ANSWER Coalition

One time, several years ago, I went to an Answer Coalition meeting to see what these nutjobs were up to. I got on an email list and still get crap from them - it's on my crap email account - I get porn advertisements, Answer Coalition emails, and SPO Heads Up on this account.

Once in awhile I'll read one of them. Here is an excerpt:

If the capture of two soldiers, or one in the case of Palestine, justifies assaults against whole nations and peoples, as Israel has done, then there is no law, no alternative to war, no hope for peace. Only a person with a memory no longer than three weeks could believe the capture of three Israeli soldiers began the present violence. Was not cross-border violence between Israel and Lebanon commonplace for decades? Had not Israel kidnapped half the Palestinian cabinet, destroyed its Foreign Ministry offices and other government buildings and engaged in summary executions throughout Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza, since the elections this year of the Hamas majority in the Palestinian parliament? Was there not a continuum of assaults at will against the Palestinian people over decades?

here is another:

As Iraq descends into uncontrollable sectarian war, President Bush needs new threats to distract the attention of people in the U.S. from what his Shock and Awe policy has brought for Iraq, for us, and for the world. War in Lebanon helps divert attention temporarily and may serve to widen the conflict to include Syria and/or Iran. If not, there are always Cuba, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Venezuela and others to act against.

As with Iraq, in Lebanon we have seen a war of aggression, the supreme international crime; an attack on the equal sovereignty of Lebanon, violating the First Principle of the United Nations Charter; excessive force of a major magnitude, with Israeli planes striking a nation defenseless against aerial assaults; indiscriminate bombing; targeting of civilians; and collective punishment, in which everyone in Lebanon suffers.

Koo-Koo.

I love the last line: "We must persevere until peace prevails."

Are they serious? Do they read history? I just read the wikipedia entry on the state of Israel. The creation of Israel was essentially breaking up the British colony of Palestine into 55% Jewish area (Israel) and 45% Arab area - basically into parts of Jordan and Egypt. The Brits left because the Arabs and Jews were beginning to fight too much and they didn't want to deal. But this split seems somewhat more fair than the normal depiction of Israel booting Palestinians out of their land.

Further, the concept of being a Palestinian did not actually exist at the time Israel was created. "Palestinians," as we know them now, were considered part of the pan-Arab movement, or basically, just considered Arabs. When the Arab armies attacked Israel in 1948, the Arabs in Israel or "Palestinians" fled, some have speculated under orders from Arab generals. They anticipated an Arab victory and that they would be able to return home afterwards. Well, it didn't work out. Israel won and gained additional territory from Jordan.

After this, Jews were expelled from Arab nations and Iran, and many of them fled to Israel. Coupled with holocaust survivors from Europe and the Jews that lived in the British colony of Palestine, modern day Israel began to take shape.

The definition of "Palestinian" is the group of 600,000-800,000 Arab refugees from the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, and the bloodline of children born by that refugee population. What I don't understand are the current numbers of Palestinians are estimated in the 6 plus million range, 2.5-3.5 in Gaza and West Bank and an additional 2.5 million in Jordan and 1.5 million in Israel. Not all of these people are registered decendants of the 600,000-800,000 refugees, right? That seems like too high a number.

Anyhow, the idea of a Palestinian national identity really began to develop after the six day war when Israel won more territory from Jordan and Egypt and had to occupy Arab lands. The people living in these occupied territories helped cement the idea of a national identity - that of being a Palestinian. Today, it is well recognized that the Palestinians are a national people, although prior to 1948 that was not the case.

History is pretty fascinating.

Thinking about America and the time prior to the Civil War, many people had identities based upon which state they were from that trumped any sort of national identity. This is reflected in Robert E. Lee's famous declaration when asked to lead the Union Army that he could never take up arms against his fellow Virginians. It's interesting to think about how people define themselves and identify themselves and how those same peoples identities shift over time.

I mean, the most obvious cases are immigrants moving to new countries whose next generation comes around and begins to view themselves entirely differently than how their parents view themselves. These ongoing shifts are pretty amazing and reveal how constructed identities actually are.

Golda Meir once made a statement: "There was no such thing as Palestinians. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist."

Palestinians gripe about the right of return. But it seems to me, their ancestors made a choice, they decided to fight the UN and the British mandate and oppose the 55/45 split, hoping that the Arab armies would conquer and control all of the land. And they lost. They made a gamble - and mind you - probably a wise one - at the time. Who would have thought on the eve of independence that the new state of Israel would be able to fend off Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. But somehow, the Israeli's won. And then the Arabs deem it fair to complain about being kicked out of their land?

Isn't that sort of like playing in a poker game, losing, and then claiming you want your money back?

UPDATE: Jesus, this wikipedia has a lot of information. I just read up on the British Mandate in Palestine. Very interesting. So Palestine, prior to WWI was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs living in the region had the status of peasant and under such conditions could not own land they lived on, but in a strange property rule at the time, were considered owners of trees that they planted on land where they lived, although they didn't own the land itself.

Anyhow, after WWI and the destruction of the Ottman Empire, Britain managed the area known as Palestine. The British, see Lawrence of Arabia, struck a deal with the Arabs, to fight the Ottman's in exchange for the British helping them create an Arab state over the Arab homeland. The British had also made a deal with the Jews to create a Jewish homeland in the region per the Belfour Declaration in 1917.

Such areas were conceived - Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and British Palestine. But strange things happened between 1922-1948...Jews from Europe began emigrating to Palestine, because of rising anti-Semitism in Europe. The Jews, many who had private money, but also large Jewish foundations, purchased land in British Palestine. This started to anger the Arab peasants who found themselves kicked off of land where they lived, but did not own in the European landowning tradition. This is where we see the roots of the present day conflict.

As Jewish emigration increased, Arab resentment grew, and as Europe descended into the chaos of WWII, all sorts of weird alliances and sides were taken. The British wanted the Jews to emigrate to Palestine - but not so many that it would upset the Arab population. When WWII broke out, it looked like the Nazi's were the strongest and would prevail, and so many Arabs, including the Grand Mufti, of Jerusalem sided with the Nazi's, hoping to rid the region of the British and strike a deal with Hitler to get the entire mideast for Arabs.

But not all Arabs sided with the Nazi's. Many Arabs in British Palestine felt allegience to the British and decided to fight with them. Because of this, the British did not want to exacerbate Arab-Jewish tension in Palestine and stemmed the flow of Euroopean Jewish immigrants to the region...the result of course being, many of these Jews were captured and put in concentration camps by the Nazis.

Ironically, some of the Jewish population in the mideast sided with the Nazi's because of their animosity towards the British, who they thought were favoring the Arabs. Some Jewish groups hoped to strike a deal with Hitler to expel Jews from Europe to the Mideast and create a Jewish state. Hitler opted for extermination instead, but the idea that some Zionists were trying to deal with Hitler is one of those fascinating little tidbits of history that oftentimes gets forgotten.

Even after WWII and the holocaust, with 250,000 displaced Jews in Europe, the British still did not allow their emigration to Palestine. Zionists began attacking British interests in the region and finally the British decided to up and leave and in 1948 the UN decided to charter the state of Israel.

Of course, this pissed the Arabs off, and they tried to destory Israel from the get go. But Israel defended itself, the Arabs who left didn't get their land back, and the rest is well, the history of Israel.