Jenin mayor says forces duplicating their offensive on Gaza, warns his city will be abandoned; Tulkarm mayor says Israel changing refugee camps' demographics
One major thing you left out in your history is the forced displacement of 800,000 Jews from Muslim dominated countries in the Middle East.
Hamas and Fatah
These two parties can’t even make peace among themselves.
Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders
The so-called 1967 borders were offered in 1948, but refused. Instead war was chosen again and again, and lost every time. Losing wars has consequences.
Palestinians refused this offer among other similar ones like Camp David.
All of that stuff is decades old by now. The reality on the ground has changed, as has the regional political landscape.
If you’re actually interested in novel grassroots peace initiatives, check out One Land for All. If you support BDS, then of course even talking to Israelis is haram.
One major thing you left out in your history is the forced displacement of 800,000 Jews from Muslim dominated countries in the Middle East.
The Jewish exodus from middle eastern countries was certainly tragic and unjust. It was also certainly connected to what was going on in Palestine in multiple ways. The exodus, a mix of immigration and ethnic cleansings, was multi-faceted. It was absolutely not incited by Palestinian elites. Nor would that justify the Nakba if it was true. Let’s go through the main factors for the exodus. Most of the new middle eastern countries were very anti-british, in particular anti-occupation, during and after WWII. Zionism was seen as a British project of Occupation at this time. The expressed aim of Zionism throughout the mandate was to ethnically cleanse the Arabs (distinctions were not made, they were all considered savages to European powers at the time). Anti-british and anti-zionist sentiment was heavily exploited by Nazi Germany, who deliberately pushed European anti-semitism and framed themselves as an opposition to the colonialism and occupations middle eastern countries were facing from the Allied forces. That said, it’s still entirely on the the leaders of these middle eastern nations for falling to this anti-Semitic rhetoric and implementing ethnic cleansing. However none of this was done at the behest of the Palestinian elite. While the populations of these countries did have some semblance of solidarity with Palestinians being victim to occupation and colonialism, that is not the case for the leadership of these countries. They were looking out for themselves.
The so-called 1967 borders were offered in 1948, but refused. Instead war was chosen again and again, and lost every time. Losing wars has consequences.
Partition was never an acceptable solution, it was always just a justification to ethnically cleanse parts of Palestine. Palestinian leadership agreed to parity, a binational One-State Solution with equal rights for all since the 1920s. Israel has always chosen war as the aims are settler colonialism which is the opposite of peace.
I already linked plenty about the peace process, please read before you mention things already discussed at length in the sources provided. The Oslo Accords were just a way for Israel to continue it’s Setter Colonialism and Apartheid under the guise of a “peace process”
And a two-state solution is outdated, it’s completely impossible when considering the situation on the ground, where the West Bank has been divided into hundreds of isolated enclaves (bantustans). It’s already a One-State Reality. Which is exactly why an end to the Apartheid and Emancipation for Palestinians is the only way forward to peace.
All of this history is long and endlessly complex.
The Jewish exodus from middle eastern countries was certainly tragic and unjust
For persecution of Jews, it’s of course let bygones be bygones. No need to do anything about it now. /s Pure hypocrisy from you.
Zionism was seen as a British project of Occupation
There Mandate was granted by the League of Nations to build a homeland for the Jewish people. From the 1940s on some Zionists started fighting the British directly, leading to them leaving the messy situation by 1948.
expressed aim of Zionism throughout the mandate was to ethnically cleanse the Arabs
The goal was a homeland for the Jewish people. Peaceful coexistence with the Arabs was a wish, but it turned out not be viable in practice. Expulsions from some areas were then considered a necessary evil for lack of other options.
The UN partition plan from 1947, which was accepted by the Zionists and rejected by Arabs, would have meant zero expulsions.
Israel today has 20% of Arab citizens with full rights inside Israel proper of 1948. There was never a complete ethnic cleansing. Few Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes, most fled.
none of this was done at the behest of the Palestinian elite
Don’t infantilize Palestinians. They have agency and were not powerless.
in the sources provided
Ilan Pappe, Nur Masalha, Rashid Khalidi, …
You should have at least listed Benny Morris as well, so you could pretend to not be fully propagandized by one side. You didn’t list Finkelstein, which is a plus I guess. But then you linked to propaganda rag mondoweiss.
Palestinian leadership agreed to parity, a binational One-State Solution with equal rights for all since the 1920s
High Commissioner Samuel tried to establish self-governing institutions in Palestine, as required by the mandate, but the Arab leadership refused to co-operate with any institution which included Jewish participation
Palestinian Arabs weren’t ready to accept Jewish refugees fleeing persecution, who didn’t have anywhere else to go. They had a whole armed Arab Revolt about this in the 1930s. This lead to the British imposing very hard restrictions on immigration of Jewish refugees from then on.
