Why were they so many borders with weird exclaves etc during this period? E.g. Israel Palestine, West+East Pakistan with India, West Berlin inside East Germany.
Colonial governments followed by nationalist movements. Under the colonial government, the region was unified and people moved to where they want. Once the nationalists came to power, a territorial division was necessary but nationalism claims territory *because that’s where their people live*.
So, naturally, all the previous moving about was a problem.
I never understood how they figure it was the fault of the British. The Partition was the first act of an independent India not the last act of the British government in India. IIRC the British even wanted them to remain unified.
Two groups of people blame Britain.
1. Those who have no idea of history and just assume Britain Bad
2. Nationalists who want some one to blame who isn't their father or grandfather.
I debate that, honestly.
The population exchanges in Greece and Turkey were pretty bad because they hated each other. But we also did this with Germans at the end of WWII and it went pretty well.
werent there a loooot of deaths in the german resettlement aswell + forced resettlement is a form of genocide anyway
"The death toll attributable to the flight and expulsions is disputed, with estimates ranging from 500,000–600,000 and up to 2 to 2.5 million." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944%E2%80%9350_flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans#:~:text=The%20death%20toll%20attributable%20to,to%202%20to%202.5%20million
I know its just a wikipedia link, but I dont have time to do more research and I dont think its that important now anyway
This is a perfect example for when history WAS rewritten by the victors. This resettlement program was widely supported among the Allies instead of being a “US thing” or “USSR thing” so it can’t be blamed on someone else
> But we also did this with Germans at the end of WWII and it went pretty well.
...You should really read up on that bit of history. It's estimated about 400,000 people perished from the relocation from Polish territories.
If you consider up to 2.5 million dead civilians and million more forcefully expelled people who where robbed of all their property they couldn't carry as going pretty well...
I don’t think you understand how arabs are. Even if Israel lost and got destroyed during one of the many wars that were fought. Their would be no Palestinians state as every arab nation would want something for themselves. A perfect scenario right now would be for Egypt to get the Gaza Strip. Jordan to get whatever Tf is left of Palestine and syria regains the golan heights. That’s the best the Arab’s could hope for there will be no Palestinians state.
One issue with that: the Golan was used by the Syrians to bombard Israeli farms and towns in the Galilee. They used artillery.
Capturing the Golan has prevented that. And with Assad still in power, and the Druze population there becoming more inclined to stay Israeli? Syria will likely never get the Golan back.
see, the Syke-Picot agreement was based on them being provinces of an empire, not an independent country. so the british were a bit out of their depth here. /s
You mean the Americans.
The British opposed the plans and abstained on the vote.
Britain said they refused to enforce the plan because it was so poorly thought out and that it should be down to the UN to enforce it if they passed the vote.
Which they themselves had rejected in 1938 for being unworkable. Bevin was probably wondering on some level why Truman had been raiding his predecessors' rubbish bin for ideas.
EDIT: My apologies, it should be Attlee rather than Bevin. I was flipping through the bios of the various secretaries of the Attlee ministry at the same time and didn't pay enough attention to which name I was writing down, though that's really the sort of thing one should have immediately noticed. The office of the Foreign Secretary had no sole direct power over the Peel or Woodward Commissions to my knowledge, so it wouldn't have been Bevin's predecessors, but of the cabinet as a whole and by extension the Prime Minister.
Sure (though the reason they scrapped it in 1938 owed more to trying to secure Arab support for the upcoming war in the aftermath of the Arab revolt than anything else. Even then Hajj Amin never quite learned how to accept a victory when it was given to him, but I digress). My only point is the British never actually developed a Palestine policy they stuck to for more than 5 minutes. They made, ditched, remade, and reassessed plans at the drop of a hat for 30 years. And It was if anything British support for the Haganah that made partition the only vaguely viable plan anyway.
Indeed. That's certainly fair enough. There was certainly no good way to handle the situation in Mandatory Palestine come 1948; any one-state solution would have left one or the other completely out in the cold, turning it into a time bomb set to blow. While a two-state solution wasn't pleasing to either side, it could at least be hoped that it would be less hated for both sides to have sovereignty over their own affairs and thus could be tolerated by both.
And we all know where that hope ended.
The plan was supported by the British, the soviet union, the Chinese, the Americans, the French and the local Jewish communities, as well as international Jewish organizations.
The UN didn't really ask the local arrabs though.
The UNSCOP tried to meet with the local Arabs, and the locals responded by stonewalling the UN's attempts as a negotiating tactic; not that it mattered much in any case, since none of the Arabs had any intention of allowing an independent Jewish state to exist in the Middle East, and the Jews had no intention of being legally bound to a minority status either.
*If* you're gonna go for a two state solution, it's not a terrible plan.
Any contiguous division would leave Palestinians in Israel and Israelis in Palestine.
It gives both a sea border, the most contentious location is "neutral"
The non-contiguous parts are close enough to allow transit.
There was never gonna be a pretty two state solution here.
I mean it is realistic and it would've probably worked if the arab side accepted it. Yes, maybe they thought it wasn't right but they didn't see where the wind was heading to
Woah no it wasn’t, Jewish people didn’t even live in most of the territory they got. They mostly lived along the coast and in the north. Here’s a [map for ya](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/26/palestine-and-israel-mapping-an-annexation#jewishimmigration). The UN gave Israel far more land than it actually needed at the expense of the Palestinians living there who were going to be annexed into a state that was explicitly hostile to them. If the UN had stuck to areas already settled by Jewish people maybe things would’ve gone differently.
Those maps aren’t really useful when they’re coloring in the Negev Desert and Jerusalem all in the same solid colors. I’d be much more interested to see actually how many people and cities we’re talking about, not just square miles.
They also love defining Jewish land in the most narrow definition possible (places Jews had villages), and Palestinian land in the most broad definition possible (places that Jews didn't have villages).
The fact is the "Palestinian Areas" are a mix of local Arab owned land, empty desert, foreign Ottoman owned areas (empty and owned), and Jewish owned areas that Palestinians lived in.
Then later, they call Transjordan owned West Bank and Egypt owned Gaza Palestinian.
They refer to the land as "Historic Palestine" despite that not really being a thing. The only time these borders existed were during the British Occupation. Prior to that, it was a part of Ottoman Syria. Even Roman Palestine didn't have those borders.
The whole page is propaganda.
It also fails to mention that Syria refused peace talks with Israel, and that the Golani people do not want to live in Syria, and that SYRIA WAS USING THE GOLAN TO SHOOT INTO ISRAELI TOWNS.
Leaving out the Palestinian leadership’s decision to join with other Arab nations to ethnically cleansed Jews from the land seems like an error. Also, much of that land for Israelis would be needed to settle the Arab Jews that all the Muslim arab nations would eventually remove. the land in this map is plenty for both populations, not including jordan which is also a palestinian state itself.
Okay first off, your last point is just ridiculous and pro-ethnic cleansing. If Egypt invaded the southern half of Israel and forcibly moved all the Jews there into northern Israel, that’s not okay just because “they still have a Jewish state”. People want to live in their homes not just in a state. The state is more about feeling safe and protected.
That’s a pretty ahistorical and biased interpretation of the goals of the Arab states. They wanted to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state not massacre all the Jews living in Palestine. What you’re talking about goes back to 1 quote from 1 guy several months before the war even began. Whereas several Israeli prime ministers have openly stated their goal of keeping Arab population in Israel low and licking out as many as they can, while wanting to annex the West Bank and do the same there. Which is ethnic cleansing. After all, as you said most of these states had decently sized Jewish minorities that had lived in relative peace for 1500 years. For most of history a Jewish person was far better off living in a Muslim country than a Christian one.
This only changed **after** Israel was established or was trying to be. It soured arab relations with Jewish people across the Arab world who they say as colonialists taking their land and hurting their people. And then the Arab nations in reprisal exiled and threatened their Jewish population, which is indefensible. They had nothing to do with what was going on in Israel. But it wouldn’t have happened without Israel committing an ethnic cleansing.
My friend, the Mufti of Palestine met with Hitler and toured concentration camps with Nazi leadership. Amin Al-Husseini. This was the stated goal of the Arab nations when they handed together in 1948. Pointing out that Jordan is a Arab Muslim state in what was the Palestinian mandate is not pro ethnic cleansing, it is just a fact. Jordanians and Palestinians are only divided by a line drawn by colonizers, one state just isn’t called Palestine. If Palestinians wanted a state more than they wanted Jews to not exist in the Middle East they would have one by now.
They don’t want *a* state, they want to live in their homes in the safety of a state. They don’t want to be forced to move out of their ancestral towns and villages and homes to someplace they’ve never been.
Husseini had very little power by the time of the arab-Israeli war and was basically irrelevant by the 1950’s. He was not some voice of the Palestinians. Furthermore a lot of colonial peoples in Britain and France and the ussr collaborated with the Nazis. The Finnish did. They were all using the Nazis for their own personal fights for self determination. Of course, I think history shows that that was the wrong decision and that people’s lives were much more important than that, but it wasn’t as clear at the time. Husseini in particular tho seemed to know what was going on and didn’t try to stop it so I do think he’s on the hook for some of the Nazis actions. But I would like to note that [Jewish groups also tried to ally with the Nazis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(militant_group)).
Again, the stated goal was the establishment of an Arab state over the entirety of Palestine. It was not the genocide of all Jews there. Massacres happened, but they were reprisals for Jewish massacres that happened that were reprisals for Arab massacres that were reprisals for Jewish massacres… you get it. It wasn’t pretty. But this all began because huge amounts of Jewish immigrants came into the area under British colonial control with the explicit goal of kicking out the native population and resettling the area with Jews. That’s why this all began. Wars like this are complicated and there’s never usually a totally good and bad side. But we need to find the lessons that we can take from them and apply to today. And I think the biggest one is basically that colonialism and ethnostates are bad.
> If Egypt invaded the southern half of Israel and forcibly moved all the Jews there into northern Israel, that’s not okay just because “they still have a Jewish state”.
Egypt tried to do this. Transjordan literally did this from the East.
> People want to live in their homes not just in a state.
And they literally could have if they accepted the state. Israel wasn't fully innocent in that war for sure, but the Arabs refusal to negotiate for anything other than wanton destruction of the Jews was their downfall.
> That’s a pretty ahistorical and biased interpretation of the goals of the Arab states. They wanted to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state not massacre all the Jews living in Palestine.
Then why did they say they wanted to massacre the Jews living in Palestine? Why did they massacre Jews? Why did they fully purge the Jews from their countries? Why did the Jordanians depopulate the Jews from Jerusalem and desecrate their sites and blow up the Synagogues?
> What you’re talking about goes back to 1 quote from 1 guy several months before the war even began.
No it was lots of them during the war, before the war, after the war.
> Whereas several Israeli prime ministers have openly stated their goal of keeping Arab population in Israel low and licking out as many as they can, while wanting to annex the West Bank and do the same there.
What Israeli Prime Minister said they wanted to annex the West Bank and ethnically cleanse it of Arabs?
> After all, as you said most of these states had decently sized Jewish minorities that had lived in relative peace for 1500 years.
There were pogroms and they lived as 2nd class citizens.
> For most of history a Jewish person was far better off living in a Muslim country than a Christian one.
That's an incredibly low bar. That's like saying eating a turd isn't so bad, at least it isn't a grenade.
> This only changed after Israel was established or was trying to be.
No, this changed in the early 1900s, before Israel. See: Hebron Massacre. Not only that, but Arab leadership in Jerusalem was trying to ally with the Nazis to kill all of the Jews.
> But it wouldn’t have happened without Israel committing an ethnic cleansing.
The core of this is Jews controlling land that Mohammad once had. No matter how Israel came to being, there always was going to be violence against Jews.
You are saying that Israel has no right to exist, and you blame Jews wanting to exist in their homeland for violence against them.
\>And they literally could have if they accepted the state. Israel wasn't fully innocent in that war for sure, but the Arabs refusal to negotiate for anything other than wanton destruction of the Jews was their downfall.
The state they were being offered was a minority of the land both in total and in arable land
\>Then why did they say they wanted to massacre the Jews living in Palestine? Why did they massacre Jews? Why did they fully purge the Jews from their countries?
Because that is what the Jews were doing to them, the Irgun were maximalists they were purging arabs committing horrific acts of terrorism
\>What Israeli Prime Minister said they wanted to annex the West Bank and ethnically cleanse it of Arabs?
None openly because you can't say that openly Hitler didn't say openly he wanted to commit the holocaust because you can't say that but the current PM is the son of a Irgun member and is very in line with their goals
\>No, this changed in the early 1900s, before Israel. See: Hebron Massacre. Not only that, but Arab leadership in Jerusalem was trying to ally with the Nazis to kill all of the Jews.
the Revisionist Movement attempted to ally with the Nazi during the polish invasion to wipe out the arabs in palestine didn't work out but they tried
\>You are saying that Israel has no right to exist, and you blame Jews wanting to exist in their homeland for violence against them.
No, Israel was given a far greater proportion of the land and resources despite being a minority in the territory this blatently unfair not only that but the Israeli state is guilty of ethnic cleansing and they are still ethnically cleansing the region
I have no problem with jews as people i don't believe they are secretly controlling the world i don't believe they are somehow innately evil but Israel is a far right state that is engaging in ethnic cleansing and Israel deserves to at the very least be criticized for that
Also, blaming Jews in Arab Muslim nations because of the actions of jews somewhere else is not the justification you think it is. That’s just antisemitism
The Jews were actually very disgruntled with the first proposition in which Palestine was actually almost touching on all three exclaves with maybe about a KM distance, with Jerusalem a International Zone. Nevertheless they still accepted it because at least it would bring them peace and a place to call home. The Arabs however rejected the proposition. They also were granted more land for farming as Israel was 60% the Negev if negotiations went through.
Yeah it was like
Jews: this sucks but I'll take it
Arabs: Mein Fuhrer, we will finish your work
*Five Arab contries simultaneously invade Israel with the overt purpose of genociding the Jewish population*
Jews: ugh fine, you asked for it...
*Jews procede to win the war, defend their territorial claims, and push the Arabs back far behind the original partition line*
Arabs: *surprised Pikachu face* Well uh... In 20 years, we're gonna regroup and invade all over again and that time it definitely won't backfire.
Also note that the USA and Israel didn't really form an alliance until the 1970s (in fact, the founders of Israel were socialists, so Truman was actually supporting the Palestinians), that Russia was aligned with Egypt and Syria, and that Britain was aligned with Jordan. For the first two decades, Israel's largest international backer was France.
Edit: the reason I wrote Arabs in 1948 as being Nazis is because their leader was Amin Al-Husseini, who was a Nazi. You can look him up.
Well, thinking about it it might be the way our languages are, for example French and Hebrew have similar vowel sounds and our ‘r’ is usually guttural.
Who were 'the Jews' in this scenario? Like, was there a committee of top Jews representing wider Jewish communities, or are you talking about general consensus among Jewish populations?
It isn’t really specific but from what I know from stories passed down in my family is that they were generally nice to the Palestinians and agreed they should also have a country as well as Israel. The Arabs even though were offered the better lands with even some Jewish settlements in them refused the offer and any after that. The war then took off after the proclamation of the State Of Israel after the UK left.
It's a bit more complicated than that. The bulk of the Jews that were living in Israel at that point where actually recent migrants, not people who'd been living there for generations (there were of cause jewish families that had never left Israel, but they were much smaller in number).
On top of that, Arabs were still by far the majority of the population, I don't know the exact numbers but I think it was about 70:30 Arabs to Jews.
So a lot (almost all) of the land that was being granted to Israel was actually majority Arab.
TBH, the Partition of Israel was basically the exact same thing Russia did with Crimea and Ukraine, settle a bunch of people in an area, then say that area should be made independent.
If it hadn't occurred directly after WW2, I doubt it would have ever been allowed to happen, if I'm honest.
Not that it really matters. The only thing that will ever work is a unified secular state of Palestine, the 2 nation solution was doomed from the start. Ethno-nationalism is the fucking worst.
Woah woah I believe that Palestine should have a state that I agree with, however we needed a state after countries realized the horrors of the Holocaust and how bad Jewish people were treated. It would’ve needed to have been the only true safe country for us. I just wish there were never wars and the Palestinians and us were never filled with extremists wanting to exterminate each other.
As in, the Jews that were living there. Did you think that Israel was created as a state and THEN Jews started migrating there? They had a massive influx of European jews after WW2, which is what kicked off the whole crisis, as they weren't willing to be subject to a Sharia government.
UN handling epidemics, international infrastructure, and food aid :👍👍👍
UN preventing ethnic violence in chad :👍👍👍
UN bangladeshi peacekeepers in sierra leone: 👍👍👍
People online: ahh how dare the UN not be able to undo thousands of years of bad blood with a whole sovereign state on one side
The official british government publication from 1948 about it “Palestine: Termination of the Mandate”, is a hilarious read, one of the most snide government documents i’ve read.
Quote pulled from it, the most “Fuck this shit we’re out” i’ve seen in a government document.
> His Majesty's Government had now striven for twenty-seven years without success to reconcile Jews and Arabs and to prepare the people of Palestine for self-government. The policy adopted by the United Nations had aroused the determined resistance of the Arabs, while the States supporting this policy were themselves not prepared to enforce it. 84,000 troops, who received no cooperation from the Jewish community, had proved insufficient to maintain law and order in the face of a campaign of terrorism waged by highly organized Jewish forces equipped with all the weapons of the modern infantryman. Since the war, 338 British subjects had been killed in Palestine, while the military forces there had cost the British taxpayer 100 million pounds. The renewal of Arab violence on the announcement of the United Nations decision to partition Palestine and the declared intentions of Jewish extremists showed that the loss of further British lives was inevitable. It was equally clear that, in view of His Majesty's Government's decision not to enforce the partition of Palestine against the declared wishes of the majority of it inhabitants, the continued presence there of British troops and officials could no longer be justified.
Suppose an alternative would have just been let the British remain in control.
For much longer.
Not a fan of Imperialism in any way.
But they were the only group capable of forcing both sides to negotiate.
But both sides were committing terrorism to speed up the British evacuation.
The British were bankrupt after ww2, and by 1947 had stationed 100k soldiers in Palestine, and even that wasn't enough to keep the peace. There's a damn good reason they dumped it on the UN
Palestinians rejecting the two-state solution has got to be one of the worst decisions in retrospect in human history.
Its understandable seeing as they thought they could simply genocide the Israelis with their Arabic allies and take all of it, but now the situation has deteriorated past the point of any kind of return and there is no realistic solution in sight.
A solution was possible decades ago before the Israeli state got hijacked by irredentist extremists, but any hope of justice died along with Rabin.
