Gaza Aid Should Enable Option to Emigrate

14 Comments / 14 Comments

1. @ Felix Quigley:
   It’s against policy to tell you. It’s a high level conspiracy against you.

2. @ Felix Quigley:
   focuss

3. Please address my point…

   “The big question obscured is WHY is the Israeli ruling elites not putting exactly the proposal of Martin into operation. What really holds them back?”

   If you do not address THAT question and provide an answer, Martin has not actually done so but he does provide a basis for doing so, then you waste your time and everybody’s time.

   This is the question that is never posed in Zionist circles, especially in the most progressive, but it is the key question which urgently need an answer.

   You do not even discuss it.

   Am I wrong? If so state how!

4. Thus, rather than pouring millions into inoperative desalination plants and rusting sewage treatment works, the aid should be in the form of generous individual relocation grants to allow non-belligerent Gazans to seek a safer, more secure future elsewhere, outside the “circle of violence” that inevitably awaits them if they stay.

   This should be the real humanitarian effort to effectively eliminate the suffering in Gaza. This should be the call to the international community: Let their people go!

   Martin nailed what would be a real solution in lieu of throwing money down the drain called Gaza.

5. This is a great article, one of many, very focused.

   So it is with great concern that I read the comments. If you are going to comment then please show some focus.

   When I read it the key point made is that there is a very large number of Arabs who wish to get out, even without being paid a penny, and set up a new life somewhere else.

   “Setting up a new life somewhere else away from the warlords of Hamas and Fatah who destroy their lives. Even if those Arabs have no love for Israel that is beside the point. You can imagine how the discussion can be changed around on these European Israel haters like the British Labour Party. But not on the commenters on Israpundit it seems.

   I have differences with martin, real differences, but those differences also reflect on my own powerlessness, having no presence on the ground in Israel. (I take that back because anything is an invitation to certain people to take and quote a whole book at me)

   The big question obscured is WHY is the Israeli ruling elites not putting exactly the proposal of Martin into operation. What really holds them back?

   Perhaps, and here I just advance this as a mere thought, the Israeli politics is dominated by a type of clique, or set of cliques, and they are all playing against each other, but all reinforcing their powerlessness. I had hoped that Ted having lived now there for years could advance some of his observations of real life there.

6. @ Edgar G.:

   My comment on the article was only concerning the “Stupidity” quote anyway.

7. @ Sebastien Zorn:

   Right now all I can remember about Einstein is that he formulated E= MC2, and his comment on stupidity. Oh yes, I recall that he was picked one night by the police in a European city, I forget which one. He looked like a beggar with his old violin, with no lace in one shoe and string in the other and was hauled away to the cells. On being questioned he mentioned he was due at the palace to play with the king..Prince or Duke, can’t recall. They checked it and it was true. He was part of a quartet…. Maybe it’s just one of those stories that journalists make up to fill columns with..who knows.

   Anyway, the large report you just posted shows me that he spoke from both sides of his mouth st the same time. He didn’t really know what being a Zionist meant, and was a Jew mainly by birth. I always felt ambiguous towards him after he refused the offer of being President in the first Jewish Sovereign Nation for over 2000 years.

   Weitzman was manoeuvred into that position, but this was a cunning move by Ben Gurion which kept Weitzman, -who did much of the work resulting in a state; More than Ben Gurion in fact-out of politics, as they were political enemies.

8. Sorry, I misremembered. AME Zionist Methodist Episcopal Church

   AME Zion Church, West 10th and Bleecker

   AME Zion Church, West 10th and Bleecker

   This is the former location of the AME Zion Church. Though it was replaced in the early 1900s by the pair of tenement buildings that occupy the site today (the historic rendering is from New York Public Library archives), it was once an important center of African American life in the Village. Interestingly, it was farther west than most histories place the majority of the black population at that time. When emancipation finally came to New York State on the Fourth of July 1827, it was a time of enormous hope for many African Americans in New York City. On that day, Reverend William Hamilton announced at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, “[n]o more shall the accursed name of slave be attached to us — no more shall negro and slave be synonimous [sic]”. A New York Times article from 1870 details an inclusive celebration of the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote, which took place at the church.

