Rockingham
Banned
-bulgaria lost no land in WW2
-How do you think Israel has more of a claim to it? Before the Israeli occupation, and even now, it was essentially Palestinian in nature.
Best case scenario for mid-east
- Thread starter Rockingham
- Start date
-How do you think Israel has more of a claim to it? Before the Israeli occupation, and even now, it was essentially Palestinian in nature.
Ibn Warraq
Banned
Well, according to my college roommate who was from Bulgaria, Bulgaria had it's borders shrunk after both WWI and WWII. Having said that I could be wrong, but it hardly takes away from the point that lots of countries lose territory after losing wars.
As to your demanding why I thought Israel had more claim to East Jerusalem, well for starters I never said they did, I simply said that Jerusalem was never divided untill 1948 and nobody untill very recently ever thought it should be divided anymore that people propose dividing Cairo, Rome, Damascus, or any other ancient city.
Moreover I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you claim that it was more "Palestinian in nature" before the 1967 war. First of all, up untill the 1950s there was no real Palestinian national consciousness. In fact, when the term "Palestinian" was used untill about the early 60s it applied to both the Jews and the Arabs who lived in Palestine.
When I was a kid, I picked up a book called Exodus by a guy named Leon Uris advertised as "a courageous story about a Palestinian freedom fighter and his passionate love affair with an American nurse." You can imagine my shock upon discovering this Palestinian was named Ari Ben Canaan.
Leaving that aside, you do realize that the first Ottoman census ever taken of Jerusalem, back in the 1840s showed the largest religious group in the city were the Jews, who represented about 40% of the population. You also realize I assume that by 1948 they were the majority and that in fact many lived in East Jerusalem before being kicked out during Israel's war for Independence. In fact, when Israel retook East Jerusalem in 1967, they found the Jordanian had turned many Jewish tombstones in ancient Jewish graveyards into toilets.
Moreover, before the 1967 war East Jerusalem was not ruled by "Palestinians" it was ruled by Jordan. Is your position that it and the West Bank was under foreign occupation between 1948-1967 when it was run by Jordan? I met plenty of people on the West Bank old enough to remember when it was run by Jordan and while none were admirers of King Hussein, none claimed they'd been under an oppressive occupation.
I would simply point out that the overwhelming consensus of observers of the 1967 war was that Israel was acting in self-defense when she engaged in a preemptive strike against Egypt. I even met someone whose father was an officer in the Egyptian army and he said that his father and his father's fellow officers were firmly convinced before Israel's attack that they were going to attack and crush Israel an they were eager for the war.
Now, even if he was wrong and even if Nasser was not planning on attacking and not trying to deliberately force Israel to attack him, no one can call Israel's fight against Syria or Jordan anything but defensive.
Finally, as I noted, the UN in resolution 242 was willing to concede that Israel had the right to keep at least some of the territory it acquired to ensure it had "secure recognized borders."
Thanks for sparing me the need to go look that up! I think the precise rule was specifically brought in as a response to the war of 1967 (although it was particularly directed at Sinai I think). Or to put this differently, Wendell, would the US have been justified in annexing Iraq in 2003?
Three corrections:
1) Once again the UN's stench is astonishing from the very start. Border changes due to successful war shall be outlawed, after the wholesale revision of borders in Europe and East Asia, plus the unintended revisions(East and West Germany, North and South Korea, etc.).
Or, to be brief, X shall be illegal once we're done doing X.
2) Since the Green Line established in 1949 was NOT an internationally recognized border, as the border between Israel and, say, Syria was, the legal situation is somewhat different. Admittedly there are those, primarily the Arab states, which consider the Green Line to be an international border when it benefits them and not otherwise but...
3) East Jerusalem's Palestinian nature 1948-1967 was primarily due to the expulsion of the Jewish population and desecration of most of the Jewish sites in East Jerusalem.
1) Once again the UN's stench is astonishing from the very start. Border changes due to successful war shall be outlawed, after the wholesale revision of borders in Europe and East Asia, plus the unintended revisions(East and West Germany, North and South Korea, etc.).
Or, to be brief, X shall be illegal once we're done doing X.
2) Since the Green Line established in 1949 was NOT an internationally recognized border, as the border between Israel and, say, Syria was, the legal situation is somewhat different. Admittedly there are those, primarily the Arab states, which consider the Green Line to be an international border when it benefits them and not otherwise but...
3) East Jerusalem's Palestinian nature 1948-1967 was primarily due to the expulsion of the Jewish population and desecration of most of the Jewish sites in East Jerusalem.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
This is simply untrue. The first Ottoman census was from 1831, and didn't cover Palestine. There are no other censuses available until 1877, which didn't specify religion because the Constitution had declared all subjects equal. The first figured for Palestine are from 1881 at which time 8.8% of the population of Jerusalem was Jewish. In the sancak of Jerusalem it was a tiny 3.3%. In the census of 1914 the proportion of Jews in Jerusalem had risen to 15% and in the sancak 6.4%.
And what happened to Muslim sites in West Jerusalem?
Also, in all fairness, annexations have to be outlawed sometime. Should we constantly delay it because the next country to do it will feel like they are being discriminated against? In any case, I think the resolution postdated the 1967 war, meaning that it does not affect Israel's claim. What does affect Israel's claim is the lack of countries recognising their right to East Jerusalem.
Technically speaking, as far as I can tell, Jerusalem should still be an international city...