Every single discussion about the Israel-Palestine conflict doesn't even engage in the actual roots of the conflict, it just goes back and forth about who "deserves" the land. There are multiple things that are true:
* The creation of a Jewish state was inevitable after the Holocaust, as the Holocaust vindicated centuries of Zionist thinking that Jewish people would never be accepted until they had a home of their own
* Due to the Christian bent of world powers and the extant Zionist movement in British Palestine, it was almost inevitable that British Palestine would be the place where a Jewish state was created
* Jewish people were still a minority in the parts of British Palestine that became Israel, and its absolutely understandable that Arab Palestinians would feel jilted and left out of the discussion.
* There were extremely brutal ethnic conflicts that were starting even before the creation of the state of Israel
* A two-state solution was proposed that was accepted by Israel but rejected by the Palestinian representatives, and the main driver of the Palestinians rejecting the two state solution was because they believed they would be able to take it through military conquest and genocide after the fact
* This is the same point as the last one but it bears repeating, **in every single war between Arabs and Israelis, the explicitly stated goal on the Arab side was genocide.**
* To this day, if the Palestinian Authority or Hamas gained the upper hand, the preferred course of action would be genocide.
* None of that, absolutely none of it, justifies the horrific humanitarian situation that Palestinians currently find themselves in. They are at the mercy of a significantly more powerful state, and have zero opportunities to improve the material conditions of their lives
* The settlements by Zionist extremists are indefensible and constitute a form of literal imperialism
* Israel has increasingly morphed into a less and less secular ethnostate, in which Arabs who have citizenship are mostly able to live their lives, but in which the Palestinian areas under the control of the Israeli military are subjected to a de facto apartheid arrangement
* As much as it would be nice to ask the Israelis to de-escalate, take down the walls, and back down, it is next to impossible to do so without Israeli civilians being subject to random knifings, shootings, and bombings.
The only conclusion to draw is that each side has deep-seated, irreconcilable, and understandable issues with the current situation, but neither has an incentive to de-escalate, and neither has any ideological inclination towards a compromise. Its all fucked and everyone involved has blood on their hands.
Edit: I'd like to point out something that is happening in this thread because its exactly what I'm talking about. You have people beneath my original comment arguing about whether the Israelis are "colonizers" because a large number were repatriated after The Holocaust, despite there still being native Jewish people living in Palestine. People are pointing out that Jewish people were there first 2000 years ago, or that Arabic people were settled there for an extended period of time, and ***none of that matters where we are right now.***
It doesn't matter if its "historically" Jewish land or "historically" Arab land, go back far enough and none of us are "natives". Maybe it mattered eighty years ago, but the reality on the ground right now is that there are 9 million Israelis who do not deserve to be the victims of genocide and there are 5 million Palestinians who are living in terrible material conditions because of inevitable historical forces that were largely out of their control. "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" is an empty, normative statement based on philosophical grounds when geopolitics is anything but philosophical. "Israel has the right to take the homes of any Palestinian because it was originally Judea anyway" is equally empty. The creation and geographical makeup of the Israeli state has always been geopolitical, and, as I said, there was simply no way it wasn't going to happen given that The Holocaust was fresh in the mind of every single person making decisions about the post-war peace.
What years of intifadas, assassinations, terrorism, and rocket skirmishes does to a mfer.
If Israel would completely disengage from the West Bank, does anyone here think it wouldn't just become another Hamas-led Gaza?
>does anyone here think it wouldn’t just become another Hamas-led Gaza?
No, everyone on both sides here knows that’s what it would become. The “anti-Zionist” side just perceives it as a good thing, and obfuscate/deny this so they can drum up more “anti-Zionist” sentiment in the West.
Amazing comment. I talk a lot about this subject here and I'm going to save this comment for future use. I like how it shows way zoinism is needed without excusing the bad developments happening here. Thank you
The Palestinians and Israelis have both been hijacked by irredentist extremists with Hamas and their Iranian masters outright demanding a global genocide of Jews
Look, I’m not gonna advocate for murder or anything… but I hear Netanyahu’s heart is a hell of a lot worse than he’s let on. Who knows… maybe it won’t last the month?
Perhaps it could have worked better if they had made international zones for connecting the different portions of Palestinian territory (this would have also left the territory of Israel divided so both countries would have had an incentive to ensure a smooth flow of people and goods through those zones)
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh no plan that included Jews was going to get approved by the Arabs, regardless of how equitable the two states’ territories would have been (please note this plan may give the Jewish state more land but most of it is un-usable desert even with the 80-odd years of making the desert bloom).
It is ready strange that anyone could believe that racially segregating Palestine was going to work at all. The partition of India had been carried out a few months before and resulted in 100s of thousands of deaths (likely many more.) and conflict between Pakistan and India (a conflict that's still going ongoing to this day).
and it was an incredibly idiotic move, all things considered
Pakistan is a country that can never feel comfortable. The very notion of "strategic depth" was invented to describe the defense posture of Pakistan.
I wrote it in another comment, but empirically you can look at countries with one ethnic consist more than 85% are much more peaceful than others in Africa and Asia.
Switzerland is one of the most peaceful countries on earth is a mess of German Swiss French Swiss and Italian Swiss their government represents them all everyone feels heard by the government so nobody feels left out
it is entirely possible to have a multi ethnic state if you set up the state in a way that accommodates multiple ethnic groups most nations do not have that so get dominated by one group
In Africa and Asia that was the goal of the colonizers to keep their colonies under their control to keep infighting high so that they don't fight the colonizers
That might have something to do with the 85% one ethnicity countries fucking with the multi-ethnic countries and promoting ethnic strife. Like Uganda and the British
People like to blame problems in the Middle East and Africa in the Europeans not accounting for religion, ethnicity, and when creating borders, but that doesn’t seem to have worked out at all for Israel and Palestine.
It’s as though homogeneous ethnostates are not the solution.
They are if the alternative is more oppression.
The fundamental view that Jews have is that they are forever at risk as a minority, beholden to the good will of their host state. Prior to the Holocaust no Jew in Germany could have imagined that such a modern, industrial, and by many accounts enlightened civilization would attempt to exterminate them on an industrial scale.
Lesson learned.
The only way for Jews to guarantee safety for themselves is to have a state where *they* are the majority. Yes, Israel is an ethnostate. But there is a damn good reason why it is so. Because the moment it ceases to be, the moment it allows Jews to become a minority again, is the moment they are setting up the dominoes for a potential future genocide.
One day, I pray that day comes sooner than later, the specter of anti-Semitism would mostly disappear, and no Jew would have to ever feel an existential dread. Then, and only then, would there no longer be a necessity for a Jewish state.
This doesn't justify it's behavior towards the Palestinians in the West Bank, which by the way is a highly complex situation.
I live in Los Angeles, so very liberal place, and there's been a few times in the last few years where I am driving through an underpass with [anti-Semitic conspiracy signs](https://www.algemeiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/LA-slogans.jpg). With highly influential people like Kanye peddling these same conspiracy theories. With the rise of Groypers and what not. Yeah, the right has already been somewhat threatening but it's more and more explicit.
But on the left, the rise of anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism is unreal. Even more threatening. I know a lot of students that are Jewish that hide their identity in universities, or face harassment. Academia has been hostile to Jewish students for years, and it seems like most Jews are afraid to mention it, since they are largely politically aligned with the left.
I am from the USSR originally, so I know we're not anywhere close to the kind of systemic anti-Semitism that existed there. But, the direction we are on currently with extremism on both sides is worrying.
Luckily I have family in Israel, if shit hits the fan, I'm out.
I’m glad you call out anti-semitism disguised as anti-Zionism. I remember calling out a guy for his blatantly anti-Semitic meme. He responds with the “anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism” line, but his meme literally had the happy merchant in all the corners. It couldn’t have been more blatantly anti-Semitic.
anti-Zionism originated from the USSR as zionology. Zionology ripped off a ton of stuff that was from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which, incidentally, is also Russian in origin). Much of the anti-Zionist rhetoric is rooted in the Soviet Union's ideological framework during the Cold War. Much of the underlying positions anti-Semites have are very similar to what anti-Zionists have. The only difference is where the anti-Semite's ultimate goal is the eradication of Jews as a national and/or religious group, the anti-Zionist's ultimate goal (even if they don't directly understand it) is to deny Jews any national agency, to maintain the Jews as subjugated people forever beholden to the good graces of their host nations.
But the language is similar.
The right says my people are from Khazaria.
the left says my people are Polish or German.
The right says Jews control the media and the government.
The left says Israel controls the media and the government. And OH BY THE WAY, you want an example? Here's one.
[Chris Williamson, today, Former Derby MP and Council Leader tweeted:](https://twitter.com/DerbyChrisW/status/1692628850306371715)
"Never forget that Sir Keir Starmer backs Zionism "without qualification." Never forget the Israel lobby brought down Jeremy Corbyn. Never forget Israel interfered in our elections. So, never forget Israel is responsible for the poverty and hardship being felt by millions of Britons today."
How is it any different when some Groyper says the Jews are in control of the US government and millions of Americans are experiencing hardships by the Jews.
My point isn’t for or against Israel or Palestine. What I’m getting at is the way that so many people embrace this idea that the only way to have peace and prosperity is to segregate people from anyone who speaks a different language, goes to a different church, or is of a different ethnicity - that diversity is weakness and homogeneity is strength. If that idea was true, then Israel and Palestine (Jordan) should have had peace as their borders were drawn to separate them from each other.