   http://gvshp.org/blog/2017/02/20/black-history-month-in-the-village-black-churches-no-longer-standing/

9. At best, Albert Einstein should be described as Thomas Jefferson was described by the African-American pastor of the AME Zion Baptist Church on the occasion of the final abolition of slavery in New York in 1827, not by name, but in a way that everybody clearly recognized who he was talking about:

   “That ambidexter philosopher”

   [
   https://books.google.com/books?id=B-MFnQTblDQC&pg=PT29&lpg=PT29&dq=new+york+slavery+ambidexter+philosopher&source=bl&ots=H6TBycNR3N&sig=_E5gkSkCOkmtfk9QON83-G0FODA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwio7oTahp_ZAhVPvlMKHZZjDK4Q6AEILzAC#v=onepage&q=new%20york%20slavery%20ambidexter%20philosopher&f=false

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_New_York
   ]

10. @ Edgar G.:
    Please read this and then say that again.

    Albert Einstein on Israel: 5 Quotes About Zionism From Famed Theoretical Physicist
    By Jonna Lorenz | Sunday, 14 Dec 2014 09:53 PM

    Albert Einstein supported the Zionist movement but often clarified his position. Here are five quotes about Zionism from the theoretical physicist.
    Einstein was recruited to Zionism in 1919, according to the Zionism Israel Information Center, and he worked toward the founding of the Jewish University in Jerusalem.

    “Zionist cause is very close to my heart…. I am very confident of the happy development of the Jewish colony and am glad that there should be a tiny speck on this earth in which the members of our tribe should not be aliens,” Einstein said.
    “I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. …Albert Einstein.

    My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power. … I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain,” Einstein said in 1938, according to The Guardian.
    “The state idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with many difficulties and narrow-mindedness. I believe it is bad,” Einstein said to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in 1946, according to The Canadian Charger.
    “I am in favor of Palestine being developed as a Jewish Homeland but not as a separate State. It seems to me a matter for simple common sense that we cannot ask to be given the political rule over Palestine where two thirds of the population are not Jewish. What we can and should ask is a secured bi-national status in Palestine with free immigration. If we ask more we are damaging our own cause and it is difficult for me to grasp that our Zionists are taking such an intransigent position which can only impair our cause,” Einstein said in a letter in 1946, according to the Shapell Manuscript Foundation.
    Einstein was among 28 prominent Jews who sent a letter to the New York Times in 1948 warning of Zionist facism in Israel.

    “Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the ‘Freedom Party’ (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties,” the letter began, according to Harvard University. The letter went on to describe Menachem Begin’s party: “Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority.”

    https://www.newsmax.com/fastfeatures/albert-einstein-israel-zionism/2014/12/14/id/612966/
    —
    and

    TERRA INCOGNITA: WHEN EINSTEIN WAS WRONG

    http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Terra-Incognita-When-Einstein-was-wrong-330710

    TERRA INCOGNITA: WHEN EINSTEIN WAS WRONG
    BY SETH J. FRANTZMAN NOVEMBER 5, 2013 21:39
    Einstein’s letter to the New York Times in 1948 condeming the ‘Freedom Party’ tarnishes his name.

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    Albert Einstein
    Albert Einstein 370. (photo credit: Courtesy )

    Albert Einstein is everywhere in Jerusalem. Walking at Hebrew University there are framed posters of him on the walls with his pithy comments about peace and justice. In Rehavia there is an “Einstein on Azza” festival where various ritzy yuppie establishments host lectures commemorating the great man. Hebrew University maintains a website describing his achievements and focusing on his commitment to political causes. Einstein was a “committed Jew, he advocated a distinctive moral role for the Jewish people… he always found time to devote tireless efforts to political causes… his ardent humanism led him to strive for peace, freedom and social justice.”

