the palestinian red crescent. so you see, just because they happen to have fancy or important jobs doesn't mean they're not involved in terrorism.
What you seem to forget is that for each isralie killed in those attack, atleast 10 palestians were killed in retaliory strikes by the IDF.


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not everything is released to the public and certainly the IDF doesn't need to justify anything to a bunch of retarded anarchists. if the ISM want access to more material perhaps they should petition the israeli courts.
Of course and with reason since they are scared shit about releasing it. Come on, now, Israel have "carte blanche" to murder US and UK peace activists if they stand in their way! Also, you just gave a new depth to the word anarchy... If fighting the occupation because you value freedom and don't want to have your house bulldozed down, then i'm an anarchist all the way.


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those pics were fake. the associated press published them and later retracted them.
Pretty bold statement! have some proof to back it up?


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the ISM have a history of sheltering terrorists. they keep coming up with silly excuses to justify the circumstances.
Don't know... some kids spending 2000$ to get there to protest for peace and put their life on the line like R. Corrie did or T Hurndall, I would hardly call them terrorists sympathiser. Again, got some proof about the ISM sheltering terrorists?


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true.. at least some of them. still, palestinian opinion polls show otherwise. most palestinians support terrorism, believing that the ethnic cleansing of jews from the west bank and gaza is only the beginning of the liberation of all of "palestine". from river to sea, as they put it.
Heard some jewish extremists say the same thing about the palestinians, ethnic clensing, expultion and the destruction of all palestinians home as a solution to the isralite colonisation.


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nothing should be left to them because nothing is theirs. there was never an independent palestinian state from which these lands were seized from. israel took control of these areas during war, a war meant to destroy the jewish state launched by the arab world as a collective. the parties who controlled these areas prior to the war and lost them, egypt and jordan, have renounced their claims to it. the arab residents of these areas, the so-called palestinians, can move to jordan, egypt, saudi arabia, iran, just to name a few places. there is no shortage of muslem countries in the middle east that they can move into. and considering that most palestinians are islamists, living in a fascist muslem state would fit them quite well i reckon.
Now that's the worst load of crap i've ever read. I suggest you carefully read sinner's post on that matter. About the land issue, not being theirs, i'm pretty sure a lot of american indians would have the same opinion as you do! Don't know where you live but if it's in the US, i'm pretty sure you wouldn't like a delegation of native americans indian reclaming their land on which youre house was built upon.


Quote:
that's the stupidest thing you've said yet. how can you compare the brutal beheading of an innocent civilian, nick berg, for the use of islamic propaganda, with the accidental death of rachel corrie, who belonged to a group of terrorist sympathizers who was stupid enough to play hero and got killed as a result?
Nick Berg, so far as the story goes (and didn't they tie him up with one of those terrorists on 9/11) was a freelancer who didn't need to play hero either. He went there in search of a contract aka making money. Rachel Corrie went to Palestine to truly help opressed ppl, not to make a dime out of their suffering. In return to her courage and her kindness, you treat her of terrorists sympathizer?

As for the stupidest thing i've said so far, just don't read my posts. Simple and effective. Only a child would/can resort to name calling or when in lack of words to express it's true feeling.

Anyway, since you seem to support a bunch of terrorists in my own views, and in your own views, I seem to support a bunch of terrorists, this argument will lead nowhere fast.

When/if you reply, please drop the name calling
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Old 04-06-04, 12:06 PM   #24
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Originally Posted by Heathcliff
I don't get you pisser, I think you need to do some real soul searching to find out why you have such a depraved disregard for others.
I'll leave the soul searching to you. If you don't know what I am about by now, you never will.

I'll help you to understand:

"KILL ALL STINKY ISLAMIC ARABS SCUMSUCKING TURBANHEADS!"

Got it???.......
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Old 06-06-04, 08:38 AM   #25
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a fitting article for you miss silver.. "we didn't know..

Making the Case for Israel
By Alan M. Dershowitz

Alan Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School. He is an internationally respected attorney and human rights activist. At one time he was actively involved as an attorney in the Soviet Jewry Movement and helped to free Natan Sharansky from the USSR. He is recognized as a member of the liberal establishment yet a strong supporter of Israel. He has also become aware of the continual anti-Israel bias that is growing on college campuses in the United States.