And I argue that diversity can be a weakness in some cases and homogeneity can also be a strength in some cases. I also argue that in some cases, a development of an ethnostate is a necessity, or a desired good. Just as in many cases an ethnostate can devolve into some of the worst things imaginable. In this case, I wouldn't ask a future Kurdistan to purposefully make it's Kurdish population a minority, and the Arabs (who have subjugated them for centuries) remain a majority. I wouldn't expect the Tibetans, should they ever get independence, to let themselves become minority population. Especially if both choose a Democratic like government where political power resides in demographics. Now, I would be, simultaneously, against the idea of creating an ethno state in North America because there is no necessity for it, and it's already a massively ethnically diverse population with more or less similar culture and goals.
And one only needs to look at Israel's northern neighbor, Syria, to see what it looks like when a minority (Alawites) dominate the political/social class.
It's not that complex. You make a great a point as to why Jews need to create their own home. The method, however, not so great. Being a victim doesn't justify becoming an aggressor against someone else.
The method? The method for them to make their own state was to declare it so after the Brits decided to get out. They immediately had to fight several wars from Arabs who's intent was ethnic cleansing and genocide. They've achieved this and survived it. What's left over is a perpetual conflict that has for decades been largely fueled by those losing Arab states and the UN. I'm not even sure who you mean they are being an aggressor to. Do you mean West Bank Palestinians?
Yeah some groups get dealt a bad hand and end up the eternal minority see the Hmong the answer is not give them an ethnostate and pretend to not see them doing ethnostate shit they are committing ethnic cleansing the jewish settlements are illegal and condemned by literally every nation on earth because they are ethnically cleansing the region of arabs
Who determines what exactly is and isn't the correct answer? The Jews weren't *given* a state. They carved one out of the Mandate of Palestine when the British left (due to being no longer able to control the civil war). They carved one out and defended it from foreign invasions, which resulted in 700,000 Palestinians to leave, either through force, or of their own accord. Similarly, one can ask the rest of MENA, where are your Jews? Well they *were* ethnically cleansed by force.
How many Arabs have been ethnically cleansed due to the settlements?
>How many Arabs have been ethnically cleansed due to the settlements?
Quite a few just ask the people of Masafar Yatta oh wait you can't because for some odd reason they aren't there anymore
Yet look at african countries and even asian countries in which one ethnicity consists of more than 85%. They had much less infighting.
The problem was that the arabs didn't accept a jewish state and they viewed the land it was on as their land.
Whoever made this map is an idiot. Having 3 parts that are unconnected to each others, instead of just drawing a line in the middle for even separation.
2 state solution will be inherently un equal with resources. One state solution will piss off at least one group. Both Palestinians and Israelis have been there for a long time so both have claim to it.
This situation was not caused by the Europeans but they sure didn’t help.
I’m not even sure there is a solution to the conflict.
By God am I so proud of this sub that the comment section isn't just copy paste free Palestine propaganda about how the jews are actually nazis.
FINALLY some nuance!
The Palestinians made up 70% of the population and were allocated 40% of the land
Should the arabs have attacked? No probably not but they have tried and failed endlessly to try and be treated fairly by the western powers
>The Palestinians made up 70% of the population and were allocated 40% of the land
Most of the land that israel got was the negev, a desert that even today barely anyone live at
The israelis controlled more arable land and much more of the coastline with more important cities like Jaif and Haifa. Also 62% of a territory that Palestinians inhabitants have lived for dozens of centuries to zionists who came at most 20 years and most within a less than 10 years. The palestinian population was more than 2 times the jewish population. Just because it is a desert doesnt mean that nobody lives there or it is fair. It is so braindead to say "UHHH land desertt worthless :PPPPPP lol xd" this comment is so milk toast for hundreds of people to repeat and upvote
Everyone talks about how Europe fucked up the maps of the Middle East and Africa, but no one ever mentions the US doing it to their own states
You can look up old maps of suggested state lines that take into account water ways, mountain ranges, farming land, and native American tribes, but Washington was "nope, straight line go brrr"
I've always wondered what would have happened if this played out without violence. How would this even work? Apparently, Jerusalem was supposed to be an "International Regime". But how exactly? Would the UN create and directly control Jerusalem's government? How would the borders and border crossings work exactly? And with borders like this, would some parts of Israel and Palestine secede from their own countries if rifts began to form? I would imagine some parts become more secular overtime, and would ironically have friendlier relations within the secular urban areas of Israel and Palestine than the more fundamentalist regions in their own respective countries.
No idea what historically the plan was, but I’d imagine ultimately Jerusalem would be ruled democratically by locals, but the UN would have rules that couldn’t be overturned (e.g., protecting the rights of religious groups to their respective monuments). UN security forces would be stationed there to keep the peace.
No interest in those two and their struggles. At this point, they're both lead by corrupt leaderships who prop each other up by actively making the situation worse with each other's public.
I mean, nothing impractical with those borders, right? It is not like it will create strife for years to come. Just like the plan of saying to a persecuted minority they can go and create their own country in colonized land that is already inhabbited will definetly not create conflict, I'm sure everyone will get around just fine...
We already fucked the borders of the continent during the whole colonization process, it totally worked! /s
This is why, as a Jew, I always tell people that the Israel-Palestine conflict is way, way more complicated than "Muslims fighting Jews". Palestinians were promised to be made part of a large Arab-majority country formed out of the Jordanian territory before the partition plan went through. Palestinians were then forced out of regions that they had settled in for centuries. Conflict inevitably erupted out of this betrayal, and they've been warring ever since.
And as usual with ex-colonial countries, both sides blame the other instead of the colonial powers who set them at each other's throats in the first place. Thinking that they could just ship the "Jew problem" in their own countries overseas was the first major stupid mistake that the Allied states made in the post-colonial period. Placing a monoethnic state under defacto control of Jerusalem was the second one. Reneging on prior agreements with the local populations was the third.
Of course these are only stupid decisions if you take them at face value. In reality it was part of a very deliberate strategy to set up a Western-aligned nation in the Middle East that would help secure NATO interests against the Soviets in the region. Don't believe me? [Ask Joe Biden himself.](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/04/23/remarks-vice-president-joe-biden-67th-annual-israeli-independence-day-ce)
> As many of you heard me say before, were there no Israel, America would have to invent one. We’d have to invent one because Ron is right, you protect our interests like we protect yours.
Why do I hear boss music getting louder?
Why were they so many borders with weird exclaves etc during this period? E.g. Israel Palestine, West+East Pakistan with India, West Berlin inside East Germany.
Colonial governments followed by nationalist movements. Under the colonial government, the region was unified and people moved to where they want. Once the nationalists came to power, a territorial division was necessary but nationalism claims territory *because that’s where their people live*. So, naturally, all the previous moving about was a problem.
The alternative is forced relocation, eg the Greek-Turkish population exchange. "Weird enclaves" seems like the least bad option.
Or the partition of India. People still try to blame the British for that one to this day.
I never understood how they figure it was the fault of the British. The Partition was the first act of an independent India not the last act of the British government in India. IIRC the British even wanted them to remain unified.
Two groups of people blame Britain. 1. Those who have no idea of history and just assume Britain Bad 2. Nationalists who want some one to blame who isn't their father or grandfather.
I debate that, honestly. The population exchanges in Greece and Turkey were pretty bad because they hated each other. But we also did this with Germans at the end of WWII and it went pretty well.
werent there a loooot of deaths in the german resettlement aswell + forced resettlement is a form of genocide anyway "The death toll attributable to the flight and expulsions is disputed, with estimates ranging from 500,000–600,000 and up to 2 to 2.5 million." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944%E2%80%9350_flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans#:~:text=The%20death%20toll%20attributable%20to,to%202%20to%202.5%20million I know its just a wikipedia link, but I dont have time to do more research and I dont think its that important now anyway
This is a perfect example for when history WAS rewritten by the victors. This resettlement program was widely supported among the Allies instead of being a “US thing” or “USSR thing” so it can’t be blamed on someone else
> But we also did this with Germans at the end of WWII and it went pretty well. ...You should really read up on that bit of history. It's estimated about 400,000 people perished from the relocation from Polish territories.
The genocide went pretty well 👍
If you consider up to 2.5 million dead civilians and million more forcefully expelled people who where robbed of all their property they couldn't carry as going pretty well...
Azerbaijan and armenia comes to mind as well.
Oh boy Can't wait till the mods give the 🔒 award
1 hour and still open
Oh hey a post about the Palestine/Israel conflict survived the three hour mark neat.
Because it’s not political. No matter what side you support, there was a war objectively
I don't even think the Middle East exists. Checkmate.
All sides can agree that the situation has room for improvement.
Yup. I’m an Israeli, I kinda get why we do it, it still sucks and there’s got to be a better solution
As a Syrian give us back the golan and all of Palestine is yours
i mean, like that might actually be a good deal im not sure. i was more talking about gaza i didnt even think of that...
I don’t think you understand how arabs are. Even if Israel lost and got destroyed during one of the many wars that were fought. Their would be no Palestinians state as every arab nation would want something for themselves. A perfect scenario right now would be for Egypt to get the Gaza Strip. Jordan to get whatever Tf is left of Palestine and syria regains the golan heights. That’s the best the Arab’s could hope for there will be no Palestinians state.
One issue with that: the Golan was used by the Syrians to bombard Israeli farms and towns in the Galilee. They used artillery. Capturing the Golan has prevented that. And with Assad still in power, and the Druze population there becoming more inclined to stay Israeli? Syria will likely never get the Golan back.
Well, the problem is people get political in the comments and that's what gets it locked. Also, 9 hour mark.
Oh wow it has been three hours
4 HOURS, someone call the cops!
5 hours ! We cannot let this go, OP is too powerful to be left alive !
6 hours! Somebody do something
7 hours never thought I'd see the day
8 hours and no sign of the lock
I've yet to get that award, strangely enough
If you give me 15 comments saying F*** the jews, i can get you the lock🔒 award.
