Sunday, February 14, 2010

Tibi Thumbs Lieberman/Ayalon

Here's MK Ahmed Tibi's response, in part, to the suggestion of Yisrael Beiteinu heads that Israel's border be redrawn to place Arabs on the other, estern, side of the Green Line:

"We are not chess pawns. We did not arrive in the country on planes and we did not immigrate here," Tibi said. "We do not wish to expel anyone…but if someone wishes to expel us, I'll say this: Whoever got here last will be leaving first. That way, there will be fewer fascists in Israel."



That rule of thumb, "Whoever got here last will be leaving first", can work both ways.

How many Arabs are recent immigrants from the 1830s when Muhammed Ali poured in residents from North Africa, and when, during the Mandate, Syrian Arabs and others arrived, illegally, to take advantage of the economic boom?

Read "From Time Immemorial", and Daniel Pipes' fair review, and other books.

1 comment:

yoni said...

this is a terrific point, but my experience trying to use it in conversations about ideology/politics over the past 20 years has shown me that it's a non-starter. there's some kind of general impression that "from time imemmorial"has been "debunked", although my own research in this area has turned up nothing of substance. pipes, also, no matter how careful he is (and he's pretty careful) is widely perceived as a "fringe" character, although i don't see why.