This is all ancient and well-trod history, but it sure seems like a lot of people no longer have much understanding of how Israel originated, and why it is where it is. So here's a very brief Beginner's Refresher to Israel.
Before the First World War, the area we now call the Middle East was part of the vast Ottoman Empire:
The Ottoman Empire decided to enter World War I on the German side, which turned out to be a big mistake. After the war it was dismembered in the Treaty of Versailles, leading eventually to the creation (or consolidation) of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. In addition, shortly after the treaty was signed Great Britain was given the "Mandate for Palestine," ex-Ottoman territory it was authorized to control under the supervision of the League of Nations:
Several years before this, in the Balfour Declaration, Britain had already declared its support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine—a recognition of the Zionist movement that had begun among European Jews a few decades earlier. This was formally recognized in the final document from the League of Nations creating the Mandate. The next couple of decades after that were relatively quiet, producing plenty of fighting in Palestine but nothing definitive.
The League of Nations finally dissolved after World War II and was replaced by the United Nations. In 1948, driven by both historical currents and the shock of the Holocaust, the UN created the state of Israel on the western side of the Mandate, while the British turned over the eastern side to the new Kingdom of Jordan. The area known today as the West Bank (i.e., west of the river Jordan) was held back as a proposed Arab state.
A few days after the creation of Israel, Arab nations declared war. They lost, but Jordan annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem, while Israel took control of West Jerusalem. In 1967 Arabs declared another war. They lost, and Israel took over the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. In 1973 Arabs declared yet another war, and lost yet again.
Around this time Israel began building settlements in the West Bank. In 1979, they signed a peace treaty with Egypt in which Egypt renounced all claims to Gaza.
In 1987, Palestinians waged another war against Israel, the First Intifada. They lost. After the collapse of the 2000 Camp David peace talks, they waged a Second Intifada and lost again.
In 2005 Israel withdrew from Gaza and in 2006 the residents of Gaza voted Hamas into power. Egypt and Israel then put in place a blockade surrounding Gaza that continues to the present day. In 2023 Hamas launched a deadly attack against Israel, torturing and killing thousands of civilians. Like Israel's other enemies, they will undoubtedly lose yet again.
In the meantime, Israel has expanded its West Bank settlements tremendously:
The Palestinian areas of the West Bank are now so chopped up that it's difficult to imagine any plausible creation of a Palestinian state there. For this and other reasons, the so-called "two-state" solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all but dead. It continues a sort of zombie-like existence, but no one really believes it will happen anytime in the foreseeable future.
You might have at least mentioned the ethnic cleansing at the founding of modern Israel.
You might have mentioned the ethnic cleansing the Arabs attempted and lost before that.
You're the one who says that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. No one cares what you think. And this is over and above your blind partisanship: Tell us again what "The Bride is beautiful but she is spoken for" means.
Sure!
It's completely imaginary,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_bride_is_beautiful,_but_she_is_married_to_another_man
But it does have that Protocols of the Elders of Zion ring that says it was made up by the KGB during the Cold War so the gullible and the suckers who really want to can hate Jews.
No, your cite doesn't say it's 'imaginary'. And you're refusing to say what that phrase means tells me -- big surprise! -- that you know damn well you're lying through your teeth when you equate anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism.
But please proceed to further marginalize yourself.
The cite says exactly that.
There is no attestation for it whatsoever, it just sort of magically appeared, as in it is imaginary, as in not real.
As you seem to think it is the foundation of your thought you should consider that's a pretty feeble point to hang your hat on. It's like religion.
No, it says _the writers of this article_ says it could not find a single source. A wikipedia article. By all means, continue to play stupid. And by all means continue to refuse to tell us what that phrase means. While you're at it, tell us what "A land without a people for a people without a land" means as well 😉
And you know something? Playing "If you can't make me say I'm wrong I win" when you made the statement I was responding to just screams dishonest little shit. As other people have noted in other threads.
Then you could help and find the source, surely that wouldn't be at all hard for you.
But I think your issue is, you're projecting. You have a shard of something you can't find a place for and you fit it into a simple Eurocentric story so you don't have to do the hard part and read a lot of someone else's story, and you end up with something that's easy to understand, comforting, gratifying your prejudices, and it's an aesthetic. It's not a fact, it's not a history.
It's something the gullible have repeated over and over until other gullible parties have started repeating it, and then they can all think it was real; because it, in a pretty line, allows them to sublimate their discomfortable antisemitism into hating Israel, a sudden arrival, new and unfamiliar.
