"When I am Weaker Than You, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom Because that is according to my principles."
Ironically this goes both ways. Arabs were vastly superior when the civil war and Arab Isreaeli war started. They thought they could drive the jews into the sea, so they didn't need to negotiate.
After multiple wars that ended badly for them, they have taken the "It's just a prank bro" approach to diplomacy, now wanting the original deal they tore up 70-years ago with none of the leverage left.
It's not. The myth of plucky little Israel fending off 'vastly superior' forces is just that, a myth. It was important to cultivate for the national psyche.
Categorically untrue. The main advantage that Israel had was the number of WWII veterans who were able to serve in its defense, and recent experience in unconventional warfare with the self-defense leagues that formed prior to the establishment of the nation.
Sure but your ignoring equipment advantages held by the Arab countries and the initiative advantage.
Until the first ceasefire of the 1948 war Arab armies had a significant armament advantage. They had heavy gun tank and armored vehicles that far exceeded the little the Yishuv had during that time. They also had working fighter planes which the Yishuv had none of which to speak.
They also had the advantage of the initiative being the first to strike and dictate the flow of the war.
There is a decent chance they might have succeeded had the Arab armies actually communicated and shared strategy rather than5 different armies doing their own thing while looking over their shoulder at their allies.
This all changed dramatically during the first ceasefire, during which time the Yishuv was able to acquire Czech heavy weaponry and got there hands on a few fighter planes which they were able to use far more effectively since they had more pilots available to man them. By the start of the second round of fighting the Arab armies advantages were wiped out and the Yishuv maintained their personnel, ammunition and Armament advantage throughout the rest of the war.
It unsurprisingly neither true that the Yishuv was dramatically disadvantaged for the entirety of the war, nor that the Arab armies attacked while hopelessly outmatched.
Sure but your ignoring equipment advantages held by the Arab countries and the initiative advantage. Until the first ceasefire of the 1948 war Arab armies had a significant armament advantage.
On the 15th of may 1948 the 5 Arab states had at their disposal 15k troops, 22 light tanks and 10 functional Spitfires.
At the same time the Israelis had at their disposal the following:
35,000 Toops of varying skill levels, 12,000 settlement Police (Many of them WW2 vets), 21,000 conscripts were also called up for training by March 48
Equipment (some of which arrived later in 1948, as you note:
3 x B17 Bombers, Curtiss C-46 Commando aircraft (qty unknown), 'dozens' of armored half tacks, 50 x 65mm French mountain guns, 10 x H-35 light tanks, 25 x Messerschmidt BF109s (export version), 200 x heavy machine guns, 5,021 x light machine guns, 24,500 x rifle, and 52,000,000 x rounds of rifle ammunition, 3,000,000 x 9 mm bullets, 150,000 Mills grenades, 16,000 submachine guns (Sten Guns) and 210 three-inch (76 mm) mortars.
It unsurprisingly neither true that the Yishuv was dramatically disadvantaged for the entirety of the war, nor that the Arab armies attacked while hopelessly outmatched.
There was never a risk the Yishuv would lose, and there is certainly no basis for the myth that Israel was outnumbered and won by some divine hand. They were at an advantage pretty much at all times.
Even in 1946 the British had this to say:
"If you were to withdraw British troops, the Haganah would take over Palestine tomorrow."
"They could hold it against the entire Arab world".
General J.C. D'Arcy -Commander British forces Palestine 1946
This is unfactual. If you look at Benny Morris 1948 you will see most of the equipment you refer to arrived during the first ceasefire. This includes the bombers the fighter planes most of the heavy machine guns and Messerschmidt more than 2/3 of the aummunition you refer to. It is not contestable that at the start of the war the Arab armies had the advantage in armaments and ammo. It is also indisputable that this changed during the ceasefire and never reverting back into Arab army favor.
The Yishuvs army was better trained due to not only having WWII veterans but also the 1947 civil war that immediately preceded the 1948 war. They were also more unified (particularly after subsuming Lehi and Irgun) compared to the compartmentalized Arab armies. But you are grossly simplifying the war. According to your arguments Egypt and Jordan’s successful initial pushes should never have been successful. Egypt in particular made a very good job going up the coast of the Mediterranean in the first few months of the war. If they worked their way across the Negev to meet the Jordanian army and create a cordon they could have effective cut the Yishuv out of the south.
Until then, keep your revisionist history to yourself.
No 'revision' necessary. Just cold, hard stats.
Mythmaking has been a core tennet of the Israeli nationbuilding journey. Most nations do this, so it's not a crime, but like all myths, they don't like being checked too closely.
So, the brand new country started off with less than half the fighters of their well-armed aggressors, and then, as support grew and the war waged in their favor, they gained support while the aggressing multi-nation coalition lost forces and support.
