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| Africa North |
| Qaddafi: The Jews Did Not Forcibly Expel the Palestinians |
| 2009-01-24 |
By MUAMMAR QADDAFI Tripoli, Libya THE shocking level of the last wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, which ended with this weekend's cease-fire, reminds us why a final resolution to the so-called Middle East crisis is so important. It is vital not just to break this cycle of destruction and injustice, but also to deny the religious extremists in the region who feed on the conflict an excuse to advance their own causes. But everywhere one looks, among the speeches and the desperate diplomacy, there is no real way forward. A just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians is possible, but it lies in the history of the people of this conflicted land, and not in the tired rhetoric of partition and two-state solutions. Although it's hard to realize after the horrors we've just witnessed, the state of war between the Jews and Palestinians has not always existed. In fact, many of the divisions between Jews and Palestinians are recent ones. The very name "Palestine" was commonly used to describe the whole area, even by the Jews who lived there, until 1948, when the name "Israel" came into use. Jews and Muslims are cousins descended from Abraham. Throughout the centuries both faced cruel persecution and often found refuge with one another. Arabs sheltered Jews and protected them after maltreatment at the hands of the Romans and their expulsion from Spain in the Middle Ages. |
| Posted by:Glomotch Thavise2856 |
| #15 Mr. Taranto is, after all, a journalist in his own right, as well as editor of the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com, Barbara. He has long expressed concern about the liberties the New York Times takes with reality. His Best of the Web column was the first proof I had that my impressions of the NYT's reportage were not a novel form of madness after all... I discovered Rantburg somewhat later. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-01-24 23:31 |
| #14 "But isn't there some rule of journalistic ethics that should have compelled the Times to disclose to its readers that its author is the man who, in his own country, finished what Hitler started?" What has one to do with the other, tw? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-01-24 23:12 |
| #13 Thank you for your kind words, KBK. I do love Roger Rabbit! Separately, James Taranto had some pointed thoughts on the essay which he shared in his Best of the Web column two days ago: In fact, the Germans under Hitler are not the most recent persecutors of Jews. Many Israeli Jews are refugees from persecution in Arab countries since World War II (and Iran since 1979). Aside from Morocco, no Arab land has more than a handful of Jews left--and that includes Libya. Vivienne Roumani-Denn, director of the 2007 documentary "The Last Jews of Libya," recounts the fate of Libya's Jews on this Web page: By 1941, the Jews accounted for a quarter of the population of Tripoli and maintained 44 synagogues. In 1942 the Germans occupied the Jewish quarter of Benghazi, plundered shops, and deported more than 2,000 Jews across the desert, where more than one-fifth of them perished. Many Jews from Tripoli were also sent to forced labor camps. Conditions did not greatly improve following the liberation. During the British occupation, there was a series of pogroms, the worst of which, in 1945, resulted in the deaths of more than 100 Jews in Tripoli and other towns and the destruction of five synagogues. In fairness to Gadhafi, he did not begin the persecution of Libyan Jews. But isn't there some rule of journalistic ethics that should have compelled the Times to disclose to its readers that its author is the man who, in his own country, finished what Hitler started? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-01-24 22:45 |
| #12 tw has it right, both times. I was going to suggest the Roger Rabbit image, but upon re-reading, it's not a winner. It is, however, a start. |
| Posted by: KBK 2009-01-24 22:30 |
| #11 The Jews will never accept anything except the country containing Jerusalem, Mike N. Before 1948, the U.S. had considered offering Grand Island (in the Niagara River), and the British had discussed a section of Kenya, I believe. The Westerners already gave them a nation. There's no take-backs. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-01-24 16:03 |
| #10 I agree with the Arabs on part of that. Let us westerners offer the Israelis a nation. If they trade with Mexico, for example, I'd be happy. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2009-01-24 15:12 |
| #9 The compromise is one state for all, an "Isratine" that would allow the people in each party to feel that they live in all of the disputed land and they are not deprived of any one part of it. This is not nearly so impressive as it seems. The sentence above is the key to the entire essay. Perhaps Colonel Qaddafi was working with a New York Times journalist to so neatly bury the lede beneath a pile of reasonable text that clearly gets the heads of even the most skeptical nodding. The Arabs have several times put forward the idea of "Isratine." They believe that in a single state the Palestinians would overwhelm the Jews (and the Christians, too) by the combination of greater birth rate and terrorizing the Jews until they left, thus producing the Judenrein land the Arabs have worked toward since 1948. There are plenty of Arabs willing to concede the Jews a homeland of their own, so long as it is not anywhere in Dar al Islam; let the Western nations give up part of their land to the Jews, if they really care so much -- that is their credo. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-01-24 15:00 |
| #8 Qaddhafi has had a variety of feuds with the Islamicists over the years. He's quite happy to say things that get their turbans in a twist. Remember his plot to kill one of the senior Saud princes? |
| Posted by: lotp 2009-01-24 14:08 |
| #7 Hell froze over and a flight of pigs just buzzed by window. Wow. Um. Cool? Maybe it is the start of a conscience shift on the part of the Islamic world. Maybe. And maybe monkeys hold $100 dollar bills will start flying out of my ass too. Maybe. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2009-01-24 11:01 |
| #6 "The Jewish people want and deserve their homeland." Amazing words considering the source. Maybe with age, wisdom does come (after a bit of 2000lb skip-bomb prodding a few decades ago from Reagan) |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-01-24 10:18 |
| #5 Sounds unusually sane for Qadaffiduck, but I've got an idea: He can welcome a bunch of Gaza hard boyz (fellow moslems, ya' know) to permanently live in Libya to show the rest of them how living normally is done. Or more likely he doesn't want |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-01-24 09:53 |
| #4 I pretty much agree with Qaddafi and the commenters. Wow -- never thought I'd say that. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2009-01-24 09:46 |
| #3 Ditto, this is the most lucid, sane thing I've ever heard our of Qaddafi. If the Gaza culture wasn't such a poisonous death cult, it could be possible. But how do you assimilate mindless barbarians? |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2009-01-24 09:18 |
| #2 It seems to me that what Mr. Qaddafi describes, is really what Israel had initially hoped for. The division was, more or less, a UN debacle and a result of outside meddling on the part of surrounding states. In short, wow, I am amazed. I think I will go read the whole thing. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2009-01-24 03:12 |
| #1 Assimilation includes not wanting to exterminate those who...oh, why bother. |
| Posted by: Gabby Cussworth 2009-01-24 00:17 |