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Researcher: Israel destroyed Palestinian books
Ynet
Published: 28.01.10, 20:59
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1. My, what is this?
alex ,   t-a   (01.28.10)
Another Israel is to blame for everything? What is the name of researcher, who funded his research? What sort of a research is that - Destruction of Palestinian ( please define what you mean?) books by wanton Jews? DISGUSTING.
2. What a revalation
Dan ,   Titusville, FL USA   (01.28.10)
Palestinians can read!!?? WOW!! After all these years of blowing themselves up, firing rockets, planning the destruction of Israel who would have thought they had any time at all to learn to read. Now....what about reading COMPREHENSION?
3. The only thing missing
Sarah B ,   U.S.A. / Israel   (01.28.10)
... is the name of the "researcher." I suspect I know why.
4. Books can be replaced , lives cant. This is stupid
JO   (01.28.10)
and this is research???? During WW2 loads of treasures of all countries where destroyed, whole libraries too. This is war and conflict. I count lives more than books, most books can be replaced. I dont know the fuss this is about.
5. A "no name" researcher
Joel Bainerman ,   Jerusalem, Israel   (01.28.10)
Does this "researcher" not own a name?
6. :: Mass biblioclasm
Matty Groves ,   Fairport   (01.28.10)
This story does not surprise me as clearly Israel wanted to remove any trace of the indigenous population that were exiled and refused the right of return from what is now known as modern day Israel. Burning a cultural heritage is the same as destroying the 400+ Palestinian villages which happened around the same time. This story will only add to the long history of Israel’s attempt to "Judaize the country". I guess we can add mass biblioclasm to the list of crimes Israel has committed.
7. Whose massacre it is anyway?
Bob ,   Mechanicsburg USA   (01.28.10)
Whose "Cultural massacre"? Which one do you mean? The culture that teaches its children to hate and kill Jews and anyone else who isn't THEM? Or the culture that they think is theirs, wich it isn't and never was. Their's was erased by their current cultural rulers/dictators, Islam after Islam robbed the owners previous of their lands and took them as their own. They changed their history books to denote no history, but Allah's, etc. Read all about it. Its been in all the newspapers latley. Islam erases every culture it can and replaces it with their own brand of drivel.
8. there were no palestinians than. he means arabs
uli   (01.28.10)
9. Yawn. Like it wasnt done elsewhere in
Joe ,   Ohio, USA   (01.28.10)
Middle East after the Jewish populations there where deported. Two wrongs don't make a right but, after all this time it's small potatoes and really who cares. More self flagellation by some loser looking for their 15 minutes of infamy
10. Books
Hermann ,   US   (01.28.10)
This claim makes little sense and is contradictory. Books were sent to various libraries for storage and use; others distributed to Arab language schools. What great 'Palestininian' culture and history:, when the Arabs there called themselves Syrian and NOT Palestinian as that term used for Jews at the time ? Are there no other copies of same such books in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria etc. What types of books were allegedly destroyed- telepephone books,, literature?magazines,school books ? Was there even an Arabic language publishing house[s] in the land then ? Finally, it seems very opposite of general norms for Jews to haphazardly destroy books to eliminate a 'culture'. What proof is being offered. If popular Arab language books then perhaps only one or two copies retained. If French, France probably has them in its libraries.English language books -why were Arabs writing for the crabs in English ?? Wonder if many books , if destroyed,were out-of-date school books. The autor supposedly is making this his doctoral thesis, the information -if any- will become available if thesis is accepted. At this point the item is all rumor unproved
11. :: Dan - #2
Matty Groves ,   Fairport   (01.28.10)
Yes Palestinians, past and present, can read. Why do you feel the need to disparage this obvious fact? Do you hate Arabs/Muslim so much that you think they are all illiterate?
12. Solutions
Ricardo Macher ,   KarneiShomron Israel   (01.28.10)
It's not the first time that we see what they are teaching at Ben Gurion University. Plainly anything that is anti Jew, anti Zionist is taught by a bunch of post modern "professors". Since this university is funded by the state and they don't have the guts to kick this people out, outside donors should cut ALL aid until they start cleaning the place of traitors. Not democratic? Maybe, but it's much better than to be an idiot feeding cowards who hate themselves and us all.
13. Try but Fail!
Palestinian JEw   (01.28.10)
NO matter how much Israeli's try, you will never expel us from our land, or transfer us to Jordan, or take our culture and dont act like you guys arent trying because you are! The land has always been inhabited by Arabs and Jews but you are trying to make it a Jewish exclusive land which is not right!
