[Goglog] Homicide, life with the Sheiks

[Ben Liberman]

PLEASE move this to goglog for those who wish to continue.

Sorry for the long post.  If you are not interested PLEASE skip all of this.
If you wish to comment on any of this, please do so on goglog.

At 9:01 PM -0400 3/14/10, mark wrote:
>I disagree. For at least 15 years, if not more, the mostly right-wing
>government of Israel has sponsored moving settlers into Palestinian areas,
>including East Jerusalem, which was almost exclusively Palestinian.

My family has lived in the area of East and West Jerusalem for over 300 years
and I believe that I am entitled to speak as a Palestinian.  As such, I resent
your general tone which seems to be based on things that you have read on the
internet.

Since you seem determined to use the internet as your primary source, that is
where I shall roam.

This was the most unbiased site that I could quickly find and it seems to
contain, as far as I can tell, a fairly accurate narrative of the history
of the area.  The site lists the sources for all of the material there.

If you have any better sources, I would appreciate it if you would point
me to them.  Thanks!

http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=1128

I would suggest that you start reading with the time period 1920-1921 until
today which will give you a context for my comments below.


During the period of 1949 to 1956, the area called "the Gaza strip" was a
part of Egypt and was occupied by Arab refugees who fled the area of the
newly formed state of Israel.  Some of them fled because Arab radio encouraged
them to do so, to sit out the planned war, and return to their lands after
it was over.  Others fled later, being driven out by the Israeli forces.

After the war, the government of Egypt kept them bottled up there and refused
to let them resettle elsewhere.

During the same period, the area called "the West Bank" was a part of Jordan
and was also occupied by Arab refugees who were likewise contained and not
allowed to resettle elsewhere.  In both cases they were told that, as soon
as Israel was destroyed, they would be able to take over the whole area
as their own.

Needless to say, this did not happen.  They are still being told the same
story today.  It is in their textbooks, newspapers, and radio and TV
broadcasts.  You can sit in Israel, turn on a radio or TV, and listen
it on the Arab channels from across the boarder, any day of the week.

Both of these areas were also used as staging areas for attacks against
Israel over the years and were home to artillery and other military
resources that were deployed against Israel over time.

In 1956 I visited Israel with my father and mother.  While we were there we
stayed at the King David hotel in Jerusalem for a few days.  The western wall
of the hotel faced a small valley - a "no mans land" - the other side of
which was Jordan.  All of the windows on that side of the hotel where
bricked in because people on the Jordanian side liked to take pot shots at
anyone they could see on the Israeli side.  My father took his 8mm movie
camera and went to the end of the hall where there was an outside balcony
that faced north.  He peeked around the edge of the wall and took a few
minutes of film of an area that he freely roamed when he lived there as
a child in the 1920's under the British mandate.

In 1967, after [Egyptian President] Nasser had declared his intention to
annihilate the Jewish state and forged military alliances with Syria and
Jordan for that purpose, building up troop concentrations along his border
with Israel and blockading shipping to the Israeli port of Eilat, Israel
launched a preemptive strike against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

The six-day war that followed Israel's surprise attack ended with the
Israeli army occupying Egypt's Sinai Peninsula (including the Gaza Strip),
Syria's Golan Heights, and Jordan's West Bank.

-- 
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 ben at BL.COM      Ben Liberman
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