Rue

I have taken great care to clearly respond to a plethora of misrepresentations of Higgly and Buffy. I regret it took so long but they have engaged in countless misrepresentations thinking no one will take the time to challenge them. I will now conclude by addressing the following myths and misrepresentations they have engaged in; 1-only Palestinians were displaced by the conflict As I stated above and documented, Palestinians left their homes in 1947-49 for a variety of reasons and Higgly's attempts to try revise history or Buffy's attempt to refer to a discredited writer Benny Morris who got caught lying and misrepresenting facts to try distort historic fact will not change the facts. It is a fact admitted by the Muslim world, that thousands of wealthy Arabs left in anticipation of a war, and thousands more responded to Arab leaders' calls to get out of the way of the advancing armies, a handful were expelled, but most simply fled to avoid being caught in the cross fire of a battle. Buffy can look for revisionists to try change this, but I deliberately quoted people who are anti-Israel or not pro-Israel to show trying to suggest it was all a ploy by Jews to get Palestinians out is absolute bull shit. Today many people like Buffy and Higgly who are not interested in actual historic fact will make subjective claims that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Palestinians became refugees in 1947-49. In fact the last census was taken by the British in 1945 and it is public doman and found approximately 1.2 million permanent Arab residents in all of Palestine. A 1949 Government of Israel census counted 160,000 Arabs living in the country after the war. In 1947, a total of 809,100 Arabs lived in the same area according to British surveys. This means no more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become refugees. In fact a report by the UN Mediator on Palestine provided an even lower figure — 472,000, and calculated that only about 360,000 Arab refugees required aid. All of the above can be referenced as follows; Arieh Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession, (NJ: Transaction Books, 1984), p. 272; Kedar, Benjamin. The Changing Land Between the Jordan and the Sea. (Israel: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, 1999), p. 206; Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, (NY: Harper & Row, 1987), p. 529. Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine, Submitted to the Secretary-General for Transmission to the Members of the United Nations, General Assembly Official Records: Third Session, Supplement No.11 (A\648), Paris, 1948, p. 47 and Supplement No. 11A (A\689, and A\689\Add.1, p. 5; and "Conclusions From Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine," (September 16, 1948), U.N. doc. A/648 (part one, p. 29; part two, p. 23 and part three, p. 11), (September 18, 1948). IN FACT 900,000 Jews far more then the actual number of displaced Palestinians were also displaced. The difference is Israel absorbed 700,000 of them. What has the Arab League nations done? They deliberately placed the Palestinians in refugee camps and told the world they would stay there as a reminder to the world that the land must be given back to them. The Arab League nations and the Muslim world of the Middle East consists of 99.6% of its geographic area and all of its oil reserves which have garnered it billions and ter since 1949 it has never allowed Palestinians to settle in its countries NOR HAS IT PAID ONE PENNY IN AID TO PALESTINIANS and limited its financial support only to terrorist cells. Since world war two ove 100 million people have been displaced including all the Jews from Europe in the holocaust and 900,000 Jews of the Middle East and yet only when it comes to Palestinians do we hear this notion that the descendants of Palestinians displaced from the conflict are refugees and entitled to return to Israel and full compensation. No descendant of any refugee under international law has been entitled to compensation but the Arab world would have us believe Palestinian descendants are different. We are to believe although Jordan has had a law of return guaranteeing all Palestinians automatic citizenship in Jordan that this is not good enough. We are to believe no Arab country particularly the ones that started the war against Israel and caused the problem in the first place, should be absolved of any responsibility and everything be blamed on Israel. Israel is racist for wanting a Jewish state, but its not racist for Muslims to have Muslim states. Israel is racist for having a law of return for Jews, but Jordan's law of retturn is not. The fact that Jews are not allowed and were never allowed to own land or have citizenship in the Arab world to this day is not racist, but Israel which affords its Muslims the exact same rights as Jews is. Israel we are told engages in genocide and yet within its borders, the Muslim population has grown 24 times the rate of Jews and outside Israel the Palestinian population has exploded at a 100 to 1 rate compared to Jews. Jews are involved in genocide of Palestinians but provide 300,000 schooling in Israel and provide hospitalization to any Palestinian who requests it. The IDF mass exterminates Palestinians and then risks its lives to save them from Hamas and terrorists and rush them to hospitals. How is it Israel engages in genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians but; 1-in Gaza, for example, the population increased from 731,000 in July 1994 to 1,324,991 in 2004, an increase of 81 percent 2-the growth rate was 3.8 percent, one of the highest in the world 3- according to the UN, the total Palestinian population in all the disputed territories (they include Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem) was 1,006,000 in 1950, and rose to 1,094,000 in 1970, and exploded to 2,152,000 in 1990. How is it if Israel is engaged in genocide and hates Palestinians- it offered to withdraw from 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of Gaza only to have Arafat tell the world he could care less and never had any intention of making peace with Israel and Oslo was just a stepping stone on the way to recovering all of Israel and Jordan? How is it Arafat and his Fatah terrorist cells and Hamas all had charters expressly stating along with Hezbollah that Israel must be wiped out and all Jews around the world were considered the enemy and yet Israel is the one portrayed as the racist evil perpetrator of genocide? Finally we saw Higgly try suggest he was in the Gaza and held a cowering woman in his arms and we have heard arm-chair expert Buffy advise us all of how evil the IDF is. So then given the IDF is evil why would they ensure that humanitarian assistance is provided to Palestinians in need? Here, let us have Buffy explain why Palestinians stated that during just one 48-hour period (January 5-6, 2003), the IDF: 1-coordinated the movement of Palestinians seeking medical care, assisting 40 to go to hospitals, including four patients from Gaza who were transferred to Israel for medical treatment 2-Coordinated the movement of 284 Palestinians in the West Bank who were transferred by ambulance 3-Coordinated the passage of building materials for the construction of a hospital in Kalkilya 4-Coordinated the passage of humanitarian goods to Bethlehem 5-Coordinated entry of ration cards sent by an international aid organization to the residents of Azoun 6-Enabled the distribution of ration cards by the Red Cross in Salfit 7-Coordinated the passage of agricultural produce and food between Muassi and Khan Yunis 8-Coordinated the passage of an UNRWA team in Gaza to aid in the disposal of rubbish 9-Arranged entry into Kalkilya for an Israeli Arab family from East Jerusalem to attend their son’s wedding. Ah yes But Buffy is an expert and Higgly knows all Israelis are psychopaths. They are all evil. Higgly has met them all.

