Hamas Victory 1047

Another clbuttic way to commit a fraud is to dismiss outright as 'not being terribly useful' those things which are inconsistent with one's position. and aside from your levying a charge in a benign way, you post no evidence save the actual levying. Allegations have little water, don't you agree?

Are you presenting yourself as a mindreader, to deign to know my emotional involvement, or do you simply characterize anyone who disagrees with you in a pbuttionate manner as doing so based on an emotional, and the implied irrationality of such positions? I would suggest that you are trying to use a false sense of impartiality which is based on incomplete evaluation of circumstances as they exist. Challenging my buttertions without providing evidence of same is merely expressing preconceived notions, which themselves are unsupported by the evidence. So to avoid any further disagreement, please allow me to provide you with the facts.

The UN Conciliation Commission( UNCC ) reported a total of 711,000 as the final refugee count for the period between 12-11-49 and 10-23-50. This number includes any refugees who fled after Israeli Independence was declared in 1948 as well.

But I'm sure you knew that.

I'm also sure you knew that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency ( UNRWA ) reported a refugee count ot 914,000, but the UNCC resolved the discrepancy when it discovered that a number of duplicate ration cards had been issued, which accounted for a majority of the discrepancy. Additional discrepancies were due to births between that time, and the inclusion of refugees from NON ISRAELI HELD AREAS. Consequently, as a result of the reconciliation of those discrepancies the number is greatly reduced. Israeli estimates are 520,000, and due to the above, are generally accepted as closer to the actual numbers who left during that time period. Obviously, their numbers have increased due to births during the intervening years.

Certainly, you knew that as well.

It should be noted that as many as 90,000 Palestinian Arabs returned from the refugee camps during that period, WITH NO IMPEDIMENT TO THAT RETURN PRESENTED BY ISRAEL. A fact which I'm certain you knew as well.

So, In reality, we're talking about roughly 430,000 Palestinians( at that time ).

You would prefer that we totally ignore any blame? A foolish and ridiculous position. What you are suggesting is akin to someone saying, I screwed up so YOU should now suffer because of it? That to me appears to be quite convoluted. Mistakes have to be paid for by the party who made them; not some other party. This is a major point which causes your position to fail. and we are NOT talking about thousands of year ago( one wonders where you got that idea from-personal prejudice? ). We are talking about recent events barely over 50 years old. too new to be casually dismissed, as you would do.

Here you use an incorrect historical analogy. FYI, Jews in Germany left Germany as part of an official German government policy of insbreastutionalized robbery, which you choose to simply say 'purchasing their own ship fare.' Hardly the simple process you present( who's posting half truths now? ) The program is well documented and the agency was run initially by Adolf Eichmann. Only Jews who wanted to leave took advantage of the special fares, but those who didn't were FORCIBLY DEPORTED BY THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT. The Wansee Conference documents left no doubt that such was the policy. As far as the Arabs are concerned, this forced deportation occurred in the ISOLATED cases of Lydda and Ramie where an estimated aggregate of 40,000 were forcibly evicted at gunpoint. In point of fact, the authorities of Haifa attempted to dissuade the arab population of 60,000 from leaving, but they did anyway, OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL.

I'm certain that you knew this as well.

Beyond this there is NO, repeat, NO Israeli policy promulgated as such, similar to the deportation of Jews in WWII Europe, and thus your analogy fails by dint of history.

So who's posting half truths and making buttertions of beliefs that he posts as fact?

We are not discussing the Ottomans, and we have no way of documenting any expulsions which occurred during the legitimate reign of that government. While it may add to the problem, such is conjecture. conjectures cannot be established as facts. I have already commented on my opinion of the Arab states the British established and need no further embellishment.