Below is an edited transcript of his speech at UC Berkeley, one of the most anti-Israel campuses in the United States. Dershowitz addressed an audience of 1,200 people on April 29, 2004, about the growing problem of anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses.


I remember so well the early days in the 1970's when I sat down in UC Berkeley. I was there for a year. I was probably defending some of the parents of the kids who are outside protesting tonight.

I defended Angela Davis and many of the people involved in the free speech movement at UC Berkeley. But I was also deeply involved with the Soviet Jewry Movement. Recently I was on a radio talk show and somebody asked me what my biggest fee I ever earned was. Was it Michael Milken or Leona Helmsley? I said it was Natan Sharansky.

"Sharansky?" they said, "We didn't know he had any money."

And I said no. He didn't have any money. I had to defend him at my own expense. But when he walked over the Glienicke Bridge and he threw his arms around me, and he whispered in my ear in Hebrew "Blessed are those who help free the imprisoned." Tears came to my eyes, to his eyes -- I'll never earn a bigger fee in my life than that.

When we were in Jerusalem, we said we'd look back at that time and remember it as a wonderful point in history, when civil liberties, love for Judaism and a love for Israel came together. This week marks the 56th anniversary of Israel. And I'm reminded of myself in 1947 and 1948, watching the UN on television, the division of Palestine into hopefully a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. It was accepted by the Jews, but rejected by the Palestinians.

And then Ben Gurion announced the statehood. It was such a joyous moment! I remember when the director of my yeshiva came in and announced the words from Hatikva [Israel's national anthem] were officially changed from "going back to the land of our fathers" to "a free people in our land."

Those were the days. Those were the days when the Israeli-Arab conflict presented a clear-cut conflict between good and evil. Israelis were Holocaust survivors trying to build a Jewish democratic homeland that would always be open to Jewish immigrants and refugees. Doors to the world had been closed to so many refugees during the Holocaust.

On the other side were the Holocaust perpetrators. We forget too often that the Egyptian army commanders in large part were former Nazis given asylum by the Egyptian government. Amung them was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the recognized leader of the Palestinian people. These were indicted war criminals who spent most of the war years with Hitler in Nazi Germany.

This was a conflict between democracy and tyranny. A conflict between those who wanted to accept the United Nations' plan of a two-state resolution and those who rejected the existence of Israel. Those were the days when it was so clear on which side civil liberties and human rights and progress led and on which side tyranny and oppression lied. The sad reality is that nothing has changed on the ground. These facts are still the same today as they were in 1947 or 1948, yet the perspectives have changed so dramatically. Even in 1956, even in 1967, even in the early 1970's, most progressive, liberal and centrist people supported the right side of this struggle.

Sure, I favored a two state solution. I've always favored a two state solution. Israel has always favored a two state solution, since 1937, when they accepted the Peel Commission report which would have give the Palestinians a long, contiguous state and the Jews a totally non-contiguous state. The Jews said yes and the Palestinians and Arabs said no.

In 1947, the Jews were offered a non-contiguous state in which Jerusalem was separated from Tel Aviv and other Jewish cities, and the Palestinians were offered a contiguous state. And the Palestinians said no. Ben Gurion and the Israelis said yes. Nothing has changed. Not Israeli actions to be sure.

What changed is the perception of the world. The United Nations tragically has become a mega bomb for bigotry against Israel. If a space alien from another planet were to come down to earth and land at the General Assembly of the United Nations, or at some American college campuses, or many an urban capital, and have to report back to the distant galaxy from which he came, he'd have to report this is a wonderful planet with great countries that love peace. Like Syria, which is on the Security Council. Or Libya, that chairs the Human Rights Commission. But there's this one country, this evil nation that's been condemned by the UN more than any other country or all other countries combined. If the spaceship landed on the Berkeley campus, all the canards and untruths about Israel--genocide, apartheid, all the claims you hear so often, would be heard. And that's the tragedy.

