makingmusic476 said:
I never understood the idea that Jews "stole" the land from the Palestinians. Palestine was never a nation to begin with. The Palestinian/Israeli territories had been controlled by various empires for thousands of years, the last being the Ottoman Empire from 1516-1917. When the Jews were removed by the Romans in the 1st century the Jewish people were no longer the majority of the population. By the 4 or 5th century Arab (Christian and pagan) people were the majority of the population. By the late 6th century that majority was Muslim due to the rising Islamic Empire. Regardless of whether it was called Palestine or not is irrelevent. The Majority of the population was Arabs from at the latest the 6th century.
The Jewish people started emigrating back to their former homeland as early as the 12th century, once the crusades had come to an end and the region somewhat stabilized. The number of Jews making the home journey increased after 1492, when Jews were expelled from Spain I will get to the Jewish population in the region in a second. But, did you know that when the Jews were expelled from Spain so were a larger number of Arab Muslims. Since, that is when Muslim Spain fell to Christians and the Inquisition started. Also, as a tidbit of historical info, Muslim Spain was the regarded as the best place Jews have ever called home until the US and obviously Israel decades later.
The amount of Jews heading back to the "Holy Land" began increasing even further near the end of the Ottoman Empire's reign, when the Zionist movement began. Jews began to migrate to the region surrounding Jerusalem around 1881, and were legitimately buying land from the Arabs of the region. This continued up until 1917, when the Ottoman Empire was defeated by Britain and it's allies in WWI, thus placing much land in the Middle-East in the hands of the British. 1. There are population records from between the WW's that show that the Jewish population of the Palestinian territory, by the late 1800's it was always called Palestine, was less than 10%. Arab (Muslim and Christian) were more than 90%. For the last 14 centuries Arabs were the majority of the population. This is longer than any the of Jewish nations time of existence all added together. There was some legal immigration between the WW's where European Jews actually purchased land for absentee Arab land owners and then forced the Arab workers to move so they could bring in Jews. This is how the first Kibbutz's were created. However, even by the end of WWII the Jewish population was still less than 30%. The land the Jews legally purchased and the land they were given later are two completely different things. They quadrupled their land in the deal for free. 2. When the Zionist movement began in the late 1800's they were A) not looking for a State, but a safe homeland B) not even considering Palestine as a choice. In fact, it wasn't until the end of WWI, a good 20+ years after the beginning of the Zionist movement, that Palestine or biblical Israel became a target. 3. The British made numerous promises to all parties. To Jews they promised to seek a "homeland" not a State, and the to Arabs they promised that any land with an Arab majority would be given to them if they sided against the Ottomans. Palestine is the only place this did not happen. The British then decided that the Jews should eventually have a nation of their own, as by this time many Jews inhabited the land of Israel, and since no governing body existed in the region, they decided (in 1947) to divide the region between the Palestinians and Jews, creating two nation-states. The British decided that they were tired of fighting off the Jewish terrorist organizations the Stern Gang and Irgun. They were also done with trying to stop the, by this time, continuous fighting between Jews and Arabs. The proposed numerous solutions, some were a single Arab state where the Jews had a significant role in the government similar to what had been done in Lebenon between Christians and Muslim. However, the Arabs rejected this as it gave too much power to the minority populace (Jews). Same as happened in Lebenon where Christians were the minority but gained the most powerful roles. Finally, they decided that the only solution to for them was to offer a two state solution. This however was also flawed as the Jews got 45% of the land, which contained 70% of the total usable land, and niether party had one whole peice. It was divided into 4 seperated regions. This was just an unfair, racist, and completely biased separation. Then they handed it off to the international community, the UN.
However, this plan never worked out, as no compromise between the groups could be reached. The British eventually decided they would pull out of the region, but the newly created United Nations decided to go ahead with the original plan, attempting to divide the region into two nation-states. They also decided that Jerusalem would be held by the UN, to prevent hostilities over which of the two sides "owned" the city.
True, the Arabs were never going to agree to any plan where they were getting shafted. Look at the details how could anyone agree to those conditions. UN voted for the plan because Jews were much better at gaining worldwide support and the Arabs boycotted the vote since it was again unfair and completely illegal.
The Jews accepted this plan, but the Arabs did not. In 1948 the state of Israel was created. The Arabs got pissed, and just a short while later, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria attacked Israel. The Jews accepted because A) they knew they were getting the better deal. B) They knew that they were much better armed and trained (as being Europeans and trained in Eurpean armies) than the Arabs (who had outdated Ottoman weaponary and were largly farmers and traders, never been in an army). The Jews were also at this time a larger force. Even though the Arab population was by this time, 1948, still larger by number, the fighting proportion was heavily in the Jewish court. Every single war that has been fought has had the same circumstances. The Jews were fighting for one purpose, with larger numbers, better weapons, better training which resulted in a Jewish win and more land gained. Now, the 1948 and 49 wars were much closer in fighting numbers, however, that was heavily outweighed by the fact that the Jews were better armed, trained, and fighting as a single army. The Arabs never fought in unison, they were actually out for their own purposes which unfortunately were really not about the Palestinian people. I don't really understand how Israel can really be seen as the bad guy in all of this. I also don't understand how Palestine deserves this land anymore than the Israelis, or why they want the Israelis expelled from the region. Jews have been there for thousands of years, much like the Palestinians, and there has never been a state of Palestine before. Israel stole the land through *mostly* illegal immigration during and after WWII. A racist UN where the western world dictated who gets what. Arabs have lived there as a majority longer than Jews historically and clearly got the short end of the stick. Granted there has never been a "Palestinian" state, but as I said earlier that is irrelavant. Arabs have been the majority. They actaully owned nearly all of the land until the UN took it from them. A two state system is the only thing that could work here. I've seen Israel make many attempts at this, withdrawing from some regions, talking with Palestinian leaders, etc. but groups like Hamas just keep on attacking, and then the Israelis attack back. True, at this point and time a 2 state is the only solution. The only people arguing that are the radicals on both sides. How can you say Israel has made attempts and a true peace? Every time they are in negotiations they won't talk about Jerusalem or the right of return. All the while they are continueing to build and expand the illegal settlements. How do any of these things promote a peaceful resolution. They gave up Gaza for monetary reasons and because it was never part of Ancient Israel. All while they still continue to take more land in the WB and allow the settlers to pretty much do anyting without reprecussion. Settlers = Hamas. No different in ideology or hatred for the other side. I have only seen two Israeli leaders make real attempts at peace. One was Rabin who was assasinated by a Settler for it and the other was Barak who was removed from office for attempting to do so. Unfortunately, when Barak was really trying Arafat had not prepared his people for the negotiations and therefore would have been killed if he agreed to anything that resulted in any loss what-so-ever. The PA leader must set his people up to the idea of losing more land, not Jerusalem, and financial retribution in exchange for forgoing the right of return. |
