In need of refutation

I thought I would try to put another side to that article you sent me. Please don't take offence but I do feel it is a rather one eyed look at the situation.

Please don't take offence, but your main error of fact is in your claim that Zionism is not democratic. Even the most serious opponents of Zionism accept that Israel was set up to be a democratic state, and has lived up to that ideal far better than any of the surrounding states, and yet one gets the feeling from reading ANON's piece that Zionism is an undemocratic imposition into the midst of a thriving democracy within the Arab world. Which credible author are you relying on? I have put some comments further down in BLUE where I really believe you should go back and ask your sources what they base themselves on.

Shmuel Katz makes no mention of the fact that in the lead up to Partition there were two proposals in the UN One to divide Palestine into two separate states (bear in mind at that time the Jewish community only consisted of one third of the total population of Palestine and owed about eight per cent of the land) The Arabs understandably didn't think that the UN or anybody else had the moral right to arbitrarily to give away half of their land to anybody)

How does ANON think that territorial disputes should be resolved - not by the UN? Maybe he thinks that whenever there is a dispute War is the answer. No, ANON, I think you will find that everything which was done by the "UN or anybody else" was done in good faith to justly attempt meet the requirements of both Jew and Arab. I am a little worried that ANON never seems to realise that there are two sides to this.

The other Proposal was to have a unified state with proportional representation for the different indigenous communities Muslims Christians and Zionists. This was favoured by the Arabs and rejected by the Zionists. The Zionists were not interested in the democratic solution.

ANON must be mixed up between the Zionists and the Arabs. The Zionist Entity is the only entity with an open society, while the Arabs still don't seem to take well to democracy. (2005)

The Zionists also used some unorthodox methods to swing the vote in their favour.

Yes you are right, they use the same "unorthodox" methods that every downtrodden minority uses. Cajole, persuade, make passionate representations, do deals with other minorities to put pressure on majorities. These are things which are done here in Australia by the Greens, and the Democrats; and I fully support the rights of minorities to use the democratic process when they are trying to do something good and right in the world.

Is there any country or race who have lived in one place for umpteenth generations that would happy without any election or say in the matter to suddenly be under a government that they had not elected. I don't see any democracy there do you.?

No again ANON has his facts wrong. Let me re-state what he is saying carefully and accurately:

Is there any group of people who have been living for umpteenth generations without any election or say in the matter that would be happy to suddenly find themselves living under a Zionist democracy with full voting rights in elections?

The only honest answer to this rhetorical question is that ALL the Jews were happy, and SOME of the Arabs were happy and a LARGER number of the Arabs were not happy, apparently preferring to live under authoritarian Arab rule because it was anathema to live under Jewish rule, even if it was democratic.

It's interesting how people like Shmuel Katz so easily forget the terrorism the early settlers used to oust the British.

You are probably not aware that the Jews did not target innocent women and children and they gave forewarning to the British to enable them to evacuate buildings before they were blown up. By the way you may also not be aware that the Israeli army during the height of the Intifada always gave forewarning for people to evacuate from buildings they were about to blow up

He ignores the fact that 700,000 Arabs were suddenly ousted from their homes lively hoods and villages where their families had lived for generations (he focuses on the handful of settlers ousted by Sadat(Did they pay any Arabs for the land they appropriated?

He completely ignores how Arabs might feel about losing their land of hundreds of generations, but when Sharon wants to remove all those new settlers who have received land for virtually nothing that's considered a tragedy. Where in the peace talks did they ever offer to let the Palestinians go back to their homes. Peace talks are caught up in the machinations of the Arab countries around Israel.

Elaine I am quoting from the book The 50 year war by Aron Bergman and Jihan el Tahri isbn 0-14-026827-8. I really recommend it as a very good look at the situation, From both sides. Wrongs have been committed on both sides.

The type of letter he has written would be considered anti-Semitic if some one had written about the Jews in that tone, it is just not helpful to the healing of ancient wounds.

While I am still on my soap box I send you these quotes by Eleanor Roosevelt....

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

History clearly shows that we arrive at catastrophe by failing to meet situations- by failing to act where we should act.. The opportunity passes and the next situation is always more difficult than the last.

In 1958 she wrote.

Where after all do universal human rights begin? In small places close to home - so close and so small they cannot be seen. On any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual persons; the neighbourhood . the school or college. the factory, farm or office.Such are the places where every man woman and child seek justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vein for progress in the larger world...

It has always seemed to me that we never present our case to smaller nations in either a persuasive or interesting way. I think most people will acknowledge that we have given far more military aid to these nations than economic aid. It is not very pleasant to palm off this military equipment on people who are not really looking for it..

In view of this why don't we offer them something they really want? For one thing most of them would like food. Many of them know that wider training of their people is essential and hence a primary need is aid to their education system.

The time to prepare for world peace is during the time of peace not during the time of war.