| superchunk said: Your final comment/example make no sense what-so-ever in relation to this conflict. |
No? I think it does. The Jews didn't belong there any less than did the Arabs, yet you insist that the Arabs are the natives and the Jews are the "foreigners". Many Jews were recent immigrants, true, but if both groups were Ottoman subjects, and both groups were later citizens of Palestine, then it's really not that clear cut. Also, if you'll look at the population records from the time, you'll see that both the Jewish and Arab populations were increasing faster than was natural due to there being an economic boom prior to the outbreak of the war. So many of the Arabs were even more recent immigrants than the European Jews, which by your logic would seem to make their presence in Palestine somehow less legitimate. But it doesn't because as Arabs, they somehow belonged there more... I guess?
But what matters is that the Jews were there. And as they increasingly faced such intense violence that the British couldn't maintain order or guarantee their safety, it doesn't strike me as particularly illegitimate for them to assert their right for self-determination - and when the Arabs used their territory to launch an offense and lost spectacularly, the Jews relieved them of some of that land as well, something that is hardly unprecedented in war
So, I guess I don't really understand the problem on its merits. Two peoples shared a spot on the map and nothing else, so, predictably, they got into a tiff. One side won, though not the side with which you seem to identify. Like I said, this strikes me as a conclusion in search of evidence.