Patrick Starr: We should take the Jews and Muslims and PUSH THEM SOMEWHERE ELSE.
That idea, may just be crazy enough… TO GET US ALL KILLED!
Crusader moment ✝️⚔️😎
29.11.1947, not 1948. The British left in 1948 and that's when the war started (officially, it's complicated), but the partition decision was in 1947.
The meme is still correct if we assume the UN waited until 1948 to pat itself on the back :P
when was jordan partitioned off of british palestine?
1921-22. After gaining independence it was called Kingdom of Transjordan.
I mean the brits added it for the express purpose of giving it to the hashemites.
46 i believe
Who looked at those borders and thought, ‘yes, this is definitely a realistic and sustainable plan’?
The English
From the creators of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, comes a new reboot in a familiar land…
see, the Syke-Picot agreement was based on them being provinces of an empire, not an independent country. so the british were a bit out of their depth here. /s
In fact, the borders were made so that if a country ever becomes independent it is doomed to fail due to internal problems
At least Sykes-Picot looked pretty with all the straight lines, these borders are anything but aesthetic.
[https://gfycat.com/greedygiftedkitfox](https://gfycat.com/greedygiftedkitfox)
You mean the Americans. The British opposed the plans and abstained on the vote. Britain said they refused to enforce the plan because it was so poorly thought out and that it should be down to the UN to enforce it if they passed the vote.
Technically, the Americans *used* to be English subjects… /s
The British opposed the partition but it was based on their own 1937 partition plan.
Which they themselves had rejected in 1938 for being unworkable. Bevin was probably wondering on some level why Truman had been raiding his predecessors' rubbish bin for ideas. EDIT: My apologies, it should be Attlee rather than Bevin. I was flipping through the bios of the various secretaries of the Attlee ministry at the same time and didn't pay enough attention to which name I was writing down, though that's really the sort of thing one should have immediately noticed. The office of the Foreign Secretary had no sole direct power over the Peel or Woodward Commissions to my knowledge, so it wouldn't have been Bevin's predecessors, but of the cabinet as a whole and by extension the Prime Minister.
Sure (though the reason they scrapped it in 1938 owed more to trying to secure Arab support for the upcoming war in the aftermath of the Arab revolt than anything else. Even then Hajj Amin never quite learned how to accept a victory when it was given to him, but I digress). My only point is the British never actually developed a Palestine policy they stuck to for more than 5 minutes. They made, ditched, remade, and reassessed plans at the drop of a hat for 30 years. And It was if anything British support for the Haganah that made partition the only vaguely viable plan anyway.
Indeed. That's certainly fair enough. There was certainly no good way to handle the situation in Mandatory Palestine come 1948; any one-state solution would have left one or the other completely out in the cold, turning it into a time bomb set to blow. While a two-state solution wasn't pleasing to either side, it could at least be hoped that it would be less hated for both sides to have sovereignty over their own affairs and thus could be tolerated by both. And we all know where that hope ended.
*British and no we were opposed to the partition
https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-dLiBfmFuW4I4kRxg-xjGlOw-t500x500.jpg
*British
The plan was supported by the British, the soviet union, the Chinese, the Americans, the French and the local Jewish communities, as well as international Jewish organizations. The UN didn't really ask the local arrabs though.
The Arabs were opposed to any plan that included the Jews
They were fine when Jordan was split of "Palestine" But a Jewish majority Country? thats a war
The local Arabs had made clear by that point that any partition - or indeed any sizeable Jewish immigration - was a non-starter.
Well local Arab position was 0% of land for potential Jewish state, and that was a red line.
The UNSCOP tried to meet with the local Arabs, and the locals responded by stonewalling the UN's attempts as a negotiating tactic; not that it mattered much in any case, since none of the Arabs had any intention of allowing an independent Jewish state to exist in the Middle East, and the Jews had no intention of being legally bound to a minority status either.
The UN tried to ask the local Arabs. The Arabs boycotted them.
The plan was opposed by the British. The U.K. abstained on the vote for it because they said the plan was unworkable and they wouldn’t enforce it.
Which, as a Brit, I must admit was an unusual instance of us being correct (on the unworkable front). *waves apologetically at India and Pakistan*
*If* you're gonna go for a two state solution, it's not a terrible plan. Any contiguous division would leave Palestinians in Israel and Israelis in Palestine. It gives both a sea border, the most contentious location is "neutral" The non-contiguous parts are close enough to allow transit. There was never gonna be a pretty two state solution here.
You can't please everyone
It makes gerrymandering look good
I mean it is realistic and it would've probably worked if the arab side accepted it. Yes, maybe they thought it wasn't right but they didn't see where the wind was heading to
Woah no it wasn’t, Jewish people didn’t even live in most of the territory they got. They mostly lived along the coast and in the north. Here’s a [map for ya](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/26/palestine-and-israel-mapping-an-annexation#jewishimmigration). The UN gave Israel far more land than it actually needed at the expense of the Palestinians living there who were going to be annexed into a state that was explicitly hostile to them. If the UN had stuck to areas already settled by Jewish people maybe things would’ve gone differently.
Those maps aren’t really useful when they’re coloring in the Negev Desert and Jerusalem all in the same solid colors. I’d be much more interested to see actually how many people and cities we’re talking about, not just square miles.
They also love defining Jewish land in the most narrow definition possible (places Jews had villages), and Palestinian land in the most broad definition possible (places that Jews didn't have villages). The fact is the "Palestinian Areas" are a mix of local Arab owned land, empty desert, foreign Ottoman owned areas (empty and owned), and Jewish owned areas that Palestinians lived in. Then later, they call Transjordan owned West Bank and Egypt owned Gaza Palestinian. They refer to the land as "Historic Palestine" despite that not really being a thing. The only time these borders existed were during the British Occupation. Prior to that, it was a part of Ottoman Syria. Even Roman Palestine didn't have those borders. The whole page is propaganda. It also fails to mention that Syria refused peace talks with Israel, and that the Golani people do not want to live in Syria, and that SYRIA WAS USING THE GOLAN TO SHOOT INTO ISRAELI TOWNS.
Lmao at Jerusalen being "Palestinian" in 48. Also, the Negev was near empty.
U know that really big part of Jewish territory part is desert?
Ah Nice, Qatari propaganda outlet passing off propaganda maps full of lies.
Leaving out the Palestinian leadership’s decision to join with other Arab nations to ethnically cleansed Jews from the land seems like an error. Also, much of that land for Israelis would be needed to settle the Arab Jews that all the Muslim arab nations would eventually remove. the land in this map is plenty for both populations, not including jordan which is also a palestinian state itself.
> like an error. It's definitely intentional. > not including jordan which is also a palestinian state itself. Isn't Jordan also Hashemite?
Okay first off, your last point is just ridiculous and pro-ethnic cleansing. If Egypt invaded the southern half of Israel and forcibly moved all the Jews there into northern Israel, that’s not okay just because “they still have a Jewish state”. People want to live in their homes not just in a state. The state is more about feeling safe and protected. That’s a pretty ahistorical and biased interpretation of the goals of the Arab states. They wanted to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state not massacre all the Jews living in Palestine. What you’re talking about goes back to 1 quote from 1 guy several months before the war even began. Whereas several Israeli prime ministers have openly stated their goal of keeping Arab population in Israel low and licking out as many as they can, while wanting to annex the West Bank and do the same there. Which is ethnic cleansing. After all, as you said most of these states had decently sized Jewish minorities that had lived in relative peace for 1500 years. For most of history a Jewish person was far better off living in a Muslim country than a Christian one. This only changed **after** Israel was established or was trying to be. It soured arab relations with Jewish people across the Arab world who they say as colonialists taking their land and hurting their people. And then the Arab nations in reprisal exiled and threatened their Jewish population, which is indefensible. They had nothing to do with what was going on in Israel. But it wouldn’t have happened without Israel committing an ethnic cleansing.
My friend, the Mufti of Palestine met with Hitler and toured concentration camps with Nazi leadership. Amin Al-Husseini. This was the stated goal of the Arab nations when they handed together in 1948. Pointing out that Jordan is a Arab Muslim state in what was the Palestinian mandate is not pro ethnic cleansing, it is just a fact. Jordanians and Palestinians are only divided by a line drawn by colonizers, one state just isn’t called Palestine. If Palestinians wanted a state more than they wanted Jews to not exist in the Middle East they would have one by now.
They don’t want *a* state, they want to live in their homes in the safety of a state. They don’t want to be forced to move out of their ancestral towns and villages and homes to someplace they’ve never been. Husseini had very little power by the time of the arab-Israeli war and was basically irrelevant by the 1950’s. He was not some voice of the Palestinians. Furthermore a lot of colonial peoples in Britain and France and the ussr collaborated with the Nazis. The Finnish did. They were all using the Nazis for their own personal fights for self determination. Of course, I think history shows that that was the wrong decision and that people’s lives were much more important than that, but it wasn’t as clear at the time. Husseini in particular tho seemed to know what was going on and didn’t try to stop it so I do think he’s on the hook for some of the Nazis actions. But I would like to note that [Jewish groups also tried to ally with the Nazis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(militant_group)). Again, the stated goal was the establishment of an Arab state over the entirety of Palestine. It was not the genocide of all Jews there. Massacres happened, but they were reprisals for Jewish massacres that happened that were reprisals for Arab massacres that were reprisals for Jewish massacres… you get it. It wasn’t pretty. But this all began because huge amounts of Jewish immigrants came into the area under British colonial control with the explicit goal of kicking out the native population and resettling the area with Jews. That’s why this all began. Wars like this are complicated and there’s never usually a totally good and bad side. But we need to find the lessons that we can take from them and apply to today. And I think the biggest one is basically that colonialism and ethnostates are bad.