    The scientist, born in 1879 in what was then the Kingdom of Wurrtemberg, had slaved away as a patent clerk while his genius went unnoticed through the age of 30. He developed ideas of pacifism early in life. In fact his renouncing of his German citizenship in 1933 was not an isolated act; he had also renounced his German citizenship in 1896 to avoid military service. In the 1920s he became involved in various anti-war causes, then in vogue. With the rise of the Nazis he traveled to the US in February of 1933.

    In July 1933 the German government seized his boat and in November his property.

    He began to take a keen interest in Palestine at the time. In April of 1938 he declared that a Jewish state was against “our nature” and condemned “narrow nationalism,” preferring agreement with the Arabs “to the creation of a Jewish state.” But he also spoke of pride in “our colonization activities in Palestine” and in favor of the Jewish National Fund “whose energy has started to bring about the transformation of the Sharon desert into flourishing orange orchards.” With the passage of the infamous White Paper of May, 1939, which limited Jewish immigration between 1940 and 1944, sealing the fate of Europe’s Jews, Einstein admonished people on May 28 to “be patient.” Remarking on the Palestinian Arab revolt that had engulfed the country and whose leaders were even then showing support for Germany, Einstein said that “they must have been led into their suicidal uprising by terror and foreign agitators… there could be no greater calamity than permanent discord between us and the Arab people.”

    Einstein believed Palestine should be a model Jewish settlement focusing on social justice, yet he refused to work at Hebrew University, remarking he had a “negative attitude” of the institution in 1933. He disliked the Revisionist Zionists, who he claimed in 1935 “lead youth astray with phrases borrowed from our worst enemies.”

    Had he stopped there, one could argue he was simply a slightly naïve scientist casting himself as a political activist. But on December 4, 1948, he signed his name to a letter in

    “Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times,” read the letter, “is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the ‘Freedom Party’ (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.” He and his fellow signatories were referring about Menachem Begin’s Herut party. The letter used the word “fascist” nine times in several paragraphs. Einstein accused Begin of supporting the “doctrine of the fascist state” and running a “terrorist party.”

    The letter continued: “The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.”

    Supposedly Begin desired a one-party “leader state” and his party had “intimidated the population.”

    It is interesting that this letter was written just a week after the Labor-led government Einstein was so enthralled with completed the expulsion of a 1,100 Christian Arab villagers from two communities along the Lebanese border: Iqrit and Kafr Bir’im. But that wasn’t “intimidation” of a population.

    It is interesting these accusations were hurled at Begin, when in effect such a one-party state is precisely what was put in place in Israel from 1948 to 1977 under David Ben-Gurion.

    Begin’s party was accused of bringing only its “fascist compatriots” into the country, but Labor aparatchiks like Rudolf Kastner, who had saved his wealthy friends in Hungary from the Nazis, were at that very moment being lauded as a Mapai candidate for office in Israel’s first elections.

    Menachem Begin’s demand that the military curfew for Israel’s remaining Arab citizens be lifted in Einstein’s conception was not among the “constructive achievements.”

    THAT EINSTEIN’s letter was wildly inaccurate and hypocritical in light of the realities on the ground in Israel in 1948 is one thing.

    Perhaps Einstein was unaware of Ikrit and Baram; his letter only mentions Deir Yassin, a village Revisionist Zionists were accused of massacring. He could not have foreseen that the Labor party would attempt to create a one-party state and that leading Labor members would say of democracy, after they lost power in 1977, “we will not accept this.”

    But Einstein was aware of fascism. He had experienced the rise of the Nazis. He had seen how they besmirched Jewish intellectuals, confiscated their property and burned their books. He had seen the face of violent fascism.

    He knew the Nazis had murdered millions.

    Yet he felt comfortable describing Israel’s leading opposition party – a party that was the a pioneer in arguing for greater individual rights for Arabs and minorities, and urging less power for the state security services in the 1950s – as a fascist and Nazi party.

    There are many today who reject the terms fascism and Nazism to describe Israel and are offended by those that employ them.

    But one of the tragic origins of the fascism accusation can be found in Einstein’s letter.

    The demonization Begin and the Israeli Right were subjected to in that letter led to the demonization of Israel today, because once Likud triumphed in 1977 the Nazism claim shifted from being a way to impugn the opposition to being a way to impugn the state.

