In the beginning (of the Zioinist movement) was the word. And the word (in Theodor Herzl's diary for 12 June, 1895) was Genocide: "When we occupy the land... We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border..."
Hence Israel's spiriting of penniless Palestinians across the borders in 1948... and again (into Jordan) in 1967.
But Gaza, into which Palestinians from across southern Palestine had already been spirited in 1948? What to do with them? Well, the only border to spirit them across was the Egyptian border... into the Sinai Desert.
And how to spirit them there? A re-run of 1948 perhaps? No, that'd be a PR disaster in 1967. Hmmm:
"'Perhaps if we don't give them enough water they won't have a choice, because the orchards will yellow and wither.' That is what Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said in 1967 about Gaza, as revealed in newly declassified documents from the time. Ofer Aderet of Haaretz reported... about this today... Eshkol, the leftist 'liberal Zionist,' was very willing to send Palestinians to the moon: 'I want them all to go, even if they go to the moon,' he said.
"As is widely known, the standard UN definition of genocide includes 'Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.'
"These newly declassified documents reveal that the genocidal policy was indeed there already in 1967... Indeed, Eshkol was aware in the months after the 1967 war of the 'suffocation and imprisonment' in Gaza in 1967... And he was quite clear about this being an instrument to effect Israeli strategy: '... precisely because of the suffocation and imprisonment there, maybe the Arabs will move from the Gaza Strip,' he said.
"Eshkol was also paraphrasing Herzl, when Eshkol told the cabinet he was 'working on the establishment of a unit or office that will engage in encouraging Arab emigration.' He noted that 'We should deal with this issue quietly, calmly and covertly, and we should work on finding a way for them to emigrate to other countries and not just over the Jordan [River].' [...] (From Liberal Israeli leaders were contemplating genocide in Gaza already in 1967, Jonathan Ofir, mondoweiss.net, 17/11/17)
Showing posts with label Levi Eshkol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Levi Eshkol. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Sir Bob Wows JNFaithful at Galah Dinner
[If you haven't already done so, first read my 31/10/08 post The JNF Rocks. If you're new to the Jewish National Fund (JNF), read my other posts on the JNF, particularly A Certain Jewish Tree Planting Group (14/6/08).]
TU B'SHVAT
"Each spring, sometimes as early as January, when almond trees blossom white and pink, the birthday of trees is celebrated throughout Israel. Thousands of boys and girls in white shirts, and foreign donors congregate at designated sites to plant new starts and expand the forest. One boy in our class, however, called the ceremonies fascist and murderous. He said that pines grow acrid needles and shed them, thereby annihilating all other growth, wild flowers, shrubs, and smaller indigenous trees. He said, obviously repeating words he heard at home, that forestation of land that was not formerly forested, but which seems every year to hold fewer marks of stone terraces, as rubble and orchards disappear among and under the pines, is a part of what he called 'the big lie of our existence'. We had been friends with that boy, but on that celebration of Tu B'Shvat did not share with him the customary foods of the holiday, dried figs, dates and nuts, neatly packed for us by our parents." (Picnic Grounds: A Novel in Fragments, Oz Shelach, 2003)
"Geldof brings star quality to JNF gala," sparkled the headline in The Australian Jewish News (21/11/08).
Now what exactly was it, I hear you ask, that "human rights icon" Sir Bob had to say to the assembled faithful who flocked to the Jewish National Fund gala dinner at the Australian Jockey Club at Sydney's Randwick Racecourse?
"'I have no shame in comparing [the 30 million deaths arising from the Ethiopian famine of 1984] to the Holocaust. ['To the Holocaust! Shame on you, you scruffy, closet anti-Semite!' smouldered the worshippers. But when Sir Bob switched from Africa to the Middle East, enthralling the true believers with the sweep & depth of his knowledge of the latter, his indiscretion was immediately forgotten.]... 'It's no wonder that the great religions came from the desert [Oops - there goes Buddhism]- all the noise and stink of the city is gone - and in that great emptiness, your mind has a psychedelic [ever the hippie, how cute!] understanding of God'. But the desert is not a good friend, he added, unless we have a way to live there. 'And that is what the JNF is doing [wait for it!]- making the desert bloom." (ibid)
Making the desert bloom. The devotees literally swooned at that. This mantra encapsulated what the Israel of their youth was really all about: the great Palestinian Sandy Desert, with the odd Bedouin just trotting by on his camel (or galloping past, if spurred on by a volley from the trusty Sten), reclaimed by heroic Zionist pioneers, dune by dune, nay, sand grain by sand grain. It was just as Israeli prez Shimon Peres, in one of his former incarnations as Minister of (Dis)Information, long ago had preached: "The country [Palestine] was mostly an empty desert, with only a few islands of Arab settlement; and Israel's cultivable land today was indeed redeemed from swamp and wilderness." (David's Sling: The Arming of Israel, Shimon Peres, 1970, p 249) Precisely as former Israeli PM Levi Eshkol had proclaimed: "It was only after the Zionists 'made the desert bloom' that 'they [the Palestinians] became interested in taking it from us'." (Levi Eshkol, Jerusalem Post, 17/2/69).