Ancestral is not Arabs who came in the 1800s.
…you mean Jews who came in the 1800’s and early 1900’s.
Correct, there was an influx of both
> If Egypt invaded the southern half of Israel and forcibly moved all the Jews there into northern Israel, that’s not okay just because “they still have a Jewish state”. Egypt tried to do this. Transjordan literally did this from the East. > People want to live in their homes not just in a state. And they literally could have if they accepted the state. Israel wasn't fully innocent in that war for sure, but the Arabs refusal to negotiate for anything other than wanton destruction of the Jews was their downfall. > That’s a pretty ahistorical and biased interpretation of the goals of the Arab states. They wanted to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state not massacre all the Jews living in Palestine. Then why did they say they wanted to massacre the Jews living in Palestine? Why did they massacre Jews? Why did they fully purge the Jews from their countries? Why did the Jordanians depopulate the Jews from Jerusalem and desecrate their sites and blow up the Synagogues? > What you’re talking about goes back to 1 quote from 1 guy several months before the war even began. No it was lots of them during the war, before the war, after the war. > Whereas several Israeli prime ministers have openly stated their goal of keeping Arab population in Israel low and licking out as many as they can, while wanting to annex the West Bank and do the same there. What Israeli Prime Minister said they wanted to annex the West Bank and ethnically cleanse it of Arabs? > After all, as you said most of these states had decently sized Jewish minorities that had lived in relative peace for 1500 years. There were pogroms and they lived as 2nd class citizens. > For most of history a Jewish person was far better off living in a Muslim country than a Christian one. That's an incredibly low bar. That's like saying eating a turd isn't so bad, at least it isn't a grenade. > This only changed after Israel was established or was trying to be. No, this changed in the early 1900s, before Israel. See: Hebron Massacre. Not only that, but Arab leadership in Jerusalem was trying to ally with the Nazis to kill all of the Jews. > But it wouldn’t have happened without Israel committing an ethnic cleansing. The core of this is Jews controlling land that Mohammad once had. No matter how Israel came to being, there always was going to be violence against Jews. You are saying that Israel has no right to exist, and you blame Jews wanting to exist in their homeland for violence against them.
\>And they literally could have if they accepted the state. Israel wasn't fully innocent in that war for sure, but the Arabs refusal to negotiate for anything other than wanton destruction of the Jews was their downfall. The state they were being offered was a minority of the land both in total and in arable land \>Then why did they say they wanted to massacre the Jews living in Palestine? Why did they massacre Jews? Why did they fully purge the Jews from their countries? Because that is what the Jews were doing to them, the Irgun were maximalists they were purging arabs committing horrific acts of terrorism \>What Israeli Prime Minister said they wanted to annex the West Bank and ethnically cleanse it of Arabs? None openly because you can't say that openly Hitler didn't say openly he wanted to commit the holocaust because you can't say that but the current PM is the son of a Irgun member and is very in line with their goals \>No, this changed in the early 1900s, before Israel. See: Hebron Massacre. Not only that, but Arab leadership in Jerusalem was trying to ally with the Nazis to kill all of the Jews. the Revisionist Movement attempted to ally with the Nazi during the polish invasion to wipe out the arabs in palestine didn't work out but they tried \>You are saying that Israel has no right to exist, and you blame Jews wanting to exist in their homeland for violence against them. No, Israel was given a far greater proportion of the land and resources despite being a minority in the territory this blatently unfair not only that but the Israeli state is guilty of ethnic cleansing and they are still ethnically cleansing the region I have no problem with jews as people i don't believe they are secretly controlling the world i don't believe they are somehow innately evil but Israel is a far right state that is engaging in ethnic cleansing and Israel deserves to at the very least be criticized for that
Also, blaming Jews in Arab Muslim nations because of the actions of jews somewhere else is not the justification you think it is. That’s just antisemitism
Point to where I did that. I didn’t do that. I literally said the ethnic cleansing was terrible and not defensible.
That's a quite good question
That’s the neat thing, they didn’t. They probably thought, “Eh, whatever. If they got problems with it they can hash it out themselves.”
I'm somewhat convinced that the decisionmakers were extremely antisemitic and knew what will happen
People who don’t live there?
SIKE, they both got angriieeer
Sykes\*
Came here to say this
UNinvolved in peace
The Jews were actually very disgruntled with the first proposition in which Palestine was actually almost touching on all three exclaves with maybe about a KM distance, with Jerusalem a International Zone. Nevertheless they still accepted it because at least it would bring them peace and a place to call home. The Arabs however rejected the proposition. They also were granted more land for farming as Israel was 60% the Negev if negotiations went through.
Yeah it was like Jews: this sucks but I'll take it Arabs: Mein Fuhrer, we will finish your work *Five Arab contries simultaneously invade Israel with the overt purpose of genociding the Jewish population* Jews: ugh fine, you asked for it... *Jews procede to win the war, defend their territorial claims, and push the Arabs back far behind the original partition line* Arabs: *surprised Pikachu face* Well uh... In 20 years, we're gonna regroup and invade all over again and that time it definitely won't backfire. Also note that the USA and Israel didn't really form an alliance until the 1970s (in fact, the founders of Israel were socialists, so Truman was actually supporting the Palestinians), that Russia was aligned with Egypt and Syria, and that Britain was aligned with Jordan. For the first two decades, Israel's largest international backer was France. Edit: the reason I wrote Arabs in 1948 as being Nazis is because their leader was Amin Al-Husseini, who was a Nazi. You can look him up.
Serious question/always been curious, but is that why Israeli accents in English sound somewhat French? I’ve always wondered what the connection was
Well, thinking about it it might be the way our languages are, for example French and Hebrew have similar vowel sounds and our ‘r’ is usually guttural.
Who were 'the Jews' in this scenario? Like, was there a committee of top Jews representing wider Jewish communities, or are you talking about general consensus among Jewish populations?
There was a group of Jewish Community representatives called the ‘_yishuv_’
It isn’t really specific but from what I know from stories passed down in my family is that they were generally nice to the Palestinians and agreed they should also have a country as well as Israel. The Arabs even though were offered the better lands with even some Jewish settlements in them refused the offer and any after that. The war then took off after the proclamation of the State Of Israel after the UK left.
It's a bit more complicated than that. The bulk of the Jews that were living in Israel at that point where actually recent migrants, not people who'd been living there for generations (there were of cause jewish families that had never left Israel, but they were much smaller in number). On top of that, Arabs were still by far the majority of the population, I don't know the exact numbers but I think it was about 70:30 Arabs to Jews. So a lot (almost all) of the land that was being granted to Israel was actually majority Arab. TBH, the Partition of Israel was basically the exact same thing Russia did with Crimea and Ukraine, settle a bunch of people in an area, then say that area should be made independent. If it hadn't occurred directly after WW2, I doubt it would have ever been allowed to happen, if I'm honest. Not that it really matters. The only thing that will ever work is a unified secular state of Palestine, the 2 nation solution was doomed from the start. Ethno-nationalism is the fucking worst.
Woah woah I believe that Palestine should have a state that I agree with, however we needed a state after countries realized the horrors of the Holocaust and how bad Jewish people were treated. It would’ve needed to have been the only true safe country for us. I just wish there were never wars and the Palestinians and us were never filled with extremists wanting to exterminate each other.
As in, the Jews that were living there. Did you think that Israel was created as a state and THEN Jews started migrating there? They had a massive influx of European jews after WW2, which is what kicked off the whole crisis, as they weren't willing to be subject to a Sharia government.
UN handling epidemics, international infrastructure, and food aid :👍👍👍 UN preventing ethnic violence in chad :👍👍👍 UN bangladeshi peacekeepers in sierra leone: 👍👍👍 People online: ahh how dare the UN not be able to undo thousands of years of bad blood with a whole sovereign state on one side
Minor nitpick, the Palestine Partition vote happened in 1947.
The official british government publication from 1948 about it “Palestine: Termination of the Mandate”, is a hilarious read, one of the most snide government documents i’ve read. Quote pulled from it, the most “Fuck this shit we’re out” i’ve seen in a government document. > His Majesty's Government had now striven for twenty-seven years without success to reconcile Jews and Arabs and to prepare the people of Palestine for self-government. The policy adopted by the United Nations had aroused the determined resistance of the Arabs, while the States supporting this policy were themselves not prepared to enforce it. 84,000 troops, who received no cooperation from the Jewish community, had proved insufficient to maintain law and order in the face of a campaign of terrorism waged by highly organized Jewish forces equipped with all the weapons of the modern infantryman. Since the war, 338 British subjects had been killed in Palestine, while the military forces there had cost the British taxpayer 100 million pounds. The renewal of Arab violence on the announcement of the United Nations decision to partition Palestine and the declared intentions of Jewish extremists showed that the loss of further British lives was inevitable. It was equally clear that, in view of His Majesty's Government's decision not to enforce the partition of Palestine against the declared wishes of the majority of it inhabitants, the continued presence there of British troops and officials could no longer be justified.
Suppose an alternative would have just been let the British remain in control. For much longer. Not a fan of Imperialism in any way. But they were the only group capable of forcing both sides to negotiate. But both sides were committing terrorism to speed up the British evacuation.
The British were bankrupt after ww2, and by 1947 had stationed 100k soldiers in Palestine, and even that wasn't enough to keep the peace. There's a damn good reason they dumped it on the UN
It wasn't "enough". But it kept things running.