For persecution of Jews, it’s of course let bygones be bygones. No need to do anything about it now. /s Pure hypocrisy from you.
That may be your view on the persecution of Palestinians, but no. Those countries should of course institute legal protections Jewish people and reparations for those families that lost valuables and property. Like how Europe should have done during and after WWII, instead European countries didn’t even lift limits on asylum for the Jewish people feeling persecution, in an effort to divert Jewish people to Palestine instead. This goes back to the connection between European Antisemitism and Christian Zionism.
There Mandate was granted by the League of Nations to build a homeland for the Jewish people. From the 1940s on some Zionists started fighting the British directly, leading to them leaving the messy situation by 1948.
From Nur Masalha Ch 1 Pg 15-16
At the time the Balfour Declaration was issued, Jews constituted about 10 percent of the population of Palestine, and owned about 2 percent of the land. While Zionist land purchases remained relatively limited during the Mandate period (6 percent until 1948), Jewish immigration into Pales tine began eroding the immense numerical superiority of the Palestinians.32 Growing Arab awareness of Zionist aims in Palestine, reinforced by Zionist calls for unrestricted Jew ish immigration and unhindered transfer of Arab lands to exclusive Jewish control, triggered escalating protests and resistance that were eventually to culminate in the peasant- based great Arab Rebellion of 1936-39.
Already at the time of the Balfour Declaration, apprehen sions concerning the fate of the “non-Jewish communities’ had been voiced in British establishment circles. Edward Montagu, a Jewish cabinet minister at the India Office, had expressed in 1917 his belief that the Zionist drive to create a Jewish state in Palestine would end by “driving out the present inhabitants.”33 Even the enthusiastically pro-Zionist Winston Churchill had written in his review of Palestinian affairs dated 25 October 1919 that “there are the Jews, whom we are pledged to introduce into Palestine, and who take it for granted that the local population will be cleared out to suit their convenience."
A History of Modern Palestine Ch 3
By February 1947, Britain had had enough. It had more soldiers in Palestine than on the Indian subcontinent, and had been constantly involved in direct clashes with both political leaderships. The number of British casualties had also risen, mainly due to a terror campaign waged by Zionist extremists, the most notorious being the Stern Gang. This terror campaign peaked with the blowing up of British headquarters in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946. But it was not terror that forced the British out. A particularly bad winter in 1946–47, and a harsh American attitude towards Britain’s debt to the United States, created an economic crisis in Britain that served as an incentive for a limited process of decolonization, mainly in India and Palestine
The goal was a homeland for the Jewish people. Peaceful coexistence with the Arabs was a wish, but it turned out not be viable in practice. Expulsions from some areas were then considered a necessary evil for lack of other options.
Far from it
The UN partition plan from 1947, which was accepted by the Zionists and rejected by Arabs, would have meant zero expulsions
It would have meant the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians within the area defined as the “Jewish State”
Israel today has 20% of Arab citizens with full rights inside Israel proper of 1948. There was never a complete ethnic cleansing. Few Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes, most fled.
You should have at least listed Benny Morris as well, so you could pretend to not be fully propagandized by one side. You didn’t list Finkelstein, which is a plus I guess. But then you linked to propaganda rag mondoweiss.
Benny Morris considers Ethnic Cleansing justified, so if that’s what you consider a balance to those who don’t, that’s quite telling.
During the same decade Palestinians were displaced in 1948 and Jews were expelled from Muslim countries, millions (Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, etc.) were displaced in Europe. Today their descendants aren’t counted as refugees. Poles don’t blow up buses in Lviv today. Neither do Germans shoot rockets into Czechia. People lost everything, built new lives, and got over it.
connection between European Antisemitism and Christian Zionism
That exists, but is an alliance of convenience, not friendship. Christian Antisemitism, failure of assimilation, and escalating persecution was the reason Zionism was established in the first place. Jews had to flee Europe or face extinction. Most had no choice but to go to their ancestral homeland.
The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:
I was referring to how this happened in practice. Many Arab Palestinians had fled their homes before the fighting even started. The well off wanted to sit out the war in Beirut, Cairo, and Damascus. Arab radio had called for civilians to evacuate and wait at a safe place for the inevitable Arab victory. Most had left before Operation Nachshon started. Not every village or town was forcibly cleared. The news of one massacre or destroyed village spread fast and people understandably fled. Most villages that were destroyed, were destroyed after the war to prevent the refugees from returning.
Plan Dalet
Read the original text yourself, instead of relying on misrepresentation after the fact.
It would have meant the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians within the area defined as the “Jewish State”
You are so incredibly misinformed by only reading one sided narrative.