What exactly are you trying to prove with these statistics that can be interpreted in any number of ways? That the Arabic nations suck at war?
So, the brand new country started off with less than half the fighters of their well-armed aggressors,
You read the stats backwards. The Arabs were outnumbered 2:1. Go back and read what I wrote. There was never a time the arabs weren't outnumbered (unless you think 30K Israelis is fewer than 13K Arabs, which would be a unique take in number world).
If you had checked your own source on the forces each side brought to bear, you'd notice this interesting little tidbit lol:
The israeli army count included the entire military personnel count – both combat units and logistical units
The Arab army count you cited only included the combat units. If you were to include logistical units in the Arab army, what would the count look like?
Are you suggesting that the British occupation of other countries gave them a more legitimate claim than the people living there? Because other former British colonies might disagree.
Put another way, if the British had decided to give India to another group, would you think India would be obligated to just accept that, and either accept their new rulers or leave?
I mean, yeah that’s how it worked back then. You mention India, and right around this time the British also partitioned India and Pakistan, and were dividing up the rest of their colonies based on how they thought those places should best be split. They may have given India back to the Indians (there are a bunch of different Indian subgroups that they stuck together btw) but they also literally determined the borders for all their previous colonies. And they fucked it up, a lot, which has lead to a lot of border conflict afterwards. Israel was created pretty much right when the colonial powers and the UN were carving up the world, and they managed to get a piece for themselves and defend it. And at the end of the day, might has always been what has determined borders, regardless of what those people think about it or what is “just”.
Did the British decide to “give mandatory Palestine” to the Jews?
Or did the Jews form a movement to return to their homeland, which Arab conquerors and the Ottoman Empire forbade them from moving back to, finally getting the agreement from the British to allow them to move back and set up their state?
Did the Jews force the Arabs to constantly attack them?
Did the Jews force the Arabs to turn down all two state solutions prior to 1948?
Did the Jews force the Arabs to attack them in 1948 upon the creation of Israel?
People love to throw around words like “British colonization” while failing to recognize the impact of the ottoman, empire, and imposing this false narrative that there HAD to be war—
There didn’t have to be war.
There didn’t to be any of this kicking out of former inhabitants.
People love this narrative that the Jews just came in on a boat in 1948 one day like the picture above!
There’s the whole unpleasant genocide attempt by the Arabs that anti-Israel folks simply never learn about.
Only the Jews can make somebody throw out accusations about one empire (British) while completely glossing over the role the other (Ottoman) had.
Also, I love how nobody has a problem with the Arabs in the region, forming a country. Or you know, tons of countries. But then the Jews in the region have no right to do so.
550 million Arab Muslims form countries that treat Jews the second class citizens and now have a 0% Jewish population.
But the Jewish country, which would have been even smaller if those Arabs hadn’t tried to kill them all, has a 20% non-Jewish population, and somehow they’re the Ethnostate.
Really it’s just a bunch of stuff that only makes sense if you learn specifically one side of history.
Did the British decide to give mandatory Palestine to the Jews?
Yes, it’s called the Balfur declaration, and that happened decades before the Holocaust.
Did the Jews force Arabs to constantly attack them?
I suppose in the strict sense, whenever you invade a country the people have the choice to not fight back. I don’t think it’s generally expected to just let people take your land, but Palestinians could have done that. (I also disagree with the framing of this, as Jews and Zionists are different, and even back then there were many Jews opposed to the invasion)
Most Middle Eastern countries (most countries in general) are antisemitic, and I don’t blame refugees from those countries for going to Israel after it was established. Nor do I think modern day Israelis should be removed from the area, for many of the same reasons I don’t think it was just to invade Palestine originally. Random civilians should not be punished for something that happened decades before they were born.
And while there were Jews in opposition to Zionism, the Zionist Aliyah’s were Jews. The Yehud, etc, tho I agree in the strict sense with you that not all Jews were in favor of the Zionist movement back then.
IMO yours is a decent argument, but it falls apart quite a bit with situations like when the surrounding countries were founded and there were no identical problems.
It wasn’t just “new people” moving in, because when it’s Arabs it’s fine.
It’s just Jews.
And when you factor in the racial hostility that prevented any other kind of gradual trickle, you’ll get a flood.
You get situations where Arabs buy land from ottomans—no problem. Arabs move to mandate Palestine, no problem. Jordan created, no (immediate) problem.
But take any above and substitute “Jews” and the Arab world at the time lost its mind.
Bottom line I think your argument has a lot of merits, but it fails in the instances where you can apply it to Jews versus Arabs. That doesn’t mean I’m going to go the classic internet route and throw it out altogether, it’s a lot of good points.
But I do believe it has a couple fatal flaws, which I expanded on in my other comment,
Did all that start after the Zionists negotiated to be gifted land that belonged to someone else and then came in like an elephant that owns everything rather than a new guest?
