After conventional Arab armies failed to deter Israeli invasions, Lebanese and Palestinian volunteers have changed the strategic balance in the Middle East, writes As`ad AbuKhalil.
2006 Lebanese War Changed Power Calculus
By As`ad AbuKhalil
Special to Consortium News
In South Lebanon, the Museum for Resistance, also known as the Mlita Museum, for the town in which it is located, is a wildly popular tourist attraction and a place where you can run into Arabs visiting from around the region.
In it, Hizbullah—the political party with an armed wing that, with Iranian assistance, emerged in response to the Israeli invasion of 1982—celebrates its military successes, displaying weapons captured from the occupation army and replicas of some of its military tunnels.
The museum enshrines an important realization for the country: that while conventional Arab armies failed to deter Israeli invasions, Lebanese and Palestinian volunteers succeeded in holding the mighty Israeli army at bay and have become the real defenders against Israeli attacks and occupation. As such, the museum offers testimony to the current nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The U.S. and other Western powers want to disarm Hizbullah while denying the Lebanese Army the weapons to deter Israel. In other words, they want to return Lebanon to its former state of weakness.
The problems this situation poses for Israel are often overlooked given its apparently clear strategic advantage.
Visitor at Lebanon’s Resistance Museum. (Mleeta.com)
Israel’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction is still being protected by Western countries from scrutiny or even criticism. The Obama administration guaranteed Israel a most generous financial assistance program for the next decade. Israeli’s 100-percent occupation of Palestine remains immune from U.N. or other international condemnation. Israeli citizens’ settlement building in Palestine territories—despite violating international law—has not caused a rift between Israel and either the European Union or the U.S.
Egypt, meanwhile, remains committed to the peace treaty with Israel and to security coordination with the occupation state, as does Jordan. And Israel does not fear an assault from any Arab state or a combination of Arab states. (Arab threats—largely rhetorical—have only been intended to pacify popular anger.)
But things are not as secure for Israel as they might seem.
The Resistance Persists
A century after the Balfour Declaration, the Arab-Israeli conflict has not ended. Early Zionist thinkers and leaders—influenced by racist European attitudes about the natives—never considered that the Palestinians would continue to resist Zionism for so long. This in itself is a big failure for Zionism as it defies the long-held belief that force is the only language that Arabs understand. At the same time, economic offers and political ploys have not deceived the Palestinians—or Arabs—into accepting the Israeli occupation project either.
The resistance is not only tenacious, its effectiveness reached a new level in 2000. That year, after an escalating pattern of resistance operations that began in 1982—first by secular (communist and Syrian nationalist) groups and later by Hizbullah—the Israeli occupation army was forced to withdraw from South Lebanon.
Israel’s biggest strategic loss came in 2006 during the Lebanese-Israeli War, when armed groups (not part of an Arab conventional army) resisted Israeli assaults and deterred a ground offensive against Arab territory. Unless you have studied the performance of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon between 1970 and 1982, it’s difficult to fathom how seriously this changed the power calculus of Lebanese and Palestinian resistance groups vis-à-vis Israel.
But the significance of that war—and most importantly on Arab perceptions of it—was obscured by Saudi regime propaganda intent on undermining the standing of any resistance, leftist or Islamist, Sunni or Shi`ite. The House of Saud began to promote sectarian hatred and agitation and emphasize the losses for the Arab side to downplay the precedent set by the war. (Examples of this are so pervasive it would be unfair to single out any one broadcaster or publication.)
Lebanon’s Resistance Museum (Mleeta.com)
During the invasions of Gaza, Israel failed again to advance or even to prevent primitive Hamas rockets from firing; all claims to the (fake) successes of the Iron Dome air defense system notwithstanding.
This is a marked contrast to previous confrontations. In 1978, Israel invaded Lebanon and the PLO’s resistance was disorganized and largely spontaneous. Four years later, in the face of the 1982 massive Israel invasion, the PLO failed again to formulate a joint resistance plan. Fighting was stiff in some cases, such as at the refugee camp`Ayn Al-Hilwi and the medieval-era Beuafort castle. And later at Khaldah, on the outskirts of Beirut, the PLO did implement a defense plan for Beirut (designed by West Point graduate Abu Al-Walid), which explains why Israel never dared to invade West Beirut until after the evacuation of PLO forces from Lebanon. Overall, however, the PLO resistance record pales in comparison to that of Hamas and Hizbullah, in Gaza and South Lebanon, respectively.
Former Psychological Advantage
Israeli strategy in dealing with the Arabs was based on massive, indiscriminate use of force and the promotion of the Israeli soldier as invincible and terrifying. This produced a psychological advantage that, from 1948 to 1967, sowed fear and resignation.
More recently, however, the image of the mighty Israeli soldier and a fearful Arab resistance has been reversed. In the 2006 war, Israeli soldiers in South Lebanon were terrified by Hizbullah fighters who prevented the enemy army from advancing one inch into Lebanese territory. I grew up in Lebanon in the 1960s and 1970s, when Israel used to bomb and invade at will. This no longer happens because Israel has come to fear Hizbullah.
Another problem for Israel is its once-vaunted intelligence, which has developed a reputation for clumsiness. The failed raid in Gaza (by an elite unit of the Israeli occupation army) is the most recent example. In 2010, Dubai police plastered the faces of top agents of Mossad, the intelligence agency, around the world in the wake of the assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, a co-founder of the military wing of Hamas. Before that, in 1997, there was the botched assassination attempt on Khalid Misha`l’, the Doha-based former leader of Hamas, by Mossad agents.
In the 2006 war with Lebanon, Israel’s intelligence failures included the famous and (almost) comical kidnapping of a poor man whose only crime was that his name was Hasan Nasrallah, the same as that of the Hizbullah leader. Presumably, Mossad experts on the Arab world assumed there was only one Hasan Nasrallah in all of Lebanon.
