Ahmadenijad's Clarification

I can't really tell what Kirchick is trying to get at here but it inspired Justin Logan to tell me something I didn't know namely that French television asked Ahmadenijad what he meant about how Israel should be wiped from the map, and he replied: "Why are you worried? Where is the Soviet Union? It has disappeared, has it not?"

Now I think it's actually clear enough why one might worry about this, and I have no objection to anyone worrying, but it really is different from threatening to kill all the inhabitants.

Comments

If you're still taking requests, what do you think of Logan's comment in that article on Ahmed-i-nejad.

I think this is the danger of having generalists parachute into all manner of debates over national policies. As I said, it’s hard just to keep track of my little world. I can’t imagine thinking I had the breadth to contribute to the debate on many more issues than my own

Posted by Ikram | June 20, 2008 1:34 PM

how can it be different? In what way can you imagine Israel not existing, but Israelis continuing to exist? The state will simply collapse in on itself and dissolve, like the Soviet Union? Another forced diaspora? Complete national invasion by a totalitarian but somehow beneficent regime? A simple name change--Israel becomes, say, South Lebanon? What? Please discuss the possibilities.

Posted by along | June 20, 2008 1:38 PM

I sure hope SLC and Richard Steven Hack have plenty of time on their hands this afternoon...

Posted by Andruw | June 20, 2008 1:38 PM

Yes, second the SLC RSH debates so allow me the Michael Buffer:

LETS GET REAAADY TO RUMMMMMMBBBBBLLLLLLLLEEEEEEE!

Posted by Sid | June 20, 2008 1:43 PM

What is the difference between answering questions by request and answering them "by request"? Also, what is that special something Kirchick possesses that makes him so insufferable?

Posted by Jim W | June 20, 2008 1:45 PM

"Also, what is that special something Kirchick possesses that makes him so insufferable?"

He does have a special je ne sais quoi. Part of the answer, I think, is his moral posturing on every issue, his targets which are almost inevitably on the left (unless it is about gay rights), and his libertarianish-likudnik-contrarian opinions.

Posted by David | June 20, 2008 1:51 PM

along said:

"how can it be different? In what way can you imagine Israel not existing, but Israelis continuing to exist? The state will simply collapse in on itself and dissolve, like the Soviet Union? Another forced diaspora? Complete national invasion by a totalitarian but somehow beneficent regime? A simple name change--Israel becomes, say, South Lebanon? What? Please discuss the possibilities."

The point isn't what is likely, but what Ahmadinejad's rhetoric routinely suggests. He's said on several occasions that he thinks Israel will soon collapse internally.

Posted by Brian Ulrich | June 20, 2008 1:52 PM

Andruw,

Don't forgot Don Williams.

Posted by DAS | June 20, 2008 1:53 PM

What is the difference between answering questions by request and answering them "by request"? Also, what is that special something Kirchick possesses that makes him so insufferable?

The answer to your second question pretty much lies in your first question. What a tool!

I think this is the danger of having generalists parachute into all manner of debates over national policies. As I said, it’s hard just to keep track of my little world. I can’t imagine thinking I had the breadth to contribute to the debate on many more issues than my own

This is a really interesting position. I think generalists are pretty damn important. For one thing, expert writings tend to be dense, dry, and generally unapproachable. More than that, though, on any issue of substance that matters, the experts have a dog in the fight. Taken with point one, it tends to become the case that experts can gain more ground by being entertaining than by being right, and that individual expert opinions become somewhat overweighted.

Give me a generalist that can synthesize and explain expert points of view well enough to give decent clarity to an issue, along with some avenues to dig further into the details if the reader is interested. Once upon a time, this was known as journalism.

Posted by Brad L | June 20, 2008 1:54 PM

I like SLC cause he's the only person in my life who calls me Mr.

Posted by Freddie | June 20, 2008 1:54 PM

I think this is ridiculous. This is like the Virgin Islands threatening to wipe Pakistan off the map or something.

The idea that Ahmedinejad's saying what he said is by itself sufficient reason to depose him or to attack his country militarily is absolutely ridiculous.

If we're going to depose the regime in Iran, let's do it for human rights and democracy and because we're going to put a bunch of liberal, freedom-loving types in power, and depose all the religious totalitarians in the country. Let's not do it just so Israel has a chance to, on a pretense, hysterically show the world how nutso it's ready to get (and to do so merely out of frustration because it hasn't been able to stop other terrorism by-- you guessed it-- getting nutso) or so that Dick Cheney can steal oil and grin to himself over fulfilling the the idiotic delusions of grandeur (wow! he made money! golly gee!) he's held since he was a kid.

Posted by Swan | June 20, 2008 1:56 PM

In what way can you imagine Israel not existing, but Israelis continuing to exist? The state will simply collapse in on itself and dissolve, like the Soviet Union? Another forced diaspora? Complete national invasion by a totalitarian but somehow beneficent regime? A simple name change--Israel becomes, say, South Lebanon? What? Please discuss the possibilities.

You've suggested several things that are possible if the "Zionist regime" was removed, as Ahmadenijad wishes. In particular it seems Ahmadenijad suggests moving the Israelis to Alaska or Canada if they can't live side by side with the Palestinians in one country.

Obviously both are fairly fanciful but it is meaningfully different from calling for the extermination of an entire race.

Posted by right | June 20, 2008 1:58 PM

brian ulrich said:
He's said on several occasions that he thinks Israel will soon collapse internally.

oh, thanks for the info. I hadn't known that. I don't think it's a realistic possibility.

Posted by along | June 20, 2008 2:00 PM

Also, this line of Kirchik's is hilarious: "But this is what happens when you're a blogger, answering questions "by request," whose political and historical memory begins circa January 2001."

Not only does he somehow need to put "by request" in scare quotes, but he also seems to think Matt citing a 19th century historical precedent indicates he has no historical memory before 2001.

Especially funny since Jamie Kirchik is, yes, a blogger who is... 23 years old? 24?

Posted by right | June 20, 2008 2:03 PM

"In what way can you imagine Israel not existing, but Israelis continuing to exist? The state will simply collapse in on itself and dissolve, like the Soviet Union? Another forced diaspora? Complete national invasion by a totalitarian but somehow beneficent regime? A simple name change--Israel becomes, say, South Lebanon? What? Please discuss the possibilities."

Alternate possibility: Demographic victory. Three or four generations from now, Arab Israelis gain a majority in the Knesset. (Not saying that's likely, just that it's possible).

Posted by Tel | June 20, 2008 2:04 PM

Ahmadenijad has been fairly consistent on this analogy for years, as Juan Cole has been explaining all along:

http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/europeans-offer-iran-deal-iranians-say.html

Posted by DukeJ | June 20, 2008 2:06 PM

I'd just like to point out again that Ahmedinejad has never clearly said that he intends to use Iran's military to attack Iran, and a more ambiguous comment to the effect that he'd like it if Israel didn't exist anymore (a pretty standard thing for, say, an American to say about the USSR or Cuba, or for a communist to say about Western nations during the Cold War-- but it never launched any ships then) was what he actually said.