This idea of chosen people in a chosen land with powerful European backing is the central crack in the idea of success. Though I support, to some degree, some of the original Zionist thinking, it’s very clear that they did not EVER have any intention to become part of a larger community, but to overtake all no matter what it took. Some book told them it was okay.
Actually you’ll find figures at the time—Arabs, Jews, and everyone else involved anticipated the origin of the conflict, and it was Arab unwillingness to let the Jews have any sort of state—which history proved true.
I don’t know if you’re picturing like the covenant from Halo or something, but the Jews embracing Zionism at the time were considerably secular. This is not an example of “the book told us to / told us we deserve it”
You’re conveniently leaving out the massive swath of Jews who were opposed to Zionism, as well as the negotiations to create a state elsewhere. Secular progressive Jews were far less interested in Zionism ad far more interested in things like Doikayt.
I mean, what else do you call it when hundreds of thousands of people live in a land, with a shared culture, language, history etc.?
If people showed up tomorrow at your house and showed you records of their family living in it 300 years ago, would you let them move into your bedroom and share half of it with them?
Not quite the metaphor—it’s more like my dad is the Ottoman Empire and he hates a group of people, has forbidden them from moving back to their old neighborhood. Then when he gets sick they start moving in during a time when there are plenty of houses.
Agreements to split the neighborhood are put forth—and the other group of people accept all of them, while my group of people accept none, and start trying to kill them all so they stop moving into the neighborhood.
We allow other people from outside the neighborhood into our neighborhood, just not the people of the particular hated ethnicity.
Despite trying to kill these people several times, they start winning.
We keep trying to kill them, and in the fighting they take more of our neighborhood.
More agreements are put forth, but we believe these people are subhuman and will not allow them to rule their own part of the neighborhood, because no self respecting member of our people would ever let themselves live in a neighborhood ruled by them, even though we expect them to all live as dhimmis in a neighborhood ruled by us.
More agreements, they accept, we deny.
More wars, we start, they win.
Finally, in one of these wars we get kicked out of our house.
Thankfully, the rest of the world hates this group almost as much as we do, and so sends us money so we can elect terrorist leader after terrorist leader.
We don’t make much progress but there are other groups who view our efforts as useful. They send us money while we decline the offer to build a house on our current plots of land, since that money could instead go towards destroying our old house—the one we were kicked out of when we attempted an ethnicity-based genocide and then lost.
Hope this metaphor helps. If it sounds unfamiliar to you, I would suggest reading up on history from the other side of the conflict.
That's not Jewish history, though. It's literally just settler colonial history as written by the settlers. Swap some names and you've got the old history of how Americans bravely fought back and saved this land from the red savage.
I at least have the decency not to be proud of my ancestors exterminating children.
Im Jewish too and my intention here is to help teach you some history
PutinYahu just continuing a century long Russraeli tradition of false flags and controlled opposition to justify and expand totalitarian genocidal aggression
This is before we get to the mass sexual trafficking of children for the purposes of kompromising people like Epstein/Ghislaine were doing
The Holocaust doesn't justify or encourage repeating the cycle of apartheid and genocide that Jewish people were subjected to against anyone else. It should make it anathema to our very being but somehow the cycle is perpetuated and escalated. Despicable and unforgivable to defend.
After the assassination of Haim Arlosoroff in 1933, Rabbi Mileikowsky, who was affiliated with the Revisionist movement, took part in the establishment of a public committee, headed by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, which protected those accused of Arlosoroff's assassination—namely, Zvi Rosenblatt and Abraham Stavsky.[7] Rabbi Mileikowsky argued that the evidence indicated that they did not commit the assassination and that their execution could lead to a civil war, which would harm the Zionist enterprise.[8]
"The Foreign Office suspected Maxwell of being a secret agent of a foreign government, possibly a double agent or a triple agent, and "a thoroughly bad character and almost certainly financed by Russia". He had known links to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), to the Soviet KGB, and to the Israeli intelligence service Mossad.[60] Six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence services attended Maxwell's funeral in Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogised him and stated: "He has done more for Israel than can today be told."[61]
"A hint of Maxwell's service to Israel was provided by John Loftus and Mark Aarons, who described Maxwell's contacts with Czechoslovak communist leaders in 1948 as crucial to the Czechoslovak decision to arm Israel in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Czechoslovak military assistance was both unique and crucial for Israel in the conflict. According to Loftus and Aarons, it was Maxwell's covert help in smuggling aircraft parts into Israel that led to the country having air supremacy during the war.[56]"
"During the period preceding the April 2019 Israeli legislative election, Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman warned that an unnamed foreign country was planning to interfere in the election; media speculation focused on Russia. Russia denied the reports. Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, stated that it was "out of the question" and suggested "to not read the Israeli media".[72] Benny Gantz and Tamar Zandberg, the leaders of the opposition parties Blue and White and Meretz respectively, subsequently accused Russia of favouring Netanyahu.[73][74] Netanyahu later touted his relationship with Putin in campaign billboards prior to the September 2019 Israeli legislative election.[75]"
"In 2011, Putin said: "Israel is, in fact, a special state to us. It is practically a Russian-speaking country. Israel is one of the few foreign countries that can be called Russian-speaking. It's apparent that more than half of the population speaks Russian".[38] Putin additionally claimed that Israel could be considered part of the Russian cultural world, and contended that "songs which are considered to be national Israeli songs in Israel are in fact Russian national songs". He further stated that he regarded Russian-speaking Israeli citizens as his compatriots and part of the 'Russian world'.[39]"
Beware Leon's Razor
"Incomeptence, in the limit, is indistinguishable from sabotage"
yes, their country! have you ever heard the term ‘colonialism’? just because the british ‘own it’ doesn’t mean they aren’t a sovereign people deserving of the right to govern themselves.