It's the tone of gleefulness and a sense of release in the hating of Israel in the anti-Israel crowd that's hard to mistake.
Chuckle, can I call 'em or can I call 'em folks?
An anti-Semite, am I? I used to be 100% pro-Israel back in the 80's. However, unlike you, I can read. And it really didn't take a lot of reading, even back in the pre-internet days to rapidly come to the realization that these guys weren't the plucky David's against the Arabian Goliath; Zionists were, and are, terrosists and land-stealers.
And you are a troll who thinks because they say something it must be taken to be so until proven otherwise; the worst kind of troll. So until you learn how to behave, FOAD.
Had a Road to Damascus moment?
What, no witty little comeback that I must be lying when I said I was once very pro-Israel?
Yawn. You're toast.
Well, ok . . .
so, --that's when your Jewish girlfriend dumped you?
Regardless of whether it was said or who said it, it is accurate. There was an indigenous people living there when the Zionist came to Colonize (their words) it.
Ah the usual alternate history.
Even if it were true, that does not excuse the Israeli's ethnic cleansing of a million people from Palestine.
Yeah, if you try and write a capsule summary of the creation of Israel without using the word "nakba" you done goofed.
You need to pay more attention.
To what?
History.
For the modern Middle East you have to start around 1820, the last period where the Ottoman Empire might not have spiraled down the drain.
Okay. What that has to do with my initial comment, I do not know.
I made no error in not referencing that term.
Please explain. Something like 700,000 Palestinians fled what is now Israel. They either left voluntarily, perhaps out of fear for their future, or they were chased out by Zionist militias or Israeli troops. It seems this is a well-established fact.
I get it that this can be partially justified by seeing it as a result of the war with Arab nations in 1948. Thus it is part of the price required to give Jewish people a homeland, after centuries of historical suffering including the Holocaust. But to those Palestinian civilians who fled their homes, you should still be able to admit that they have legitimate grievances.
As do the Jewish people who were chased out or forced out of their homes in Middle Eastern countries and forced to move to Israel. The majority of Israelis came from the Middle East.
Careful now. With your preference for feelings over facts people might think that you're a little ... vehement.
Which has nothing to do with the Nakba and did not even happen in Palestine.
In case you missed it, this post is about Palestine and Israel, not some other country.
I put in a longer note below.
Are you Kevin Drum? Did you write this post?
If you have written your own capsule summaries of the formation of Israel and did not reference the nakba, you would have also screwed up, but I am not aware of this on your part.
You are right, I am not Kevin Drum.
I was going back and forth between comments and mistook where I was in the chain of remarks.
it's obvious that the creation of israel was intended as reparations for the holocaust, but of course trumpists would never allow anyone to use *that word
The roots of the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine go back to the Balfour Agreement but I agree that the final creation of a Jewish state was definitely a reaction to the Holocaust and to the flood of Jews from Europe who were not being welcomed in most countries.
I have a friend whose mother and family fled from Europe in the thirties to Shanghai. After the war they they went to live in the Jewish community in Buenos Aires which my friend finds ironic given how many Nazis also escaped to Argentina.
Given post 1948 events, the next thing I would look up is how the Ottoman Empire kept everyone in line prior to WWI.
I suspect that part of the answer would be that prior to WWI any Jews in the middle east were there at the complete mercy of the Ottoman Empire.
The way the Muslims "kept them in line" was to treat them better than Every Other Country.
And once again many thanks to the various Arab nations who have waged at least three wars against Israel but somehow, just somehow, never quite got around to supporting with any more than lip service the creation of a proper state for the Palestinian people, in the West Bank or elsewhere, and instead effectively have acquiesced in them lingering in poverty and second-class status and have used them as cannon-fodder against Israel for, what, 75 years now? Such statesmanship, such solidarity...
Why do you think people are going to chase after your irrelevencies? Or are you really that goddamn dumb?
You seem to be the one who is goddamn dumb.
"The Palestinian areas of the West Bank are now so chopped up..."
That would be due to the Settler Movement, which has been aggressively opposing any sort of peaceful solution since (at least) the Camp David Accords of 1979.
Israel had no problem (well problems, but they were willing to do it) demolishing the Jewish settlements in Gaza when they withdrew in 2005. They also had no problem demolishing Jewish settlements in Sinai when they withdrew from there for peace with Egypt.
The right Israeli government would be willing to give up a huge chunk of the settlements for peace (with the exceptions of the contiguous ones they were willing to pay Arafat for in the 2000 negotiations).