Hizbullah and Hamas, meanwhile, have run intelligence operations that the PLO has rarely ever matched. Hizbullah’s 2012 kidnapping of Israeli soldiers is an example of careful preparations and reliable intelligence. Hizbullah and Hamas have special operatives monitoring the communications of the Israeli military. Hizbullah has its own Hebrew language school. PLO organizations, by contrast, had so few Hebrew speakers they often had to rely on Hebrew teachers from the Institute of Palestine Studies in Beirut to translate important documents.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is not about to end anytime soon. Trump’s “Deal of the Century” hinges on the belief that Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad bin Salman can convince the Palestinians to give up their cause. This is a conflict that is unlikely to end in compromise, and the Israeli occupation state has made it clear that historical Palestine belongs to the Jewish people and that the Palestinians represent a mere nuisance on the land.
As’ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. He is the author of the Historical Dictionary of Lebanon (1998), Bin Laden, Islam and America’s New “War on Terrorism” (2002), and The Battle for Saudi Arabia (2004). He also runs the popular blog The Angry Arab News Service.
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I’d just like to remind everybody – Israel is the size of a postage stamp – 4 times the size of Hiroshima.
And it seems that Israel & the US have a very unhealthy interest in Russia.
If push came to shove, rather than hit US soil, Russia would send a warning shot across the bows of any campaign to take them on, by targeting Israel.
& what would the US do …. RETALIATE …..with NUKES ??
Somehow I thing that there would be a time of contemplation & acceptance.
“Israel’s 100% occupation of Palestine remains immune from U.N. or other international condemnation.”
I suggest it is merely a moment to moment immunity only.
Looking at the EU – they look to be in unimaginable crisis – it suggests some foolish collaboration of the EU with the US & Israel – & Saudi Arabia.
[Wolf Street – What’s Behind the US-Saudi Nuclear Mega-Deal.] Imagine Saudi Arabia with nuclear weapons – it’s like giving them a stick of dynamite to light up their hash pipes.
And indeed – Lebanon for all its might & good fortune is on the Pentagon List of war with 7 countries in 5 years – only procrastination has held them back. But if Saudi Arabia is armed with nukes, surely in gratitude, they will aim them at Lebanon & wear all the blame for their demise, thereby shielding Israel with a shroud of innocence ??
* But things are not as secure for Israel as they might think –
Never has a truer word been spoken !!
Who is behind the police investigations of fraud against Netanyahu ??
He is the boss of the police, so, a body equally as powerful as he must be behind the police – a new mindset – & is this why Netanyahu has surrounded himself with hard line thugs ??
All the Israelis have done is to create a stronger enemy. They rely on the West to maintain their foothold . Changing economic situations in the global economy could certainly make that more tenuous!
Mlita is a remarkable Museum of National Resistance, as it is rightly called. It is a testament that weaponry is not the decisive factor but the organized people imbued with a liberation outlook or ideology and independent politics which is decisive. It proudly sits astride a mountain in South Lebanon. Part of it is underground: a base that was chiseled out of the stone of one side of the mountain by hand. From the opening there is a tunnel leading inside, with twists and turns (to fight possible intrusions) to an underground base/headquarters. This engineering feat was informed by studies of the famous underground defences of the Vietnamese. Two remarkable things: (1) on the other side of the mountain was an Israeli artillery base, which was the reason the Hezbollah forces from nearby villages used hand tools; (2) although some 7,000 fighters used this base, all of whom were sworn to secrecy, the very first time the Israelis became aware of the underground base was when the Mlita Museum was formally opened. So much for the awesome Israeli intelligence. The museum was designed by a team of leading architects and there are other features, which I will not go into, making it worthy of a visit.
It was in the 2006 war that the myth of the invincible Merkeeva tank was also demolished. Thirty thousand Zionist soldiers advanced no further than 30 kilometres into Lebanon. The resistance was organized on the basis of the people, of every village, such that one cannot characterize it merely in religious terms; it was a national resistance, a broad front.
Dr. AbuKhalil,
I have read several of your articles and agree with many arguments you present on issues relating, in particular, to the Zionist project. Allow me to make a suggestion regarding many writers’ constant, inappropriate use of the pseudonym “Arab.” Please stop using it so indiscriminately! As an academic in Islamic Studies and of Lebanese descent, I take exception to both the racial connotations and the historical anachronism associated with this Western-inspired label.
For 1,400 years, Arabic has been the lingua franca of civilization, science, religion, commerce and social justice par excellence, though Farsi later came a close second. Anyone able to read old learned manuscripts from the 8th to the 19th centuries, in that language, will understand what I mean: no other language quite matches its capacity for semantic and grammatical precision, elasticity and dynamism, nor the efficiency with which it can convey and analyze technical concepts. Arabic is incomparably more important than Latin, unlike which Arabic has never died out, either in its written or spoken form! Hardly surprising, then, that those fourteen centuries should have served to incubate our sacred “modernity,” to which Islamic civilization made the most pivotal historical contributions.
Separated from its “Arab” roots in the Peninsula in this way, learned Arabic largely ceased to be an ethnically based language for Muslims as early as the 8th century. The fact is that a country does not become “Arab” just because most of its people speak Arabic. This may seem a trivial point to some, but the issue is highly charged. Strictly speaking, “Arabs” live on the Arabian Peninsula, their home, though many have also settled across the region in widely differing demographic concentrations. Though they live in “Arab” communities, their presence does not and has never defined the histories of their ancient host nations. The proof is that when the adjective “Arab” is used on someone, it can still mean “uncouth” or “bumpkin.”