BUFFY AND HIGGLY:S ACCUSATIONS OF ISRAEL OCCUPYING GAZA AND THE WEST BANK, USING CHILDEN AS SHIELDS, etc. In Buffy’s world the Israeli Defence Force is an agent of evil that kills children and innocent Palestinian civilians. She feels they use children as shields. She is backed up by Higgly who provides a story of a Palestinian cowering in his arms. So I will now carefully respond to the myths they have raised. 1. Israel occupies The West Bank Under international law a state must first exist and be sovereign to then be occupied. The West Bank in fact is disputed territory that has never been defined as part of a state so it can not be legally occupied. Layman not understanding international law, simply use the word occupied such as Higgly and Buffy. They remain oblivious to the fact that each time they use such a word they simply reflect their legal ignorance of the concept of occupation. Now let us talk about the notion Israel is illegally occupying the West Bank in violation of the Geneva Convention. Again that is a myth. It doesn’t violate the Geneva Convention because it is present on the West Bank. In fact under the Geneva Convention if Israel chooses to have civilians live on the West Bank and administer them with its civilian government, it must then offer all Muslims of the West Bank citizenship of Israel. If Israel does not wish to give citizenship to the Muslims of the West Bank, then it must administer its citizens through the Israeli military until the dispute as to who owns the West Bank can be resolved. Israel is in violation of the convention not because it occupies, but because it administers its civilians with its civilian government and not its military. Israel contends this is a technicality since no Muslim on the West Bank wants to live in Israel anyways. The practical reality works like this. Since 1949, terrorists have continually operated from the West Bank and Gaza attacking Israel. Buffy lives in Canada and has no clue of the small distance between the West Bank and Gaza and Israel. She has no idea what that means and how easy that makes it for terrorists to infiltrate into Israel and kill people and continually shoot missiles at Israelis making it impossible for them to live. Israel in return unable to be left alone within its 1967 borders, then sends its army onto the West Bank and into Gaza to try stop the terrorists and missile attacks-each terrorist act gets retaliated against and a cycle of tit for tat begins with civilians on both sides caught in between dying. Israel made a huge error in this way. When it sent settlers on to the West Bank it had no satellite technology. Its only way to monitor and keep track of Palestinian terrorists was either through patrols (highly inefficient) or by settlement posts serving as early warning posts. So it set up these settlements like frontier posts. Instead of deterring terrorists, it infuriated ordinary West Bank Palestinians causing drive by shootings and trapping the IDF between Israeli settlers and Palestinian West Bankers trying to prevent them from fighting each other. Israel said repeatedly to Arafat to control the terror and they would get out. Israel thought they had a deal in the Oslo Accord. They in fact began pulling settlers out, but Arafat then told the world he never had any intention of making any kind of peace settlement with Israel and as Israel began pulling out its settlers ordered full scale terror attacks on Israel from Fatah, Islamic Jihad, etc. As much as people like Higgly want to portray Sharon as a psychopath he inherited a country whose Premier before him offered Arafat 97% of all the land Arafat asked for only to be told by Arafat he was only posturing and Arafat would now not stop until Israel was wiped off the map. Sharon inherited a country made a fool of by Arafat. It is public domain how Arafat violated the Oslo accord. It is public domain for anyone to read his speeches and his comments and the comments of the former Israeli Premier before Sharon and Bill Clinton. Arafat was clear the Oslo Accord to him was a joke. Some said it was a flawed accord in the sense that economically the West Bank could not survive on its own, but those detractors also conceded the Oslo Accord could work, if there was a common market between Israel, Jordan and the Palestine nation of the West Bank. The problem with that was both Arafat and Hamas made it clear they did not want a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. In their vision all of Israel and Jordan, the Gaza and West Bank must be a Muslim state. All you have to do is read what Arafat said. Arafat became a multi-billionaire stealing aid money from his people and peddling heroin. He had an opportunity to create a nation. Israel signed an accord saying they would help him build a Palestinian state and he laughed off Clinton. In fact, most other disputed territories around the world are not referred to as being occupied by the party that controls them. This is true, for example, of tof Kashmir. Occupation typically refers to foreign control of an area that was under the previous sovereignty of another state. In the case of the West Bank, there was no legitimate sovereign because the territory had been illegally occupied by Jordan from 1948 to 1967. Only two countries — Britain and Pakistan — recognized Jordan's action. The Palestinians never demanded an end to Jordanian occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state. It is also important to distinguish the acquisition of territory in a war of conquest as opposed to a war of self-defense. A nation that attacks another and then retains the territory it conquers is an occupier. One that gains territory in the course of defending itself is not in the same category. And this is the situation with Israel, which specifically told King Hussein that if Jordan stayed out of the 1967 war, Israel would not fight against him. Hussein ignored the warning and attacked Israel. While fending off the assault and driving out the invading Jordanian troops, Israel came to control the West Bank. By rejecting Arab demands that Israel be required to withdraw from all the territories won in 1967, the UN Security Council, in Resolution 242, acknowledged that Israel was entitled to claim at least part of these lands for new defensible borders. Since Oslo, the case for tagging Israel as an occupying power has been further weakened by the fact that Israel transferred virtually all civilian authority to the Palestinian Authority. Israel retained the power to control its own external security and that of its citizens, but 98 percent of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza came under the PA's authority. The extent to which Israel has been forced to maintain a military presence in the territories has been governed by the Palestinians' unwillingness to end violence against Israel and that is precisely what the Arab League, Egypt, Jordan and now Mr. Abbas have said.

