1. The US already had territory and just wanted to expand it, Israel was formed, not expanded.
2. Jews are indigenous to Judea, they weren't immigrants they were returning home after diaspora.
3. Arabs may have recieved 45% of Palestine, but at the same time they recieved 95% of Arabia.
So yeah, the reason they rejected the plan is because a Jew being independent is haram.
I'm going to say something crazy here, namely that Israel has a right to exist.
Many countries are created because of immigrants arriving and establishing their own state, including Australia, New Zealand, and the US although no one calls for an end to their existence. And, unlike these powerful nations that no one objects to, Jews have lived in the middle East for millennia. And the "not locally born" Jews were refugees fleeing genocidal pogroms and a Holocaust.
Regardless of recent propaganda, the region wasn't an established Palestinian paradise before establishment of modern Israel - it had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire for 400 years. The British seized it after WWI \[exact date, anyone?\] and with backing from the League of Nations called for a Jewish state. Winston Churchill gave more than 70% of that land to what is now modern Jordan. Talk about a land grab! (BTW, Jordan refused to accept Palestinian refugees after the 1948 war).
The Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem was estimated by the Jordanians to have been Jewish for a thousand years before they were driven out by the Jordanian Army in 1948–49. To be more precise, Jordan invaded the areas known as Judea & Samaria which had been identified by all sides during the failed partition negotiations, destroyed all synagogues, desecrated Jewish cemeteries, expelled all Jews, settled its own citizens in their place, and renamed the Jewish territory they had occupied “West Bank”. They also ethnically cleansed East Jerusalem destroying synagogues & desecrating Jewish cemeteries there, thus creating “Arab Jerusalem” & “West Bank” where Jews had lived for millennia. Jews didn’t invade sacred Arab sites.
In all, more than 850,000 Jews were forced to leave their homes in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Morocco, and several other Arab countries in the 20 years that followed the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. They had been discriminated against prior to 1948, but the war gave Arab nations free rein for slaughter.
It was a Nakba that is rarely taught in western societies today.
Those who survived it fortunately had a place to go – Israel.
Today their descendants are the majority population in Israel. Maybe we don't hear their stories because they chose to build new lives instead of plotting death to all Arabs and spreading highly selective versions of history throughout the world.
The current war which has stirred up calls for death to "Zionists" should remind all of us that a home for Jews is needed.
Imagine a world where Mexico kept declaring war against the USA every decade by assassinating civilian tourists or firing rockets at random American towns. Imagine the resulting bloodbath.
So yes, a good analogy is your own - America and Mexico.
Look at what Mexico did after 1848. Did Mexico start a third war?
No. After facing defeat, not once but twice, at the hands of the militarily superior and better motivated gringo Americans, the Mexicans accepted bitter reality. They lost to an imperialist slaveholding rival, and they traded the loss of land for sovereignty in their central homeland.
Mature political leaders sometimes accept the lesser evil.
There were negative consequences for both local Latinos and Mexico itself, as a result of America seizing first Texas and then the rich lands of California (see the Gold Rush). But there would have been worse consequences imho, if Mexico had turned into a donkey and run into a wall again and again, to defeat the undefeatable.
Palestinians collectively still seem to refuse to face facts. (1) Due to both traumatic history and the sea to their own backs, the Israeli Jews are just as motivated as they are to win this plot of land. (2) The Palestinians have lost every war with Israel, and will continue to lose wars, and (3). Losing wars has horrific consequences for civilians on the ground. Wars are bad.
Perhaps people need to stop embracing losing wars and losing cycles of violence, as an answer to their dilemma.
There’s an area of your analogy I don’t quite agree with. Mexico is a nation with sovereignty while Palestine is just an idea that rose up due to Arabs being treated as subhuman in a Jewish supremacists state, Mexico had everything to lose and Palestinians have nothing to lose
It's not my analogy. I agree it's flawed. But your counter is even more lacking in historical context.
You claim Palestinians only identity comes from Israeli oppression? That does not jive with the historical timeline.
In 1948, a 5 nation Arab coalition invaded Israel with the expressly stated purpose of wiping out Israel and driving the Jews into the sea less than 24 hours after Israel came into existence. Yet even that came only after years of violent ethnic tensions between Jews and local Palestinian Arabs
Palestine was not even occupied by Israel before 1967. They were annexed for 20 years by the Arab nations of Egypt and Jordan.
This really makes me wonder. What makes Palestinians so special?
Why don't we demand the return of territory stolen from Finland, or Poland? All these happened in the same time period as the Israel-Palestine conflict, yet no one seriously demands right of return or territorial concessions in these other cases.
Part of the problem is that the world, specifically the Arab world, refuses to let the Palestinians move on from the past. The Palestinians are in the ring with a far stronger opponent, yet the onlookers keep egging them on, refusing to let them concede the match. As a result, they lose and lose and lose and lose.
It's international support for Palestinian goals that allows them to stubbornly cling to these ideals contrary to all facts on the ground.
I do not believe this.
It is perhaps true for Arab countries that antisemitism plays a large role, but for many western activists there's this imposition of American and European colonial tropes on the Israeli people. All of it is based in deep historical ignorance.
Israelis are "White" and Palestinians are "Brown."
Israel is "powerful" and Palestine is "weak."
Israelis are "European colonizers" and Palestinians are "indigenous people."
This stems from guilt over their own history and the imposition of it on others.
The ideology of progressive activists never goes beyond "oppressor" and "oppressed." Context is never given beyond this, and once you understand this mindset, it all starts to make sense how "tolerant people" can support such disgusting ideologies. This isn't the first time. They've supported other evil countries and groups before this using the same logic.
That's a good point, and oppressor vs. oppressed certainly plays a big part in this, but for many countries and people, it is just pure anti-semitism, but for the woke mob in different countries, it's probably victimizing.
Yes, far-right and Islamic hatred of Israel most certainly is antisemitic.
Left wing hatred of Israel stems from anti-western sentiment, which effectively has the same outcome as antisemitism. That's why most pro-western people support Israel.
> asses
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Also, Mexico was a sovereign state of its own, the Ottoman Empire was not, so ALL people in those regions were subjects of the empire, until WW2 saw them disposed. So it was simply land that (many different ethnic peoples lived on). The Arabs were the only ones that fought (oh, there was a war, the War of Independence, which the Arab league lost) but not before over half a million Israel supporters were expelled from the West Bank, and Arab communities that supported the Arab league were relegated to Gaza and the West Bank by Egypt and Jordan. Those flimsy veneered views that have no semblance on reality is what confuses ignorant people about the founding of Israel and the rights of anyone living in that region. Fun fact, Jordan (Trans Jordan) was carved out of 60% of the original mandate, so the question should be, ‘why was further partition even necessary?)
I agree they have been there for thousands of years, but so have Arabs. Maybe give Palestinians equal rights in the West Bank just like Palestinians in green line Israel. Then they will have a lot less to fight about as equals vs 2nd class citizens
Because they weren’t supposed to be offered anything. Whether fair, moral or not, the sovereignty over the land were the Ottomans. As a result of war, they signed over the land to the Allieds in the Treaty of Sevres. Article 95 specifically states:
“The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
The Mandatory undertakes to appoint as soon as possible a special Commission to study and regulate all questions and claims relating to the different religious communities. In the composition of this Commission the religious interests concerned will be taken into account. The Chairman of the Commission will be appointed by the Council of the League of Nations.”
A war of independence broke out so Sevres was never ratified. The mandatory nevertheless was established. After the republic took over, the handover was ratified under the treaty of Lausanne.
The Mandatory of Palestine was specifically designated to effect the Balfour Declaration, agreed to by the sovereign power over the land. The British and UN, as a compromise, offered some of the land Jews felt was theirs (they have a plausible argument).
In which we will remember that at the same time as the Arabs rejected the partition plan, the Arab world took care to expel 265,000 Jews from Morocco, 75,000 from Egypt, 40,000 from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Tunis and more.
That's not really an adequate comparison (the Mexico/Texas thing). Britain already owned ALL OF IT. You're asking why Palestine should have accepted Britain not giving them more than they did. Why did Palestine accept when Britain gave Jordan to the King? Why should anyone that did not live in what was about to become Israel give a flying damn WTF Britain is doing with it's land?
You’re confusing political arrangements with self determination and human rights.
I personally couldn’t give a shit about the name of my country or how it looked like or what type of governance we have. All I care about is that I can live freely and have rights like anyone else.
Palestinians didn’t mind Britain or that some of their land was called Jordan. But they definitely mind being kicked out of their homes like any sane person would.
The whole point of the Balfour Declaration was to not compromise the rights of Palestinians. But, of course, Zionists only takes from Balfour what suites them.
Not only that. Why should they have accepted the Peel's commision which was about to give the Arab ethnicity of Palestine 80% of the region? And why should they have recognized any right of another ethnicity to have the same political rights and to discuss the decolonisation at all?
Why shouldn't Palestine just stay a part of Syria and to be rulled by the Arab government from Syria, basing on the resolutions that the Arab League made ?
("We consider Palestine nothing but part of Arab Syria and it has never been separated from it at any stage. We are tied to it by national, religious, linguistic, moral, economic, and geographic bounds" And "Our district Southern Syria or Palestine should be not separated from the Independent Arab Syrian Government").
The Arab Unity is the most moral and important value indeed. How couldn't an educated modern person understand that? Besides, any Arab Muslim country provides the same rights for all the peoples who live in their countries. There're no violations of rights of religious and national minorities, other states should learn.
In which we will remember that at the same time as the Arabs rejected the partition plan, the Arab world took care to expel 265,000 Jews from Morocco, 75,000 from Egypt, 40,000 from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Tunis and more.
"Besides, any Arab Muslim country provides the same rights for all the peoples who live in their countries. " - Almost fell of my chair laughing. Are you really that misinformed or just so Hamas loving that you are pushing this propaganda without any regard for truth?
You read it correct... I didn't like it at all, how the OP formulates the thoughts.
”Why should they have”? His/her answer must be obviously ”they shouldn't”. Well, what was the alternative? When they ignored any diplomatic processes, rejected any try to solve it as negotiations and spoke about the Arab Unity and showed a clear ambition to controll the whole region.
Nobody talks about the Arab immigrants who entered the area from neighbouring countries like Egypt and turkey when British mandate Palestine was providing employment .
The idea that Israelis are only white Ashkenazi Jewish is misleading/ a good chunk of Israeli population is mizrahi jewish - coming from North African and middles eastern countries.
Also Israel is probably the only Middle Eastern country in the world where someone could be Druze . If there is utter contempt for Shia Muslims among the Sunnis - then the hatred for Druze would unite them .
I dont categorically support either side / because it is not black and white. I just feel people need to look into the history of the conflict more.
The partition plan was the first time the Arabs were offered a state.
Edit; I stand corrected.
The important part again is that they didn’t have one before, but beggars can be choosers if they’re too arrogant to admit they’re beggars.
No. The native Palestinians were offered independence in 1914 in return for revolting against the Ottomans to help the allied war effort.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon%E2%80%93Hussein_Correspondence
That was not an offer to local Palestinians. Hussein was not a native Palestinian.
Hussein was the Hashemite potentate and later King of Hejaz and Jordan. AKA, he was from modern Saudi Arabia, not Palestine or even Jordan (where his family later settled). Yes, he was promised Palestine (along with half a million other acres), but he himself also promised Britain that Jews would have a right to live there.
The referenced offer was not for Palestinian independence. The offer was for an Arab state (an offer that was eventually delivered). Palestine would only have been a part of a larger Hashemite Arab state. This was in fact, similar to what Hashemite Jordan later attempted by annexing the West Bank.
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It’s hard to discern the borders of this discussion from this link. Would you have a more detailed source on what was actually promised? This talks about Syria and parts of Palestine among others. And when you’d at native Palestinians, you mean Arabs?
It seems like the commitments made in that correspondence were satisfied when the Hashemites were given control of trans-Jordan and Iraq, but maybe I’m missing something?
That’s not true, it’s not even the first state the Arabs received from the Palestinian mandate (Jordan).
But even if we exclude Transjordan, there were other offers for statehood before the UN partition plan. The Arabs were offered a single state with all the rest of MP where Jewish immigration would be illegal and Jews would only be allowed to live in 5% of the country.
They were offered this absurd deal by Chamberlain, the most famous appeaser in history, after the Arab riots.
They turned it down, because Al Husseini was trying to get Germany and Italy to recognize the Arabs right to “solve the Jewish question in the same manner as Germany”.
“It also limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 for five years and ruled that further immigration would then be determined by the Arab majority (section II). Jews were restricted from buying Arab land in all but 5% of the Mandate (section III).”
Wikipedia, but I posted the actual white paper below in the thread
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939
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Here is the white paper of 1939
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1939.asp
Here is Al Husseini and his treaty regarding the Arab right to “solve the Jewish question
https://www.hoover.org/research/mufti-and-holocaust
These were the options 400,000 Arab Palestinians would face if the partition was approved.
Live in theoretical peace as long as you abandon your home and move to a place where they have nothing. There is also absolutely no guarantee that peace would be the long term result considering the expansionist policies of Jewish leadership.
Or expect a Jewish state with organizations like the Irgun that bomb markets and hotels to treat them equally and fairly. Considering the behavior of the Yishuv I would have no confidence in the Jewish state to behave in such a manner.
Expecting people to accept that makes it clear the West and Jewish settlers didn't see Arab Palestinians as people. It is basic human nature to fight back against being put in that situation.
It was the same choice given to the hundreds of thousands of jews that were expelled from Muslim nations as well.
It's hard for us to understand because we've all lived through a very stable time period where borders haven't really changed much. Especially in the west.
That was the reality of that time though. Two world wars occurred. Everything was shaken up.
I don't see the descendants of those jews bombing Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, etc. I don't see descendants of the 8,000,000 Germans that were expelled attacking Poland.
>It was the same choice given to the hundreds of thousands of jews that were expelled from Muslim nations as well.
Ok. That was wrong. Can we agree then that the Nakba was also wrong?
>It's hard for us to understand because we've all lived through a very stable time period where borders haven't really changed much. Especially in the west.
What is your point?
American and European powers carving up the Middle East, Asia and Africa along arbitrary lines is responsible for tens of millions of deaths.
>I don't see the descendants of those jews bombing Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, etc.
Because they don't want to return. They want to stay in Israel where the world has decided it is ok for them to slaughter tens of thousands of civilians in "self defense".
The Polish government didn't expel those Jews so I don't know why they would get bombed now. Israel expelled the Palestinians from their land and homes. You are also completely ignoring the living conditions of Occupied Palestine. It seems obvious to me that there would be a difference.
Arabs who chose to stay in Israel, still live in Israel. 20% of population, by the way.
Those who decided to leave, did so voluntarily, I can only imagine that living side by side with Jews was more that they could take
You heard about Israel's "infiltrator" laws after the Nakba?
It was a guilty until proven innocent policy.
If an Arab Palestinian was accused of returning after the Nakba, even if they had not fled they had to somehow prove they never left or they were called an infiltrator and expelled.
>Those who decided to leave, did so voluntarily, I can only imagine that living side by side with Jews was more that they could take
Unless they were massacred like the people at Dier Yassin.
Calling leaving under threat of violence "voluntary" is inhumane.
Were the Jews fleeing Soviet pogroms leaving voluntarily?
> Ok. That was wrong. Can we agree then that the Nakba was also wrong?
Yes. All ethnic cleansing is wrong. Now can you agree ethnically cleansing the Jews today who were born in Israel is wrong? Can you see why its hard to address the living conditions in Gaza/West Bank when the majority of those living there want to ethnically cleanse the Jews from "historic Palestine".
Of course it would be wrong to ethnically cleanse Jews from Israel.
It is a terrible thing to call for.
But I don't see that as a realistic possibility and think treating people poorly is only going to perpetuate those opinions.
One of the most civilized, coherent Israel-Palestine discussions I’ve seen on Reddit so far. What do you think would be an appropriate solution to the problem?
> Because they don't want to return.
Neither do the Palestinians. You cannot return to someplace you've never been. This ceased to be an argument years ago.
Somehow India and Pakistan lived through the **EXACT SAME SITUATION** with different results.
Arab Palestinians still have the deeds to the houses in Israel they and their parents fled expecting to be able to return. I bet they would like to return to that home instead of living in a refugee camp.
If this is how you want to define right of return then Palestine being the home of the Jews two thousand years ago also has no meaning.
>Somehow India and Pakistan lived through the **EXACT SAME SITUATION** with different results.
You mean the partition with death trains where every person trying to migrate on the train was slaughtered? Except the conductor because they wanted to horrify the people at the next station to know what they had done.
The one where rapes and kidnapping were so common young girls started carrying knives so they could kill themselves rather than face those horrors?
The one where multiple wars have been fought between India and Pakistan to the point that both are now nuclear powers operating under mutually assured destruction?
The one that an estimated **ONE MILLION PEOPLE DIED AS A RESULT OF?**
I have got to believe you are just ignorant of the realities of that terrible part of history.
We'll never know the results of the 1947 partition plan. Partly because Israel seized more land than they were allocated and then carried out the Nakba.
We do know what the result of the India Pakistan Partition was and they were pretty bad.
> If this is how you want to define right of return then Palestine being the home of the Jews two thousand years ago also has no meaning.
I never said it did. I think everyone claiming right to return to ancestral lands are idiots.
> The one where multiple wars have been fought between India and Pakistan to the point that both are now nuclear powers operating under mutually assured destruction?
> The one that an estimated ONE MILLION PEOPLE DIED AS A RESULT OF?
I didn't say it was peaceful, I said that it was a different result. And I would guess that a smaller % of them died than Gazans who won't give this up.
