Ilan Pappe admits that BDS was not initiated by a “call” from Palestinian Civil Society

[Ken Burch]

38. Because there was never any justification for driving all of those people out of their homes.

There never HAD to be mass dispersal. And if you're thinking of bringing up India and Pakistan...news flash...sixty-eight years after THEY did coerced mass population transfer and those two countries are STILL effectively at war. What was done there didn't turn out to be "no biggie".

And no, what happened to the Mizrahim didn't "even the score". The Palestinian refugees weren't to blame for what was done to the Mizrahim and it goes without saying that that was the LAST thing the Palestinians would have wanted. Why would thay have wanted something to happen that would make it harder for THEM to get home?

Both transfers were equally wrong, but neither excuses the other. And the judgment of history is now clear that all forced population transfers(including those done to Native Americans and the indigenous populations in Australia and New Zealand)were unnecessary and indefensible.

I agree that complete physical RoR isn't realistic...which is why the "compensation, acknowledgment and apology" concept needs to be used as a middle ground. For most Palestinians, recognition of the fact that wrong WAS done to them and their ancestors would do a lot to change their feelings towards Israel for the better. Most Palestinians aren't soulless, heartless murderous automatons. They are human beings who have made both bad and good choices while being put through decades of hell. It hasn't worked to try to crush them into accepting Israel as a state. Why not try something else? Why not try admitting that they have legitimate grievances, that they have suffered far more than Israelis in this conflict, and that they might actually be people of goodwill and reason if treated like they ARE, in fact people, rather than monsters?

It's been fifteen years of everything being done your way now, aranthus. How much more proof do you need that your way can't ever work?