THE REPEATED COMMENT BY HIGGLY THAT ISRAEL IS RACIST AND ZIONISM IS RACIST Another one of Higgly’s misrepresentations and favourite comments is that Israel is racist. In fact the Jewish religion’s concept of Jews being a chosen people has nothing to do with racial superiority. It refers to a responsibility to God, to honour God through forming a nation and worshipping God through the apparatus of the nation and that this nation was to be in Judea and Somaria. That notion is one where one worships through a nation to God. It is no different to Jews needing a nation to worship God, then it is for Christians to need to worship God through Jesus. There being chosen is not seen as a racial notion but a spiritual obligation.. It is an ancient anti-semitic slur to suggest the word chosen people means Jews think they are more holy or better. Nothing in Judaism teaches its followers they are superior to non Jews and in fact unlike Christians or Muslims, Jews do not force people to convert or define them as going to hell (as Christians do) or infidel (as Muslims do) if people do not worship through Judaism. Further to this anti-semitic concept which then has been transferred to slur the concept of Zionism as being the imposition of a Jewish race on Muslims and only allowing Jews certain rights Muslims can’t have in Israel, this is completely false. In fact it is Sharia Law or Dhimmitude which Higgly giggles at repeatedly in his comments , which states Jews and Christians are infidel, are not accepted as being able to tell the truth in court, can not own land, must pay a tax on land unlike Muslims if they do not wish to be attacked, are not allowed the same legal or citizenship rights as Muslims and have to make sure they keep their houses of worship distinct and shorter in height and not discuss their religion with Muslims. Judaism does not have such laws. What Higgly skips over is that all Palestinians in Israel in 1949 were granted full citizenship but Jews in Muslim countries after 1949 were all expelled with all their property confiscated forcing 700,000 to flee to Israel without compensation while another 200,000 had to flee to their relatives mostly in the US and some in Canada, Australia, South America and Europe. It is a fact that Arabs in Israel are allowed to own land, vote, elect members to Parliament, have equal access to schools, hospitals, government services, complete and absolute freedom of religion, are not required to serve in the Israeli armed forces, have Muslim Judges and lawyers in the Israeli legal system and are guaranteed all government services in Arabic. In reverse, no Jew has any such rights in an Arab state. It is a fact that Arab states define citizenship solely by native parentage. So this means it is impossible to become a naturalized citizen in most Arab states. When Higgly slurs Israel and suggests it is racist because becayse it has a law of return for Jews which would grant them automatic citizenship in Israel, he forgets no Jew is allowed to be a citizen of a Muslim country or the above and the fact that Jordan has in fact had a "law of return" since 1950 (it became official in 1954), which guarantees citizenship to all former Muslim-Arab residents of Palestine, EXCEPT for Jews. Higgly like many anti-semites who pretend they only criticize Zionists when they make their comments in fact slur all Jews when they comment on Zionism being a concept of Jewish superiority, single out Jewish self-determination. This is absolutely false and it blurs what Zionism is with ancient anti-semitic slurs about what Judaism is. This is why Martin Luther King stated; "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. you're talking anti-Semitism." People like Higgly are the first to cry victim and claim they can’t criticize Israel without being called anti-semitic, but when they criticize Israel do so using anti-semitic stereotypes about the Jewish religion and try present it as criticism of Zionism. In Higgly’s responses on this forum he has shown his subjective concepts as to what he thinks Zionism stands for is blurred it with false precepts as to the Jewish religion and this is why I accuse him of anti-semitism, not because he is anti-Zionist, but because he uses false seterotypes and assumptions of Judaism and then presents them as Zionism. Israel in fact provides the exact same rights to Muslims as it does Jews and Christians born in its country unlike Muslim countries with their non Muslims or in the past and to this day in many Christian countries. Higgly also simply ignores that for centuries across Europe no Jew was allowed citizenship or if they were, it was not full citizenship and in particular Jews were not allowed to own land, vote or engage in certain practices or businesses. He would also completely ignores the system of apartheid known as dhimmitude which today still has both Jews and Christians living in ghettoes as second class citizens in Muslim countries. In Higgly’s world there is of course a selective double standard as to who can have a nation and who is racist. Israel contains about 6.7 million people of which ,1.3 million or 20 percent of the population are non-Jews consisting of 1.1 million Muslims, 130,000 Christians and 100,000 Druze. Arab Israerlis have equal voting rights. I am waiting for Higgly to tell me which Muslim countries in the Middle East allow its Jews to vote, let alone own land. There are currently 8 Muslims elected to the 120-seat Isaeli parliament of Knesset. Interestingly Higgly refers to former Israeli Prime Minister Sharon as a psychopath. This psychopath appointed Salah Tarif a Druze to cabinet and a Muslim to the Supreme Court of Justice of Israel. There are more than 300,000 Arab children attend Israeli schools. It is a public fact that in 2002, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot allocate land based on religion or ethnicity, and may not prevent Arab citizens from living wherever they choose. Since Arab Israelis are not forced to serve serving in the military if they choose not to they do not get military benefits and from a practical point of view they can not get security clearance to work in job sectors that deal with security information. However in cases where Arabs can not get security clearance for not serving in the military they do end up obtaining the jobs Israelis can’t pursue when on their compulsory call up so it balances out and this is why in industries like construction and trucking in Israel, they are dominated by Israeli Arabs. This myth Higgly tries to pass off that Zionism is racism was not even shared by the Muslim world when it began to manifest itself in the early 1900’s in the Middle East. In fact, Emir Faisal the forefather of today’s Saudi Arabian Royal family and father of Prince Abdullah given Transjordan by the British (as well this man’s other son was given Iraq by the British) regarded Zionism as a companion to the Arab nationalist movement, and saw Zionists as a natural ally to fight against imperialism. This is why he wrote in a letter to Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter on March 3, 1919, one day after Chaim Weizmann presented the Zionist case to the Paris conference that; “The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement....We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home....We are working together for a reformed and revised Near East and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is nationalist and not imperialist. And there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other”. Reference to all of the above can be found inl Samuel Katz, Battleground-Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, (NY: Bantam Books, 1977), p. 55. So this b.s. Higgly tries to promote that Zionism is anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian is pure b.s. Zionism is not one simple concept. It can refer to the spiritual concept of believing Jews are obliged to honour God by worshipping him through a state organ called Israel as defined by the Bible as Judea and Somaria, or it can be a socialist one that has nothing to do with religion and simply believed Jews needed a state of their own to escape persecution. In either concept, there is no reference to racial superiority or having more rights then anyone else or being more pure. Judaism does not define non believers as infidels as Islam does. Judaism does not have a Sharia law system that condifies apartheid and treats non believers as second class citizens as does Islam. Judaism unlike Christianity or Islam does not believe in conversion or telling anyone their religion is wrong or treating them as inferiors. Islam preaches non Muslims are infidel. Christianity preaches if you do not believe in Jesus you go to hell. Judaism does not. Yet in Higgly’s world, Jews are evil for wanting a state and that is automatically inferred as racist but when Muslims and Christians in fact codify discrimination and intolerance in their religious doctrine it is ignored. In Higgly’s world we just assume it is normal for states to have Christian or Muslim connections but there can be none with Jews. Ultra-orthodox Jews do not believe Israel can be created until the Messiah returns and does it. Christian Zionists believe Israel must be created so that Jesus can then return and there will then be an appocolyptic war and then we all turn Christian or die. Muslims believe the entire world is infidel unless Muslim and do not differentiate state from Islam. The point is there are many religions with people who interperate these religions in many ways. In Higgly’s world we ignore that.

THE HIGGLY MYTH THAT ISRAEL IS PALESTINE In Higgly’s misrepresentations the land promised to Jews never existed and Jordan, Lebanon and Syria were not created illegally, they just were always there and we should ignore how they got there. We are to simply assume Palestine is what Israel and the West Bank is today. In fact Israel and West Bank consist of 17% of the remaining portion of the mandate promised to Jews. In fact Israel’s 1949 to 1967 border consists of less then one sixth of one percent of the entire Middle East’s geographic area. In 1948 the UN which inherited the League Mandate now offers Jews a homeland in three small portions of land. In this proposed plan all the rest of the land would be given to the Arabs including all of the West Bank which to Hews constitutes ancient Judea and Somaria. The three slivers of land the Jews were in fact offered were not even connected. Under this proposal they could have access to Jerusalem but it would be cut off from the threee tiny portions of disconnected land along the Mediterranean Sea. 60% of the land given to the Jews was in fact desert on the Negev. Despite the fact that the Jews were given less then 10% of the original land promised them by the League of Nations, the Arab League stated they would never agree to any land going to Jews for a country. In the land designated to the Jews there were 800,000 Arabs and 1.2 million Jews. It was the Arab League not satisfied with giving up these tiny portions of land who decided to wage a war against the Jews to drive them out. Israel did not start the war. The Arab League did and in fact the Arab League was led by a British General and the RAF flew alongside the Egyptian Air Force shooting at Jews on the ground. The activities of the British government to deceive the League of Nations and prevent a Jewish state at all costs is public domain and todaycan be found in the letters of Churchill, Anthony Eden and High Commissioner Samuel. .

