Anyone wishing to take issue with the answers provided are invited to do so with reasoned, substantiated responses. Past experience shows that they usually fail to do so.
Now, a few examples to whet the appetite:
1. Who wrote the following in 1891? “We abroad are used to believing Eretz Yisrael is now almost totally desolate, a desert that is not sowed, and anyone who wishes to purchase land there may come and purchase as much as he desires. But in truth this is not the case. Throughout the country, it is difficult to find fields that are not sowed. Only sand dunes and stony mountains that are not fit to grow anything but fruit trees – and this only after hard labor and great expense …”
2. Who declared the following in 1930? “Land is the most necessary thing for our establishing roots in Palestine. Since there are hardly any more arable unsettled lands in Palestine, we are bound in each case of the purchase of land and its settlement to remove the peasants who cultivated the land so far, both owners of the land and tenants.”
3. Who, in 1919, wrote the following, in a secret memorandum submitted to the British cabinet? “For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country [i.e., we do not accept the principle of self-determination for the Arabs of Palestine] … the four great powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land …”
4. According to Mandatory Palestine's first modern census, conducted in 1922, approximately what percentage of the total population were Jews?
5. Approximately what percentage of Mandatory Palestine's inhabitants were Jews in 1947?
6. Approximately what percentage of Mandatory Palestine's land was allocated for the Jewish state by the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan (which supported the division of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state)?
7. Approximately what percentage of Mandatory Palestine's land was owned by Jews at the time of the 1947 UN Partition Plan?
Over to you.
11 comments:
For me a new question is raised by this part of the third question:
"And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land."
The question is: What (if anything) supports that conclusion by Balfour about whose traditions, needs, and hopes were most important; i.e. which peoples' past, present and future in that part of the world mattered most?
I'm especially interested in how Balfour may have tried to justify that conclusion given he had coined the phrase "Nothing matters very much and most things don't matter at all."
Quite a question, Craig. Will need research and consideration.
I do note extract from the secret memorandum and compare it with the Balfour Declaration:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, ...
Seems contradictory. So, a man of contradictions?
G'day Bob (and Phil), I found a clue to consider in relation to my question. In 1919, Balfour wrote an introduction to History of Zionism 1600-1919, a text by his friend Nahum Sokolow. In it he mentions that conversations he had in 1906 with another friend, Chaim Weizmann, had convinced him to support the Zionist cause.
Now I'd like to learn what Weizmann said to Balfour.
G'day Craig, something from Wikipedia:
One of the main proponents of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the leading spokesman for organized Zionism in Britain. Weizmann was a chemist who had developed a process to synthesize acetone via fermentation. Acetone is required for the production of cordite, a powerful propellant explosive needed to fire ammunition without generating tell-tale smoke. Germany had cornered supplies of calcium acetate, a major source of acetone. Other pre-war processes in Britain were inadequate to meet the increased demand in World War I, and a shortage of cordite would have severely hampered Britain's war effort. Lloyd-George, then Minister for Munitions, was grateful to Weizmann and so supported his Zionist aspirations.
During the first meeting between Weizmann and Balfour in 1906, Balfour asked what payment Weizmann would accept for use of his process and was told, "There is only one thing I want: A national home for my people." Balfour asked Weizmann why Palestine—and Palestine alone—should be the Zionist homeland. "Anything else would be idolatry", Weizmann protested, adding: "Mr. Balfour, supposing I was to offer you Paris instead of London, would you take it?" "But Dr. Weizmann", Balfour retorted, "we have London", to which Weizmann rejoined, "That is true, but we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh."[4]
Weizmann eventually received both monetary compensation for his discovery and his place in history as first President of the state of Israel.
That's a start.
Plus there is this from Balfour's introduction to Sokolow's history:
"But why, it may be asked, is local sentiment to be more considered in the case of the Jew than (say) in that of the Christian or the Buddhist? All historic religions rouse feelings which cluster round the places made memorable by the words and deeds, the lives and deaths, of those who brought them into being. Doubtless these feelings should always be treated with respect; but no one suggests that the regions where these venerable sites are to be found should, of set purpose and with much anxious contrivance, be colonized by the spiritual descendants of those who originally made them famous. If the centuries have brought no change of ownership or occupancy we are well content. But if it be otherwise, we make no effort to reverse the course of history. None suggest that we should plant Buddhist colonies in India, the ancient home of Buddhism, or renew in favor of Christendom the crusading adventures of our medieval ancestors. Yet, if this be wisdom when we are dealing with Buddhism and Christianity, why, it may be asked, is it not also wisdom when we are dealing with Judaism and the Jews?"
"The answer is, that the cases are not parallel. The position of the Jews is unique. For them race, religion and country are inter-related, as they are inter-related in the case of no other race, no other religion, and no other country on earth. In no other case are the believers in one of the greatest religions of the world to be found (speaking broadly) only among the members of a single small people; in the case of no other religion is its past development so intimately bound up with the long political history of a petty territory wedged in between States more powerful far than it could ever be; in the case of no other religion are its aspirations and hopes expressed in language and imagery so utterly dependent for their meaning on the conviction that only from this one land, only through this one history, only by this one people, is full religious knowledge to spread through all the world. By a strange and most unhappy fate it is this people of all others which, retaining the full its racial self-consciousness, has been severed from its home, has wandered into all lands, and has nowhere been able to create for itself an organized social commonwealth. Only Zionism -- so at least Zionists believe -- can provide some mitigation of this great tragedy."
Interesting to see the ideas expressed by Balfour in that passage with respect to the 'unique' inter-relatedness of "race, religion and country" and "racial self-consciousness" given what we know now about the error of the 'race' construct.
