The most fascinating fact about the state of Israel is that it is in an on-again-off-again state of war for something like the last 4000 years. I cannot fathom how is it possible for neither sides to win, especially the broadly speaking Arab side. Now with the nuclear arsenal and the very competent military they'll most likely survive at least till the first nuclear war, whenever that happens.
The modern state of Israel declared its independence in 1948 (and was immediately attacked by all of its neighbors, something which re-occurred multiple times). The ancient "state" of Israel has been in that land for north of 3000 years. As archaeological evidence continues to demonstrate.
Palestinians lived there for over 2000 years. Mainly Muslims and Christians but also a small percentage of Palestinian Jews (1%). It wasn’t until Zionisim and the movement that was first founded before WWI who conspired with the British to illegally take over Palestinian lands and expel over 750,000 refugees to neighboring countries.
Source for the historical "facts" ? I'd love to read up on this.
The 750k refugees "expelled" (overwhelming historical documentary evidence exists of the vast majority leaving as a result of their leaders telling them to leave so they could kill the jews, and then let them come back) seems to omit the 850k (again historically well documented) jews expelled from arab lands post 1948.
Simple google searches will provide sources to the historical material I referenced.
The "Arab leaders told the Palestinians to flee" line is an old and tired piece of zionist propaganda, mostly used to "justify" the double standard of barring Palestinians whose grandparents were expelled (by claiming they left of their own flee will) from returning to Palestine, while extending the right of return to foreign Jews whose last ancestors who lived in the region most likely did so under the Roman empire.
Using Zionist as a pejorative is a clear indication of personal bias, but you do you.
Here's a good history of this conflict[1]. Worth a read. Labeling something you disagree with as propaganda, when there is so much documentary evidence supporting the thing you label thusly, is not a good argumentation strategy.
The arabs who were refugees were not expelled. They were not re-admitted. As the article notes, the failures of the arab leadership and their inability to come to terms and negotiate in good faith with the new political leadership has lead to 75+ years of their own diaspora. As the article notes, these were not innocent, nor victims.
Their children, held in these conditions for decades, should have been resettled where they landed. If they want even a chance of returning to Israel, they should bury their sword, create a genuine peace. Amazing things would happen then.
Though, given the chant is "river to sea ...", I don't expect this to occur in anyone's lifetime.
The arabs launched a war of aggression. They lost. They lost the subsequent wars they launched. Their people were displaced by those wars. They aren't victims of anything but terrible leadership.
I'm using zionist as an accurate description of the viewpoint the propaganda advances, no value judgement attached or implied, but you do you.
I know I won't change your mind (or your victim complex) over the internet, but for what it's worth I truly hope you find the truth (or Al Haq), and I'll leave it at that.
Fair point. I guess the difference is the lack of strategic alliances throughout the history with anyone in the area. There were tactical alliances, even with Iran somewhat recently (Operation Opera), but nothing long lasting and "solid". In other words, the environment has always been pretty hostile.
Palestinians are still suffering today as we speak. Why don’t you show me human rights abuses that have been happening for 80 years and are still ongoing?
Slavery in the American colonies went from ~1526 to 1776 (250 years), plus another ~90 years post independence. Palestinians can still vote, and are considered to be actual people, with the right to self-determination.
As terrible as they are, the abuses against Palestinian are tragically banal, it's just men performing yet another ethnic cleansing of one land they consider their own, and not even by the “worse” methods (deprivation of rights, and deportation, which are arguably less bad than straight massacres).
The entire state is built on illegality and thugs.
Israel is an illegal occupation started by the British government, that turned into an Apartheid occupation later on.
They still want the world to believe they are Democratic, while they lack a single thing of a real democracy.
Their propaganda machine is what kept it alive.
They turned antisemitism to basically being anti-israel and anti-occupation, pretending to be a democracy while occupying a land they have no right to.
The affect of Israeli propaganda is super clear when comparing the coverage of the Russian occupation in Ukraine, and the Zionist occupation in Palestine.
But luckily their propaganda is getting defeated left, right and center, because the truth is finally available to the masses because of social media (which themselves try to censor Palestinians).