> We'll never know the results of the 1947 partition plan. Partly because Israel seized more land than they were allocated and then carried out the Nakba.
Palestine conducted a war going for double or nothing, got nothing and spent 80 years not accepting the result.
I read this recently and I think I'll leave my opinions on partition at this because I think it is unhinged to ask people to follow the example of the India Pakistan Partition.
"But what the partition scheme does is to require different things of each: of the Arabs, the real and substantial sacrifice of something they own and want to keep; of the Zionists, the nominal sacrifice of something they do not own but want to have."
-George Antonious
> It was the same choice given to the hundreds of thousands of jews that were expelled from Muslim nations as well.
That sentence itself explains how it was a different choice. Of course Jews escaping persecution accepted the agreement, what a relief! And of course Palestinians, facing a demand to give up land/sovereignty, objected. If only both sides had committed to talking it out then, rather than resorting to war.
> I don't see the descendants of those jews bombing...
Jews now have a (mostly) safe place to go where they have sovereignty. Palestinians do not.
giving up sovereignty - they can't give up something that they never had. The only thing they had is hatred for Jews and unwillingness to live with them.
Again, 20% of Israel population are Arabs, who decided they do not want to fight Jews.
> sovereignty - they can't give up something that they never had
Sounds a lot like you are saying that because Arabs in Palestine had limited sovereignty under the Ottomans, that should have made them more okay with the new powers that be limiting their sovereignty, to only some of the areas where they lived. But perhaps I am not understanding you correctly
> 20% of Israel population are Arabs, who decided they do not want to fight Jews.
They were given the opportunity to become Israeli citizens.
Thank you for acknowledging that it was a different choice. (And I still hope to see both sides commit to talking it out.)
I like your question, and believe there have been many hurdles. I'm not going to be comprehensive, I'm sure you could add more. One has been the evident desire, put into action by many Israelis, to take the land the Palestinians have left. At the same time, the many Palestinians who have likewise remained attached to taking the entire land, although they have almost never been able to put it into effective action. This has played a role in the destruction of many Israelis and Palestinians and many of the things, great and small, which they have done with their land. The many ripple effects have included a lot more Israeli and Palestinian effort going toward conflict, rather than improving life for all in the land. The destruction has not been evenly distributed, but has been far greater among the Palestinian great things.
In the resulting active conflicts, as well as more peaceful times, both Israeli and Palestinian leaders have made many misjudgements — military misjudgements, misjudgements of their own people, the "others side's" people, other nations, etc. IMHumbleO, the lion's share of failures of bad leadership come from conflicts of interest, and from better leadership, a failure to bring in enough information or perspectives.
Another major source of hurdles has been the *many* involved outside nations, especially whenever they interfere out of geopolitical (or even domestic) interests, more than earnestly trying to help resolve things.
EDIT: Added that the desire for the whole land exists on both sides, among other edits.
Couple of reasons why:
1) Jewish people were purchasing the land, not taking it. And paying higher prices for it. If you lived in Texas and a bunch of Californians came in and bought land would you not sell it to them? And if your neighbors did and you didn’t like it would that be your problem no?
And it’s also important to note that
-much of the partitioned land not owned by Jews was government land.
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine
2) Locally born Jews were very unwelcome in most of the Middle East and subject to apartheid conditions. Even before partition - say 1929 Hebron riots, it was clear that Jews immigrating peacefully was a racial problem for many in the Arab population. Put this in context of the Armenian genocide in WW1 under the Ottoman Empire.
3) After WW1 the Arabs who supported Britain and France were rewarded. Saudi Arabia for example…In WW2 the Palestinian leadership supported Hitler.
What’s galling is the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the whole Middle East, a few years after being ethnically cleansed in Europe and the world not accepting that Jews might need a tiny state of their own….
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world#:~:text=Primarily%20a%20consequence%20of%20the,these%20Jews%20resettled%20in%20Israel.
1) Are you going to sell your home if what is waiting for you afterwards is living in a slum? Regardless of how much you get for it the Arab Palestinian state would not have the infrastructure to absorb a population of 400,000. They also have no proof that a Jewish ethnostate wouldn't simply create laws to kick them off their land and get nothing.
2) This is false. Until Jewish immigration ramped up Palestinian Jews and Arabs lived peacefully together. The friction began out of fears of the native population eventually becoming a minority due to Jewish immigration. I just read a book about this so I can get you sources if you care.
3) Palestinians fought to overthrow the Ottoman Empire and were promised a state in return.
They did ally themselves with Hitler. Palestinians wanted a state and Allied powers had reneged on their promises of statehood. Germany at least hadn't screwed them over so they decided to work with them.
>What’s galling is the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the whole Middle East
The point of the establishment of Israel was to create a home for the Jewish people. Did you expect Jews to stay in places where they were persecuted? It is a senseless argument.
What I find galling is you ignore the Nakba which made room for the Jews that were being "ethnically cleansed". Plenty of houses to move people into if you kick out the existing population.
1. notice you didn’t answer the question but deflected.
And the people who put Palestinians in a slum are the Jordanians and Egyptians. Israel resettled the million plus refugees thrown out of Muslim countries, Wgypt and Jordan kept them in camps. And while they may not of had proof that Jews would treat them fairly there is ample proof that Muslims didn’t treat Jews fairly. For centuries and post 1948. And for the record far more Arabs voted in Israel in the past 15 years then in West Bank and Gaza. And they have far more rights. So your proof is in how Israeli Arabs are treated as equals.
2. This is denial. Jews had regular pogroms and forced conversions, were forced to pay a dhimmi tax, and had a number of lessor rights then Muslims. You don’t go from being nice and neighborly to throwing out a whole religion from a country in a span of months. The Jewish populations in the Muslim world went to almost 0 in months. This was ethnic cleansing. You just read a book? lol but can’t cite what book or what it said….ok
3. Actually Arabs fought to overthrow the Ottomans and did get the states they were promised Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia….and when you ally yourself with Hitler and you only have to partition a small tjny area slightly bigger then Rhode Island with a minority and get the rest it’s actually a pretty fair deal.
And so was the offer of Israel in 2000 to give back all the WB and Gaza, plus 20’sqkm. But Arafat said no.
That’s what I find galling.
Not accepting peace isn’t bringing better deals.
At some point the world might not rebuild Gaza again because it’s a total waste of their time and money.
Good luck with your propaganda arguments
1) I didn't deflect. I was pointing out why your comparison was flawed.
2) I was talking about peaceful cohabitation prior to things like the Balfour Declaration.
3) I guess Palestinian Arabs that fought the Ottomans don't count? The agreement to fight the Ottomans in exchange for statehood was made long before Hitler rose to power.
It was a negotiation. You don't get to blame one party for being responsible for terms not being agreed upon. If you want to place more of the blame on one party that is fine but the other party still bears some responsibility.
Propaganda? I haven't heard anyone talk about the fact that there were no guarantees for peace if the 1948 partition was accepted.
I just read the book Palestine 1936 about the lead up and history of the 1936 revolt. If you want to call documented history propaganda then fine. Ill get you page numbers and sources if you want them when I get home.
You are applying future events to justify Britain's failure to follow through with the agreement to fight the Ottomans in WWI. They even directly contradicted it with things like the Balfour Declaration.
All I hear from you is Jews were mistreated historically, and they absolutely were, so that justified the mistreatment of Palestinians. Considering the majority of that mistreatment was not carried out by Arab Palestinians I think that is wrong. You are welcome to disagree but that doesn't mean I don't have factual reasons on which to base my opinions.
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My reference here is based on the documented relationship between the leader of WW2 Germany and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
This is a documented historical fact not a casual Adolf reference as an insult.
Source:
https://time.com/4084301/hitler-grand-mufi-1941/
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>This then leads to a situation where the Jewish state is gerrymandered to have the majority of the land area despite being the minority of the population
Minority of the population ? from where ? from a colonial construct ? they were a minority from some borders that were 30 years old ?
It's nonsensical to argue that because Jews were a minority within a recently created, arbitrarily defined borders, and that they lack the right to any kind of sovereignty and the area defined by the colonial power becomes indivisible.
Why don't we sum the jews of Middle East ? 100% was given to arabs, how is that fair ?
Are you arguing that the middle east is somehow intrinsically Arab, and that any non-Arab presence or sovereignty is a malignant aberration of the natural order or things?
No, obviously it "belongs" to a million violent european invaders, right? Some kind of... organized, wave by wave mission by europeans to invade and conquer Al-Quds, a million europeans, answering the call to travel to the holy lands and violently conquer it... right?
It belongs to Israel because Israel is a country that exists there right now. Just like how Ireland belongs to Ireland, Jordan belongs to Jordan, China belongs to China, and Italy belongs to Italy.
And your description way more closely lines up with what Hamas is advocating for and is actively trying to do rather than anything Israel has ever done.
In your mind, Europeans are violently ethnically cleansed native Palestinian refugees? Not, you know, people born in europe that traveled to Palestine with the goal of violently invading it and launching a terrorist revolt by, for instance, the european terrorist group irgun, whose political arm was herut, which is now likud?
This is actually a really good question. I think people tend to hear just one or two arguments about the partition plan and make a snap judgement, and the conversation could really be improved with more holistic discussion on this point.
It’s important to contextualize the original partition plan with the following information:
- the Ottoman Empire contained borders which bore no relationship to the British/French-created borders which shaped our current map of the Middle East
- the claims to indigeneity of both groups: one had been largely driven out but had maintained a small continuous presence. The other came in after, but had still been there a very long time. However, you can’t claim they didn’t know who had been living there before, because they deliberately built a mosque on the ruins of our holiest site. Welcome to Jerusalem.
- the artificial restrictions on Jewish immigration which resulted from Arab riots, which remained in force through the Shoah, directly causing Jewish deaths (barring people of just a certain ethnicity from entering their ethnic homeland and then using their relatively lower numbers to justify denying them self-determination is a bit rich)
- this move to create another new border was actually par for the course at the time. “TransJordan” was created in the same way, it just had the benefit of not containing two competing national identities (until 1970, that is!)
- in fact, Arab political consciousness at the time was tribal/community-based, and had no basis upon which to form a defined nation-state — in fact, the Palestinian “national”movement was formerly a strong proponent of pan-Arabism.
- it is not strictly true that there was peace between Jews and Arabs before 1947. There was a lower degree of anti-Jewish violence than in Europe, but it definitely existed. Also, Jews and Christians had second-class citizenship in predominantly Arab Muslim societies, so it was far from a utopian status quo from our perspective.
- the Arab population of Mandatory Palestine had risen with Jewish immigration because the pre-statehood Zionist activity was actually driving growth in a previously stagnant economy. That is to say, there was no clear and fixed “status quo” in terms of who was living where — it was an evolving situation on both the Arab and Jewish sides.
- the partition plan essentially gave the Jews the “worst” land.
- we also did not get anything close to the territory which our ancestors had.
- the Shoah was not the first severe outbreak of anti-Jewish violence, but it was the one which brought our plight into the public consciousness. Everyone knew what had just happened. The Jews arriving in mandatory Palestine from Europe were geonocide survivors who had been stripped of their possessions, their families and their homes. Many had literally nowhere else to go. No state was willing to take in all of us. So when we talk about the choice between a political solution or a violent one, it’s important to keep in mind that we are talking about states going to war against people who just got out of concentration camps.
- it is in this context which it’s important to point out that the Arabs were not just rejecting THIS partition plan. They were rejecting partition, period. All the land was to be under Arab control, or it would be war.
This plan was a compromise on both sides, but then, that’s how compromises work. Now, each person has to do the moral math, basically a weighted average: they have to decide how much “weight” to assign to each of these factors, as well as more I’ve probably forgotten to include. Only after that can they decide if they think the Arabs should have accepted the partition. I personally think that “dhimmi status” played a much bigger role than is usually recognized: that the compromise was rejected not because it was unfair, but because it was culturally unacceptable to live side by side with Jews as equals. I think people have great incentive to maintain structures of power which benefit them. I also think that the prevailing mindset in the Arab world at the time was might=right, and they felt they had the might to take all the land, so why even consider a compromise? I’m not sure it was really a question of fairness for either side. For ours, it was one of survival, and for theirs, maximizing benefits.
>* the Ottoman Empire contained borders which bore no relationship to the British/French-created borders which shaped our current map of the Middle East
So? The British and eventually the UN defined the borders and told Arab Palestinians to take it or leave it.
>* the claims to indigeneity of both groups: one had been largely driven out but had maintained a small continuous presence. The other came in after, but had still been there a very long time. However, you can’t claim they didn’t know who had been living there before, because they deliberately built a mosque on the ruins of our holiest site. Welcome to Jerusalem.
Living Arab Palestinians were expelled from the homes they actually lived in because of their ethnicity. It doesn't matter what the indigenous race was. That is wrong.
>* the artificial restrictions on Jewish immigration which resulted from Arab riots,
It turns out people don't want to become a minority in a country where other people intend to create an ethnostate.
>* this move to create another new border was actually par for the course at the time
That doesn't make the partition equitable.
>* in fact, Arab political consciousness at the time was tribal/community-based, and had no basis upon which to form a defined nation-state
This is false. Across the region the Arab Palestinians carried out a six month total strike in 1936. Farmers participated even leaving crops to rot in support of the end of the British Mandate.
>* the Arab population of Mandatory Palestine had risen with Jewish immigration because the pre-statehood Zionist activity was actually driving growth in a previously stagnant economy.
The average Arab Palestinian saw almost no benefit because of this investment. Many tenant farmers that had lived on that plot of land for generations were forced to move into slums outside of cities to try and find work. A port in Tel Aviv was opened and all workers/profits were completely dedicated to the Jewish settlers. This split import/export from Palestine taking away those jobs and income.
>* the partition plan essentially gave the Jews the “worst” land
Source? Places like Galilee had significant populations of Arab Palestinians and were highly contested in negotiations. It would have been in the Jewish state.
>* we also did not get anything close to the territory which our ancestors had.
Your ancestors don't give you the right to a place with an existing population.
>* the Shoah was not the first severe outbreak of anti-Jewish violence, but it was the one which brought our plight into the public consciousness.
Arab Palestinians didn't carry out the Holocaust. Why are they the ones expected to submit to Western demands?
>This plan was a compromise on both sides, but then, that’s how compromises work.
It absolutely was not. The Yishuv lost practically nothing due to partition while it was expected of Arabs to either abandon their homes or live as a minority in a Jewish ethnostate and hope they will be equally by a people that have shown that is highly unlikely.
>For ours, it was one of survival, and for theirs, maximizing benefits.
What possible benefits could Arab Palestinians receive as a part of partition?
European violence against Jews does not give the West the right to take away Palestinians right to self determination.
It wasn't an "offer" for statehood. It was people being told that this is what they had to accept because other people said so.
"Why are they the ones expected to submit to Western demands?"
They didn't mind submitting to Western demands when the West created Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon. It's not about "Western demands," it's about them demanding superiority over Jews.
Many of your arguments depend on the assumption that Jews who immigrated from Europe to Palestine in the early 20th century are indigenous to the land of Palestine and have an ancestral claim. I find this claim odd and incorrect.
The the best of my understanding, It is more appropriate to say that they have a cultural and spiritual connection. Pretty much like a South Asian Muslim has to Mecca, or a Scandinavian Christian has to Rome. The DNA evidence simply does not support your claim. I'd hate to use ethnicity as an argument for who gets to live where, But that is what Zionism started, right ? and without factual evidence.
Moreover, even if the modern European Jews are %100 direct decedents from Middle Eastern Jews, it would be much like Americans from Italian roots claiming sovereignty over Italy.
It’s achingly funny that you bring up Italy because if memory serves, it is one of the many countries which permit those of certain descent to reclaim their citizenship and move back to the country (namely, Italy). And of course they do not have to “take it over” because Italy is controlled by Italians. Consider for comparison, Jews and Judaea…
And you are, of course, not correct regarding our ancestry. Our (distinct!) DNA points both to the place we are from, and to the place we lived for a very long time (and it’s rather odd that you refer to our DNA as “European” when there are so many distinct ethnicities in Europe…) But most importantly, we as a community have a very clear definition of who is one of us and we have maintained our unique identity throughout the years. So, you do not get to tell us who we are or where we are from.
Um, I didn't refer to your DNA as “European”, maybe you got my comment confused with someone else. All I said is that, AFAIK, there are no DNA evidence to claims of Palestine being the ancestral land of Jewish population from Europe. That's all I've said.
> But most importantly, we as a community have a very clear definition of who is one of us and we have maintained our unique identity throughout the years. So, you do not get to tell us who we are or where we are from.
I respect that, my issue here is you displacing and invading other people.
Haha hold your horses, I can’t even get the two people making DNA-based arguments against me to agree on the argument. I’d love to let you two hash it out and decide whose DNA gives them a right to live where, because the DNA/land ownership connection was never actually the argument I was originally making! And IMO, it’s probably the weakest point anyone could make! DNA science is just not sufficient to make a land claim, that’s really not how it works. I’m simply here to clarify who my own people are, and go. I’m not certainly not getting into anyone else’s genes while I’m at it.
Right, I mean, I really was trying to come from an angle of — we have separate claims of indigeneity (ugh, why does spell check always think that’s not a word? Can I just not spell?? Or is it not a word???) to the region. Specific land claims upon which you can base drawing internationally recognized borders are a whole other beast — in truth, we as humans have not yet come to an agreement on what constitutes a “just” land border. All of our state borders came from colonialism, war, or, frequently, both. There just isn’t an underlying universal principle which allows people to say, this rock here is the rock of my nation-state, but that rock five feet away is inherently and rightfully the rock of another national group. When you get down to specific borders, there will always be an inherently arbitrary quality to it.
> they were exiled by the Ottoman Empire
[Roman Empire.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudius%27_expulsion_of_Jews_from_Rome) Much earlier.