I think he must have taken that from Wiki: The data is given as:
First column is Jewish, second Muslim, third Christian. The last is the source.Wiki said:
The source is given as:
and some from http://www.israelipalestinianprocon.org/populationpalestine.html#chart2
Ibn Warraq
Banned
I didn't get it from wiki. I remembered it from an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post about four or five years ago, though I suspect the source was the same similar, because I remember the figures they gave were roughly 7,000 Jews, roughly 5,000 Muslims, and roughly 4,000 Christians. I thought he said it was a census of Jerusalem, but I might be wrong.
Ibn Warraq
Banned
Have you heard of the Israelis sacking sacred mosques? I've certainly heard many complaints of how they've treated Christain Arab sites, but honestly I've never heard of them sacking mosques, at least not on a large scale, though obviously some Kahane types have been guilty of similar things.
Certainly I've never heard of them turning Muslim tombstones into outdoor toilets and I've never heard of them doing anything like what happened to the Tomb of Joseph, which was destroyed within 24 hours of being given over to the PA after specific promises to protect it.
From Wiki: "Similar to Jordan's treatment of Jewish holy sites, numerous Muslim holy sites (mosques and cemeteries) under Israeli rule in West Jerusalem fell into disuse and suffered from neglect. Some were destroyed due to Israeli development projects. For example, the Muslim cemetery in Mamila area was damaged due to the construction of Independence Park in the center of Jerusalem...[O]ne justification that was offered [for the increasing demolition of mosques] was to "[spare] Arab citizens sorrow..."
Admittedly not as bad as what happened under Jordanian government orders, but it still counts.
Calgacus, your entire quote regarding the treatment of Moslem holy sites literally does not appear in the Wiki link you posted.
Instead, the link clearly states that the urban renewal took place after the 1967 war and that not only were sites of Jewish/Israeli importance also removed but that most of the population moved was Israeli of the poorer Sephardic Jewish branch. Also that much of the area in the former center of the city had been a no-man's land from 1948 until 1967, which undoubtedly did nothing to improve conditions or standards of maintaining the buildings.
The only reference to a Muslim cemetary is the one discovered on the intended site of a proposed Center for Human Dignity, construction of which was frozen by court order following the discovery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Human_Dignity
Instead, the link clearly states that the urban renewal took place after the 1967 war and that not only were sites of Jewish/Israeli importance also removed but that most of the population moved was Israeli of the poorer Sephardic Jewish branch. Also that much of the area in the former center of the city had been a no-man's land from 1948 until 1967, which undoubtedly did nothing to improve conditions or standards of maintaining the buildings.
The only reference to a Muslim cemetary is the one discovered on the intended site of a proposed Center for Human Dignity, construction of which was frozen by court order following the discovery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Human_Dignity
Bulgaria lost territory after the Berlin Conference, after the Second Balkan War and finally during WWI.
This is a map of Bulgaria in 1878 after the Treaty of San Stefano:
This is Bulgaria today:
Ibn Warraq
Banned
Bulgaria lost territory after the Berlin Conference, after the Second Balkan War and finally during WWI.
This is a map of Bulgaria in 1878 after the Treaty of San Stefano:
This is Bulgaria today:
Thank you.
Whether the Treaty of San Stefano ever actually went into effect, being junked by the Congress of Berlin later that same year, we have at least concluded that Bulgaria suffered no territorial losses in WWII.
Actually Bulgaria GAINED a strip from Romania.
Actually Bulgaria GAINED a strip from Romania.
Calgacus, your entire quote regarding the treatment of Moslem holy sites literally does not appear in the Wiki link you posted.
Instead, the link clearly states that the urban renewal took place after the 1967 war and that not only were sites of Jewish/Israeli importance also removed but that most of the population moved was Israeli of the poorer Sephardic Jewish branch. Also that much of the area in the former center of the city had been a no-man's land from 1948 until 1967, which undoubtedly did nothing to improve conditions or standards of maintaining the buildings.
The only reference to a Muslim cemetary is the one discovered on the intended site of a proposed Center for Human Dignity, construction of which was frozen by court order following the discovery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Human_Dignity
Sorry, that was a mistake: I found it here. The relevant quote is from Protecting Jerusalem's Holy Sites: A Strategy for Negotiating a Sacred Peace by David E. Guinn (Cambridge University Press, 2006), although I don't know anything more about the work.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
Yes, actually, it's done all the time. Just google israel desecration "muslim holy sites". Also, I have found references to Jordanian soldiers using tombstones to build a path to army latrines, but not using them AS latrines, which was confusing as it's hard to picture how you'd do that. Also, I can find not one single source to confirm this happened. The Wiki article uses other articles as sources, which are themselves unsourced.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
The Treaty of San Stefano never went into effect - it was superceded by the Treaty of Berlin. It is true that Bulgaria lost a strip of land in WWI - it was that little chunk on the Aegean Sea, which we might note had more or less no Bulgarians living in it at all, and had just been conquered by Bulgaria the year before WWI. So in actuality, Bulgaria was the region called the "Principality of Bulgaria" on the map - in 1885 they illegally occupied Eastern Rumelia, declared independence in 1908, then attacked the Ottomans in 1912 and gained the land below E. Rumelia to the Aegean, and it was about half of this which was given to Greece by the Powers after the war.
Bulgaria lost territory after the Berlin Conference, after the Second Balkan War and finally during WWI.
This is a map of Bulgaria in 1878 after the Treaty of San Stefano:
This is Bulgaria today: