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From: dxa@bentley.UUCP (DR Anolick)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: More of the saga
Message-ID: <565@bentley.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 17:43:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: bentley.565
Posted: Wed Aug 21 17:43:23 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 13:54:32 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Piscataway
Lines: 86

Mr. Black's article which I am responding to covers many topics including
his arguments against some previous postings about his character.  I have
no desire to enter that argument, I wish only to respond to certain facts
Mr. Black presented.


>      As far as Israeli being illegitimate, I believe that's fairly obvious.
> The British had no right to turn Palestine over to the Jewish refugees, since
> it was not legitimate British territory to begin with.  They were an army of
> occupation on Palestinian land.  If it were to be turned over to anybody, it
> should have been released to those who had a more legitimate claim, to wit,
> the Palestinians.
> 
>      The United Nations had no right to order that a new nation be formed on
> territory that already had an indigenous, flourishing population.  The 
> Palestinians had been in the area for 2000 years.  They owned it rightfully.
> Previously the Israelites and the Jews had both abandoned the territory and
> had made no claim to it.  (Who'd want a sand dune anyway?)
> 
>      Now, since the Jewish refugees had been slowly moving into the area 
> over a couple of centuries, they could well have worked their way into the
> local governments, and legiimately voted to accept the war survivors.  But
> they didn't.  They stole the Palestinian lands, houses, businesses, and
> drove the Palestinian people into the desert.
> 
>     Therefore, on the basis of what is right and just, I oppose the Israeli
> State.
>  [Don Black]


I believe that it is fairly obvious that Israel is not illegitimate.  

The claim used by Mr. Black is that the Palestinian Arabs had a more legitimate
claim on the land than the Jews did.  He claims that Arabs had been in the
area for 2000 years.  This is true.  But it is also true that Palestine was 
never an exclusively Arab country.  There was never an Arab state in Palestine,
and never a separate Palestinian Arab nation.  

I don't think that there is any argument of claim to Palestine during Biblical 
times.  Mr. Black states that the Jews abandoned the land.  Of course they did 
not abandon the land by choice but by force, after being conquered.  However, 
even after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, Jewish life in Palestine
continued uninterrupted, and often flourished.  Records exist of sixth century 
Talmudic study in Palestine, of large Jewish communities being reestablished 
in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century, as well as many others.  So, 
the Jews had NEVER totally abandoned the territory.

The most outrageous claim Mr. Black makes is that the Jews "stole the
Palestinian lands, houses, businesses, and drove the Palestinian people
into the desert."  Although this could have happened in some individual
cases, for the vast majority of cases this statement is simply not true.

In the beginning, the Arabs welcomed the Jews who sought to settle in
Palestine.  Why?  Well, the Jews were willing to buy worthless land like
sand dunes or swamps for _ten_ times the going price of _fertile_ land.  
The Arabs were glad to take the Jewish money.  They never believed that 
the Jews could make profit from such worthless land.  Later this land did
flourish, which became part of the growing hatred of Jews by Arabs.  We
are all guilty of envy at one time or another.

These land sales were well documented.  Yet I have never seen a documented
case of the Jews stealing land and displacing Arabs.  [The problem of 
the displaced Arabs due to the War of 1948 is worthy of an article of
its own, I will not go into it here.]  

Without knowing the facts, it is easy to believe that the Palestinian 
Arabs were "driven into the desert."  Before the land was transformed,
_most_ of Palestine was desert, and after its cultivation, the Jews
lived on the fertile land while the Arabs lived on desert.  If the land
was only seen after its transformation, it appears that the Jews drove
the Arabs into the poor areas, while taking the fertile areas for 
themselves.  This would be a short sighted view, and far from the truth.  

If you don't believe that Israel was transformed from desert to "milk 
and honey," I suggest you read Mark Twain's opinions of Palestine which 
he wrote in the 1800's in _The_Innocents_Abroad.

Therefore, on the basis of what is right and just, I _support_ the Israeli
State.
-- 

	Droyan				David Roy Anolick
ihnp4!bentley!{droyan|dxa}		^     ^^^ ^^

"Why are you here?" 
"To fight for truth, and justice and the American Way."