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Forums - Politics Discussion - Israel-Palestine Conflict: The Full Explanation.

Yeah this is total bunk. Of course OP didn't go to the trouble of producing any sources for any of this. Probably the Yasser Arafat Memorial Library.



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So... a few things... to fill in some errrrrrrr... gaps....

1. Britain initially promised the land to the Jews for a Jewish state (at least partially) in the Balfour declaration. Then, as support from Arab states became essential for WWII, they changed their plans.

2. The 1947 war was not fought only between Israel and Palestine (or Palestinians), but between Israel, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt. The initial phase of the conflict was a civil war with Israel going to great lengths to capture as much land as possible while pushing out Arabs in Palestine, but as soon as Britain pulled out of the mandate, the five other nations declared war on Israel.

3. I could be wrong but I don't know of any attack on Jordanian villages provoking the 1967 war. Israel actually had (relatively) calm relations with Jordan compared to other states and warned them not to become involved. Jordan was under pressure from both Egypt and the Palestinians in their borders to attack.

Also, you leave out the circumstances of the war. Egypt and Syria had been issuing very strong threats to Israel as well as amassing troops. Basically, Syria and Egypt were arguing over who hated Israel more to gain serious Arab cred. The closing of the strait of Tiran was the tipping point. After that Israel basically destroyed Egypt's army within a day. Definitely attacking first.

Some quotes from Nasser (leader of Egypt at the time).

""This is our chance Arabs, to deal Israel a mortal blow of annihilation, to blot out its entire presence in our holy land"

"Our aim is the full restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people. In other words, we aim at the destruction of the State of Israel. The immediate aim: perfection of Arab military might. The national aim: the eradication of Israel." – President Nasser of Egypt, November 18, 1965

And from Syria...

Syria's forces are "ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united.... I as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation." – Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad, May 20, 1967

Iraq...

"The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear – to wipe Israel off the map. We shall, God willing, meet in Tel Aviv and Haifa." – President Abdel Rahman Aref of Iraq, May 31, 1967

And even little ol' Yemen

"We want war. War is the only way to settle the problem of Israel. The Arabs are ready." – Yemeni Foreign Minister Salam

http://www.sixdaywar.org/content/threats.asp

Or course the Arab countries were more talk than anything as their militaries were vastly outgunned by Israel. Israel definitely fired first in the war, but it wasn't just an out of the blue surprise attack. War was definitely going down one way or the other.

4. The organization that took over Palestine after the 1967 war was, without a doubt, a terrorist organization. You can argue whether their tactics were justified, but they were undoubtedly terrorist acts that led to a civil war between the PLO and Jordan. The PLO was pushed out with the majority of it relocating in Lebanon which sadly fucked up that country beyond recognition as the PLO clashed with factions within Palestine, and as Israel began to attack Lebanon as a result of PLO attacks emanating from the area.

5. The blockade on Gaza is not a solely Israeli venture, but is also supported by Egypt. Those guys can't get no love no where.

6. 2005... come on this was a big one, how can you miss it? Israel withdraws from Gaza forcibly removing Israeli citizens who tried to resist. Everything Israeli, aside from temples and some greenhouses which were a whole nother story, were demolished.

7. So... no mention of the rockets being fired and suicide bombings that were pretty commonplace in the 90s? I mean, I'm not saying Israel's occupation of Gaza/West Bank was justified or carried out justly, but you can't pretend that the Palestinians were just throwing rocks.

This is probably coming off as very pro Israeli, which is mostly because the OP was very pro Palestinian. There are quite a few fair points there, but it is undeniably slanted.



Fifaguy360 said:
Ka-pi96 said:

I really doubt it will end soon. Israel can't end it. They probably could go into Gaza and murder everyone in there, but that wouldn't end it that would just intensify it. How would all the over Arab/Muslim populations in that region react if Israel were to do that?

They wouldn't do anything just like how they're standing and watching the show just like everyone else is right now.

Well... I'm guessing they'd do more than nothing, but Palestinians aren't univerally beloved in the Middle East.  Jordan has had a ton of issues with them (see Black September) as conflicts arose as to how much authority the Palestinians in the region should have.  The PLO played a huge role in the Lebanese Civil war by using Lebanon as a staging ground for raids on Israel which led Israel into an already unstable political situation and led to the implosion of the country.  Egypt is supporting the blockade which is part of the issue at hand now.


It's also worth noting that their really isn't any Arab nation that is powerful enough to stand against Israel.  Egypt is dealing with its own shit right now, Syria is in the midst of a civil war that gets no coverage because it doesn't have that hot Muslim/Jew angle to play up, and we all know about Iraq.  It's not like things are peachy keen right now except for Palestine, the whole region is kind of fucked.