I'm not saying I'm optimistic. But I think a big reason that moderates in Israel haven't made an issue of the settlers, is that the settlers know how tenuous their situation is.
But it I'm not mistaken, Israel did have a problem with the water supply, did they not? This is what infuriates me about the Isreal Uber Alles types: their deliberate omission of historical facts in order to make the Israeli govenrment look better. This is both a) insulting (What, do they really believe all that Bushwah about Jews being the chosen ones?), and b) dishonest (What, do they really believe all that Bushwah about Jews being the chosen ones?)
There were far, far fewer settlers in Gaza than in the West Bank; nine thousand versus seven hundred thousand.
If the IDF is ordered to attempt to forcibly remove that many settlers, many of whom will be resisting actively or passively while caterwauling that they're being cleansed, they will probably mutiny.
Gaza's barely 20 miles from the West Bank. If Israeli settlers kill a Palestinian in front of his wife and kids in the West Bank, like this
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israeli-settler-shoots-kills-palestinian-harvester-violence-surges-104457880
well, they'll hear about it in Gaza and it's just going to make everyone more angry. That's how it works. The settlers have been doing this for decades, and it's largely because they do actually believe the land belongs to them by order of Yahweh and that the Palestinians are less than human.
Totally agree that there has never been the political will to even stop the settler movement, never mind return the stolen property.
"but no one really believes it will happen anytime in the foreseeable future."
If you listen to his current statements, evidently Joe Biden does.
Of course, he probably has to say that.
"In 1948, driven by both historical currents and the shock of the Holocaust, the UN created the state of Israel on the western side of the Mandate"
Might be worth mentioning that this involved the violent expulsion of about 700,000 people, or 80% of the Arab population of the area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight
" In 1967 Arabs declared another war. "
This is the Six Day War, and it was actually the other way around: a surprise attack by Israel that caught the Arab states, especially Egypt, completely unprepared.
...triggered by Egypt blocking Israeli shipping. Egypt knew it was coming, just not how soon.
... But blockading shipping is not the same as starting a war now, is it? C'mon, you can say it.
"triggered"
Just a series of levers and springs, no political choices or decisions involved at all.
I could bicker a lot with this:
1: Britain wasn't "given" the Mandate ... it was the leading player in the League after America refused to sign up. It TOOK the Mandate, in part because of imperial facts on the ground, and in part because it had been collaborating with Zionists for decades.
2: The three decades under the Mandate were not "quiet". Britain deliberately refused to give Palestine independence or join it with neighboring nations that already had it, specifically so that Jews could migrate there in massive numbers. And they did. Imagine 10+ million people immigrating to the US each year, all of an ethnic group that not only refused to assimilate but openly declared their goal was succession. The Jewish population increased ~12x during the Mandate, from about 10% to almost half (the Arab population roughly doubled, Christians remained a small minority just under 10%). Of course this led to lots of violence and the Arabs vociferously objected, as was their right. In 1939, Britain finally gave in and started placing limits on Jewish immigration (right when they need it most), but the limits were crazy high and Britain was too tied up with other matters to really enforce them.
3: Colonization is a war crime and a clear violation of Article 49. This is the root of the conflict. All else is a consequence of this original sin. It was also a clear casus belli in 1948, as was the deliberate expulsion of non-Jews by the fledgling Israeli state.
4: Israel attacked first in the Six Day war in 1967. Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, which lies entirely in Egypt, both sides puffed their chest, and then Israel attacked and blew Egypt's army up before it barely moved.
5: You state the UN created Israel, which is true, but fail to mention that the UN was not a neutral arbiter (just look at the security council!) and the vote was close, involved tons of arm twisting, and was vociferously opposed by Muslim countries in the region, who openly stated that it would lead to war.
The long and short of it is that Zionists, backed by British force, colonized Israel, got a friendly UN to declare them an independent nation, and then drove most of the non-Jewish residents out through harassment, fear, and outright violence. Most of the people who fled lost everything, and have been stuck in stateless poverty for the last 75 years. This, of course, is a breeding ground for not only hate, but the kind of incandescent hate that lets one's heart sing with glee as one slaughters one's enemy.
Frankly I am ready to throw my hands up and just have the UN clear the whole place out and make it a World Heritage Park which is given back to God and nature for a thousand years.
Oh, these apologists know the history. They just don't give a good goddamn. Just like they know all about the Stern gang and it's atrocities ... including the assissination of various British officials.
"Colonization is a war crime and a clear violation of Article 49. This is the root of the conflict. All else is a consequence of this original sin."