Sir Bob's rekindling of this first, fine flicker of their youths is sure to result in them going forth and demanding of the Arab-loving U-bloody-N that the JNF immediately receive an international mandate to make [insert desert of your choice:.........................] bloom? Watch this space.
Now if we can just wipe the tears, or the sand, or both from our eyes for a minute, and return to the real world. The hoary Zionist myth thay Israel made the desert bloom was the subject of rigorous examination by Middle East scholar Alan George** in the Winter 1979 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies. His concluding words: "The major conclusions which thus emerge are: 1. That only about half of Palestine has a true desert climate*; 2. That expansion of the cultivated area was already under way before the occurrence of mass Zionist immigration; 3. That by about 1930 all those areas which could be cultivated by the indigenous Arab population were already being farmed by them; 4. That the area within what became Israel actually being farmed by Arabs in 1947 was greater than the physical area which was under cultivation in Israel almost 30 years later; 5. That the impressive expansion of Israel's cultivated area since 1948 has been more apparent than real since it involved mainly the 'reclamation' of farmland belonging to the [Palestinian] refugees [ethnically cleansed by Zionist forces under cover of war in 1948]; this is probably as true for the Negev desert as for the rest of Israel." ('Making the Desert Bloom'- A Myth Examined, JPS, p 100)
[*The desert half, the Negev, is in the south. ** Alan George is the author of Syria: Neither Bread Nor Freedom, 2003.]
TU B'SHVAT
"Each spring, sometimes as early as January, when almond trees blossom white and pink, the birthday of trees is celebrated throughout Israel. Thousands of boys and girls in white shirts, and foreign donors congregate at designated sites to plant new starts and expand the forest. One boy in our class, however, called the ceremonies fascist and murderous. He said that pines grow acrid needles and shed them, thereby annihilating all other growth, wild flowers, shrubs, and smaller indigenous trees. He said, obviously repeating words he heard at home, that forestation of land that was not formerly forested, but which seems every year to hold fewer marks of stone terraces, as rubble and orchards disappear among and under the pines, is a part of what he called 'the big lie of our existence'. We had been friends with that boy, but on that celebration of Tu B'Shvat did not share with him the customary foods of the holiday, dried figs, dates and nuts, neatly packed for us by our parents." (Picnic Grounds: A Novel in Fragments, Oz Shelach, 2003)
"Geldof brings star quality to JNF gala," sparkled the headline in The Australian Jewish News (21/11/08).
Now what exactly was it, I hear you ask, that "human rights icon" Sir Bob had to say to the assembled faithful who flocked to the Jewish National Fund gala dinner at the Australian Jockey Club at Sydney's Randwick Racecourse?