I find it funny that Hamas rockets can't do no damage to Israel and this group of scumbags (Hamas) uses schools and hospitals as shield yet Israel has "NO" other choice than to kill hundreads of people by bombing the schools and hospitals and claim only self defending... talk about being the most "brilliant" of the two.



You write 'full explanation', yet you fill your description with lies (maybe unintentional) and half trues. If you want to advance the situation, rather than complicate it, writing biased or non- educated posts is not the way to to this. This would not be the true way to bring a solution and peace.

Some remarks on your 'facts':

1. SInce the dawn of time, there have never been a christian, muslim, roman or any other country in that area. The only known state that was ever known was the jewish state of israel, the first one circa ~900bc - ~600bc, the second one from 530 bc to ~70 ad, and the current state of israel. no other country was ever in that area, it was only occupied a couple of times, by the babylonians, then the persians, then the greek, then the romans, then the byzantines, then the arabs, then the crusaders, then the saracens, the othmans, the british mandate, until the UN division vote. All of those empires naturally did it by force and have never consituted a state there (including the arab tribes circa 800-1000).  If you had made your history homework, you would have known this.

2. During the Othman empire rule in this area, a muslim and arab influx of immigrants commenced. The Othman rule was extremly pan - islam, and christians and jews living in jerusalem during that time had to pay 'skull tax' for not being muslim. Other taxing and law issues favoured muslims. This caused the big rise in muslim population in jeruslaem and the whole area. Surprising to see, is that even when the Othman rule was over, there were more jews that muslims in jerusalem, before zionism even became a noted faction.

3. During the 20th century, there were indeed many jews that came to that area, just like the muslims did 100 years before. Many of them were refugees from pogroms, harrassment, violence, and prejudice. Many of course fled germany, polland, austria and other parts of europe when the Nazi party started to gain ground, and some fled during WWII.

4. During the 1920s and 1930s, (before israel was even created), the jews were victims of many violent acts from the arabs in that area - 1929 palestine riots caused 133 jews to lose their lives, the jaffa riots and 1921 where arabs threw jews out of jaffa by force and many jews were killed, and many more wounded. There were acts of jewish viloence, no doubt, though they were more towards the british mandate regime. Again, plain history facts.

5. When WWI was over, The othmans lost, dissolved, and the british mandate was created as a temporary solution to the vacant area that was created in what they called 'palestina'. Further discussions were made for years to decide what the solution would be for that area.

6. In 1947 The UN decided to divide the area to a muslim state and a jewish state. The jews accepted the offer and the muslims said no and immediately started attacking the jewish towns, cities and kibbutzs with the jewish population on the defensive side (again, every history book would show that). The attacks grew stronger, the jewish squads returned fire and indeed a civil war commenced. However, you forgot to mention the little fact that on the israeli independence day, 7 arab nations invaded israel with one goal in mind, to destroy israel. Many arabs fled the area for different reasons (fear of a war going on, arab generals calling them to temporarily escape and return when israel is destroyed, fear of any kind of jewish mandate, and indeed some cases of israeli aggression, since israel had to act with force to settle in their division plan given land). Funny how today around 20% of israel are arabs, so i guess some stayed in the israel area, interesting huh? btw, 2% percent of the enitire jewish population in palestina died in that war.

7. You also forgot to mention that hundreds of thousands of jews became refugees of arab and muslim states since 1940s onward as violence and hostilities towards them surged after the british mandate ended, the UN decision occured, and Israel was established. How about they receive their birth citizenship from their arab countries, since they are also considered refugees? seems the just thing to do no?

8. Everything you said about the goland heights area is wrong, i don't even know where you got it from. The golan heights was a syrian territory years before the 1940's. No relation to the division of  1947 and the end of the british mandate. an innocent mistake. By the end of the 1948 war, egypt conquered the gaza strip, jordan conquered the west bank and east jerusalem. (all of those illegal conquers by international law). during that time jews were not allowed to go to the west wall, their holiest place since the jordanian arabs denied it until it was liberated.

9. your description of the 1967 six day war is largely biased. Every historian in the world agrees that the war was intiated by arab nations around israel (egypt, jordan, syria, lebanon). You can see video recordings of Nazer (you know who that is right?) shouting that he will throw all the jews to the sea (jews, not israelis). Egypt started centering large forces around the sinai, and jordan leaders were preparing a large offensive. Lucky for israel that they had former intelligence about those prepartions and they attacked first, desroyed the egyptian air force and an all out war commenced. During that war, israel liberated the west wall, and conquered the west bank, sinai, gaza strip, golan heights. They wanted to return the west bank to jordan and jordan said no, since that would make jordan a de facto palestinian state. israel eventually returned the sinai to egypt for peace in 1979.