Over the centuries, it is Islamicate culture rather that has provided the most enduring framework for everyone: Muslims, Christians, Hindus and all other religious traditions. Not only has the “Arab” element been marginal to this epic undertaking, the very label “Arab” never made sense before modern religious reformists, ideologues and fanatics gave it one. But why is that many non-“Arabs” among the latter have succumbed to the ludicrous notion of “Arab superiority,” on account of the birthplace of the Prophet.
The Saudi ruling family defends the legitimacy of its custodianship over the two holy cities by claiming that they, being “Arabs,” must be regarded as the cream and natural leaders of humanity. To neutralize the objections and resistance of non-Arab Arabic-speakers in the Middle East and from Muslims around the world, the Saudis quickly married Wahhabism and Arabism, the two-headed monster that has defined them and the other cliques installed by foreigners in the Persian Gulf for nearly a century.
To be blunt, in the ethnic, linguistic and religious mosaic of the Middle East and North Africa, the name “Arab” is a vestige from the era of colonialism, which has proved truly catastrophic in the long term for the cradle of civilization. Few Arabic-speakers in the region, most of whose ancestors long ago adopted Arabic (much like the Irish and Scots adopted English), consider themselves “Arab” except in the most convoluted, political or ideological sense imaginable. I can assure you that the Lebanese have their own history, and that many possess their own Syriac linguistic roots. Whatever their religion, they are not “Arabs,” therefore. By the same token, apart from Bedouin clans in some provinces, please point to me which Syrians you consider “Arab.” nd how about the Maghreb?
It is high time we were mindful of this history. Arabism is an ideology which, born under the English and French Mandates, has nothing to do with real–much less historical–ethnicities, but only with how the English and French occupiers, being foreigners, preferred to address all “locals”: as the faceless mass of the colonized. Sadly, we have trouble weaning ourselves from that artificial ethnic designation and the absurd implications that follow from it.
Sorry, in the 8th line from the bottom, I mean to write: “do NOT consider themselves “Arab” except in the most convoluted…”
Israel will ignore all of this, and get away with it through expanded business with Europe, and European dependency on its recently revealed pipeline energy project, which was approved by the EU (and which will compete with, and perhaps give reason to the EU to obstruct, the TurkStream delivery of gas to Southern Europe). See, for example, https://russia-insider.com/en/israel-signs-pipe-deal-rival-russia-gas-supplier-europe/ri25517?ct=t(Russia_Insider_Daily_Headlines11_21_2014)&mc_cid=d7e757c44c&mc_eid=6ab8bed714 AND https://orientalreview.org/2018/11/30/is-austria-about-to-become-israels-top-ally-in-europe/
IMHO this is one of the major reasons it has opposed Iran in Iraq and Syria – i.e., competition from Iran’s natural gas running through an Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline.
The people of Lebanon, particularly south Lebanon have experienced horrific terrors at the hands of the Zionist Entity over the years. Hezbollah’s success is attributed to dealing with and overcoming these extreme deprivations. Essentially, the whole world turned against the people of Lebanon and particularly south Lebanon. Hezbollah had no other alternative but to become entirely self sufficient. A monumentally difficult task. No westerners have every infiltrated Hezbollah THAT is precisely the reason for their resounding success’. A new world has emerged in the region and Hezbollah leads the way. Hezbollah has learned the hardest of lessons and profited greatly from these extreme hardships. Every day Hezbollah is dealing with mind boggling existential threats. Nasrallah is constantly in fear of his life, the Zionist entity forever trying to assassinate him. Yet the security of Hezbollah keeps him safe from harm. Yet another resounding success. Hezbollah is the future in the region. Their example serves as a model for everyone because some day we will all have to deal with the force of the slave master exacting his will upon those they deem fit only for slavery.
Stay at home mom Kelly Richards from New York after resigning from her full time job managed to average from $6000-$8000 a month from freelancing at home… This is how she done it
…….
???USA~JOB-START
testing.
Most Americans still see the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 1948 terms: tiny little Israel defending itself against a billion Muslims, who are united world-wide in their determination to push her into the sea. And who understand nothing but force.
As long as we see the Middle East this way, the USA will be at Netanyahu’s beck and call.
Eventually, we have to see Palestine as the home of the Palestinians. And it is not going to end well for all those people who came from Post-World-War Two Europe to abscond with the peoples lands and continue to inflict punishments on them.
If, after more than seventy years, these IGNOBLE TERRORISTS, despite England, despite France, despite the congress of the United States, are still fighting for their property and their human rights, they are not going anywhere.
The most appropriate thing to do to solve the problem is to give the Palestinian oppressors a state in EUROPE, the land of the Jewish murderers and persecutors and discriminators. I suggest along the Rhine,
the Volga, the Seine, the Thames or the Mississippi. I think God would love us to have another democratic state in one these areas. I borrowed this thought from Helen Thomas.
So now all of my comments which were critical of Israel have been deleted. Who does this? Does whoever monitors this site care to answer that? Is this kind of censorship of concern to the creators and maintainers of this site? Are some Israeli supporters hacking into Consortium News to eliminate comments unfavorable to Israel? Or has the site monitor caved in to the canard that those critical of Israel are automatically “anti-Semites”? My comments were harshly critical, but they were not over the top or scurrilous. Maybe you would publish one of my comments, and explain why it was censored? Or you could contact me by email. It might be instructive for all of us who share on this site to see an example of where you draw the line on Israel criticism.
It seems that you did not receive the memo that what may appear as blatant censorship is merely an algorithm and staffing issue.
I was not ware of the memo you mention. Thanks for alerting me to the source of my problems.
My comment moderated. I don’t feel moderate about Israel. Is that a crime now? We look to this site as a place to freely air our ideas and feelings. Is it Big Brother we are afraid of, or our own exaggerated cautiousness? Is free speech about Israel too dangerous to put in print? Are we to bow to Israel’s demands that we soft pedal our thoughts about their atrocities?