And that's why I had to write The Case For Israel. It's my least favorite book, I have to tell you. It's the book nobody wants to write. Nobody has to write the Case for Canada or the Case for Spain or the Case for Australia. There's so much lying on college campuses today, so many untruths, so many legalese falsities being directed against Israel. But the impetus to write the Case For Israel came when the divestiture campaign began at Harvard and Berkeley and many of our college campuses. No members of the law school faculty, nor of the medical school faculty, nor the business school signed, but many at the other schools and departments signed the petition.

What did it call for? It called for no further investments in Israeli industries. What are Israel's main industries? It's not Jaffa oranges, it's high tech, life saving medical equipment, like kidney dialysis machines. Israel per capita saves more lives than any other country in the world.

I said cutting off this industry was immoral, so I challenged one of the leading pro-divestment professors at one of the Harvard colleges to debate me in front of his students. I challenged him to debate the morality of signing the petition to divest from Israel, but not from North Korea, not Cuba, not China, not Libya, not from Iraq in those days, not the Sudan -- only Israel. This was a man who taught the Christian approaches to the Old Testament. He said to me "Professor Dershowitz, my knowledge of the Middle East ended with the death of Moses." I invited those students to see me, watch me debate him or a surrogate. When nobody showed to take his position, I set the petition on a chair as a token surrogate and we had a dialog.

Many of the students who attended were not Jews and held no firm views of Israel. They all came up to me afterward and said the same three words: "We didn't know!"

"We didn't know Israel first offered a two state solution, a Palestinian state, but the Arabs rejected it!"

"We didn't know in 1967 Israel accepted Resolution 242, in which the United Nations called for the return of territories captured in exchange for full peace and secure boundaries."

All Arab states rejected it saying, "no peace, no recognition, no negotiations," but students today said, "We didn't know!"

These Harvard students didn't know that in the years 2000 and 2001 Ehud Barak along with President Bill Clinton had initially offered the Palestinians everything they were asking for -- a state made up of 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, a capital in Jerusalem, control of East Jerusalem, control of the Temple Mount, 30 billion dollars in a compensation package, and symbolic return of several thousand refugees. Instead of accepting it or coming back to the negotiating table, Arafat walked away and started the intifada and all the violence. The Harvard students kept saying, "We didn't know!"

"We didn't know that Prince Bandar at Taba called Arafat's rejection of the offer a crime against the Palestinian people and against all the people of the region."

The students just didn't know.

I came away with a different view than my friend Natan Sharansky. He came away with a sense of hopelessness. When he toured American campuses, he believed that America was becoming like France [which is exceedingly anti-Israel].

I came away with a very different, optimistic view. To be sure, 15 to 20% of students on college campuses -- perhaps more at Berkeley, Michigan, or Rutgers, fewer at Harvard and Yale -- you can't argue with them. It's like putting a dollar in the soda machine and the soda doesn't come out and neither does your dollar. You just can't argue with them. You want to kick the machine but you can't do that.

You cannot convince people like Noam Chomsky. And there are 15% on the other side who are clearly favorably disposed to Israel. But then there are 70% on college campuses with open and unfortunately empty minds when it comes to Israel. They take what their peers and professors say the Gospel truth. It's crucially important to fill that information gap.

During the same divestiture campaign, a young student came to me from Harvard College and asked me for forgiveness. I said, "What do I have to forgive you for? I don't even know you."

He said, "I never speak up on campus, in my classroom, in my dormitory, at dinner. I never speak up in favor of Israel even though I've been there on Operation Birthright and I know the facts and hear the lies."

"Why not?" I asked.

He replied, "Because if I am perceived as pro-Israel, pro-Zionist, in favor of Israel, I won't be able to get dates with young girls."

It was as simple as that. It's not cool to be a "Zionist." It's not cool. I thought I should start a program at the Harvard campus: "Date a Zionist Tonight!" That's the way he put it -- Not cool to be a Zionist. It's really a problem.

I decided to make it cool again to support Israel and show you can support Israel from a progressive, liberal perspective. Indeed, I support Israel not in spite of my history as a human rights activist, but because of it. I support Israel because I support female rights, women's rights, feminism, and the Palestinian Authority does not.

I also support gay rights. I saw a student at a college campus hold up a sign that said, "Gays For Palestine." I said to him "Imagine what would happen if you carried that sign in Ramallah. You'd be killed." I support Israel because I support gay rights. Recently a progressive congressman, Barney Frank from Massachusetts, worked with me and Israel to grant asylum for 40 Palestinian gays.