So the fact that Ahmedinejad himself is very careful about not saying this shows you what he, the supreme commander of his country, thinks about his military's capabilities, and about the advisability of making Iran look like an unequivocal threat to Israel or to the U.S.' interests and allies.

If he really had the goods, he'd talk about taking action, like we have done with respect to Iran, Iraq, etc., etc., etc.

To sum up: When it comes to full-scale military attacks on nations, he's just a poodle barking like a big dog! Concentrate on fighting terrorism and Bin Laden! If you want to overthrow Iran, do it because people there are getting tortured and you're going to do regime-change right-- don't turn it into another terrorist-nest like Iraq just because you want to flex your muscles!

Posted by Swan | June 20, 2008 2:07 PM

As a rule, I don't read Kirchick's posts, and I'm fortunately that young Jimmy is utterly predictable: nine times out of ten a Kirchick post comes across my RSS reader, I can tell it's him by the title. If for some reason that fails, one can usually tell it's him within the first five or six words of the post.

I'm sure Jimmy thinks he's being "outrageous" and "brave" and "iconoclastic" like his patron St. Marty, but instead he's rather boring and uninteresting. Sorry, Jimmy!

Posted by Kevin | June 20, 2008 2:11 PM

right said:
Obviously both are fairly fanciful but it is meaningfully different from calling for the extermination of an entire race.

My point is that it seems plain to me that neither Ahmadinejad's nor my own scenarios would ever come to pass. It is possible that Israel as an entity could dissolve itself. I don't see that happening in the near or medium term. Maybe it will happen in another couple hundred years, which does conform roughly to at least some of Ahmadinejad's professed timetables. But in the next 50 years, say, I don't believe that Israel will ever give up, give in, move en masse willingly, or do anything else remotely similar. They are extremely well-armed and will fight, and would need to be nearly exterminated for Ahmadinejad's wishes to come to pass.

Posted by along | June 20, 2008 2:16 PM

Absorb the West Bank and Gaza into Israel, write a Constitution giving neither Islam, Christianity, or Judaism special status, give full rights of citizenship to everyone within the borders, require a 3/4 majority for amendment to that Constitution, introduce a Bill of Rights similar to those found in America and the English-speaking world, guarantee full freedom of worship for everyone, have a republican form of government, introduce welfare provisions to protect and improve the status of the poor (i.e. the Palestinians).

This is a dream that would never happen in the real world. But I doubt the new entity would be called Israel. It would be a secular, liberal Palestine.

Posted by Chuck | June 20, 2008 2:17 PM

If Matt had ever read anything Juan Cole had written about Ahmadinejad's quote, he'd already be aware of Ahmadinejad's numerous comparisons between Israel and the Soviet Union. He'd also be aware that the expression "wipe off the map" doesn't exist in Farsi, and that what Ahmadinejad was saying was more like "vanish from the page of history."

This ties nicely into what Justin Logan calls "the dangers of dilettantism." Neither Kirchik nor Yglesias really knows what they're talking about here; they're essentially hobbyists dabbling in international politics for fun and profit. Which is one reason why I'm really not reassured at all when Yglesias, who's spent the last couple years largely ignorant of the Afghan war but blithely optimistic as to its eventual outcome, responds to a request for Afghanistan blogging by linking to a single vague, blithely optimistic report that confirms his previous biases.

Posted by strasmangelo jones | June 20, 2008 2:20 PM

So Ahmadinejad was not calling for the destruction of Israel but rather hoping for the state of Israel, as we know it to go away.

Nu? What's the difference as far as (Jewish) Israelis are concerned. Short of Chuck's dream, what do you think would happen to all those Jewish Israelis? The world didn't want to absorb so many Jewish refugees in 1940, why would they absorb any now? And if, Hashem forbid, another Holocaust should happen?

There is a good reason why the State of Israel exist. We might have issues with how the Palestinians have been affected (but a lot of ethnic groups were similarly affected by boundary shake-ups in the late 1940s ... it ain't Israel's fault that, unlike those other ethnic groups, nobody absorbed those Palestinians) and treated. We might even have philosophical issues with the notion of Zionism (e.g. those of us who are Jews might see incompatabilities between Zionism and Jewish religious teachings).

But should Israel be non-existant as a State, there would be losses. And who would guarantee resettlement of the Jewish Israelis? Who would guarantee Jewish access to Jewish holy sites? Who would guarantee that refugees from ethnic cleansing in general be absorbed (considering that Israel exists in part because of the historically demonstrated need to absorb Jewish refugees and that the Palestinian "problem" still exists because Arab nations refused to absorb their Arab brethren)?

Posted by DAS | June 20, 2008 2:32 PM

"Especially funny since Jamie Kirchik is, yes, a blogger who is... 23 years old? 24?"

True, but he likes to pretend he is in his 70s--having bravely fought off those leftists who wouldn't even denounce Stalin after he died!

Posted by David | June 20, 2008 2:36 PM

Yeah, there was also this post in Goldberg's list of bad Ahmadinejad quotes which I also think is pretty clear-cut:

"December, 2006: "I want to tell [Western counties] that just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and does not exist anymore, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out and humanity will be free.""

Posted by Nick Kaufman | June 20, 2008 2:40 PM

Thank you DAS!

Posted by ebg2465 | June 20, 2008 2:44 PM

DAS -

First you seem to criticize the world for refusing to absorb Jewish refugees in 1940, then you disclaim all Israeli responsibility for the Palestinian refugee crisis which Israel itself created. It's a wonder you can maintain these two irreconciliable beliefs at the same time.

Posted by Michael S. | June 20, 2008 2:45 PM

It's a wonder you can maintain these two irreconciliable beliefs at the same time.

It's not really much of a wonder, Michael. DAS just doesn't think Palestinian lives count as much as Israeli lives.

Posted by strasmangelo jones | June 20, 2008 2:50 PM

This is a dream that would never happen in the real world. But I doubt the new entity would be called Israel. It would be a secular, liberal Palestine.

Or an even more heavily armed Lebanon.

Posted by daveNYC | June 20, 2008 2:59 PM

then you disclaim all Israeli responsibility for the Palestinian refugee crisis which Israel itself created. It's a wonder you can maintain these two irreconciliable beliefs at the same time. - Michael S.

What irreconciliable beliefs? I'm saying that in nation building, you either get to have the sorts of ethnic enclaves left by the post-WWI borders that led to WWII or you have massive refugee populations. No country absorbed Jewish refugees in 1940. No country absorbed Palestinian refugees in 1947. Why should Israel be responsible for absorbing the Palestinian refugees of 1947? Should India have absorbed Muslim refugees? Should the Czech Republic have to absorb the Sudeten refugees?

If anything, Israel has less of a responsibility because, unlike other nations, it was absorbing refugees (Mizrachi Jews from the Arab world, for example as well as refugees from Hitler's despoilations). Why didn't the other nations of the region do their fair share?

