Israel lacks evidence against extremists in arson attack

[webfact]

Israel lacks evidence against extremists in arson attack
By DANIELLA CHESLOW

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is still lacking evidence to charge those responsible for a deadly arson attack on a Palestinian family this summer, Israeli media reported the country's defense minister as saying Monday, in a case that Palestinians say helped fuel the past weeks of bloodshed.

In July, assailants, believed to be Jewish extremists, lobbed a firebomb into the Dawabsheh family's home in the West Bank village of Duma, where four family members were asleep. Ali Dawabsheh, a toddler, was burned to death, while his mother and father later died of their wounds. His 4-year-old brother Ahmad is being treated in an Israeli hospital.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said a "group of Jewish fanatics" who want to install a "religious kingdom" based on biblical law were behind the attack. Yaalon's remarks to military correspondents were reported by Israel's Walla news site.

But Yaalon said, "We don't currently have evidence that directly ties the one who carried out the terror attack but I believe we will get that, I hope that we will solve the case completely," Yaalon said.

Israeli leaders across the political spectrum have strongly condemned the firebomb attack and vowed to apprehend the assailants. But the fact that no one has been officially charged months after the attack is a sore point among Palestinians and many cite the case as a big factor in fueling the current violence.

Since mid-September, 12 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbing assaults. Meanwhile, 75 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, including 48 said by Israel to have been involved in attacks or attempted attacks. The other Palestinians died in clashes between stone-throwers and security forces.

Also Monday, documents show that Israel last month gave preliminary approval to development plans that could build more than 2,000 homes in West Bank settlements over the next 15 years.

The plans came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington for a high-profile meeting with President Barack Obama.

Official records from an Oct. 21 planning committee meeting showed that officials gave preliminary approval to build about 2,200 homes in several existing settlements east of the Palestinian city of Ramallah by 2030. The plans were first reported by the Haaretz daily.

Hagit Ofran of the anti-settlement group Peace Now said that it could be years before any of the homes are built since the plan must pass several other phases before construction can begin. Still, she said it shows the "vision" that Netanyahu's government has for the area.

The Palestinians seek all of the West Bank, captured by Israel from Jordan in the1967 Mideast war, as part of a future independent state. The international community opposes settlements as illegal or illegitimate and says they hinder efforts for Palestinian statehood.

The meeting took place at a time of rising violence. On Monday, Israeli security forces shot and killed a Palestinian woman at a West Bank checkpoint who they said pulled a knife in an attempt to stab guards.

The Israeli Defense Ministry said the woman ignored calls to stop and also warning shots as she walked toward a checkpoint near the Alfei Menashe settlement in the northern West Bank. It released what appeared to be a suicide note left behind by the 23-year-old woman, in which she pledged to "defend the homeland" and begged her parents and sisters for forgiveness.

The latest bloodshed was triggered by unrest at a major Jerusalem shrine revered by both Muslims and Jews, and quickly spread to Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza border.

Israel has blamed the violence on incitement by Palestinian leaders. Palestinians say the attacks stem from a lack of hope for gaining independence after years of failed peace efforts.

Rights groups have alleged that Israeli troops have used excessive force against Palestinians, in some cases shooting and killing suspected attackers who the groups say could have been simply arrested.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-11-10

[shirtless]

While i feel sorry for Israelis citizens Israel actions are not going to make this problem disappear , they have abused their power .

[dexterm]

It's amazing isnt it that Israel can infiltrate groups of rock throwing Palestinians and Hamas in Gaza to find evidence, but can't get inside information to help convict Jewish terrorists.

I wonder if the IDF and police have made similar efforts to gather evidence for the coronial inquiries into the extra judicial killings of 77 Palestinians in the recent unrest. All tried, judged and sentenced on the spot.

[Jai Dee]

One troll post and subsequent replies and arguments have been removed from this thread.