"'I have no shame in comparing [the 30 million deaths arising from the Ethiopian famine of 1984] to the Holocaust. ['To the Holocaust! Shame on you, you scruffy, closet anti-Semite!' smouldered the worshippers. But when Sir Bob switched from Africa to the Middle East, enthralling the true believers with the sweep & depth of his knowledge of the latter, his indiscretion was immediately forgotten.]... 'It's no wonder that the great religions came from the desert [Oops - there goes Buddhism]- all the noise and stink of the city is gone - and in that great emptiness, your mind has a psychedelic [ever the hippie, how cute!] understanding of God'. But the desert is not a good friend, he added, unless we have a way to live there. 'And that is what the JNF is doing [wait for it!]- making the desert bloom." (ibid)
Making the desert bloom. The devotees literally swooned at that. This mantra encapsulated what the Israel of their youth was really all about: the great Palestinian Sandy Desert, with the odd Bedouin just trotting by on his camel (or galloping past, if spurred on by a volley from the trusty Sten), reclaimed by heroic Zionist pioneers, dune by dune, nay, sand grain by sand grain. It was just as Israeli prez Shimon Peres, in one of his former incarnations as Minister of (Dis)Information, long ago had preached: "The country [Palestine] was mostly an empty desert, with only a few islands of Arab settlement; and Israel's cultivable land today was indeed redeemed from swamp and wilderness." (David's Sling: The Arming of Israel, Shimon Peres, 1970, p 249) Precisely as former Israeli PM Levi Eshkol had proclaimed: "It was only after the Zionists 'made the desert bloom' that 'they [the Palestinians] became interested in taking it from us'." (Levi Eshkol, Jerusalem Post, 17/2/69).
Sir Bob's rekindling of this first, fine flicker of their youths is sure to result in them going forth and demanding of the Arab-loving U-bloody-N that the JNF immediately receive an international mandate to make [insert desert of your choice:.........................] bloom? Watch this space.
Now if we can just wipe the tears, or the sand, or both from our eyes for a minute, and return to the real world. The hoary Zionist myth thay Israel made the desert bloom was the subject of rigorous examination by Middle East scholar Alan George** in the Winter 1979 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies. His concluding words: "The major conclusions which thus emerge are: 1. That only about half of Palestine has a true desert climate*; 2. That expansion of the cultivated area was already under way before the occurrence of mass Zionist immigration; 3. That by about 1930 all those areas which could be cultivated by the indigenous Arab population were already being farmed by them; 4. That the area within what became Israel actually being farmed by Arabs in 1947 was greater than the physical area which was under cultivation in Israel almost 30 years later; 5. That the impressive expansion of Israel's cultivated area since 1948 has been more apparent than real since it involved mainly the 'reclamation' of farmland belonging to the [Palestinian] refugees [ethnically cleansed by Zionist forces under cover of war in 1948]; this is probably as true for the Negev desert as for the rest of Israel." ('Making the Desert Bloom'- A Myth Examined, JPS, p 100)
[*The desert half, the Negev, is in the south. ** Alan George is the author of Syria: Neither Bread Nor Freedom, 2003.]
Friday, February 1, 2008
They Wouldn't Shoot...Would They?
Just occasionally, out of the spin and bias that clogs the pages of the Murdoch press' coverage of the Middle East conflict, will emerge, even if inadvertently, a smidgeon of context or a revealing insight into its root cause. Take the following, for example, from 'Breakout into Israel' ahead, by The Australian's hack* in Jerusalem, Abraham Rabinovich. (26/1/08)
"A senior Hamas official warned yesterday that the next breakout from the Gaza Strip could be into Israel, with 500,000 Palestinians attempting to march towards the towns and villages from which they or their parents fled or were expelled 60 years ago. 'This is not an imaginary scenario and many Palestinians would be prepared to sacrifice their lives', said Ahmed Youssef, political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya. Israeli minister Ze'ev Boim said the threat must be taken seriously in light of the successful Hamas breakout into Egyptian territory on Wednesday, adding we must learn from what has just happened there'. "
Rabinovich's report contains one of those all too rare references in the ms media to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, which paved the way for the creation of a Jewish-majority state there. The ethnically cleansed of Palestine (some 85% of the indigenous population residing in the areas of Palestine overrun by Zionist forces in 1948) and their descendents make up the bulk of the Gaza Strip's population, and the 1949 UNGA Resolution 194 calling for the return of these refugees has been ignored by Israel to this day.
The "threat" of an eruption into Israel of Gazan refugees, spoken of by Ze'ev Boim, is not to the lives of Israelis as such, but to Israel's status as a state with a Jewish majority were the the Palestinian refugees, from Gaza and elsewhere, be allowed to return to their ancestral homes and lands in Israel proper. Appearing in Israeli public discourse as 'the demographic threat', the word takes us to the very heart of the Palestine-Israel conflict, the inconvenient truth of which is that the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian Arab majority were driven from their homes and lands, so that the Zionist movement could establish a sovereign state with an overwhelming Jewish majority and lay claim to be a democracy. In other words, Israel, as a sovereign, Jewish state, was gerrymandered into existence by a monstrous act of ethnic cleansing. Lest we forget. Boim and his ilk haven't, but that's another story...