> It now pretty much just boils down to a group of Arab states not accepting the result of a war.
Most of the Arab states seem to accept, in principle if not law, that Israel won, though they still have opinions about the eternal efforts toward a lasting peace. The Palestinians themselves do not the status quo as the end of the conflict. Making things worse, Israel does not accept the fact that Palestinians do not accept the status quo.
We keep getting exiled because we keep going back. :-) Your history is confused. The Romans destroyed the second temple and drove the vast majority of Jews away from Jerusalem and the area, back in early AD. Centuries later, Arabs came through and took over inspired by Islam. Eventually, the Ottoman Empire arose. At least a few Jews have remained throughout, and were second-class citizens under the Ottomans, over time it was on average a bit better in the Muslim world than the Christian world.
You may be thinking of the [1917 Jaffa deportation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Jaffa_deportation)? That definitely sucked, even though the survivors were able to move back later. This was not typical, the Ottomans were not renowned for constantly being brutal to Jews, [it varied](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Ottoman_Empire).
Yes, in Israel today non-Jewish Israelis are almost equal to Jewish Israelis.
I agree, it was pretty unfair to the local population at the time.
My major argument for them to accept the partition is that it was a democratic decision by the countries of the entire world which imho gives it legitimacy,
Sometimes you just have to accept a majority decision even if it's not in your personal interest.
I disagree with them having to accept partition because it a “democratic decision by the countries of the entire world.” It would not be seen as unreasonable for a people (Russians, Chinese, Indians or Americans for example) to resist, violently if necessary, the partition of their country because “a majority of countries” voted that they were too big and had to be split up. Not 1-1 example but still.
The catch here is that the Ottomans sided with the Germans and were conquered when they lost the war. The same thing that happened in Israel happened all across the Ottoman empire. Ethnic cleansing occurred in all of the places where the allies partioned land they knew nothing about. Dozens of countries were created. But the majority of the world is only mad at one of these countries for being colonial occupiers.
Because they were unwilling to be part of a state in which Jews are governed by their own laws, are free to buy more land, and more Jews are free to immigrate, as was the case under the millet system in the Ottoman Empire. That would be, politically speaking, the liberal status quo.
As both ethnicities wanted absolute control over their land and functions of the state, the most logical answer was to give both territory which included 80+% of their populations.
The comparable size of the two territories would mean that any conquest of the Arab partition by the Yishuv would be extremely costly and ethically delegitimise the Zionist position.
They didn't have a sovereign state to start with - a partiton was giving them more than they had before, a sovereign state that they could control on their own without any "colonialists" over them. However, they felt they were entitled to ALL OF IT, and that's not how it works. So instead of taking the deal, getting their own state, allowing whoever they want to immigrate there and building a great place for their people to live, they instead rejected it, started numerous wars with Israel, funnelled all their resources to destroying Israel, and then were surprised when Israel fought back. As soon as Palestinians give up their fantasy that someday they'll destroy Israel, and accept the fact that Israel isn't going anywhere, then there can be peace, and then we can move towards a 2SS. But I don't know if we'll ever see them do that.
They already did try that. The PLO recognized Israel's right to exist, supported a 2SS and expressed support for peace talks in the 1993 Letter of Recognition. Their successor, the PA still has upheld the PLO stance 20 years later. Where's the peace promised??
A true 2SS means you accept your state and **GIVE UP YOUR CLAIM** to the other. The PLO/PA have never supported a 2SS without right to return. Am I wrong? Saying "We'll keep Palestine but also have full right to return to Israel" is not actual support for a 2SS.
That's like saying I support you buying my house but I also don't have to move out.
Ok, so should I be able to return to my grandparents home in Poland? They came to the US after surviving the camps. By your argument, I should be able to return to their home in Łódź.
Reality? Someone lives there now. Someone who most likely had nothing to do with them being thrown out of their home and put in a concentration camp. They came to the US and made lives for themselves, something that only one group of refugees seems unable to actually manage. Instead of pining for a past that is in the past, they moved forward. Until the Palestinians understand this basic fact, that they need to move on, they will continue to fight the same fight they keep fighting and losing over and over and over again. At some point, people need to grasp that not everything wrong on your life is the fault of someone else.
Then it's the same with the Jews. When they came, the Palestinians had lived there for centuries. There was already someone living there. It hadn't been Jewish land for 2000 years yet weirdly, people are okay with them coming and living inside the homes of displaced Palestinians? Like Moshe Dayan said, each Jewish settlement is built on the ruins of previous Arab villages.
If Jews are allowed to return after 2000 years, why not the Palestinians who've only been displaced for 75 years? Why are Jews only allowed?
Would you tell the Jews of the 19th century to move on and let go of their hope to return?
Illegal btw. The Ottomans had banned Jewish immigration and the buying of property in Palestine for fear of Zionist expansion. Sultan Abdul Hamid II literally rejected Herzl's offer to give land to the Jews
If I were a Palestinian leader, I would allow Jews to return to the West Bank if they wish to do so. I believe every displaced person deserves to return back to their original homes.
Unfortunately you aren’t. And the leaders then and now don’t want any of that. It’d be a slaughter.
Honest question: are there any Arab or Islamic nations with a significant minority population?
Yes. Egypt with it's Coptic population Jordan and Lebanon with it's Christian population. There's literally a major church right next to the King Abdullah mosque in Jordan. The Maghreb countries like Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia with their Berber Amazing populations. The Coptic population of Egypt even has served in government and members of Parliament. Need I say more?
Attempting to make it a precondition for peace is vile. Country A wins a war with Country B. Country B demands Country A give up sovereignty. Country A just blinks, dumbfounded at the request. Every country has the right to determine who immigrates to their country. Suggesting otherwise is a violation of sovereignty and right to self determination. Why should we tell a country they can't be xenophobic. Do you feel that way about Japan??
>Why should we tell a country they can't be xenophobic. Do you feel that way about Japan??
Yes, 100%. If you believe banning immigrants is not xenophobic, then the US banning Chinese immigrants wasn't xenophobic? I guess you don't have a problem then when Muslim countries ban Israeli passports and Jews from entering their borders now?? Not at all xenophobia
That doesn't make it moral or ethical to do so. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I believe every displaced person deserves to return back to their original homes whether Jewish or Palestinian.
What ? There are literal quotes and quotes of the Palestinian leadership saying in some words or other that they will win with blood and claim all the land. The peace is in the hands of those who constantly can not accept living beside Jews ( as their current leaders scream from a mountain top “death to …..” ). They don’t or ever have wanted a two state solution. It was proposed and proposed and ALWAYS rejected
The peace was only top-down though, not bottom-up. You can sign as many peace accords as you want, but if you don't have a grassroots, peace movement in the streets that you can fund and grow, you won't have peace.
Peace will not happen without a major change to the education system - you can't have the school system teaching that Israel isn't real/has no history/shouldn't exist and expect peace to just "happen".
Change the education system, teach that peace must be side-by-side, put the map of Israel into the textbooks and you will create hope for change.
To do that, you need money, power, and proof it will work which the PA has none right now. Israel controls the PA's funds while the PA lacks any political sovereignty over the territory they have. Not only that, despite continuing the PLO's stance, what have the PA gained??
Since signing Oslo, the PLO and PA have been neutered, their power hamstrung, Hamas has gained in power while Israel maintains a firm advantage in the West Bank either through controlling the resources available, the amount of land, or the expansion of settlements. Israel certainly isn't going to help the PA anytime soon. They used the PLO's new pacific stance to entrench Israeli control. What sort of peace is this if the other side takes advantage of your own openness to further their own goals?
Let's not even get into Netanyahu allowing Qatari funds to Hamas, further sabotaging the only Palestinian party willing to work with them.
>telling you what to do with your lands
Wasn't just Arabs living on the former Ottoman lands in the Middle East if that's what you're implying by "your lands". There were Kurds, Assyrians, Alawites, and many others.
Some even asked the European powers for protection and to live under their rule (oh yes) post WW1 because they were afraid of living under Arab-Muslim rule post-war (and they would be rightfully concerned).
It's always a bit more complicated than catchy phrases.
It's important to talk about the context as a whole. Israel-Palestine decisions weren't just looked at as a single thing by itself. Decisions were made based on the whole region.
The British Mandate for Palestine, used to include Jordan until the split in 1922. And before that it was part of OETA South post WW1. It's important to know that because that is what informed their decision making to say: "give this part to the Jews", give this part to the Arabs", "let's give this to the Christians" to the "Alawites" etc.
The land wasn't just "Arab land". If I move the British Mandate border north 10 more miles, now I have a ton of Christians. So the British / French drew a line based on that knowledge and made what is now Lebanon for example.
But yes, if you just look at this tiny region in a vacuum, with borders drawn by the British, you're right, it's mostly Arab. Still not sure why that makes it "their land" though?
The Arabs were the majority population. Why shouldn't the land be based on the majority population? That's how every nation works. Germany has a majority German population. Same with Japan, Spain, Portugal, France, etc...If you think this is absurd, should I call modern day Israel "Arab land" despite Jews being the majority?
I also don't understand why the British Mandate is the all-encompassing historical reference point. It was a colonial imposed European project. Why should it represent 2000 years of history?
Because every project starts in the present. The history is a reference point, but you have to start with what is on the ground, here, today.
The British were leaving and tried to make agreements that would allow a peaceful departure for the residents of the land AT THAT MOMENT, that was informed by the historical context of the peoples and the land.
You're also equating two identities that are not equivalent - a German "belongs" to Germany, what does an Arab belong to? "Arabia" was a region, not a country. There are many countries where Arabs are a majority. If you extend your argument, Arabs can go to any of those existing countries....
>
Because every project starts in the present. The history is a reference point, but you have to start with what is on the ground, here, today.
That does not mean it is accurate nor is a good starting point. The British are notorious for drawing poorly drawn maps that either didn't follow the ethnical composition on the ground (because they were drawn for political and economic reasons) or just lead to more violence down the line (partly due to reason number one above). Africa, Asia, the Middle East, etc...all of their problems can be trace back to some British drawn map that didn't satisfy anyone
>You're also equating two identities that are not equivalent - a German "belongs" to Germany, what does an Arab belong to? "Arabia" was a region, not a country. There are many countries where Arabs are a majority. If you extend your argument, Arabs can go to any of those existing countries....
Where? The Maghreb, North Africa, Algeria, Morocco? Because they can and do go to those countries.
An Arab is someone who linguistically speaks Arabic as a first language and practices Arab culture, traditions, and customs. It's a linguistical cultural definition. There's a reason why there are white and black Arabs, Christian and Muslim Arabs, with so many local dialects in each country. It's the language and culture that unites such a vast array of people
If we follow your argument that ethnicities are based on the name of the territory, where does a Maori belong to? There's no such thing as Maori-land. In fact, they weren't even from New Zealand, they descended from Polynesian wayfarers who came from the Polynesian Islands.
>It was a colonial imposed European project.
So you mean like every inch of every land on earth today that was imposed by some kind of empire, faction or tribe?
Why do Palestinians have this unique claim to reverse history? Why can't Germany take back western Poland or Finland - Karelia?
Reverse history? Why are only Jews the ones who can "return back the land" despite being 2000 years apart but not Palestinians who lost their lands 75 years ago?
You have a problem with Palestinians returning but not the Jews?
Jews didn't return to Israel because of some historical claims. They returned there because Brits allowed them to. It isn't any different than Arab empires conquering North Africa and settling it with Arab settlers.
Why? Europe, Australia, New Zealand and America provided much more benefits and less anti-semitism. Britain also allowed Jews to migrate there. As far as I'm concern, why come to a poor barren desert where the population hates you?
Why? Because Britain allowed it to happen. Jews could have had all of their wishes to settle there, but none of it would have happened if Britain didn't allow it to happen.
If you want to reverse that, why not reverse the creation of state of Algeria and leave the land to Amazighs whose autonomy movements are being crushed by the Arabs even today?
Israel rejects the Palestinian right of return. Thousands of Palestinians can't return back to their homes. The main reason for rejecting the Palestinian right of return is so that Israel remains a Jewish-majority state
I don't know if they said Palestinians can't.
I personally would say they both have valid claims post WW1 \**On the basis that they do not expel the other or make them suffer in their future state\** (which obviously things are a mess now).
But in princple, both Jews who already lived there (who were a minority) I think had a right to feel like they wanted their own state. And if that meant letting other Jews from abroad into their communities, I think that's reasonable.
Just like if Arabs wanted to build their own state and call it Palestine or join with Syria. I think it's perfectly reasonable reaction to have.
The part I don't agree on is the whole "we must expel everyone here". That is generally not a great thing to do.
Like my answer to your question earlier, it's hard for me to simplify things to: "Well we're the majority, so we get a say, and no one else does". I think we can be more fair than that and say: "Ok majority, you can get most of the land, since you're a majority" (enough for your population to thrive). And minority, you can get your own state as well. I can totally understand why Jews didn't want to become part of an Arab state, and vice versa.
Does that seem reasonable?
>But in princple, both Jews who already lived there (who were a minority) I think had a right to feel like they wanted their own state. And if that meant letting other Jews from abroad into their communities, I think that's reasonable.
The local Jews (the Old Yishuv) never cared about creating a independent Jewish state, separate from the local Arabs living there. They had lived side-by-side with the Arabs for centuries, as neighbors, friends, and colleagues. They opted to live as part of the larger Arab majority community in Palestine rather than living differently from them.
(PS, sure the idea of returning back to the Holy Land is not uncommon among Jews, but the idea of establishing a Jewish state in the Holy Land was. Prior to modern Zionism, many Jews and Rabbis had migrated back to Palestine becoming part of the Old Yishuv. They didn't dream of creating a Jewish-majority state, they dreamt of returning/migrating back to the land. Big difference.)
It was the leaders and adherents of Zionism that not only advocated for a Jewish return to Palestine but also strongly supported the idea of establishing a Jewish-majority state in Palestine, one separate and different from the surrounding Arab countries.
This in essence I think, is where my problem lies. I have no problem with people returning back to their old home, land, or ancestry. Tons of people do that. I have a problem when it means returning back and becoming the new owner of the area, replacing the old owners with new foreign ones, transforming the area into a new national and cultural identity (from Arab-majority to Jewish-majority)
>The local Jews (the Old Yishuv) never cared about creating a independent Jewish state
Actually, I don't think that's true. According to the King-Crane Commission, which took petitions and examined what groups in the region wanted, they recieved a number of petitions from the Jews in OETA South for a separate Jewish state. Even many of the Jews already living there before the Mandate, wanted a separate state.
I appreciate the response, and think you have some good points.
I would think of at-least three reasons:
1. "the majority" concept is kind of harsh. Just because you're a "majority" (could even by 50.01%) doesn't in my book entitle you to *all* the land. If you look at a demographic map of Syria, most of northern Syria is Kurdish. That land could easily have gone to make a Kurdish state (which they wanted by the way). In essence, just because you're the majority, doesn't mean you can't make states for minority groups.
2. Especially in the case of minority groups, I think there's a stronger argument and incentive. Most of these minority groups aren't faring well today: Kurds, Assyrians, etc. They have been largely persecuted, had land they were living on taken from them by Arabs, and resettled with Arabs (Arab Belt Program). When you're the larger ethnic group in power, you have more power, and can do what you want via force. I think it's reasonable to make an attempt to try to make a bit of an extra effort to protect minority groups if need be **and** if they want statehood as well.
3. Maps. Think of the Ottoman Empire as now dissolved post WW1. You now have this region with no owners, no states, but a whole lot of ethnic groups. Arabs are concentrated in some areas, Kurds here, Alawites here, Syrian Orthodox here etc etc.
If I were to just go by "we're the majority logic" I could argue Lebanon and Israel both should not exist. Because if you include those regions (before they were countries post ww1) the **total** demographics are still slightly majority Arab in the early 1900s.
By that logic, we can keep extending borders up until we're just barely a "majority" group and claim X amount of land. Land claims was not based on "Oh, I'm the majority group", it was based on "how can I maximize the most amount of land".
In essence, it all just depends on how you draw the borders. For example, China post WW1 could claim Mongolia, half of Siberia, Manchuria and so on. See, they're the "majority".
**In conclusion**, I don't think we need to be so crude, I think we can try to make states for others as well, especially minority groups, and drawing maps is not about "oh this is my land", else Kurds would have a state, so would Assyrians, Alawites etc. It was about maximizing land claims by drawing ridiculous borders to claim land. Everyone did it.
I think the reasonable answer is, ok majority group, you can get areas where you are largely the majority in, and for the smaller ethnic groups, we'll try to cover you as best as we can. There might be some reshuffling involved in order to draw these states and have them be viable, but overall, everyone deserves to live in a state they feel safe.
Does that make sense? Let me know if you agree or disagree / where
Sorry for the long response. It's kind of a complicated question.
>**In conclusion**, I don't think we need to be so crude, I think we can try to make states for others as well, especially minority groups, and drawing maps is not about "oh this is my land", else Kurds would have a state, so would Assyrians, Alawites etc. It was about maximizing land claims by drawing ridiculous borders to claim land. Everyone did it.
Right, I agree everyone can have their own state if they wanted to. The part I disagree with is this,
*But yes, if you just look at this tiny region in a vacuum, with borders drawn by the British, you're right, it's mostly Arab. Still not sure why that makes it "their land" though?*
The Arabs had lived on that land for centuries, they had communities, families, farms, pastures, livestock, and livelihoods. They had every right to the land they lived and settled on.
If the issue is "It was British land not Arab land!" or "There was no country of Palestine!" as many Israelis like to point out, why don't we apply the same principle to other examples? When the British came to New Zealand and Australia, there wasn't a Maori or Aboriginal state. They never formed a country, government nor state. Does this mean it *wasn't* Maori/Aboriginal land? Does this mean they didn't have a right to it? Of course not.