There was an earlier original sin, the abuse of Jews that occurred in Muslim states for centuries. (Europe had their own version of this original sin.) In Muslim countries, Jews were relegated to the status of dhimmi. Jews were at times abused, chased from their homes, and massacred. The list of crimes committed by Muslims against Jews since the 7th century is long. Even today, Arab anti-Semitism isn’t confined to the fringes of society. Mainstream Arab culture promotes anti-Semitic ideas through schools, newspapers, television, popular culture, and official ideology. Arab Muslim countries have been unable to transition from Authoritarian to Democracy. They are still pre-modern politically, and thus brutal societies for those who don’t conform. There are few checks on hatred against Jews.
Given the horrors of the Holocaust, as well as the history of Muslim mistreatment of Jews in the Middle East, one can see why Jews in 1948 were simply fed up and decided to grab land, in the place of their ancestral origins, and create their own safe haven. And the fact they did it with UN backing added further moral justification.
However, 75 years after the founding of Israel, it seems rather pointless to argue over whether it should exist today. It is simply a given at this point, just the USA is a given even though the American Indians were driven from their lands. Ditto for Australia, and many other places.
Sorry, you have no idea how the Ottomans treated the Jews. In real life, the Jews were quite happy with their life under the Ottomans,
"Among the Jews who came to the Ottoman city of Edirne (in western Turkey) from Christian Europe was Rabbi Isaac Tzarfati, who was made Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman dominions in the 14th century. In a letter to the Jews of Germany, France and Hungary, he wrote to the Jews of Europe [about Ottoman Turkey] to ‘inform you about how agreeable is this country’.
Here I found rest and happiness; Turkey can also become for you the land of peace … Here the Jew is not compelled to wear a yellow hat as a badge of shame, as is the case in Germany, where even great wealth and fortune are a curse for a Jew because he therewith arouses jealousy among Christians … Arise my brethren, gird up your loins, collect your forces, and come to us. Here you will be free of your enemies, here you will find rest …"
Sorry, you are cherry picking. Things were better or worse for Jews in the Ottoman Empire depending on the time and place. Below is a general summary from Wikipedia.
****
In the Ottoman Empire, Jews and Christians were considered dhimmi by the majority Arab population, which translates to "people of the pact". Dhimmi refers to "those to whom the Scriptures were given and who believe not in God nor in the Last Day". Muslims in the Ottoman Empire used this Qur'anic concept of dhimmi to place certain restrictions on Jews living in the region. For example, some of the restrictions placed on Jews in the Ottoman Empire were included, but not limited to, a special tax, a requirement to wear special clothing, and a ban on carrying guns, riding horses, building or repairing places of worship, and having public processions or worships.
Historian Martin Gilbert writes that it was in the 19th century that the position of Jews worsened in Muslim countries. … There was a massacre of Jews in Baghdad in 1828. There was a massacre of Jews in Barfurush in 1867. … Throughout the 1860s, the Jews of Libya were subjected to what Gilbert calls punitive taxation. In 1864, around 500 Jews were killed in Marrakech and Fezin Morocco. In 1869, 18 Jews were killed in Tunis, and an Arab mob looted Jewish homes and stores, and burned synagogues, on Jerba Island. In 1875, 20 Jews were killed by a mob in Demnat, Morocco; elsewhere in Morocco, Jews were attacked and killed in the streets in broad daylight. In 1891, the leading Muslims in Jerusalem asked the Ottoman authorities in Constantinople to prohibit the entry of Jews arriving from Russia. In 1897, synagogues were ransacked and Jews were murdered in Tripolitania.
Benny Morris writes that one symbol of Jewish degradation was the phenomenon of stone-throwing at Jews by Muslim children. Morris quotes a 19th-century traveler: “I have seen a little fellow of six years old, with a troop of fat toddlers of only three and four, teaching [them] to throw stones at a Jew, and one little urchin would, with the greatest coolness, waddle up to the man and literally spit upon his Jewish gaberdine. To all this the Jew is obliged to submit; it would be more than his life was worth to offer to strike a Mohammedan.”
I am aware that conditions varied across the empire by place and time, however the conditions, in reality, were not as bad as most people make it out to be.
For example, the most prevalent and noticeable point of difference was the taxation. But Muslims also had to pay taxes. The taxes varied throughout the centuries, but generally the Muslims paid a Zakat tax of about 2.5%, and the non-Muslims paid Jizya of about 5% (on a progressive scale). However huge swaths of the population were exempt: under 20, over 50, women, the poor, and the disabled.