"Environmentalists For Palestine" is another ironic group. Palestinians are utterly insensitive to environmental concerns. Israel is the most environmentally sensitive country in the Middle East.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which an Arab can file a case against his country in the Supreme Court. Israel's Supreme Court is among the finest courts in the world today. It enforces the rule of law on a daily basis against inevitable abuses that occur when a nation is at war. As we look at the United States Supreme Court this week there are two big cases -- the Hamdi case and the Padilla case. At question is if we can detain and hold terrorist combatants at Guantanamo indefinitely, while deciding if they are prisoners of war or common criminals. One has only to look to Israel, which see resolved these things 20 years ago.

We see that the Israelis routinely decide in favor of the Palestinians against their own government. In 1989, Justice Brennan, perhaps the most liberal justice in America's court, went to Israel at the invitation of Justice Aharon Barak of the Israeli Supreme Court. Brennan said, "God forbid that terrorism should ever come to the shores of the United States. At least we in America have the model to help balance the needs of security against the needs of liberty. That model is Israel."

I think the American courts today will look to that model, just as the United States Army looks to the Israeli army as a model to fight guerilla wars against terrorists with "holiness of arms." I recently attended a hearing of the Ethics Committee of the Israeli Army which decides when it's appropriate to consider somebody a combatant and target him for killing when he can't be arrested as a terrorist. The Ethics Committee consisted of a professor of Philosophy from Tel Aviv University, a human rights activist from Bar-Ilan University, several lawyers, mathematicians, and experts on how to evaluate potential collateral damage -- civilian deaths in numbers. They were debating how to value the life of a Palestinian civilian against the life of an Israeli soldier. The Ethics professor said the Israeli government has the right to balance and to value the life of its own soldiers over enemy civilians. And the Israeli general disagreed and said the Israeli soldiers must die to save the lives of civilians even if they are enemy civilians.

Now, however you decide what is the right result, the interesting point is Israel is debating these issues. The Israeli Supreme Court is debating these issues. They're trying their very best to fight within the constraints of the Rules of War. Laws are enacted that give terrorists an advantage in this fight against democracy. You know, Israel has nothing to be ashamed of in its general record. It's fought terrorism for over 56 years.

There was the massacre in Hebron in 1929 before the advent of Israel, before the occupied territories, before the settlements. Hebron's Jewish population was subject to a massacre at the whim of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The victims were not armed Zionists, but primarily yeshiva students and rabbis and they were massacred because they were of the wrong religion. In all its years, Israel has killed fewer civilians than any other comparable country.

Israel is the only country in modern times that has never dropped bombs on enemy capitols in retaliation for bombs dropped on its own civilians. People forget that in 1948, Egypt dropped bombs on a Tel Aviv bus station, killing many people. The '67 War began when the Jordanians lobbed 1600 bombs into downtown West Jerusalem. In the '73 War Syria tried to kill civilians in Galilee. But Israel never bombed Cairo or Damascus. When Israel did bomb on the outskirts of Beirut during the Beirut War, it tried its best not to kill innocent civilians.

In fact, in order to destroy a terrorist base in the middle of Beirut, Israel sent Ehud Barak dressed as a woman on a raft to eliminate the base so as not to drop bombs from the air.

The United States today, when they go into Fallujah from the air or on the ground they use Israel as the model. Israel went in on the ground in Jenin and lost 23 soldiers, yet it's called a massacre: first they claimed 5,000 people were killed, then 500, then 100. In truth, 52 people, most of them combatants, were killed. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers were killed in the process. Israel can be really proud of the way it fought terror and efforts to destroy it over the years. And Israel can be proud of the fact that it has constantly been willing to support the creation of a democratic, peaceful Palestinian state.

Look, I know there are people outside claiming they are Jews for Palestine. I suspect many of you in the auditorium are Jews for Palestine. We favored a Palestinian state in '37, in '47, and we favored Resolution 242. Many offers of statehood were made by Ehud Barak. It was not we who turned them down. It was Yasser Arafat. It's not we who stole money from the Palestinian people, not we who turn Palestinian children into suicide bombers. Yasser Arafat's primary victims have been the Palestinian people. He has stolen his people's lives from them.