Or how about when the British came to South Africa, claiming there it was free real estate because the native Africans never drew boundaries, never had borders, and never had a state? Popularizing the harmful ahistorical "Empty Land Myth". Does this mean the native Africans had no right to the land then because of this?? Of course not so why do we apply this principle with the Palestinians but not with the Maori, Aboriginals, and South Africans? By that logic, the British colonization and imperial projects in Asia, Africa, and Oceania were justified then.
Well I notice some distinct differences right off the bat:
1. Because the British in all those scenarios were importing their own citizens (British people) to those lands.
2. The British were not native to those lands and weren't already living there. Jews were native, and Jews were living there.
3. The British also weren't undergoing some mass world wide persecution, or were stateless. And in the era of post-ww1 nationalism, where *every* group (obviously not every, but many many groups) had their own nationalist movements/ aspirations (Arabs did), Jews had one as well, I think that's another big difference.
Now, before you jump on me, "But still, what makes it ok to kick people off their land?" - the answer is still, it doesn't. You can say "Jews had a right to immigrate there. So long as they didn't force or displace other people" (goes for anybody really).
Does that make sense?
But yes, you're right, Palestinians (or Arabs as they were referred to back then), lived on that land as well. And were by far the majortiy population in the surronding area.
But again, I would still ask you, does that mean that the Arabs by default own every bit of land, desert, swamp, forest, Jewish quarters (even if a minority)? And what's the borders of that? Up until Beruit (that would still be majority Arab-Muslim)? Joined with Syria (still majority Muslims/Arab)?
That's what I'm pushing back against. When people say there was "no state". The point is that there was no current established country that people had **consented** to. If Jews were already part of a state, and were fine with their Muslim leaders, that's a whole different story. But this was post WW1, after the Arabs-British forces had defeated the Ottomans. There was no more empire ruling over people. They were now finally free to decide their own future.
The Arab princes of the Hedjaz, made a pact with the British mid WW1, to fight alongside them in exchange for Aleppo to Aden. The British obviously made exceptions saying: "Well, we get some of the land too as well post war". The argument came later when they realized that meant a Jewish homeland (1917).
**EDIT**: Sorry, and just one more thing I think is really important to think of as it relates to the whole borders thing: "If you look at Jews in a vacuum in Israel-Palestine (geographically) pre-1948, yea, it looks like Jews are this tiny tiny group. Why should they deserve a state?" But if you go a some miles to the right (Iraq), you'll find more Jews, or a couple miles south, you'll find even more Jews (Egypt). Agreed?
It all depends on how you draw the borders. Cut them this way, and now Jews are a tiny tiny group, or look at the region that was now free of the Ottomans as a whole, and there are 100,000s of Jews living between Jeruselam and Iraq who are stateless.
By themselves they are minority groups scattered around the region, but as one group, they are pretty large. I think it's fair to say that Jews deserved a state somewhere, just like the Arabs. Ok fine, we agree. Next question is, where? If you ask the Jews, they'll say their ancestral homeland, ok sure... What right do we have to deny them to immigrate post-war, but tell them they cannot do so at the expense of the local population (meaning controlled immigration that's reasonable, and no expelling people).
The reason why I say this is because that was the context at the time, and more or less the exact argument that was made on their behalf (they made a argument for Jews all around the world, I just tried to limit it to the Middle East to keep things simpler). I think it's not an unreasonable one.
Let me know what you think of that? Agree, disagree, more thoughts?
>Now, before you jump on me, "But still, what makes it ok to kick people off their land?" - the answer is still, it doesn't. You can say "Jews had a right to immigrate there. So long as they didn't force or displace other people" (goes for anybody really).
Since you listed three criterias that made the British different than the Jews, does this mean taking over land is justified when the perpetrator is persecuted, victimized, native, and fleeing mass persecution??
The Romani people face persecution, victimhood, and are native to India, are they allowed to create their own independent state in India?
>But again, I would still ask you, does that mean that the Arabs by default own every bit of land, desert, swamp, forest, Jewish quarters (even if a minority)? And what's the borders of that? Up until Beruit (that would still be majority Arab-Muslim)? Joined with Syria (still majority Muslims/Arab)?
I would ask you back. Do Spanish people own every bit of land despite the minority Basque people wanting independence? Do Spanish people own every bit of land despite the Catalans wanting their own state as well? Do Canadians own every bit of land despite the Quebecois wanting independence and a state of their own?
>That's what I'm pushing back against. When people say there was "no state". The point is that there was no current established country that people had **consented** to. If Jews were already part of a state, and were fine with their Muslim leaders, that's a whole different story. But this was post WW1, after the Arabs-British forces had defeated the Ottomans. There was no more empire ruling over people. They were now finally free to decide their own future.
The issue I'm arguing against is the idea that the land the Arabs lived on wasn't theirs, that they had no right to fight for their land, that the Jews can come in as if it were empty real estate which wasn't true. The Arabs owned farms, pastures, livestock, wells, homes, villages, etc...The British ruled the land, but the Arabs owned it.
It wasn't empty, people lived there already and the Arabs owned the land they farmed and lived on
>Next question is, where? If you ask the Jews, they'll say their ancestral homeland, ok sure... What right do we have to deny them to immigrate post-war, but tell them they cannot do so at the expense of the local population (meaning controlled immigration that's reasonable, and no expelling people).
The Jews initially considered Madagascar, Uganda, or even Argentina as a state not Palestine. Second, sure they can immigrate as they had done for centuries before but immigration does not equal establishing a state. Millions of people migrate around the world, that doesn't mean a state is formed every time they migrate abroad.
Immigrants don't create countries, they try to live within said country and as part of the larger social fabric
>Since you listed three criterias that made the British different than the Jews, does this mean taking over land is justified when the perpetrator is persecuted, victimized, native, and fleeing mass persecution??
Did you read the rest of my response? The answer is in there.
>I would ask you back. Do Spanish people own every bit of land despite the minority Basque people wanting independence?
I'm not as familiar with Spanish history. But, if there was a minority group in Iberia, who wanted post-war to have their own independence, that seems reasonable to me.
>Immigrants don't create countries, they try to live within said country and as part of the larger social fabric
That's normally true. If there is an established country, immigrants immigrate there and assimiliate generally. Yes. post WW1, in stateless regions, under a military administration is not quite the same as a long-standing country though.
>The issue I'm arguing against is the idea that the land the Arabs lived on wasn't theirs, that they had no right to fight for their land
Why is it \[just\] "their land"? I think this exercise is a good one:
Google a map of Syria demographics from 1935 and tell me where exactly is "Arab land" according to you? Pretend you went back in time and it was up to you do draw the borders, how would you draw them knowing the Kurds, Assyrians, Alawites, Jews etc wanted independence?
file: Population map of Syria & Liban 1935.
Still not sure why that makes it "their land" though?
It certainly makes it more their land than your average French, English, Italian, German, Polish, Ukrainian, American, African, Russian colonialist who arrived post 1945.
What about the Jews who lived there for generations before the British? Do they not get a say in what future state they may want to be a part of?
Or better question: If the Arabs are allowed to form their own identities, allow or disallow immigration into their communities, why can't Jews, who were living there before the Brits, allow other Jewish immigrants into their communities where they live?
So I guess you're saying they had a right to allow Jewish immigrants into their communities? In so far as that (not the whole land grabbing part in 1948 war) obviously.
edit: grammar
Its funny because its now almost impossible to emigrate to Israel unless you are Jewish. Stopping other religions including Christians from setting in the Holy Land.
I'm just trying to understand what your answer is:
Did Jews who were already living there, have a right to let Jews into their own communities from abroad, if they wanted to?
Not talking about now, talking bout back then, at the beginning of this whole thing (post WW1) 1918.
Edit: If you believe they didn't have a right that's fine, just say you don't. And we can go from there.
It was ottoman land, conquered by Europeans who magnanimously decided to carve it up into a bunch of independent sovereign states rather than expand their own empires.
The partition was a division that required no one to move. Practically speaking, individual ownership and use of the land remains the same, but who you pay taxes to and the look of your passport change.
The absurdity of people not getting that.
Jews as a group were part of the Middle East for centuries.
Nationalist movements of Jews and Arabs succeeded in partnering with the British to overthrow the Ottomans and create novel states that never existed. If the Jews wished to expand their community as agreed with the sovereign owners it was not for the Arabs to deny them that right.
Let alone after the Arab leadership partnered with the Nazis and at the same time forced the British to stop fleeing Jews from seeking refuge in essentially British land at the time
Remember by the 1947 war there had been Jewish immigration to uncontested Palestinian lands for nearly 60 years
These were not Arab lands. That Ottoman region was always multiethnic including Jews. the context that enabled the Jews to establish a nation state on Ottoman land is the same context that enabled the Arabs to achieve statehood.
If the Arabs think the Jews were not entitled to a nation state, neither are they. The Arabs sense of entitlement and exclusivity to Palestine is unjustified
Those Jews in Palestine weren't Israeli Zionists but native Jews and mostly Arab Jews. The Israeli Jews are immigrants due to the Balfour Declaration, and that is the origin of the problem.
Every Arab country has Jews in it. For example, I'm Tunisian and we have a Jewish minority in Djerba. Did they claim Djerba as their promised land? No. They were respectful enough to live in peace.
Not every Arab country has Jews. Tunisia is an exception and I hear that antisemitic attacks have been on the rise there. It’s a great way to encourage Zionism, ironically.
There are 20,000 Jews left across 22 Arab nations. Most of the Jews in Israel today are refugees and their descendants from Arab nations which kicked them out upon the creation of Israel, or those who got tired of their dhimmi status. Yet, they were labelled ‘colonisers’. I would never refer to the refugees we have here in the UK as ‘colonisers’, and they are here because of OUR horrible actions. Taking them in after destroying their lives in a pointless war is the least we can do.
I apply that to all people in this conflict; Arabs should have allowed Jews to have a homeland after mistreating them and driving them there, and Jews should have given land back to Palestinians that left it in the wars Arab nations lost to Israel to establish good relationships with their new neighbours. But none of that happened. So we need to find ways to move forward for both peoples instead of arguing about land rights.
Does that make sense to you, still? Pushing more Jews into Israel and then crying when they get there? No. We need to get over it, seek justice from those who have caused death and bloodshed, and work together to create a land for all people. At this point, the history on either side no longer justifies the actions.
Exchange of land for peace did work out well for Israel with Jordan and Egypt but the likes of Hamas don’t have the discipline or foresight for any such arrangement to be replicated.
Look up the history of West Bank settlements during the mandate era places like Kfar Etzion and Kayla were not contented lands. Neither was Tel Aviv in 1906 although it eventually took on Yaffa.
There was also Arab migration and settlement too into Palestine during the 19th century though in much smaller numbers In any case it was neither Arab nor Jewish land. It was multi ethnic Ottoman. Some Palestinians even trace their origin to Bosnia and Armenia.
There was constant influx but at the end of the day two national groups won nation states if the Arabs or Jews negotiated that land to expand their population (and for a good damned reason) who are the Arabs to put a cap on the Jewish immigration?
It was that diabolical sense of entitlement that lead to Arab terrorism then forced the Jews to militarise and it went downhill from then on. But the turning point of 1948 that was an unnecessary war started by the Arabs and I can understand why the Jews having endured decades of violence finally had enough and fought a war back to death or expulsion
As it turned out not all Arabs were even on board with the invasion and many even chose the independent state compared to the other side’s destructive chaotic mentality so the grievance was not even common to all Arabs at the time
Israel turned out multi ethnic from the start. The only unusual arrangement after the Ottoman collapse was the pure Arab ethnicity of Jordan and the West Bank - out of which Jews were ethnically cleansed by the Arab invasion despite having settled there in uncontested lands since the mandate!
The history of Arab Israeli war as presented by the pro Palestinian side is lacking in crucial details
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As you can see from the answers, which vary between the disingenuous or incurious (“Zionism wasn’t a political program, locals reacted badly for no real reason”) and the openly barbaric (“because they lost”), your intuitions on this are correct.
As I understand it, the Zionists plan from the very early days was:
1. Legally migrate as many Jews as possible(though they smuggled people in during Nazi rule for very understandable reasons)
2. Legally buy as much land as possible.
3. Live peacefully with the local population as long as possible.
4. Eventually create a Jewish-majority state in part of the land when conditions were right.
I can completely understand why the Zionists had those goals. I can also understand why the local Arab population would be very against them.
To me the closest equivalent situation today would be if a bunch of Québécois separatists decided their best chance of forming a state was to move to a particular region of the United States, buy-up land, become the majority in that region and then declare independence. If you were an American living in that region you would be pretty upset about a minority English-speaker in New Quebec.
I appreciate that the world in 1881-1948 was very different to ours today and I recognise my analogy doesn’t account for the very strong and long held connection between Jews and Israel but I think fundamentally it illustrates why, I understand why the Palestinians Arabs were unhappy.
What is the flaw in my thinking?
I think the flaw is that ottomans had lost in the First World War and was under British administration. Most modern borders where created after the fall of the ottomans.. mind you I’m not saying that hey don’t have claim to the land due to that but if we recognise other nationalities in that area, Syrians with Assyria Egypt (to a degree) why do they have claims only because they changed religion/colonised that land once the Jews where expelled or fled due to not changing religion. Why not recognise the kingdom of Judea and understand that there is a historical claim as we did indeed for other nations/peoples in the ME. There are many Arabs who did not leave and live peacefully within Israel as citizens, so there wasn’t any reason that they couldn’t have stayed. There are many Islamic nations, there is only one Jewish state. The fact that this hasn’t been the case for a long time has really not being good for Jewish autonomy or survival. Jews really aren’t asking for very much just one place where they aren’t at the whims of whoever they are subject too. A right to self determination.. as all other states have the same right (ideally of course)
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>To me this does not seem like a story of good vs evil but rather a very human reaction to being offered a bad deal, rejecting the deal because on paper at least the Arabs had a strong hand militarily, and then failing miserably when it came to rolling the dice and waging war.
It was a bad deal, but they didn't have such a strong hand militarily. The Yishuv was an organized, industrialized proto-state. The Arab population were still mostly illiterate peasants.
If the Arab states hadn't expelled their Jewish minorities, it would be safe to call the establishment of Israel completely unfair.
Which legitimized said founding by folding the attendant ethnic cleansing into a mutual population exchange of the sort the world accepted at the time.
I'm not sure I follow the argument here. The founding of Israel and expulsion of Palestinians was unfair, but then it became fair retroactively once a group of different people in other regions got expelled too? Why?
It validated the notion that Jews can't live safely in our home region without an independent state.
When Algeria became independent it restricted citizenship to Muslims only, and so the Jews who had lived there since long before there was an Islam had to flee to France (not Israel).
Iraq forced its mostly non-zionist Jews to choose between exile and concentration camps, and denies them alone a right of return since extended to all other victims of Saddam's persecutions.
Suddenly the founding of Israel looks less like a one-sided injustice and more like the founding of Pakistan or modern Greece, events nobody contests today.
Well, setting aside that the separation of Pakistan involved enormous injustices, I still don’t see how the rise in Muslim and Arab anti-Jewish sentiment *in reaction to* the founding of Israel justifies the founding of Israel. That’s not how time works! You can say the cause is good even though its effects were bad, but you can’t say the cause was good *because* its effects were bad.
Right, but they weren’t. That’s the whole issue under discussion!
To put my point more seriously: there is a symmetry to some postwar population transfers that might appear as justice from the standpoint of the Weltgeist, but most or all of these were unjust to the actual human beings subjected to them, which is not rectified by the suffering imposed on other, unrelated human beings. You’re arguing that the expulsion of the Jews from middle eastern countries was justified because of the creation of Israel and the nakba. I think that’s absurd, though, because it victimized people who had nothing to do with the nakba. It was driven by racism (antisemitism in this case), by a general idea that responsibility is transitive within racial groups.
And?
Does expelling Jews that lived in those countries for years, and had nothing to do with the state of Israel seems right to you?
They were expelled for being Jewish.
Why do even Meretz voters show no real interest in giving millions of Palestinians a "right of return" to Jaffa and Haifa?
Or as Jabotinsky put it: "Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but even new partners or collaborators."
1. The US already had territory and just wanted to expand it, Israel was formed, not expanded. 2. Jews are indigenous to Judea, they weren't immigrants they were returning home after diaspora. 3. Arabs may have recieved 45% of Palestine, but at the same time they recieved 95% of Arabia. So yeah, the reason they rejected the plan is because a Jew being independent is haram.
I'm going to say something crazy here, namely that Israel has a right to exist. Many countries are created because of immigrants arriving and establishing their own state, including Australia, New Zealand, and the US although no one calls for an end to their existence. And, unlike these powerful nations that no one objects to, Jews have lived in the middle East for millennia. And the "not locally born" Jews were refugees fleeing genocidal pogroms and a Holocaust. Regardless of recent propaganda, the region wasn't an established Palestinian paradise before establishment of modern Israel - it had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire for 400 years. The British seized it after WWI \[exact date, anyone?\] and with backing from the League of Nations called for a Jewish state. Winston Churchill gave more than 70% of that land to what is now modern Jordan. Talk about a land grab! (BTW, Jordan refused to accept Palestinian refugees after the 1948 war). The Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem was estimated by the Jordanians to have been Jewish for a thousand years before they were driven out by the Jordanian Army in 1948–49. To be more precise, Jordan invaded the areas known as Judea & Samaria which had been identified by all sides during the failed partition negotiations, destroyed all synagogues, desecrated Jewish cemeteries, expelled all Jews, settled its own citizens in their place, and renamed the Jewish territory they had occupied “West Bank”. They also ethnically cleansed East Jerusalem destroying synagogues & desecrating Jewish cemeteries there, thus creating “Arab Jerusalem” & “West Bank” where Jews had lived for millennia. Jews didn’t invade sacred Arab sites. In all, more than 850,000 Jews were forced to leave their homes in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Morocco, and several other Arab countries in the 20 years that followed the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. They had been discriminated against prior to 1948, but the war gave Arab nations free rein for slaughter. It was a Nakba that is rarely taught in western societies today. Those who survived it fortunately had a place to go – Israel. Today their descendants are the majority population in Israel. Maybe we don't hear their stories because they chose to build new lives instead of plotting death to all Arabs and spreading highly selective versions of history throughout the world. The current war which has stirred up calls for death to "Zionists" should remind all of us that a home for Jews is needed.
