legality of the jewish purchase was re israeli expansion lust adam shostack writes sam zbib writes i m surprised that you don t consider the acquisition of land by the jews from arabs for the purpose of establishing an exclusive state as a hostile action leading to war it was for the purpose of establishing a state not an exclusive state if the state was to be exclusive it would not have arab citizens could you please tell me what was the ethnic composition of israel right after it was formed and no i do not consider the purchase of land a hostile action when someone wants to buy land and someone else is willing to sell it at a mutually agreeable price then that is commerce it is not a hostile action leading to war no one in his right mind would sell his freedom and dignity palestinians are no exception perhaps you heard about anti trust in the business world since we are debating the legality of a commercial transaction we must use the laws governing the guidelines and ethics of such transactions basic anti trust law says that while you can purchase ibm stocks for the purpose of investing you can not acquire a large number of those shares with the intent or controlling ibm you can do so only if you make your intentions clear apriori clearly the jews who purchased properties from palastenians had some designs they were not buying a dwelling or a real estate they were establishing a bridgehead for the european jews the palastenians sold their properties to the jews in the old tradition of arab hospitality being a multi ethnic multi religious society accepting the jews as neighbours was no different just another religion plus they paid fair market value etc they did not know they were victims of an international conspiracy i m not a conspiracy theorist myself but this one is hard to dismiss as to whether the jews wanted to live in peace maybe however they wanted and still want an exclusively jewish state where jews are in control and jews are the masters of the land living in peace is meaningless unless it means living with someone else as equal for a native arab this does not leave many options oh you mean like both jews and arabs being citizens the arabs who stayed are now citizens with as much right to choose who they vote for as the jews again adam the devil is in the details i don t want to get on a tangent here but its the same reasonning that says its ok to return deportes and leave the rest because is a nice number that you can devide by and besides it has an integer square root those palestinians who stayed actually stayed despite of what happened and their number was somewhat tolerated as a defenseless and ineffective minority if i were wrong you d have israel recall all the palestinian refugees we re talking millions after all they are civilians huh the people who left did so voluntarily there is no reason for israel to let them in do you actually believe this my experience tells me that every palestinian i knew still keeps the key to his home in palestine besides they often refer to their exodus as an escape from hell so to speak i know none that agrees with you did you sample their opinions i know you don t care just being rethorical israel gave citizenship to the remaining arabs because it had to maintain a democratic facade to keep the western aid flowing israel got no western aid in nor in or it still granted citizenship to those arabs who remained and how is granting citizenship a facade don t get me wrong i beleive that israel is democratic within the constraints of one dominant ethnic group jews israel probably had a few options after ethnic cleansing serbian style and deserve the wrath of the international community or make the best out of a no win condition show the world how good israel is towards the bad arabs personaly i ve never heard anything about the arab community in isreal except that they re there so yes they re there but as a community with history and roots its dead tell me something sam what makes land arab how shall i explain its a contract between the man and the land control isn t it the ottomans ruled years and then left with barely a trace the concept of land identity is somewhat foreign to the mobile and pragmatic west it is partly the concept of le sol natal native soil i know that jews had previous history in the region but none in recent memory i m talking everyday life not archeology try again you tell me what its isn t but you fail to establish what it is also jews did have history in israel for over a thousand years there were lots of jews slaughtered by crusaders in israel there was a thriving community in gaza city from roughly jews were a majority in jerusalem from or so onwards does that make the land jewish i stand corrected i meant that the jewish culture was not predominant in palestine in recent history i have no problem with jerusalem having a jewish character if it were predominantly jewish so there what to make of the rest palestine adam shostack adam das harvard edu sam zbib bell northern research bitnet internet zbib bnr ca voice fax surface mail stop p o box station c ottawa canada k y h my opinions are my own and no one else s