Citiz1mship. Palestinian citizcns rcsiding in
l’alestine outside the City of Jerusalem, as well as
Arabs and Jews who, not holding Palestinian citi-
zenship reside in Palestine outside the City of Jeru-
salem shall, upon the recognition of indepcndenc~,
become citizcns of the State in which they are rcsi-
dent and enjoy full civil and political rights. Per-
sons over the age of eighteen years may opt, within
one year from the date of recognition of indepen-
dence of the State in which they reside, for citizen-
ship of the other State, provicling that no Arab
residing in the arca of the proposed Arab State shall
have the right to opt for citizcnship in the proposed
Jewish State and no Jew resicling in the proposcd
Jewish State shall have the right to opt for citizen-
ship in the proposed Arab State. The exercise of
this right of option will be taken to include the wives
and cliildren under eightccn years of age of persons
so opting.
Arabs rcsiding in the arca of the proposed Jewish
State and Jews residing in the area of the proposed
Arab State who have signed a notice of intention to
opt for citizcnship of the other State shall be cli-
~ble to vote in the clections to the Constituent As-
sembly of that State, but not in the clections to the
Constituent Assembly of the State in which they
reside.
I highly recommend actually reading the UN resolutions and other documents as they are often misrepresented in the media by both sides.
second-class citizens
Yes, there’s discrimination in Israel against Arabs. Similar to discrimination against minorities around the world.
Benny Morris considers Ethnic Cleansing justified
More like he sees it as inevitable. The Jews in Palestine were surrounded by numerically superior forces and feared being exterminated. They did what they had to to ensure their own survival.
balanced
Peace comes from mutual understanding of the other side.
One major thing you left out in your history is the forced displacement of 800,000 Jews from Muslim dominated countries in the Middle East.
These two parties can’t even make peace among themselves.
The so-called 1967 borders were offered in 1948, but refused. Instead war was chosen again and again, and lost every time. Losing wars has consequences.
Palestinians refused this offer among other similar ones like Camp David.
Listen to what Prince Bandar has to say about Arafat’s (Abu Ammar) missed opportunities to reach a peace agreement during the Oslo process.
All of that stuff is decades old by now. The reality on the ground has changed, as has the regional political landscape.
If you’re actually interested in novel grassroots peace initiatives, check out One Land for All. If you support BDS, then of course even talking to Israelis is haram.
The Jewish exodus from middle eastern countries was certainly tragic and unjust. It was also certainly connected to what was going on in Palestine in multiple ways. The exodus, a mix of immigration and ethnic cleansings, was multi-faceted. It was absolutely not incited by Palestinian elites. Nor would that justify the Nakba if it was true. Let’s go through the main factors for the exodus. Most of the new middle eastern countries were very anti-british, in particular anti-occupation, during and after WWII. Zionism was seen as a British project of Occupation at this time. The expressed aim of Zionism throughout the mandate was to ethnically cleanse the Arabs (distinctions were not made, they were all considered savages to European powers at the time). Anti-british and anti-zionist sentiment was heavily exploited by Nazi Germany, who deliberately pushed European anti-semitism and framed themselves as an opposition to the colonialism and occupations middle eastern countries were facing from the Allied forces. That said, it’s still entirely on the the leaders of these middle eastern nations for falling to this anti-Semitic rhetoric and implementing ethnic cleansing. However none of this was done at the behest of the Palestinian elite. While the populations of these countries did have some semblance of solidarity with Palestinians being victim to occupation and colonialism, that is not the case for the leadership of these countries. They were looking out for themselves.
Partition was never an acceptable solution, it was always just a justification to ethnically cleanse parts of Palestine. Palestinian leadership agreed to parity, a binational One-State Solution with equal rights for all since the 1920s. Israel has always chosen war as the aims are settler colonialism which is the opposite of peace.
I already linked plenty about the peace process, please read before you mention things already discussed at length in the sources provided. The Oslo Accords were just a way for Israel to continue it’s Setter Colonialism and Apartheid under the guise of a “peace process”
And a two-state solution is outdated, it’s completely impossible when considering the situation on the ground, where the West Bank has been divided into hundreds of isolated enclaves (bantustans). It’s already a One-State Reality. Which is exactly why an end to the Apartheid and Emancipation for Palestinians is the only way forward to peace.
All of this history is long and endlessly complex.
For persecution of Jews, it’s of course let bygones be bygones. No need to do anything about it now. /s Pure hypocrisy from you.
There Mandate was granted by the League of Nations to build a homeland for the Jewish people. From the 1940s on some Zionists started fighting the British directly, leading to them leaving the messy situation by 1948.
The goal was a homeland for the Jewish people. Peaceful coexistence with the Arabs was a wish, but it turned out not be viable in practice. Expulsions from some areas were then considered a necessary evil for lack of other options.
The UN partition plan from 1947, which was accepted by the Zionists and rejected by Arabs, would have meant zero expulsions.
Israel today has 20% of Arab citizens with full rights inside Israel proper of 1948. There was never a complete ethnic cleansing. Few Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes, most fled.