There was a cartoon in the Berkeley Daily Planet. It shows a picture of a man holding a Palestinian flag that says. " State of Palestine," and it shows an American flag and a man with a Jewish Star of David stabbing him in the back, as if Israel denied statehood to the Palestinian people.

Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian member of the peace delegation, said if Arafat had accepted what was offered by 2001, we could be celebrating the third year of Palestinian statehood. Palestine could have been one of the wealthiest states in the Middle East, with all kinds of money pouring in from Europe, with great medical care and good education.

The best thing that could happen to the Middle East would be the existence of a democratic, economically viable Palestinian state. It is not Israel that has prevented that from happening. It's the Palestinian leadership. The Palestinians should value having their own state more than the destruction of the Jewish state. But it cannot come without, it must be a condition of, recognizing the existence of the state of Israel.

And statehood cannot come as a reward for terrorism. As Tom Friedman wrote in the New York Times, if Palestinian statehood is a reward for terrorism, then terrorism is coming to a theater near you. The world learned a terrible lesson when it rewarded Palestinian terrorism at Munich in 1972; when it rewarded Palestinian terrorism in Turkey and in France; when it rewarded Palestinian terrorists in Italy and Israel, as well. Indeed, I think Usama Bin Laden learned an important lesson from Arafat -- that terrorism works because the United States doesn't have the backbone to stand up to it.

Many European countries become complicit with terror by making deals with the devil, like when Germany's Wily Brandt freed the murderers of Munich after the fake hijacking that he arranged with the Palestinians. This is the kind of cowardly act which results in spreading terrorism around the world. And it's the United States that shares this same destiny with Israel. Both are victims of terrorism against civilians. They fight for the preservation of democracy in a world where terrorism is tolerated; a world where terrorists think they can change the outcome of elections the way they did in Spain, and hope to do in England, Australia, Untied States and Israel. These democracies have to be able to stand up to the tyranny of the world.

Israel can be proud of the way it stood up to terrorism. Israel should be proud of the way it has fought the wars that were thrust upon it for so many years. The last thing Israel wanted to do was fight the wars. Not in 1947, in 1948, not in 1956, not in 1967, not in 1973 and not in any era since. All Israel wants to do is live in peace and prosperity and openness and become a center of science, of intellectualism, of art and culture.

You know you hear excuses all the time that democracy is only for secure nations. "It's only for rich nations. It's only for old nations. Don't expect democracies too quickly in Iraq, don't expect it in other parts of the world. Don't expect it in China. It's a luxury. The United States can afford it, Western Europe can afford it." Israel puts the lie to that.

Israel has been a democracy since the day it was born. Israel never gave up democracy even when faced with genocidal attempts to destroy it. Even when faced with a war and the potential for major, major destruction, it never gave up on democracy. There is no question Israel will remain a democracy.

And as a democracy, Israel can take criticism. Israel is a country with a thick skin. It has had to develop that thick skin over a number of years. It will remain a democracy, believe it. That's a given. Just go online and read the Israeli press. If you want to see criticism in Israel just read Ma'ariv or Yediot Ahranot or Ha'aretz. They tell the joke of the Israelis who were stranded on a deserted island. They were rescued after five years and they had 15 political parties and several newspapers. And American Jews shouldn't be timid to criticize policies of a particular Israeli government. You hear Michael Lerner and others say that to criticize Israel you are called an anti-Semite. That's just nonsense.

I have challenged Michael Lerner, I have challenged others both in the Bay Area and other places too. Show me a single instance where a major Jewish leader or Israeli leader has ever said that criticizing a particular policy of Israeli government is anti-Semitic. That's just something made up by Israel's enemies. It is not something that can actually be argued today.

It is anti-Semitism to single out Israel -- to single out the Jewish nation and blow its faults out of proportion and beyond any kind of recognition, and it is anti-Semitism to continually compare Israel to Nazism.