My comment critical of Israel has disappeared. Censorship? Afraid of the simple truth?
I commented that Israel’s criminal behaviors need to be stopped, just as Hitler’s were.
some strategic bombing you think?
Even comments with z*** t are now in “moderation” for a day, and so unseen by most commenters. The “Akismet” moderation utility does this, apparently written by zionists. I don’t know what other comment moderation software is available, but one takes what the site-hosting service provides, or does it manually, or tolerates the spam. CN seems to get similar spam either way.
When a regime is as steeped in evil as the Israeli is, it is unnecessary to go into a lot of elaborate analysis and theory about them. They need to be overthrown and stopped from their crimes. Did we need to go into all this complex thinking to realize that Hitler simply needed to be stopped? The same applies here.
I haven’t heard from too many Israeli Palestinians complaining about living in Israel. Why is that? Maybe because they get a great education. Opportunities. An infrastructure that works. The women can walk around freely without a body guard and a hijab. They don’t execute gays. Etc etc etc
I wonder how those “lucky” Palestinians living in Israhell feel about their fellows living in Gaza? Don’t give a s#&! about them?
And why not outside of Israel, Andrew?
Andrew –
What about their voting rights and freedom of movement?
What about their right to return to their family homes?
Andrew
Reality:
“Former Foreign Ministry director-general invokes South Africa comparisons. ‘Joint Israel-West Bank’ reality is an apartheid state”
EXCERPT: “Similarities between the ‘original apartheid’ as it was practiced in South Africa and the situation in ISRAEL [my emphasis] and the West Bank today ‘scream to the heavens,’ added [Alon] Liel, who was Israel’s ambassador in Pretoria from 1992 to 1994. There can be little doubt that the suffering of Palestinians is not less intense than that of blacks during apartheid-era South Africa, he asserted.” (Times of Israel, February 21, 2013)
In its 2015 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, published in 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor acknowledges the “institutional and societal discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel.” (U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor)
“Construction, Not Destruction”
“While Israeli Arabs constitute 20 percent of the population, Arab communities’ jurisdictions occupy just 2.5 percent of the state’s land area, and the process of approving new construction in Arab towns takes decades.” (Haaretz Editorial, April 4, 2017)
The effect of Israel’s blatantly racist “Citizenship Law” and more than fifty other restrictions Arab citizens have to endure is well expressed by writer and Knesset member, Ahmed Tibi, “…dutifully defining the state [of Israel] as ‘Jewish and democratic,’ ignores the fact that in practice ‘democratic’ refers to Jews, and the Arabs are nothing more than citizens without citizenship.” (Ma’ariv, 1.6.2005)
And that’s so-called “Israeli Arabs,” i.e., Arab citizens of Israel. The situation of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories is far worse.
If you haven’t, maybe you are looking for them in all the wrong places. There are often demonstrations by Israeli Palestinian inside Israel, including by their lawmakers in the Knesset. And by the way, they are not getting “great education”. It’s separate and unequal.
All that steel stuff on display is interesting from a historical point of view, but the renaissance in weaponry is the principal factor favoring non-national forces over established national military forces. The future is here, and it’s not plastics — it’s missiles. The handwriting has been on the wall for over ten years. On 14 July 2006, during the 2006 Lebanon War, the INS Hanit, a Sa’ar 5-class corvette of the Israeli Navy, built by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, suffered damage after being struck by a Hezbollah C-802 anti-ship missile.
According to Israeli sources, Hezbollah held around 15,000 rockets and missiles on the eve of the 2006 Lebanon War, firing nearly 4,000 at Israel over the 34-day conflict. Hezbollah has since expanded its rocket force, today estimated at 130,000 rounds.
Hamas has them too. wiki: The Palestinian rocket arsenal used in the Arab–Israeli conflict includes a wide range of rockets and missiles, varying in design, size and payload capacity. Palestinian rockets include those locally made in Gaza and the West Bank as well as weapons smuggled from Iran and Syria. Rockets are used in attacks on Israel, mostly to target Israeli civilian centers[1] in addition to Israeli military posts.
This renaissance in weaponry is not only helpful to non-national forces like Hezbollah and Hamas, but also to other countries small and large, like Iran and China, who are now able to counter the US and Israel with their expensive and complex war machines.
this goes back to the Falklands conflict in which t he Argentinians had some success sinking expensive British ships with relatively cheap second rate french anti ship missiles missiles
Couple of things. What about the Golan Heights which are occupied by Israel but belongs to Syria. Maybe not germane to the article here, but needs to be kept in line.
Two, Egypt’s acquiescence to the brutality in Gaza over the years is merely the result of the bribe through annual payments by the United States to Egypt. Saudi Arabia and Jordan are other examples of bribery with multiple faces, and once again displays the quality of the response by too many Arab leaders to what Israel has done in the region.
What is important and what I think is the point of the author that there be continued protest against the Israel and its sponsors and allies, that it is spelled out clearly what those grievances are and how they should be addressed. Without having anything to base it on, I think there is a growing consensus that human rights expressed as equal rights is the sine qua non of the struggle. From that, with all the imperfections of democracy, flows everything that follows.
more antisemitic propaganda. How about the Arab countries who expelled their Jewish citizens and expropriated their possessions?
https://johnmhummasti333455225.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/jews-expelled-from-arab-countries-call-on-un-to-recognize-their-plight/?fbclid=IwAR0BpwaoQe94iVAcu30KL0nXkch68QR901OkBBPGYOC4rczek1W3w58IQPU
To quote Yehouda Shenhav, of Iraqi Jewish heritage and professor of sociology and anthropology at Tel Aviv University: “Any reasonable person, Zionist or non-Zionist, must acknowledge that the analogy drawn between Palestinians and Mizrahi [Arab] Jews is unfounded. Palestinian refugees did not want to leave Palestine….Those who left did not do so of their own volition. In contrast, Jews from Arab lands came to this country under the initiative of the State of Israel and Jewish organizations.” (Ha’aretz, 8 October 2004.)