And they are killing journalists covering the truth(1) and innocent childern(2).
Its an illegal apartheid occupation that will end, its just a matter of time, just like what happened in south Africa.
"Europe"? Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't more than half of Europe fight, kill, and die to stop the dictator that was killing Jews? But you'd rather the whole continent feels guilty, instead of proud of their sacrifices?
I look at what transpired during the Evian conference[1]. Yeah, I really don't have much sympathy for europeans not wanting to feel guilty. Sins of the father, sure. But they continue the hostile-to-jews policies and actions to this date.
So yeah, if they feel guilty and ashamed of what their fore bearers did ... mebbe ... just mebbe ... they should rethink their behavior of joining with avowed jew haters to persecute the only jewish state.
Maybe.
It is also important to point out that the Europeans opposed the dictator. They did little/nothing to stop the atrocities. That they knew were happening. They could have bombed railways. They didn't (US didn't either). They could have bombed the camps. They didn't.
They focused on defeating an expansionist dictator who was taking over their lands. Anything else was secondary at best.
Given how the jews were treated immediately after the war, in the refugee camps and who would take them in ... yeah, again, the europeans (and my own US) get no sympathy from me for feeling "guilty". They were guilty.
Or you won’t answer the question because you know the answer..? Your logic is flawed and makes no sense. Typical though, these regurgitated talking points are not unusual ;)
Typical lefty argument. Introduce a non-sequitur straw-man and make arguments attempting to divert discussion there when you know you've lost the argument.
This discussion, again, is not about Ukraine. It's about the propaganda piece mis-published here on HN, and the commentary that followed. Some are reasonable points, others are repeating narratives that are not supported by facts, but make for nice soundbites, to replace reasonable arguments.
A simple proposal for fixing the real issue. 1) arabs who lived in Israel accept that their side lost, multiple times, and make peace with Israel. 2) Israel welcomes new peaceful citizens back in. #1 won't happen before #2, and given how long and hard arabs have fought the very existence of Israel, I doubt many Israelis are open to considering any re-integration.
That is literally all it would take to get peace. Which means, it will never happen.
Until then, we all recognize the narratives for what they are.
I didn’t expect you to actually answer it because I know it’s complicated. I’m just pointing out your hypocrisy. Not everyone hates Jews. How can anyone express their frustrations with what’s happening to the Palestinians without you accusing them of disliking Jews? Do you expect us to just accept what’s happening and remain silent?
Despite killing and dying to stop Hitler, and seeing many of their countries razed, they're guilty for not doing more to help the Jews? At a time when they were themselves in existential peril?
> They could have bombed railways. They didn't (US didn't either).
They did bomb railways [1], and sabotaged them too [2]. Many partisans were caught and executed for it. Yet you deny their sacrifice. To say nothing of actually showing gratitude.
> They could have bombed the camps. They didn't.
Let's ignore that "could" here means flying deep into enemy-controlled territory, with all the anti-aircraft defenses that entails, and focus on what would happen had they done that. What would happen if they dropped bombs on a camp full of prisoners, to those prisoners? What happens to anyone if you drop bombs on them?
And I see many countries attended that conference [3], not just from Europe. And the US was an ocean away. At that point, you may as well blame the whole world for not accepting the refugees. Yet you reserve your blame for the US and Europe.
> They did little/nothing to stop the atrocities. That they knew were happening.
Have you heard of the fog of war? The atrocities were not nearly as well publicized as they are today (least of all to the Germans themselves [4]), their scale was not yet known, and they had to contend with many other atrocities. Let me remind you Stalin killed 20 million of his own people (and Ukrainians) [5] around that time. Shall we feel guilty for them too? They were our allies, after all, and we generously gave them much of the Eastern Europe that they invaded and terrorized, and filmed hardly any movies about those deaths [6] - I guess some things are okay to forget?
And finally, since you so generously appoint hereditary guilt not just for inaction, but even for insufficient (by your standards) action, which nation would be guiltless by this standard? None. Certainly not Israel.
