Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Three quarters of a million Arabs lived in the British Mandate in dozens upon dozens of cities, towns and small villages. They ran from their homes during a war and weren’t allowed to return to them. That’s illegal. It was then and it is now.
When one nation militarily attacks another nation and loses the war, they don't always get to go back to the way things were before. Fact.
The size of Israel is irrelevant. There were over 700,000 Arab Palestinians in Palestine who lost their homes. The overwhelming majority of those people didn’t attack ANYONE. Telling them to go to another country is illegal also.
That's true for any war. The unfortunate reality of life is that the general population bears the consequences for the decisions of their leadership.
When one nation militarily attacks another nation and loses the war, they don't always get to go back to the way things were before. Fact.
What many don't realize is that the British encourages Arab immigration to what is now Israel during the mandate. Many of the people there in 1948 had not been there long.
That’s a good thing. The Arabs of Palestine deserve a homeland of their own inside the former British Mandate just like they’d had for centuries before they were victims of ethnic cleansing.
The day Arabs stop killing other Arabs and other Muslims, I’ll share your opinion on this topic. I don’t see any victims; they’re all perpetrators of one kind or another.
Until then, however, it’s best to leave all of them alone. They’re doing a fine job of killing themselves.
Columbia has some huge issues of its own that need to be addressed.
It seems among Arabs every small tribal difference entitles such group to its own state, but the Jews, very different from most world cultures, are not. Unless being white and achievement-oriented makes them too much like Western, Christian states to so entitle them. Must a state be a potential basket case to be legitimate?
Israel by and large gets a pass from the "apartheid" charges here in the US. States in the post-ww2 era increasingly self-identify by culture. With Israel that takes the form of a religious definition, even tho children of Israeli Arabs (but not other nationalities) are granted birth citizenship.
No argument if only because that's now the world norm even though fervent nationalism and strife tend to be correlated.
Still Israel taking that path undercuts any arguments that other groups have no comparable right to self identify and organize politically by culture - be that the Palestinians (or even the Kurds, many of whom also seek a sovereign state).
In the end, it simply comes down to possession. Israel has the land and plans to keep it.
US support has been integral to that effort at times. The Israeli public relations campaign (these days, heavily directed towards Evangelical Christians) is masterful. On the other hand, the Palestinian "cause" remains a flashpoint in the Arab world and that, too, is not going away.
What many don't realize is that the British encourages Arab immigration to what is now Israel during the mandate. Many of the people there in 1948 had not been there long.
In the end none of that matters just like it really doesn't matter to what extent there had been continuous Jewish occupation of Palestine over the centuries. It also doesn't matter that Jews settling in Palestine lawfully purchased land from distant Arab landowners displacing tenants leading to, first, concern among the local population then, later, attacks against Jewish settlements.
The issue is that in deifying "Israel" that the corollary becomes the demonization of the opposition. If the stories of both are distorted then that increases the statistical probability that we are dragged into needless conflicts (like Iran, with popular opinion in that country not to mention our own relevant to various outcomes).
My only argument is for reality. Israel is a reality and (baring some catastrophe, and it would be that) will remain one. All we can now attempt is to deal with the associated fallout as sanely as is possible.
In this equation the U.S. and Israel and about the only ones that are economically successful. Even the EU succeeds only because the U.S. picks up defense costs. Why should the opinion of those on the dole be considered? Or the opinion of Hamas flaming kite artists be taken into account?
The EU would be just as successful without US defense dollars. They simply wouldn’t spend the money on defense regardless. They don’t go around the world looking for wars to get into, and they tend to mind their own business. Most European nations don’t even need a military.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oceangaia
When one nation militarily attacks another nation and loses the war, they don't always get to go back to the way things were before. Fact.
So. Don’t tell me that 700k people just walked away from their homes and had no right to return to them. The overwhelming majority of Palestinians weren’t combatants.
And “one nation attacked another?” What nation in this case? The Israelis had plans to ethnically cleanse Palestine long before the war started. And they’d begun to attack Palestinians before the war for independence.
I’m not absolving the Palestinians for crimes committed too. But the Jews weren’t just sitting around waiting to be attacked by Palestinians. They were already ACTIVELY terrorizing the Arabs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oceangaia
That's true for any war. The unfortunate reality of life is that the general population bears the consequences for the decisions of their leadership.
And you feel this way about us being attacked on 9/11?
Should we have just said “well ok, we deserved this because our leaders went around the Middle East screwing things up and bringing misery to the Middle Eastern people?
Were you so insouciant then?
Quote:
Originally Posted by EDnurse
The day Arabs stop killing other Arabs and other Muslims, I’ll share your opinion on this topic. I don’t see any victims; they’re all perpetrators of one kind or another.
Until then, however, it’s best to leave all of them alone. They’re doing a fine job of killing themselves.
Columbia has some huge issues of its own that need to be addressed.
Arab on Arab violence has exactly WHAT to do with this topic? That’s irrelevant.
The Europeans killed each other by the tens of millions in one century in numbers that Arabs couldn’t approach in a millennium. When did we ever say that any European tribe should be disenfranchised based on that fact?
Are you kidding me? Arab countries have expelled nearly a million Jews from their homes, confiscating their property (i.e., land) and money - and sent them off to wander through the arid wastelands until most arrived, displaced from their homes, and penniless, in Israel.
I hope this leads to more countries officially recognizing Palestine as a sovereign state...its beyond time to do so.
Isreal is apartheid state
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
