http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/columnists/reese/052399_reese23_21.htm
Repetition doesn't make a lie the truth -- this is how I know
By Charley Reese
Published in The Orlando Sentinel on May 23, 1999
A recent column of mine pointing out that Palestinian
refugees were also ethnically cleansed brought the usual
spate of hate mail from the Israel First Crowd with the
usual name-calling. I am, in that crowd's view, a liar, an
ignoramus or an anti-Semite -- or all of the above.
Zionism, a secular political movement, hasn't changed.
Arthur Hays Sulzberger, when he was publisher of the New
York Times, said publicly, "I dislike the coercive methods of
Zionists who in this country have not hesitated to use
economic means to silence persons who have different
views. I object to the attempts at character assassination of
those who do not agree with them."
I speak more to the point. The Zionists in America are the
biggest enemy of freedom of speech and freedom of the
press there is. And don't confuse Zionism with Judaism.
Zionism is a secular political movement that would do
anything to support the state of Israel. Judaism is a religion.
Not all Jews are Zionists.
But so you will know, I have invested a lot of time and my
employer's money into learning about the Middle East. I've
had private interviews with Yitzhak Shamir, former prime
minister, former head of the Stern Gang, who ordered the
assassination of Count Folke Berdotte, a United Nation's
diplomat. I've even had lunch in the Knesset's private
dining room, where Shimon Peres and the late Yitzhak
Rabin were sitting on opposite sides of the room. At that
time, they were feuding and not speaking to each other.
I had the pleasure of lunch in the home of Mr. Rabin's sister
and a couple of dinners with Ronnie Milo, at the time a
member of the Knesset and later minister of the interior and
more recently mayor of Tel Aviv. I even had a long talk in
the Tel Aviv apartment of Shmuel Katz, now dead, who
wrote much of the propaganda my critics now include in
their letters. There were long conversations with
Palestinians and Egyptians in Amman and Cairo and back
here in the States. I continue to interview people from the
region, and I continue to add to the list of more than 150
histories, memoirs and biographies relating to the region
that I've read.
I don't pretend to be a scholar, but in the limited areas I
write about, I know the facts.
For example, there's that old Zionist canard that
Palestinians left voluntarily and are not entitled to return or
to be compensated for their property. That was proven to
be a lie a long time ago. To deny that Palestinians were
driven out of their homes is the equivalent of denying the
Holocaust. And the Palestinians were driven out by a
combination of psychological warfare and a few
well-timed massacres.
The atrocities committed by Israelis have long since been
written about in Israel, both by journalists and historians.
Nathan Chofshi, a Jewish immigrant from Russia who
moved to Palestine in 1908, wrote that any American who
wanted to know about the refugees " . . . we old Jewish
settlers in Palestine who witnessed the flight could tell him
how and in what manner we, Jews, forced Arabs to leave
cities and villages. . . . Here was a people [Arabs] who lived
on its own land for 1,300 years. We came and turned the
native Arabs into tragic refugees. And still we dare to
slander and malign them, to besmirch their name."
Arnold Toynbee, the historian, compared the treatment of
Palestinians by Israelis to the treatment of Jews by Nazis.
Toynbee told a Jewish audience in Canada, "The Jewish
treatment of the Arabs in 1947 was as morally indefensible
as the slaughter by the Nazis of 6 million Jews." I could fill
several columns with similar citations from historians,
witnesses, participants and journalists.
Don't fall for propaganda. Repetition doesn't make a lie the
truth.
[Posted 05/22/1999 5:56 PM EST]