Don’t infantilize Palestinians. They have agency and were not powerless.
You should have at least listed Benny Morris as well, so you could pretend to not be fully propagandized by one side. You didn’t list Finkelstein, which is a plus I guess. But then you linked to propaganda rag mondoweiss.
I don’t think you’re being quite honest here.
Palestinian Arabs weren’t ready to accept Jewish refugees fleeing persecution, who didn’t have anywhere else to go. They had a whole armed Arab Revolt about this in the 1930s. This lead to the British imposing very hard restrictions on immigration of Jewish refugees from then on.
Listen to Prince Bandar, a first hand witness, and you might actually learn something new.
Why do you even mention Fatah and Hamas supposedly accepting it, then?
As of now, it would immediately collapse into civil war and we would be where we started.
I will also recommend you a book, and it’s only one.
Read The war of return : how Western indulgence of the Palestinian dream has obstructed the path to peace by Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz to get a different perspective on this conflict.
What you are doing is fueling this forever war, not working towards peaceful coexistence.
That may be your view on the persecution of Palestinians, but no. Those countries should of course institute legal protections Jewish people and reparations for those families that lost valuables and property. Like how Europe should have done during and after WWII, instead European countries didn’t even lift limits on asylum for the Jewish people feeling persecution, in an effort to divert Jewish people to Palestine instead. This goes back to the connection between European Antisemitism and Christian Zionism.
From Nur Masalha Ch 1 Pg 15-16
At the time the Balfour Declaration was issued, Jews constituted about 10 percent of the population of Palestine, and owned about 2 percent of the land. While Zionist land purchases remained relatively limited during the Mandate period (6 percent until 1948), Jewish immigration into Pales tine began eroding the immense numerical superiority of the Palestinians.32 Growing Arab awareness of Zionist aims in Palestine, reinforced by Zionist calls for unrestricted Jew ish immigration and unhindered transfer of Arab lands to exclusive Jewish control, triggered escalating protests and resistance that were eventually to culminate in the peasant- based great Arab Rebellion of 1936-39.
Already at the time of the Balfour Declaration, apprehen sions concerning the fate of the “non-Jewish communities’ had been voiced in British establishment circles. Edward Montagu, a Jewish cabinet minister at the India Office, had expressed in 1917 his belief that the Zionist drive to create a Jewish state in Palestine would end by “driving out the present inhabitants.”33 Even the enthusiastically pro-Zionist Winston Churchill had written in his review of Palestinian affairs dated 25 October 1919 that “there are the Jews, whom we are pledged to introduce into Palestine, and who take it for granted that the local population will be cleared out to suit their convenience."
A History of Modern Palestine Ch 3
Far from it
It would have meant the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians within the area defined as the “Jewish State”
Entirely false
The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:
After the Nakba the Palestinians within now Israel that survived the ethnic cleansing were under the draconic Israel Martial Law and Defence (Emergency) Regulations, which we’re then practiced in the occupied territories instead after 1967. Even then, Arab Israelis continued to be second class citizens for many reasons including Education (2001 report)
This second class citizenship has only gotten worse.
Benny Morris considers Ethnic Cleansing justified, so if that’s what you consider a balance to those who don’t, that’s quite telling.
During the same decade Palestinians were displaced in 1948 and Jews were expelled from Muslim countries, millions (Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, etc.) were displaced in Europe. Today their descendants aren’t counted as refugees. Poles don’t blow up buses in Lviv today. Neither do Germans shoot rockets into Czechia. People lost everything, built new lives, and got over it.
That exists, but is an alliance of convenience, not friendship. Christian Antisemitism, failure of assimilation, and escalating persecution was the reason Zionism was established in the first place. Jews had to flee Europe or face extinction. Most had no choice but to go to their ancestral homeland.
I was referring to how this happened in practice. Many Arab Palestinians had fled their homes before the fighting even started. The well off wanted to sit out the war in Beirut, Cairo, and Damascus. Arab radio had called for civilians to evacuate and wait at a safe place for the inevitable Arab victory. Most had left before Operation Nachshon started. Not every village or town was forcibly cleared. The news of one massacre or destroyed village spread fast and people understandably fled. Most villages that were destroyed, were destroyed after the war to prevent the refugees from returning.
Read the original text yourself, instead of relying on misrepresentation after the fact.
You are so incredibly misinformed by only reading one sided narrative.
Here the original UN resolution 181. Page 138 Chapter 3.1
I highly recommend actually reading the UN resolutions and other documents as they are often misrepresented in the media by both sides.
Yes, there’s discrimination in Israel against Arabs. Similar to discrimination against minorities around the world.
More like he sees it as inevitable. The Jews in Palestine were surrounded by numerically superior forces and feared being exterminated. They did what they had to to ensure their own survival.
Peace comes from mutual understanding of the other side.