THE HIGGLY MYTH JEWS EXPLOITED PALESTINIANS H Historic records show the Jewish population in Palestine increased by 470,000 between World War I and World War II while the non-Jewish population rose by 588,000. This rapid growth was a result of several factors none having to do with Jews being evil as Higgly infers. Immigration from neighboring states by Muslims constituted 37 percent of the total immigration to pre-state Israel and they came because the economic activities by Jews increased the standard of living which in turn attracted them seeking opportunities. Arabs came looking for both jobs and improved living conditions created by the Jews as they drained malarial swamps and brought improved sanitation and health care to the region. In fact te Muslim infant mortality rate fell from 201 per thousand in 1925 to 94 per thousand in 1945 and life expectancy rose from 37 years in 1926 to 49 in 1943. Surveys and statistics show that the non-Jewish population increased the most in cities with large Jewish populations. From 1922-1947, the non-Jewish population increased 290 percent in Haifa, 131 percent in Jerusalem and 158 percent in Jaffa. Contrast that to growth in Arab towns with no Jews where the non Jewish growth was: 42 percent in Nablus, 78 percent in Jenin and 37 percent in Bethlehem.

Here is a response to Higgly's allegations that Jews stole land from Palestinians; In another slur Higgly uses to impugn all Jews and not just Israelis or Zionists (terms he deliberately uses interchangeably in his slurs) he repeatedly suggests Jews stole land from Palestinians. This slur flows from the ancient anti-semitic stereotype that Jews are dishonest, can not be trusted to engage in fair business transactions and engage themselves in deliberate conspiracies to cheat people out of what rightfully is theirs. The stereotype has been used for centuries so now its latest version used by Higgly to smeer Jews who bought land in Palestine is just yet another example of how it is used. The public historic record which exists today in the registry system shows ,the purchase dates of deeds of land by Jews from Muslims. What both Muslim and Jewish history books whow is that when Jews came to Palestine they first purchased land Arabs did not want, i.e., they purchased uncultivated desert or malaria infested swamps. They in fact only began purchasing cultivate land many years later. In the Hope-Simpson Report conducted by Britain’s John Hope Simpson written based on his may 1930 observations to the British government he stated on p. 51 of that report which is now public domain and anyone can access; "They [Jews] paid high prices for the land, and in addition they paid to certain of the occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay." It is also a fact in 1931, Lewis French on behalf of the British government, completed a survey of landlessness in Palestine and offered new land plots to ANY Arab who had been alleged to have been "dispossessed" by Jews. Pursuant to that offer, British officials received more than 3,000 applications, and then ruled 80 percent of them were invalid on the grounds that the applications were not in fact landless just seeking to get land. According to the information which is now public domain, Britain determined there to be 600 landless Arabs, of which 100 exercised their option to get land for free. My comments can be referenced at; Avneri, pp. 149-158; Cohen, p. 37; based on the Report on Agricultural Development and Land Settlement in Palestine by Lewis French, (December 1931, Supplementary; Report, April 1932) and material submitted to the Palestine Royal Commission. In Higgly’s slurs, no Jew bought any land fairly. They simply engaged in dishonest conspiracies and stole the land. Today’s revisionists like Higgly and Buffy claim that the Arabs were displaced by Jews but this does not match the actual historic facts. The historic documents now available show from the beginning of World War I, part of Palestine's land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut and almost 80 percent of the Palestinian Arabs were debt ridden peasants, seminomads and Bedouins. They were unable to own anything. There is a 1946, British Mandate Government surveyof land, ownership in Palestine which shows the following; 70% of Palestine was “owned” by the British government, in trust for a Jewish National Homeland; 8.6% was in fact owned by Jews 3.3% was in fact owned by resident Arabs 16.5% owned by non-resident Arabs. In another misrepresentation Higgly suggests the lands of Palestine have always belonged to Muslims. In fact Palestine which consisted of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Israel was never a Muslim nation. The vast majority of its inhabitants were poor subsistence nomads who roamed with goats. The Ottoman Empire which administered the area was an absentee landlord . Palestine was mostly empty and consisted of desert and malaria infested swamps. It was simply the way you went from Cairo on to Damascus or via Jerusalem to the rest of the Middle East. What Higgly is well aware of from reading any history book, is that in the 1920s, among their final acts as victors in World War I, the British and French created the states that now define the Middle East. Britain illegally and unilaterally created Jordan and Iraq and France did the same with Lebanon and Syria. Public historic documents indicate the British approached the League of Nations and said if it was allowed to administer the Middle East, it would carry out the League of Nations mandate to create a Jewish state in Palestine. The League of Nations Mandate was to create a Jewish state in what is today, Jordan, Israel and the West Bank and portions of Lebanon and Syria. The original League Mandate and its reference to the Jewish homeland is public record. So is the fact thatin 1921 the British illegally seized 80 percent of the Mandate, east of the Jordan River, and created the Arab kingdom of “Transjordan.” for the Arabian monarch King Abdullah, who had been defeated in tribal warfare in the Arabian Peninsula and lacked a seat of power. Because Abudllah’s tribe was Hashemite, they called it the Hashemite Kingdom but the coat of arms of the country makes clear reference to it being a Palestinian state and the majority of its population have always been Palestinians and since 1954 it has a law of return allowing any Palestinian descendant to become a Jordanian citizen while forbidding Jews from living in Jordan. No Arab country allows citizenship to Jews. In fact just before World War Two broke out, the League was about to confront Britain for having violated the League mandate and in fact dissolve TransJordan when the war intervened. What is today Israel and the West Bank is what is left of the original Palestine Mandate – between the west bank of the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea . Jews have lived in this area continuously for 3,700 years and yes even after the Romans destroyed the kingdom of Judea in AD 70. Arabs would become the majority in the area in the 7th century AD. If one looks at the historic records of 1878, harsh political and claimate conditions forced many groups to immigrate to Palestine including Circassians, Algerians, Egyptians, Druses, Turks, Kurds, Bosnians, and many others. Historic records show about 141,000 sMuslims living in all of Palestine (all areas) in 1882, of which at least 25% of those Muslims being foreigner who arrived after 1831 from the Egyptian conquest. (source: Ernst Frankenstine, Justice for my people, London, Nicholson and Watson, 1943 p. 127). In fact of 75% of the Muslims already there they would have been there less than 150 years and many of these Muslimswere not even Arabs. The largest Arab immigrant clans, i.e., Al-Nashasheebi, Al-Khalidi, and Al-Husseni who settled in Palestine in the late 1800’s were in fact given privileged upper class statuts taking over the lands while the rest of the lower class Muslim "Falaheen" were simply exploited as cheap labour.