14. MATTY GROVES
(01.28.10)
IT IS A KNOWN FACT THAT MOST ARABS LIVING IN MUD HUTS OR STONE HOMES PRIOR TO THE BIRTH OF ISRAEL WERE FELAHEEN, LAND WORKERS THAT WERE MAINLY ILLITERATE AND COMPLETELY WITH NO CULTURE. DEFINITALY NOT "PALESTINIAN" CULTURE, BUT AN ARAB CULTURE. most didn't know how to read. the families that left before the war were mainly the nashashibis and the husseinis, rich arab families with all their trives and children and wives. these were the only ones, these few rich arab families that knew how to read, and there were very few of them. maybe they are the ones that had those books, but i highly doubt that any of the arab felaheed read or used them. by the way, the only education the arabs of that time had was for children of rich families, mostly quranic and arab language education. there were no history, science or humanities books at all in that area and most felaheen never received formal education or literacy in those days. they signed their name using their thumb at most. the books left behind didn';t belong to the regular arab landworker for the ottoman empire and its absentee land owners. these regular uneducated and illiterate arabs were working the land as slaves and living on ottoman occupied land and had no deed and no land and no home they actually owned by deed or legally. the land belonged to the absentee ottoman land owners in syria and today's turkey. these lands were the ones sold to the jews prior to 1947 by these same land owners who were only too happy to charge the jews exhorbitant amounts for these lands because they seemed underdeveloped and of poor quality. the workers on these lands didn;t own them. however, the rich families in palestine did own land there, but not much and were the only literate among the thousands of regular felaheen roaming the land and working for whomever will give them better pay. once jews owned these lands legally via the ottoman sale to jews, most of these felaheen migrated to near jewish villages to find better opportunities in terms of pay, medical care, education (finally!) and food source for their family. they ended up working for the jews to better their lives. and, indeed they did. their mortality rate was cut by half, they started living in better housing, they got better pay and got a free education on the jews' expense while working the land for the jews instead of the ottomans which basically abused them, paid them next to nothing and never gave them ownership of any land. once the felaheen better circumstances reached the ears of others in the arab world, migration of arabs from syria, egypt and even chad and arabia started happening. everyone wanted a piece of the pie, again, because the jews developed the land, farmed it, built hospitals and governmental institutions, schools and clinics, etc...the arabs working in these settlements had wonderful lives compared to the ones they had under the ottomans. most of the increase in the felaheen population came as a result of arab migration into what is now israel and the excellent medical care they got to lower their and their children's mortality rates. hameed aboughaze, iranian need i remind you that back then, these
15. If the Arabs tried to invent something usefull instead of
frank ,   USA   (01.28.10)
this bringing up some nonsense over and over again they would have accomplished something productive. PS. their inventions that the Jews did something bad here and there is old and very tired news.
16. #6. the indigenous population
(01.28.10)
of Israel are the Jews. Arabs are the indigenous population of Saudi Arabia.
17. Arab or Palestina
Leif Erik H.Niclasen ,   Argir Faroe Island   (01.28.10)
Is there a Land call Palestina and where is the location. Or is all Arabic people talking the same way so they understand each other, then you do´nt have to destroyed both Palestinian books and Arab books,
18. #6 combined with de-Arabisation of the Arab Jews (mizrahim)
observer   (01.28.10)
19. researcer:
debbie ,   israel   (01.28.10)
TO MATTY GROVES Yes, and thank god the Jews did judaicize the country. It was a mosquito ridden, ugly, primitive, backwater swamp. If it hadn't been "judaicized" it still would have been the same today. Instead it is a beautiful, 21st century, sophisticated, hi tech, ultra-modern country. If the Jews hadnt taken over, it would have still been the dump that it was.
20. researcher:
debbie ,   israel   (01.28.10)
Who is this researcher? What is his name? How come this is the first time anyone has ever heard this claim, in 61 years of statehood. I've never heard even a hint of it, and I do a ton of reading. Just figures that that cranky bitter MATTY GROVES got his teeth into this and is milking it for all its worth. MATTY, don't you have some better sites to visit, like AL KAIDA and other civilization-hating animals?
21. Am willing to make a wager
Gee ,   Zikron Yaakov   (01.28.10)
The number of books destroyed was equal to the number of 'Palestinian' books written. Zero. Israel and the Jews have never been the book burns we leave that to the fascists, which includes the Islamic version.
