Some Israeli/Palestinian History
Many if not most Arabs were forcibly driven off their historic land. Some 800,000 of the approximately 900,000 Palestinians who originally lived in the area that became Israel were forced to flee as a result of a systematic campaign of intimidation, massacres and internationally recognized ethnically-motivated mass expulsions. When the Jewish state was created, approximately 400 Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated by Jewish armed groups under the cover of the war, and were razed to the ground.
Instead of these crucial details, what we get from Oren is an image of pastoral Zionist bliss, of pure and progressive civilization struggling to survive in the midst of the dark and hostile Orient: âDrawing on Western and East European models, the Jews of Palestine created new vehicles for Agrarian settlement..., a viable socialist economy with systems for national health, reforestation, and infrastructure development, a respectable university, and a symphony orchestra â and to defend them all, an underground citizens army...â
Even if true, this is like saying âAt least Mussolini made the buses run on time!â or âHitler loved Wagner and promoted opera!â So what, any decent person would respond, if the cost was the persecution and ethnic cleansing of millions? It is by utilizing this kind of romantic nonsense that Zionists have since promoted the image of Israel as a little outpost of vulnerable civilization and democracy surrounded by a mass of Arab Jew-haters, forever at risk of being smashed into oblivion by the illogical and backward Arab mob. And on this count, Oren does not disappoint. Israel, he writes in language that observers of Israeli political rhetoric will find only too familiar, âhad nowhere to fall back to but the seaâ. The barbaric Arab society, meanwhile, âpatriarchal, capped by totalitarian regimes, dwindling employment opportunities, low levels of health care were endemic to most of the Arab world... was hardly ripe for progress.â
Ben-Gurion, Israelâs first prime minister, is presented by Oren as a hero who despite everything ârefused to despairâ, and whose cunning and brilliance saved the new Israel against those barbaric, corrupt Arab aggressors. His passion for Ben-Gurion is equaled only by his apparent contempt for everything Gamal Abdul Nasser stood for. Everything bad Nasser did is thoroughly documented. Nothing bad the Israeli leaders did is documented. The following statement by Yitzhak Rabin on Ben-Gurion for example would have provided a bit of balance and useful context: âWe walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, âWhat is to be done with the Palestinian population?â Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said âDrive them out!ââ
Whenever Israel goes on the offensive in Orenâs account, it is always âin reprisal for guerrilla attacksâ. And even then, when there is clearly documented evidence that war crimes were committed, he tries to excuse the parties involved by adding little disclaimers, even for the butcher Ariel Sharon: âIsraeli commandos led by Major Ariel Sharon blew up dozens of houses, killing sixty-nine civilians â inadvertently, he claimed.â
What should matter here to the âobjectiveâ historian is not what Sharon claimed happened, but what history says happened. Elsewhere, the fashionable word âterroristâ is repeatedly used, but exclusively to define actions by Palestinian-led resistance organizations. Then as now, no Israeli, it would appear, is ever capable of provoking a âterroristâ act, let alone engaging in one.
Perhaps most damning is Orenâs treatment of the issue of colonialism. Almost needless to say, Soviet support for the Arab world in the context of the Cold War is well-documented. The confusion â or, more likely, deliberate obfuscation â arises over the question of why France, and then the United States, threw their support behind Israel.
âFinally an alliance was formed (between Israel) and France,â writes Oren, âwhich was also at war with Arab nationalism â in Algeria â and which shared Israelâs socialist ideals.â
Excuse me? The link between colonial Franceâs slaughter of one million innocent Algerians in a country it had no right to have occupied, and colonial Israelâs âwar with Arab nationalismâ in a country it too had no right to have occupied, and from which it had thrown almost a million Arabs, could hardly be said to have anything to do with âsocialismâ. To suggest otherwise, as Oren does, is to enter the realms of fantasy and idiocy uncharted even by academics of the ultra-right. However, Oren is thankfully nothing if not inconsistent when it comes to the little tricks he plays with history, and he later unwittingly undermines himself by revealing the true colonialist basis of the analogy: âCiting the Algeriansâ recent victory over France â a victory that owed much to Nasserâs support â (the Syriansâ) called for a âpeopleâs warâ to destroy the Zionist plot.â
Yes indeed. But why the mocking phrase âZionist plotâ? Maybe because to replace it with âthe same kind of destructive and illegitimate colonial forcesâ might be to steer too dangerously near the truth.
The United Statesâ support for Israel is a much simpler matter according to Oren. In 1964, Israelâs Prime Minister Levi Eshkol visited Johnson and told him: âWe cannot survive if we experience again what happened to us under Hitler.â As a result, Johnson âgave Israel $52 million in civilian aid.â Now wasnât that nice of the altruistic Mr. President, who of course had not a colonialist intention in his administration!
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Oren is well-trained in insidiously subverting the truth for ideological ends as former adviser to the Israeli delegation to the United Nations, an organization that has done its utmost over the past 50 years, at the behest of the United States, to ensure Israel gets away with its perpetual war crimes.
The final nail in the coffin â or rather, two nails in the coffin â of âSix Days of Warâ as a serious academic undertaking comes in the form of âadvance acclaimâ on the back cover. One endorsement is from Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel and previously chief of staff of its terrorist outfit ironically called the Israeli Defense Forces, an extreme right-winger who as recently as 2000 likened the Palestinians to âcrocodiles,â explaining: âThe more you give them meat, the more they want.â Another quotation is from Martin Peretz, publisher of The New Republic, an ultra-right campaigning American political journal that has long been defined by its crude Zionist agenda.