Posted by DAS | June 20, 2008 3:01 PM

DAS -- Palestinian refugees are Palestinian, not Lebanese, Syrian, or Egyptian. I could see the argument they they be absorbed by the state of Palestine, but I don't see why Lebanon should upset its (always-precarious) confessional balance by enfranchising people driven from their homes by the Israeli army.

Palestinians have a national identity, they are not undiffrentiatied arabs that could be absorbed into any random Arab nation from Morocco to Yemen.

(Although an ideal solution would also involve the end of Lebanon as a state, and the creation of a liberal, non-sectarian NeoLebanon, to join its southern neighbour, Isratine.)

Posted by Bonehead | June 20, 2008 3:10 PM

"but it really is different from threatening to kill all the inhabitants."

Thank heavens. And to think we were all running around taking his words at face-value. Matthew instead points out that Ahminejad was actually arguing for the slow dissolution of Israel. We should have seen that in words like "wipe off" and "exterminate" and "annihilate."

Thank you for sharing your gift of analysis with us, Matthew.

Posted by RH Potfry | June 20, 2008 3:12 PM

"but it really is different from threatening to kill all the inhabitants."

Thank heavens. And to think we were all running around taking his words at face-value. Matthew instead points out that Ahminejad was actually arguing for the slow dissolution of Israel. We should have seen that in words like "wipe off" and "exterminate" and "annihilate."

Thank you for sharing your gift of analysis with us, Matthew.

Posted by RH Potfry | June 20, 2008 3:13 PM

DAS -

It's got nothing inherently to do with nation building. However, your two beliefs can be reconciled if you agree that the world should be held just as blameless for failing to help the Jews in 1940, as you hold Israel for the Palestinian situation.

It's funny how you figure that of all nations, Israel has less responsibility because it was absorbing Jewish refugees to displace the Arabs who were already living in Palestine. Of course, in reality Israel is more directly responsible than anyone for the Palestinian refugee situation, since the founding of Israel created the problem. I would note also that Israel was the administering power in the occupied territories for 20 years before the outbreak of the first intifada, and Israel basically did nothing to improve conditions for the local inhabitants. The myth of an "enlightened occupation" is just that - a self-justifying myth.

Israel is not quite as special as you seem to think. I'm Jewish. And in my opinion, attitudes like yours are doomed to turn world opinion powerfully against Israel.

Posted by Michael | June 20, 2008 3:17 PM

Ahmadinejad thinks that the destruction of Israel would come about because the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank should be a voting part of Israel, and vote the state out of existence.

Actually, this makes the terms for the U.S.- Iranian negotiation that much easier - to get Iran to recognize a two state solution should be one of those things an smart American president can negotiate towards - in the same way that we negotiated towards getting China not to invade Taiwan, while maintaining a disagreement about Taiwan's status vis a vis China. That can even include Bush's stand, which is, after all, for a two state solution. Much as Likud extremists hate that notion.

On the other hand, Israel openly running a war game that strongly implies they will bomb Iran - now, that is a real threat. Let's hope the EU, so eager to sanction Iran, can find the spine to condemn Israel.

Posted by roger | June 20, 2008 3:18 PM

DAS -

It's got nothing inherently to do with nation building. However, your two beliefs can be reconciled if you agree that the world should be held just as blameless for failing to help the Jews in 1940, as you hold Israel for the Palestinian situation.

It's funny how you figure that of all nations, Israel has less responsibility because it was absorbing Jewish refugees to displace the Arabs who were already living in Palestine. Of course, in reality Israel is more directly responsible than anyone for the Palestinian refugee situation, since the founding of Israel created the problem. I would note also that Israel was the administering power in the occupied territories for 20 years before the outbreak of the first intifada, and Israel basically did nothing to improve conditions for the local inhabitants. The myth of an "enlightened occupation" is just that - a self-justifying myth.

Israel is not quite as special as you seem to think. I'm Jewish. And in my opinion, attitudes like yours are doomed to turn world opinion powerfully against Israel.

Posted by Michael | June 20, 2008 3:21 PM

"No country absorbed Jewish refugees in 1940."

Palestine did. And it didn't turn out so well for them. Not that they had any choice in the matter- it was a British mandate. 75,000 Jews were absorbed into Palestine from 1940-1944. Prior to that, refugees were coming to Israel in much larger numbers. Large enough to inspire the quotas put in place in 1940.

Posted by fostert | June 20, 2008 3:26 PM

It's not really much of a wonder, Michael. DAS just doesn't think Palestinian lives count as much as Israeli lives. - strasmangelo jones

No. I think that Palestinians should have been absorbed by Arab nations just as Germany absorbed the Sudeten refugees, India absorbed Hindu refugees from Sindh, Pakistan absorbed Moslem refugees from more central regions of India, Finland absorbed Karelian refugees, Israel absorbed Mizrachi Jewish refugees, etc.

Refugee problems were endemic in the late 1940s. Only one of them really is a sore spot today. Perhaps you can blame the country that kicked out these refugees, but at some point the blame should go onto countries which could have absorbed them and didn't. That countries did not step up to that obligation in the early 1940s is why we need Israel. That pretty much every country (including Israel with the Mizrachi Jews) stepped up to that obligation except for in the Arab world, is why Israel can only have limitted guilt in regards to the Palestinian problem.

Posted by DAS | June 20, 2008 3:37 PM

Yeah, there was also this post in Goldberg's list of bad Ahmadinejad quotes which I also think is pretty clear-cut:

"December, 2006: "I want to tell [Western counties] that just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and does not exist anymore, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out and humanity will be free.""

Posted by Nick Kaufman | June 20, 2008 3:39 PM

I don't believe that Israel will ever give up, give in, move en masse willingly, or do anything else remotely similar. They are extremely well-armed and will fight, and would need to be nearly exterminated for Ahmadinejad's wishes to come to pass.

Surely that's not true. It's easy to posture as such, but if the Israeli military were soundly defeated, the people would absolutely "give in" or "move en masse" rather than face extermination. Be serious.

Posted by right | June 20, 2008 3:45 PM

Matt, as I've said previously, you should stop posting on anything related to Israel. You don't know what you're talking about.

I also love the endless and detailed parsing and exegesis of what Ahmadenijad REALLY means with his threats over the years. The fact is, the supporters of the most benign interpretations of his remarks would react no differently - i.e., oppose any action against the Iranian regime - if he EXPLICITLY called for the annihilation of every Israeli man, woman, and child. I challenge any of the Ahmadenijad apologists here (and Juan Cole elsewhere) to deny that.

Posted by Winston | June 20, 2008 3:49 PM

that Palestinians should have been absorbed by Arab nations

Why? They are Palestinian, not Syrian, Lebanese, or Egyptian. Pakistan didn't absorb greek refugees. Japan didbn't absorb Vietnamese refugees. Why should Lebanon commit national suicide as a favour to Israel?

Ultimately, DAS, you're denying the existance of the Palestinian nation. You're our own Ahmedinejad, a bigot from another mother.

