Exercise in propaganda

Letters

Editor: In his excercise in propaganda, Greg Felton (Bulletin Letters, March 14) not only created his own propaganda but also became a history revisionist. I can only recite certain examples out of many possible ones.

He refers to the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan as non-binding. It was voted on by a majority of 33-13 and was as binding as any other General Assembly resolution. He makes the ridiculous statement that 300,000 native Muslims and Christians were dispossessed between Nov. 29, 1947, and May 15, 1948. Without disputing the latter date, which was actually May 14, during that period of time the whole country was under British administration. No such people were dispossessed since the British, who sided with the Arabs, would not have allowed it. Indeed, I am uncomfortable with his use of his word "native." I suspect he meant that they had lived there since time immemorial, which is untrue since Arabs had huge immigration into Palestine in the 1930s particularily. He might be reminded that there was no Gaza Strip until the Egyptians attacked and captured it in 1948/'49. Similarily, there was no West Bank until the Jordanians attacked and captured that area, including the Old City of Jerusalem, at the same time.

He constantly refers to Palestinians – there were no such people until after June 1967; previously they were just Arabs. He stated that more than 400 Arab towns and villages were destroyed during the war. This is a gross exaggeration; of course there were some – in all wars, towns and villages are destroyed. He fails to mention the number of kibbutzim that were destroyed by Arab invading armies.

He fails to register the number of so-called refugees who left the country at the instigation of their own leaders, and leaders of the invading countries who wanted them safely out of their line of fire in their quest to defeat Israel. He also fails miserably to tell us that, whatever the number of Arabs who ended up in camps in surrounding countries, be it 500,000 (according to UNRAWA) or 800,000 or whatever, their host countries kept them there deliberately for propaganda purposes.

The world has seen many examples of refugees being displaced, not the least of which have been in the 20th century. Two and a half million Sudetenland Germans forced out of Czechoslovakia after the Second World War; millions of Hindus and Muslims fleeing Pakistan and India in 1947; 800,000 Jews fleeing and forcibly ejected from a dozen or more Muslim countries from 1948 to the 1960s, and so on – all have been settled in their new countries while Arab countries refused to settle their incoming brethren. Palestinian Arabs have far more freedom living in Canada, the United States and Europe than in any Arab or Muslim country. Tens of thousands of their kin were turfed out of Kuwait after the Gulf War; I suspect most returned to the West Bank where they were not disbarred by the Israelis.

Moishe Dayan could have said anything, but the statement he is purported to have made – that there is not a single place built in Israel that did not formerly have an Arab population – is sheer nonsense. There are dozens of examples but one will stand out – Tel-Aviv was built on sand dunes! Mr. Felton might be reminded that the Al Aqsa mosque is built on the ruins of the Jewish Temple.

So when Mr. Felton complains of Pat Johnson (who is an excellent journalist) exercising propaganda, the former should be mighty careful not to create his own.

I. Bill Gruenthal
Burnaby

^TOP