Actually, this is the ONE area that cannot be fully documented. And had you harped on this, it is the one area where I can be accused of being carried away. If we do the math, and begin with the 520,000 Arabs who are estimated to have been living in the land if Israel and 'left' by one means or another during the war for Israeli Independence, and subtract the 90,000 who returned on their own, and subtract the other 40,000 who were forcibly expelled, we have a grand total of 390,000 refugees. Of that total, we have documented 60,000 who left of their own accord, leaving a grand total of 330,000 who left the land, but for whom we cannot find any documentary evidence of forced expulsion, or of any Israeli policy of deportation which would have otherwise forced them to leave. Since there is no EVIDENCE of any forced resettlement or deportation, once cannot conclude that such a practice took place, except as a consequence of personal prejudice on the part of the conjecturer.

Neither can there be documented any official Arab policy which suggests that the Arab League promoted, by official policy the Arabs to leave. As you have pointed out, this issue is hotly debated and even some Israeli historians take this view. There is some evidence that some local commanders at isolated times issued verbal orders and missives to that effect, but beyond that, nothing. Individual local Arab ideologues do not make for general policy which can be stated as such. There is also ample basis to conjecture that the Arabs themselves who left, mouthed such beliefs which they formulated on their own. But by your buttertion above, where you indicate that this is partially correct, I buttume you have seen the same evidence as I and accept it to some degree.

But regardless, even if we refuse to accept the above conjecture, there is still the matter of 330,000 Arabs who left WITHOUT any official policy that removed them. And THAT, my articulate friend, is a FACT.

And I'm sure you knew that as well.

Hardly. I only use the terms that have come into common use with regard to this population. I wish to point out to you, that before Israel, there was no such enbreasty referred to as Palestinian. It was only when Israelis started growing oranges in the desert as big as grapefruits did we begin to hear inklings of 'Palestinians.' But of course, that is my opinion. I don't deign to read minds, as do you, and make buttertions as to their motivations which I can't prove, as you have in your initial opening paragraph.

Documentary evidence by the two UN commissions I cited refutes that. And for the record, I have visited Israel, know and correspond with a number of israelis, and are quite cognizant of the situation there, from first hand knowledge. Likely far more than you.

So I would suggest that before you make buttertions, which you post as fact( as you now have done at least twice in this thread ), you take a step back before you put your foot in your mouth.

I'm all for reasoned discourse, having used the term very frequently. Yet I don't see much coming from you. I see a lot of words and musically adjective studded rhetoric, but not much else. In the words of that famous philosopher, Tom Lehrer, your posts can be characterized as full of words and music and signifying nothing. If you choose to end the conversation, such is your choice. But if you want to continue, you're going to have to post more than rhetoric. You have yet to do so.

You see, my verbose friend, if you haven't realized it by now, you're going to have to do better than to state, 'some believe,' or to attempt to carry your point by slandering my integrity. None of that works, because slander hardly subsbreastutes for evidence, a commodity which you are VERY short on. I prefer evidence. Words and music aren't synonymous with that. Despite your run-on sentences( although on occasion I share that fault ).

Please spare me the treatise and your sidewalk philosophizing. A revisionist is one who attempts to revise what has been. My beliefs are based on the facts as they exist. since you have done nothing but criticize mine, I can properly conclude that your beliefs are in opposition. Unfortunately the facts don't support yours.

FACT remains, my friend, there are 330,000 Palestinians of whom it CANNOT be documented were displaced by any organized political or military direct action to that goal by the Israelis. since there was no forcing of them to leave, then it can only be concluded that they did so of their own free will. Since as many as 90,000 returned unimpeded after the war, it can be buttumed that others had the opportunity to do so, but didn't.

I have not seen any such data. Perhaps you can cite it. I know that there was no love lost between the Irgun and the Arabs, but aside from the forced deportations I cited, what evidence is there of large scale deportations which would account for the numbers cited? And remember, the actions of isolated ideological local commanders do not qualify as overall policy.

So we still have a discussion where I have cited facts and you have cited none( although you claim them ).

Today's circumstances are a result of yesterday's facts, and you cannot solve today's problems by making believe yesterday didn't occur.