[4] In October 1944, Reitsch claims she was shown a booklet by Peter Riedel which he'd obtained while in the German Embassy in Stockholm, concerning the gas chambers. She further claims that while believing it to be enemy propaganda, she agreed to inform Heinrich Himmler about it. Upon doing so, Himmler is said to have asked whether she believed it, and she replied, "No, of course not. But you must do something to counter it. You can't let them shoulder this onto Germany." "You are right," Himmler replied. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Reitsch
Are you arguing that I should be sympathetic? The Evian conference demonstrated the depths of jew hatred, anti-semitism of the entire world.
While some partisans did attempt to frustrate Nazi plans ... many Europeans whole heartedly engaged and supported the Nazis in their genocidal ambitions. Vichy France. Collaborationists in Poland, Ukraine, etc.
Far more could have been done. At Evian, the bare minimum was to let some jews in to find peace. There have been movies made of this absolute minimum gesture which could have been, but was not, made.[1]
So, yeah. Not so much sympathy now.
Watching the UN and its organs in action, I remain, deeply, unsympathetic.
No, I'm arguing that you should be grateful. But nothing is ever enough, and that you heap the sins of the Nazis even on those that fought against them (or rather, on their descendants) shows how unreasonable you are.
If there is a single collaborationist in Poland, all of Poland must feel guilty, forever? Meanwhile,
Poles were, by nationality, the most numerous persons who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. [..] Of the estimated 3 million non-Jewish Poles killed in World War II, thousands were executed by the Germans solely for saving Jews. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Jews_by_Poles_during...
3 million Poles killed - half as many as Jews killed in the Holocaust, in Poland alone. Despite such casualties, they still used their very limited resources to rescue Jews. And what was their reward? Having their country given to the Soviets by the Allies, approximately zero movies commemorating their sacrifice, and getting blamed by people such as you.
Comparing the plight of the arabs to the holocaust is a terrible injustice to the real holocaust victims. One group was systematically hunted down, murdered for who they were, assets stolen and distributed with legal fights going on to this day to recover them, children and women slaughtered for the joy of their tormentors .... to people who were ordered to flee their homes by their leaders, and then denied re-entry by the new political entity.
One of these things is completely, absolutely different than the other.
You are happily comparing industrial scale extermination, tossing babies into the air and catching them on bayonets, digging gold from murdered peoples mouths ... to ... the voluntary evacuation of a land at war?
> to people who were ordered to flee their homes by their leaders, and then denied re-entry by the new political entity..
Whats happening in Palestine is people "ordered to leave their homes" and then because of "political entity" can't return???
If you want to say the removal of rights to return to your own land, you house getting destroyed and losing all your belongings, children, Innocent people and Journalists getting killed everyday, illegal arrests and the Third holliest mosque in Islam getting regularly attacked, are all because of a "polticial entity",
Than one can argue the Holocaust was also because of a "Political entity" that was voted in by people.
Now that we apply this weird logic to the Holocaust it suddenly doesn't work huh?
Arabs left at the behest of their leadership, to return when the arab armies were victorious in the 1948 war. The arabs lost. And they lost all the subsequent wars. In 1967 they massed armies on the borders, readying attacks. They were beaten. Again. Very badly.
1973. Same thing. Etc.
Innocent people getting killed every day ... you mean the random attacks in cities? Where terrorists run around with knives, and guns, and mow people over with cars and truck, and blow up busses? What has been the response to that? A wall.
Or the absolutely uncontestable image of a war crime as a terrorist government launches missiles indiscriminately at millions of civilians including millions of children, while the rational government of Israel works to destroy those missles? And then the subsequent outcry when Israel defends herself by destroying the launch capability which, the terrorist government has committed another war crime by placing these in civilian areas ...
The temple mount is the holiest site in judaism. And no jew is attacking, storming, pouncing, on the temple mount.
The people who left Israel upon its founding, need only accept its existence and make peace.
Let's not confuse Zionist ideology with Judaism. One is a peaceful religion whose followers understand commandment #8 (no stealing (e.g. land, property, etc.)).
And the other is a Fascist (even Einstein called the Irgun massacre 240 people (of Deir Yassin) a Fascist act of Menachem Begin (see his NYT letter December 4, 1948)), apartheid, militarized, racist government.