[Expat1]

"Jewish extremists," Really? I was not aware Israel had too many that weren't. Their govt sure is. Well, evidence just seems to fade out when Jews commit heinous crimes there and evidence magically appears when Palestinians are needed as scapegoats. Go figure. It must be that imaginary friend in the sky guiding them to divine knowledge. Well, if you don't believe then just ask them they'll tell you. For them it is ALWAYS the other guy's fault, oy ve.

Edited November 10, 2015 by Expat1

[Calach]

If the suspects were the Hamas and the victims settlers, Israel wouldn't have wondered about evidences lacking or not and 2000 Palestinians would already have been shredded by a Protective Edge or Cast Lead campaing of "surgical" carpet bombing strikes.

Edited November 10, 2015 by Calach

[Kasset Tak]

<snip>

I don't bash Jews, I bash Israel!

When Israel say that Jews protesting against how Israel are treating the Palestinians are not Jews then at least I can see a problem....

I have a pretty good knowledge of what was going on during WWII and I still say that the Israelis (NOT the Jews) are treating the Palestinians the same way the Jews was treated in 1939 Germany, the main difference is that the Palestinians are fighting back!

The Nazis confiscated assets of the Jews. Israel confiscate land from the Palestinians.

The Nazis denied the Jews basic human rights like education and healthcare. Israel are denying the Palestinians basic human rights like education and healthcare.

If a Jew killed a German soldier, not only one but maybe 10 Jews would be killed as retaliation. So far 12 Israelis have been killed compared to 75 Palestinians in this last wave of violence. 1988-2011 142 Israeli children died from attacks by Palestinians while 1620 Palestinian children died from Israeli attacks....

Do you want more comparisons so you can understand why I bash Israel?

Edited November 10, 2015 by Jai Dee
quoted removed post

[ezzra]

Kasset Tak, on 10 Nov 2015 - 11:28, said:

<snip>

I don't bash Jews, I bash Israel!

When Israel say that Jews protesting against how Israel are treating the Palestinians are not Jews then at least I can see a problem....

I have a pretty good knowledge of what was going on during WWII and I still say that the Israelis (NOT the Jews) are treating the Palestinians the same way the Jews was treated in 1939 Germany, the main difference is that the Palestinians are fighting back!

The Nazis confiscated assets of the Jews. Israel confiscate land from the Palestinians.

The Nazis denied the Jews basic human rights like education and healthcare. Israel are denying the Palestinians basic human rights like education and healthcare.

If a Jew killed a German soldier, not only one but maybe 10 Jews would be killed as retaliation. So far 12 Israelis have been killed compared to 75 Palestinians in this last wave of violence. 1988-2011 142 Israeli children died from attacks by Palestinians while 1620 Palestinian children died from Israeli attacks....

Do you want more comparisons so you can understand why I bash Israel?

As my first post said, and they did come out not to disappoint us, with the usual diatribes of Israel the vile,

evil empire that has nothing better to do than kill poor peace loving Palestinians and deny them their

human rights yada yada yada...

why than don't the Palestinian declare unanimously a their own state and leave Israel alone?

Oh, they can't? that because everything what sustain and keep the west bank and Gaza alive

is either being provided and supplied from Israel, without Israel there will be no state, no water

no electricity, no banking, no post, almost no nothing....

Edited November 10, 2015 by Jai Dee
quoted removed post

[Ulysses G.]

Beggars can't be choosers.

[ezzra]

Kasset Tak, on 10 Nov 2015 - 11:28, said:

ezzra, on 10 Nov 2015 - 06:36, said:

<snip>

I don't bash Jews, I bash Israel!

When Israel say that Jews protesting against how Israel are treating the Palestinians are not Jews then at least I can see a problem....

I have a pretty good knowledge of what was going on during WWII and I still say that the Israelis (NOT the Jews) are treating the Palestinians the same way the Jews was treated in 1939 Germany, the main difference is that the Palestinians are fighting back!

The Nazis confiscated assets of the Jews. Israel confiscate land from the Palestinians.

The Nazis denied the Jews basic human rights like education and healthcare. Israel are denying the Palestinians basic human rights like education and healthcare.

