Comments

• 

  JtM

  

  It’s a good video. Have you seen this, Chas? 2009 was the worst year for antisemitism since the Holocaust. And in Britain the Community Security Trust recorded more antisemitic incidents in the first six months of 2009 than it has done in any previous entire year. There are still people who say there is no antisemitism here.

  25 January 2010 at 4:17 PMReply

• 

  theedgeofwhere

  

  With its music and images I can understand why you might find this video uplifting. But it’s also inexcusably disingenuous.

  For example, it says:

  I told the Arabs who lived in my land that they were welcome to stay… But there brothers said leave temoporarily while the Jews are taken care of

  This is a reading of history that hardly any historian teaching at University level – including almost all Israeli historians at Israeli universities – would subscribe to.

  As historian (and former Israeli Foreign Minister) Shlomo Ben-Ami notes:

  “It is not at all clear, as maintained by a conventional Israeli myth, that the Palestinian exodus was encouraged by the Arab states and by local leaders… Indeed, [Benny] Morris found evidence to the effect that the local Arab leadership and militia commanders discouraged flight, and Arab radio stations issued calls to the Palestinians to stay put.”

  Moreover, there are some clear instances of Arab civilians being intentionally expelled or attacked during the war:

  “A panic-stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs’ monument of grief and hatred, like those of Dir Yassin, Ein Zeitun, Ilabun and Lydda; of operational orders like those of Moshe Carmel, the commander of the Carmeli Brigrade in Operation Yiftah and Ben Ami, ‘to attack in order to conquer, to kill the men, to destroy and burn the villages of Al-Kubri, Umm al Faraj and An Nahar’ and by the mass expulsions during the Yoav operation.”

  “‘Drive them out!’ was Ben Gurion’s instruction to Yigal Allon, as recorded by Yitzchak Rabin… with regard to the Arabs of Lydda”

  We can be honest and critical about Israel’s history while continuing to support and identify with the country. I do, and it frustrates me that many people suggest otherwise, as though to support the country one has to accept and propogate a reading of history at variance with the facts uncovered by archival research. This video implies the same. It’s a shame.

  25 January 2010 at 9:23 PMReply

• 

  theedgeofwhere

  

  Apologies for all the italics above… I think I need to improve my use of HTML…

  25 January 2010 at 9:26 PMReply

• 

  Chas Newkey-Burden

  

  We can be honest and critical about Israel’s history while continuing to support and identify with the country.

  I agree with this principle and I agree that that particular part of the video was a little simplistic. Overall however I think it’s a powerful and great effort.

  26 January 2010 at 11:07 AMReply

• 

  Stephanie Gutmann

  

  Theedgeofwhere, it’s you who’s being simplistic. Yes, Arab civilians were encouraged or told to leave their homes to get out of the way so the real fighting could begin. I know this because my father was there as a member of the Hagana. It’s also true that there were terrible abuses by Israeli soldiers, killings of Arab civilians, and that there was a sentiment of “drive them out” among many.

  But Mutek, it was a war, a war started by the Arabs, quite petulantly after the UN didn’t give them everything they wanted, i.e. all the land “from the river to the sea.” As my old dad always says “if you start a war you better win it.” You know why?? Because when you start a war, pledging constantly, as the Arabs did, to rape and pillage and exterminate the Jews you find, you will arouse rage and a self-protective instinct. You will kill, creating deaths that call out to be avenged. This is what four Arab nations did in 1948. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t broadcast 24 hours a day on radio, gleefully, pornographically delighting in what you say you are going to do to “the Jews” and then have them greet you at the door with a nice handshake.

  As the bard said, “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!” He who lets slip the Dogs of War has to take some responsiblity for what happens next.

  26 January 2010 at 3:24 PMReply

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  Stephanie Gutmann

  

  Correction: “If you start a war you better be prepared to win it” is the way my dad puts it. The word “prepared” is important.

  26 January 2010 at 4:29 PMReply

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  Lynne T

  

  edgeofwhere: does your reading include Benny Morris’s 1948?

  26 January 2010 at 8:48 PMReply

• 

  The Fogel

  

  I think I need to improve my use of HTML…

  It’s not the HTML that’s the problem unfortunately

  26 January 2010 at 9:55 PMReply

• 

  theedgeofwhere

  

  @ Stephanie Guttman
  Thanks for calling me ‘mutek’.
  But metuka, you shouldn’t be so hasty to call me ’simplistic’ You say:

  Yes, Arab civilians were encouraged or told to leave their homes to get out of the way so the real fighting could begin. I know this because my father was there as a member of the Hagana

  It’s nice to know your father was there, like my grandfather, in 48 as part of the Hagana. I really mean no disrespect to him, however, when I say that I rate the evidence uncovered by the years of archival research by Benny Morris and other historians above his single piece of testimony about what the Arab leaders told their civilians. (Especially since his is the testimony of someone who was neither an Arab leader or an Arab civilian). And that research has overwhelmingly tended to undermine, not support, the claim you make ‘that Arab civilians were encouraged or told to leave their homes to get out of the way so the real fighting could begin’.

  @lynne T
  As it happens, I went to a seminar given by Benny Morris only yesterday, and it was fantastic.

  26 January 2010 at 11:10 PMReply

• 

  Chas Newkey-Burden

  

  As it happens, I went to a seminar given by Benny Morris only yesterday, and it was fantastic.

  Doesn’t exactly answer her question but sounds interesting…

  27 January 2010 at 9:00 AMReply

• 

  Stephanie Gutmann

  

  Edgeof. Whatever the ratio of Arab threats to Jewish threats was, and we both admit there was some of both, you’re still ignoring the context. Which is that it was a war started by surrounding Arab countries and that before that war started the Arab states made VERY CLEAR via their media what they would do to Jewish Palestinians (they weren’t Israelis yet) once they got to them. The hysterical radio broadcasts were pretty chilling, I hear. And read Amos Oz’s book “Of Love and Darkness” for a very good account of what life was like for Jewish Palestinians before the ‘48 war. It included plenty of random murder of Jewish civilians by Arabs.

  The biggest question here is why is Israel held to a higher standard? It was a war. Once the dogs of wars are loosed terrible things happen. Look at the conduct of the allies in War II. What’s most telling about the character of a nation and a people is not that there are war crimes AT ALL, EVER, (otherwise every single country in the world should just hang it up) but how those war crimes are dealt with. The Hagana was pretty ruthless with Irgun and eventually subdued them.

  27 January 2010 at 11:27 PMReply