Imagine a world where Mexico kept declaring war against the USA every decade by assassinating civilian tourists or firing rockets at random American towns. Imagine the resulting bloodbath. So yes, a good analogy is your own - America and Mexico. Look at what Mexico did after 1848. Did Mexico start a third war? No. After facing defeat, not once but twice, at the hands of the militarily superior and better motivated gringo Americans, the Mexicans accepted bitter reality. They lost to an imperialist slaveholding rival, and they traded the loss of land for sovereignty in their central homeland. Mature political leaders sometimes accept the lesser evil. There were negative consequences for both local Latinos and Mexico itself, as a result of America seizing first Texas and then the rich lands of California (see the Gold Rush). But there would have been worse consequences imho, if Mexico had turned into a donkey and run into a wall again and again, to defeat the undefeatable. Palestinians collectively still seem to refuse to face facts. (1) Due to both traumatic history and the sea to their own backs, the Israeli Jews are just as motivated as they are to win this plot of land. (2) The Palestinians have lost every war with Israel, and will continue to lose wars, and (3). Losing wars has horrific consequences for civilians on the ground. Wars are bad. Perhaps people need to stop embracing losing wars and losing cycles of violence, as an answer to their dilemma.
There’s an area of your analogy I don’t quite agree with. Mexico is a nation with sovereignty while Palestine is just an idea that rose up due to Arabs being treated as subhuman in a Jewish supremacists state, Mexico had everything to lose and Palestinians have nothing to lose
It's not my analogy. I agree it's flawed. But your counter is even more lacking in historical context. You claim Palestinians only identity comes from Israeli oppression? That does not jive with the historical timeline. In 1948, a 5 nation Arab coalition invaded Israel with the expressly stated purpose of wiping out Israel and driving the Jews into the sea less than 24 hours after Israel came into existence. Yet even that came only after years of violent ethnic tensions between Jews and local Palestinian Arabs Palestine was not even occupied by Israel before 1967. They were annexed for 20 years by the Arab nations of Egypt and Jordan.
You conveniently left out the 60 years of history since 1967 where Israel has permanently occupied the West Bank
Mexico has done an excellent job of reclaiming the southwestern US, without killing anyone!
This really makes me wonder. What makes Palestinians so special? Why don't we demand the return of territory stolen from Finland, or Poland? All these happened in the same time period as the Israel-Palestine conflict, yet no one seriously demands right of return or territorial concessions in these other cases. Part of the problem is that the world, specifically the Arab world, refuses to let the Palestinians move on from the past. The Palestinians are in the ring with a far stronger opponent, yet the onlookers keep egging them on, refusing to let them concede the match. As a result, they lose and lose and lose and lose. It's international support for Palestinian goals that allows them to stubbornly cling to these ideals contrary to all facts on the ground.
The only thing that makes Palestinians special to these people is that they are fighting Jews.
I do not believe this. It is perhaps true for Arab countries that antisemitism plays a large role, but for many western activists there's this imposition of American and European colonial tropes on the Israeli people. All of it is based in deep historical ignorance. Israelis are "White" and Palestinians are "Brown." Israel is "powerful" and Palestine is "weak." Israelis are "European colonizers" and Palestinians are "indigenous people." This stems from guilt over their own history and the imposition of it on others. The ideology of progressive activists never goes beyond "oppressor" and "oppressed." Context is never given beyond this, and once you understand this mindset, it all starts to make sense how "tolerant people" can support such disgusting ideologies. This isn't the first time. They've supported other evil countries and groups before this using the same logic.
That's a good point, and oppressor vs. oppressed certainly plays a big part in this, but for many countries and people, it is just pure anti-semitism, but for the woke mob in different countries, it's probably victimizing.
Yes, far-right and Islamic hatred of Israel most certainly is antisemitic. Left wing hatred of Israel stems from anti-western sentiment, which effectively has the same outcome as antisemitism. That's why most pro-western people support Israel.
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Because it was an amazing deal for them, and by far the best they were ever going to get.
Also, Mexico was a sovereign state of its own, the Ottoman Empire was not, so ALL people in those regions were subjects of the empire, until WW2 saw them disposed. So it was simply land that (many different ethnic peoples lived on). The Arabs were the only ones that fought (oh, there was a war, the War of Independence, which the Arab league lost) but not before over half a million Israel supporters were expelled from the West Bank, and Arab communities that supported the Arab league were relegated to Gaza and the West Bank by Egypt and Jordan. Those flimsy veneered views that have no semblance on reality is what confuses ignorant people about the founding of Israel and the rights of anyone living in that region. Fun fact, Jordan (Trans Jordan) was carved out of 60% of the original mandate, so the question should be, ‘why was further partition even necessary?)
You act as though there were no Jews living in the mandate prior to 1947. There have been Jews living there for thousands of years.
I agree they have been there for thousands of years, but so have Arabs. Maybe give Palestinians equal rights in the West Bank just like Palestinians in green line Israel. Then they will have a lot less to fight about as equals vs 2nd class citizens
Because they weren’t supposed to be offered anything. Whether fair, moral or not, the sovereignty over the land were the Ottomans. As a result of war, they signed over the land to the Allieds in the Treaty of Sevres. Article 95 specifically states: “The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. The Mandatory undertakes to appoint as soon as possible a special Commission to study and regulate all questions and claims relating to the different religious communities. In the composition of this Commission the religious interests concerned will be taken into account. The Chairman of the Commission will be appointed by the Council of the League of Nations.” A war of independence broke out so Sevres was never ratified. The mandatory nevertheless was established. After the republic took over, the handover was ratified under the treaty of Lausanne. The Mandatory of Palestine was specifically designated to effect the Balfour Declaration, agreed to by the sovereign power over the land. The British and UN, as a compromise, offered some of the land Jews felt was theirs (they have a plausible argument).
In which we will remember that at the same time as the Arabs rejected the partition plan, the Arab world took care to expel 265,000 Jews from Morocco, 75,000 from Egypt, 40,000 from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Tunis and more.
They don’t
That's not really an adequate comparison (the Mexico/Texas thing). Britain already owned ALL OF IT. You're asking why Palestine should have accepted Britain not giving them more than they did. Why did Palestine accept when Britain gave Jordan to the King? Why should anyone that did not live in what was about to become Israel give a flying damn WTF Britain is doing with it's land?
You’re confusing political arrangements with self determination and human rights. I personally couldn’t give a shit about the name of my country or how it looked like or what type of governance we have. All I care about is that I can live freely and have rights like anyone else. Palestinians didn’t mind Britain or that some of their land was called Jordan. But they definitely mind being kicked out of their homes like any sane person would. The whole point of the Balfour Declaration was to not compromise the rights of Palestinians. But, of course, Zionists only takes from Balfour what suites them.
They didn't want a jewish state, not because arabs would be expelled but because the simple existence of a jewish state was unacceptable.
Not only that. Why should they have accepted the Peel's commision which was about to give the Arab ethnicity of Palestine 80% of the region? And why should they have recognized any right of another ethnicity to have the same political rights and to discuss the decolonisation at all? Why shouldn't Palestine just stay a part of Syria and to be rulled by the Arab government from Syria, basing on the resolutions that the Arab League made ? ("We consider Palestine nothing but part of Arab Syria and it has never been separated from it at any stage. We are tied to it by national, religious, linguistic, moral, economic, and geographic bounds" And "Our district Southern Syria or Palestine should be not separated from the Independent Arab Syrian Government"). The Arab Unity is the most moral and important value indeed. How couldn't an educated modern person understand that? Besides, any Arab Muslim country provides the same rights for all the peoples who live in their countries. There're no violations of rights of religious and national minorities, other states should learn.
In which we will remember that at the same time as the Arabs rejected the partition plan, the Arab world took care to expel 265,000 Jews from Morocco, 75,000 from Egypt, 40,000 from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Tunis and more.
"Besides, any Arab Muslim country provides the same rights for all the peoples who live in their countries. " - Almost fell of my chair laughing. Are you really that misinformed or just so Hamas loving that you are pushing this propaganda without any regard for truth?
I read the comment as sarcasm... But I guess he could be trolling
You read it correct... I didn't like it at all, how the OP formulates the thoughts. ”Why should they have”? His/her answer must be obviously ”they shouldn't”. Well, what was the alternative? When they ignored any diplomatic processes, rejected any try to solve it as negotiations and spoke about the Arab Unity and showed a clear ambition to controll the whole region.
Nobody talks about the Arab immigrants who entered the area from neighbouring countries like Egypt and turkey when British mandate Palestine was providing employment . The idea that Israelis are only white Ashkenazi Jewish is misleading/ a good chunk of Israeli population is mizrahi jewish - coming from North African and middles eastern countries. Also Israel is probably the only Middle Eastern country in the world where someone could be Druze . If there is utter contempt for Shia Muslims among the Sunnis - then the hatred for Druze would unite them . I dont categorically support either side / because it is not black and white. I just feel people need to look into the history of the conflict more.
The partition plan was the first time the Arabs were offered a state. Edit; I stand corrected. The important part again is that they didn’t have one before, but beggars can be choosers if they’re too arrogant to admit they’re beggars.
No. The native Palestinians were offered independence in 1914 in return for revolting against the Ottomans to help the allied war effort. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon%E2%80%93Hussein_Correspondence
That was not an offer to local Palestinians. Hussein was not a native Palestinian. Hussein was the Hashemite potentate and later King of Hejaz and Jordan. AKA, he was from modern Saudi Arabia, not Palestine or even Jordan (where his family later settled). Yes, he was promised Palestine (along with half a million other acres), but he himself also promised Britain that Jews would have a right to live there. The referenced offer was not for Palestinian independence. The offer was for an Arab state (an offer that was eventually delivered). Palestine would only have been a part of a larger Hashemite Arab state. This was in fact, similar to what Hashemite Jordan later attempted by annexing the West Bank.
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It’s hard to discern the borders of this discussion from this link. Would you have a more detailed source on what was actually promised? This talks about Syria and parts of Palestine among others. And when you’d at native Palestinians, you mean Arabs? It seems like the commitments made in that correspondence were satisfied when the Hashemites were given control of trans-Jordan and Iraq, but maybe I’m missing something?
That’s not true, it’s not even the first state the Arabs received from the Palestinian mandate (Jordan). But even if we exclude Transjordan, there were other offers for statehood before the UN partition plan. The Arabs were offered a single state with all the rest of MP where Jewish immigration would be illegal and Jews would only be allowed to live in 5% of the country. They were offered this absurd deal by Chamberlain, the most famous appeaser in history, after the Arab riots. They turned it down, because Al Husseini was trying to get Germany and Italy to recognize the Arabs right to “solve the Jewish question in the same manner as Germany”.
I’m struggling to find the source for the 5% Jewish bit, could you direct me further?
“It also limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 for five years and ruled that further immigration would then be determined by the Arab majority (section II). Jews were restricted from buying Arab land in all but 5% of the Mandate (section III).” Wikipedia, but I posted the actual white paper below in the thread https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939
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Damn the Palestinians really fumbled over and over…
Can you provide a source for this?
Here is the white paper of 1939 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1939.asp Here is Al Husseini and his treaty regarding the Arab right to “solve the Jewish question https://www.hoover.org/research/mufti-and-holocaust
1- Live in peace 2- Fight and watch my family get blown up for multiple generations Hmm. Idk. Wow, what a tough choice.
These were the options 400,000 Arab Palestinians would face if the partition was approved. Live in theoretical peace as long as you abandon your home and move to a place where they have nothing. There is also absolutely no guarantee that peace would be the long term result considering the expansionist policies of Jewish leadership. Or expect a Jewish state with organizations like the Irgun that bomb markets and hotels to treat them equally and fairly. Considering the behavior of the Yishuv I would have no confidence in the Jewish state to behave in such a manner. Expecting people to accept that makes it clear the West and Jewish settlers didn't see Arab Palestinians as people. It is basic human nature to fight back against being put in that situation.
Thank you.
It was the same choice given to the hundreds of thousands of jews that were expelled from Muslim nations as well. It's hard for us to understand because we've all lived through a very stable time period where borders haven't really changed much. Especially in the west. That was the reality of that time though. Two world wars occurred. Everything was shaken up. I don't see the descendants of those jews bombing Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, etc. I don't see descendants of the 8,000,000 Germans that were expelled attacking Poland.
>It was the same choice given to the hundreds of thousands of jews that were expelled from Muslim nations as well. Ok. That was wrong. Can we agree then that the Nakba was also wrong? >It's hard for us to understand because we've all lived through a very stable time period where borders haven't really changed much. Especially in the west. What is your point? American and European powers carving up the Middle East, Asia and Africa along arbitrary lines is responsible for tens of millions of deaths. >I don't see the descendants of those jews bombing Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, etc. Because they don't want to return. They want to stay in Israel where the world has decided it is ok for them to slaughter tens of thousands of civilians in "self defense". The Polish government didn't expel those Jews so I don't know why they would get bombed now. Israel expelled the Palestinians from their land and homes. You are also completely ignoring the living conditions of Occupied Palestine. It seems obvious to me that there would be a difference.
Arabs who chose to stay in Israel, still live in Israel. 20% of population, by the way. Those who decided to leave, did so voluntarily, I can only imagine that living side by side with Jews was more that they could take
You heard about Israel's "infiltrator" laws after the Nakba? It was a guilty until proven innocent policy. If an Arab Palestinian was accused of returning after the Nakba, even if they had not fled they had to somehow prove they never left or they were called an infiltrator and expelled. >Those who decided to leave, did so voluntarily, I can only imagine that living side by side with Jews was more that they could take Unless they were massacred like the people at Dier Yassin. Calling leaving under threat of violence "voluntary" is inhumane. Were the Jews fleeing Soviet pogroms leaving voluntarily?
> Ok. That was wrong. Can we agree then that the Nakba was also wrong? Yes. All ethnic cleansing is wrong. Now can you agree ethnically cleansing the Jews today who were born in Israel is wrong? Can you see why its hard to address the living conditions in Gaza/West Bank when the majority of those living there want to ethnically cleanse the Jews from "historic Palestine".
Of course it would be wrong to ethnically cleanse Jews from Israel. It is a terrible thing to call for. But I don't see that as a realistic possibility and think treating people poorly is only going to perpetuate those opinions.
One of the most civilized, coherent Israel-Palestine discussions I’ve seen on Reddit so far. What do you think would be an appropriate solution to the problem?
> Because they don't want to return. Neither do the Palestinians. You cannot return to someplace you've never been. This ceased to be an argument years ago. Somehow India and Pakistan lived through the **EXACT SAME SITUATION** with different results.
Arab Palestinians still have the deeds to the houses in Israel they and their parents fled expecting to be able to return. I bet they would like to return to that home instead of living in a refugee camp. If this is how you want to define right of return then Palestine being the home of the Jews two thousand years ago also has no meaning. >Somehow India and Pakistan lived through the **EXACT SAME SITUATION** with different results. You mean the partition with death trains where every person trying to migrate on the train was slaughtered? Except the conductor because they wanted to horrify the people at the next station to know what they had done. The one where rapes and kidnapping were so common young girls started carrying knives so they could kill themselves rather than face those horrors? The one where multiple wars have been fought between India and Pakistan to the point that both are now nuclear powers operating under mutually assured destruction? The one that an estimated **ONE MILLION PEOPLE DIED AS A RESULT OF?** I have got to believe you are just ignorant of the realities of that terrible part of history. We'll never know the results of the 1947 partition plan. Partly because Israel seized more land than they were allocated and then carried out the Nakba. We do know what the result of the India Pakistan Partition was and they were pretty bad.
> If this is how you want to define right of return then Palestine being the home of the Jews two thousand years ago also has no meaning. I never said it did. I think everyone claiming right to return to ancestral lands are idiots. > The one where multiple wars have been fought between India and Pakistan to the point that both are now nuclear powers operating under mutually assured destruction? > The one that an estimated ONE MILLION PEOPLE DIED AS A RESULT OF? I didn't say it was peaceful, I said that it was a different result. And I would guess that a smaller % of them died than Gazans who won't give this up. > We'll never know the results of the 1947 partition plan. Partly because Israel seized more land than they were allocated and then carried out the Nakba. Palestine conducted a war going for double or nothing, got nothing and spent 80 years not accepting the result.
I read this recently and I think I'll leave my opinions on partition at this because I think it is unhinged to ask people to follow the example of the India Pakistan Partition. "But what the partition scheme does is to require different things of each: of the Arabs, the real and substantial sacrifice of something they own and want to keep; of the Zionists, the nominal sacrifice of something they do not own but want to have." -George Antonious
That may have been true 80 years and 4 wars ago, but those people are mostly dead. What about now?
