Source

Tsvi Bisk - The Refugee Racket

A Palestinian woman stands outside UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City. (AP/Khalil Hamra) Tsvi Bisk – The Refugee Racket The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace, by Adi Schwartz & Einat Wilf, (All Points Press, 2020)   The War of Return should be on every Jewish bookshelf. You should buy it, read it, give it to your friends as a present, and…

View On WordPress

"The notion of Palestine being Arab emerges, really, only in the 60s. because... what did Israelis do? the colonial era is over; the Ottoman Empire is gone, finally the British are gone, and the Jewish people finally, having outlived all these empires, going back to the Roman Empire, finally restore their sovereignty. What do they do? they do what every self-respecting people in history did when the colonial people were gone- they call the country by their name, right? so Siam becomes Thailand, and the Gold Coast becomes Ghana, and Palestine becomes Israel because Palestine was the colonial name and Israel is the original, indigenous name.

Once the Jews call the land Israel... in order to present the Jews as foreign, [...] thieves, interlopers, Arabs began to hijack the name Palestine, to say, actually we are Palestine, whereas previously everyone understood it was Jews. and I love it, because sometimes you see on the internet, oh look Palestine existed, and they show, like, the Palestine football team and if you look closely all the names are like [...] all Jewish [...] because this was the Jewish football team of the Jewish state in the making, and the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra was the orchestra of Jewish exiles that became the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. So, this is a classis [...] hijacking of the Arabs of something that was very Jewish, in order to present the Jews as thieves, rather than the original owners."

-Einat Wilf (source)

I tremendously appreciate everyone who is taking this opportunity to learn more about the Jewish people, our history, and how we withstand the threats we have faced - then and now.

Multiple good sources here.

If you already like Bassem Eid, consider Khaled Abu Toameh.

Histories of Arab and Muslim antisemitism can be found in "The Dhimmi" by Bat Ye'or and "In Ishmael's House" by Martin Gilbert.

"Jerusalem: The Biography," by Simon Sebag Montefiore - one of the very best books I have ever read, on any subject

"Six Days of War," by Michael Oren

Everything by Benny Morris (especially "Righteous Victims")

Everything by Tom Segev (especially "One Palestine, Complete" and "The Seventh Million")

Everything by Einat Wilf (especially "The War of Return")

"Empire of Refugees" - Ottoman colonialism

I invite other readers to post their own suggestions in replies / reblogs.

One of the biggest and lesser known stories of Nov 29 is that the lands allocated to a Jewish state (two color map) were essentially those the Zionists reclaimed from malaria through land purchase, science and education (blue map). Moreover, the sudden and extremely rapid increase of the Arab population in the 1920’s and 1930’s in this barely populated backwater region (this was the highest population increase rate in the world in 1931/2) was only in part due to immigration spurred by Zionist development of the land. The major share of the massive Arab population increase was thanks to Malaria eradication, which was the work of the Galician born famed microbiologist and ardent Zionist Dr. Israel Kligler (credit to the great historical work of Anton Alexander). With this knowledge it remains even a greater tragedy that the now much more numerous Arabs of the land directed their efforts towards brutally fighting Zionism rather than choosing to live side by side with an emerging Jewish state. In the shadow of the Oct 7 massacre we mark once more the Nov 29 moment when the Jews said yes to the UNGA plan of partition (having prioritized having a state, even if tiny and mostly desert and lands reclaimed from malaria and no Zion and no Judea) and the Arabs said no and proceeded to wage a brutal war to the present day (having prioritized - still - the goal of the Jews not having a state at all and of any size).

(Note on map titles: for twenty centuries, before a campaign of denial was underway, it was well understood that the name “Palestine” merely denoted the geographic region where the Land of Israel was and was therefore deeply associated with Jews and the their continuous connection to the land. Hence the League of Nation in establishing the mandate recognized the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" as the "grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” and which is why the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra of Jewish musicians became the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra…)

Dr. Einat Wilf

https://youtube.com/shorts/4nICkch2p_c?si=njqJ8ryyvRI18P97

“October seventh should bring an end to the notion of ‘poor palestinians’”

Einat Wilf on twitter:

“His Majesty’s Government have thus been faced with an irreconcilable conflict of principles … For the Jews the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish State. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine”

Quote by British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin in February 1947 in a speech to the British Parliament explaining why Britain can no longer carry out the mandate with which it was entrusted by the League of Nations and thus sending it back to the United Nation.