Posted by Bonehead | June 20, 2008 3:50 PM

I get it, Ahmadenijad is depending on a miracle. I'll take that bet. Like Elijah said; If God is Baal then worship Baal. If God is the Lord then worship the Lord.
The living success is the proof. Dinner jacket is hoping for a miracle.

Bonehead,
Because like the Turkish Greeks who went to Greece, the Greek Turks who went to Anatolia, the Sudentenland Germans who went back to Germany, the hindus who left karachi for India, etc.... their decendents were better off then if they had stayed, and the geopolitical conditions were set for a more durable peace between the opposing camps. It has been a pan arab political choice to keep the palestinians right up next to isreal as the soldiers in the front line of fire to absorb all the casualties. It's a very heartless strategy. Given free movement, Palestinans would gladly settle in Jordon, Egypt, or the Gulf. The Arab regimes refuse to allow it. Jordon I understand why, based on the history of 1971, but Egypt or the Gulf should let the palestinians go where they want.

My ancestors were cleared off their lands in the Northern Highlands after their rebellion failed. We moved on and prospered. The Palestenians should be offered that choice.

Posted by Northern Observer | June 20, 2008 4:05 PM

DukeJ

Ahmadenijad has been fairly consistent on this analogy for years, as Juan Cole has been explaining all along:
http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/europeans-offer-iran-deal-iranians-say.html

Hitchens's classic takedown of Juan Cole:

http://www.slate.com/id/2140947/

I think Ahmadenijad is being disingenuous. The Soviet Union wasn't "wiped from the map", it collapsed of it's own contradictions.

Kuwait was "wiped from the map" by Saddam Hussein, i.e. annexed. It's an active verb. Someone does the wiping.

Also, I think Matt realizes if Iran tried to do the wiping, Israel will wipe back and there would be genocide on both sides.

However, I'm afraid Israel will start it b/c of Iran's nuclear weaponization program.

Posted by Peter K. | June 20, 2008 4:10 PM

DukeJ

Ahmadenijad has been fairly consistent on this analogy for years, as Juan Cole has been explaining all along:
http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/europeans-offer-iran-deal-iranians-say.html

Hitchens's classic takedown of Juan Cole:

"However, words and details and nuances do matter in all this, so I was not surprised to see professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan denying that Ahmadinejad, or indeed Khomeini, had ever made this call for the removal of Israel from the map. Cole is a minor nuisance on the fringes of the academic Muslim apologist community. At one point, there was a danger that he would become a go-to person for quotes in New York Times articles (a sort of Shiite fellow-traveling version of Norman Ornstein, if such an alarming phenomenon can be imagined), but this crisis appears to have passed."

http://www.slate.com/id/2140947/

I think Ahmadenijad is being disingenuous. The Soviet Union wasn't "wiped from the map", it collapsed of it's own contradictions.

Kuwait was "wiped from the map" by Saddam Hussein, i.e. annexed. It's an active verb. Someone does the wiping.

Also, I think Matt realizes if Iran tried to do the wiping, Israel will wipe back and there would be genocide on both sides.

However, I'm afraid Israel will start it b/c of Iran's nuclear weaponization program.

Posted by Peter K. | June 20, 2008 4:13 PM

Northern Observer --

Again, why should Lebanon disrupt its confessional balance to help out Israel? The Lebanese government refuses to grant citizenship to Palestinian refugees, not out of anti-Israeli animus, but becuase it wants to preserve an ethnci balance. Same as Israel.

Anyway, I haven't yet met a Palestinian refugee, and I know a fair number, who want to abandon their nationality and settle in Lebanon, the Gulf, or elsewhere.

The denigration of Palestinian nationhood is a constant in DAS-type anti-Palestinian rhetoric. Palestinians are a nation, and want to lvie in their homeland. They are not generic Arabs that can be slotted in Country X.

Posted by Bonehead | June 20, 2008 4:22 PM

Peter K.,

Umm ... but Ahmadenijad never said "wiped from the map". That's a bad translation of what he actually said, as has been pointed out above.

And following up on Northern Observer's excellent response to Bonehead: if we're distinguishing in ethnicity between Palestinians and, say, trans-Jordanian Arabs (which, is fair enough ... btw, the real problem here is like in the play Oklahoma! -- "the farmers [Palestinians] and the cowboys [Jordians, et al] should be friends" but they are not) are Sindhi Hindus really of the same nation as Gujuratis (or whichever other part of India to where such refugees went)? are Sudeten Germans (who had been living in the Sudetenland longer than many Palestinian families had been living in Palestine) the same as Bavarians?

Posted by DAS | June 20, 2008 4:26 PM

Well remember, the only reason Jews have a state NOW is because of European (and I guess American) guilt over the Holocaust.

I think it's too soon, perhaps another 150 years, but eventually it will be far enough in the past and hopefully people will not be so stupid as to fall for anti-Jew propoganda. When that happens I will no longer worry if the State of Israel ceases to exist because no people are guaranteed a state, and I'm tired of our 1-way relationship with Israel.

Posted by MNPundit | June 20, 2008 4:38 PM

I only clicked on this post because I wanted to see SLC go to plaid. This discussion is deeply disappointing.

Also, Peter K, there is such a deep gap in credibility between Christopher Hitchens and Juan Cole that I think it scarcely even conceivable that Hitchens could ever issue a takedown on Cole. I'm sure that Cole is indeed a minor nuisance to Hitchens in that Cole deals in the real world while Hitchens prefers to spew inflammatory bullshit.

Posted by J.B. | June 20, 2008 4:38 PM

DAS --

Your anaogies don'T support your case.

Sindhi Hindus fit in without any problem in the multi-national, multi-lingual, secular Indian republic.

Sedeten Germans, like Volga Germans, Romanian Germans, and all other Germans, fit in very well in the German blood-based conception of nationhood. (German residents of Turkish descent, regardless of how well they speak German, are not as easily accepted.)

Apart from a short-lived experiment more than 30 years ago, there is no generic pan-arab nation that could absorb Palestinians. Palestinians should be absorbed by Palestine.

Also, I'm curious to hear what argument would you given a Maronite Catholic citizen of Lebanon to convince them to grant citizenship to several hundred thousand Sunni Palestinian refugees?

Posted by Bonehead | June 20, 2008 4:40 PM

DAS, Northern Observer, other bigots,

One last thought. No-one expects the Tibetan community in Dharamsala to be absorbed by India. Tibetans, unlike Sindhi Hindus, don't fit into the Indian nationality. They are a refugee community in exile, waiting to go back home.

Palestinians are more like Tibetans in Dharamsala than Sindhis in Mumbai.

Posted by Bonehead | June 20, 2008 4:44 PM

"No-one expects the Tibetan community in Dharamsala to be absorbed by India. Tibetans, unlike Sindhi Hindus, don't fit into the Indian nationality. They are a refugee community in exile, waiting to go back home."

