Reply #22: No. It has nothing to do with the removal of the state

[PDJane]

Or the survival of the Jewish people as a whole. In spite of an attempted genocide at least twice in Europe, the Jews have survived and thrived.

It is solely and simply about dropping a Jewish state on the land that hasn't been theirs for 2000 years. I do know the history of the region; I also know the religious tale, and that isn't quite the truth either.

I am too old and too experienced to believe that the history as written be either Palestine or Israel is exactly correct, and put no credence at all in the religious fairy tale.

The land was not purchased. That is a myth. Some of it was purchased, yes. Some of it was sold under duress. Some of it was common land, a concept the west hasn't had for a long time. A great deal of the land was stolen, and the settlements are definitely on stolen, not purchased, land.

The vast number of Palestinians left at gunpoint, and they or their descendents are still living in refugee camps, a situation that hasn't been true anywhere in the world until now.

The original Balfour plan was to have one state in Palestine, and to have both Jews and Palestinians share the territory. Nothing was to be done that violated the rights of the indigenous people. That did not suit the zionists, precisely, and that is why the Jewish state was born in terrorism, and why terrorism has become a state tactic. The Irgun was a terrorist organization, in spite of the current romantic view, and the state was declared so that both palestine and Isralis could have peace.

The six-day war was a sham. Instead of the plucky Jewish state fighting many Arabic states, Israel decided to take territory, and provoked a "war" to do it, backed by the US and the UK, against an Arabic state that was neither equipped nor prepared to fight back.

Are Palestinians totally innocent? No. But they are a brutalized and captive people, humiliated in ways you would not credit, and on a constant, daily basis. No matter what the Israeli people or the Palestinian people or, even, the courts say, the state of Israel has been taken over by the extreme right wing, and they are under the impression that the Palestinians are not real human people, nor do they matter as much as Israelis.

Amira Hass actually lives in the Palestinian territories, and her writings, as well as others, have been instructive.