I think your main narrative is false and, after reading (at least) three major human rights reports (Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and B'Tselem) in the last 2 years, many now regard Israel as practicing apartheid in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.
This wasn't (and isn't) a war of equals: I think if you read history carefully (Ilan Pappe, Benny Thomas, etc) this is an colonial settler occupying force inflicting apartheid on indigenous non-Jews. All Native people have a right to resist occupation and apartheid. See the Battle of Algiers recently? This is how occupied people resist their colonial overlords. At some point, one must stop calling any criticism of Israel human rights abuses antisemitism. There is indeed antisemitism but advocating for human rights of non-Jews in a "democratic" state is not antisemitic.
In 1948, over 750,000 non-Jews were ethnically cleansed from their homes and villages. My parents left Haifa in May 1948 as the city was ethnically cleansed. They didn't leave voluntarily. The Haganah were rolling barrels full of explosives into Arab neighborhoods to terrorize the local residents. It was also a psychological terror campaign: what the Haganah called a "Jewish Whispering campaign". In other words, they advertised the Deir Yassin massacre over loudspeakers (in Arabic) to warn the non-Jews about what was going to happen to them if they stayed. See the Israeli assessment of "migration" from June 30, 1948 at https://www.haaretz.co.il/st/inter/Heng/1948.pdf.
Over 500 villages were burned and/or bulldozed to prevent the return of those expelled. Over 300,000 non-Jews were expelled before Israel was declared a state (May 14, 1948). It was only after this initial wave of migration that the neighboring armies began conflict to prevent the further expulsion of Native non-Jews. After Israel's creation, another 400,000 Indigenous non-Jews were expelled from their towns and villages
(From Migration of Eretz Yisrael Arabs between December 1, 1947 and June 1, 1948 url is above)
"In reviewing the factors that affected migration, we list the factors that had a definitive effect on
population migration. Other factors, localized and smaller scale, are listed in the special reviews of
migration movement in each district. The factors, in order of importance, are:
1. Direct Jewish hostile actions against Arab communities.
2. Impact of our hostile actions against communities neighboring where migrants lived (here –
particularly – the fall of large neighboring communities).
3. Actions taken by the Dissidents [Irgun, Lehi].
4. Orders and directives issued by Arab institutions and gangs.
5. Jewish Whispering operations [psychological warfare] intended to drive Arabs to flee.
6. Evacuation ultimatums.
7. Fear of Jewish retaliation upon a major Arab attack on Jews.
8. The appearance of gangs and foreign fighters near the village.
9. Fear of an Arab invasion and its consequences (mostly near the borders).
10. Arab villages isolated within purely Jewish areas.
11. Various local factors and general fear of what was to come."
So the non-Jews did not appear to leave voluntarily. When people flee for their lives (and are not allowed to return to their homes (because they have been destroyed), we call this ethnic cleansing. It's a crime against humanity.
It isn't that complicated: Zionists want the land but there are people already living on it. What do you do with the non-Jews already there? ...
Given the significant financial and military aid the US provides Israel, this video illustrates who a US voter can pick if they are concerned about Israeli human rights violations:
59 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadWith a ~2500 year gap between the fall of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah and the 1948 modern state.
Your point?
Declaring independence was entirely legal and supported by the UN.
The Arab rejection led to the invasion, the directive to the arabs from their leaders to leave so they could clean the jews out.
Solidly historically documented. Hard to argue against this documentation. Its sitting in museums collections at this point.
"guise of persecution from the holocaust". Literally tells me everything I need to know about you.
That said, its fairly well known that the Mufti of Jerusalem had his best bud in Nazi Germany help him with his "problem"[1].
[1] http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Total/hitle...
The 750k refugees "expelled" (overwhelming historical documentary evidence exists of the vast majority leaving as a result of their leaders telling them to leave so they could kill the jews, and then let them come back) seems to omit the 850k (again historically well documented) jews expelled from arab lands post 1948.
Simple google searches will provide sources to the historical material I referenced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_1948_Palestinian...
I fail to see why anyone would need to encourage Palestinians to flee, when they were subject to ethnic cleansing such as at Deir Yassin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre
Here's a good history of this conflict[1]. Worth a read. Labeling something you disagree with as propaganda, when there is so much documentary evidence supporting the thing you label thusly, is not a good argumentation strategy.
