User:BL/whiteboard
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Laws in the old testament regarding women
Content: Describing how woman were treated in the old testament. Only about the laws. Something on how those laws have affected Muslim-Jewish-Christian cultures.
To think about: Not to make interpretations. Write factually, avoid quotes. Connect to Jewish society 2500 years ago not religion. Use plentiful context.
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2.1 Status of women |
Patriarchial society
(intro)
Laws regarding women in the Old Testament
(who wrote the laws?) (what was the previous laws?) (were the laws the current laws of the society or were they new?)
Status of women
(the plaintiff)
Virginity concept
Marriage laws
Laws about rape
Impurity laws & menstruation
Wovs
Inheritance rights
Capturing women in war
The Palestinian Exodus is the name given to the Palestinian refugee flight that took place during the [[1948 Arab-Israeli war]]. In that flight about 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled from their homes in what would become the state of Israel to neighbouring countries. Despite international pressure, Israel forebade them to return home and their property was either destroyed or expropriated to Israeli Jews.
Today the original refugees and their descendants amount to some 5.5-6.5 million Palestinians.
History
The history of the Palestinian Exodus is closely tied to the events of the war in Palestine that lasted from 1947-1949. One can safely assume that if the war had not happened neither would the Palestinian Exodus. Whether the war was the only cause of the war or not, and what other factors played a role forming the exodus is still today a very debated issue.
Transfer thinking
From the start of the Zionist endeavour in Palestine, the Jews wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine. A state that should be built on Jewish traditions and culture. But the land was already populated mostly with Arabs abiding other religions and customs than the Jewish ones. Therefore the demographic reality of Palestine was a great hinderance for the establishment of a Jewish state and had to be changed.
The most important means to achieve that change was through aliya, Jewish immigration to the land of Israel. But the Palestinian Arabs had much higher birth rates than their Jewish counterparts, Jewish immigration by itself would not be able to produce a Jewish majority in any part of Palestine which the exception of [[Tel Aviv]]. Immigration was also restricted by both the Ottoman Turks and the Brittish and relatively few diaspora Jews actually wished to immigrate to Palestine, most preferring to move to [[North America]].
An apartheid state, akin to the one in South Africa, was out of the question for most Zionists as they wanted an egalitarian state.
The only viable solution seemed to be to partition Palestine. But however the land was partitioned, the part belonging to the Jews would contain an Arab majority or atleast a very large Arab minorty. For the Zionist leadership transfer of a large Arab population was the only solution.
The idea of transfer wasn't 1948, when it actually happened, a new one. In June 12, 1895 Theodore Herzl wrote in his diary:
- We must expropriate gently ... We shall try to spirit the penniless
population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country ... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.
To the Zionists it was of uttermost importance that the transfer plans would not become known to the world as that would lower the worlds support for the Zionists.
- When I heard these things ... I had to ponder the matter long and
hard ... [but] I reached the conclusion that this matter [had best] remain [in the Labor Party Program] ... Were I asked what should be our program, it would not occur to me to tell them transfer ... because speaking about the matter might harm [us] ... in world opinion, because it might give the impression that there is no room in the Land of Israel without ousting the Arabs [and] ... it would alert and antagonize the Arabs ..." (Ben-Gurion 1944)
Moshe Sharett, director of the Jewish Agency's Political Department, declared:
- Transfer could be the crowning achievements, the final stage in the
development of [our] policy, but certainly not the point of departure. By [speaking publicly and prematurely] we could mobilizing vast forces against the matter and cause it to fail, in advance. ... What will happen once the Jewish state is established - it is very possible that the result will be the transfer of Arabs." (Sharett, 1944)
In 1937 the Peel Commission gave extra fuel to the transfer thinking. It recommended that Britain should withdraw from Palestine and that the land should be partitioned between Jews and Arabs. It also recommended that 225,000 Arabs should be transferred out of the proposed Jewish state. This was a huge step forward for the Zionists. Until then, transfer hadn't been discussed as an option with outsiders but now "the Royal Commission" came to the same solution to the problem as the Zionists had. David Ben-Gurion didn't spare the supleratives when he wrote in his diary:
- ... and [nothing] greater than this has been done for our case in
our time [than Peel proposing transfer]. ... And we did not propose this - the Royal Commission ... did ... and we must grab hold of this conclusion [i.e, recommendation] as we grabbed hold of the [[Balfour Declaration]], even more than that - as we grabbed hold of Zionism itself we must cleave to this conclusion, with all our strength and will and faith
Despite the fact that the notion of transfer had been proposed by a royal commission and that Ben-Gurion had seen fit to speak of it in the plenum of the Zionist Congress, the subject was still very sensitive.
The Zionist master plan
From the previously mentioned prevalent transfer thinking and from the actual expulsions that took place in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, some historians have drawn the conclusion that the Palestinian Exodus was a preplanned act. Even despite the fact that no central expulsion orders have been found in the archives.
First stage of the flight, December 1947 - March 1948
During these months the climate in Palestine began to get hot. Hostilities between Jews and Arabs increased and general lawlessness spread as the British declared to end their mandate in May 1948. War was seeminly inevitable. Middle and upper-class families from urban areas withdrew to settle in neighbouring countries such as Transjordan and Egypt. Perhaps as many as 75,000 left in those months. There was also cases of outright explusions such as in Qisarya where roughly 1000 Palestinian Arabs were evicted in February.
This first flight contributed to demoralize the Palestinians and left them virtually without any leadership.
Second stage of the flight, April 1948 - June 1948
2-300,000
Third stage of the flight, July 1948
300,000
Fourth stage of the flight, October 1948 - November 1948
This period of the exodus was characterized by Israeli military accomplishments which was met with resistance from the Palestinians to be made refugees. The Israeli military activities limited itself to the Galilee and the sparseley populated Negev desert. It was clear to the villages in the Galilee, that if they left, return was far from imminent. Therefore far fewer villages was spontaneously depopulated than previously. Most of it was due to clear, direct cause, including brutal expulsion and deliberate harassment. About half a dozen massacres was committed in the Galilee by the IDF during this stage of the war.
Operation Hiram, which was the Israeli military operation that conquered the upper Galilee, is one of the examples in which a direct expulsion order was given to the commanders:
- Do all you can to immidiately and quickly purge the conquered
territories of all hostile elements in accordance with the orders issued. The residents should be helped to leave the areas that have been conquered. (October 31, 1948, Moshe Carmel)
Between 1-200,000 Palestinians left in this stage.
Refugee destinations
Most refugees did not leave Palestine immidiately when their homes were captured by Israel. Instead they left for neighbouring parts of the land until those parts to were conquered by Israel. Because they were walking their options was limited.
The West Bank absorbed 38% of the refugees, the Gaza 26% and Lebanon 14%. The remaining 22% was divided between Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Transjordan proper. A minor portion, the upper and middle-class refugees, that fled in the first stage ended up further away from Palestine because they could afford real transportation.