If a Jew killed a German soldier, not only one but maybe 10 Jews would be killed as retaliation. So far 12 Israelis have been killed compared to 75 Palestinians in this last wave of violence. 1988-2011 142 Israeli children died from attacks by Palestinians while 1620 Palestinian children died from Israeli attacks....

Do you want more comparisons so you can understand why I bash Israel?

How dare you, and it what world can you, or any one else equate what the Nazis did to the Jews

and millions of others in WWII? how can you even begin to compare what is going on between

the Israelis and Palestinians to the gassing of millions people and systematic culling of human being

in the hands of the Nazis?

People who talk like this must have no shame and probably just crawled out from under rock way in a cave, or they belong to the low

brow tribes of the lost civilizations...

[Trouble]

Kasset Tak, on 10 Nov 2015 - 11:28, said:

ezzra, on 10 Nov 2015 - 06:36, said:

<snip>

I don't bash Jews, I bash Israel!

When Israel say that Jews protesting against how Israel are treating the Palestinians are not Jews then at least I can see a problem....

I have a pretty good knowledge of what was going on during WWII and I still say that the Israelis (NOT the Jews) are treating the Palestinians the same way the Jews was treated in 1939 Germany, the main difference is that the Palestinians are fighting back!

The Nazis confiscated assets of the Jews. Israel confiscate land from the Palestinians.

The Nazis denied the Jews basic human rights like education and healthcare. Israel are denying the Palestinians basic human rights like education and healthcare.

If a Jew killed a German soldier, not only one but maybe 10 Jews would be killed as retaliation. So far 12 Israelis have been killed compared to 75 Palestinians in this last wave of violence. 1988-2011 142 Israeli children died from attacks by Palestinians while 1620 Palestinian children died from Israeli attacks....

Do you want more comparisons so you can understand why I bash Israel?

How dare you, and it what world can you, or any one else equate what the Nazis did to the Jews

and millions of others in WWII? how can you even begin to compare what is going on between

the Israelis and Palestinians to the gassing of millions people and systematic culling of human being

in the hands of the Nazis?

People who talk like this must have no shame and probably just crawled out from under rock way in a cave, or they belong to the low

brow tribes of the lost civilizations...

I believe the poster was talking of 1939 Germany. He was only pointing out that the way the Palestinians have been treated by the Israelis, the way their property has been confiscated for settlements, etc. is no different than the beginnings of the horror that occurred later under the Nazis. Fair point in my opinion since Israel never wants the world to forget what happened in Nazi Europe. Comparison is indeed fare game. Whether a person is killed from Nazi brutality or a molotov cocktail thrown into a family's house by radical Israelis which burned the family to death, dead is dead. World opinion has for years been against the constant land grab and settlement building that Israel has undertaken. The world rightly believes that there might have been a chance for peace had this not happened. Let's not forget that the Israeli state started with Zionist terrorists willing to bomb innocent civilians to get their way. Don't forget also that the majority of these Zionists were not middle eastern Jews but European transplants with no cultural ties whatsoever with the area. They got their country carved out of Palestinian land and Israel was formed as a Jewish state and only barely tolerates people of other faiths. That being said, if the world had come down hard on the settlement issue and put sanctions on Israel over this issue, we might just have peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel continues to push on this issue and there is a certain element in Israel that are still using violence to achieve their agenda. Can't say we can blame it all on the Palestinians.

[up-country_sinclair]

Par for the course. Who expected anything different? The Israeli savages who burned this toddler to death are exchanging knowing smiles and winks with the alleged investigators.

[Ulysses G.]

I believe the poster was talking of 1939 Germany.

Better to stop exposing your ignorance. The German Jews were pacifists who were rounded up and murdered because of their religion. They did nothing to cause genocide.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, were the AGGRESORS in the conflict concerning the land mass known as Palestine. THE ARABS stated the violence in the first place. Originally, the Jews were fighting BACK. Comparing the situation to Nazi Germany is just plain stupid. They are NOTHING alike.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Ulysses G.

[dexterm]

I believe the poster was talking of 1939 Germany.