Historian, Avi Shlaim, born into an affluent and influential family in Baghdad: “We are not refugees…., nobody expelled us But we are the victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict.” (Ha’aretz, August 11, 2005)
Yisrael Yeshayahu, speaker of the Knesset: “We are not refugees…. We had messianic aspirations.”
Shlomo Hillel, former minister and speaker of the Knesset: “I don’t regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists.”
During a Knesset hearing into the matter, Ran Cohen, member of the Knesset: “I am not a refugee….I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee.” (Ha’aretz, October 8, 2004)
Your use of “anti-semitism” is well understood here as a zionist propaganda gambit. We all know that
1. Semites include Arab as well as Jewish groups, so the term is incorrect;
2. There is no other group that demands a special word for discrimination against itself, and then pretends that it is a unique phenomenon not susceptible to rational analysis, but only the pronunciations of Jews themselves;
3. Xionists use this unique term to denounce anyone who will not agree to their every demand for special privileges;
4. There is no racism in denouncing zionists as the racist fascists they truly are.
Perhaps you will also let us all know why Jews should have an empire in the mideast, when
1. there are no more living survivors of the Jewish disasters of WWII to gain thereby;
2. a Jewish homeland was not a sensible method of helping Jewish survivors;
3. Palestine was the worst place in the world to choose for a Jewish homeland, due to opposition there;
4. no one deserves an empire, even when their ancestors had one there;
5. everyone’s ancestors had empires there, as there were doubtless thousands of empires there in the million or so years in which all of our ancestors migrated through N Africa from our common origins in SE Africa;
We would also like to be advised by such an expert on why Jews should be accorded special privileges in the US:
1. to control US foreign policy to dump money on Israel as “aid”;
2. to control US mass media so that nearly everyone accepts zionist lies about the Mideast and special privileges;
3. to control nearly every US politician through bribes, like those of all of the top ten donors to Clinton;
4. to rent the US military for pennies on the dollar to Israel to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents in the Mideast for the benefit of Israel;
5. to terminate democracy in the US for the advantage of one of the most racist groups in history.
But then you so easily fooled the world with your concept of “anti-semitism” that you will not need to answer, will you?
Borat
Reality:
(1) To quote Yehouda Shenhav, of Iraqi Jewish heritage and professor of sociology and anthropology at Tel Aviv University: “Any reasonable person, Zionist or non-Zionist, must acknowledge that the analogy drawn between Palestinians and Mizrahi [Arab] Jews is unfounded. Palestinian refugees did not want to leave Palestine….Those who left did not do so of their own volition. In contrast, Jews from Arab lands came to this country under the initiative of the State of Israel and Jewish organizations.” (Ha’aretz, 8 October 2004.)
(2) Avi Shlaim, born into an affluent and influential family in Baghdad: “We are not refugees, nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told us that we were unwanted. But we are the victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict.” (Ha’aretz, August 11, 2005) Shlaim is referring to the well documented acts of terror, including bombings of synagogues and Jewish owned businesses, carried out by “The Movement,” a Jewish/Zionist terrorist group controlled by Israel, whose purpose was to instil fear in Iraqi Jews and motivate them to immigrate to Israel. Several books and articles have been written by Jews of Iraqi origin about this little known chapter of history and an award winning documentary has also been produced and viewed around the world. Throughout the Arab world, especially in the Magreb, recruiters from Israel pressured Arab Jews to immigrate to Israel. This is a long and complicated story that has long since been documented, but not publicized in the West.
Regarding the emigration of Iraqi Jews, I quote American diplomat, Wilbur Crane Eveland’s from his book, Ropes of Sand:
“In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel…. Although the Iraqi police later provided our embassy with evidence to show that the synagogue and library bombings, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaigns, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had ‘rescued’ really just in order to increase Israel’s Jewish population.”
The U.S. State Department was also well aware of what Israeli agents had done in Iraq to precipitate Jewish emigration: “When [in August 1951] Israel undertook a campaign to get Iranian Jews to immigrate to Israel, the director of the office of Near Eastern affairs in the U.S. Department of State, G. Lewis Jones, told Teddy Kolleck, of Israel’s embassy in Washington, that the United States ‘would not favour a deliberately generated exodus there,’ as he put it, ‘along the lines of the ingathering from Iraq.’ Kolleck justified Israel’s Iraq operation as beneficial for Iraq, stating it was ‘better for a country to be homogeneous.'” (“Memorandum of Conversation by the Director of the Office of Near Eastern Affairs (Jones),” August 2, 1951, Foreign Relations of the United States 1951, vol. 6 p. 813, at p. 815 (1982)
(3) The late Yisrael Yeshayahu, speaker of the Knesset: “We are not refugees…. We had messianic aspirations.”
(4) Shlomo Hillel, former minister and speaker of the Knesset: “I don’t regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists.”
(5) During a Knesset hearing into the matter, Ran Cohen, member of the Knesset: “I am not a refugee….I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee.”
(Ha’aretz, October 8, 2004)
BTW, unable to bear their circumstances and the blatant racism directed towards them by the Ashkenazi/white European Jewish establishment, about 5,000 Moroccan Jews promptly returned to Morocco after arriving in Israel in the late 1940s. In recent years thousands more have returned home and continue to do in order to live a meaningful, peaceful and prosperous life among their Arab/Muslim/Christian brothers and sisters. Morocco is benefitting greatly from their return.
