• PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catM
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    3 days ago

    You didn’t see fit to answer me about how I was dishonest, which isn’t surprising.

    Just to add. You quoted Rifahi as saying:

    "The Jews are a people to be feared… Give them another 25 years and they will be all over the Middle East, in our country and Syria and Lebanon, in Iraq and Egypt…

    … as well as a variety of antisemitism. You quoted Ben-Gurion very misleadingly though, implying that the strategy was in contrast to that, to maintain “a powerful army” and wait until the next generation forgot that Israel used to be theirs. That sort of became the strategy, as time went on and “facts on the ground” eventuated in their way, but it wasn’t the original strategy. Here are some other things he said:

    The present map of Palestine was drawn by the British mandate. The Jewish people have another map which our youth and adults should strive to fulfill: from the Nile to the Euphrates.

    We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.

    The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan: one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today, but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them.

    It’s not a matter of maintaining the status quo. We have to create a dynamic state, oriented towards expansion.

    We do not recognize the right of the Palestinian Arabs to rule the country, since Palestine is still undeveloped and awaits its builders.

    I wonder where Rifahi got his antisemitic ideas from. For centuries, the Middle East was a lot safer place for Jews to be than Europe, and then in the early 20th century, things all of a sudden shifted. For some reason.

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.catM
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        2 days ago

        Oh no! You are completely correct, I replied to the wrong comment.

        I felt bad about it, since I thought what I said was useful context, but the chance of a productive continuation to the conversation is almost 0. So in a way replying to the wrong comment is the best of both worlds.

        Edit: Typo