Hereis a response to Higgly’s comments suggesting all Zionists Are European; The fact is in the 1940’s to mid 1950’s 900,000 Jews from Middle Eastern Muslim countries were forcefully expelled and had all their property confiscated forcing 700,000 of them to have to come to Israel where today they and their descendants make up over 50% of the Israeli population. Interestingly when Higgly accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing he ignores this actual example of how people were forced from their homes simply because of their ethnicity. Many Israelis are from Ethiopia, North America and South America. A large group came from the Soviet Union. More to the point Jews have lived continuously in Israel for 3,700 years including the majority of inhabitants of Jerusalem who have been Jewish and constituted the majority since the 1840’s. The slur Higgly engages in tries to paint all Jews who came to Israel as being Europeans because this would suggest they were outsiders or foreigners and plays to the inference that Palestinians are not. This is typical of the lack of intellectual integrity I question in Higgly. In fact the vast majority of Muslims who came to live in Palestine came from outside the region and they were encouraged to flood the area through a deliberate British policy that restricted immigration of Jews to Palestine while encouraging Muslims to come from outside the area to settle there. In Higgly’s slur, he ignores that 80% of Palestine was illegally seized by the British contrary to the League of Nations mandate and turned into a Muslim state which then welcomed Muslims from outside the area but forbid Jews from living within TransJordan.

I wish to address the myth perpetuated by Higgly and Buffy that today's Palestinian conflict is simply the result of Jews displacing Palestinians. This yth is compounded when people like Buffy who clearly have no clue of the history of the Middle East lecture people to rely on people like Benny Morris exposed for his intellectual dishonesty and inaccuracy to find out what happened. Here are the facts that repudiate Higgly and Buffy;s continued misrepresentations that Jews forced Palestinians out of Palestine. Abu Mazen, stated in an article entitled "Madha `Alamna wa-Madha Yajib An Na`mal" [What We Have Learned and What We Should Do], published in "Falastin eth-Thawra" [Revolutionary Palestine], the official journal of the PLO, Beirut, in March 1976, and I quote, "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland...The Arab States succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people." Khaled al-`Azm, the Prime Minister of Syria in 1948 and 1949, wrote in his memoirs published in Beirut, 1973 that the reasons for the Arab failure to defeat Jews in 1948 was as a result of and I quote, "the call by the Arab Governments to the inhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and to leave for the bordering Arab countries, after having sown terror among them...Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave...We have brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees, by calling upon them and pleading with them to leave their land, their homes, their work and business..." (Part 1, pp. 386-387). Harry C. Stebbens, a civil servant in the British Mandatory Government in Palestine in 1947-48, wrote in the London Evening Standard on Friday, 10 January, 1969 and I quote: "Long before the end of the British mandate, between January and April, 48, practically all my Arab Palestinian staff of some 200 men and women and all of the 1800 labor force had left Haifa in spite of every possible effort to assure them of their safety if they stayed. They all left for one or more of the following reasons: "1. The Arab terrorism engendered by the November, 1947, U.N. partition resolution frightened them to death of their imaginative souls and they feared Jewish retaliation. "2. Propagandists promised a blood bath as soon as the mandate ended in which the street of all the cities would run with blood. "3. The promised invasion by the foreign Arab armies (which started on May 14, 1948, with the Arab Legion massacre of some 200 Jewish settlers at Kfar Etzion) was preceded by extensive broadcasts from Cairo, Damascus, Amman, and Beirut to the effect that any Arabs who stayed would be hanged as collaborators with the Jews. It is true that the massacre of Deir Yassin (always quoted by the Arabs) caused some of the refugees. But the massacre of Kfar Etzion, the massacre of the hospital convoy which killed 48 Jewish doctors and nurses, the continued shelling and blasting of Jewish settlement for more than 20 years, has not caused one single Israeli to move away. They sit tight and if necessary in their shelters while across the river, where the shooting comes from, the towns and villages are deserted, last year's crops still rot on the trees and the refugees move still further away from any trouble. Jamal Husseini, who was the head of the Palestine Higher Committee, advised the Security Council on 23 April 1948, "we have never concealed the fact that we began the fighting." It is public record that on September 6 1949, in the Beirut Telegraph, Emile Ghoury, Secretary of the Palestine Higher Committee, stated and I quote: "The fact that there are these refugees (Palestinians) is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab States in opposing partition and the Jewish State." In the The Jordan daily newspaper Falastin, dated February 19, 1949: the newspaper stated and I quote, "The Arab States which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promises to help these refugees." As late as 12 October 1963, In the Cairo daily dated October 12, 1963, journalist Akhbar el-Yom, stated: "15 May 1948 arrived...on that very day the Mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead..." Public records show that a British police report to Jerusalem Headquarters dated April 16 1948 stated: "Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab population to stay and carry on with their normal lives..." In is a public fact that on April 17 1948, in Haifa, the Arab National Committee refused to sign a truce, and it recorded its rejection in a memorandum to the Arab League Governments which states and I quote; "when the delegation entered the conference room it proudly refused to sign the truce and asked that the evacuation of the Arab population and their transfer to neighboring Arab countries be facilitated...The military and civil authorities and the Jewish representatives expressed their profound regret. The mayor of Haifa (Mr. Shabtai Levi) adjourned the meeting with a passionate appeal to the Arab population to reconsider its decision..." In an editorial in the Haifa Arab newspaper Ash Sha’ab, dated January 30, 1948, it reported and I quote; "The first group of our fifth columnists consists of those who abandon their houses and business and go to live elsewhere... At the first sign of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle." The London Times reported in its paper on May 5, 1948; "The Arab streets are curiously deserted and, evidently following the poor example of the more moneyed class there has been an exodus from Jerusalem too, though not to the same extent as in Jaffa and Haifa." The Greek Catholic Bishopp, George Hakim stated in the Beirut newspaper Sada al Janub on August 16, 1948 that and I quote; "The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab Armies would crush the "Zionist gangs" very quickly and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long The Economist reported on October 2, 1948 and I quote; "Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit... It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades." In an editorial in Falastin dated Feb.1 9, 1949, the paper stated and I quote; "The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies." The Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station on April 3, 1949 from Cyprus stated; "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem." Kenneth Bilby an American journalist stated in his book New Star in the New East, New York, 1950 on page 30-31 and I quote; "The Arab exodus, initially at least, was encouraged by many Arab leaders, such as Haj Amin el Husseni, the exiled pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, and by the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine. They viewed the first wave of Arab setbacks as merely transitory. Let the Palestine Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab peoples to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck, the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea." Here are the words of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, quoted by Nimr El Hawari, former commander of the Palestine Arab Youth Organization in Hawari’s book, “ Sir Am Nakbah ” dated 1952 and published in Nazareth; "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down." Edward Atiyah, Secretary of the Arab League office stated in the 1955 text published in Londo, entitled “ The Arabs” on page 183 that and I quote; "This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country." Again Emil Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee stated in the Daily Telegraph of Beirut on Sept. 6, 1948 and I quote; "I do not want to impugn anybody but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing partition and the Jewish State. The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem." Habib Issa in the US published Lebanese newspaper Al Hoda on June 8, 1951 stated and I quote; "The Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade... He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean... Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes, and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down." Here are the words of a Palestinian refugee quoted in Ad Difaa a Jordanian daily newspaper on September 6, 1954; "The Arab governments told us: get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in." So Higgly can slur all Israelis as psychopaths and Buffy can pretend none of the above exists and the Arab League has nothing to do with the Palestinian problem but some of us unlike Higgly and Buffy read and try learn from what we read.