The arabs who were refugees were not expelled. They were not re-admitted. As the article notes, the failures of the arab leadership and their inability to come to terms and negotiate in good faith with the new political leadership has lead to 75+ years of their own diaspora. As the article notes, these were not innocent, nor victims.
Their children, held in these conditions for decades, should have been resettled where they landed. If they want even a chance of returning to Israel, they should bury their sword, create a genuine peace. Amazing things would happen then.
Though, given the chant is "river to sea ...", I don't expect this to occur in anyone's lifetime.
The arabs launched a war of aggression. They lost. They lost the subsequent wars they launched. Their people were displaced by those wars. They aren't victims of anything but terrible leadership.
Israel isn't going anywhere.
[1] http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/782
I know I won't change your mind (or your victim complex) over the internet, but for what it's worth I truly hope you find the truth (or Al Haq), and I'll leave it at that.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/crs/highlights/2020-hate-crimes-stat... [2] https://www.jns.org/fbi-report-reinforces-trend-that-america... [3] https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/antisemitism-jew... [4] https://www.jns.org/opinion/anti-semitism-the-numbers-dont-l...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide
Slavery in the American colonies went from ~1526 to 1776 (250 years), plus another ~90 years post independence. Palestinians can still vote, and are considered to be actual people, with the right to self-determination.
Also, Soviet Union, China.
Israel is an illegal occupation started by the British government, that turned into an Apartheid occupation later on.
They still want the world to believe they are Democratic, while they lack a single thing of a real democracy.
Their propaganda machine is what kept it alive.
They turned antisemitism to basically being anti-israel and anti-occupation, pretending to be a democracy while occupying a land they have no right to.
The affect of Israeli propaganda is super clear when comparing the coverage of the Russian occupation in Ukraine, and the Zionist occupation in Palestine.
But luckily their propaganda is getting defeated left, right and center, because the truth is finally available to the masses because of social media (which themselves try to censor Palestinians).
And they are killing journalists covering the truth(1) and innocent childern(2).
Its an illegal apartheid occupation that will end, its just a matter of time, just like what happened in south Africa.
1. https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1560172508426522624
2. https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1558094704645787652
By all means let’s blame the victims for defending themselves.
So yeah, if they feel guilty and ashamed of what their fore bearers did ... mebbe ... just mebbe ... they should rethink their behavior of joining with avowed jew haters to persecute the only jewish state.
Maybe.
It is also important to point out that the Europeans opposed the dictator. They did little/nothing to stop the atrocities. That they knew were happening. They could have bombed railways. They didn't (US didn't either). They could have bombed the camps. They didn't.
They focused on defeating an expansionist dictator who was taking over their lands. Anything else was secondary at best.
Given how the jews were treated immediately after the war, in the refugee camps and who would take them in ... yeah, again, the europeans (and my own US) get no sympathy from me for feeling "guilty". They were guilty.
[1] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-evian-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Regiment
That is ... unless you have a problem with ... I dunno ... jews?
This discussion, again, is not about Ukraine. It's about the propaganda piece mis-published here on HN, and the commentary that followed. Some are reasonable points, others are repeating narratives that are not supported by facts, but make for nice soundbites, to replace reasonable arguments.
A simple proposal for fixing the real issue. 1) arabs who lived in Israel accept that their side lost, multiple times, and make peace with Israel. 2) Israel welcomes new peaceful citizens back in. #1 won't happen before #2, and given how long and hard arabs have fought the very existence of Israel, I doubt many Israelis are open to considering any re-integration.
That is literally all it would take to get peace. Which means, it will never happen.
Until then, we all recognize the narratives for what they are.
> They could have bombed railways. They didn't (US didn't either).
They did bomb railways [1], and sabotaged them too [2]. Many partisans were caught and executed for it. Yet you deny their sacrifice. To say nothing of actually showing gratitude.
> They could have bombed the camps. They didn't.
