Congress has been informally notified about the pending deal, most of which is to be paid for with foreign military financing — in which U.S. taxpayer dollars are given to Israel to turn around and buy the weapons from the United States.
Congress has been informally notified about the pending deal, most of which is to be paid for with foreign military financing — in which U.S. taxpayer dollars are given to Israel to turn around and buy the weapons from the United States.
I said Gaza is doomed. There will always be plenty of Palestinians just over the border in Jordan. Jewish claims to the land are no more specious than Palestinian claims. They too lived on the land for centuries, even in Ottoman times and before that. The Brits absolutely doubled crossed the whole Arab world during the mandatory period, aided by the French. In the climate of political indertiminacy and vagueness, the Jews saw their opportunity and declared independence before any agreement could be imposed on them. The 1947 UN partition agreement was not such a bad one, when you consider how unrpoductive and violent the past 80 years have been. But the matter has been settled by war (and Israeli military victory) repeatedly since then. If the current situation is based on ideals and beliefs of another era, well that is just what it is. Jews saw their very brief window of opportuninty in 1948 and they took it. They will not give the land back, just as the USA will not be giving all of its land back to the native Indians. Never happen. That fact has been settled for over a century now. Arabs and Israelis will need to learn to live together in peace. You cannot correct the wrongs of history. Those belong to the past and cannot be changed. It may take several more generations coming and going before both sides begin to realize this.
The Jewish claims to the land are absolutely specious when you look at the available data. In the late 1800s the Jewish population of Palestine was negligible, about 2-3%, maybe a couple of thousand people. The current Jewish population of the country are not of the land, they are all colonial settlers who came from Europe and other areas with the intention of taking the land for themselves. Take the leader, Benjamin netenyahu for instance, his real family surname is Mileikowsky, they are Polish people, his dad made up the name Netenyahu to sound like a local.
The Palestinians however have deep ties to the region going back thousands of years sharing DNA with bronze and iron age Canaanites from the region.
The 1947 UN agreement wasn’t a bad one for Israel, sure. They got over 55% of Palestine despite being colonial settlers fresh off the boat, free land for nothing. The Palestinian people had to give up the land of their ancestors that they had been continuously farming for thousands of years, wasn’t such a good deal for them.
You are correct, Israel will not give the land back, that is not how the world works, might is right and all that. Israel is a tiny country both in land mass and population. 8 million or so Jews surrounded by 100s of millions of Arabs and other Muslim states. The only thing holding back the tide is Israel’s relationship with the USA but this relationship is not set in stone. Look at the USA’s history and how they have treated their allies in the past, the USA will drop Israel like they did the rest of it is in their own self interest. Now in the USA being tied to Israel is political poison, same in Europe. Foreign policy will eventually have to align with public opinion if officials want to stay in office. The world does not need an Israel to exist any more than it needs any other country.
Same is true of the Jews. That argument really doesn’t move the legitimacy of Palestinian claims forward one iota.
Concepts of land ownership under the Ottomans (and before that) do not conform to modern legal ideas of land ownership. For 1200 years under the Ottomans, the Ottomans owned everything, and the local inhabitants were simply allowed to reside on the land, (unless you were Armenian). It is better to look at the issue of land ownership from the Mandate era forward, where laws of land ownership and most other things were in the process of being modernized and harmonized with more recognizable and standardized western norms & (soon to be the common global understanding!) concepts of land ownership.
Even without opening a bible or koran, there is historical evidence of a very long-lived Jewish state in the region. There is no evidence of a Palestinian state- ever. Palestinians were only ever residents on the land, pawns of larger empires for 2000+ years- Ottomans, Mameluks, Crusader States, Jews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Mongols.
If you wish to argue the “Palestinians were here first” angle, you’re not going to win that debate. History and archaeology are not on your side.
That is your opinion.
Jewish exiles returning to their ancestral homelands… Sounds a lot like the Palestinian narrative about themselves. Odd, that. It took 2000 years, since the Roman era, but again, do you say that anyone who is forcibly removed from the land of their fathers somehow loses any claim to that land? What then, of the Palestinians who have relocated to Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Tureky, Europe & Egypt in the last 80 years? Have they also lost their claim to the land? When does one’s claim expire? after decades? centuries? millenia?
Be careful how you answer that, because Truth is a double edged sword that cuts both ways.
Jews purchased the land they owned in the Mandate era, when laws were in such a state that land could be legally purchased and passed on or sold under modernized reformed laws. It was not legal nor permitted by the British to simply take someone’s land. Palestinian landowners got rich selling their lands to Jews, and at the same time, sold out their own people for the sake of money.
Land stealing came later, and didn’t last long. I exclude land that the state of Israel won in wars against the Arabs. Israel simply did to Arabs what the Arabs would have done to them had the circumstances been reversed in the Arab’s favor.