(It should not be forgotten that after being rejected twice by the UNGA, Israel signed the 1949 Lausanne Peace Conference Protocol and declared before the UNGA at the same time that it would comply with UN Resolution 194, which calls for the repatriation of and/or compensation for the then near 800,000 Palestinian refugees dispossessed and expelled before and during the 1948 war as a precondition for gaining UN admittance – see UNGA Resolution 273, 11 May 1949. Israel has since refused to comply with its pledge.)
Also, given its implications for Palestinian refugees who numbered well over one million following the IDF’s expulsion of a further about 25,000 before and during Israel’s first invasion of Egypt in 1956 and an additional approximately 250,000 during and after the war it launched on 5 June 1967, Israel is opposed to its citizens of Arab origin being referred to as “refugees.”
Needless to say, any Jew of Arab origin who feels he or she has a legitimate grievance against an Arab country should pursue it through international law. For obvious reasons, Palestinian refugees would heartily welcome such an initiative. The bottom line, however, is that while Palestinians were expelled from their homeland by Jewish militias and the IDF, they played no role whatsoever in the emigration of or any ill treatment and or loss of assets that Jews of Arab origin experienced in their former homelands. The two cases are separate and distinct, i.e., apples and oranges.
Shit ! Criticising Israel and Zionism is anti-semitism, then, hein ?! Why not say that to Noam Chomsky ? Ah, you will call him a traitor ! You’d better argue and not accuse ! Or else, shut up.
borat
Reality:
(1) To quote Yehouda Shenhav, of Iraqi Jewish heritage and professor of sociology and anthropology at Tel Aviv University: “Any reasonable person, Zionist or non-Zionist, must acknowledge that the analogy drawn between Palestinians and Mizrahi [Arab] Jews is unfounded. Palestinian refugees did not want to leave Palestine….Those who left did not do so of their own volition. In contrast, Jews from Arab lands came to this country under the initiative of the State of Israel and Jewish organizations.” (Ha’aretz, 8 October 2004.)
(2) Avi Shlaim, born into an affluent and influential family in Baghdad: “We are not refugees, nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told us that we were unwanted. But we are the victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict.” (Ha’aretz, August 11, 2005) Shlaim is referring to the well documented acts of terror, including bombings of synagogues and Jewish owned businesses, carried out by “The Movement,” a Jewish/Zionist terrorist group controlled by Israel, whose purpose was to instil fear in Iraqi Jews and motivate them to immigrate to Israel. Several books and articles have been written by Jews of Iraqi origin about this little known chapter of history and an award winning documentary has also been produced and viewed around the world. Throughout the Arab world, especially in the Magreb, recruiters from Israel pressured Arab Jews to immigrate to Israel. This is a long and complicated story that has long since been documented, but not publicized in the West.
(3) The late Yisrael Yeshayahu, speaker of the Knesset: “We are not refugees…. We had messianic aspirations.”
(4) Shlomo Hillel, former minister and speaker of the Knesset: “I don’t regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists.”
(5) During a Knesset hearing into the matter, Ran Cohen, member of the Knesset: “I am not a refugee….I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee.” (Ha’aretz, October 8, 2004)
800,000 Palestinians were dispossessed and expelled between late 1947 and late 1948. Given its implications for Palestinian refugees who numbered well over one million following the IDF’s expulsion of a further about 25,000 before and during Israel’s first invasion of Egypt in 1956 and an additional approximately 250,000 during and after the war it launched on 5 June 1967, Israel is utterly opposed to its citizens of Arab origin being referred to as “refugees.” For obvious reasons, Palestinian refugees would welcome such an initiative.
Needless to say, any Jew of Arab origin who feels he or she has a legitimate grievance against an Arab country should pursue it through international law. The bottom line, however, is that while Palestinians were expelled from their homeland by Jewish militias and the IDF, they played no role whatsoever in the emigration of or any ill treatment and or loss of assets that Jews of Arab origin experienced in their former homelands. The two cases are separate and distinct, i.e., apples and oranges.
we’re not talking about arabs or semites…
Thank you for your article, As’ad AbuKhalil. I was nice to read something contradicting the official narrative. However there is nothing new in it to me at least, there are many groups of people in Europe, who do not eat the msm rubbish that Americans usually are spoon fed.
Hizbullahs immense significance was pointed out by the recent elections in Lebanon, moving Hizbullah out of the “sectarian” envelope to have become a movement that is national. Imo this is significant, because this shows a unity in rejection of the Fascist settler state of Israel, and further Hizbullah has shown in Syria it is a competent fighting force.
I am of the opinion that Hizbullah, the Syrian army and cadres of the Iranian Guard militias, has bolstered morale, in the Arab world by showing, that Arabs can indeed win wars, with the right equipment an training.
In fact this is more important than anything else, as this will shape the future of the region. The monarchies of the Gulf better weather for the storm, the will be pulled down within 20 years.
Here is an interesting look at how Palestinians and Israelis view each other:
https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/11/how-palestinians-and-israelis-view-each.html
While every American administration since 1948 has proclaimed that it has the ultimate solution to the Middle East brouhaha, it is pretty clear that, unless there is a significant change in the mindset of both Israeli Jews and Palestinians, there is no hope for a peaceful resolution.
The barrage of anti-Israel rhetoric lost all credibility some time ago. While it remains fashionable among our bourgeoisie, it has defied all logic. Bottom line: Jews are indigenous to that bit of land, restored as the Jewish nation in 1948. Israel is roughly 1% of the Mideast, with the remaining 99% owned by the Arab states, all of which are armed to the teeth by China, Russia, and the US. Although portrayed as a military behemoth trampling over the impoverished oil states, it takes everything Israel has got, just to survive.
Some Jews were there, about five percent of the population. And if they continue their Zionism it will again be five percent.
Where do you live?
I need a place to live, so why don’t I come over to your house, kick you out under threat of violence, tear down your house, remove any trace you ever lived there, build my own house and claim that you never lived there.