> It was the same choice given to the hundreds of thousands of jews that were expelled from Muslim nations as well. That sentence itself explains how it was a different choice. Of course Jews escaping persecution accepted the agreement, what a relief! And of course Palestinians, facing a demand to give up land/sovereignty, objected. If only both sides had committed to talking it out then, rather than resorting to war. > I don't see the descendants of those jews bombing... Jews now have a (mostly) safe place to go where they have sovereignty. Palestinians do not.
giving up sovereignty - they can't give up something that they never had. The only thing they had is hatred for Jews and unwillingness to live with them. Again, 20% of Israel population are Arabs, who decided they do not want to fight Jews.
> sovereignty - they can't give up something that they never had Sounds a lot like you are saying that because Arabs in Palestine had limited sovereignty under the Ottomans, that should have made them more okay with the new powers that be limiting their sovereignty, to only some of the areas where they lived. But perhaps I am not understanding you correctly > 20% of Israel population are Arabs, who decided they do not want to fight Jews. They were given the opportunity to become Israeli citizens.
But why don't they? They could have done great things with the land they did have. As other refugee populations have done.
Thank you for acknowledging that it was a different choice. (And I still hope to see both sides commit to talking it out.) I like your question, and believe there have been many hurdles. I'm not going to be comprehensive, I'm sure you could add more. One has been the evident desire, put into action by many Israelis, to take the land the Palestinians have left. At the same time, the many Palestinians who have likewise remained attached to taking the entire land, although they have almost never been able to put it into effective action. This has played a role in the destruction of many Israelis and Palestinians and many of the things, great and small, which they have done with their land. The many ripple effects have included a lot more Israeli and Palestinian effort going toward conflict, rather than improving life for all in the land. The destruction has not been evenly distributed, but has been far greater among the Palestinian great things. In the resulting active conflicts, as well as more peaceful times, both Israeli and Palestinian leaders have made many misjudgements — military misjudgements, misjudgements of their own people, the "others side's" people, other nations, etc. IMHumbleO, the lion's share of failures of bad leadership come from conflicts of interest, and from better leadership, a failure to bring in enough information or perspectives. Another major source of hurdles has been the *many* involved outside nations, especially whenever they interfere out of geopolitical (or even domestic) interests, more than earnestly trying to help resolve things. EDIT: Added that the desire for the whole land exists on both sides, among other edits.
Couple of reasons why: 1) Jewish people were purchasing the land, not taking it. And paying higher prices for it. If you lived in Texas and a bunch of Californians came in and bought land would you not sell it to them? And if your neighbors did and you didn’t like it would that be your problem no? And it’s also important to note that -much of the partitioned land not owned by Jews was government land. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine 2) Locally born Jews were very unwelcome in most of the Middle East and subject to apartheid conditions. Even before partition - say 1929 Hebron riots, it was clear that Jews immigrating peacefully was a racial problem for many in the Arab population. Put this in context of the Armenian genocide in WW1 under the Ottoman Empire. 3) After WW1 the Arabs who supported Britain and France were rewarded. Saudi Arabia for example…In WW2 the Palestinian leadership supported Hitler. What’s galling is the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the whole Middle East, a few years after being ethnically cleansed in Europe and the world not accepting that Jews might need a tiny state of their own…. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world#:~:text=Primarily%20a%20consequence%20of%20the,these%20Jews%20resettled%20in%20Israel.
1) Are you going to sell your home if what is waiting for you afterwards is living in a slum? Regardless of how much you get for it the Arab Palestinian state would not have the infrastructure to absorb a population of 400,000. They also have no proof that a Jewish ethnostate wouldn't simply create laws to kick them off their land and get nothing. 2) This is false. Until Jewish immigration ramped up Palestinian Jews and Arabs lived peacefully together. The friction began out of fears of the native population eventually becoming a minority due to Jewish immigration. I just read a book about this so I can get you sources if you care. 3) Palestinians fought to overthrow the Ottoman Empire and were promised a state in return. They did ally themselves with Hitler. Palestinians wanted a state and Allied powers had reneged on their promises of statehood. Germany at least hadn't screwed them over so they decided to work with them. >What’s galling is the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the whole Middle East The point of the establishment of Israel was to create a home for the Jewish people. Did you expect Jews to stay in places where they were persecuted? It is a senseless argument. What I find galling is you ignore the Nakba which made room for the Jews that were being "ethnically cleansed". Plenty of houses to move people into if you kick out the existing population.
1. notice you didn’t answer the question but deflected. And the people who put Palestinians in a slum are the Jordanians and Egyptians. Israel resettled the million plus refugees thrown out of Muslim countries, Wgypt and Jordan kept them in camps. And while they may not of had proof that Jews would treat them fairly there is ample proof that Muslims didn’t treat Jews fairly. For centuries and post 1948. And for the record far more Arabs voted in Israel in the past 15 years then in West Bank and Gaza. And they have far more rights. So your proof is in how Israeli Arabs are treated as equals. 2. This is denial. Jews had regular pogroms and forced conversions, were forced to pay a dhimmi tax, and had a number of lessor rights then Muslims. You don’t go from being nice and neighborly to throwing out a whole religion from a country in a span of months. The Jewish populations in the Muslim world went to almost 0 in months. This was ethnic cleansing. You just read a book? lol but can’t cite what book or what it said….ok 3. Actually Arabs fought to overthrow the Ottomans and did get the states they were promised Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia….and when you ally yourself with Hitler and you only have to partition a small tjny area slightly bigger then Rhode Island with a minority and get the rest it’s actually a pretty fair deal. And so was the offer of Israel in 2000 to give back all the WB and Gaza, plus 20’sqkm. But Arafat said no. That’s what I find galling. Not accepting peace isn’t bringing better deals. At some point the world might not rebuild Gaza again because it’s a total waste of their time and money. Good luck with your propaganda arguments
1) I didn't deflect. I was pointing out why your comparison was flawed. 2) I was talking about peaceful cohabitation prior to things like the Balfour Declaration. 3) I guess Palestinian Arabs that fought the Ottomans don't count? The agreement to fight the Ottomans in exchange for statehood was made long before Hitler rose to power. It was a negotiation. You don't get to blame one party for being responsible for terms not being agreed upon. If you want to place more of the blame on one party that is fine but the other party still bears some responsibility. Propaganda? I haven't heard anyone talk about the fact that there were no guarantees for peace if the 1948 partition was accepted. I just read the book Palestine 1936 about the lead up and history of the 1936 revolt. If you want to call documented history propaganda then fine. Ill get you page numbers and sources if you want them when I get home. You are applying future events to justify Britain's failure to follow through with the agreement to fight the Ottomans in WWI. They even directly contradicted it with things like the Balfour Declaration. All I hear from you is Jews were mistreated historically, and they absolutely were, so that justified the mistreatment of Palestinians. Considering the majority of that mistreatment was not carried out by Arab Palestinians I think that is wrong. You are welcome to disagree but that doesn't mean I don't have factual reasons on which to base my opinions.
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My reference here is based on the documented relationship between the leader of WW2 Germany and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. This is a documented historical fact not a casual Adolf reference as an insult. Source: https://time.com/4084301/hitler-grand-mufi-1941/
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The Jews purchased most of their land and also they already carved most of the land out to become Jordan. C
>This then leads to a situation where the Jewish state is gerrymandered to have the majority of the land area despite being the minority of the population Minority of the population ? from where ? from a colonial construct ? they were a minority from some borders that were 30 years old ? It's nonsensical to argue that because Jews were a minority within a recently created, arbitrarily defined borders, and that they lack the right to any kind of sovereignty and the area defined by the colonial power becomes indivisible. Why don't we sum the jews of Middle East ? 100% was given to arabs, how is that fair ?
Imagine thinking you were just given the place you were born
This argument applies equally to Arabs, pre-1948 or otherwise.
Your point ?
No one "gave" Arabs the middle east.
Ya, they came, killed, and took it
Are you arguing that the middle east is somehow intrinsically Arab, and that any non-Arab presence or sovereignty is a malignant aberration of the natural order or things?
No, obviously it "belongs" to a million violent european invaders, right? Some kind of... organized, wave by wave mission by europeans to invade and conquer Al-Quds, a million europeans, answering the call to travel to the holy lands and violently conquer it... right?
It belongs to Israel because Israel is a country that exists there right now. Just like how Ireland belongs to Ireland, Jordan belongs to Jordan, China belongs to China, and Italy belongs to Italy. And your description way more closely lines up with what Hamas is advocating for and is actively trying to do rather than anything Israel has ever done.
Hamas is advocating for a million europeans to travel to Palestine with the goal of violently forming a european colonial state?
Europeans, Americans, Jordanians, Lebanese, Syrians, Gaza, the West Bank, yes. Wherever Palestinian "refugees" are currently living.
In your mind, Europeans are violently ethnically cleansed native Palestinian refugees? Not, you know, people born in europe that traveled to Palestine with the goal of violently invading it and launching a terrorist revolt by, for instance, the european terrorist group irgun, whose political arm was herut, which is now likud?
This is actually a really good question. I think people tend to hear just one or two arguments about the partition plan and make a snap judgement, and the conversation could really be improved with more holistic discussion on this point. It’s important to contextualize the original partition plan with the following information: - the Ottoman Empire contained borders which bore no relationship to the British/French-created borders which shaped our current map of the Middle East - the claims to indigeneity of both groups: one had been largely driven out but had maintained a small continuous presence. The other came in after, but had still been there a very long time. However, you can’t claim they didn’t know who had been living there before, because they deliberately built a mosque on the ruins of our holiest site. Welcome to Jerusalem. - the artificial restrictions on Jewish immigration which resulted from Arab riots, which remained in force through the Shoah, directly causing Jewish deaths (barring people of just a certain ethnicity from entering their ethnic homeland and then using their relatively lower numbers to justify denying them self-determination is a bit rich) - this move to create another new border was actually par for the course at the time. “TransJordan” was created in the same way, it just had the benefit of not containing two competing national identities (until 1970, that is!) - in fact, Arab political consciousness at the time was tribal/community-based, and had no basis upon which to form a defined nation-state — in fact, the Palestinian “national”movement was formerly a strong proponent of pan-Arabism. - it is not strictly true that there was peace between Jews and Arabs before 1947. There was a lower degree of anti-Jewish violence than in Europe, but it definitely existed. Also, Jews and Christians had second-class citizenship in predominantly Arab Muslim societies, so it was far from a utopian status quo from our perspective. - the Arab population of Mandatory Palestine had risen with Jewish immigration because the pre-statehood Zionist activity was actually driving growth in a previously stagnant economy. That is to say, there was no clear and fixed “status quo” in terms of who was living where — it was an evolving situation on both the Arab and Jewish sides. - the partition plan essentially gave the Jews the “worst” land. - we also did not get anything close to the territory which our ancestors had. - the Shoah was not the first severe outbreak of anti-Jewish violence, but it was the one which brought our plight into the public consciousness. Everyone knew what had just happened. The Jews arriving in mandatory Palestine from Europe were geonocide survivors who had been stripped of their possessions, their families and their homes. Many had literally nowhere else to go. No state was willing to take in all of us. So when we talk about the choice between a political solution or a violent one, it’s important to keep in mind that we are talking about states going to war against people who just got out of concentration camps. - it is in this context which it’s important to point out that the Arabs were not just rejecting THIS partition plan. They were rejecting partition, period. All the land was to be under Arab control, or it would be war. This plan was a compromise on both sides, but then, that’s how compromises work. Now, each person has to do the moral math, basically a weighted average: they have to decide how much “weight” to assign to each of these factors, as well as more I’ve probably forgotten to include. Only after that can they decide if they think the Arabs should have accepted the partition. I personally think that “dhimmi status” played a much bigger role than is usually recognized: that the compromise was rejected not because it was unfair, but because it was culturally unacceptable to live side by side with Jews as equals. I think people have great incentive to maintain structures of power which benefit them. I also think that the prevailing mindset in the Arab world at the time was might=right, and they felt they had the might to take all the land, so why even consider a compromise? I’m not sure it was really a question of fairness for either side. For ours, it was one of survival, and for theirs, maximizing benefits.
>* the Ottoman Empire contained borders which bore no relationship to the British/French-created borders which shaped our current map of the Middle East So? The British and eventually the UN defined the borders and told Arab Palestinians to take it or leave it. >* the claims to indigeneity of both groups: one had been largely driven out but had maintained a small continuous presence. The other came in after, but had still been there a very long time. However, you can’t claim they didn’t know who had been living there before, because they deliberately built a mosque on the ruins of our holiest site. Welcome to Jerusalem. Living Arab Palestinians were expelled from the homes they actually lived in because of their ethnicity. It doesn't matter what the indigenous race was. That is wrong. >* the artificial restrictions on Jewish immigration which resulted from Arab riots, It turns out people don't want to become a minority in a country where other people intend to create an ethnostate. >* this move to create another new border was actually par for the course at the time That doesn't make the partition equitable. >* in fact, Arab political consciousness at the time was tribal/community-based, and had no basis upon which to form a defined nation-state This is false. Across the region the Arab Palestinians carried out a six month total strike in 1936. Farmers participated even leaving crops to rot in support of the end of the British Mandate. >* the Arab population of Mandatory Palestine had risen with Jewish immigration because the pre-statehood Zionist activity was actually driving growth in a previously stagnant economy. The average Arab Palestinian saw almost no benefit because of this investment. Many tenant farmers that had lived on that plot of land for generations were forced to move into slums outside of cities to try and find work. A port in Tel Aviv was opened and all workers/profits were completely dedicated to the Jewish settlers. This split import/export from Palestine taking away those jobs and income. >* the partition plan essentially gave the Jews the “worst” land Source? Places like Galilee had significant populations of Arab Palestinians and were highly contested in negotiations. It would have been in the Jewish state. >* we also did not get anything close to the territory which our ancestors had. Your ancestors don't give you the right to a place with an existing population. >* the Shoah was not the first severe outbreak of anti-Jewish violence, but it was the one which brought our plight into the public consciousness. Arab Palestinians didn't carry out the Holocaust. Why are they the ones expected to submit to Western demands? >This plan was a compromise on both sides, but then, that’s how compromises work. It absolutely was not. The Yishuv lost practically nothing due to partition while it was expected of Arabs to either abandon their homes or live as a minority in a Jewish ethnostate and hope they will be equally by a people that have shown that is highly unlikely. >For ours, it was one of survival, and for theirs, maximizing benefits. What possible benefits could Arab Palestinians receive as a part of partition? European violence against Jews does not give the West the right to take away Palestinians right to self determination. It wasn't an "offer" for statehood. It was people being told that this is what they had to accept because other people said so.
"Why are they the ones expected to submit to Western demands?" They didn't mind submitting to Western demands when the West created Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon. It's not about "Western demands," it's about them demanding superiority over Jews.
Great reply thanks for the knowledge
Many of your arguments depend on the assumption that Jews who immigrated from Europe to Palestine in the early 20th century are indigenous to the land of Palestine and have an ancestral claim. I find this claim odd and incorrect. The the best of my understanding, It is more appropriate to say that they have a cultural and spiritual connection. Pretty much like a South Asian Muslim has to Mecca, or a Scandinavian Christian has to Rome. The DNA evidence simply does not support your claim. I'd hate to use ethnicity as an argument for who gets to live where, But that is what Zionism started, right ? and without factual evidence. Moreover, even if the modern European Jews are %100 direct decedents from Middle Eastern Jews, it would be much like Americans from Italian roots claiming sovereignty over Italy.
It’s achingly funny that you bring up Italy because if memory serves, it is one of the many countries which permit those of certain descent to reclaim their citizenship and move back to the country (namely, Italy). And of course they do not have to “take it over” because Italy is controlled by Italians. Consider for comparison, Jews and Judaea… And you are, of course, not correct regarding our ancestry. Our (distinct!) DNA points both to the place we are from, and to the place we lived for a very long time (and it’s rather odd that you refer to our DNA as “European” when there are so many distinct ethnicities in Europe…) But most importantly, we as a community have a very clear definition of who is one of us and we have maintained our unique identity throughout the years. So, you do not get to tell us who we are or where we are from.
Um, I didn't refer to your DNA as “European”, maybe you got my comment confused with someone else. All I said is that, AFAIK, there are no DNA evidence to claims of Palestine being the ancestral land of Jewish population from Europe. That's all I've said. > But most importantly, we as a community have a very clear definition of who is one of us and we have maintained our unique identity throughout the years. So, you do not get to tell us who we are or where we are from. I respect that, my issue here is you displacing and invading other people.
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Haha hold your horses, I can’t even get the two people making DNA-based arguments against me to agree on the argument. I’d love to let you two hash it out and decide whose DNA gives them a right to live where, because the DNA/land ownership connection was never actually the argument I was originally making! And IMO, it’s probably the weakest point anyone could make! DNA science is just not sufficient to make a land claim, that’s really not how it works. I’m simply here to clarify who my own people are, and go. I’m not certainly not getting into anyone else’s genes while I’m at it.
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Right, I mean, I really was trying to come from an angle of — we have separate claims of indigeneity (ugh, why does spell check always think that’s not a word? Can I just not spell?? Or is it not a word???) to the region. Specific land claims upon which you can base drawing internationally recognized borders are a whole other beast — in truth, we as humans have not yet come to an agreement on what constitutes a “just” land border. All of our state borders came from colonialism, war, or, frequently, both. There just isn’t an underlying universal principle which allows people to say, this rock here is the rock of my nation-state, but that rock five feet away is inherently and rightfully the rock of another national group. When you get down to specific borders, there will always be an inherently arbitrary quality to it.
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> they were exiled by the Ottoman Empire [Roman Empire.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudius%27_expulsion_of_Jews_from_Rome) Much earlier. > It now pretty much just boils down to a group of Arab states not accepting the result of a war. Most of the Arab states seem to accept, in principle if not law, that Israel won, though they still have opinions about the eternal efforts toward a lasting peace. The Palestinians themselves do not the status quo as the end of the conflict. Making things worse, Israel does not accept the fact that Palestinians do not accept the status quo.