Anyway, Balfour goes on to conclude:
"Few, I think, of M. Sokolow's readers, be they Jew or be they Christian, will rise from the perusal of the impressive story which he has told so fully and so well, without feeling that Zionism differs in kind from ordinary philanthropic efforts and that it appeals to different motives. If it succeeds, it will do a great spiritual and material work for the Jews, but not for them alone. For as I read its meaning it is, among other things, a serious endeavor to mitigate the age-long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb. Surely, for this if for no other reason, it should receive our support."
He's arguing that Zionism opens the opportunity for people who'd been "long regarded as alien" within European countries to go somewhere else, and he sees that as 'good' because European societies had been "unable to expel or to absorb" those people whose presence in Europe had created (and this is a potentially anti-Semitic statement by Balfour): "age-long miseries ... for Western civilization."
Now I'm keen to learn whether Balfour also expressed anti-Semitism toward the Palestinian Arabs.
Bob, I think there may be a problem with that wikipedia entry because Weizmann co-discovered the method of using Clostridium acetobutylicum in the Acetone Butanol Ethanol process in 1916 As that is a decade after the 1906 meeting between Weizmann and Balfour, I doubt Balfour had "asked what payment Weizmann would accept for use of his process."
G'day Craig, nicely spotted - late night inattentiveness on my part, but what explains such an error in the Wiki entry?
Here is an article about why the UK supported the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine.
G'day Phil and Craig, here's a piece about how to rid oneself of an existing populace.
G'day Phil and Craig, get rid of, or don't fraternise .... or antiSemitism raises its ugly head ... in Israel. Irony, anyone? Chris Floyd - and a follow up piece.
From the first piece:
With the backing and the blessing of local government and the police, the anti-Semitic organization takes its program into the local schools, to hammer home its stern, unyielding message: Girls, do not give your bodies to the racial enemy! Do not let them seduce and defile your innocence with their devious ways!
The city's own welfare representative heads up the program of the "Anti-Assimilation Department." He shows the schoolgirls a film -- "Sleeping with the Enemy" -- which dramatizes how the filthy Semite worms his way into the affections of an innocent girl then cruelly abandons her. This "abnormal phenomenon" is plaguing several cities in the area, says the police chief; there have already been many cases of racially pure girls "joining with" Semite men. The propaganda efforts of the Anti-Assimilation Department are aimed at eliminating the sexual machinations of the "exploitative" Semites.
Even though these Semites are citizens of the country -- indeed, many of them serve in the armed forces -- the Anti-Assimilation Department's view is gaining wider and wider acceptance in the nation at large. Racial consciousness has reached new heights in the country, a recent study shows: more than half the population now favors the removal of these minority Semite citizens. And 74 percent of the nation's youth now believes that these Semites are "unclean."
Another new study shows that dozens of these Semite citizens have been killed by police, military and private security forces in the past seven years, with almost no legal repercussions for the killers.
***
A report taken from the crumbling pages of Der Stürmer or some other German paper of the 1930s? No; it all comes from Haaretz, the liberal Israeli paper, and is happening right now. The Semites now being accused as sexual predators, racial defilers, devious operators and "unclean" subhumans who should be removed from the land are the Arab citizens of Israel.
G'day Phil and Craig, one from Glenn Greenwald on divided loyalties.
An extract (one GP might appreciate):
As I've documented previously, the very same right-wing advocates who scream "anti-semitism" at anyone, such as Klein, who raises the issue of devotion to Israel themselves constantly argue that American Jews do -- and should -- cast their votes in American elections based upon what is best for Israel. They nakedly trot out the "dual loyalty" argument in order to manipulate American Jews to vote Republican in U.S. elections (e.g.: "the GOP supports Israel and Obama doesn't; therefore, American Jews shouldn't vote for Obama"), while screaming "anti-semitism" the minute the premise is used by their political opponents. The Weekly Standard ran articles openly arguing that American Jews should vote Republican because the GOP is better for Israel, and Joe Lieberman runs around South Florida telling Jewish voters that they should vote for McCain because Obama isn't good for Israel.
The most recent blatant example of nakedly exploiting "dual loyalty" and "anti-Semitism" claims comes from Commentary's Jennifer Rubin. Rubin was one of those most viciously attacking Klein, accusing him last week of spouting what she called "the anti-Semitic argument of 'divided loyalties.'" Yet today -- barely a week later -- Rubin has a long Op-Ed in The Jerusalem Post which is probably the most unabashed expression of this "dual loyalty" argument that I've seen in quite some time.
"Over there" the usual suspects are trotting their lies as usual. With the mods billing and cooing in their direction. I will advise IM not to hold his breath waiting for Pahoff to respond, and certainly not for an honest response.
G'day Phil, perhaps, given the comment elsewhere by a known lying propagandist on the recent prisoner exchange - and a point made about the two Israeli soldiers being dead - how many of the exchanged Palestinians were dead?
More on the exchange and what it means from Uri Avnery.
@008 represents 60 since ... Nakba. Two views.
But it is not over, as this account illustrates.
And in Gaza.
A contradiction ... on Benny Morris, historian and ...
Glenn Greenwald - "Rendering public opinion irrelevant."
One of the most striking aspects of our political discourse, particularly during election time, is how efficiently certain views that deviate from the elite consensus are banished from sight -- simply prohibited -- even when those views are held by the vast majority of citizens. The University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes -- the premiere organization for surveying international public opinion -- released a new survey a couple of weeks ago regarding public opinion on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including opinion among American citizens, and this is what it found:
A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.
Yet ...
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