I believe that they let their own antisemitism at the time blind them to the realization that they would be better off accepting the formation of a Jewish state rather than be at a constant state of war. But trying to second guess what would happen 40 years down the line is futile.

What is a fact is that Jews from all over Europe were migrating to the newly founded Israel in what was to the Arabs, frightening numbers. To them Jews were trouble and were unwanted in just about all of Europe and so why should they want them here??

But I can also see the need at the time for a Jewish state to be created due to the persecution they were suffering and of course during WWII, the holocaust.

However none of this gives Israel the right to hold captive the Arabs in the Palestinian territories. They need to be given the same rights as Israel expects for themselves and this includes their own state. When one is treated as the Palestinians have been treated, then war is inevitable. What makes this so one sides is that Israel has the backing of a super power that allows the Israel government to do whatever it damn well wants to whereas the Arabs are limited to what is basically a sticks and stones rebellion in comparison.

I have read extensively on the history of Israel and Palestine in what I feel is a very balanced view here: http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm

You have your opinion and I have mine and I will not be coerced into thinking otherwise no matter how much you quote your version of history.

I do however congratulate you again on your vast knowledge (slanted it may be) and steadfastness in the face of growing opposition to Israel and the treatment of the Arabs population that it oversees.

So Palestinians have to be of “Arab de[s]cent”, and have to live within certain geographic boundaries. Which means that Yasser Arafat (born in Cairo) and Abu Musab al Zarqawi (born in Amman) were not Palestinian—or not Palestinians of your particular concern—even though they fought and died on its behalf. And the Jews born in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (what you call Palestinian Territories)—those who survived the various pogroms and massacres you’re just coming to know—are not Palestinian either.

Cool, we’ve just found something that unites them.

I find it troubling that in your definition a Palestinian can be a Palestinian (whether or not of your particular concern), regardless of where he or she may live or how tenuous his or her connection to that particular geography—but a Jew can never be. Which is the opposite of Israel, where an Arab is an Israeli, regardless of ethnic descent, religion, or even loyalty.

I find it disturbing that your definitions are so arbitrary. Jews have lived in the lands you describe as Palestinian for decades, centuries, millennia, yet they are not legitimate residents in your view. Indeed, they are criminal trespassers.

This may be a widely shared view on the left, but it has no historical basis. We just observed the 92nd anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which stated “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object….”

Palestine, however it was defined geographically, was a Jewish homeland.

And not just on that date, but also in the British mandate that ruled the region for the next 30 years: “Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people….” Further, “The formal objective of the League of Nations Mandate system was to administer parts of the defunct Ottoman Empire, which had been in control of the Middle East since the 16th century, ‘until such time as they are able to stand alone.’”

The same language was written into the peace treaty between Turkey (the surviving rump of the Ottoman Empire) and the allied victors after WWI: “The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people….”

We’re all the way back to the 16th century without a single mention of a Palestine that remotely resembles the one you describe. All of which is to ask you to ask yourself again: what is a Palestinian? I reject your earlier answer as ethnically cleansed of Jews, and can’t find another one in the historical record.

In all citations above, the text went on to say that the rights of other peoples would not be prejudiced in (Jewish) Palestine, nor would the rights of Jews in other countries. I submit that Israel has lived up to the letter and spirit of that international law infinitely better than any other country (most recently Yemen, but across the decades).

I go to this trouble, Chris, because in another comment several weeks ago, in answer to another basic question from me, you said you do think Israel has a right to exist. On that we agree. The basis of that existence, then, should include the right to self-determination and self-defense. I think you and I will probably also agree that the history of the Jewish state of Israel since its founding has been one of outright rejection by its Arab neighbors (up to and including wars declared and undeclared).

There may be a time and place for a homeland for “people of Arab descent” in “the West Bank and Gaza”, but never at the expense of Israel’s security. If the “Palestinians” act more like underworld gangs (the Hamass clan, the Fatah faction, the Islamic Jihad posse, the PFLP mob, just to name a few) than a nation, I think there is more truth in that observation than in some fanciful notion of statehood. Certainly, there’s no historic endorsement of it.

BTL

Do you understand that Jews were persecuted in just about every country in which they lived, with the exception of the United States? And that, as a people, we naturally have different perspectives, some more Zionist than others, some more religious than others, but we share that history of persecution? Why would we trust anything anyone says who doesn’t grasp the depth and scope of that history? Words are cheap. There is no comparison to anything going on in any part of Israel or the settlements to either suicide bombing or the behavior of governments like Saddam’s Iraq. Look up the history of the Jewish communities in just about any country and really understand the generations of destruction at the hands of the dominant group. Because there are about 13 million of us or so, you can get just about any quote you want to support your hostile position, but you are speaking from lack of knowledge, as you have acknowledged. Most people did not leave Iraq due to Zionism alone; they left because Saddam was hanging Jews in the public square and half a million of their “friends and neighbors” showed up to dance and celebrate, babies on their shoulders. There is a film that you can watch on the internet, The Forgotten Refugees, which is mostly historical footage of Jews leaving those countries. Check it out.

- Aggie

If you are interested in ancient Jewish history, you should read about Masada, or the Bar Kochba revolt, or any one of the archaeological excavations scattered throughout Israel.