Let's ignore that "could" here means flying deep into enemy-controlled territory, with all the anti-aircraft defenses that entails, and focus on what would happen had they done that. What would happen if they dropped bombs on a camp full of prisoners, to those prisoners? What happens to anyone if you drop bombs on them?
And I see many countries attended that conference [3], not just from Europe. And the US was an ocean away. At that point, you may as well blame the whole world for not accepting the refugees. Yet you reserve your blame for the US and Europe.
> They did little/nothing to stop the atrocities. That they knew were happening.
Have you heard of the fog of war? The atrocities were not nearly as well publicized as they are today (least of all to the Germans themselves [4]), their scale was not yet known, and they had to contend with many other atrocities. Let me remind you Stalin killed 20 million of his own people (and Ukrainians) [5] around that time. Shall we feel guilty for them too? They were our allies, after all, and we generously gave them much of the Eastern Europe that they invaded and terrorized, and filmed hardly any movies about those deaths [6] - I guess some things are okay to forget?
And finally, since you so generously appoint hereditary guilt not just for inaction, but even for insufficient (by your standards) action, which nation would be guiltless by this standard? None. Certainly not Israel.
[1] Strategic bombing during World War II involved sustained aerial attacks on railways, harbours, cities, workers' and civilian housing - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_sabotage_during_World_...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89vian_Conference
[4] In October 1944, Reitsch claims she was shown a booklet by Peter Riedel which he'd obtained while in the German Embassy in Stockholm, concerning the gas chambers. She further claims that while believing it to be enemy propaganda, she agreed to inform Heinrich Himmler about it. Upon doing so, Himmler is said to have asked whether she believed it, and she replied, "No, of course not. But you must do something to counter it. You can't let them shoulder this onto Germany." "You are right," Himmler replied. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Reitsch
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/world/major-soviet-paper-...
[6] https://reason.com/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies/
While some partisans did attempt to frustrate Nazi plans ... many Europeans whole heartedly engaged and supported the Nazis in their genocidal ambitions. Vichy France. Collaborationists in Poland, Ukraine, etc.
Far more could have been done. At Evian, the bare minimum was to let some jews in to find peace. There have been movies made of this absolute minimum gesture which could have been, but was not, made.[1]
So, yeah. Not so much sympathy now.
Watching the UN and its organs in action, I remain, deeply, unsympathetic.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114876/
No, I'm arguing that you should be grateful. But nothing is ever enough, and that you heap the sins of the Nazis even on those that fought against them (or rather, on their descendants) shows how unreasonable you are.
If there is a single collaborationist in Poland, all of Poland must feel guilty, forever? Meanwhile,
Poles were, by nationality, the most numerous persons who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. [..] Of the estimated 3 million non-Jewish Poles killed in World War II, thousands were executed by the Germans solely for saving Jews. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Jews_by_Poles_during...
3 million Poles killed - half as many as Jews killed in the Holocaust, in Poland alone. Despite such casualties, they still used their very limited resources to rescue Jews. And what was their reward? Having their country given to the Soviets by the Allies, approximately zero movies commemorating their sacrifice, and getting blamed by people such as you.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
One of these things is completely, absolutely different than the other.
You are happily comparing industrial scale extermination, tossing babies into the air and catching them on bayonets, digging gold from murdered peoples mouths ... to ... the voluntary evacuation of a land at war?
You are really doing this?
Seriously?
> to people who were ordered to flee their homes by their leaders, and then denied re-entry by the new political entity..
Whats happening in Palestine is people "ordered to leave their homes" and then because of "political entity" can't return???
If you want to say the removal of rights to return to your own land, you house getting destroyed and losing all your belongings, children, Innocent people and Journalists getting killed everyday, illegal arrests and the Third holliest mosque in Islam getting regularly attacked, are all because of a "polticial entity",
Than one can argue the Holocaust was also because of a "Political entity" that was voted in by people.
Now that we apply this weird logic to the Holocaust it suddenly doesn't work huh?
Arabs left at the behest of their leadership, to return when the arab armies were victorious in the 1948 war. The arabs lost. And they lost all the subsequent wars. In 1967 they massed armies on the borders, readying attacks. They were beaten. Again. Very badly.