This is true. I'd add that the Sindhis were granted citizenship. The Tibetans are not granted citizenship even if they are born in India. I have a Tibetan friend who faces this situation. Of course, in India, anything can be accomplished with sufficient bribes. But most Tibetans can't afford those bribes.

Posted by fostert | June 20, 2008 5:06 PM

I must confess some ignorance in terms of cultural differences between Palestinians and other Arabs (other than that many Palestinians were farmers and many of the Arab nations to the east have been dominated by 'cowboys') ... but in terms of language, while Palestinians do have a very distinct dialect, their language is certainly closer to Arabic than Northern Observer's ancestors' Gaelic was to English and far, far closer than Tibetan is to the Indian languages.

I suspect Sindhi vs. Gujurati is a fair comparison. And what of the absorbtion by Israel of the Mizrahi Jews?

And if Maronites should be allowed to live in a separate country from Palestinians, why can't we Jews have our own country? And don't give me that "well, you could have had it in [location X]" argument -- you'd be all up in arms about the poor natives of that location as well.

Posted by DAS | June 20, 2008 5:08 PM

Re J.B.

Christopher Hitchens, in his Slate article, was quoting a translation of the various Amadinejad remarks by a native Persian who was far more qualified to peform such a translation then is Prof. Cole.

Re Bonehead (an excellent nickname for this clown)

1. There never was such a thing as a Palestinian State at any time in the past. Most of the current Arab inhabitants of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon are descended from Arabs who migrated to what is termed Palestine from elsewhere in the Arab world in the 19th and early 20th century. As I have pointed out on numerous occasions on this blog, the American writer Mark Twain visited the area, I believe in 1868 and found it almost depopulated with Jerusalem apparently having fewer inhabitants then his native Hannibal, Mo. It only began to attract people when the German Kaiser showed interest in he area, which was then matched by the British Government

2. Mr. bonehead, like all the other Israel bashers on this blog conveniently ignores the fact that the number of Jews who were forced out of various Arab countries, mainly Iraq, were about equal to the number of Palestinians who left what is now Israel in 1948/1949. As a matter of fact, those Sephardic Jews had a much longer history of living in the various Arab countries then did the Palestinians in Palestine who were, for the most part, Johnny come latelies.

3. Lets give Mr. Amadinejad the benefit of the doubt ans assume that he would be satisfied with a one state solution. What makes anybody believe think that such a multi-ethnic solution is workable when it has failed in Czechoslovakia, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, the Indian Subcontinent, etc. It ain't working too well in Canada either.

Posted by SLC | June 20, 2008 5:08 PM

Oh yes ... also, why would only Lebanon absorb the Palestinians. Wasn't Jordan supposed to have been a Palestinian state?

Posted by DAS | June 20, 2008 5:09 PM

Also, I'm curious to hear what argument would you given a Maronite Catholic citizen of Lebanon to convince them to grant citizenship to several hundred thousand Sunni Palestinian refugees? - Bonehead

Mr. Bonehead says that it'll be just fine for Israel to absorb those refugees and nothing bad will happen to the Jews living in Israel. Even if Israel ceases to exist as a political entity, being absorbed into a single, Palestinian state, Jewish rights to liberty, property, the pursuit of happiness and life will be preserved. Nu? If these assurances can be made to Israeli Jews should all Palestinian refugee decendents be repatriated to Israel, these assurances can be made to Maronite Christians, can't they?

Oh no? Well, what does Bonehead propose? That we Jews should yet again be victims of genocide? Bonehead to me sounds like yet another boneheaded anti-Semite.

Look, as SLC'll tell you, I'm no hard-line Zionist (I have deep problems with the very ideology of Zionism). But people like Bonehead make me ready to just about join Likud!

Posted by DAS | June 20, 2008 5:15 PM

You just figured this out, Matt?

We've know this whole "wipe off the map" stuff was crap from a few days after he was misquoted. Juan Cole was on this almost immediately.

Where the hell have you been? Biking?

"Neither Kirchik nor Yglesias really knows what they're talking about here; they're essentially hobbyists dabbling in international politics for fun and profit. Which is one reason why I'm really not reassured at all when Yglesias, who's spent the last couple years largely ignorant of the Afghan war but blithely optimistic as to its eventual outcome, responds to a request for Afghanistan blogging by linking to a single vague, blithely optimistic report that confirms his previous biases."

Posted by strasmangelo jones | June 20, 2008 2:20 PM

Jones, you hit that one directly on the head. This is precisely Yglesias' problem, and why I call him on it every time he does it.

This is WHY I asked my two questions on Iran repeatedly.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 20, 2008 6:01 PM

Let's analyze DAS's objections point by point.

"The world didn't want to absorb so many Jewish refugees in 1940, why would they absorb any now?"

1) It's not 1940.
2) There is no evidence that any significant number of Jews would emigrate that would strain other country's capacity to absorb, if it did happen.
3) More Jews are emigrating from Israel NOW than are immigrating TO Israel. In fact, I read that more Jews are emigrating to GERMANY than are immigrating to Israel, because of the conditions in Israel.

"And if, Hashem forbid, another Holocaust should happen?"

If the international community takes part in assisting in the new Palestinian state having a Constitution that guarantees all citizens equal rights, and the international community also guarantees the border security from attacks by any other Arab state, and also provides other security presence on the ground if desired, this will not happen.

I might also add that the same considerations apply to the Palestinians NOW. The ONLY reason the Zionist leaders of Israel are not exterminating the Palestinians is because of how bad it would look, given their "Holocaust excuse" for the occupation of Palestine in the first place.

"There is a good reason why the State of Israel exist."

Yes - the UN illegally partitioned Palestine, which was not their Mandate.

"We might have issues with how the Palestinians have been affected (but a lot of ethnic groups were similarly affected by boundary shake-ups in the late 1940s ... it ain't Israel's fault that, unlike those other ethnic groups, nobody absorbed those Palestinians)"

This demonstrates at UTTER lack of knowledge of the history of the Palestinian situation and a blithe dismissal of the brutality of the occupation.

And yes, it IS Israel's fault (as well as the US and the UN for acquiescing in it.)

"and treated. We might even have philosophical issues with the notion of Zionism (e.g. those of us who are Jews might see incompatabilities between Zionism and Jewish religious teachings)."

No shit. How about an imperialist, racist, fascist ideology being proclaimed the standard bearer for Jewish thought? I'd say that should be a major problem.

"But should Israel be non-existant as a State, there would be losses. And who would guarantee resettlement of the Jewish Israelis?"

There is no evidence resettlement would be necessary if the proper international efforts were made. This is a hypothetical.

"Who would guarantee Jewish access to Jewish holy sites?"

Same answer - the law.

"Who would guarantee that refugees from ethnic cleansing in general be absorbed (considering that Israel exists in part because of the historically demonstrated need to absorb Jewish refugees and that the Palestinian "problem" still exists because Arab nations refused to absorb their Arab brethren)?"

Arab nations were never required and should not be required to "absorb" anybody - because the Palestinians should never have been forcibly ejected from their lands by colonialist Jews and the European colonial powers who supported the establishment of Israel in violation of the law.

