For a better and more peaceful Lebanon.

 21/10/07

Some quotes that shed more light on the true objectives of Zionism.  Taken from Israeli politicians and their allies, some of these quotes are from even before Palestine was occupied.

 
"We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon , Trans-Jordan, and Syria . The weak point is Lebanon , for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said , Alexandria and Sinai."
David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A
Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte , New York 1978.


"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."
Israel Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum"
 

. "We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters"
Uri Lubrani, PM Ben-Gurion's special adviser on Arab Affairs, 1960. From
"The Arabs in Israel " by Sabri Jiryas.

 

 

"There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance; and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry out surveillance over the activities of a neighbour than over those of a tenant. [I] tend to support the latter view and have an
additional argument:...the need to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish...with a non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this fundamental position as early as 1940 [and] it is entered in my diary."
Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department. From
Israel : an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5.

 

"Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."
Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the
Arabs of Palestine, Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.


"In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the ---- of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country."
Lord Balfour in a private memorandum to Lord Curzon, 11 August 1919
 
 
"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'"
Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the
New York Times, 23 October 1979. Rabin's description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet.

21/10/07

A new Friend of Lebanon presents a challenge.  He states:

“Because the questions I am raising are not simple, it is important to invite the readers to discuss them freely. Let us search together for a realistic way of introducing some change in the political culture that prevails today in Lebanon.”

 

Here is his email:

“Thank you for sending me your September Newsletter. Your call for a better and more peaceful Lebanon can hardly be objected to by any friend of Lebanon. What I find difficult is to translate that wish into action. You write:

We would encourage all of the Lebanese people to respect their differences and work together for the common good.  We would encourage citizens of other countries to respect the will of the Lebanese people.  We would encourage the Lebanese leaders to listen less to foreign governments and more to the citizens of Lebanon.  It is time to move forward to a better and more peaceful Lebanon. 

You recognize at the same time that the Lebanese problem is complex:

The consensus at the end of the evening was that the current political stalemate has been brought about by many historical and social factors, and that it is only through an informed understanding of these factors that we can hope to bring the stalemate to a positive conclusion.

One of your correspondents was more specific in his description of the problem. He wrote on 16/10/07:

 “Without fundamental political reform, Lebanon’s political system – based on power sharing between sectarian factions – inevitably will encourage cyclic crises, governmental deadlock, unaccountability and sectarianism. More importantly, the country’s future is intricately tied to the regional confrontation that plunged it into armed conflict with Israel, paralysed its politics and brought it to the brink of renewed civil war.”  The International Crisis Group—an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation—works through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. The Crisis Group filed this report on “Hizbollah and the Lebanese Crisis” on 10 October 2007. http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5113&l=1

The above-mentioned article on Hizbollah is very interesting. It describes very well how Hizbollah adjusted to the changing situation. But I find the recommendations of that article disappointing. They do not go beyond platitudes and wishful thinking. It is easy to recommend peace. But most of the times, recommendations of this nature remain, as we say in Lebanon, “ink on paper”.

Even those who call for “fundamental political reform” do not agree on the specifics of the reform, and have no realistic program of implementation. In a country that is deeply divided, it is impossible to reach any agreement on what needs to be changed. Our ideological differences are so big that it will be foolish to try and overcome them. The only thing we can do is take notice of them and respect them.

Instead of fighting sectarianism, I propose to learn to live with it. I base this approach on the fact that we cannot eliminate the sectarian views of the Lebanese factions. Instead of calling for what cannot be done in the present situation, I call for a more realistic approach. In the same way as we do not have to overcome our religious differences in order to create a modern and viable State, so also it is not necessary to overcome our ideological differences in order to create a viable democracy. In the same way as we contain our religious differences within the confines of our communities, so also we can use our community system in order to contain our ideological differences (pro-West/pro-East). What is absurd is to allow what should be contained at the community level to invade the national level and ravage it.