I’m sure you can find another place to live.
Completely reasonable, yes?
This is exactly what the Zionists have done in Palestine.
Indeed.
And do you live in Israel on that bit of land?
Or are you in the US or some other country, and claim to have property rights according to the governing law of the land?
Maybe it is a matter of being chosen, if so, just be candid.
Sorry, but you just repeat lines from pamphlets.
The Ashkenazi – the people running Israel and the main early Zionist writers – are indeed Jews, but that ignores the fact that they are not Hebrews. There is a huge difference.
The Ashkenazi are Europeans. The word, Ashkenazi, means “German.”
Deli food is not Middle Eastern – it reflects German and central European food.
The Yiddish language is not Middle Eastern – it is derived from German.
The dress of the ultra-Orthodox is not Middle Eastern – it is from 19th century Eastern Europe.
Yes, most Jews learn some Hebrew in their temples’ Hebrew Schools, but that is no different to millions of devout Muslims learning Arabic so they can read Koran in the original. It provides no basis for Indonesia laying claim to Saudi Arabia.
Sharing religious beliefs with someone who ages ago owned some real estate buys you nothing in the real world.
All the best evidence we have suggests the Palestinians are the actual remaining descendants of the Hebrews.
The Romans never tossed out whole peoples in conquered lands – the notion of wandering Jews looking for a home again for two thousand years is just a sentimental myth used by people like the Ashkenazi to feel more connected to the ancient Hebrews whose religion they share.
Besides, time and again, DNA tests of Ashkenazi people tell us plainly they go back about one thousand years or less. Two origins are suggested, and both of them are located in Europe.
Citing ancient texts, and especially religious or superstitious ones, as any kind of basis for the geo-politics of the modern world makes little sense and is actually quite dangerous.
Otherwise, Greece, who won the Trojan War three thousand years ago, would have a claim on Turkey, the site of ancient Troy.
And many other groups besides the ancient Hebrews possessed what we call Israel before the Hebrews, including the Egyptians. By what logic do stop at just a certain era in any territory’s long history to call it the definitive origin? There’s no such thing.
And there are scores of such examples as the Greeks and Trojans which prove nothing and would only generate confusion and war if taken seriously.
And that is pretty much the case for re-created Israel. Confusion and war.
Excellent comment
(Was it the Phillistines and Canaanites who were in the area prior to the arrival of the Hebrews?)
Words of condemnation of Israel are not just “rhetoric” but are inspired by the overwhelming war crimes perpetrated by that fake “nation”. Israel is more like a racist conspiracy than a legitimate nation.
My above comment was meant as a reply to DH Fabian.
No comments thread accompanying an article about Israel would be complete without a superciliously robotic recitation of fraudulent pro-Israel talking points. Whether professionally produced, or an amateur’s heartfelt beliefs, hasbara is hasbara.
Thanks for demonstrating why honest reporting and analysis like this article is so necessary and valuable. And thanks to As`ad AbuKhalil and Consortium for providing it!
DH Fabian you need to get your facts right & I suggest you open the Bible? Here’s a condensed, Biblical History lesson just for you?? The Jews were never indigenous to that Land you speak off? They come from the Northern Lands, now modern day Iraq, where the garden of Eden was estimated to be, around the Euphrates river area? To the South, the Land & Territory that is now modern day Israel, was formerly occupied by the Cannanites & other tribes, whose descendants are Arabs & Palestinians! The progeny of Abraham , Isaac & Jacob were given this Land by God, due to their outstanding loyalty & obedience to the Creator, who allowed those former Arab Tribes to be displaced & the Land given to those historical Jews, with Moses leading them to this “Promised Land” but in order for them to remain in that Land & maintain that special with relationship with God as a special possession, they had to obey his Laws & statutes just as the Patriarchs had done? History shows that the Israelites failed miserably & the final straw was when the Jews killed his son, the Messiah! Confirmation that those Jews had lost divine favour & protection was when the Romans destroyed the Theocratic two tribe Kingdom of Judah & the Ten tribe Nation of Israel! Jesus stated before his death that your House (Nation) would be abandoned to you (the Jews) & prophesied Israel’s destruction! In Jerusalem, 1 million Jews perished & the remainder taken into captivity. Most significant was the destruction of the Temple & all the Jews genealogy records going back to Adam & the Patriarchs, were utterly destroyed! That Land became vacant & then occupied by Arab tribes & became Palestine. Much later, Palestine became a British protectorate after WW1 & then came the Balfour Declaration that repatriated European Jews to Palestine after WW2 in a attempt to facilitate the treatment of the Jews, due to guilt over the Holocaust? And the rest, so to speak, is History & the reason why this Land has been a weeping sore ever since? The Jews of yesterday & today are not indigenous to that Land & have no legitimate claims to it following their rejection by God himself!
Zionists’ founding fathers planned to colonise and occupy the land of Palestine where indigenous people were already living. You call them Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Jews, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Basically they were INDIGENOUS people who were OCCUPIED by Zionists who came from foreign lands – from Eastern European countries and from Russia. And your founding fathers are witness to this. Ze’eve Jabotinski in 1923, in his essay The Iron Wall wrote:
“There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting “Palestine” from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.” He further wrote:
“All Natives Resist Colonists …… Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised.” – http://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf
When European colonised North America there was no such thing as ‘civilised world’ who could condemn and resist that occupation. Palestinian colonisation on the other hand occurred in 20th century under the nose of so called civilised world.
So, from the very start, Zionists were very clear that they were going to colonise Palestine and that the native population will resist to the end. What Palestinians are doing today is the same resistance against their colonisers/occupiers Jabotinski predicted nearly a century ago.
Those living in 21st century who witness Palestinians being eliminated as a result of this resistance and do not raise their voices against this genocide should not call themselves civilised people.