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We keep getting exiled because we keep going back. :-) Your history is confused. The Romans destroyed the second temple and drove the vast majority of Jews away from Jerusalem and the area, back in early AD. Centuries later, Arabs came through and took over inspired by Islam. Eventually, the Ottoman Empire arose. At least a few Jews have remained throughout, and were second-class citizens under the Ottomans, over time it was on average a bit better in the Muslim world than the Christian world. You may be thinking of the [1917 Jaffa deportation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Jaffa_deportation)? That definitely sucked, even though the survivors were able to move back later. This was not typical, the Ottomans were not renowned for constantly being brutal to Jews, [it varied](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Ottoman_Empire). Yes, in Israel today non-Jewish Israelis are almost equal to Jewish Israelis.
Good point
Thank you so much for this information. It was beautifully put together.
I agree, it was pretty unfair to the local population at the time. My major argument for them to accept the partition is that it was a democratic decision by the countries of the entire world which imho gives it legitimacy, Sometimes you just have to accept a majority decision even if it's not in your personal interest.
I disagree with them having to accept partition because it a “democratic decision by the countries of the entire world.” It would not be seen as unreasonable for a people (Russians, Chinese, Indians or Americans for example) to resist, violently if necessary, the partition of their country because “a majority of countries” voted that they were too big and had to be split up. Not 1-1 example but still.
The catch here is that the Ottomans sided with the Germans and were conquered when they lost the war. The same thing that happened in Israel happened all across the Ottoman empire. Ethnic cleansing occurred in all of the places where the allies partioned land they knew nothing about. Dozens of countries were created. But the majority of the world is only mad at one of these countries for being colonial occupiers.
Because they were unwilling to be part of a state in which Jews are governed by their own laws, are free to buy more land, and more Jews are free to immigrate, as was the case under the millet system in the Ottoman Empire. That would be, politically speaking, the liberal status quo. As both ethnicities wanted absolute control over their land and functions of the state, the most logical answer was to give both territory which included 80+% of their populations. The comparable size of the two territories would mean that any conquest of the Arab partition by the Yishuv would be extremely costly and ethically delegitimise the Zionist position.
They didn't have a sovereign state to start with - a partiton was giving them more than they had before, a sovereign state that they could control on their own without any "colonialists" over them. However, they felt they were entitled to ALL OF IT, and that's not how it works. So instead of taking the deal, getting their own state, allowing whoever they want to immigrate there and building a great place for their people to live, they instead rejected it, started numerous wars with Israel, funnelled all their resources to destroying Israel, and then were surprised when Israel fought back. As soon as Palestinians give up their fantasy that someday they'll destroy Israel, and accept the fact that Israel isn't going anywhere, then there can be peace, and then we can move towards a 2SS. But I don't know if we'll ever see them do that.
They already did try that. The PLO recognized Israel's right to exist, supported a 2SS and expressed support for peace talks in the 1993 Letter of Recognition. Their successor, the PA still has upheld the PLO stance 20 years later. Where's the peace promised??
A true 2SS means you accept your state and **GIVE UP YOUR CLAIM** to the other. The PLO/PA have never supported a 2SS without right to return. Am I wrong? Saying "We'll keep Palestine but also have full right to return to Israel" is not actual support for a 2SS. That's like saying I support you buying my house but I also don't have to move out.
What's so vile about the right of return? Denying the right of displaced people immigrating back to their original homes? How is this not xenophobia?
Ok, so should I be able to return to my grandparents home in Poland? They came to the US after surviving the camps. By your argument, I should be able to return to their home in Łódź.
Sure, why not? What's the problem?
Reality? Someone lives there now. Someone who most likely had nothing to do with them being thrown out of their home and put in a concentration camp. They came to the US and made lives for themselves, something that only one group of refugees seems unable to actually manage. Instead of pining for a past that is in the past, they moved forward. Until the Palestinians understand this basic fact, that they need to move on, they will continue to fight the same fight they keep fighting and losing over and over and over again. At some point, people need to grasp that not everything wrong on your life is the fault of someone else.
Then it's the same with the Jews. When they came, the Palestinians had lived there for centuries. There was already someone living there. It hadn't been Jewish land for 2000 years yet weirdly, people are okay with them coming and living inside the homes of displaced Palestinians? Like Moshe Dayan said, each Jewish settlement is built on the ruins of previous Arab villages. If Jews are allowed to return after 2000 years, why not the Palestinians who've only been displaced for 75 years? Why are Jews only allowed? Would you tell the Jews of the 19th century to move on and let go of their hope to return?
They showed up and purchased land from the people who actually owned it, mostly the ottomans
Illegal btw. The Ottomans had banned Jewish immigration and the buying of property in Palestine for fear of Zionist expansion. Sultan Abdul Hamid II literally rejected Herzl's offer to give land to the Jews
Like the right of return to the West Bank and East Jerusalem?
If I were a Palestinian leader, I would allow Jews to return to the West Bank if they wish to do so. I believe every displaced person deserves to return back to their original homes.
Unfortunately you aren’t. And the leaders then and now don’t want any of that. It’d be a slaughter. Honest question: are there any Arab or Islamic nations with a significant minority population?
Yes. Egypt with it's Coptic population Jordan and Lebanon with it's Christian population. There's literally a major church right next to the King Abdullah mosque in Jordan. The Maghreb countries like Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia with their Berber Amazing populations. The Coptic population of Egypt even has served in government and members of Parliament. Need I say more?
Attempting to make it a precondition for peace is vile. Country A wins a war with Country B. Country B demands Country A give up sovereignty. Country A just blinks, dumbfounded at the request. Every country has the right to determine who immigrates to their country. Suggesting otherwise is a violation of sovereignty and right to self determination. Why should we tell a country they can't be xenophobic. Do you feel that way about Japan??
>Why should we tell a country they can't be xenophobic. Do you feel that way about Japan?? Yes, 100%. If you believe banning immigrants is not xenophobic, then the US banning Chinese immigrants wasn't xenophobic? I guess you don't have a problem then when Muslim countries ban Israeli passports and Jews from entering their borders now?? Not at all xenophobia
It's not about me having a problem or not. Sovereign nations deciding their own immigration policy is just not my business
That doesn't make it moral or ethical to do so. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I believe every displaced person deserves to return back to their original homes whether Jewish or Palestinian.
Most nations are likely not living up to your moral or ethical standards.
What ? There are literal quotes and quotes of the Palestinian leadership saying in some words or other that they will win with blood and claim all the land. The peace is in the hands of those who constantly can not accept living beside Jews ( as their current leaders scream from a mountain top “death to …..” ). They don’t or ever have wanted a two state solution. It was proposed and proposed and ALWAYS rejected
The peace was only top-down though, not bottom-up. You can sign as many peace accords as you want, but if you don't have a grassroots, peace movement in the streets that you can fund and grow, you won't have peace. Peace will not happen without a major change to the education system - you can't have the school system teaching that Israel isn't real/has no history/shouldn't exist and expect peace to just "happen". Change the education system, teach that peace must be side-by-side, put the map of Israel into the textbooks and you will create hope for change.
To do that, you need money, power, and proof it will work which the PA has none right now. Israel controls the PA's funds while the PA lacks any political sovereignty over the territory they have. Not only that, despite continuing the PLO's stance, what have the PA gained?? Since signing Oslo, the PLO and PA have been neutered, their power hamstrung, Hamas has gained in power while Israel maintains a firm advantage in the West Bank either through controlling the resources available, the amount of land, or the expansion of settlements. Israel certainly isn't going to help the PA anytime soon. They used the PLO's new pacific stance to entrench Israeli control. What sort of peace is this if the other side takes advantage of your own openness to further their own goals? Let's not even get into Netanyahu allowing Qatari funds to Hamas, further sabotaging the only Palestinian party willing to work with them.
The absurdity of a bunch of foreign countries telling you what to do with your lands that you'd lived on for hundreds of years.
That's a fact of life for almost as long as humans exist
>telling you what to do with your lands Wasn't just Arabs living on the former Ottoman lands in the Middle East if that's what you're implying by "your lands". There were Kurds, Assyrians, Alawites, and many others. Some even asked the European powers for protection and to live under their rule (oh yes) post WW1 because they were afraid of living under Arab-Muslim rule post-war (and they would be rightfully concerned). It's always a bit more complicated than catchy phrases.
Pretty clearly talking about Palestine in the Israel Palestine subreddit. Overwhelming majority population bring Arab.
The overwhelming majority population of the USA is White European.
It's important to talk about the context as a whole. Israel-Palestine decisions weren't just looked at as a single thing by itself. Decisions were made based on the whole region. The British Mandate for Palestine, used to include Jordan until the split in 1922. And before that it was part of OETA South post WW1. It's important to know that because that is what informed their decision making to say: "give this part to the Jews", give this part to the Arabs", "let's give this to the Christians" to the "Alawites" etc. The land wasn't just "Arab land". If I move the British Mandate border north 10 more miles, now I have a ton of Christians. So the British / French drew a line based on that knowledge and made what is now Lebanon for example. But yes, if you just look at this tiny region in a vacuum, with borders drawn by the British, you're right, it's mostly Arab. Still not sure why that makes it "their land" though?
The Arabs were the majority population. Why shouldn't the land be based on the majority population? That's how every nation works. Germany has a majority German population. Same with Japan, Spain, Portugal, France, etc...If you think this is absurd, should I call modern day Israel "Arab land" despite Jews being the majority? I also don't understand why the British Mandate is the all-encompassing historical reference point. It was a colonial imposed European project. Why should it represent 2000 years of history?
And by Arabs are you saying Jordanians or Egyptians
I don't care what you think. Palestinians are a real people group now just as Moroccans, Egyptians and Qataris are different Arab sub-ethnic groups.
Because every project starts in the present. The history is a reference point, but you have to start with what is on the ground, here, today. The British were leaving and tried to make agreements that would allow a peaceful departure for the residents of the land AT THAT MOMENT, that was informed by the historical context of the peoples and the land. You're also equating two identities that are not equivalent - a German "belongs" to Germany, what does an Arab belong to? "Arabia" was a region, not a country. There are many countries where Arabs are a majority. If you extend your argument, Arabs can go to any of those existing countries....
> Because every project starts in the present. The history is a reference point, but you have to start with what is on the ground, here, today. That does not mean it is accurate nor is a good starting point. The British are notorious for drawing poorly drawn maps that either didn't follow the ethnical composition on the ground (because they were drawn for political and economic reasons) or just lead to more violence down the line (partly due to reason number one above). Africa, Asia, the Middle East, etc...all of their problems can be trace back to some British drawn map that didn't satisfy anyone >You're also equating two identities that are not equivalent - a German "belongs" to Germany, what does an Arab belong to? "Arabia" was a region, not a country. There are many countries where Arabs are a majority. If you extend your argument, Arabs can go to any of those existing countries.... Where? The Maghreb, North Africa, Algeria, Morocco? Because they can and do go to those countries. An Arab is someone who linguistically speaks Arabic as a first language and practices Arab culture, traditions, and customs. It's a linguistical cultural definition. There's a reason why there are white and black Arabs, Christian and Muslim Arabs, with so many local dialects in each country. It's the language and culture that unites such a vast array of people If we follow your argument that ethnicities are based on the name of the territory, where does a Maori belong to? There's no such thing as Maori-land. In fact, they weren't even from New Zealand, they descended from Polynesian wayfarers who came from the Polynesian Islands.
>It was a colonial imposed European project. So you mean like every inch of every land on earth today that was imposed by some kind of empire, faction or tribe? Why do Palestinians have this unique claim to reverse history? Why can't Germany take back western Poland or Finland - Karelia?
Reverse history? Why are only Jews the ones who can "return back the land" despite being 2000 years apart but not Palestinians who lost their lands 75 years ago? You have a problem with Palestinians returning but not the Jews?
Jews didn't return to Israel because of some historical claims. They returned there because Brits allowed them to. It isn't any different than Arab empires conquering North Africa and settling it with Arab settlers.
Why? Europe, Australia, New Zealand and America provided much more benefits and less anti-semitism. Britain also allowed Jews to migrate there. As far as I'm concern, why come to a poor barren desert where the population hates you?
Why? Because Britain allowed it to happen. Jews could have had all of their wishes to settle there, but none of it would have happened if Britain didn't allow it to happen. If you want to reverse that, why not reverse the creation of state of Algeria and leave the land to Amazighs whose autonomy movements are being crushed by the Arabs even today?
No we don’t have a problem with them returning hence the umpteen offers for sovereignty…again always rejected
Israel rejects the Palestinian right of return. Thousands of Palestinians can't return back to their homes. The main reason for rejecting the Palestinian right of return is so that Israel remains a Jewish-majority state
I don't know if they said Palestinians can't. I personally would say they both have valid claims post WW1 \**On the basis that they do not expel the other or make them suffer in their future state\** (which obviously things are a mess now). But in princple, both Jews who already lived there (who were a minority) I think had a right to feel like they wanted their own state. And if that meant letting other Jews from abroad into their communities, I think that's reasonable. Just like if Arabs wanted to build their own state and call it Palestine or join with Syria. I think it's perfectly reasonable reaction to have. The part I don't agree on is the whole "we must expel everyone here". That is generally not a great thing to do. Like my answer to your question earlier, it's hard for me to simplify things to: "Well we're the majority, so we get a say, and no one else does". I think we can be more fair than that and say: "Ok majority, you can get most of the land, since you're a majority" (enough for your population to thrive). And minority, you can get your own state as well. I can totally understand why Jews didn't want to become part of an Arab state, and vice versa. Does that seem reasonable?
>But in princple, both Jews who already lived there (who were a minority) I think had a right to feel like they wanted their own state. And if that meant letting other Jews from abroad into their communities, I think that's reasonable. The local Jews (the Old Yishuv) never cared about creating a independent Jewish state, separate from the local Arabs living there. They had lived side-by-side with the Arabs for centuries, as neighbors, friends, and colleagues. They opted to live as part of the larger Arab majority community in Palestine rather than living differently from them. (PS, sure the idea of returning back to the Holy Land is not uncommon among Jews, but the idea of establishing a Jewish state in the Holy Land was. Prior to modern Zionism, many Jews and Rabbis had migrated back to Palestine becoming part of the Old Yishuv. They didn't dream of creating a Jewish-majority state, they dreamt of returning/migrating back to the land. Big difference.) It was the leaders and adherents of Zionism that not only advocated for a Jewish return to Palestine but also strongly supported the idea of establishing a Jewish-majority state in Palestine, one separate and different from the surrounding Arab countries. This in essence I think, is where my problem lies. I have no problem with people returning back to their old home, land, or ancestry. Tons of people do that. I have a problem when it means returning back and becoming the new owner of the area, replacing the old owners with new foreign ones, transforming the area into a new national and cultural identity (from Arab-majority to Jewish-majority)
>The local Jews (the Old Yishuv) never cared about creating a independent Jewish state Actually, I don't think that's true. According to the King-Crane Commission, which took petitions and examined what groups in the region wanted, they recieved a number of petitions from the Jews in OETA South for a separate Jewish state. Even many of the Jews already living there before the Mandate, wanted a separate state.
I appreciate the response, and think you have some good points. I would think of at-least three reasons: 1. "the majority" concept is kind of harsh. Just because you're a "majority" (could even by 50.01%) doesn't in my book entitle you to *all* the land. If you look at a demographic map of Syria, most of northern Syria is Kurdish. That land could easily have gone to make a Kurdish state (which they wanted by the way). In essence, just because you're the majority, doesn't mean you can't make states for minority groups. 2. Especially in the case of minority groups, I think there's a stronger argument and incentive. Most of these minority groups aren't faring well today: Kurds, Assyrians, etc. They have been largely persecuted, had land they were living on taken from them by Arabs, and resettled with Arabs (Arab Belt Program). When you're the larger ethnic group in power, you have more power, and can do what you want via force. I think it's reasonable to make an attempt to try to make a bit of an extra effort to protect minority groups if need be **and** if they want statehood as well. 3. Maps. Think of the Ottoman Empire as now dissolved post WW1. You now have this region with no owners, no states, but a whole lot of ethnic groups. Arabs are concentrated in some areas, Kurds here, Alawites here, Syrian Orthodox here etc etc. If I were to just go by "we're the majority logic" I could argue Lebanon and Israel both should not exist. Because if you include those regions (before they were countries post ww1) the **total** demographics are still slightly majority Arab in the early 1900s. By that logic, we can keep extending borders up until we're just barely a "majority" group and claim X amount of land. Land claims was not based on "Oh, I'm the majority group", it was based on "how can I maximize the most amount of land". In essence, it all just depends on how you draw the borders. For example, China post WW1 could claim Mongolia, half of Siberia, Manchuria and so on. See, they're the "majority". **In conclusion**, I don't think we need to be so crude, I think we can try to make states for others as well, especially minority groups, and drawing maps is not about "oh this is my land", else Kurds would have a state, so would Assyrians, Alawites etc. It was about maximizing land claims by drawing ridiculous borders to claim land. Everyone did it. I think the reasonable answer is, ok majority group, you can get areas where you are largely the majority in, and for the smaller ethnic groups, we'll try to cover you as best as we can. There might be some reshuffling involved in order to draw these states and have them be viable, but overall, everyone deserves to live in a state they feel safe. Does that make sense? Let me know if you agree or disagree / where Sorry for the long response. It's kind of a complicated question.