The Lebanese problem has two basic dimensions. One affects the people and the other one concerns the institutions. We tend to concentrate our attention on the political scene, that is to say what takes place on the surface. I call that the stormy agitation of the waters. This is what reporters report about. They say more or less objectively what the people are doing in the middle of the stormy waters. We tend to neglect the institutional problem.

When a plane crashes, the cause can be either a personal mistake or a mechanical failure. In Lebanon, we tend to explain everything as personal. We do not recognize the mechanical failures and huge defects of our constitutional system. There is a mortal flaw in the way the Lebanese State has been designed. We must redesign the way we govern ourselves so that we respect our ideological differences instead of being contemptuous of them. Those who give the baby a bath in their stormy waters end up drowning it.

Lebanon is like a house that was built on sand and without adequate foundations. We keep rebuilding if after each storm without thinking about the foundations. We are obsessed with what is visible. What is below the surface remains, as it were, beyond our reach.

It is very hard to free ourselves from all the prejudiced views that are part of our culture. What we consider true in our political culture can be misleading. Without a critical approach to our traditions, we will remain the innocent and unconscious victims of our cultural heritage.

I invite those who are prepared to rethink their “truth” to look for ways of introducing change for themselves. Let’s stop complaining and blaming the others for our fate. Partial solutions are better than no solutions at all. Besides, partial solutions are likely to show the way for more comprehensive solutions.”

For more click here.

For more click here.

 23/10/07

A FOL reader shares these “Lies of Golda Meir and the truth of the others, but behind the truth are thousands of massacres.”

 

"There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here [Palestine] to the neighbouring countries, to transfer all of them; not one village, not one tribe should be left."

-- Joseph Weitz, Davar, 29 September 1967 from "My Diary and Letters to the Children", Massada, 1965, III, p. 293

 

 "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place
built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."
--Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.

"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to."
--Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.

"There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed."
--Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister, June 15, 1969

 26/10/07

After the 67 war nothing changes. Israel’s aim was still the same at the start of the 70's.  Playing the victim but acting like beasts.
  

“It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.”

--Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972.
   
“The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war.”
--Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972.

 26/10/07

Response to 21 Oct:  The writer says “We must redesign the way we govern ourselves so that we respect our ideological differences instead of being contemptuous of them.”  Isn’t that exactly what Hezbollah and Tayyar were trying to do in their Common Understanding paper of Feb 2006? If they can respect each other and try to find ways to help Lebanon, why can’t we all? Most of the people want to live together in peace, but others keep accusing them of bad things so that they can keep all the power for themselves.

 26/10/07

It is the early eighties and all they think is killing and crushing.
 
"The Palestinians are beasts walking on two legs."
--Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the Beasts". New Statesman, 25 June 1982.

"When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle."
--Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.

 
"We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves."
--Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.


"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimetre of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours."
--Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.

 26/10/07

A FOL reader says: I have read the quotes from Israeli politicians and think they show the real motivation behind what happens in the region—a sense of superiority and just plain hatred.  The most telling quote I have come across is from Raful Eitan, IDF Chief of General Staff.  He and Ariel Sharon were responsible for the Sabra and Shatilla massacre.  In April 1983 he told the Knesset: "The Arabs will never defeat us by throwing stones. Our answer will be a nationalist Zionist solution. For every stone throwing - we'll establish ten settlements. If there will be - and there will be - a hundred settlements between Nablus and Jerusalem, no stones will be thrown. If that shall be the case, the Arabs could only run around like cockroaches in a bottle, like drugged cockroaches inside a bottle."  Israel and their usual supporters considered him a war hero to be admired.  Judge for yourself.

 30/10/07

A FOL reader shares Conal Urquhart’s report in the Guardian, 21 October 2007: “Israel shaken by troops' tales of brutality against Palestinians”

“. . . It's 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He [the officer] suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He was from the combat engineers.

'He grabbed the boy. I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left. We are all there, jaws dropping, looking at him in shock. . . ‘The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing.’” http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2196019,00.html