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"We must seek agreement and understanding with the Arab people only through the Arab worker, and only an alliance of Jewish and Arab workers will establish and
by breppp 7mo ago
"We must seek agreement and understanding with the Arab people only through the Arab worker, and only an alliance of Jewish and Arab workers will establish and maintain an alliance of the Jewish and Arab peoples in Palestine"
That's a Ben Gurion quote, who was a socialist and believed in shared class struggle of Jews and Arabs. The rest of your comment is influenced by other lack of nuance
- fakedang 7mo agoWell newsflash, the Israeli socialists and left wing have lost all influence for the most part. The only way you can form a government in the Knesset today is by a coalition of parties, most of which lean right-wing to far-right or ultra-Orthodox.
- hjkl0 7mo agoFYI, the Israeli socialists and left wing have always supported policies of militarist expansionism and the occupation. When there was still a left wing in Israel, the left wing governments built more settlements than the right wing ones.
- oa335 7mo agoBen-Gurion famously preached coexistence publicly (sometimes) but his private messages and memoirs betray his true beliefs: 5 October 1937, Ben-Gurion wrote in a letter to his 16 year old son Amos: “We must expel the Arabs and take their places…. And, if we have to use force-not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places- then we have force at our disposal.” “It is very possible that the Arabs of the neighboring countries will come to their aid against us. But our strength will exceed theirs. Not only because we will be better organized and equipped, but because behind us there stands a still larger force, superior in quantity and quality …the whole younger generation of Jews from Europe and America.” Ben-Gurion, Zichronot [Memoirs], Vol. 4, p.297-299, p. 330-331. See also Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, p. 182-189 https://www.progressiveisrael.org/ben-gurions-notorious-quotes-their-polemical-uses-abuses/ https://www.progressiveisrael.org/ben-gurions-notorious-quot...
- breppp 7mo agoAnd that's the difference between 1937 and the 1920s. In between the Palestinians had committed the 1929 and 1936 massacres which included ethnic cleansing of Jewish communities which predated Arab presence, such as the Jews of Gaza. Interesting to know that your quote is disputed in the original text, as to say the exact opposite.
- oa335 7mo ago> In between the Palestinians had committed the 1929 and 1936 massacres which included ethnic cleansing of Jewish communities which predated Arab presence, such as the Jews of Gaza. What’s your point here? What I’m understanding is that you believe that the sentiment that Arabs must be expelled from Palestine is justified.
- breppp 7mo agoMy point here is that saying it was "the plan from the start" like GPP does, ignores the fact the the zionist movement had became more militaristic as a defensive measure to palestinian ethnic cleansings, which is quite clear from the chronology of your own quotes However, even if you wanted to show Ben Gurion wanted to "expel the palestinians", quoting a single personal letter that is almost unintelligible, that has your quote disputed between "we must expel" and "we must not expel", right after a British committee proposed solving the conflict by transferring Palestinians, is a weak argument