Many if not most Arabs were forcibly driven off their historic land. Some 800,000 of the approximately 900,000 Palestinians who originally lived in the area that became Israel were forced to flee as a result of a systematic campaign of intimidation, massacres and internationally recognized ethnically-motivated mass expulsions. When the Jewish state was created, approximately 400 Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated by Jewish armed groups under the cover of the war, and were razed to the ground.
Instead of these crucial details, what we get from Oren is an image of pastoral Zionist bliss, of pure and progressive civilization struggling to survive in the midst of the dark and hostile Orient: âDrawing on Western and East European models, the Jews of Palestine created new vehicles for Agrarian settlement..., a viable socialist economy with systems for national health, reforestation, and infrastructure development, a respectable university, and a symphony orchestra â and to defend them all, an underground citizens army...â
Even if true, this is like saying âAt least Mussolini made the buses run on time!â or âHitler loved Wagner and promoted opera!â So what, any decent person would respond, if the cost was the persecution and ethnic cleansing of millions? It is by utilizing this kind of romantic nonsense that Zionists have since promoted the image of Israel as a little outpost of vulnerable civilization and democracy surrounded by a mass of Arab Jew-haters, forever at risk of being smashed into oblivion by the illogical and backward Arab mob. And on this count, Oren does not disappoint. Israel, he writes in language that observers of Israeli political rhetoric will find only too familiar, âhad nowhere to fall back to but the seaâ. The barbaric Arab society, meanwhile, âpatriarchal, capped by totalitarian regimes, dwindling employment opportunities, low levels of health care were endemic to most of the Arab world... was hardly ripe for progress.â
Ben-Gurion, Israelâs first prime minister, is presented by Oren as a hero who despite everything ârefused to despairâ, and whose cunning and brilliance saved the new Israel against those barbaric, corrupt Arab aggressors. His passion for Ben-Gurion is equaled only by his apparent contempt for everything Gamal Abdul Nasser stood for. Everything bad Nasser did is thoroughly documented. Nothing bad the Israeli leaders did is documented. The following statement by Yitzhak Rabin on Ben-Gurion for example would have provided a bit of balance and useful context: âWe walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, âWhat is to be done with the Palestinian population?â Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said âDrive them out!ââ
Whenever Israel goes on the offensive in Orenâs account, it is always âin reprisal for guerrilla attacksâ. And even then, when there is clearly documented evidence that war crimes were committed, he tries to excuse the parties involved by adding little disclaimers, even for the butcher Ariel Sharon: âIsraeli commandos led by Major Ariel Sharon blew up dozens of houses, killing sixty-nine civilians â inadvertently, he claimed.â
What should matter here to the âobjectiveâ historian is not what Sharon claimed happened, but what history says happened. Elsewhere, the fashionable word âterroristâ is repeatedly used, but exclusively to define actions by Palestinian-led resistance organizations. Then as now, no Israeli, it would appear, is ever capable of provoking a âterroristâ act, let alone engaging in one.
Perhaps most damning is Orenâs treatment of the issue of colonialism. Almost needless to say, Soviet support for the Arab world in the context of the Cold War is well-documented. The confusion â or, more likely, deliberate obfuscation â arises over the question of why France, and then the United States, threw their support behind Israel.
âFinally an alliance was formed (between Israel) and France,â writes Oren, âwhich was also at war with Arab nationalism â in Algeria â and which shared Israelâs socialist ideals.â
Excuse me? The link between colonial Franceâs slaughter of one million innocent Algerians in a country it had no right to have occupied, and colonial Israelâs âwar with Arab nationalismâ in a country it too had no right to have occupied, and from which it had thrown almost a million Arabs, could hardly be said to have anything to do with âsocialismâ. To suggest otherwise, as Oren does, is to enter the realms of fantasy and idiocy uncharted even by academics of the ultra-right. However, Oren is thankfully nothing if not inconsistent when it comes to the little tricks he plays with history, and he later unwittingly undermines himself by revealing the true colonialist basis of the analogy: âCiting the Algeriansâ recent victory over France â a victory that owed much to Nasserâs support â (the Syriansâ) called for a âpeopleâs warâ to destroy the Zionist plot.â
Yes indeed. But why the mocking phrase âZionist plotâ? Maybe because to replace it with âthe same kind of destructive and illegitimate colonial forcesâ might be to steer too dangerously near the truth.
The United Statesâ support for Israel is a much simpler matter according to Oren. In 1964, Israelâs Prime Minister Levi Eshkol visited Johnson and told him: âWe cannot survive if we experience again what happened to us under Hitler.â As a result, Johnson âgave Israel $52 million in civilian aid.â Now wasnât that nice of the altruistic Mr. President, who of course had not a colonialist intention in his administration!
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Oren is well-trained in insidiously subverting the truth for ideological ends as former adviser to the Israeli delegation to the United Nations, an organization that has done its utmost over the past 50 years, at the behest of the United States, to ensure Israel gets away with its perpetual war crimes.
The final nail in the coffin â or rather, two nails in the coffin â of âSix Days of Warâ as a serious academic undertaking comes in the form of âadvance acclaimâ on the back cover. One endorsement is from Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel and previously chief of staff of its terrorist outfit ironically called the Israeli Defense Forces, an extreme right-winger who as recently as 2000 likened the Palestinians to âcrocodiles,â explaining: âThe more you give them meat, the more they want.â Another quotation is from Martin Peretz, publisher of The New Republic, an ultra-right campaigning American political journal that has long been defined by its crude Zionist agenda.