I was accused of carrying my own anti-Semitisic agenda the first time in my adult life when I spoke at Fanueil Hall and received an award from a Jewish organization for my work in human rights. As I walked out there was a group from the hard Left chanting "Dershowitz and Hilter, it's all the same, the only difference is the name!" and "Dershowitz and Goebbels, all the same, the only difference is the name!" They were chanting that Jews who support Israel are worse than Nazis. Norman Finkelstein has said he doesn't understand why Israel isn't flattered by the comparison with Nazis.

You'll notice these people never compare Israel to others -- to dictatorships, to China, never to Pinochet, never to Cuba, never even to Mussolini and never to solve anything. And that is anti-Semitism. To compare a democratic state that is trying so hard to conform to the rule of law and has never killed innocent civilians deliberately or willfully to the Nazi regimes that killed Jews can only be motivated by hatred and bigotry. So criticism is there. Criticism should be comparable, contextual, constructive. Israel thrives on criticism and the Jewish community thrives on criticism. All I want when I come to Berkeley is to confront those people, those professors, those Israel haters.

Again, I say I'm pro-Palestinian. The only difference between me and other pro-Palestinians is they are anti-Israel. I could debate them because my goal is simply to bring more nuances in the discussion of the Israeli/Arab Palestinian conflict to the college campus. Enough of the shouting, enough of the polemics, enough of the extremism, enough of the ignorant comparisons to Nazism or to apartheid. Enough of the thoroughly non-intellectual sloganeering. Let's have a real intellectual discussion, let's have a real conversation. Let's have a real case.

But you can't buy that case unless there's elimination of the extremist rhetoric -- this sense that Israel is demonized, de-legitimized in the world. In fact, the extreme criticism makes it hard to get the nuances of criticism of both sides. And what happens is each side gets polemical views and that doesn't make progress toward peace.

So I ask those in the progressive movement, who support feminism and civil liberties, -- the kind of political theories I've supported all my life-- to come join an effort to support Israel and support Palestine. To support a democratic Palestinian state to be sure. Take the position you want on unilateralism, or on the fence; they are issues about which reasonable people can disagree. Israelis disagree.

The fence case is now in the Israeli Supreme Court as well as the International Court of Justice. The Israeli Supreme Court will resolve it fairly. The International Court of Justice won't. Why? Because the International Court of Justice is just like the Mississippi Supreme Court in the 1930's.

There was a Mississippi Supreme Court that could do justice only for cases of a White against a White. It was an all White court. It could in a paternalistic way solve a case of a Black against another Black, but it couldn't do justice in a case involving a Black and White. It would always find in favor of a White in such a case.

The same goes for the United Nations General Assembly and the International Court of Justice, which is a United Nations court. It can do justice in some disputes, but when Israel is involved it is incapable of doing justice. Like the Mississippi Supreme Court, it used its credibility that existed in some cases to pretend it was doing justice, but no perspicacious students of the International Court of Justice will be fooled. But many people are not perspicacious. They'll see judges with robes declaring the use of a fence to prevent terrorism not only a violation of international law, but a grievous one!

Among cases now pending before the International Court, there are no cases pending involving genocide or slavery, or oppression of women. There are no cases of oppression of people because of their religion. There are no cases involving events in Algeria or the Sudan or Rwanda. But Israel builds a moveable fence, a fence that three times already has been moved by order of the Israeli Supreme Court and by the Israeli government in response to changes on the ground, and that seems to be the greatest violation of international law.

There is a clear effort on the part of those who want to demonize and de-legitimize Israel to win a struggle for the hearts and souls and minds of the next generation of American leaders. The generation educated at Berkeley, at Stanford, at the University of San Francisco, today's students at UC Santa Cruz. Students from all over the state of California and all over the United States. Fifteen to 20 years from now these will be the congress people, the senators. These will be the judges and business leaders. The President of the United States and international leaders as well. The goal is to make these people so knee-jerk anti-Israel that they will resemble typical French or most Western European leaders of today. That's the goal of the divestiture campaign. The leaders of the divestiture movement knew it couldn't work. Noam Chomsky knew it. He said he never believed in divestiture, yet he supported it. Why? Because it would cause students to be misled by the context of the petition, to believe Israel deserved to be singled out as a great human rights violator of the world.