Again, there need be no "ethnic cleansing" if the settlement is enforced by the international community. If the US can send 160,000 troops to Iraq for five years and kill three hundred thousand people in a quest for oil, they can send the same number to the new Palestine and enforce the settlement. Not that I advocate that, but you'll notice none of the Zionist freaks suggest that it could be done.

Not to mention that it's laughable that the Israeli Jews, the most heavily armed population in the Middle East - and not just the military, but private citizens who all own guns - upon integration into the Palestinian state, would have to worry about "ethnic cleansing."

The only people who would have to worry about it are the Palestinians, given the way the Israeli settler freaks behave. I'd expect quite a few Israeli settlers would have to be arrested or shot before things settled down - fewer than Palestinian fanatics.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 20, 2008 6:14 PM

"but in terms of language, while Palestinians do have a very distinct dialect, their language is certainly closer to Arabic than Northern Observer's ancestors' Gaelic was to English and far, far closer than Tibetan is to the Indian languages."

DAS, stop when you're behind. Don't dig deeper. Nobody really cares about languages. It's ethnicity, culture, and religion that matter. Don't believe me? Then go to Tamil Nadu in India. Everyone speaks Tamil regardless of whether they are ethnically Tamil or not. Simple reason: it's the language of business there. And they often speak Telugu too. You can't do business to the north without that language. While everyone's first language is related to culture, the additional languages are always related to business. When business is important enough, people drift towards learning the language of business as their first language. A good example of that is Darjeeling. My Tibetan friend was disappointed because almost no Tibetans (25% of the population) there could actually speak Tibetan. They spoke the local languages of business: Nepali and Hindi. Neither of which are even remotely related to Tibetan. But that's what they speak.

Posted by fostert | June 20, 2008 10:37 PM

Now let's deal with SLC's horseshit.

"Christopher Hitchens, in his Slate article, was quoting a translation of the various Amadinejad remarks by a native Persian who was far more qualified to peform such a translation then is Prof. Cole."

Says who? Hitchens? The credibility of Hitchens is on a par with Bill O'Reilly. I wouldn't put it past him to utterly make up some "qualified Persian" to make his point. Not to mention that numerous other people have translated those sentences and come to same conclusion.

Not to mention that this is the official policy of Iran that the Israeli STATE is to be replace by a Palestinian STATE. Nothing is said about the existing Israelis, nor need it be.

"1. There never was such a thing as a Palestinian State at any time in the past. Most of the current Arab inhabitants of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon are descended from Arabs who migrated to what is termed Palestine from elsewhere in the Arab world in the 19th and early 20th century. As I have pointed out on numerous occasions on this blog, the American writer Mark Twain visited the area, I believe in 1868 and found it almost depopulated with Jerusalem apparently having fewer inhabitants then his native Hannibal, Mo. It only began to attract people when the German Kaiser showed interest in he area, which was then matched by the British Government"

Utter bullshit, as every historian who has written on the subject has concluded - other than the Zionist freak historians writing to cover up the Zionist colonization history.

Even prominent Zionists in the early 20th Century, when they were informed that Palestine was not "empty" recognized that the Zionist project was not a moral undertaking under Jewish philosophy. I have offered quotes here on that subject before.

"2. Mr. bonehead, like all the other Israel bashers on this blog conveniently ignores the fact that the number of Jews who were forced out of various Arab countries, mainly Iraq, were about equal to the number of Palestinians who left what is now Israel in 1948/1949."

"Tit for tat" is not an operative principle. Not to mention that the Jews were forced out because it became quite clear that the Zionists were trying to force a colony on the Palestinians.

Not to mention that IRAN still has the largest concentration of Jews in the Middle East and most of them are quite happy to remain there. They also denounce the Israeli threats against Iran, just like the rest of the Iranians.

"3. Lets give Mr. Amadinejad the benefit of the doubt ans assume that he would be satisfied with a one state solution. What makes anybody believe think that such a multi-ethnic solution is workable when it has failed in Czechoslovakia, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, the Indian Subcontinent, etc. It ain't working too well in Canada either."

This could be a valid point. But we don't know until it's tried. There are plenty of people on both sides - most likely the majority - who would be happy to forget all this crap as long as they were not being bullied and as long as their civil and religious right were respected by both sides. Most people are not into starting wars with other people. Only the fanatics are. As I've said many times, dealing the Zionist freaks and the Muslim fanatics out of the picture is the key to getting something that works.

In any event, if it fails, then the blame rests squarely on the Zionists for attempting a poorly thought out colonization project which relied on terrorism, an illegal partition, and military conquest to establish itself.

As I've said, under pressure from the UN, the US, and the international community, if necessary with a full boycott, both sides could be induced to see reason - if necessary by getting their attention by slapping a 2x4 up side their heads.

The alternative is that sooner or later somebody is going to get a nuke - from somewhere, probably from Israel itself - and nuke Tel Aviv. If Israel retaliates against its neighbors indiscriminately, the world will then put Israel out our misery.

There is no fucking way six or seven million people are going to stand up to 200 million Arabs and Persians forever, military or no military, nukes or no nukes.

Israel either agrees to get along or it's doomed.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 20, 2008 10:45 PM

As a point of interest, Hindi and English are actually related languages. It's hard to see, but if you know German (very close to English), it becomes a little more clear. And they are not even closely related to either Tibetan or Gaelic. And Tamil as even less related to any of those languages than they are to themselves.

Posted by fostert | June 20, 2008 11:04 PM

This strikes me as a more interesting Zionism thread than most, which is not saying anything at all, but still.

I'll chime in with some points:

1) Ahmadinejad, in his first "wiped off" speech said the conflict would be over the day the Palestinians, including the refugees, voted on a form of government they wanted. This is really not new and it is puzzling to find nearly three years later that this is still the subject of debate. But that is a testament to the willingness of supporters of Zionism to deliberately lie to demonize Iran.

2) Iran is not a military threat to Israel. I'm reminded of the scene in Star Wars when someone says to Darth Vader "we've analyzed their attack pattern and there does seem to be a vulnerability," and Darth Vader dismisses him, before the death star is destroyed. Nobody plans that Iran will invade Israel, or support a direct invasion of Israel, or nuke Israel. How Israel will end is that the capacity of the Palestinians and other Arabs to harass Israel will increase, Israel will become a country rational Westerners have less and less desire to move to, it will become a country rational Israelis have less and less desire to remain in, the idea that refugees are denied the right to return from lands they were forced from because of their ethnicity will be seen increasingly as an injustice worldwide and Israel remaining a Jewish state just will stop being viable. A lot like South Africa remaining a politically majority white state just stopped being viable.

The role Iran's military plays is that Iran can fund Hamas without worrying about Israel bombing Iran in retaliation. Iran having a nuclear weapons capability does not allow Iran to nuke Jerusalem, but still reduces Israel and the US' options in containing Iran and therefore makes Iran a more effective challenge to Israel's long-term viability, because Israel and the US lose leverage over Iran's behavior.