When one of those agree in youre proposal you know you fucked up. When both agree you have fucked up infinitely
Palestinians rejecting the two-state solution has got to be one of the worst decisions in retrospect in human history. Its understandable seeing as they thought they could simply genocide the Israelis with their Arabic allies and take all of it, but now the situation has deteriorated past the point of any kind of return and there is no realistic solution in sight. A solution was possible decades ago before the Israeli state got hijacked by irredentist extremists, but any hope of justice died along with Rabin.
Based argument
Every single discussion about the Israel-Palestine conflict doesn't even engage in the actual roots of the conflict, it just goes back and forth about who "deserves" the land. There are multiple things that are true: * The creation of a Jewish state was inevitable after the Holocaust, as the Holocaust vindicated centuries of Zionist thinking that Jewish people would never be accepted until they had a home of their own * Due to the Christian bent of world powers and the extant Zionist movement in British Palestine, it was almost inevitable that British Palestine would be the place where a Jewish state was created * Jewish people were still a minority in the parts of British Palestine that became Israel, and its absolutely understandable that Arab Palestinians would feel jilted and left out of the discussion. * There were extremely brutal ethnic conflicts that were starting even before the creation of the state of Israel * A two-state solution was proposed that was accepted by Israel but rejected by the Palestinian representatives, and the main driver of the Palestinians rejecting the two state solution was because they believed they would be able to take it through military conquest and genocide after the fact * This is the same point as the last one but it bears repeating, **in every single war between Arabs and Israelis, the explicitly stated goal on the Arab side was genocide.** * To this day, if the Palestinian Authority or Hamas gained the upper hand, the preferred course of action would be genocide. * None of that, absolutely none of it, justifies the horrific humanitarian situation that Palestinians currently find themselves in. They are at the mercy of a significantly more powerful state, and have zero opportunities to improve the material conditions of their lives * The settlements by Zionist extremists are indefensible and constitute a form of literal imperialism * Israel has increasingly morphed into a less and less secular ethnostate, in which Arabs who have citizenship are mostly able to live their lives, but in which the Palestinian areas under the control of the Israeli military are subjected to a de facto apartheid arrangement * As much as it would be nice to ask the Israelis to de-escalate, take down the walls, and back down, it is next to impossible to do so without Israeli civilians being subject to random knifings, shootings, and bombings. The only conclusion to draw is that each side has deep-seated, irreconcilable, and understandable issues with the current situation, but neither has an incentive to de-escalate, and neither has any ideological inclination towards a compromise. Its all fucked and everyone involved has blood on their hands. Edit: I'd like to point out something that is happening in this thread because its exactly what I'm talking about. You have people beneath my original comment arguing about whether the Israelis are "colonizers" because a large number were repatriated after The Holocaust, despite there still being native Jewish people living in Palestine. People are pointing out that Jewish people were there first 2000 years ago, or that Arabic people were settled there for an extended period of time, and ***none of that matters where we are right now.*** It doesn't matter if its "historically" Jewish land or "historically" Arab land, go back far enough and none of us are "natives". Maybe it mattered eighty years ago, but the reality on the ground right now is that there are 9 million Israelis who do not deserve to be the victims of genocide and there are 5 million Palestinians who are living in terrible material conditions because of inevitable historical forces that were largely out of their control. "Israel doesn't have a right to exist" is an empty, normative statement based on philosophical grounds when geopolitics is anything but philosophical. "Israel has the right to take the homes of any Palestinian because it was originally Judea anyway" is equally empty. The creation and geographical makeup of the Israeli state has always been geopolitical, and, as I said, there was simply no way it wasn't going to happen given that The Holocaust was fresh in the mind of every single person making decisions about the post-war peace.
Even more based point
What years of intifadas, assassinations, terrorism, and rocket skirmishes does to a mfer. If Israel would completely disengage from the West Bank, does anyone here think it wouldn't just become another Hamas-led Gaza?
>does anyone here think it wouldn’t just become another Hamas-led Gaza? No, everyone on both sides here knows that’s what it would become. The “anti-Zionist” side just perceives it as a good thing, and obfuscate/deny this so they can drum up more “anti-Zionist” sentiment in the West.
Bravo 👏
Amazing comment. I talk a lot about this subject here and I'm going to save this comment for future use. I like how it shows way zoinism is needed without excusing the bad developments happening here. Thank you
Based. Do you have any idea how "incentivizing de-escalation" could look like? Or is it just impossible at this point.
If I had the expertise to end a decades old blood feud largely fueled by religious extremists then I'd be making a lot more money than I do right now
I cannot express in words how accurate you are.
The most cogent comment on the conflict I’ve ever heard.
The Palestinians and Israelis have both been hijacked by irredentist extremists with Hamas and their Iranian masters outright demanding a global genocide of Jews
I wouldnt say rabin, barak and olmert got somewhat close, but yeah i guess rabin is the formal end to it.
There was no “Palestinians” yet They didn’t even adopt the term until they got smacked in the mouth.
Pretty much the reason why Palestinians exist is pretty much this "wait they don't even live here but they get country?"
Look, I’m not gonna advocate for murder or anything… but I hear Netanyahu’s heart is a hell of a lot worse than he’s let on. Who knows… maybe it won’t last the month?
The Arabs on their way to invade Israel armed with the most advanced Soviet weapons and still get their ass kicked for the 420th time.
Perhaps it could have worked better if they had made international zones for connecting the different portions of Palestinian territory (this would have also left the territory of Israel divided so both countries would have had an incentive to ensure a smooth flow of people and goods through those zones)
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh no plan that included Jews was going to get approved by the Arabs, regardless of how equitable the two states’ territories would have been (please note this plan may give the Jewish state more land but most of it is un-usable desert even with the 80-odd years of making the desert bloom).
The partition was actually as fair as it got.
It should have never been partitioned
So everything should still be British Palestine?
It is ready strange that anyone could believe that racially segregating Palestine was going to work at all. The partition of India had been carried out a few months before and resulted in 100s of thousands of deaths (likely many more.) and conflict between Pakistan and India (a conflict that's still going ongoing to this day).
history doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme
at that was actually democratic- the people in the Muslim majority parts of the Raj *wanted* that independence.
and it was an incredibly idiotic move, all things considered Pakistan is a country that can never feel comfortable. The very notion of "strategic depth" was invented to describe the defense posture of Pakistan.
Bruh... You know the Indian Muslim leaders wanted to have a separate state from the majority Hindu one.
And that still doesn't change the fact that the partition was/is a brutal mess that's left hundreds of thousands dead.
I wrote it in another comment, but empirically you can look at countries with one ethnic consist more than 85% are much more peaceful than others in Africa and Asia.
We have Kenya with a lot of different nations and Somali with one. Not so easy
Switzerland is one of the most peaceful countries on earth is a mess of German Swiss French Swiss and Italian Swiss their government represents them all everyone feels heard by the government so nobody feels left out it is entirely possible to have a multi ethnic state if you set up the state in a way that accommodates multiple ethnic groups most nations do not have that so get dominated by one group In Africa and Asia that was the goal of the colonizers to keep their colonies under their control to keep infighting high so that they don't fight the colonizers
Correlation does not imply causation.
That might have something to do with the 85% one ethnicity countries fucking with the multi-ethnic countries and promoting ethnic strife. Like Uganda and the British
Arabs immediately on their way to try destroy Israel for existing:
Does someone know why they made the borders so strange?
They based it around population centers
People like to blame problems in the Middle East and Africa in the Europeans not accounting for religion, ethnicity, and when creating borders, but that doesn’t seem to have worked out at all for Israel and Palestine. It’s as though homogeneous ethnostates are not the solution.
They are if the alternative is more oppression. The fundamental view that Jews have is that they are forever at risk as a minority, beholden to the good will of their host state. Prior to the Holocaust no Jew in Germany could have imagined that such a modern, industrial, and by many accounts enlightened civilization would attempt to exterminate them on an industrial scale. Lesson learned. The only way for Jews to guarantee safety for themselves is to have a state where *they* are the majority. Yes, Israel is an ethnostate. But there is a damn good reason why it is so. Because the moment it ceases to be, the moment it allows Jews to become a minority again, is the moment they are setting up the dominoes for a potential future genocide. One day, I pray that day comes sooner than later, the specter of anti-Semitism would mostly disappear, and no Jew would have to ever feel an existential dread. Then, and only then, would there no longer be a necessity for a Jewish state. This doesn't justify it's behavior towards the Palestinians in the West Bank, which by the way is a highly complex situation.
Yup. Even though I’m an American Jew and fairly safe I’m still a minority and I’m still concerned about what might happen.
I live in Los Angeles, so very liberal place, and there's been a few times in the last few years where I am driving through an underpass with [anti-Semitic conspiracy signs](https://www.algemeiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/LA-slogans.jpg). With highly influential people like Kanye peddling these same conspiracy theories. With the rise of Groypers and what not. Yeah, the right has already been somewhat threatening but it's more and more explicit. But on the left, the rise of anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism is unreal. Even more threatening. I know a lot of students that are Jewish that hide their identity in universities, or face harassment. Academia has been hostile to Jewish students for years, and it seems like most Jews are afraid to mention it, since they are largely politically aligned with the left. I am from the USSR originally, so I know we're not anywhere close to the kind of systemic anti-Semitism that existed there. But, the direction we are on currently with extremism on both sides is worrying. Luckily I have family in Israel, if shit hits the fan, I'm out.
