Reply #108: Help me to understand where you are coming from:...................

[kayecy]

.... seems the israeli arabs, bedouin, druze etc all seem to understand this aspect

You keep banging on about how Israeli-Arab, Beduin and Druze are different from West-bank Palestinians, how they are satisfied with living in Israel, etc....Help me to understand where you are coming from:

1. In your experience of Arab-Israeli opinion, have you discovered what percentage of them claim to be Zionists?.......ie approve of the Law-of-return?.....happily sing the Israeli national anthem words?

2. I’m sure there are some West-bank Palestinians who would also be satisfied with living in Israel... Israel has not offered to let them return.......Why differentiate between Israeli-Arabs and West-bank Arabs simply on the basis that in 1948, some Arabs thought it safer to stay whilst others thought it safer to leave ( and had the opportunity to do so).....After all, even you will admit that some West-bankers were forced to go by the Haganah, and had no choice in the matter...Why discriminate against them?

3. In what way is Israel NOT practicing a legal apartheid style government?....There is one law for the West Bank Arabs and another for the settlers.

4. In what way do you think the 1920s Palestinian Arabs had less civil or political rights than today’s Arab-Israeli’s?

5. Doha residents too, prefer to live in Doha rather than any other state and are happy with their life.....Apparently a high standard of living is more important to them than democracy....Could that account for why a majority of Arab-Israelis prefer to live in Israel?

.... Zionism was first and foremost designed to save the jews within a democratic environment,

Save Jews – Yes.......But you have admitted that you have no evidence that democracy was uppermost in Zionist minds.......I suggest all your claims about ‘democratic environment’ are just wishful thinking to salve your socialist conscience.

.... they don't....thats the point, both groups have the connections (to Palestine)

True....but you imply the connection is comparable......A Jew born in the USA, may in fact be a descendant of an East European Jew whose ancestors converted to Judaism centuries ago......Does such a modern Jew have a connection to Palestine comparable with that of an Arab who can show that his ancestors lived in the same village for a century or more?

.... (if the Palestinian immigrants are kept out for 5000 years, then the newer israeli immigrants will now be the indigenous people and have greater rights- just as the jews "lost" their rights to the newer Palestinians...)

Correct.......But we are in the present now, and it is the indigenous people that have "lost" their rights.... The Israeli immigrants are not indigenous but nevertheless they have demanded greater rights than the indiginous Arabs........I think you are beginning to accept my point...ie that long term residence on the land should be the deciding factor.

.... For reasons that are not clear to me, you totally ignore the governing style of egypt, the PA,hamas, jordan, syria.....all of which provide clear examples of what was in store for the people of Palestine had the zionists not brought with them a democracy.

Allow me to help you to understand.....Unless the Zionists were clairvoyant, the modern governing style in Egypt, Jordan and Syria was irrelevant to the morality of Weizmann’s decision to ask Britain to give Palestine to the Zionists.....
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