Better to stop exposing your ignorance. The German Jews were pacifists who were rounded up and murdered because of their religion. They did nothing to cause genocide.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, were the AGGRESORS in the conflict concerning the land mass known as Palestine. THE ARABS stated the violence in the first place. Originally, the Jews were fighting BACK. Comparing the situation to Nazi Germany is just plain stupid. They are NOTHING alike.

I would not compare the scale of Israeli ethnic cleansing to that of the Nazis and the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, but both are evil. Perhaps you can have degrees of evilness.

Zionism was founded in 1897 with the intention of establishing a Jewish State. And you can't have a Jewish State unless you are the majority....simple math. So the existing Palestinian residents who far outnumbered Jews in the 1890s and still did so in the 1920s had to go. That's what Palestinian nationalists understood in the 1920s onwards, that a mainly European group of foreigners was intent on displacing them. That's what they protested against and resisted in the 1920s onwards.

And the Palestinians were absolutely correct, because that is exactly what the Zionist invaders have done, and they are still doing it today because the Zionists still want to be a majority in the West Bank as well as pre 67 Israel, and that is why the Palestinians are still resisting.

Zionists are the mainly European colonists, invaders and aggressors.

Edited November 11, 2015 by dexterm

[johna]

Kasset Tak, on 10 Nov 2015 - 11:28, said:

<snip>

I don't bash Jews, I bash Israel!

When Israel say that Jews protesting against how Israel are treating the Palestinians are not Jews then at least I can see a problem....

I have a pretty good knowledge of what was going on during WWII and I still say that the Israelis (NOT the Jews) are treating the Palestinians the same way the Jews was treated in 1939 Germany, the main difference is that the Palestinians are fighting back!

The Nazis confiscated assets of the Jews. Israel confiscate land from the Palestinians.

The Nazis denied the Jews basic human rights like education and healthcare. Israel are denying the Palestinians basic human rights like education and healthcare.

If a Jew killed a German soldier, not only one but maybe 10 Jews would be killed as retaliation. So far 12 Israelis have been killed compared to 75 Palestinians in this last wave of violence. 1988-2011 142 Israeli children died from attacks by Palestinians while 1620 Palestinian children died from Israeli attacks....

Do you want more comparisons so you can understand why I bash Israel?

As my first post said, and they did come out not to disappoint us, with the usual diatribes of Israel the vile,

evil empire that has nothing better to do than kill poor peace loving Palestinians and deny them their

human rights yada yada yada...

why than don't the Palestinian declare unanimously a their own state and leave Israel alone?

Oh, they can't? that because everything what sustain and keep the west bank and Gaza alive

is either being provided and supplied from Israel, without Israel there will be no state, no water

no electricity, no banking, no post, almost no nothing....

What an idiotic statement, "why don't the Palestinian declare unanimously their own state and leave Israel alone"

A Palestinian Declaration of Independence proclaiming the State Of Palestine was first made in 1988.

136 nations now recognize Palestine as an independent state.

Benjamin Netanyahu before the May 2015 election publicly said there would never be a Palestinian state as long as he was PM.

Israel is the only obstacle in creating a Palestinian state, its illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, economic blockade, and ghetto like living conditions imposed by Israel prevent a viable Palestinian state coming into existence.

[Ulysses G.]

"Zionism was founded in 1897 with the intention of establishing a Jewish State. And you can't have a Jewish State unless you are the majority"

Of course you can. The Jews were buying land to do just that and there would have been plenty left over for the Arabs. In fact, they already had Jordan which was 3/5 of the land meant to be a "Jewish homeland". The Jews were quite willing to share the land which is why they agreed to the UN deal granting them their own country. The ARABS refused it completely and started numerous wars - all of which they LOST

Edited November 11, 2015 by Ulysses G.

[Pakboong]

I believe the poster was talking of 1939 Germany.