ACCUSATIONS OF GENOCIDE AGAINST ISRAEL "Ethnic cleansing" has been loosely used by Buffy and Higgly in their alleged mission to tell the truth about Israel. They provide a classic example of how the term is misappropriated and subjectively used. The fact that it is continually used by people like Higgly to describe nay political action they object to shows how misused the phrase has become. In fact the same Jewish settlers Higgly would be quick to call illegal on the West Bank feel they have been the victims of ethnic cleansing and have had their land rights in Judea and Somaria illegally seized from them. Under international law the actual land of the West Bank is yet to be defined as belonging to anyone. The term ethnic cleansing is being used when-ever someone feels they have to evacuate for any reason. Examples of ethnic cleansing would be the holocaust, or Armenian massacre or what was done to the aboriginals of North or South America or what happened in Serbo-Croatia or Rwanda and Burundi. The way Higgly abuses the phrase diminishes its seriousness. The most common working definition of ethnic cleansing as found in most dictionaries refers to the systemic elimination of ethnic group or groups from a region or society as by deportation, forced emigration or genocide. Higgly and Buffy toss the word about knowing it is construed as genocide but then falls back on trying to be ambiguous to play coy. This is precisely the kind of intellectual dishonesty I question. Interestingly in 1992 during the Yugoslavia war the UN General Assembly declared ethnic cleansing to be a form of genocide. The point is to use the term ethnic cleansing or genocide today has become interchangeable and the way it was used by Higgly and Buffy suggests Jews deliberately exterminate Palestinians and have forced them off land and target them simply because they are Palestinian. Their use of the phrase is intellectually dishonest because it ignores the 900,000 Jews foreably kicked out of Muslim countries in the 1940’s of whom 700,000 had to move to Israel because they had no where else to go and were never compensated. In Higgly and Buffy's worlds Palestinians displaced in the war of independence of Israel are solely the cause of Zionists. It has nothing to do with the forced policies of the Arab League which have prevented the descendants of these people from being able to live anywhere else in the Middle East. It ignores the law of return that has been in force since 1954 in Jordan which will grant automatic citizenship to any Palestinian who wishes to return there. It ignores the fact that no Jew is allowed to live anywhere in the Middle East other then Israel precisely because of racist dhimmitude laws.

I may have made a false assumption Buffy inferred she was in the Gaza. If I did I apologize. I will now take the time to respond as Buffy requested in a civil manner; Your use of the the term genocide to accuse Israelis of moral and war crimes insults all Jews and holocaust survivors as well as misuses the term genocide. The actual term genocide was first ued in 1943 by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin who combined the Greek word "genos" (race or tribe) with the Latin word "cide" (to kill) to describe the holocaust. is concept was then incorporated into articles 2 and 3 of the 1948 Convention on the prevention of Punishment of Genocide. Genocide consists of a mental intent to destroy in whole or part a nationality, ethnic, race or religious group and one of 5 physical actions; i-killing members of a group, ii-causing physical or mental harm to members of a group; iii-deliberately inflicting on a group conditions meant to bring about their destruction; iv-imposing measures to prevent birth and v- forcing the transfer of children of a group to another group. Michael Ignatieff when he was director of the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, stated; "Those who should use the word genocide never let it slip their mouths. Those who unfortunately do use it, banalise it into a validation of every kind of victimhood “. William Shawcross has stated ; "[T]he word genocide [has fallen] victim to a sort of verbal inflation, in much the same as happened with the word fascist. It has been applied freely and indiscriminately to groups as diverse as the blacks of South Africa, Palestinians and women, as well as in reference to animals, abortion, famines and widespread malnutrition, and to many other situations. The term genocide has progressively lost its initial meaning and is becoming dangerously commonplace. In order to shock people and gain their attention to contemporary situations of violence or injustice by making comparisons with murder on the greatest scale known in this century, 'genocide' has been used as synonymous with massacre, oppression and repression, overlooking that what lies behind the image it evokes is the attempted annihilation of the entire Jewish race. . . The inevitable consequences of such misuse of language are a loss of meaning and a distortion of values" Buffy in your alleged criticism of Israel deliberately by calling what they do genocide,you necessarily cequate the Nazi genocide with the treatment of Palestinians by Israel. This necessarily suggests the industrialised slaughter of Jews in factories built for the express purpose of exterminating six million men, women and children is the same as what they now present as behaviour being done by Israelis. I would contend this exercise is deliberate and intended to trivialize the holocaust and is a classic form of anti-semitism-it is designed to turn the Jewish victim into Jewish victimizer . It necessarily demonizes all Jews. It deliberately brings the holocaust into the discussion of Israeli anti-terrorist policies blurring the concepts of Zionism, Judaism, Jews and Israelis into one group to scapegoat as evil. You deliberately equate the creation of the state of Israel with the suffering of Palestniian people so that tto justify denying any rights of Jewish people to self-determination and cultural preservation. You have created a double standard in which Muslims are allowed to have Sharia Law and states that do not differentiate religion from state, and a world where the same can be done by Christians or anyone else-but when Jews do it – it this is automatically racist. That contention by its very nature is racist as it selects Jews out and says they can’t have the same right to self-determination others have simply because they are Jewish. This is no longer a matter of criticizing Israeli policies, it becomes an attack on any Jew who seeks the right of self-determination and it engages in the trivialization of the holocaust and using it in a manner to suggest Jews are Nazis. Buffy I expect Higgly to enagge in basic anti-semtiic slurs such as suggesting all Zionists are European or Jews can not be trusted to engage in any land deals and were deliberate liars with a secret agenda. I expect someone like him to toss the holocaust concept about inanely and constantly make slurs that insult all Jews and blur the categories of Zionism, Judaism, Jews and Israelis. I expect him to slur all Israels as psychopaths and then use the memory of the holocaust to do so. This comes from a man who quotes opinion pieces as historic fact and portrays himself as the saviour of Palestinians. But what is your excuse? The term “exterminatory anti-semitism” is used to refer to the exercise of depicting Jews as a collective embodiment of evil dedicated to the task of dominating a group or groups. This is precisely for formula Hitler used to justify his final solution and it is precisely the formula you now engage in. In Higgly's case it is deliberate. In your case it comes from not taking the time to find out what the actual historic facts are and not mix them with political opinions of certain people. I do not doubt the IDF has made mistakes and used excessive force. But to equate what they do with Nazism and to slur all Israelis who simply do not want to be attacked by terrorists as being part of a racist system condoning genocide is intellectually lacking in integrity. I expect it from Higgly, not you. You want to come on this forum and promote simplistic equations that denigrate the holocaust slur all Jews let alone Israelis-you bet I will be annoyed.

