Revolution #212, September 26, 2010
Take the Quiz! Israel: Perception & Reality
Part 1. The Origins of the State of Israel, the Palestinians, and the Holocaust
Background to This Quiz: Much of the material for this Revolution quiz comes from or was updated from a fact sheet about the state of Israel that appeared in a previous issue of this paper (when the name of the paper was the Revolutionary Worker). In the spring of 2006, a student at the School for International Training in Vermont posted that fact sheet to an online discussion group. The Dean of Graduate Studies called for a campus forum—not to debate the content of the fact sheet, but to criticize the student who sent it for violating the school’s policy on "appropriate use of the electronic media" by posting "material that may be or may be perceived as harassment"! Apparently a simple examination into the actual history of the state of Israel was verboten. The incident is alarmingly indicative of the atmosphere on college campuses and intellectual centers, where a number of prominent universities have "disinvited" or driven off campus everyone from poets to historians who’ve criticized the state of Israel. |
1. Which of the following statements was made by David Ben-Gurion, a key figure in the founding of the state of Israel?
a) "After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine."
b) "If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them?"
c) "There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"
d) All of the above.
e) None of the above.
2. In a speech to the American-Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Barack Obama stated that "It was just a few years after the liberation of the [Nazi concentration] camps that David Ben-Gurion declared the founding of the Jewish state of Israel." Which of the following two statements is an actual quote reflecting Ben-Gurion's views on the relationship between saving Jews from the Holocaust and establishing Israel?
a) "If I knew that it was possible to save all the children in Germany by transporting them to England, but only half of them by transporting them to Palestine, I would choose the first—because we face not only the reckoning of those children, but the historical reckoning of the Jewish people." [emphasis added]
b) "If I knew that it was possible to save all the children in Germany by transporting them to England, but only half of them by transporting them to Palestine, I would choose the second—because we face not only the reckoning of those children, but the historical reckoning of the Jewish people." [emphasis added]
3. Which of the following is an accurate quote from Moshe Dayan, a major figure in the founding of Israel?
a) "Overwhelmingly, the areas settled by Jewish emigrants were not populated by Arabs."
b) "One of the greatest myths is that we stole this country [Israel] from the Arabs."
c) "Israel is truly a land without a people for a people without a land."
d) "There is not a single place built in this country [Israel] that did not have a former Arab population."
e) None of the above.
4. What was the actual Palestinian Arab population compared to the Jewish population in Palestine at the beginning of World War 1 in 1914?
a) 10,000 Arabs and 150,000 Jews
b) 100,000 Arabs and 150,000 Jews
c) 15,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews
d) 683,000 Arabs and 60,000 Jews
e) None of the above.
5. What percentage of the land of Palestine did the state of Israel seize in the 1948 war between Israel and Arab states?
a) 95
b) 50
c) 77
d) 15
6. The 1967 "Six-Day War" resulted in Israel occupying the remaining 23 percent of historic Palestine—the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem—along with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Syria's Golan Heights. After that war, Menachem Begin, who later became prime minister, made which of the following statements in a speech to the Israeli National Defense College?
a) "The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."
b) "The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. The international community must be honest. We were defending ourselves."
c) "The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai protected terrorists who were endangering Israeli citizens without regard for the lives of children and civilians."
d) "Our military operations in the Sinai were actions of last resort."
e) None of the above.
7. Ariel Sharon was Israel's prime minister from 2001 until suffering a stroke in 2006. Which of the following is he famous for?
a) Leading a commando unit of the Haganah, a Zionist underground group, that carried out terrorist operations against Palestinian communities before the establishment of the Israeli state.
b) Leading an Israeli army unit in the 1950s called Unit 101 which carried out armed attacks against Palestinians. In October 1953, this unit blew up the village of Kibya in the West Bank, killing 69 civilians.
c) As defense minister, serving as the main architect of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon when, in a space of a few weeks, the Israeli military killed 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians.
d) Being charged with "indirect responsibility" by an official Israeli investigation for the September 1982 massacre of 2,000 people at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps outside Beirut, carried out by Israeli-backed fascist Phalange forces.
e) All of the above.
8. In which, if any, of the following major international events was Israel deeply involved?
a) The Iran-Contra Affair, shipping arms to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Money from the arms sales was used to fund the "Contras" who were carrying out sabotage and violence against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
b) The installation of the notorious General Idi Amin as the ruler of Uganda.
c) The slaughter of at least 182,000 Mayan peasants by the death-squad regime in Guatemala during the period of 1978-1984.
d) All of the above.
e) None of the above.
9. To which of the following countries has Israel not sold or transferred substantial military material?
a) The government of South Africa during the apartheid era. Israel observed an international boycott of selling military weapons to that regime.
b) The government of India over the past five years. Israel's policy is to avoid fueling the India-Pakistan arms race.
c) The Islamic Republic of Iran. For obvious reasons Israel has refused to sell or transfer military supplies to that regime.
d) Israel has not sold or transferred weapons to any of the three countries listed above.
e) Israel has sold or transferred weapons to all three of the countries listed above.
Part 2 of this quiz, "Israel and Comparisons to Apartheid South Africa," will appear in the upcoming special issue of Revolution on Israel. For more on that issue, see the editorial in this issue.
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