Better to stop exposing your ignorance. The German Jews were pacifists who were rounded up and murdered because of their religion. They did nothing to cause genocide.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, were the AGGRESORS in the conflict concerning the land mass known as Palestine. THE ARABS stated the violence in the first place. Originally, the Jews were fighting BACK. Comparing the situation to Nazi Germany is just plain stupid. They are NOTHING alike.

If I remember correctly, the Nurnberg laws were ethnically based, not religous.

[JingerBen]

How dare you, and it what world can you, or any one else equate what the Nazis did to the Jews

and millions of others in WWII? how can you even begin to compare what is going on between

the Israelis and Palestinians to the gassing of millions people and systematic culling of human being

in the hands of the Nazis?

People who talk like this must have no shame and probably just crawled out from under rock way in a cave, or they belong to the low

brow tribes of the lost civilizations...

I believe the poster was talking of 1939 Germany. He was only pointing out that the way the Palestinians have been treated by the Israelis, the way their property has been confiscated for settlements, etc. is no different than the beginnings of the horror that occurred later under the Nazis. Fair point in my opinion since Israel never wants the world to forget what happened in Nazi Europe. Comparison is indeed fare game. Whether a person is killed from Nazi brutality or a molotov cocktail thrown into a family's house by radical Israelis which burned the family to death, dead is dead. World opinion has for years been against the constant land grab and settlement building that Israel has undertaken. The world rightly believes that there might have been a chance for peace had this not happened. Let's not forget that the Israeli state started with Zionist terrorists willing to bomb innocent civilians to get their way. Don't forget also that the majority of these Zionists were not middle eastern Jews but European transplants with no cultural ties whatsoever with the area. They got their country carved out of Palestinian land and Israel was formed as a Jewish state and only barely tolerates people of other faiths. That being said, if the world had come down hard on the settlement issue and put sanctions on Israel over this issue, we might just have peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel continues to push on this issue and there is a certain element in Israel that are still using violence to achieve their agenda. Can't say we can blame it all on the Palestinians.

Excellent summing up.

Factual and fair-minded.

The civil tone of your post is in welcome contrast to the nasty accusations of racism, personal insults, and verbal diarrhoea of Zionist propaganda.

[Ulysses G.]

I believe the poster was talking of 1939 Germany.

Better to stop exposing your ignorance. The German Jews were pacifists who were rounded up and murdered because of their religion. They did nothing to cause genocide.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, were the AGGRESORS in the conflict concerning the land mass known as Palestine. THE ARABS stated the violence in the first place. Originally, the Jews were fighting BACK. Comparing the situation to Nazi Germany is just plain stupid. They are NOTHING alike.

If I remember correctly, the Nurnberg laws were ethnically based, not religous.

The point is that German Jews were rounded up and slaughtered simply for being Jews. Palestinians were killed - but in a war that THEY started.

[Pakboong]

I believe the poster was talking of 1939 Germany.

Better to stop exposing your ignorance. The German Jews were pacifists who were rounded up and murdered because of their religion. They did nothing to cause genocide.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, were the AGGRESORS in the conflict concerning the land mass known as Palestine. THE ARABS stated the violence in the first place. Originally, the Jews were fighting BACK. Comparing the situation to Nazi Germany is just plain stupid. They are NOTHING alike.

If I remember correctly, the Nurnberg laws were ethnically based, not religous.

The point is that German Jews were rounded up and slaughtered simply for being Jews. Palestinians were killed - but in a war that THEY started.

I know the point but, if you are going to claim to know something about the Holocaust, it is best not to make such a simple mistake. Probably as many as half the Jews who were killed were secular as they pretty much are today.

[dexterm]

"Zionism was founded in 1897 with the intention of establishing a Jewish State. And you can't have a Jewish State unless you are the majority"

Of course you can. The Jews were buying land to do just that and there would have been plenty left over for the Arabs. In fact, they already had Jordan which was 3/5 of the land meant to be a "Jewish homeland". The Jews were quite willing to share the land which is why they agreed to the UN deal granting them their own country. The ARABS refused it completely and started numerous wars - all of which they LOST

Wrong.