The economic burden on Muslims was much greater, however as they had required military service: essentially a 100% tax for the time they served. This is often seen as one reason why non-Muslims were disproportionately among the wealthy.
As Karpat put it "The Greek immigrants [Christians] were favored by economic conditions. They were not subject to conscription or various other heavy obligations. While the Muslim, hard pressed by economic difficulties, kept his family small by every possible means, including abortion and, in some cases, infanticide, the Greeks, free of military obligations and paying insignificant taxes in proportion to their incomes, could afford to raise large families. Pg. 47
He goes on to note that when the Jizya was abolished, the Christian population objected and successfully petitioned to return to the old system.
Other restrictions, on examination, prove to be in name only (if that, since the usual list of restrictions was perhaps promulgated hundreds of years earlier in a different empire). On often mentioned one is that Jews could not sue Muslims in court. However a look at the actual records c. 17th century found “Court cases involving zimmi [dhimmi] creditors and debtors were handled at the court in exactly the same way as cases involving Muslims only. Any zimmi could have summoned to court any Muslim or other zimmi from whom he wanted to claim a debt.”
As for the attacks on Jews, my estimate is that there were more anti-Irish riots in the US in the 1800s than there were anti-Jewish attacks in the same century across the entire Empire.
Oh, and the prohibition of Jews in 1881? That was only a prohibition against them settling in Palestine. Oddly enough, it was due to the Ottomans thought they were a Russian fifth column, nothing to do with their religion.
The number of people who think that that war was started by Egypt and Syria is shockingly high. As near as I can tell its based on the sophistry of "closing the Straits of Tiran was an act of war," which is a preposterous formulation.
Also left out of Kevin Drum's summary is that Israel had been conducting bombing raids on Syria and Jordan prior to Egypt's moving of troops into the Sinai. That troop movement followed pleas from Jordan and Syria for support from Egypt.
It wasn’t a “surprise attack”:
“Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel[31] and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War
So you agree that Israel started it then, right? Oh, and did Israel formally declare war before attacking? Really, this "If you do that, this means war" crap is just that, crap. Unless you want to be consistent and say Putin's stipulation is just as valid for 'starting' as Israel's.
It isn't? Well, there you have it.
It wasn’t a surprise attack. Do you disagree?
I asked you first. Which tells me that you're not going to answer my question, are you?
I was responding to the OP:
“ a surprise attack by Israel that caught the Arab states, especially Egypt, completely unprepared.‘
It was not a surprise attack that caught the Arab States unprepared. They were well prepared and knew war was imminent. They thought they would win. They didn’t.
I asked you if Israel started the war. Should be an easy question to answer. Unless, of course, you don't want to give the correct -- and obvious -- answer.
There is an old B.C. cartoon. One of the cavemen is building a club. He tells the other cave man that when he finishes the club he will use it to smash the other cave man. The other cave man picks up a rock and smashes the club building cave man.
I think Egypt was building a club.
When it comes to the Middle East, I think there are no obvious answers. I get it that you vehemently disagree with that.
No, you don't get it, or you do and you're trying to push a narrative.
What you _mean_ to say -- or should mean -- is that I am vehement about telling the truth. And it's pretty obvious that a) you know Israel started that war and b) you don't want to say so explicitly. Reading between the lines, I get that you're a -- what was that word? -- vehement Israel supporter, regardless of the facts on the ground.
How vehement? Well, there's starting a war and there's starting a war, and how big a deal that is varies from situation to situation. But you are determined not to cede the slighest rhetorical advantage to the non-Israel side.
_That's_ how vehement you are.
You have chosen to believe that Israel is the “bad guy”. I disagree, but also wouldn’t say they are the “good guys” most particularly with regard to the West Bank. I think it’s complicated.
But since you seem to have such a rock solid opinion of what’s happening there perhaps you can share what you think the solution should be.
You've got me figured all wrong; I merely want you to stop lying in the particular.
In the general, I'm what I've always been, someone who wants truth. If you think the truth makes Israel look like a bad guy (and it seems as if you do, you just don't let it interfere with your support), well, I don't know what to tell you.
Long story short Israel started that war and nothing you have said (that I must be a partisan, etc., rather than leading with, say, actual facts) makes me think otherwise. It's also pretty obvious that you're accusations are a confession and that you're deeply invested in a pro-Israel narrative.
At the tactical level it was a surprise attack: virtually the entire Egyptian air force was caught on the ground and destroyed. IIRC, the Israelis knew that after early morning patrols, Egyptian pilots landed for a tea break. I know of no claim that Israel had delivered a prior, formal declaration of war to a representative of Egypt.
