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Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: Israel Hate is Anti-Semitism [View all]Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)290. You'll get it then.
Israels claim to a Jewish state in Palestine prevented Palestinians ever gaining self- determination in the whole of their land......Palestinians are to be allowed part of their land only.
This is only because you are choosing to label what is essentially an arbitrarily defined plot of land as "Palestinian land," describing it as though it belonged to Palestine from an earlier time. In reality, there's no reason to consider ALL of the land negotiated by the British to fall under its Mandate then belongs to the Palestinians. Why would you? They did not own most of it. They did not live on most of it. The first thing England did was partition most of it off to become trans Jordan. But no discernible difference exists between Palestine and Jordan aside from what was imposed politically.
You are playing at semantics.....The Palestinians lost Palestine
Hardly. They didn't lose it, they never had it in the first place.The Palestinians did not merely lack a state. They lacked a national identity. There was no Palestinian state, that's for sure. But there wasn't a Palestinian people at this point either.
It was hardly their fault that at the time Palestine wasnt a state
It's not about assigning blame. Of course it wasn't their fault. They did not even have the concept of states there at the time. But we can't retroactively expect that the Zionists should have approached Palestine as though it WAS an existing state ruled by an existing nation of people when neither of these things existed at the time.
Had Palestine been a sovereign state before Britain conquered it, do you really think that would that have made any difference to the Zionists?
I can't even imagine how this could have played out if the Middle East were already split into sovereign states before WWI. But you are offering a what-if? question that pre-supposes an entirely different world. For Palestine to be a state then there couldn't have been an Ottoman empire, etc, so on.
You need to read-up again on your history. At the Third Palestinian Arab Congress convened in Haifa on 13 December 1920 (Muslih 205-7)... Three foundational principles were agreed:
- the establishment of a national government,
- the rejection of the idea of a Jewish National Home,
- the organization of the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement.
You left out the part that said the national government they wanted was the one promised to Hussein, originally Syria. As was resolved in the first such congress:
"We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds."
Aside from that being the prevailing attitude, it goes without saying that the congress probably would not have ruled against the idea of a Jewish National Home and officially opposed the Balfour Declaration unless those things already existed. Meaning Zionism's plan of settling in Palestine was already planned, negotiated and implemented before the Palestinian Arabs thought to convene. And even then the "Palestinian Arab nationalist movement" you speak of referred to a PAN-ARAB movement, not a unilateral Palestinian one.
Britains encouragement of Zionism destroyed that dream.
Maybe so. But the dream wasn't thought of until well after Israel was pretty much built and preparing to declare independence.
You are absolutely right, Britain had no right to do any of that and anyone suffering from that injustice has a right to seek restitution
But you're wrong, Britain DID have that right. You are assuming a lot of things about the state of Palestine (the state, not the State), that were simply not the case back in 1920. You are making arbitrary decisions about what their rights should have been, about what land belonged to them, about their national ambitions, none of which are true.
When Britain & the US had to make a choice between giving away their own territory
That was never an option. Britain and the US were already existing states. There was no office of either government that had the authority to give part of its own nation away.
or the territory of another people (Palestine), the result was obvious but certainly not ethical
But no one gave away the territory of Palestine either. They did not give anything away at all in fact. All the Balfour Decl. said was that the Jews had a right to immigrate to the area and make their national home there. Which they did by moving there and purchasing land, developing it into farmland, industrial areas, forests and eventually cities. For the most part this was undesirable land to start with. But the Zionists had the resources to drain swamps and turn it into arable farmland. No one took land that belonged to the Arabs living there and handed it over to a collective of Jewish immigrants. And just because there are Arab people living near any given plot of land does not make that land automatically theirs. The Bedouins lived in the Negev and traveled around it throughout the year. Does that make the entire Negev Bedouin property? In 1920 Jerusalem's population had a solid Jewish majority, and had since the mid 1800s. Does that mean Jerusalem belonged to the Jews? Or did it all belong to the Palestinian Arabs because they had a majority in the state at the time? If you just drew the border a little differently then a different group would be the majority ethnicity. It is not possible to argue that the entirety of any non-sovereign state belongs to any single group by luck of a bunch of them living right there, right then. Nor should it. What the League of Nations accomplished was a way of splitting up the huge area of the middle east via discussion and negotiation instead of the classic method employed there for thousands of years... tribal warfare.
I would very much like to hear your strong ethical argument as to why the US should support Britains Mandate to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine rather than somewhere in the US.