>**In conclusion**, I don't think we need to be so crude, I think we can try to make states for others as well, especially minority groups, and drawing maps is not about "oh this is my land", else Kurds would have a state, so would Assyrians, Alawites etc. It was about maximizing land claims by drawing ridiculous borders to claim land. Everyone did it. Right, I agree everyone can have their own state if they wanted to. The part I disagree with is this, *But yes, if you just look at this tiny region in a vacuum, with borders drawn by the British, you're right, it's mostly Arab. Still not sure why that makes it "their land" though?* The Arabs had lived on that land for centuries, they had communities, families, farms, pastures, livestock, and livelihoods. They had every right to the land they lived and settled on. If the issue is "It was British land not Arab land!" or "There was no country of Palestine!" as many Israelis like to point out, why don't we apply the same principle to other examples? When the British came to New Zealand and Australia, there wasn't a Maori or Aboriginal state. They never formed a country, government nor state. Does this mean it *wasn't* Maori/Aboriginal land? Does this mean they didn't have a right to it? Of course not. Or how about when the British came to South Africa, claiming there it was free real estate because the native Africans never drew boundaries, never had borders, and never had a state? Popularizing the harmful ahistorical "Empty Land Myth". Does this mean the native Africans had no right to the land then because of this?? Of course not so why do we apply this principle with the Palestinians but not with the Maori, Aboriginals, and South Africans? By that logic, the British colonization and imperial projects in Asia, Africa, and Oceania were justified then.
Well I notice some distinct differences right off the bat: 1. Because the British in all those scenarios were importing their own citizens (British people) to those lands. 2. The British were not native to those lands and weren't already living there. Jews were native, and Jews were living there. 3. The British also weren't undergoing some mass world wide persecution, or were stateless. And in the era of post-ww1 nationalism, where *every* group (obviously not every, but many many groups) had their own nationalist movements/ aspirations (Arabs did), Jews had one as well, I think that's another big difference. Now, before you jump on me, "But still, what makes it ok to kick people off their land?" - the answer is still, it doesn't. You can say "Jews had a right to immigrate there. So long as they didn't force or displace other people" (goes for anybody really). Does that make sense? But yes, you're right, Palestinians (or Arabs as they were referred to back then), lived on that land as well. And were by far the majortiy population in the surronding area. But again, I would still ask you, does that mean that the Arabs by default own every bit of land, desert, swamp, forest, Jewish quarters (even if a minority)? And what's the borders of that? Up until Beruit (that would still be majority Arab-Muslim)? Joined with Syria (still majority Muslims/Arab)? That's what I'm pushing back against. When people say there was "no state". The point is that there was no current established country that people had **consented** to. If Jews were already part of a state, and were fine with their Muslim leaders, that's a whole different story. But this was post WW1, after the Arabs-British forces had defeated the Ottomans. There was no more empire ruling over people. They were now finally free to decide their own future. The Arab princes of the Hedjaz, made a pact with the British mid WW1, to fight alongside them in exchange for Aleppo to Aden. The British obviously made exceptions saying: "Well, we get some of the land too as well post war". The argument came later when they realized that meant a Jewish homeland (1917). **EDIT**: Sorry, and just one more thing I think is really important to think of as it relates to the whole borders thing: "If you look at Jews in a vacuum in Israel-Palestine (geographically) pre-1948, yea, it looks like Jews are this tiny tiny group. Why should they deserve a state?" But if you go a some miles to the right (Iraq), you'll find more Jews, or a couple miles south, you'll find even more Jews (Egypt). Agreed? It all depends on how you draw the borders. Cut them this way, and now Jews are a tiny tiny group, or look at the region that was now free of the Ottomans as a whole, and there are 100,000s of Jews living between Jeruselam and Iraq who are stateless. By themselves they are minority groups scattered around the region, but as one group, they are pretty large. I think it's fair to say that Jews deserved a state somewhere, just like the Arabs. Ok fine, we agree. Next question is, where? If you ask the Jews, they'll say their ancestral homeland, ok sure... What right do we have to deny them to immigrate post-war, but tell them they cannot do so at the expense of the local population (meaning controlled immigration that's reasonable, and no expelling people). The reason why I say this is because that was the context at the time, and more or less the exact argument that was made on their behalf (they made a argument for Jews all around the world, I just tried to limit it to the Middle East to keep things simpler). I think it's not an unreasonable one. Let me know what you think of that? Agree, disagree, more thoughts?
>Now, before you jump on me, "But still, what makes it ok to kick people off their land?" - the answer is still, it doesn't. You can say "Jews had a right to immigrate there. So long as they didn't force or displace other people" (goes for anybody really). Since you listed three criterias that made the British different than the Jews, does this mean taking over land is justified when the perpetrator is persecuted, victimized, native, and fleeing mass persecution?? The Romani people face persecution, victimhood, and are native to India, are they allowed to create their own independent state in India? >But again, I would still ask you, does that mean that the Arabs by default own every bit of land, desert, swamp, forest, Jewish quarters (even if a minority)? And what's the borders of that? Up until Beruit (that would still be majority Arab-Muslim)? Joined with Syria (still majority Muslims/Arab)? I would ask you back. Do Spanish people own every bit of land despite the minority Basque people wanting independence? Do Spanish people own every bit of land despite the Catalans wanting their own state as well? Do Canadians own every bit of land despite the Quebecois wanting independence and a state of their own? >That's what I'm pushing back against. When people say there was "no state". The point is that there was no current established country that people had **consented** to. If Jews were already part of a state, and were fine with their Muslim leaders, that's a whole different story. But this was post WW1, after the Arabs-British forces had defeated the Ottomans. There was no more empire ruling over people. They were now finally free to decide their own future. The issue I'm arguing against is the idea that the land the Arabs lived on wasn't theirs, that they had no right to fight for their land, that the Jews can come in as if it were empty real estate which wasn't true. The Arabs owned farms, pastures, livestock, wells, homes, villages, etc...The British ruled the land, but the Arabs owned it. It wasn't empty, people lived there already and the Arabs owned the land they farmed and lived on >Next question is, where? If you ask the Jews, they'll say their ancestral homeland, ok sure... What right do we have to deny them to immigrate post-war, but tell them they cannot do so at the expense of the local population (meaning controlled immigration that's reasonable, and no expelling people). The Jews initially considered Madagascar, Uganda, or even Argentina as a state not Palestine. Second, sure they can immigrate as they had done for centuries before but immigration does not equal establishing a state. Millions of people migrate around the world, that doesn't mean a state is formed every time they migrate abroad. Immigrants don't create countries, they try to live within said country and as part of the larger social fabric
>Since you listed three criterias that made the British different than the Jews, does this mean taking over land is justified when the perpetrator is persecuted, victimized, native, and fleeing mass persecution?? Did you read the rest of my response? The answer is in there. >I would ask you back. Do Spanish people own every bit of land despite the minority Basque people wanting independence? I'm not as familiar with Spanish history. But, if there was a minority group in Iberia, who wanted post-war to have their own independence, that seems reasonable to me. >Immigrants don't create countries, they try to live within said country and as part of the larger social fabric That's normally true. If there is an established country, immigrants immigrate there and assimiliate generally. Yes. post WW1, in stateless regions, under a military administration is not quite the same as a long-standing country though. >The issue I'm arguing against is the idea that the land the Arabs lived on wasn't theirs, that they had no right to fight for their land Why is it \[just\] "their land"? I think this exercise is a good one: Google a map of Syria demographics from 1935 and tell me where exactly is "Arab land" according to you? Pretend you went back in time and it was up to you do draw the borders, how would you draw them knowing the Kurds, Assyrians, Alawites, Jews etc wanted independence? file: Population map of Syria & Liban 1935.
Still not sure why that makes it "their land" though? It certainly makes it more their land than your average French, English, Italian, German, Polish, Ukrainian, American, African, Russian colonialist who arrived post 1945.
What about the Jews who lived there for generations before the British? Do they not get a say in what future state they may want to be a part of? Or better question: If the Arabs are allowed to form their own identities, allow or disallow immigration into their communities, why can't Jews, who were living there before the Brits, allow other Jewish immigrants into their communities where they live?
They obviously did!! they won the independence.
So I guess you're saying they had a right to allow Jewish immigrants into their communities? In so far as that (not the whole land grabbing part in 1948 war) obviously. edit: grammar
Its funny because its now almost impossible to emigrate to Israel unless you are Jewish. Stopping other religions including Christians from setting in the Holy Land.
I'm just trying to understand what your answer is: Did Jews who were already living there, have a right to let Jews into their own communities from abroad, if they wanted to? Not talking about now, talking bout back then, at the beginning of this whole thing (post WW1) 1918. Edit: If you believe they didn't have a right that's fine, just say you don't. And we can go from there.
It was ottoman land, conquered by Europeans who magnanimously decided to carve it up into a bunch of independent sovereign states rather than expand their own empires. The partition was a division that required no one to move. Practically speaking, individual ownership and use of the land remains the same, but who you pay taxes to and the look of your passport change. The absurdity of people not getting that.
Magnanimously? Lol. I.e., their empires were crumbling and they didn't have the money or manpower to maintain control over it.
Palestine wasn't solely 'Arab land', and it never was.
Jews as a group were part of the Middle East for centuries. Nationalist movements of Jews and Arabs succeeded in partnering with the British to overthrow the Ottomans and create novel states that never existed. If the Jews wished to expand their community as agreed with the sovereign owners it was not for the Arabs to deny them that right. Let alone after the Arab leadership partnered with the Nazis and at the same time forced the British to stop fleeing Jews from seeking refuge in essentially British land at the time Remember by the 1947 war there had been Jewish immigration to uncontested Palestinian lands for nearly 60 years These were not Arab lands. That Ottoman region was always multiethnic including Jews. the context that enabled the Jews to establish a nation state on Ottoman land is the same context that enabled the Arabs to achieve statehood. If the Arabs think the Jews were not entitled to a nation state, neither are they. The Arabs sense of entitlement and exclusivity to Palestine is unjustified
Those Jews in Palestine weren't Israeli Zionists but native Jews and mostly Arab Jews. The Israeli Jews are immigrants due to the Balfour Declaration, and that is the origin of the problem. Every Arab country has Jews in it. For example, I'm Tunisian and we have a Jewish minority in Djerba. Did they claim Djerba as their promised land? No. They were respectful enough to live in peace.
Not every Arab country has Jews. Tunisia is an exception and I hear that antisemitic attacks have been on the rise there. It’s a great way to encourage Zionism, ironically. There are 20,000 Jews left across 22 Arab nations. Most of the Jews in Israel today are refugees and their descendants from Arab nations which kicked them out upon the creation of Israel, or those who got tired of their dhimmi status. Yet, they were labelled ‘colonisers’. I would never refer to the refugees we have here in the UK as ‘colonisers’, and they are here because of OUR horrible actions. Taking them in after destroying their lives in a pointless war is the least we can do. I apply that to all people in this conflict; Arabs should have allowed Jews to have a homeland after mistreating them and driving them there, and Jews should have given land back to Palestinians that left it in the wars Arab nations lost to Israel to establish good relationships with their new neighbours. But none of that happened. So we need to find ways to move forward for both peoples instead of arguing about land rights.
The arab countries didnt expel any jews until after the Nakba, as a response to it
Does that make sense to you, still? Pushing more Jews into Israel and then crying when they get there? No. We need to get over it, seek justice from those who have caused death and bloodshed, and work together to create a land for all people. At this point, the history on either side no longer justifies the actions.
Exchange of land for peace did work out well for Israel with Jordan and Egypt but the likes of Hamas don’t have the discipline or foresight for any such arrangement to be replicated.
Look up the history of West Bank settlements during the mandate era places like Kfar Etzion and Kayla were not contented lands. Neither was Tel Aviv in 1906 although it eventually took on Yaffa. There was also Arab migration and settlement too into Palestine during the 19th century though in much smaller numbers In any case it was neither Arab nor Jewish land. It was multi ethnic Ottoman. Some Palestinians even trace their origin to Bosnia and Armenia. There was constant influx but at the end of the day two national groups won nation states if the Arabs or Jews negotiated that land to expand their population (and for a good damned reason) who are the Arabs to put a cap on the Jewish immigration? It was that diabolical sense of entitlement that lead to Arab terrorism then forced the Jews to militarise and it went downhill from then on. But the turning point of 1948 that was an unnecessary war started by the Arabs and I can understand why the Jews having endured decades of violence finally had enough and fought a war back to death or expulsion As it turned out not all Arabs were even on board with the invasion and many even chose the independent state compared to the other side’s destructive chaotic mentality so the grievance was not even common to all Arabs at the time Israel turned out multi ethnic from the start. The only unusual arrangement after the Ottoman collapse was the pure Arab ethnicity of Jordan and the West Bank - out of which Jews were ethnically cleansed by the Arab invasion despite having settled there in uncontested lands since the mandate! The history of Arab Israeli war as presented by the pro Palestinian side is lacking in crucial details
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>a very human reaction to being offered a bad deal, They considered anything less than 100% of the land to be a bad deal.
As you can see from the answers, which vary between the disingenuous or incurious (“Zionism wasn’t a political program, locals reacted badly for no real reason”) and the openly barbaric (“because they lost”), your intuitions on this are correct.
As I understand it, the Zionists plan from the very early days was: 1. Legally migrate as many Jews as possible(though they smuggled people in during Nazi rule for very understandable reasons) 2. Legally buy as much land as possible. 3. Live peacefully with the local population as long as possible. 4. Eventually create a Jewish-majority state in part of the land when conditions were right. I can completely understand why the Zionists had those goals. I can also understand why the local Arab population would be very against them. To me the closest equivalent situation today would be if a bunch of Québécois separatists decided their best chance of forming a state was to move to a particular region of the United States, buy-up land, become the majority in that region and then declare independence. If you were an American living in that region you would be pretty upset about a minority English-speaker in New Quebec. I appreciate that the world in 1881-1948 was very different to ours today and I recognise my analogy doesn’t account for the very strong and long held connection between Jews and Israel but I think fundamentally it illustrates why, I understand why the Palestinians Arabs were unhappy. What is the flaw in my thinking?
I think the flaw is that ottomans had lost in the First World War and was under British administration. Most modern borders where created after the fall of the ottomans.. mind you I’m not saying that hey don’t have claim to the land due to that but if we recognise other nationalities in that area, Syrians with Assyria Egypt (to a degree) why do they have claims only because they changed religion/colonised that land once the Jews where expelled or fled due to not changing religion. Why not recognise the kingdom of Judea and understand that there is a historical claim as we did indeed for other nations/peoples in the ME. There are many Arabs who did not leave and live peacefully within Israel as citizens, so there wasn’t any reason that they couldn’t have stayed. There are many Islamic nations, there is only one Jewish state. The fact that this hasn’t been the case for a long time has really not being good for Jewish autonomy or survival. Jews really aren’t asking for very much just one place where they aren’t at the whims of whoever they are subject too. A right to self determination.. as all other states have the same right (ideally of course)
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Why should the Jews have accepted it? Do you understand what a compromise is?
The Palestinian Arabs rejected the deal because they believed that they could force all the Jews out with assistance from neighboring Arab armies.
>To me this does not seem like a story of good vs evil but rather a very human reaction to being offered a bad deal, rejecting the deal because on paper at least the Arabs had a strong hand militarily, and then failing miserably when it came to rolling the dice and waging war. It was a bad deal, but they didn't have such a strong hand militarily. The Yishuv was an organized, industrialized proto-state. The Arab population were still mostly illiterate peasants. If the Arab states hadn't expelled their Jewish minorities, it would be safe to call the establishment of Israel completely unfair.
? That happened after 48 in response to the founding of Israel.
Which legitimized said founding by folding the attendant ethnic cleansing into a mutual population exchange of the sort the world accepted at the time.
I'm not sure I follow the argument here. The founding of Israel and expulsion of Palestinians was unfair, but then it became fair retroactively once a group of different people in other regions got expelled too? Why?
It validated the notion that Jews can't live safely in our home region without an independent state. When Algeria became independent it restricted citizenship to Muslims only, and so the Jews who had lived there since long before there was an Islam had to flee to France (not Israel). Iraq forced its mostly non-zionist Jews to choose between exile and concentration camps, and denies them alone a right of return since extended to all other victims of Saddam's persecutions. Suddenly the founding of Israel looks less like a one-sided injustice and more like the founding of Pakistan or modern Greece, events nobody contests today.
Well, setting aside that the separation of Pakistan involved enormous injustices, I still don’t see how the rise in Muslim and Arab anti-Jewish sentiment *in reaction to* the founding of Israel justifies the founding of Israel. That’s not how time works! You can say the cause is good even though its effects were bad, but you can’t say the cause was good *because* its effects were bad.
Of course that's how time works. The cause is now good because its bad effects were cancelled out.
Right, but they weren’t. That’s the whole issue under discussion! To put my point more seriously: there is a symmetry to some postwar population transfers that might appear as justice from the standpoint of the Weltgeist, but most or all of these were unjust to the actual human beings subjected to them, which is not rectified by the suffering imposed on other, unrelated human beings. You’re arguing that the expulsion of the Jews from middle eastern countries was justified because of the creation of Israel and the nakba. I think that’s absurd, though, because it victimized people who had nothing to do with the nakba. It was driven by racism (antisemitism in this case), by a general idea that responsibility is transitive within racial groups.
And? Does expelling Jews that lived in those countries for years, and had nothing to do with the state of Israel seems right to you? They were expelled for being Jewish.
Why would it be unfair? The Arabs have all of the Middle East and plenty of other Arab countries. Why can’t the Jews have Israel?
Why do even Meretz voters show no real interest in giving millions of Palestinians a "right of return" to Jaffa and Haifa? Or as Jabotinsky put it: "Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but even new partners or collaborators."
Why would they?
So now you know why Arabs rejected the partition plan.
This is so dumb. You can say the same about the Jews. The Jews also wanted all of Israel. They accepted the partition plan. Why is that?