Arab politics in the 20th century, post 1948 has been highly fractious itself… It’s almost as if they dislike eachother as much as they dislike the idea of Israel existing. Yes there are more Arabs surrounding Israel than there are Jews inside Israel, but absent any real consensus among the various Arab states, their hatred for Israel has not amounted to much in 80 years. Impotent terrorism that has made Palestinians pariahs globally. Several lost wars, which only served to strengthen Israel in the end. Dallying with Baathism, attempting to play the Western Bloc off against the Eastern Bloc during the cold war, cults of personality with Nasser, all of which only brought further internal and regional discord among states that claim to have a common agenda. Their own internal discord among Arabs ensures Israel’s security.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that and I certainly wouldn’t bet money on that in the next 25 years. Remember that as the current generation of Israeli and Americans age and die away to be replaced by newer generations with new thinking, the same is occuring in the Arab world. Nasser didn’t outlive Lyndon Johnson… not by much… Saddam didn’t outlive Bush. Assad didn’t outlast Bibi. The end of the cold war left the entire Arab world flat. The next generation of Palestinians may have a different perspective than the current generation, especially if they are allowed to taste some prosperity for a time and are liberated from propaganda pushing 80 year old narratives written by their grandfathers and great grandfathers.
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Except it is not true of the Jews, many Ashkenazi Jews contain little to no DNA in common with the past inhabitants of the region. If you have any legitimate proof otherwise I would be happy to inspect it.
Not true again, read about the Ottoman Land Code of 1858 for instance.
Convenient time period for you to chose while ignoring history, quelle surprise.
Wrong again, there is just as much evidence of a Palestinian state as there is a Jewish one. You haven’t even taken the basic step of doing a Google search to check the verasity of your bold statement. First historic reference is from 12th century BCE from Inscriptions at the Medinet Habu temple written during the reign of Ramesses III, 8th century BCE Assyrian texts, 5th century BCE Greek Texts, the Romans then renamed the region Syria Palestina in the 2nd century.
As we’re the Jews before this, they were never a mighty empire in the same vein as the other cultures you listed. If that is your rationale you might as well give up now. The Palestinian people have also been present in the region for far longer than 2000 years, the people today still retain the DNA of the Canaanites. My argument is also not that “Palestinians were there first” rather they have been present continuously for several millennia. History, archaeology and most definitively DNA are on my side.
When you are speaking in time frames of millennia yes you have lost the claim to that land as there is no reasonable way of proving your ownership in a court of law. Your argument makes about as much sense as me wanting to claim a piece of Ethiopia due to my ancestors living there before Homo Sapians left Africa. The Palestinians case displacement 78 years ago is still in living memory with documentation and census data to back the claims.
I actually laughed out loud when I read this, your lack of awareness of your own hypocrisy is hilarious!
The people did not realise the Zionist Jewish colonisers were planning a heist of their country. Weird way of you to frame it with hindsight.
What!? The land stealing is still going on to this day, it never stopped. There are plenty of maps available online that show the year by year stealing of land by Israel in the West Bank by “settlers”.
You display a distinct lack of knowledge of the history of the region pre 1948, the division of the region or who divided it. Your statement is as idiotic as "European politics was highly fractious in the first half of the 20th century, why do they fight, don’t they know they are all white Christians? You assume discord amongst the Arab and wider Muslim world is a constant, dangerous assumption about anything in an ever changing world. You also fail to understand or comprehend the outside influence that has destabilised the region since the discovery of oil in the region.
The Palestinians are no longer global pariahs, Israel now owns that role, keep up.
Well Israel are doing there very best to speed run the collapse of this relationship. No amount of AIPAC dirty money can wash away the stain of genocide, candidates are now running a mile from this dirty money. The Michigan election was an interesting example of this, the AIPAC candidate outspent Abdul el-Sayed, a pro Palestine candidate, by $50 million, outspent by 10-1 and still lost to a Muslim man. The current New York governor is a pro Palestine Muslim man who won the cities Jewish vote. This is the city of 9/11! The tide is most certainly turning, people are starting to question their blind Islamiphobia and wonder who is fanning the flames. The newer American generation is firmly pro Palestinian and anti genocide.
You sound just as deluded as Jared Kushner and Donald trump, this is also their thinking. You keep great intellectual company there buddy! Imagine thinking some money will wash away the memory of their mother’s and siblings being indiscriminately blown apart in front of them! Most of the world thinks differently to you, you really don’t get it do you? It is not propaganda but their own lived experiences of occupation and oppression that drives the Palestinians. There is no sweeping a genocide under the rug in this day and age.
It was a nice try there buddy but your arguments are as weak and mendacious as those of the state of Israel’s. We all see you now.