Well, you already seem to agree that a Jewish state was necessary, so we're ahead already with that out of the way. Now, there was never any movement to establish a foreign entity within the US's territory because it's illegal, no one had the right to just give away an entire state and no one wanted to build their nation there, or for the Zionists to move there. The issue isn't "why not in the US?" but "why in Palestine" and then "why is the inherent right of a Jewish national home's existence in Palestine of greater ethical importance than establishing another Arab state (or part of one) over the entirety of Palestine?"
Palestine is the Jewish people's historical, cultural and religious homeland, which has had an unbroken population of Jews living there for thousands of years. All of the religion's key religious sites exist there. Wherever a Jewish state is created, Jews from the diaspora would have to move there. The difference for those immigrants moving to Palestine versus somewhere else? They would see themselves moving BACK to Palestine.
And because of those things, there have been ongoing and frequent attempts by Jews at re-colonizing the region; most recently back then by the Russians and before that by Napoleon. Conversely there's nothing that marks Palestine as being uniquely Palestinian at all. Arab, sure. But the whole region is Arab. One of the problems for your argument here to overcome is the fact that we are comparing the need for a nation by the entirety of an ethno-religious group, the Jews, in all of its forms, sects, races, etc., with the right to the same state by a small sliver of a subset of a different ethnic group. A subset that some would argue is especially indistinguishable from many others around it. What is it that sets the Palestinians apart from other Arabs? Most importantly, what about Palestinian nationality makes their possession of ALL of Palestine more important than that of the entire Jewish world to live on just SOME of it?
Why is the Palestinians' getting EVERYthing more important than the Jews' getting ANYthing?
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Israel's gov't is just our badly behaved punk cousin who has to be bailed out again. To point that
leveymg
Nov 2012
#227
When you look at US history did you ever sop to ask where the Colonials
R. Daneel Olivaw
Nov 2012
#160
When the colonies during the American Revolution were fighting for their
R. Daneel Olivaw
Nov 2012
#213
Still, the past restrictions Egypt put in place on Gazans leaving and entering Gaza
Ken Burch
Nov 2012
#219
And I call Bullshit! Now tell me about the West Bank and what is going on there with
teddy51
Nov 2012
#36
You people are great at rerouting the subject! I asked about the West Bank, not Gaza. You fuckers
teddy51
Nov 2012
#47
No, the discussion is not about Gaza the discussion is about Palestine vs Israel and what land
teddy51
Nov 2012
#70
You're assuming Hamas can be mollified by negotiations. They're perfectly clear....
shira
Nov 2012
#125
Yes, i'm sure that the giant graphic was just too painful to see and it took forever to load.
R. Daneel Olivaw
Nov 2012
#198
There's no room. It's about the size of DC, and has damn near twice as many people
leveymg
Nov 2012
#55
My larger point is valid. I said it's an overcrowded walled refugee camp that's not worth
leveymg
Nov 2012
#64
You can argue those points with the authors of this report: 2/3 of Gaza are refugees
leveymg
Nov 2012
#131
What is the difference between a city with 2/3 refugees and a refugee camp? What is the difference
leveymg
Nov 2012
#139
I believe it was Dov Weisglass who infamously called the "disengagement" plan ...
Fantastic Anarchist
Nov 2012
#165
Sorry, but I see some of you as "Poor me, please feel sorry for me) and forget what we do in
teddy51
Nov 2012
#9
Opposing the Gaza withdrawal, which you're doing due to Israel's "evil" intent.....
shira
Nov 2012
#171
Who cares what he said? Nobody that is apparently falling all over themselves
R. Daneel Olivaw
Nov 2012
#218
"What does an oppressed, imprisoned people (Hamas) do to get the rest of the world's attention"
shira
Nov 2012
#40
A question for you: What did those Turkish people onboard that boat do to warrant there deaths?
teddy51
Nov 2012
#42
And have you listened to Turkey's PM about this event? No, I doubt you have cause everything is
teddy51
Nov 2012
#52
"What did those Turkish people onboard that boat do to warrant there deaths?"
holdencaufield
Nov 2012
#122
Not my call, that belongs to the Israeli people. How about a leader that truly wants to make
teddy51
Nov 2012
#49
Like I said, I'm not an Israeli citizen and don't get to vote there or make that call.
teddy51
Nov 2012
#66
I would like to see the Labor party guy(sorry can't remember his name) Get back in power.