Note the date - February 1947: there is no Israel, no refugees, no occupation, no settlements, no blockade - none of the ‘understandable causes’ for Palestinian violence that even the UN Secretary General has fallen for.

And yet, already in February 1947 it is crystal clear why the conflict is already “irreconcilable”: as a matter of top priority, “the essential point of principle”, the Jews want a state whereas as a matter of top priority the Arabs of the land (later known as Palestinians) seek “to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty *in any part* of Palestine”.

That’s the conflict. The Jews want a state in even a part of the land. The Palestinians want the Jews not to have a state in any part of the land. That’s “Free Palestine”. That’s “From the River to the Sea”. It’s an idea that guarantees that generation after generation trained murderers will rise under different names: Fatah, DFLP, Hamas, Jihad, to “Liberate Palestine”.

If we are ever to have peace, this idea must change. Palestinians must develop a constructive vision of living next to a Jewish state rather than the century long destructive vision of living instead of it. Nothing less will do.

Einat Wilf

article below:

"I am a zionist because I am an atheist and a Jew. Zionism has allowed someone like me to preserve my faith in the sovereignty of human beings over their own fate, while maintaining a deep and continuous commitment to the Jewish people and its future... Zionism, by reformulating Judaism as a culture and civilization grounded in the ancient land and history of all Jews, allowed individuals to remain true to the ideas of Enlightenment while contributing to a thriving Jewish life."

Einat Wilf

The land “from the river to the sea,” to use the now-ubiquitous slogan, has been known as Palestine only twice before. First, the Roman Emperor Hadrian used “Palestina” as a way of suppressing Jewish resistance to his imperial rule. Second, it was used under the British Mandate, which was entrusted to Britain with the purpose of “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” In both cases, it was understood that “Palestine” simply denoted the territory where there had been, or would be, a Jewish homeland. This is why the League of Nations, in establishing the Mandate, did so to “give recognition to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine,” thereby forming “the grounds for reconstituting the Jewish people’s national home in that country.” This is also why local organizations at the time freely used the word “Palestine” in connection to entirely Jewish entities: The Palestine Post, for instance, which later became The Jerusalem Post, or the Palestine Philharmonic, later the Israel Philharmonic. Football associations with players bearing names such as Kastenbaum, Friedmann, Nudelman, and Kraus, as well as coins, bore the name Palestine (but always with a mention of “Eretz Israel,” the Land of Israel). Nor was that all. The Mandate gave Britain the option to separate the territory east of the River Jordan out of the area mandated for a Jewish home. What became Transjordan, and later Jordan, was forbidden to Jewish settlement. The remaining areas are, fantastically, now called “historic Palestine.” As Shany and I observed, “they are ‘historic’ only insofar as they lasted for barely three decades, were governed by a European superpower, and delimited as the future national home for the Jewish people.”

Source

By ZACH KESSEL

One recent college graduate, alongside her former professor, has created a documentary series aimed at educating people past the flashy signs and catchy slogans one might see and hear at an anti-Israel rally, toward a full understanding of what Zionism and anti-Zionism really mean. That series, “Zionism and Anti-Zionism: The History of Two Opposing Ideas” by Zoé Tara Zeigherman, had its Washington, D.C., premiere Thursday night. 

The series, a five-episode look at the varieties of both its titular subjects, covers Jewish history and the development of Zionism, the intra-Jewish debates that occurred before Israel’s founding in 1948, and various strains of anti-Zionism from post-1948 Arab opposition to Israel to Soviet propaganda.

Zeigherman, alongside her former Georgetown University professor (and former member of Israel’s Knesset) Einat Wilf, began formulating the idea for the series in 2022, well before anti-Zionism and antisemitism shot to the fore of public debate following the October 7 Hamas attack. Zeigherman thinks the problem was always there, but now that college campuses are under a microscope, the documentary series is even more relevant.

“I think that what a lot of Jews have experienced since October 7 is kind of waking up to this feeling that something is seriously wrong; seeing protests on October 8, they’ve been feeling that something is mobilizing against Jews, and they don’t really understand what’s happening.” Zeigherman told National Review. “I had that feeling in the Black Lives Matter protest era when antisemitism was erupting online and I couldn’t understand where it was coming from.”