So it is a struggle for the hearts and minds of the students. "College is a dangerous place," Chomsky said. Your children and grandchildren and the children and grandchildren of our friends, they come from high schools, many from a Jewish education, and they are directed into classes that present a totally one-sided perspective. And when somebody tries to speak up for Israel they are demonized the way I have been demonized.

My book has been attacked viciously. I've been accused of plagiarism when I have all my original hand written copies. Norman Finkelstein said I didn't write it. People are prepared to make all kinds of false allegations not only against Israel, but against any Israel supporters also. Martin Gilbert, Stuart Eisenstadt, Debra Lipstadt, Elie Wiesel -- everybody who can speak in favor of the Jewish community -- is subjected to a well-organized, well-orchestrated and well-financed attack.

But they cannot stop us. They know they are not going to stop us. They know they aren't going to succeed in discrediting me, but they are sending a message to young assistant professors that "if you write a book that is pro-Israel or you write an article that is pro-Israel, we will savage you, we will accuse you of plagiarism. We will savage you, we will call you a fraud. And Dershowitz may be able to survive those charges, but you won't; when your tenure comes up those charges will be there, they will be in the air."

As Churchill said, "A lie can make its way half way around the world before the truth can get its pants on."

That's the goal, that's the purpose. And let there be no mistake about it. This is a battle for the hearts and minds for all of our future generation. That's why you all have to become Op Ed writers, you all have to become the people who call the TV and radio stations. You all have to write letters to the editor. You all have to support your local federation in the best defense of Israel.
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Old 06-06-04, 06:46 PM   #26
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This smook is just brainwashed.
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Old 06-06-04, 10:15 PM   #27
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This smook is just brainwashed.
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Old 06-06-04, 10:28 PM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by schmooky007
no massacres took place, ...... 52 palestinians, most of them armed terrorists, and 24 israeli soldiers were killed.

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Originally Posted by schmooky007
being a lawyer didn't stop hanadi jaradat from massacring 21 israelis

Why is the killing of 21 Israelis a "massacre" but the killing of 52 Palestinians not a "massacre" ?
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Old 07-06-04, 08:39 AM   #29
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Why is the killing of 21 Israelis a "massacre" but the killing of 52 Palestinians not a "massacre" ?
because these palestinians, most of them at least, were militants who died fighting. by their own admission, they tried to lure israeli soldiers into a trap in a small area of the camp. the militants suceeded in luring the troops but in the process lost many of their fighters. the difference between israel and the palestinians is israel never intentionally targets non-combatants. the palestinians do. there's a difference between a soldier and a palestinian militant fighting with their own weapons and a palestinian terrorist who straps a bomb on himself or herself to blow up infants and children in a restaurant or a cafe or a crowded bus.
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Old 07-06-04, 08:51 AM   #30
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Originally Posted by schmooky007
the difference between israel and the palestinians is israel never intentionally targets non-combatants.

Just one example...out of who knows how many.....


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IDF kills six civilians in tank shelling
By The Jerusalem Post Internet Staff


An IDF tank fired at two Palestinian cars in al-Amri refugee camp near Ramallah, killing six civilians in what Palestinians called a botched assassination attempt.

Following an investigation of the incident, the IDF apologized for the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians.

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/0...ews.44530.html

Maybe the Pals should start to apologize everytime an Israeli civilian gets killed. Well that make it ok?
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Old 08-06-04, 06:22 PM   #31
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miss_silver: maybe if you actually start reading and learning things from a factual viewpoint instead of picking up shit on jihad radio you'll find that it is you who is brainwashed

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=13587

sinner: sometimes mistakes happen in battle. there's still a difference between a mistake and a deliberate act. when they decide to target israeli children, palestinians don't make mistakes.
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Old 08-06-04, 08:05 PM   #32
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miss_silver: maybe if you actually start reading and learning things from a factual viewpoint instead of picking up shit on jihad radio you'll find that it is you who is brainwashed
Oh please! I'm not pro jihad. It's useless to keep replying to this thread since we totally have different views on this matter. What ever reply we bring, it will go on...

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sinner: sometimes mistakes happen in battle. there's still a difference between a mistake and a deliberate act. when they decide to target israeli children, palestinians don't make mistakes.
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