AFAIK, a blockade is considered an act of war, but the Egyptians only closed the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and of course Israeli ports other than Eilat were not affected.
Strategically, Egypt and other Arab nations were clearly preparing and positioning their militaries to be ready for attack.
Careful now, you're being too vehement for the likes of this guy.
And it's not just the fanaticism. I'm actually more pissed that these wights think we're that stupid and/or that ahistorical.
Isn’t a “surprise” at a tactical level what every military hopes for? Israel had a much smaller military than the Arab states and had to fight a war on three fronts. If they had taken a defensive posture there is a good chance they would have been defeated.
If Israel was defeated then or now, what do you think would be the fate of the Jewish people there?
Wow. So it was a surprise attack after all; 180 much? Also, why am I not surprised that you forgot to mention that Israel had a much better equipped army? Nothing to do with you being a stone partisan, amirite?
If you were in my class, you'd be getting a solid 'F' for the semester.
The original poster said:
“ a surprise attack by Israel that caught the Arab states, especially Egypt, completely unprepared.‘
I was responding to that comment which was not true. You have indicated that you are a seeker of truth. Thus you should agree with me.
KenSchulz clarified a difference between a tactical and strategic surprise attack. I have no quarrel with that. If you consider that a “180” then so be it. I’m 71 and thus I no longer fear the frown of the teacher who disagrees with my opinions. I am past the schoolmasters pen stroke.
Shrug. You seem to think grades are awards or some such. No, they're assessments. And your words here show you as haveing a, shall we say, less than forthright character. One who doesn't have much regard for the truth.
So who cares what a liar --even a vehement one -- thinks? Certainly not I. Now since you are unable to discuss tacts, truth, reality, etc. in an adult manner, kindly take your bullshit and your bullshit accusations elsewhere.
I have to say before leaving that I am surprised by your vehement reaction to my use of the word vehement.
The factual question "Was Isreal attacked, or did it attack first?" is different from the moral/legal question "Was Israel justified in attacking first?" Since Kevin's post was supposed to be a primer on the history of the conflict, I thought it was important to get the answer to the factual question right. And the answer is, without dispute, "Israel attacked first". If you want to argue that Israel was justified in attacking first then go ahead, but you will not be disagreeing with anything I wrote.
Egypt closed the Strait of Tiran to Israel and massed its army on their border. That's what started the war.
Two state solution is dead. Eventually, Israel will have to decide whether it wants to be a democracy or a Jewish state because it won't be able to be both. After the influx of extremely conservative Jews from Eastern Europe post-Soviet Union, I don't see continued democracy being a real possibility and, apparently, neither does Netanyahu. I believe apartheid is in their future.
If the former head of Mossad say Israel is already an apartheid state then it probably is.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/06/israel-imposing-apartheid-on-palestinians-says-former-mossad-chief?fbclid=IwAR3J3dpuhguXe-hQoRz4veqRDVVe9e9l--qA0bWjQGkAXv6PmrMS-pU931A
I sort of thought you'd go back to biblical times to describe the full history, including Exodus.
¯\(°_o)/¯
Ok, I’ll share this again:
https://youtu.be/8tIdCsMufIY?si=8qOoCiZkLRu_fcAn
(>‿<)
I think this was a big mistake:
In 1967 ... Israel took over... the Gaza Strip from Egypt. In 1979, they signed a peace treaty with Egypt in which Egypt renounced all claims to Gaza.
If it was still part of Egypt, it might be economically viable. As it stands today, it's a perpetual (overcrowded) hot potato. An enclave, and those are historically a source of instability.
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 was an uprising by Catholics in Ireland, whose demands included an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and return of confiscated Catholic lands. The Irish lost. So much Irish land was owned by English and Scottish landlords by the 19th century, the dream of Irish independence was all but dead.
Thank you Kevin, for putting this together. I have repeated this so often that I have sounded like a broken record. I’m so tired of Israel’s version that denies how they ‘pushed’ the Arab’s out of their own land.
Many Israelites were forced to leave Arab lands. It is not a one-sided equation. 20% of the people living in Israel proper are Arabs. They enjoy the same citizen rights as the Israelis. There are even two Arab parties in the Knesset
Yet another fun fact for those pig-headed pissants who refuse to admit they are wrong despite the facts on the ground: There was a time when Zionists were considering collaborating with Hitler. Genocide wannabe's collaborating with a genocide, gee what are the odds?
So all you right or wrong, Israel is always right types can just stick it where the Sun don't shine.