22. So you might say Israel 'islam'd' palis culture.
(01.28.10)
23. WHAT WERE HIS SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Zionist forever   (01.28.10)
1) Where is the EVIDENCE? 2) Assuming there is some truth to this matter if we are talking about mainly textbooks it hardly sounds to me like cultural heritage. We encourage schools to recycle old books these days. So we use some old school books to pot plants or sell them to arab schools who are going to use them big deal. The idea that books are being destroyed for security reasons and also being sold to arab schools cheap is kind of contadictory Either they are a threat & must be destroyed or they are no threat and can be sold to schools. 3) Lets even assume that Israel was burning books that arabs consider to be culturally important it had no cultural importance to jews and its not uncommon that when new countries are created that they want to get rid of the previous occupiers history and start fresh with your own. This sounds to me like some probably arab or arab loving jewish lecturer has decided to write a thesis based on unreliable sources and a touch of personal anti Israel feelings all for the purpose of making trouble I suggest that for this guys next thesis he researches how many jewish books the arab countries have destroyed since they forcibly expelled their jewish populations in 1948.
24. #6 - Didn't know "indigenous" meant "economic migrant"
William ,   Israel   (01.28.10)
In the mind of "Matty", arriving as an illegal economic immigrants means "indigenous"....and leaving a war zone after living there for about 5 years means "generational refugee". Funny - the UN doesn't even use these definitions (except for "pals") officially.
25. And who was the thesis adviser, Nev Gordon?
Raymond in DC ,   Washington, USA   (01.28.10)
The very fact that this un-named researcher refers to "Palestinian books" is revealing, since none of the Palestinian Arabs at the time referred to themselves as Palestinians. This tale is also full of contradictions. If the new Israel was out to destroy these cultural artifacts, they wouldn't have sold books at discount to *Arab* schools or deposited so many to the National Library. The whole thesis reminds me of the thesis supervised by Ilan Pappe about an alleged massacre at an Arab village which, it was subsequently proven, was a complete fabrication. And it's not surprising the story has already appeared on al' Jazeera. Maybe that was the point.
26. I hope this man has backups out of the country...
BBSNews ,   Charlotte, NC   (01.28.10)
...and a really good security detail otherwise his research is liable to come up missing, Israel absolutely hates when the truth comes out, particularly during the Nakba years. The fact that Israel is outlawing the Nakba lends credence to this researchers findings, as do so many of the other revelations from the archives being uncovered by the New Historians.
27. #13 - "You're trying to make it Jewish only land"
William ,   Israel   (01.28.10)
No we're not. We have people from all cultures and religious preferences as our citizens. We are trying to make the land devoid of murderous thugs who just happen to use myths and racist Islamic ideology to justify their crimes. Perhaps you are less inclined to mention the Arab massacres 90 years ago that sought to make this Arab-only land, at your expense of course, because to falls against your argument. You and I both know that if Arab violence didnot appear, there would be a Jewish-Arab State today. But after years of Arab violence, and ingrained racism...there really isn't a chance to deal with the "Palestinians". However, if we must talk facts, we must highlight that the partition agreement following the Balfour Declarationn did infact move the two populations to opposite sides, and in that fact...Jordan was supposed to be Arab land.
28. I would really like to know what the books were
william ,   Israel   (01.28.10)
If these are the cultural heritage of "palestinians", what are they about? where were they printed? How many were there? I mean - a cookbook or a book of Arab poetry is not necessarily a cultural heritage of any one group. What if the books supposedly destroyed were multiple copies and one copy was infact kept in storage? Where were they printed? Did they come from the host countries when the majority of Arabs illegally immigrated in the 1930s? My trip to Boston to study involved bringing many books from my collection with me. I certainly cannot call them the cultural heritage of every israeli, nor of every American even though I ended up there. The very language in the "research" does smell of the typical anti-State bias exhibited by Ben Gurion academia.
29. Arab Muslims burned the ancient Library of Alexandria
Jake   (01.28.10)
The Caliph Omar reportedly declared, " "If it accords with the Quran it is unnecessary and can be burned. If it doesn't accord with the Quran it is heresy and must be burned." This quote attributed to Omar was made by Saladin who needed to burn down a library in Cairo containing heretical Ismaili texts. Whether it was said by Omar or not, the facts of history are that the ancient Library of Alexandria was burned down in 642 by the Arab army led by Amr ibn al 'Aas, and the books provided fuel for six months for heating the soldiers' baths.
30. #9 - I remember some Jewish cultural heritage...
William ,   Israel   (01.28.10)
being found in sewer water in a basement in Iraq by US forces. I suppose that act, along with erasing ALL Hebrew lettering from the tomb of Eziekiel can be considered Cultural Cleansing. Funny how silent both Ben Gurion researchers and the UN are on this.
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