“If it can just help one young Jew the way Einat’s course helped me, that’s enough,” she told NR. “But I would really like to see it be part of something bigger, where Jews aren’t afraid to be Jews anymore — where we stand taller and prouder and go on offense as opposed to constantly defending ourselves and apologizing.”

Zeigherman initially came up with the idea for the series during her time as a Beren Summer Fellow with the Tikvah Fund, a nonprofit organization that promotes Jewish leaders and ideas, in 2022. While a fellow, she worked with individuals both inside and outside the Tikvah Fund to determine how to bring her vision to life.

Red shows the bombed parts of Gaza.

—

»For decades the world has told Palestinians that they are refugees, "even after five generations," says former Knesset member Einat Wilf. She sees the Palestinian demand for a "right of return" as a code for the destruction of the state of Israel and as a central obstacle on the path to peace.«

[source]

—

Typical Zionist Distortion of Facts

It is not the world that "tells that Palestinians are refugees", but rather it is fucking Israel that turns Palestinians into stateless people and wants to displace every single one of them. And in case that cunt from the Knesset hasn't noticed: there are almost a million Israelis settling in the West Bank who are aggressively and forcefully driving out the Palestinians; The two-state solution has long since been made impossible by Israel itself!

The sacrifice of the Palestinians, the transformation of Gaza into a second Dresden also shows how disgusting the Zionists are. No one will buy Israel's victimhood anymore, their shitty Holoc… or other lies like Anne Frank, with which they have indoctrinated us for generations. Israel lives out everything that they accuse the Germans of and justify it over and over again with their tall tales…

"The 20th century has been marked by a transition from empires to states. We begin the 20th century when much of the world is divided between empires. We end it when much of the world is divided between states. When lucky, those states were based on the self determination of a people who share a common history, language, ethnicity, background religion and connection to a territory. (Zionism emerged in this context based on the idea of self determination for the Jewish people in the only territory to which they were ever connected as a people). When unlucky those new states were artificially created by receding empires drawing boundaries, forcing different peoples to share one state, leading almost always to civil war, dictatorship, or both. This transition has been bloody. It involved two world wars and numerous regional and civil wars. In the bloody process of empires receding and new states emerging to replace them, tens of millions of people were displaced, fleeing across newly created borders, typically to new countries with an ethnic makeup similar to their own. This was true of Hindus and Muslim, Ukrainians, Poles and Germans, Bulgarians, Greeks and Turks and Arabs and Jews. This was not unique.

What was unique is that one group only of refugees from that time and those wars were allowed to maintain themselves as endless refugees in anticipation of one day winning a war they had lost. Those were the Arab refugees from the war of 1948, later to be known as Palestinians. All other refugee groups, except the Palestinians, were presented with a clear message: “it’s tough, it’s tragic, move on”. There was a clear understanding that in the most fundamental sense there is no going back - not in place and not in time (thus, there was no such thing as “a right of return”). To seek to go back would mean endless war. And so the message was forward looking and future facing. Tens of millions of refugees and displaced persons, among them millions of Jews, would build new lives in the new countries to which they fled.

Except Palestinians. The war that the Arabs of the land and the surrounding countries waged to prevent a Jewish state from emerging and gaining independence failed to achieve its goals. Despite the violent onslaught of 1947-49, Israel emerged as a sovereign state. But the Arabs of the land, sustained by broader Arab support, refused to accept this outcome. They proceeded to undo it through a variety of means, including repeated wars, economic boycotts, international condemnations and a complete refusal of the refugees themselves to be settled, as it would effectively mean accepting that the war was over.

To that end of keeping the war of 1948 alive until its goal of undoing the Jewish state could be achieved, a temporary agency established to resettle the refugees - UNRWA (initially called REWA, but the Arabs insisted on the letters UN so that it would appear to enjoy international legitimacy) - was hijacked by the Arab refugees. As a result of this hijacking UNRWA effectively became a Palestinian entity devoted singularly to sustaining and stoking the idea that uniquely among the world’s refugees, Palestinians don’t need to move on and can keep insisting on “return”, both in space and in time, to a time when there was no Israel. UNRWA thus became the mechanism by which the Jewish people alone were denied the right to to consider their hard won self-determination and sovereign statehood as a done deal."

-Einat Wilf, 1 Nov 2023 (source)