2a) This is important because this is where what looks like bad faith arguing over what Ahmadinejad says comes in. Iran, as a Muslim state that does not accept Israel, is a long term threat to Zionism, and as such, every once of opprobrium that can be brought to that country, justified or not, is a long-term benefit to Zionism. The claim "he's calling for genocide" is useful in efforts to get divestment and to generally create an environment where pressure on Iran to accept Israel is maximized from all directions. Not that it in itself creates substantial pressure, but from the Zionist perspective, every bit helps.

3) Westerners can, if they choose, see Zionism as a post-1940s phenomenon. The people of the region are not going to see it that way. In the late 1800s, some Europeans decided that Nigeria, like India should under the control of Britain, Congo should be under the control of Belgium, Germany got some colonies, France got some others, including Algeria and Vietnam. The nadir or apex of the colonial era may have been the Berlin conference of 1895 or so. This same decade, some Europeans decided that as Southern Africa could be a homeland for the Dutch emigrants who would become the Afrikaaners, Palestine could be a homeland for Jews. In each of these cases, the question, if it was even asked, of the wishes of the natives was dismissed with the idea of "fuck them, we have more guns".

Most of these decisions, except Palestine, have been reversed. Arguments about post WWII refugees misses the point widely on a lot of levels. But Zionism seems, not only in the Arab world, but in most of the previously colonized world, as an unsettled vestige of European colonialism.

3a) But either way, if Hindis want to return to Pakistan, but are not allowed because of their religion, that would be an injustice. Same for all of the other examples of ethnic cleansing that have been brought up. It would be an injustice for Sudeten Germans to be unable to return or vote in their previous country because of their ethnicity. Today there are Palestinians who want to return to what is now Israel but they are members of the wrong ethnic group. This is not defensible today, even if it has happened in other cases.

3b) But either way, even if one Westerner produces an argument that convinces another Westerner that it is not an injustice, the same argument does not have any impact in Cairo, Riyadh, Baghdad or Tehran. Even if you convince yourself and other Westerners that you are right, Cairo, Riyadh, Baghdad and Tehran have to remain under the control of leaders who act like they agree with you, instead of their own people. We are seeing how expensive it is to do that in Baghdad, but it is becoming more expensive because one apple in Tehran looks like it can spoil the whole bunch.

4) While Iran is not a military threat to Israel, those who are deliberately exaggerating Ahmadinejad's quotations correctly see that Iran's current policies are designed and will eventually have the effect of "winning" the Palestinian dispute for the Muslims. Ahmadinejad has never said that Jews should be killed or even forced out, though he has said that if the West insists there should be a Jewish state, it should be on Western territory. But he has said that the land currently under Zionist control will come under Muslim control.

Posted by Arnold Evans | June 21, 2008 1:06 AM

Peter K. wrote:

Kuwait was "wiped from the map" by Saddam Hussein, i.e. annexed. It's an active verb. Someone does the wiping.

It would surely be a proper English sentence if some nation or city was destroyed by an impersonal force like a famine or an earthquake that forced the people to flee and one said "It was wiped from the map." It might be a little idiomatic or metaphoric to say it that way, but it doesn't require someone to do the wiping.

Anyway, this guy's first language is Farsi, so perhaps the usage is not exactly the same as whatever Ahmedinejad thinks it is and intended it to be.

Posted by Swan | June 21, 2008 1:21 AM

It seems like a bizarre analogy, since Israel, after all, isn't going to implode anytime soon. Any wiping off the map would have to be done by external forces. As the verb 'wipe' suggests - countries don't wipe themselves off maps, they get wiped off.

Posted by Asher | June 21, 2008 2:20 AM

WHen you see a "Mr." in front of an asinine pseudonym like "bonehead", you've touched a nerve.

DAS, you're lapsing into incoherence. Your initial point was the other Arab countries are to blame for the large number of Palestinians suffering as refugees, because they refused to grant them citizenship, etc

I pointed out that other countries don't have to do Israel a favour and give citizenship to large numbers of Palestinians, and that in some countries, like Lebanon, the result would be catastrophic.

You then argue that if it's catastrophic for Lebanon, why should Israel have to address the refugee issue! The answer -- Lebanon was a bystander in the 1948 Palestinian tragedy. Israel was not.

DAS -- you claim you're not a hard-line Zionist. But, from your long record of postings here on yglesias.com, you are clearly an anti-Palestinian bigot. Don't bother voting Likud,. Vote Avigdor Lieberman. That's where you fit in.

Posted by Bonehead | June 21, 2008 8:32 AM

Re Richard Steven Hack

1. Just to show that Mr. Hack is full of shit, the Hitchens article in Slate quoted from a native Farsi speaker whose writings have appeared in the New York Times. This lady, contrary to Mr. Hacks' claims, does indeed exist and Mr. Hitchens reference to her translation of Mr. Amadinejads' various comments has been well documented.

2. I stand by my claim that there has never been a Palestinian State in the entire history of humanity. I suggest that Mr. Hack provide a reference to such a state and tell us the time frame in which it existed.

3. The issue of the population of Palestine while under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire is complicated because no effort was made to distinguish between permanent residents, mostly small farmers, and Beduins who migrated back and forth between Egypt, Palestine, and what is now Jordan. Mr. Hack can dispute Mark Twains' observations all he wants; the difference is that Mr. Twain was there and Mr. Hack obviously was not. Nor were any of the historians that Mr. Hack has quoted in the past.

4. Well, Mr. Hack admits that large numbers of Jews were forced to leave the various Arab countries. We progress.

5. Mr. Hack refers to statements made by Zionists in the early 20th century about the number of inhabitants living there at that time. This has nothing to do with how many people were there in 1868 when Mark Twain visited. The facts that the area was practically depopulated in 1868 and had substantial numbers of residents in the early 20th century (including a fair number of Jews) are in no way contradictory. As I have stated on previous threads, there was a substantial of ingress of people, both Jews and Arabs into Palestine in this period, mostly due to economic development spurred by the interest of Germany and Great Britain in the area.

6. Mr. Hacks' constant invocation of the inevitability of the disappearance of the State of Israel reminds me of the late and unlamented Nikita Khrushchevs' claim that Soviet Communism would bury the capitalist west. Well, the Western capitalist countries are still here. Where is the Soviet Union?

Posted by SLC | June 21, 2008 8:39 AM

No present-day Jew descends from the ancient ones, They're almost all E. European Khazars. Palestinians have always been there and certainly were there when Israel began its Terror Campaigns to ethnically cleanse the area of pesky Arabs. Israel massacred thousands of unarmed men, women and children - hoisting Palestinian children up on bayonets to thrill the other "Chosen People" goons. Anyone prophesizing that Israel is going down need only to look at The demise of the "Thousand Year Reich" to realize how on the money they are. A cesspool of greed, hatred, neurosis, the abused becoming the abusers will stew in its own moral rot before poisoning itself from the fumes. As the years go by, Israel will truly become Devil's Island - a land riddled with diseases of the body and soul. Shit doesn't rise to the top. It drains to the bottom of the weptic tank. That is Israel's future. Through hubris and over-reaching "The Jewish Homeland" is going down like Nazi Germany and right now it's August 1942 and the end of this Evil Government is just a salt-water taffy away. Then, we can all say Mazel tov! The big, bad Land of Milk and Honey has shriveled up and died - choking on its own bile stupidity.

