<Anybody who is even vaguely conversant with Middle Eastern history already knows
that Israelis deliberately and systematically massacred Palestinians in 1948, that this
was done to drive other Palestinians out, and that a wide spectrum of Israelis was
involved.>
Steve, while I agree with points further on in your post--for example that the beginnings of America were much harder on the natives than the beginnings of Israel were on the Palestinians--I disagree about how widely known it is that the Palestinians were systematically massacred in 1948. For example, I went all the way through a university where the students were regaled with the "truth" as somewhat leftist-leaning professors saw it in the late sixties and seventies, and never heard anything about the massacres. I am not usually cynical, but could it have been because so many of those professors were Jewish? In fact, even though I have always considered myself well read, and very informed about the news from a wide variety of sources, the first time I heard about the massacres or any of the other atrocities by the Zionists was when I made Palestinian friends, and they turned me on to books about their struggle.
I think about 98% of the American public has absolutely no idea about what happened to the Palestinians. If you accept the government's official line, Israel is a righteous state which deserves to exist, and deserves our undying protection and military and financial support. So even though I disagree vehemently with Emile about almost everything else, I do support his right to talk about the massacres here, simply for informational reasons. |