10. the PLO (palestine liberation orginazation) was created in 1964, before israel even controlled the west bank and gaza, odd isn't it? what are they trying to liberate? the 'occupied' areas or the whole of israel (tel aviv, haifa etc).

11. you forgot to mention the 1973 yum kippur war where all of the arab nations invaded israel on the same day (yum kippur the holiest day for jews), killing hundreds of soldiers and somehow israel survived its bloodiest conflict. Even after that israel agreed to sign a peace treaty with sadat of egypt which tried to destroy it 5 years before.

12. in 1993 the oslo accords were signed and a palestinian state was de facto starting to rise, with the west bank divided to PA control and israeli control. currently it is divided to A , B and C areas where A and B are PA controlled and C is israeli controlled (2% of the palestinians live in the C areas). Further negotiations are undergoing for more than 20 years, But for some reason the palestinian leaders haven't agreed to 3 plans suggested to end the conflict that were given by israel. Clinton said in 2000 that yaser arafat was the reason the peace talks failed since israel gave a peace suggestion, arafat said no and didn't give any counter offer. in 2009 israel again gave a suggestion which included a palestinian state in 99% of the west bank and again, the palestinians said no. If the palestinians said yes for one of those plans, a palestinian state was already up and running for years. maybe their leaders have other things in mind? maybe if there was a palestinian state it will weaken their point against the entity called israel, and the refugee problem that they don't want to handle in their future state. There are refugees in syria and lebanon and jordan for decades that their leaders (arab leaders) reject to accept into their country and let them live in refugee camps forever. most of the 'refugees' there were already born in those countries, without receivning any citizenship.

13. you forgot to mention that palestinian refugees who leave their refugee camps in jenin , gaza, nebulus etc are shot by their comrades because they want to live in the more wealthy cities of jenin city, ramallah etc. why do they want to keep the refugee camps running? you do the math.

14. as for hamas. hamas is a terror group that its moto is 'we love death as much as jews love life'. they are a segment of the muslim brotherhood who wants to see jews (not israelis) murdered for not being muslim (christians too btw) and the complete destruction of israel. dont ask me, ask them they will tell you the same thing. their school and tv shows depict children taught of murdering jews because they are not muslim, conquering israel by force, and forcing sharia law wherever they rule (where women have no rights and have their genitals mutilated, homosexuals are stoned, non muslims are killed or pay skull tax, everything anti quran is forbidden etc). In 2007 hams took by force the control over the gaza strip, killing brutally hundreds of fatah men and women (the more secular palestinian movement), and forcing the PA out of the gaza strip. this was after israel made an absolute exit of settlements and soldiers from the gaza strip in 2005. there is not one soldier or settler in the gaza strip today, its fully controlled by hamas. since 2000 hamas has started firing rockets towards israel killing and wounding many, for years and years, without israel doing anything in retaliation. after the 2007 hamas seize of control in the gaza strip, the rocket firing escalated killing and wounding many more (children, women.. all civilians), so israel couldn't stand by and watch this happen (would any other country stand by with rockets fired on it for years and years) and so in 2009 idf invaded gaza for the first time in a goal to destroy the hamas offensive and bring peace to southern israel. it worked for a couple of years, then another idf action was done in 2012 and now its the third offensive (protective shield).

15. Protetctive shield was initiated because hamas wouldn't stop firing rockets on around 80% of the area of israel (millions of lives at stake). Negotitations were impossible with them since they wouldn't accept any agreement whatsoever.

16. hamas rejected 3 cease fires that were initiated by usa and egypt, the un and the red cross. Israel accepted all of there cease fires, hamas broke all of them. Egypt leaders agree that hamas is a terror group and is destroying tunnels from their side.

17. hamas is for a fact using people as human shields, it is even proud of it ('with a gun in one hand and a baby in the other we will be victorious'). 

18. Israel never shoots at civilians, hamas is using schools, hospitals and UN buildings for its rocket launcers and tells the gaza strip people to circle it so that israel will not counter attack. there is footage of children forced to circle rocket launcers by hamas yelling 'allaah wachbar'.

19. Israel always notifies civilians before strikes - by phone, radio, flyers or by a small bomb prior to the real attack. Hamas hits or kills people that flee their homes due to israel alerts. hamas holds its civilians like hostages and many many people in the gaza strip want to see hamas go down. even abu mazen blames hamas for the current escalation.

20. Israel will always continue to defend itself, like any other country would. The deaths in the gaza strip is because the people are held captive by hamas and cannot flee the rocket sites and hamas centers. Hamas is de facto killing the people in the gaza strip.