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There you have it. Higgly continues to tell us he has been to the Middle East. He also tells us this is why he has determined Israel is evil and Palestine is good and he can make anti-semtiic slurs. Read what he writes and I quote; " it aint the people who were responsible for the holocaust"....how is that possibly relevant to the conflict? The only reason it was raised is to deliberately denegrate the holocaust and once again I state, Higgly never misses the opportunity when making his alleged criticism of Israel to fabricate and make slurs and call names that denigrate all Jews. He then presents texts that are not history books and clearly opinion pieces. The fact he can't tell the difference between a subjective political opinion and historic facts and texts recording historic facts is not suprising, neither is his repeated slurs of the holocaust and insulting of all Jews when he allegedly discusses the conflict.

You did not provide references. What you have done is; 1-present subjective personal political opinions as historic fact 2-when you are caught, present a list of alleged sources, with no page references 3-make a fool of yourself having us believe these sources can be quoted without page numbers, specific paragraph references and be presented as historic fact as opposed to subjective opinions you think you are repeating-there is zero historic documentation or archives-simply opinion 4-even if you repeat opinions of others this does not make them historic fact 5-the sources you did supply without page numbers or paragraphs for quotes are not proof of historic fact 6-the sources you quoted do not even match your subjective opinions 7-I am calling you out Higgly, you deliberately fabricated a story portraying yourself as holding a person cowering from the IDF in Gaza, without a doubt the most pathetic thing I have read yet. Higgly I will debate with others and respond to others, but never again will I waste my time with someone so intellectually void of integrity as you. As for my comments Higgly, any comment I have stated can be found in any historic text book on Jewish history or Muslim history. What is clear Higgly is you do not read historic texts and have no clue what an historic text is and pass off opinion articles as history texts. You want to find out where I get my references from Higgly. Read what I write for a change. Let's start with the most obvious-I make it clear when and if I refer to a text or archive or document. Please I can't wait to hear another story of the girlfriend you held in your arms in the Gaza as she cowered from IDF soldiers with zits.

There have been so many historic misrepresentations by Buffy or Higgly I am not sure where to start. In Higgly's case I don't really care. In Buffy's case, I am concerned someone who is still young and idealistic is not taking the time to scrutinize what she reads, and not simply read what she thinks tells her what she has preconceived as being the only answer. Buffy please stop and think when you write. You have compared Israel and what it does to ethnic cleansing. Do you even know what the word ethnic cleansing means? Buffy people use the word ethnic cleansing and genocide to try gain moral ground in an arguement, but its a tired device. When its used against Israelis, it is deliberately used to turn the holocaust around against Jews and suggest they are engaging in a holocaust which in fact degrades and belittles what they went through. Stop and think when you hurl such accusations and how spiteful they are. Stop and think. DO you really believe ISrael has a policy to exterminate Palestinian Muslims? Do they have train tracks leading to the Gaza and West Bank where Palestinians are placed on trains and then sent to death camps where they are gassed or shot in mass shootings? All youd o Buffy is when you compare what is going on in the West Bank and Gaza as an ethnic cleansing is to show you have no clue at all what an ethnic cleansing is let alone genocide. You throw the words out but you have no clue what they mean and so you trivialize them. You know full well Israel has never engaged in ethnic cleansing or genocide. You are fully aware in Israel, the Arab Israeli population has continued to grow and there are over 300,000 Arab Israelis in schools and that Muslim Israelis have the exact same legal rights and access to schools hospitals, etc. If Israel was engaged in genocide Buffy, how is it the Palestinian population has grown as it has? Why don't you go check out the growth of the Palestinian population? Why don't you take the time to determine just how Palestinian civilians have died and try figure out why it has not been done as part of a policy to exterminate before you suggest it is. There are even members of Hamas that have laughed off people like you who claim to support Palestinians accusing Israel of genocide. Even Hamas laughs at people like you because of your ignorance. Why don't you read what Hamas says about people like you who claim to support their cause? For you to come on this post and suggest Israel has a policy of exterminating Palestinians because they are Palestinian is not even worthy of a further response. I may answer it to others in another post but not to you directly. For you to write such a thing shows, you don't read and think and analyze-your agenda is to incite and inflame and make moral accusations that are deliberate in their intent to disparage the holocaust and suggest another one is happening by the victims of the holocaust. It is basic primative anti-semitism at its worst-trying to blame victims of a holocaust of being victimizers in an effort to portray them as demons. In your world Israel does not try defend itself against terrorists, it simply for no reason, goes into Gaza and the West Bank and mass murders Palestinians. It is not worthy of a further response.

Once again Higgly you show how devoid you are of intellectual integrity. The references you quote are not only incomplete but do not even render the conclusions you do. Pathetic. Some of us read Higgly and we do not re-write what we read to distort it and present it in a way that expresses subjective opinions as historic facts.

I am going to keep my further response to Buffy short. Buffy what you have done is to deliberately post articles presenting one side of a conflict. You have done so because you have a preconception that there is a bad guy and a good guy in the Middle East and you have it all figured out so will come on this forum and lecture people about the bad guy and go so far as to lecture people on who they should read. I have news for you Buffy, there is another side of the story and until you make an intellectual effort to discuss it and instead simply come on to this forum and present one side of a conflict I can not take you seriously. I definitely can not take you seriously when you lecture people to refer to an academic who is even discredited by anti-zionists but you obviously have not taken the time to find out why. Buffy there were 700 Hamas rocket attacks as of July 12,2006 since Hamas began launching them. Since that time each day they launch an estimated 5-50 rockets. On April 24, 2007, on Israel's Independence Day, Hamas bragged about launching 80 missiles. Buffy you have zero credibility and I will tell you why. You sit without any missiles being shot at you. Yes its easy for you to criticize Israel from the security and peace you take for granted. But there is no doubt in my mind if someone was shooting missiles at you, you would want your government to do something about it. As for your comment that the IDF uses children as shields, those of us who bother to read, understand that there was a context to why that was being done, a context you do not understand and I would be glad to explain but at this time Buffy you have made it clear you are not interested in anything but information that backs up your opinion so I will not waste my effort. I will tell you this Buffy, if you have any semblance of intelligence perhaps you may want to ask Higgly when he was in fact in Gaza and whether the story he presented was fabricated. I can tell you Buffy having almost died in Gaza, the story Higgly posted in my opinion just does not add up. For starters Buffy, I know people who live in the Gaza and they do not cower from the IDF. For someone to write that shows they do not understand how in fact Palestinians react to the IDF. It was a tell-tale mistake to me and indicates to me someone who wrote something trying to get sympathy and present a Palestinian as a victim in need of Higgly's help. Its absurd Buffy when we get to the point where someone like Higgly has to try portray himself as a hero of Palestinians. Is that the level you want to lower yourself to?