I’m glad you call out anti-semitism disguised as anti-Zionism. I remember calling out a guy for his blatantly anti-Semitic meme. He responds with the “anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism” line, but his meme literally had the happy merchant in all the corners. It couldn’t have been more blatantly anti-Semitic.
anti-Zionism originated from the USSR as zionology. Zionology ripped off a ton of stuff that was from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which, incidentally, is also Russian in origin). Much of the anti-Zionist rhetoric is rooted in the Soviet Union's ideological framework during the Cold War. Much of the underlying positions anti-Semites have are very similar to what anti-Zionists have. The only difference is where the anti-Semite's ultimate goal is the eradication of Jews as a national and/or religious group, the anti-Zionist's ultimate goal (even if they don't directly understand it) is to deny Jews any national agency, to maintain the Jews as subjugated people forever beholden to the good graces of their host nations. But the language is similar. The right says my people are from Khazaria. the left says my people are Polish or German. The right says Jews control the media and the government. The left says Israel controls the media and the government. And OH BY THE WAY, you want an example? Here's one. [Chris Williamson, today, Former Derby MP and Council Leader tweeted:](https://twitter.com/DerbyChrisW/status/1692628850306371715) "Never forget that Sir Keir Starmer backs Zionism "without qualification." Never forget the Israel lobby brought down Jeremy Corbyn. Never forget Israel interfered in our elections. So, never forget Israel is responsible for the poverty and hardship being felt by millions of Britons today." How is it any different when some Groyper says the Jews are in control of the US government and millions of Americans are experiencing hardships by the Jews.
Why is hating Jews the only thing all political extremists can ever agree on?
Because how dare the Jews succeed in a world they built for themselves?
My point isn’t for or against Israel or Palestine. What I’m getting at is the way that so many people embrace this idea that the only way to have peace and prosperity is to segregate people from anyone who speaks a different language, goes to a different church, or is of a different ethnicity - that diversity is weakness and homogeneity is strength. If that idea was true, then Israel and Palestine (Jordan) should have had peace as their borders were drawn to separate them from each other.
And I argue that diversity can be a weakness in some cases and homogeneity can also be a strength in some cases. I also argue that in some cases, a development of an ethnostate is a necessity, or a desired good. Just as in many cases an ethnostate can devolve into some of the worst things imaginable. In this case, I wouldn't ask a future Kurdistan to purposefully make it's Kurdish population a minority, and the Arabs (who have subjugated them for centuries) remain a majority. I wouldn't expect the Tibetans, should they ever get independence, to let themselves become minority population. Especially if both choose a Democratic like government where political power resides in demographics. Now, I would be, simultaneously, against the idea of creating an ethno state in North America because there is no necessity for it, and it's already a massively ethnically diverse population with more or less similar culture and goals. And one only needs to look at Israel's northern neighbor, Syria, to see what it looks like when a minority (Alawites) dominate the political/social class.
It's not that complex. You make a great a point as to why Jews need to create their own home. The method, however, not so great. Being a victim doesn't justify becoming an aggressor against someone else.
The method? The method for them to make their own state was to declare it so after the Brits decided to get out. They immediately had to fight several wars from Arabs who's intent was ethnic cleansing and genocide. They've achieved this and survived it. What's left over is a perpetual conflict that has for decades been largely fueled by those losing Arab states and the UN. I'm not even sure who you mean they are being an aggressor to. Do you mean West Bank Palestinians?
Yeah some groups get dealt a bad hand and end up the eternal minority see the Hmong the answer is not give them an ethnostate and pretend to not see them doing ethnostate shit they are committing ethnic cleansing the jewish settlements are illegal and condemned by literally every nation on earth because they are ethnically cleansing the region of arabs
Who determines what exactly is and isn't the correct answer? The Jews weren't *given* a state. They carved one out of the Mandate of Palestine when the British left (due to being no longer able to control the civil war). They carved one out and defended it from foreign invasions, which resulted in 700,000 Palestinians to leave, either through force, or of their own accord. Similarly, one can ask the rest of MENA, where are your Jews? Well they *were* ethnically cleansed by force. How many Arabs have been ethnically cleansed due to the settlements?
>How many Arabs have been ethnically cleansed due to the settlements? Quite a few just ask the people of Masafar Yatta oh wait you can't because for some odd reason they aren't there anymore
>Masafar Yatta Seems to me this wasn't due to the settlements though
Yet look at african countries and even asian countries in which one ethnicity consists of more than 85%. They had much less infighting. The problem was that the arabs didn't accept a jewish state and they viewed the land it was on as their land.
Remember China, Japan and Korea? India was mostly a religious thing, Bangladesh was a racist thing.
It's also cause the jewish state was larger and had more access to the sea and ressources
Access to the ocean yes. Resources, not really. Israel is a small country with very few natural resources
>ressources Yeah, Israel have much more sand. The most important thing in Middle East
I mean, they never got attacked by Anakin Skywalker, so I'd call that a W.
When one ethnic group is hell bent on genocide, it’s the only solution even if it’s sub par
Whoever made this map is an idiot. Having 3 parts that are unconnected to each others, instead of just drawing a line in the middle for even separation.
It was based on population centers. Yeah, any map split won't be perfect
2 state solution will be inherently un equal with resources. One state solution will piss off at least one group. Both Palestinians and Israelis have been there for a long time so both have claim to it. This situation was not caused by the Europeans but they sure didn’t help. I’m not even sure there is a solution to the conflict.
By God am I so proud of this sub that the comment section isn't just copy paste free Palestine propaganda about how the jews are actually nazis. FINALLY some nuance!
Jew bad! Kills babies! I saw it on Facebook!
Here before the 🔒award
https://www.theonion.com/northern-irish-serbs-hutus-granted-homeland-in-west-b-1819566085
It could have worked, but the Arab countries thought: "Why share the land when we can throw them out and have it all for ourselves?"
The Palestinians made up 70% of the population and were allocated 40% of the land Should the arabs have attacked? No probably not but they have tried and failed endlessly to try and be treated fairly by the western powers
>The Palestinians made up 70% of the population and were allocated 40% of the land Most of the land that israel got was the negev, a desert that even today barely anyone live at
The land that made up Israel had a larger percentage of arable land
The israelis controlled more arable land and much more of the coastline with more important cities like Jaif and Haifa. Also 62% of a territory that Palestinians inhabitants have lived for dozens of centuries to zionists who came at most 20 years and most within a less than 10 years. The palestinian population was more than 2 times the jewish population. Just because it is a desert doesnt mean that nobody lives there or it is fair. It is so braindead to say "UHHH land desertt worthless :PPPPPP lol xd" this comment is so milk toast for hundreds of people to repeat and upvote
Everyone talks about how Europe fucked up the maps of the Middle East and Africa, but no one ever mentions the US doing it to their own states You can look up old maps of suggested state lines that take into account water ways, mountain ranges, farming land, and native American tribes, but Washington was "nope, straight line go brrr"
They should’ve just given it all to the Jews This is bait
Yeah, the Arabs have enough places to live in. Especially Jordan, which was a part of (British) PALESTINE.
I've always wondered what would have happened if this played out without violence. How would this even work? Apparently, Jerusalem was supposed to be an "International Regime". But how exactly? Would the UN create and directly control Jerusalem's government? How would the borders and border crossings work exactly? And with borders like this, would some parts of Israel and Palestine secede from their own countries if rifts began to form? I would imagine some parts become more secular overtime, and would ironically have friendlier relations within the secular urban areas of Israel and Palestine than the more fundamentalist regions in their own respective countries.
No idea what historically the plan was, but I’d imagine ultimately Jerusalem would be ruled democratically by locals, but the UN would have rules that couldn’t be overturned (e.g., protecting the rights of religious groups to their respective monuments). UN security forces would be stationed there to keep the peace.
No interest in those two and their struggles. At this point, they're both lead by corrupt leaderships who prop each other up by actively making the situation worse with each other's public.
I mean, nothing impractical with those borders, right? It is not like it will create strife for years to come. Just like the plan of saying to a persecuted minority they can go and create their own country in colonized land that is already inhabbited will definetly not create conflict, I'm sure everyone will get around just fine... We already fucked the borders of the continent during the whole colonization process, it totally worked! /s
This is why, as a Jew, I always tell people that the Israel-Palestine conflict is way, way more complicated than "Muslims fighting Jews". Palestinians were promised to be made part of a large Arab-majority country formed out of the Jordanian territory before the partition plan went through. Palestinians were then forced out of regions that they had settled in for centuries. Conflict inevitably erupted out of this betrayal, and they've been warring ever since. And as usual with ex-colonial countries, both sides blame the other instead of the colonial powers who set them at each other's throats in the first place. Thinking that they could just ship the "Jew problem" in their own countries overseas was the first major stupid mistake that the Allied states made in the post-colonial period. Placing a monoethnic state under defacto control of Jerusalem was the second one. Reneging on prior agreements with the local populations was the third. Of course these are only stupid decisions if you take them at face value. In reality it was part of a very deliberate strategy to set up a Western-aligned nation in the Middle East that would help secure NATO interests against the Soviets in the region. Don't believe me? [Ask Joe Biden himself.](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/04/23/remarks-vice-president-joe-biden-67th-annual-israeli-independence-day-ce) > As many of you heard me say before, were there no Israel, America would have to invent one. We’d have to invent one because Ron is right, you protect our interests like we protect yours.
Just think, this could be the extent of Palestine today if only they’d left Israel in peace. F-around and find out I guess.
OP what have you done?!
🎵SIKE, they both get angrier🎶
Why do I hear counterattack playing
I never realized the dog is lying down in this photo