Here are some facts you may not be aware of, yeru.
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In 1947-48, Palestinians Became Victims
By Charley Reese
The Orlando Sentinal
c. 2001 Orlando Sentinal
7-31-1
Let's play let's pretend.
Pretend you live in Miami-Dade County, Fla., and you evacuate the area because a bad storm is bearing down on it.
After the storm passes, you drive back but are met by military roadblocks. "You can't come back," you're told.
"What do you mean I can't come back? I have a home and business there," you say.
"Not anymore," the soldier says. "All of your property and possessions have been declared abandoned property and now will be used by us. So turn around. You've got 49 other states you can live in, but you're never going to the home you abandoned."
Now, let's pretend that after NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslavian government said it was willing to negotiate a cease-fire, but the Albanian refugees could not return to Kosovo. Do you think the United States would have agreed to that? I don't think so. I think the United States would have said to Yugoslavia the right of refugees to return to their homes is non-negotiable and, if you try to stop them, you'll have to get through us first.
Well, this is exactly what happened to 700,000 Palestinians in 1947-48. By what one journalist called a "psychological warfare campaign punctuated with some well-timed massacres," the Israelis drove these people out of their homes and villages with nothing much but the clothes on their backs.
Then, at a peace conference, the Israelis said first off that no refugees would be allowed to return nor would they be compensated for any property lost. That was Israel's original sin. It was also our original sin because the United States government did nothing and it should have insisted on the refugees' return.
Zionists, however, were not acting in an arbitrary manner. The Zionist ideology, on which the current state of Israel is based, demands a Jewish state defined as a state with a Jewish majority, a Jewish government and Jewish laws. Small, non-Jewish minorities can be tolerated, though in practice in Israel they have been treated like second-class people. But a plural state is out of the question.
The problem the Zionists faced in 1947-48 was this: Despite their best efforts, they had not succeeded in persuading a sufficient number of Jews to emigrate to Palestine. Consequently, even in the territory allotted by the partition of Palestine to the Jews, there were so many Palestinian Arabs that the early Zionists knew they should soon equal or exceed the Jews in number.
In 1919, there were 57,000 Jews and 533,000 Arabs in Palestine. The Jews owned about 2 percent of the land. In 1946, the imbalance remained. There were 608,000 Jews and 1.2 million Arabs. In 1946, Jews owned only 7 percent of Palestine.
An Arab majority was unacceptable to Zionist ideology, so they practiced ethnic cleansing.
So, for the same reason they drove them out in the first place, they could not let them back in. The Arab governments said if the refugees could not return, then they would not sign a peace treaty. This original sin -- the disposition of 700,000 Palestinians -- bred the conflict which rages to this day and will continue to rage until the Palestinians get justice or everybody on both sides are dead.
I know that it's difficult. The Israelis have done a superb job of creating a racist stereotype of Palestinians in the minds of most Americans. But try, for a moment, to put yourself in their shoes back in 1947-48.
You had a family, a farm or a business or shop. You had friends and relatives in a village where your ancestors had lived for centuries. Then, in the blink of an eye, you are torn from your roots and cast into a foreign country with no possessions, no money and no state you can call your own.
These people and their descendants still live in those camps, at least those the Israelis haven't killed during their periodic bombing and shelling. These are the people Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak told Yasser Arafat that he must agree can never return or be compensated for their losses. That alone would have prevented Arafat from signing the agreement.
It is this expulsion, not the establishment of the state of Israel, that Palestinians mean when they speak of the "Catastrophe." It was not only a cruel act of ethnic cleansing, but it was one of the greatest robberies in the history of mankind. Imagine if you could suddenly gain ownership of Miami-Dade, with all its businesses, inventories, bank accounts, houses, farms, and crops. Palestine was no Miami-Dade County, but the Palestinian possessions were nevertheless quite a pile of loot for the Israelis.
This happened, by the way, before Jews left the Arab countries. It most defintely was not a population transfer. The Palestinian victims of ethnic cleansing had nothing to do with what happened to Jews in other Arab countries later.
Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=orl%2Doped%2D reesefinal072901
Tracking the truth even when it goes into unpopular territory
Charley Reese
July 29, 2001
This is my farewell column to readers of the Orlando Sentinel. I'm not very good at this kind of thing. Thanks and goodbye.
Now to fill the rest of the space.
I thought I might answer a few questions. People often have asked how a columnist as conservative as I am could be published. I have you to thank for that. My readership numbers have always been very high. And that's the answer to your question.
Those of you who like my column, however, owe some thanks to the Orlando Sentinel. I've made a lot of people quite angry, but the Orlando Sentinel has never yielded to pressure. They have never censored my column. They have never asked me not to write on any particular topic with only two exceptions. I'll get to those in a minute.
No writer could ask for more than that and I am grateful to the succession of editors and publishers who have stood fast behind me.
The two exceptions occurred when Jim Squires was editor and I was writing a local column. Two particular columns he thought might start a race riot and asked if I would agree to write on another topic. I did, of course, and he was probably right about the consequences. As an editor, he had to be concerned about consequences. As a writer, I've always written without regard for the consequences. I've always figured that once I've told the truth (as best as I can determine it at the time), then my job is finished. How people choose to react to that truth is not my concern.
But those two exceptions over such a long span of years is something to marvel about.
Another question people ask is why I changed my position on the Israeli-Palestinian question. The answer is quite simple. Initially I believed the Israeli version of the country's history. A new generation of Israeli historians, however, began to publish works that proved the official Zionist version was made up of lies and half truths. The Palestinians had indeed been done a grave injustice.
After that revelation, I contacted Palestinians who live in this area, and they very generously gave me their time and insights. It is not pleasant to realize you've been so wrong, not only about Israel's history, but about Palestinians as human beings. You won't find any better people.
I've always believed a journalist has a duty to keep tracking the truth even when it tracks into unpopular territory. I've tried to do that. With what success will depend frankly on how you see the truth. I've noticed over the years there seems to be fewer and fewer people who know how to disagree agreeably.
Thirty years is a long time to spend in one building, especially one that in most parts has no windows and is being remodeled on a continuous basis. I've not only survived various editors and publishers but also a number of paint schemes, wallpapers, flooring choices and walls moved hither and yon. Fortunately I, myself, have been moved about, so I feel no sentimental attachment to the building. I just hope we never get eight inches of rain in a short time frame. I don't think there is enough support to the ceiling left to hold that weight. But what do I know about civil engineering? Not a thing except never to walk under things that could fall on you.
For those of you interested, my mailing address is P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802, and my e-mail address is [email protected]. Eventually you'll be able to find my columns on the Net, but at the moment I can't give you an address.
I have to tell you, however, that my one regret about the column business is that the volume of mail, both snail and electronic, has grown so great I can't answer it all. I read it, but there simply isn't time to answer every one, and I regret that.
On the whole, I've had a lot of fun. I've had fun in the newspaper business, in politics, in the Army, as a reserve deputy, and in the advertising agency business. I plan to have fun as a retiree. I've always followed the advice of an old samurai, even before I knew he had said it: Life is too short to do anything you don't want to do.
I've always been curious, and I still am. The great thing about curiosity is that there is always so much we don't know we never run out of things to discover and learn.
Some people have thought me too much of a pessimist, but I think of myself as a realist. I can't help that I've seen far too much evil, cruelty, brutality, death, dishonesty and hypocrisy to be a happy optimist. On the other hand, I've seen too much goodness, kindness, honesty, integrity and bravery to be a pessimist. The Chinese Taoists have it right. There is always light and darkness, good and evil, cowardice and courage, good times and bad times. Life is never all one or the other. It's always a mix, and we have to be strong enough to accept that. As an Asian sage put it, life is as it is whether we understand it or not.
So, Sentinel readers, adieu. Thanks for all your kind thoughts and letters. To those of you who sent unkind thoughts, go to hell.
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