Higgly stated the following subjective opinions which are not based on historic fact as if they were and I quote; 1-The facts of recorded history, B. Max, are that the Jews who created Israel were Europeans who never lived in the area.and who waged a terrorist campaign against the British until they left. 2-They then declared the nation of Israel and started a campaign to drive out the Palestinian Arabs who were living in the region and many of whom had legal title to the land they were living on in order to create the state of Israel. 3-The facts are, B. Max, that the Jews who created Israel were terrorists and interlopers and that they have created, and continue to create, their country by illegally conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the people who have lived there for centuries. 4-The facts are, B. Max, that the First Zionist Conference sent 3 rabbis to Palestine to invetigate whether this might be a suitable home for the Jews and that those Rabbis sent a telegram which said "The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man." 5-The facts are, B. Max, that Zev Jabotinsky, the founder of Likud, developed a strategy called "The Iron Wall" which meant the use of overwhelming military force to take land and suppress the resident Arab popluation until they finally gave up in futility and agreed to accept the state of Israel. The facts are that successive Israeli leaders like Ben Gurion, Meier, Shamir, Netenyahu and the psycopath Sharon have followd that strategy to the letter, with the help of the United States of America. 6-Those are the facts of recored history, B. Max. All the above comments posted by Higgly are not referenced. They also are his personal subjective political opinions presented as histroic facts. This is precisely why I now tell people on the forum I find Higgly to be intellectually dishonest. He presents his subjective opinions as if they are historic fact. I simply will state this-anyone can go on the inter-net and easily find out the actual historic facts and find out for themelves why what Higgly has presented is in fact subjective fabrication and personal opinion being presented as something it is not. For me its not worthy of a response unless someone other then Higgly asks me to.

In response to Buffy advising the forum to "read stuff" and go read Benny Morris may I suggest she go to; http://www.meforum.org/article/466 The fact that you quote him Buffy at all says volumes about your absolute and utter lack of awareness as to what it is you are professing. Mr. Morris has no credibility with anyone Buffy. There is a reason for it. Perhaps you should find out. And by the way Buffy if you did bother to read, you would realize he is personna non grata with the anti-semites and anti-Zionist world as well now. Perhaps you should find out why.

I have read what you have to say including your comments that Israel was started by Europeans. You have not only quoted invalid references, but many a time you have not quoted references at all but simply fabricated facts or presented subjective opinions and tried to present them as if they were established facts. No Higgly you are not worthy of anyone taking the time to debate you. Buffy I will bother to try respond to. You Sir, can find someone else to bait.

How about going to Higgly's link for making the absurd comment that Israel was created by Europeans.

I heard this routine before; "What's the difference between an Iranian and a Scotsman.." "Um I dunno" "When they go out to dinner the Scotsman and finish their mail the Scotsman just won't pay while the Iranian accuses the Jewish guy at the next table of eating all his food and he insists the Jewish guy should pay." or " What's the difference between the Chinese and the Sieks" " Um I dunno" " The Chinese had to pay a head tax and died building the railroad, while the Sieks died building the railroad and had to pay head taxes" or 'What's the difference between an Englishman and a Frenchman in Canada" " Um I dunno" "Neither does Justin Trudeau".

O.k. so now that it is all clarified someone please gtell Higgly JP Ricciardi is not one of my people.

Sad Rue. Once again you have descended into hysterical name calling. I was describing what was said in full view of the cameras and broadcast around the world by the BBC. I actually thought it might be a hopeful sign. I know it's tough when you are foaming at the mouth but try to stay rational will you, Rue? Of course, when it comes to whining for Israel, nobody can hold a acandle to you. Your response that triggered my response was as follows; “Looking at the posts in this thread, I see that there are the usual whining from the "nothing is too good for Israel" crowd. But of course, these are people who never miss an opportunity to miss an opprotunity.” You clearly initiated dialogue meant to inflame and insult through a negative generalization. This is precisely then why I accused you of being paranoid. Your exercise of creating and engaging in a negative slur against the and I quote "nothing is too good for Israel" crowd is typical of your constant name calling and subjective slurs as to anyone who will not agree with you as to the Palestinian conflict. Since you initiated such name calling I have the absolute right to call you on it and suggest it is your paranoia or can I be even more specific, subjective projection based on your own insecurity. How else do we explain your need to engage in negative subjective slurs? That said you then respond to me and state to justify the above comment and I quote; “I was describing what was said in full view of the cameras and broadcast around the world by the BBC.” I now call you out Higgly once again. You were NOT describing what the BBC said and you know precisely that I did not question what the BBC said. You hid behind the BBC comment because in my opinion you are a coward and will not admit the above comment engaging in the "nothing too good for Israel" crowd has nothing to do with what I criticized and everything to do with why I am lambasting you for being arrogant and smug in your need to insult people you don't agree with. My further comment to you criticized yet again a generalization you made not the BBC. Read your comment. You made a comment that made assumptions without any basis trying to pass off your personal opinion as fact. This has nothing to do with what the BBC reported and everything to do with you insisting on making subjective unsubstantiated comments as if they are facts. That is why I lambasted you. Read what I wrote Higgly. I attack what you wrote. Now read back your responses which are personally directed at me. See the difference between us Higgly is when you fling the sheeyit and its flung back at you, you then try portray yourself as a victim but then engage in the very tactics you claim you are criticizing me for one again exhibiting a blatant contradiction and inconsistency in your comments which makes me question your credibility and personally feel you are an enormous hippocrate. The other difference Higgly is when I respond, I do not engage myself in the name calling you do. I make no apology exposing your comments as subjective nonsense and name calling and calling you out on it. Your playing the victim with me Higgly only confirms to me what I know about you already. I find people who expect to be treated one way and treat others the exact opposite of how they demand to be treated - contemptable and open to strong harsh criticism. Here Higgly read back and enjoy your consistent, non contradictory responses; "Rue.... Once again you have descended into hysterical name calling.... it's tough when you are foaming at the mouth try to stay rational will you Of course, when it comes to whining for Israel, nobody can hold a acandle to you." Tell us again Higgly, how is it you play the victim of name calling but engage in it not just once with your original subjective comments against anyone who disagrees with you over Israel, but then not once but three times above? Do tell us all Higgly why it is you initiate name calling, then respond you are not name calling and try suggest it is dialogue about a BBC comment, and then play victim and then name call again? Come on Higgly do tell us all why you are a victim. In the neighbourhood I grew up in Higgly people that engaged in the above we called cowards because I was taught you must stand tall and be consistent and practice what you preach. What values do you have that have you name calling then switching to claiming you are the victim of name calling? Please explain to me the school of thought you subscribe too that enables you to do that.