"From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free." Sounds a little genocidal to me.
Following is The Times of Israel’s translation of the basic principles of Israel’s 37th government:
The government will act in accordance with the following guidelines:
The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan and Judea and Samaria.
This was not an unbiased history. Israel started the 1967 war and there was also a 1956 war which you left out. And the 1948 map isn't the United Nations partition proposal which gave Israel considerably less territory. Finally Israel has never had a sensible long term plan for what to do with the unwanted inhabitants of the territory it conquered in 1967. Making trouble inevitable.
Egypt closed the Strait of Tiran to Israel and massed its army on their border. That's what started the 1967 war.
Hamas must be destroyed entirely. Defund Hamas. I wish Qatar would throw luxury-loving Hamas senior leadership out of their expensive hotel suites and make them live on the street. Take the money and use it to rebuild Gaza.
From Jon Gabriel writing for azcentral: Hamas has rejected peaceful solutions for decades. Their founding charter states, “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
Ever wonder why so many people want to start talking about this as if it appeared out of nowhere around 1920?
The key element is that the Ottoman Empire was gradually falling apart through the 19th century, something that was a mystery to no one. No one inside it, nor outside it.
It's problem was made worse by the expansion of the Russian Empire at their expense, in the Caucuses, Ukraine, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. One of Russia's primary tactics was, through terror and insane brutality, to create huge masses of terrified refugees, millions of people, who fled back into Ottoman territory and who had to be accommodated in some way, which the Empire was barely able to manage. Amman, the capitol of Jordan, was created as a town for Circassian refugees.
Through the 19th century the main European powers, France, Britain and Germany, were all deeply involved in trying to stabilize the Ottomans, primarily through various modernizations most of which were met with resentment in the provinces, especially among Arabs, who easily characterized them as un-Islamic, --mostly because, as conservatives, they were against anything they hadn't thought of themselves, and, also, if these reforms had worked they would never be rid of the Turks.
When the Empire did finally fall in a heap all provinces thought their time had come, especially the Arabs, who were very annoyed when the international community somehow imposed colonial rule on them on the pretext that it was preventing a massive general civil war, which it was and which happened anyway.
Almost everywhere where there had been citizens of the Empire everyone was now abruptly their own ethnicity fighting for space. The Armenian genocide, and the expulsion of the Greeks from Asia Minor are the most famous--and the Turks are still trying to get rid of the Kurds. The important point here is that every conflict in the Middle East that was once the Ottoman Empire is still this same conflict. The same conflict, dragged out, in some places, in excruciating detail.
It's a medieval world where things move a lot slower, and this is why the Palestinians want to say it's still 1920 because Palestine is the only place where the minority wasn't expelled or destroyed but won the fight, and this is where to start thinking about it.
The problem is every part, every strand, of this history are usually treated as separate things with little, if any, context.
This outline is the context and remains the context of everything that's happening now. You can't take the wars that Israel has had since it's founding outside this original fight because it is all, still, this same fight.
One other thing, worrying about things like the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate and other attempted impositions on the area by the international community are irrelevant to understanding what happened and how it happened. Those things delayed what was inevitably going to happen by maybe five, or at best ten, years because everyone had to deal with the British administration and not just one another. But the conflict that evolved, the way it evolved and the way it's worked out were absolutely going to happen anyway.
I suppose I should point out the errors in this story, since it is pretty much take directly from the Zionist book of fairy tales.
Balfour did not call for a Jewish "Homeland." It called for a "National home for Jews," purposely not using the word homeland. The Brits later clarified that did NOT mean a state.
Jordan was never part of the mandate, being swept off in 1922, while the mandate only went into effect in 1923.
Likewise, the UN did not "create" the state, in fact it had NO LEGAL RIGHT to do so: which was implicitly acknowledged by the state. The Partition Plan was grotesquely unfair to the Palestinians: who, while two-thirds of the population, was only proposed to have less than half the land.
The Zionist Organization, however, claimed to accept the partition plan, and its borders. Kind of. In April 1948 weeks before the end of the mandate, Israel invaded Palestine. It did so again the day before the end of the mandate and the Arab League intervened to stop Israel from taking more.
In May of 1948, Israel submitted to the UN that the lands it took were outside the partition borders and therefore outside the state of Israel. She kept them, however.
While this was going on, Israel ethnically cleansed 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, with about half before her declaration of statehood.