Again, you delberately try to muddy the waters. Transjordan (land beyond the Jordan River) was never intended as a Jewish homeland. Please provide a link to show where it was ever intended that the Jewish homeland mentioned in the Balfour Declaration was meant to include the whole of Transjordan up to the Iraqi border.

1921,

"it was mutually agreed that Transjordan was accepted into the mandatory area as an Arab country apart from Palestine with the proviso that it would be, initially for six months, under the nominal rule of the emir Abdullah and that it would not form part of the Jewish national home to be established west of the River Jordan."

1922,

"In August 1922, the British government presented a memorandum to the League of Nations stating that Transjordan would be excluded from all the provisions dealing with Jewish settlement, and this memorandum was approved by the League on 12 August."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Transjordan#History

Even the Balfour Declaration 1917 stated

",it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine"

...something the Zionists have manifestly failed to do.

But nothwithstanding all your obfuscation, if Zionists had managed to buy up every square foot of Mandatory Palestine they possibly could legally (how they would buy from those Palestinians who didnt want to sell I don't know, other than what they have done which is at the heart of the conflict today...simply confiscate it.. a euphemism for "steal"), what did they intend to do with the existng Palestinian population of land owners, tenant farmers, artisans and laborers? How can you make a Jewish State out of a resident population that is majority non Jewish?

Edited November 11, 2015 by dexterm

[RuamRudy]

As my first post said, and they did come out not to disappoint us, with the usual diatribes of Israel the vile,

evil empire that has nothing better to do than kill poor peace loving Palestinians and deny them their

human rights yada yada yada...

why than don't the Palestinian declare unanimously a their own state and leave Israel alone?

Oh, they can't? that because everything what sustain and keep the west bank and Gaza alive

is either being provided and supplied from Israel, without Israel there will be no state, no water

no electricity, no banking, no post, almost no nothing....

Of course, the reason that they have such limited infrastructure and a high reliance on the outside world could be laid squarely at the door of the Knesset and their deliberate policy to destroy any semblance of independence within the Palestinian people. All the better to control, demoralise and dehumanise them.

[Morch]

I believe the poster was talking of 1939 Germany. He was only pointing out that the way the Palestinians have been treated by the Israelis, the way their property has been confiscated for settlements, etc. is no different than the beginnings of the horror that occurred later under the Nazis. Fair point in my opinion since Israel never wants the world to forget what happened in Nazi Europe. Comparison is indeed fare game. Whether a person is killed from Nazi brutality or a molotov cocktail thrown into a family's house by radical Israelis which burned the family to death, dead is dead. World opinion has for years been against the constant land grab and settlement building that Israel has undertaken. The world rightly believes that there might have been a chance for peace had this not happened. Let's not forget that the Israeli state started with Zionist terrorists willing to bomb innocent civilians to get their way. Don't forget also that the majority of these Zionists were not middle eastern Jews but European transplants with no cultural ties whatsoever with the area. They got their country carved out of Palestinian land and Israel was formed as a Jewish state and only barely tolerates people of other faiths. That being said, if the world had come down hard on the settlement issue and put sanctions on Israel over this issue, we might just have peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel continues to push on this issue and there is a certain element in Israel that are still using violence to achieve their agenda. Can't say we can blame it all on the Palestinians.

The only reason for the Nazi reference to be used is that it serves as a powerful propaganda tool to demonize Israel. The horrors unleashed by the Nazis are so well known, that the mere invocation gets an extra helping of "evil". Not as if there is a shortage of alternative objects of comparison, but non that also comes with the "bonus" of "negating" what the Jews endured under the Nazis. There is no imperative to use the Nazis as a a reference, it is a choice - and not a great one, at that.

The manner of death may not matter that much to the victim, guess that is more of personal point of view or the beginning of a philosophical debate.But from a public point of view, there is certainly a difference between the Nazi death apparatus and the cases mentioned in the OP. Denying this essentially means that the Nazi death apparatus is banalized.