Posted by Trevor | June 21, 2008 9:37 AM

Re Trevor

Mr. Trevor really is a liar of monumental proportions, although his rants do provide considerable amusement as they exceed even Mr. Amadinejad in their stupidity. If the Zionists are as evil and murderous as he claims, how does he explain the 1 million plus Arabs currently living in Israel? As I stated in a previous thread, if the Zionists are really ethnic cleansers, they aren't very good at it.

I have a flash for Mr. Trevor. The State of Israel will be around long after Mr. Trevor has shuffled off this mortal coil.

Posted by SLC | June 21, 2008 10:25 AM

This Mark Twain stuff always puzzles me.

Clearly the territory that would become Israel had a Muslim majority at the time and it clearly had a population that did not agree to see their territory become a Jewish homeland.

Mark Twain supposedly said the land was almost empty or something. I could say Mexico is almost empty. So what? Does that mean Mexico has no residents and is therefore unclaimed land ripe for making into someone else's homeland, or does it just mean Mexico has fewer people than Japan, which would have no relevance to anything?

Mark Twain was not a demographer. I'm not sure what point this quotation is supposed to advance.

Almost empty means not empty, meaning there were people there. Mark Twain, not a demographer, contends there were fewer people there than some other place. So what? Mark Twain never makes the preposterous assertion that Jews outnumbered Muslims there, so in what way does his assertion support the idea that the territory can justly be made into a Jewish homeland against the wishes of the inhabitants?

Posted by Arnold Evans | June 21, 2008 10:31 AM

Re Arnold Evans

"Almost empty means not empty, meaning there were people there. Mark Twain, not a demographer, contends there were fewer people there than some other place. So what? Mark Twain never makes the preposterous assertion that Jews outnumbered Muslims there, so in what way does his assertion support the idea that the territory can justly be made into a Jewish homeland against the wishes of the inhabitants?"

Palestine at the time was a lot emptier then was the Western Hemisphere at the time of the arrival of Caucasian Europeans. Thus, by Mr. Evans argument, in what way can it be justified that the Western Hemisphere be made into a European homeland against the wishes of the inhabitants, namely native Americans?

Posted by SLC | June 21, 2008 12:26 PM

1) Do Native Americans want to return to North America but are not allowed because they aren't white?

2) What makes you think Palestine was a lot emptier than North America when the White settlers arrived? Mark Twain didn't say that.

This Mark Twain stuff is comical.

Posted by Arnold Evans | June 21, 2008 1:52 PM

Re Arnold Evans

There are in excess of 1 million Arabs currently living in Israel. There are virtually no Jews living in any of the Arab countries, with he exception of Morocco. Most of the Sephardic Jews living in Israel are descendants of Jews who were ousted from various Arab countries, mainly from Iraq where their families had been residing a lot longer then the families of most of the so called Palestinians had been residing in what is now Israel. Mr. Evans can rant and rave all he wants too. The Fakestinians living in refugee camps are not going to return to Israel. Period, end of story. If Mr. Evans finds this unacceptable, tough noogies.

Posted by SLC | June 21, 2008 2:23 PM

And when Tel Aviv glows in the dark for the next hundred years because Zionists freaks like SLC were running the place into the ground, tough noogies.

As a Transhumanist, I really don't give a rat's ass how many of you chimps get killed off, but I have to admit that seeing Tel Aviv glow in the dark would be appropriate results for the state of Israel. And I'm always pleased to see a correct outcome.

Finally, Wikipedia has this to say about the population estimates:

[153]

Kathleen Christison, an American author who spent sixteen years as an analyst for the CIA, was critical of attempts to use Twain's humorous writing as a literal description of Palestine at that time. She writes that "Twain's descriptions are high in Israeli government press handouts that present a case for Israel's redemption of a land that had previously been empty and barren. His gross characterizations of the land and the people in the time before mass Jewish immigration are also often used by US propagandists for Israel."[154] For example she noted that Twain described the Samaritans of Nablus at length without mentioning the much larger Arab population at all.[155] The Arab population of Nablus at the time was about 20,000.[156]

During the nineteenth century, many residents and visitors attempted to estimate the population without recourse to official data, and came up with a large number of different values. Estimates that are reasonably reliable are only available for the final third of the century, from which period Ottoman population and taxation registers have been preserved.[157]

After a visit to Palestine in 1891, Ahad Ha'am wrote:

From abroad, we are accustomed to believe that Eretz Israel is presently almost totally desolate, an uncultivated desert, and that anyone wishing to buy land there can come and buy all he wants. But in truth it is not so. In the entire land, it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled; only sandy fields or stony hills, suitable at best for planting trees or vines and, even that after considerable work and expense in clearing and preparing them- only these remain unworked. ... Many of our people who came to buy land have been in Eretz Israel for months, and have toured its length and width, without finding what they seek.[158]

In 1852 the American writer Bayard Taylor travelled across the Jezreel Valley, which he described in his 1854 book The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain as: "one of the richest districts in the world."[159], while Lawrence Oliphant, who visited Palestine in 1887, wrote that Palestine's Valley of Esdraelon was "a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands; and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxuriant fertility which it is possible to conceive."[160]

The Dutch scholar and cartographer Adriaan Reland visited Palestine in 1695, made a population census, and came to the conclusion that Palestine was mostly empty with several existing communities of Jews and Christians.[161]

According to Paul Masson, a French economic historian, "wheat shipments from the Palestinian port of Acre had helped to save southern France from famine on numerous occasions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."[162]

Walter C. Lowdermilk, Assistant Chief of the United States Soil Conservation Service has compared Palestine favorably to California:

The similarity of Southern California and Palestine is so close in climate, topography, soils and vegetation that the present condition of similarly placed areas in California is a reliable index of the early condition of the land of Palestine. Vegetation varied from desert scrub on lower slopes of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea, to luxuriant forests of Cedars of Lebanon on the flanks of Mount Hermon, similar to the desert vegetation from Coachella Valley below sea level in Southern California to pine and fir forests on lower slopes of Mt. Baldy (10,000 ft) in the San Gabriel Range. Rainfall favours Palestine, for Jaffa gets more rain 2 1.5 inches) per annum than Los Angeles (15.2 inches), and the Mt. Hermon mountain land mass gets up to 70 inches (1,800 mm) of rain while Mt. Baldy only 50 inches (1,300 mm). Other comparisons are striking. The region of the Jordan River, including Palestine and Trans-Jordan and the maritime slopes, is quite similar to California, but has an added advantage of its limestone