In 1967, Israel again was the attacker. This was noted at the time by the President of the US, and was later admitted to by Israel.In 1973, Egypt attacked israeli positions on Egyptian land in the Sinai that Israel had taken in the previous war and held on to even after the UN told them they couldn't.
In 1996, both sides agreed to a framework under the Oslo accords to work for peace. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu later admitted that he "destroyed" Oslo.
In 2001, the Second Intifada started with Ariel Sharon marching on the Al -Aqsa mosque.
In 2005, Israel helped get Hamas elected to the ruling party of Gaza. The US then launched an attempt to overthrow them.
After that, Israel has launched attacks and invasions into Palestine every day, usually multiple times per day. She has attacked civilians and has committed war crimes on a regular basis. The Israeli military admitted in court that they were using human shields 240 time per year for five years. They continue to do so.
Up to October of this year, Israel has carried out an somewhere over a thousand attacks on Palestine, killing 200 people: of which 118 were civilians and 47 were children.
Israeli settlers in the West Bank carried out over 700 terrorist attacks on Palestinians. Many of these were under the eyes of the Israeli Military, and some were conducted with the assistance of the Israeli Military.
What Kevin is presenting is the Israeli version of history. Everything I posted can be easily verified.
Ah, I did not know that. Don't know how I missed that one, but thanks for clarifying.
It won't stop the usual suspects from blowing the usual smoke and declaring victory by virtue of the fact you couldn't get them to change their story, of course. But I think at this point we all know who's zooming who.
I'd go a bit farther. It's not just that Transjordan was split off before the Mandate went into effect. It's that this was the exact thing that the Mandate was written to effect.
During the late Ottoman period, the provinces were drawn such that modern Israel/Palestine was almost entirely divided between two different provinces. Modern Jordan was divided among three provinces. The only overlap was a very small part of extreme southern Israel/Palestine was a part of one of the three provinces Jordan was divided into. So, Israel/Palestine and Jordan were never a part of the same area.
Transjordan was mentioned in the Palestinian Mandate, but never with the intention that it would be combined with Palestine. It was explicit that it was to be ruled as a British protectorate with a Hashemite monarch. A Hashemite king means that it was also never intended as a country for the people who came to be known as Palestinians.
Egypt closed the Strait of Tiran to Israel and massed its army on their border. That's what started the 1967 war.
That is a literal copy-paste from the Hasbara handbook. And not true at all.
The closure of the Straits of Tiran were not a sufficient cause for war, according to the US Legal Advisor and the UN.
The army was not "massed on the border" as the gullible repeat. The Egyptian army was in defensive lines far inside the Sinai. That is the ones who weren't off fighting another war in Yemen at the time.
This is the usual irrelevant take. Who cares about borders created by westerners for land they didn't have a real claim to. What I want to know is who lived there? Who was farming the land around Gaza in 1948, where do their land titles originate and how long have they been there.
The original Zionists were buying Palestinian land and had developed significant ownership claims. However, when the tanks rolled in 1948, the residents fled before them and they were herded into Gaza. They didn't abandon their claims! They had legitimate fear of the Zionist invaders since they did have a reputation as terrorists during the British period. The land they were originally lobbing those homemade bombs on was their grand-parents. At least one genetic study finds that the West Bank Palestinians were descendants of the ancient Hebrews that stayed. Some converted to Christianity during the Byzantine empire and later to Islam. The whole time they lived with and intermarried the invaders.
So the analysis Kevin makes is like talking about the borders of Oklahoma or the Dakotas when discussing the merit of claims of the original inhabitants. Why is the British Mandate relevant to those whose families have been present through countless border changes?
It's important to note that the Zionists buying land were not buying it from Palestinians. They bought it from absentee Turkish landlords. The Ottoman Empire was a feudal society. While those Turks owned the land, they had legal obligations to the Arabs that lived on and farmed that land. When they bought the land, the Zionists extinguished the rights of those tenant farmers without recompense.
According to the careful British survey, the land was owned and inhabited by the Palestinians.
The Palestinians were about 66% of the population. As of 1945, Jews only owned 6% of Palestine (most of that owned by foreign corporations), and the Arabs owned outright about 50% with the rest held as community property: ie Arab sovereignty https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH002249756/NLI
There are those who would insist that all this 20th century carp is irrelevant; the only thing that counts is what it says in the Old Testament / Torah.
(My apologies for not reading the aactual aricle yet; I just had eye surgery. (You may have noticed...)
It's probably bad that there's a blatant factual inaccuracy in the fifth sentence (the Treaty of Versailles applied only to Germany, the relevant treaties are Sevres in 1920 and Lausanne in 1923).