1973. Same thing. Etc.
Innocent people getting killed every day ... you mean the random attacks in cities? Where terrorists run around with knives, and guns, and mow people over with cars and truck, and blow up busses? What has been the response to that? A wall.
Or the absolutely uncontestable image of a war crime as a terrorist government launches missiles indiscriminately at millions of civilians including millions of children, while the rational government of Israel works to destroy those missles? And then the subsequent outcry when Israel defends herself by destroying the launch capability which, the terrorist government has committed another war crime by placing these in civilian areas ...
The temple mount is the holiest site in judaism. And no jew is attacking, storming, pouncing, on the temple mount.
The people who left Israel upon its founding, need only accept its existence and make peace.
And the other is a Fascist (even Einstein called the Irgun massacre 240 people (of Deir Yassin) a Fascist act of Menachem Begin (see his NYT letter December 4, 1948)), apartheid, militarized, racist government.
I think your main narrative is false and, after reading (at least) three major human rights reports (Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and B'Tselem) in the last 2 years, many now regard Israel as practicing apartheid in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.
This wasn't (and isn't) a war of equals: I think if you read history carefully (Ilan Pappe, Benny Thomas, etc) this is an colonial settler occupying force inflicting apartheid on indigenous non-Jews. All Native people have a right to resist occupation and apartheid. See the Battle of Algiers recently? This is how occupied people resist their colonial overlords. At some point, one must stop calling any criticism of Israel human rights abuses antisemitism. There is indeed antisemitism but advocating for human rights of non-Jews in a "democratic" state is not antisemitic.
In 1948, over 750,000 non-Jews were ethnically cleansed from their homes and villages. My parents left Haifa in May 1948 as the city was ethnically cleansed. They didn't leave voluntarily. The Haganah were rolling barrels full of explosives into Arab neighborhoods to terrorize the local residents. It was also a psychological terror campaign: what the Haganah called a "Jewish Whispering campaign". In other words, they advertised the Deir Yassin massacre over loudspeakers (in Arabic) to warn the non-Jews about what was going to happen to them if they stayed. See the Israeli assessment of "migration" from June 30, 1948 at https://www.haaretz.co.il/st/inter/Heng/1948.pdf.
Over 500 villages were burned and/or bulldozed to prevent the return of those expelled. Over 300,000 non-Jews were expelled before Israel was declared a state (May 14, 1948). It was only after this initial wave of migration that the neighboring armies began conflict to prevent the further expulsion of Native non-Jews. After Israel's creation, another 400,000 Indigenous non-Jews were expelled from their towns and villages
(From Migration of Eretz Yisrael Arabs between December 1, 1947 and June 1, 1948 url is above)
"In reviewing the factors that affected migration, we list the factors that had a definitive effect on population migration. Other factors, localized and smaller scale, are listed in the special reviews of migration movement in each district. The factors, in order of importance, are: 1. Direct Jewish hostile actions against Arab communities. 2. Impact of our hostile actions against communities neighboring where migrants lived (here – particularly – the fall of large neighboring communities). 3. Actions taken by the Dissidents [Irgun, Lehi]. 4. Orders and directives issued by Arab institutions and gangs. 5. Jewish Whispering operations [psychological warfare] intended to drive Arabs to flee. 6. Evacuation ultimatums. 7. Fear of Jewish retaliation upon a major Arab attack on Jews. 8. The appearance of gangs and foreign fighters near the village. 9. Fear of an Arab invasion and its consequences (mostly near the borders). 10. Arab villages isolated within purely Jewish areas. 11. Various local factors and general fear of what was to come."
So the non-Jews did not appear to leave voluntarily. When people flee for their lives (and are not allowed to return to their homes (because they have been destroyed), we call this ethnic cleansing. It's a crime against humanity.
It isn't that complicated: Zionists want the land but there are people already living on it. What do you do with the non-Jews already there? ...
Jews came as refugees to Palestine in 1940s, and they were welcomed, just like how Christians and Muslims live in peace in Palestine.
Its an extremely important land for all ibrahimic religions.
But you don't come as a refuge, then turn as an occupation because "oh they did it to me so I need to do it to you so I can be safe!!!"
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KY2_qaROFY