I can in no way condone the actions of the Arab nations that purged their Jewish citizens and although it was obviously harsh and dehumanizing, at least they had somewhere to go to. Israel was only too happy to accommodate them as they were still in the process of “Nation building”. Israel is to be congratulated for coming to the aid of the Jews from those nations, quite unlike the Arab countries that have been happy to criticize Israel but have done little to help the Palestinian refugees.

But not in all cases were Jews apparently forced from their country as is proven by the following quotations:

“Iraqi-born Ran Cohen, a former member of the Knesset, said: “I have this to say: I am not a refugee. I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee”. Yemeni-born Yisrael Yeshayahu, former Knesset speaker, Labor Party, stated: “We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations”. And Iraqi-born Shlomo Hillel, also a former speaker of the Knesset, Labor Party, claimed: “I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists.”

I think we can both agree that being a Jew and living in a Muslim Arab country as a small minority after 1948 would have been difficult and dangerous. But what is sad is that the same thing is occurring in the Settlements within the occupied territories where you have a small Jewish community surrounded by unfriendly Arabs but for the IDF protecting them would have been wiped out in short order. Why would anyone want to deliberately be a thorn in the side of your enemy like that??? Why are these Jews who insist on living there that unfeeling???

Another thing I learn’t was that in a number of Arab countries the exodus was started by the Vichy government which was obviously the fault of the Nazi’s and not the Arabs themselves. Unfortunately they picked up where the Nazi’s left off after the 1948 war.

Aggie you accuse me of not opening my heart and mind and yet you have never once in all of your comments that I have read ever shown the slightest interest in the plight of the Palestinians. All you do is preach ancient history as though the Holocaust is still on-going. You are stuck in a Holocaust mindset that blinds you to anything else. And that is a travesty due to your influence upon your readership.

- Aggie

In this context I consider a Palestinian to be of Arab decent and living in the Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Yes I know there are Palestinians living in Jordan, Israel and Syria. But I am particularly concerned with those Arabs living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.

Does that answer your question???

I ask again, Chris, what’s a Palestinian to you?

How do you read what I said into that bit of tripe above??

I blame America’s support of Israel and its government, not the 6 million people living there. Most of them are obviously similar to the populace of most countries, somewhat ignorant of what is happening along their borders and pretty much just concentrating on living their daily lives with as little government interference as possible. I certainly don’t think that they have anything to do with what is happening as much as I could blame the average American for the US involvement in the Middle East.

I know it must irk you, but some of that 6 million actually see things quite differently to you and think that the actions of their own state as being illegal. And a brave lot they are in my mind…

And I am not talking about Israeli Arabs either.

And he seems to think that words that he disagrees with are equivalent to murder. There is a huge difference between American Jews expressing their views, their rights to free speech, and someone strapping on a suicide vest, entering a pizza parlor, and killing a bunch of eight years olds at a birthday party. Big difference. But if your heart is filled with hatred, you just can’t see it.

- Aggie

What’s a Palestinian? How do you define the term?

BTL

Breaking relations with Israel will not make the US a saint in the eyes of the Arab world. They will still hate us. Israel is just an excuse. If they lose Israel, they will replace it.

I don’t see why people with this mindset, in their accusations of Israel and the West, are more accurately describing the actions of the Arabs and USSR. The land that Israel inhabits is indisputably historically Jewish. It has had a continued Jewish presence since the diaspora in 70. And similarly, Jerusalem is indisputably historically the Jewish capitol. It just is. Just like Oklahoma is American Indian land, and if it was every given back to them, people would oppose whites that stayed and claimed it as theirs b/c of the intervening 200 years. They would condemn the whites and say the land had belonged to the American Indians long before the whites.

There is your similarity.

They think it perfectly acceptable to kill and imprison people who are the legitimate inhabitants of a country that was taken from them by force. Perpetrated first by the English and then completed by the American’s.

Without the military aid and backing of the US, Israel would have been forced to the Peace Table decades ago and the Middle East would be totally different than what it is now. The Palestinians would have a country, Israel would most likely have a smaller country than it does now but it would be within boundaries that everyone could live with.

Israeli’s would have had no choice but to live as good neighbors rather than the bullies that they are now.

I have no love for Muslim Arab’s in general, and have nothing against the Jewish religion, in fact I am very suspicious of Muslim fundamentalists but from what I see on here, the radical Jew’s that frequent this site are not much better and in their own way are almost as worrying.

I do however support the Palestinian cause because of the way they have been wronged by the Super Powers dating back to the 40’s. This is a people who have only known conflict and misery brought upon them for no other reason than to steal their land. They are the modern North American Indian’s. History does not look back at the Apache’s and their ilk as terrorists. They were seen as terrorists back when they were fighting for their land and the whites were mascaraing them, but now they are not. Why can’t people see the similarities??

What is also sad is that Israel is not a friend of America, it is a friend of the government of the USA and they both benefit from the relationship. And this is forced upon the voting public by the Israel special Interest groups that lobby for money and arms to continue their war. They are so powerful that politicians that go against them are quickly voted out of power.

The thousands of US servicemen that have died as a result of the Middle East Mess has a lot to do with the perception of American’s by Arab’s due to the US support for one little inconsequential country that has virtually nothing to offer other than as a testing ground for US made weapons.

Until the US public opens its eyes and insists that this ridiculous relationship end, American’s will continue to die at the hands of Arab’s hell bent on retaliation. The terrible tragedy that occurred at Fort Hood is a good example of the depths to which these nut cases will go due to their hatred.