Israel did not start with "Zionist terrorists willing to bomb innocent civilians to get their way". There were, of course, Jewish terrorist group who carried out such actions. However, this was a relativity late development as far as the Zionist effort for self-determination goes. It was also relatively short lived and did not enjoy a massive popular support.

The "no cultural ties whatsoever with the area" is a bit rich, or perhaps ill phrased. History, language, religion - those are counted as cultural ties with most people. As a reference, even the PLO agreed to amend its claims to this effect.

Israel "only barely tolerates people of other faiths"? Would those be Israel's considerable Muslim minority? The Druze? Christians? Bahai? Even with Israel's faults on this front, I honestly do no think that there is a single place in the Middle East which works out better for religious minorities.

Can't place all the blame on the Palestinians, that's for sure. But apparently some believe that all the blame could be placed on Israel.

[Scott]

Please stay on the topic. Continued deliberate deflection and arguing will result in suspensions.

[Morch]

I believe the poster was talking of 1939 Germany.

Better to stop exposing your ignorance. The German Jews were pacifists who were rounded up and murdered because of their religion. They did nothing to cause genocide.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, were the AGGRESORS in the conflict concerning the land mass known as Palestine. THE ARABS stated the violence in the first place. Originally, the Jews were fighting BACK. Comparing the situation to Nazi Germany is just plain stupid. They are NOTHING alike.

I would not compare the scale of Israeli ethnic cleansing to that of the Nazis and the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, but both are evil. Perhaps you can have degrees of evilness.

Zionism was founded in 1897 with the intention of establishing a Jewish State. And you can't have a Jewish State unless you are the majority....simple math. So the existing Palestinian residents who far outnumbered Jews in the 1890s and still did so in the 1920s had to go. That's what Palestinian nationalists understood in the 1920s onwards, that a mainly European group of foreigners was intent on displacing them. That's what they protested against and resisted in the 1920s onwards.

And the Palestinians were absolutely correct, because that is exactly what the Zionist invaders have done, and they are still doing it today because the Zionists still want to be a majority in the West Bank as well as pre 67 Israel, and that is why the Palestinians are still resisting.

Zionists are the mainly European colonists, invaders and aggressors.

But you would ignore that about the plight of Jews who lived in Arab countries, amounting to about the same number as the Palestinian refugees.

Zionism came about in the late 19th century, and yet posters keep judging its earlier days and notions while applying contemporary modes of moral and political thinking. The Zionist aim of establishing a national home, a country, were not a secret. Other than a few references to the welfare, well-being and rights of the Arab population, there wasn't much of an outrage by World powers over Zionist goals on this front.

The issue is less to do with what were Zionists thinking back then (which, granted, is an interesting topic), but rather coming to terms with the results of related historical events, and their present day implications.

And once again, you erroneously conflate "Zionists" in general with certain radical brands of Zionism. Unless, of course, you mean to claim the Israeli opposition parties, mainly Zionist, are all for achieving Jewish majority in the West Bank.

[Ulysses G.]

Probably as many as half the Jews who were killed were secular as they pretty much are today.

Please stop the being obstinate. The Nazis were not checking to see who was going to temple before sending them to be gassed. They were murdered for being Jewish.

[Ulysses G.]

"Zionism was founded in 1897 with the intention of establishing a Jewish State. And you can't have a Jewish State unless you are the majority"

Of course you can. The Jews were buying land to do just that and there would have been plenty left over for the Arabs. In fact, they already had Jordan which was 3/5 of the land meant to be a "Jewish homeland". The Jews were quite willing to share the land which is why they agreed to the UN deal granting them their own country. The ARABS refused it completely and started numerous wars - all of which they LOST

Wrong.

I have better things to do than bother with your latest made up fairy tail. Anyone can Google the Balfour Declaration and conform that it was meant to be a Jewish Homeland with no mention of Jordan until the British gave 3/4 of the land away. IF the Jews could have bought all the land in Palestine, it would have been THEIRS to do with what they wanted, but there was never chance of that happening- another one of your dishonest fantasies. Why do you have to rely on posting obvious lies? Edited November 12, 2015 by Ulysses G.