hrmjustin
Nov 2012
#50
Really Barak is Israel's current Minister of Defense and the one in charge of this show
azurnoir
Nov 2012
#96
The sad truth is this when it comes to Palestinians there is little light between
azurnoir
Nov 2012
#106
know what I luv weasel words and oh the British mandate ended over 65 years ago
azurnoir
Nov 2012
#282
No, I don't think the Israeli people do, but there leaders certainly have no problem with
teddy51
Nov 2012
#54
So tell me about the boat that you guys boarded and killed innocent people on then! Your not
teddy51
Nov 2012
#87
I was here, observing some propaganda troll bot endlessly recite stale talking points
Alamuti Lotus
Nov 2012
#19
You would not be correct in assuming anything; you're just not good at it.. *nt
Alamuti Lotus
Nov 2012
#27
That charge is pretty funny considering your mission here seems to be to demonize
shira
Nov 2012
#126
Hamas' sworn intent to kill the Jews is irrelevant to the "human rights community"
shira
Nov 2012
#166
I would very much like to hear your “strong ethical argument” favouring Palestine over the US......
kayecy
Nov 2012
#289
For the same reason that the US, Argentina or Australia would have rejected it........
kayecy
Nov 2012
#298
no because you've shown nothing but hearsay and opinion I originally asked for evidence charges from
azurnoir
Nov 2012
#143
No you did not quote B'tselem you claimed that and you were busted which is why no link
azurnoir
Nov 2012
#183
I have questioned MEMRI more than once and that very same video within the past 24hrs
azurnoir
Nov 2012
#82
no MEMRI's record of biased translation coupled with Israeles propaganda program to make
azurnoir
Nov 2012
#104
My question has everything to with "The People" versus "their Government" ...
1StrongBlackMan
Nov 2012
#140
After witnessing our invasion and decimation of Iraq, with israeli encouragement, why the hell
Purveyor
Nov 2012
#53
Israel had nothing to do with our invasion of Iraq. There were a lot of countries who supported
still_one
Nov 2012
#110
Israel To U.S. Don't Delay Iraq Attack, Sharon Government Urges Prompt Action Against Saddam - CBS
Purveyor
Nov 2012
#142
My point was the U.S. was doing regardless, and other western countries did the same bullshit. It
still_one
Nov 2012
#144
They did not do it because of their encouragement or any other countries encouragement. They did it
still_one
Nov 2012
#148
Bullshit. The argument might be made that the US did, but not Israel, but while you are at it why
still_one
Nov 2012
#112
Yes, because the mightiest state in the Middle East is a poor victim.
Fantastic Anarchist
Nov 2012
#151
So let's say a chunk of Mexico (or Canada) is given to terrorists who launch rockets to the USA
PuppyBismark
Nov 2012
#155
Not true. I am anti Zionist right wing crazy Israelis, I am not anti Israel or an anti-Semitic.
OregonBlue
Nov 2012
#181
That's right...this so-called "progressive" magazine says that anyone who is Israeli or Jewish
Ken Burch
Nov 2012
#201
If hostility against Jews and Jewish organization is anti-semitic, what do you call Jewish
AnotherMcIntosh
Nov 2012
#209
You do realize not every organization that advocate for Palestinian rights in Palestine..
King_David
Nov 2012
#212
You have it wrong. In contrast to you, I have never claimed that any organization that advocates
AnotherMcIntosh
Nov 2012
#215
It is disingenuous and used to "deflect" from the discrimination against Jews.
Behind the Aegis
Nov 2012
#233
Are you going to argue that anti-Semitism is discrimination against Arabs?
Behind the Aegis
Nov 2012
#241
Language is fluid, and definitions change with time, usage and cultural reference.
R. Daneel Olivaw
Nov 2012
#243
Seemingly you still do. And if you don't want to read it then put me on ignore.
R. Daneel Olivaw
Nov 2012
#249
As I said, you can always put me on ignore and dig your heels in to the end of time.
R. Daneel Olivaw
Nov 2012
#255
And if you want to play word games, you will get called on it again and again.
Behind the Aegis
Nov 2012
#256
"a term coined by antisemites"? Actually, the German-Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider in
AnotherMcIntosh
Nov 2012
#234
True about not all Palestinians being Muslims (and not all Israelis are Jews)..
LeftishBrit
Nov 2012
#236
I have no idea as to whether Marr popularized the term. I know that many now use the term to
AnotherMcIntosh
Nov 2012
#238
spreading that bigotry out among multiple terms that way it's harder to pin down
azurnoir
Nov 2012
#253
Well, you're free to go away then and dig your heels in someplace else.
R. Daneel Olivaw
Nov 2012
#270
Lovely straw man argument... I think the leaders screw up, so I must be a Nazi...
bobclark86
Nov 2012
#295