But why does Ahmed Youssef talk of these refugees being "prepared to sacrifice their lives?" Surely, if the Palestinian refugees simply broke through another wall in their Gaza ghetto and marched into Israel to exercise their fundamental human rights to return to and reclaim their property (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 13 & 17), the Israelis wouldn't just shoot them, would they? It wouldn't even cross their minds, would it? Well, yes it has:
"[Israeli Prime Minister, Levi] Eshkol had already had reason to be worried about the Gaza refugees roughly 2 years before the Six-Day War [of 1967]. The refugees were multiplying, and when their numbers reached 1/2 a million, he feared the situation would become explosive. Once, he asked the chief of staff what would happen if the Egyptians simply marched the refugees - women and children in the vanguard - toward the border with Israel. Rabin said they would not do that, and if they did, as soon as the IDF had killed the first 100, the rest would go back to Gaza." [1967: Israel, the War & the Year that Transformed the Middle East, Tom Segev, p 524]
* Abraham Rabinovich: "Cairo, concerned over its own fundamentalists, has long taken exception to Tehran's support of militant Shia groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestine territories and militias in Iraq." (Iran and Egypt to restore relations, The Australian, 1/2/08) Hamas is Sunni, not "Shia."
"A senior Hamas official warned yesterday that the next breakout from the Gaza Strip could be into Israel, with 500,000 Palestinians attempting to march towards the towns and villages from which they or their parents fled or were expelled 60 years ago. 'This is not an imaginary scenario and many Palestinians would be prepared to sacrifice their lives', said Ahmed Youssef, political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya. Israeli minister Ze'ev Boim said the threat must be taken seriously in light of the successful Hamas breakout into Egyptian territory on Wednesday, adding we must learn from what has just happened there'. "
Rabinovich's report contains one of those all too rare references in the ms media to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, which paved the way for the creation of a Jewish-majority state there. The ethnically cleansed of Palestine (some 85% of the indigenous population residing in the areas of Palestine overrun by Zionist forces in 1948) and their descendents make up the bulk of the Gaza Strip's population, and the 1949 UNGA Resolution 194 calling for the return of these refugees has been ignored by Israel to this day.
The "threat" of an eruption into Israel of Gazan refugees, spoken of by Ze'ev Boim, is not to the lives of Israelis as such, but to Israel's status as a state with a Jewish majority were the the Palestinian refugees, from Gaza and elsewhere, be allowed to return to their ancestral homes and lands in Israel proper. Appearing in Israeli public discourse as 'the demographic threat', the word takes us to the very heart of the Palestine-Israel conflict, the inconvenient truth of which is that the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian Arab majority were driven from their homes and lands, so that the Zionist movement could establish a sovereign state with an overwhelming Jewish majority and lay claim to be a democracy. In other words, Israel, as a sovereign, Jewish state, was gerrymandered into existence by a monstrous act of ethnic cleansing. Lest we forget. Boim and his ilk haven't, but that's another story...
But why does Ahmed Youssef talk of these refugees being "prepared to sacrifice their lives?" Surely, if the Palestinian refugees simply broke through another wall in their Gaza ghetto and marched into Israel to exercise their fundamental human rights to return to and reclaim their property (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 13 & 17), the Israelis wouldn't just shoot them, would they? It wouldn't even cross their minds, would it? Well, yes it has:
"[Israeli Prime Minister, Levi] Eshkol had already had reason to be worried about the Gaza refugees roughly 2 years before the Six-Day War [of 1967]. The refugees were multiplying, and when their numbers reached 1/2 a million, he feared the situation would become explosive. Once, he asked the chief of staff what would happen if the Egyptians simply marched the refugees - women and children in the vanguard - toward the border with Israel. Rabin said they would not do that, and if they did, as soon as the IDF had killed the first 100, the rest would go back to Gaza." [1967: Israel, the War & the Year that Transformed the Middle East, Tom Segev, p 524]
* Abraham Rabinovich: "Cairo, concerned over its own fundamentalists, has long taken exception to Tehran's support of militant Shia groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestine territories and militias in Iraq." (Iran and Egypt to restore relations, The Australian, 1/2/08) Hamas is Sunni, not "Shia."
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