In conclusion:

Hamas is an extermist muslim terror group that doesn't negotiate, ever, with israel since it doesn't acknowledge it. Hamas terrorizes the gaza strip and must be dealt with. Abu mazen himself wants to see hamas go down. Israel started attacking after the rockets fire on all of israel started, agreed to 3 cease fires which hamas broke, and will have to deal with all of the terror tunnels and rockets fired from gaza to protect its country. Israel built a field hospital for gaza people and hamas forbids them to go there for treatment. Gazans are treated in israel sometimes. Rockets are still fired on all of israel (imagine rockets on all of england, USA, france etc, what would they do?)

I want peace, peace will come when hamas is destroyed, The PA controlls the gaza strip, and the palestinians accepts one of the israeli - american suggestions (like the 3 already given), with compromises from both sides (territory exchange, the refugees problem, israeli security guarantees etc). Only then will the palestinians have the future they always wanted (most of the israelis want that future too for the palestinians).

Please, when you make arguments, make based ones and not biased ones. I'm not saying all of israel actions are perfect but hamas is definitely not a peace loving group.

Hope for peace.



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Hopefully this conflict will come to an end very soon.
I've noticed the ISIS in Iraq story is barely getting any coverage even though more people are dying in Iraq than Gaza.



    

NNID: FrequentFlyer54

I'm sorry, people blaming Hamas for using human shields are clueless. Yes they store weapons everywhere, but have you seen Gaza? It's not like they have space to have these weapons. And they do have the right to have weapons (I'm not defending Hamas methods though). Israel provoked this war with absolutely no concrete evidence, that's the problem.



kopstudent89 said:
I'm sorry, people blaming Hamas for using human shields are clueless. Yes they store weapons everywhere, but have you seen Gaza? It's not like they have space to have these weapons. And they do have the right to have weapons (I'm not defending Hamas methods though). Israel provoked this war with absolutely no concrete evidence, that's the problem.

To be honest i've never understood why they need those weapons in Gaza in the first place. People say for defence but long distance rockets and tunnels to perform terrorist attacks are not things used for defense. The fact is, if Gaza were to be more passive and only act when Isreal crosses their borders the whole world would be behind them, and Israel would face complete isolation from the rest of the world. I understand the struggles and their isolation, and if i were in Palestinian shoes feeling that Israel hade taken away my homeland i wouldn't like to just sit by and do nothing. But the way that they are handling the situation now is just not smart, even Egypt keeps the Gaza area completely isolated(something you don't hear many people about).

Personally i have my own theory why Israel is waging this current war, and that is to weaking Hamas as much as people in fear of an attack from the north/east(and try to prevent a two front war). In Syria you have the rebels, and in Irak (and partly Syria two) you have the fanatical ISIS. If any of those truly get to control their own region, and attack on Israel is very likely the next step.



AnthonyW86 said:
kopstudent89 said:
I'm sorry, people blaming Hamas for using human shields are clueless. Yes they store weapons everywhere, but have you seen Gaza? It's not like they have space to have these weapons. And they do have the right to have weapons (I'm not defending Hamas methods though). Israel provoked this war with absolutely no concrete evidence, that's the problem.

To be honest i've never understood why they need those weapons in Gaza in the first place. People say for defence but long distance rockets and tunnels to perform terrorist attacks are not things used for defense. The fact is, if Gaza were to be more passive and only act when Isreal crosses their borders the whole world would be behind them, and Israel would face complete isolation from the rest of the world. I understand the struggles and their isolation, and if i were in Palestinian shoes feeling that Israel hade taken away my homeland i wouldn't like to just sit by and do nothing. But the way that they are handling the situation now is just not smart, even Egypt keeps the Gaza area completely isolated(something you don't hear many people about).

Personally i have my own theory why Israel is waging this current war, and that is to weaking Hamas as much as people in fear of an attack from the north/east(and try to prevent a two front war). In Syria you have the rebels, and in Irak (and partly Syria two) you have the fanatical ISIS. If any of those truly get to control their own region, and attack on Israel is very likely the next step.

Egypt is not Gaza's ally I agree. But Egypt does not bombard Gaza every other year though.. I just think it's easy judging what is the ideal reaction for Gaza from the outside, but to be in it is a totally different scenario. Desperation nad poverty brings out the worst, and I can't imagine how I would react in their place tbh. I agree though, ideally there are other ways, but it's not like the Palestinians in West Bank enjoy the best leisures..



israel can take car of itself and the terrorists for now, they have been fighting over that piece of desert for thousands of years.

im more pissed and concerned with ISIS.