What evidence for that statement? The Bible/Torah? No one should base “land rights” on stories from thousands of years ago. Israel is by far the best armed state in the Arab region, with illegal nuclear weapons and billions in aid from the USA. The idea that most of the states in the region even see themselves as “Arab (nationalist) states” is also a lark, Syria is the only remaining country upholding the liberation movement, and even it in word only. Most of the regional monarchies (Saudi) back US-Israeli imperialism as everyone knows. Finally, the bourgeois establishment in London and Washington strongly supports Zionism, with only some dissent from academia (which is itself under threat, see Fake News Bureau CNN fire a professor for stating elementary Palestinian left-wing demands)
Is this patronizing sarcasm or are you serious?
Boring comment of Israeli/Zionist propaganda that self-destructs in its lies, irrationality, and vomit.
Troll alert: again DHF defies all logic.
DH Fabian
Reality:
Recent in depth DNA analysis has proven conclusively that including their ancestors, Palestinians have lived continuously between the River and the Sea for about 15,000 years. ** (see below.)
The Jebusite/Canaanites were ancestors of today’s Palestinians and it was they who founded Jerusalem around 3000 BCE. Originally known as Jebus, the first recorded reference to it as “Rushalimum” or “Urussalim,” site of the sacred Foundation Rock, appears in Egyptian Execration Texts of the nineteenth century BCE, nearly 800 years before it is alleged King David was born. Its name “seems to have incorporated the name of the Syrian god Shalem [the Canaanite God of Dusk], who was identified with the setting sun or the evening star…and] can probably be translated as ‘Shalem has founded’.” (Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem, One City, Three Faiths; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1996, pp.6-7)
It is estimated that the Hebrews did not invade until circa 1184 BCE and their resulting United Kingdom of Israel, which never controlled the coast from Jaffa to Gaza, lasted only about 75-80 years, less than a blip in the history of Canaan and Palestine.
Thus far, no credible archaeological evidence, or more importantly, writings of contemporaneous civilizations, have been found that prove Solomon or David actually existed. (Nor has any evidence been discovered to confirm that a Jewish exodus from Egypt ever occurred. )
To quote the late renowned Jewish Israeli writer/columnist, Uri Avnery: “[David and Solomon’s] existence is disproved, inter alia, by their total absence from the voluminous correspondence of Egyptian rulers and spies in the Land of Canaan.” (“A Curious National Home,” by Uri Avnery, May 13/17 – http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1494589093/)
Jewish missionaries converted many pagan peoples to their faith in the Middle East, including Palestine, as well as Africa, Asia and Europe, especially during the two centuries preceding Christianity. Also, the Zionist claim that descendants of those Jews expelled from Palestine by the Romans have lived apart throughout the world for nearly two millennia and not intermingled with people outside of their religion is utterly absurd. To quote Polish born David Ben-Gurion (real name, David Gruen): “‘race’ does not unite Jewry since the ancient people dissipated after so much dispersion.” (Philippe de Saint Robert, Le Jeu de la France en Mediteranee ,1970, p.182)
** http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fgene.2017.00087/full Front. Genet., 21 June 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2017.00087
EXCERPT: “The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish”
“Recent genetic samples from bones found in Palestine dating to the Epipaleolithic (20000-10500 BCE) showed remarkable resemblance to modern day Palestinians.”
Time for a little homework!!
Bravo DH Fabian for demolishing the lie that this loathsome site consistently feeds into about Israel.
Thank you for this article professor AbuKhalil. It is my opinion that the Deal of the Century was probably dead on arrival when the US moved their embassy to Jerusalem and then stated that this city would be the future capital of Israel. You can not be serious about your peace plan when you make a brain dead move like that.
It’s good to see an article fiercely defending the success of resistance by the Palestinians. In recent years, much of the left wing and socialist media has portrayed them primarily as victims, while a real look at history confirms their agency as one of the few real threats to Empire and domination by the imperialists globally. With the taboos wearing thinner and thinner among young people in the US and UK, ALL left politicians should finally step forward and unconditionally support resistance with a diversity of tactics. I’m talking to you, Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, Sahra Wagenknecht, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez…..
I have a wonderful book called “Popular Resistance in Palestine” by Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, subtitled “A History of Hope and Empowerment”, packed with positive examples through the years and very well explained and referenced.
Jeff Halper’s “War Against the People” gives more ideas on what we are all up against!
This may interest you, rosemerry. I used to blog for Helena Cobban and then she moved into the publishing business regarding the Middle East and especially Palestine, and apparently her blog is returning. See the books here and the blog here.
Thanks, Anne Jaclard, for your address. But you are addressing the fake left ! They won’t do anything to help the resistance, whatever resistance is.
Thanks I always enjoy and learn something from your articles. Thanks also for the link.
Israel exists because “The West” has a massive guilt trip as a result of the Holocaust, as well they should – have a guilt trip. But if they want to give the Jews some place of their own, why don’t they give them some of THEIR land in compensation? After all, the Jews in question were living in Europe, not in Palestine. Culturally they were Northern Europeans by then, not Middle Easterners. If anybody should pay a price for the slaughter of Jews during WWII it should be the Germans first and foremost but also the Austrians, Poles, and Ukrainians. Why should the Palestinians pay the price for Europe’s horrific behavior? Besides, the Jews left Israel of their own free will. The Romans didn’t force them out. Israeli claims of a “homeland” are pure bunk.
Agreed! The Biblical worship of the Evangelicals (and Tony Blair messianism) prop up a phoney narrative of Israeli “right to exist” that would otherwise be deemed unreasonable. It’s a key part of the US imperial strategy to push extreme religions of all types to justify Zionism and the colonialism of the West generally. The entitlement of the “white man’s burden” continues!