    Israeli professor and scholar of fascism Ze’ev Sternhell claimed just a few days ago that, “Israel is today at the extreme right end of the political spectrum and is being distanced from the family of enlightened nations.”

    He admits that “the last time the Israeli Left held a similar discussion was the period immediately following the debacle in the 1977 elections.”

    A taught line connects 1948, 1977 and 2013. In the 1961 when British intellectual Arnold Toynbee compared Israel to the Nazis, Yaacov Herzog, the erudite Israeli ambassador to Canada, was quick to challenge him to a public debate. But no one rose to the defense of Begin, precisely because it was the Israeli Left who had encouraged Einstein’s characterization and had themselves employed it in the 1930s. It is the same with Peace Now; the group that ostensibly encouraged withdrawal from the West Bank was only founded after Likud’s victory in 1977. The message was clear: Settlement in the West Bank, Golan, Gaza and Sinai was good when “our” government did it, but immoral when the “wrong” people are doing it.

    The hypocrisy of this issue has been well known for decades, but Einstein’s letter helps understand where it came from. Einstein was a towering intellectual, a hero in his own time whose allowed a bust of himself to hang in the Tate and who encouraged FDR to build the atom bomb to confront the Nazis. He was so disastrously wrong in his diagnosis of Israel, in spite of his own experiences, precisely because his thoughts fell on fertile ground. He should have been ashamed, three years after the Holocaust, to call Jewish politicians Nazis. He wasn’t.

    The Israeli Left should have risen to the defense of Begin, to show that there was a red line that should not be crossed. It didn’t, and because of that Israel still lives in its shadow. The next time you see an image of Einstein, consider that.
    ==
    [Though, to be fair, on the other hand (nonetheless, closing the barn door after the horses have fled – SZ)]

    Four years after the creation of Israel, Einstein was offered the Presidency of Israel by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Though moved by the offer, Einstein declined, offering the following statement:

    “I am deeply moved by the offer from our State of Israel [to serve as President], and at once saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept it. All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions. For these reasons alone I should be unsuited to fulfill the duties of that high office, even if advancing age was not making increasing inroads on my strength. I am the more distressed over these circumstances because my relationship to the Jewish people has become my strongest human bond, ever since I became fully aware of our precarious situation among the nations of the world.”

    His simplicity, benevolence and good humour as well as his scientific genius gave Einstein a unique fame and prestige among physicists, even though after the mid-1920s he diverged from the main trends in the field, especially disliking the probabilistic interpretation of the universe associated with quantum theory.

    In 1955, Einstein was scheduled to deliver a speech marking Israel’s seventh Independence Day on ABC, NBC and CBS. On April 17, nine days before the speech, he experienced internal bleeding that landed him in the hospital. He reportedly took a draft of the speech with him to the hospital, but he died the next day at his Princeton home after refusing emergency surgery. The Israel State Archive published drafts of the speech in 2013.

    [T]he establishment of Israel is an event which actively engages the conscience of this generation….It is, therefore, a bitter paradox to find that a State which was destined to be a shelter for a martyred people is itself threatened by grave dangers to its own security. The universal conscience cannot be indifferent to such peril.

    http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/albert-einstein

11. Only people transfer by force (historical examples: India and Pakistan, etc.) will solve the problem.

12. @ Edgar G.:

    “Even Martin Sherman, with his highly exaggerated philanthropic intentions (with our money) know it,”. And THAT speaks volumes……

13. In the words of the immortal Lemmy Caution….”Just Slinging The Same Old Hash”. My big question is that is Sherman KNOWS that Hamas confiscates 90% of the Cement and building materials for their own nefarious purposes, which are to being damage and murder on Israel, why do they continue to send it in……??? ”

    “EINSTEIN…ALBERT EINSTEIN,,,,,CAN YOU HEAR ME….. You’re badly needed here The Israeli govt and IDF don’t know something that that every simpleton in creation actually DOES know.-except for American and Israeli Liberal lefty Jews…….of course.

14. This article is right on the mark. I sent it to Jason Greenblat, yesterday.