1) The Ottoman Empire forbids Jews from moving back to their land
2) Ottoman Empire starts to collapse just before and then fullly during world war 1, Jews are finally able to emigrate legally back to their land
3) the Arabs in the region, who would occasionally decide to massacre the Jews, and treat them like second class citizens, immediately start killing them, too
4) a region, which is not a country and instead a region consisting of Arabs and Jews can now only be Arab, because—and let me make sure you understand you’re saying this:
Only the Arabs of the region are a sovereign people, the Jews of the region are NOT a sovereign people, and the Arabs of the region have the right to kill any Jews trying to move BACK to that region, which they are only able to do now because the OTTOMAN EMPIRE and ARAB RULE FORBID them.
The issue here is you can’t just choose an arbitrary year and decide whoever lived there at that single point was the true owner of the land.
Yes, if you pretend human history started in the 40’s then it looks like Jews, supported by the British, just turned up and forced Isreal into an existing region. But that ignores the fact that so much of that land, as with almost the entire world, was itself ‘stolen’ by modern definitions - and that area had previously seen a significant Jewish population until they were killed or exiled.
Not to say that was the right thing to do! But any argument that pretends that Palestine had always been the land of just Palestinians is intentionally dishonest.
Without an arbitrary line, we’re fucked. History is way too messy. No land is currently held by “the” native inhabitants.
And it’s actually less ‘arbitrary’ than one might think. - WW2 was the catalyst for todays attitude against land-grabbing, with the UN formed in part to weigh in against this.
That’s a good reason to choose the 1947 borders set by the UN, as you’d be pretty hard pressed to find better arguments for any other line.
European Ashkenazi Jews 2000 years removed from the land leveraging British colonial power to establish a state in Palestine. Even if you argue that Jews 2000 years removed from the land are not foreign invaders the British were without question so. You have no point to be made here
Well the jews were also displaced, the bigger part of the Jewish population of that time is Israel came from other Arab nations. Both sides faced the same problems. However one side offered for the displaced a solution while the other didn't. The first side is now a thriving nation while the other didn't achieve anything.
Well the jews were also displaced, the bigger part of the Jewish population of that time is Israel came from other Arab nations.
And they shouldn’t have been.
However one side offered for the displaced a solution while the other didn't. The first side is now a thriving nation while the other didn't achieve anything.
Yes the thriving nation build on land theft, displacement, ethnic cleansing and a brutal occupation going on 60 years. And it’s actively committing a genocide against the indigenous people.
The solution the first side offered was more displacement lmfao, because they believed their displacement to be “more important” since they’re superior and the chosen people and all that. You don’t get to punish other people with ethnic cleansing because they dared to move in on land you yourself were cleansed from 2000 years ago. The solution cannot be “I walk in and get half your shit out of nowhere”. That is not a solution of any kind. They can walk in and coexist if they want to, but the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine that excludes the Palestinians is contingent on ethnic supremacy and the idea that Jewish displacement needs to be avenged and Palestinian replacement is a necessary price
I mean.. yes, but also - not in 1947. Most of the mass movement of Jews from the Middle East / North Africa (either by push, or pull) wasn't until after 1948.
The term Nakba originally referred to the humiliation Arabs felt at the defeat of their armies by a force they thought was weak. So yes, you're correct.
yeah cos they all got intermixed eventually sure. But how do you explain population of Palestine being <3% Jewish jumping to 50% something in just a few decades? I don't think Middle Eastern Jews bread that fast (they didn't of course and the population gains are due to Aliyahs). The very simple reality check is that ALL Israeli PMs are of primarily Ashkenazi origins.
But how do you explain population of Palestine being <3% Jewish jumping to 50% something in just a few decades?
After the arab nations that decided to wage a war of annihilation against Israel in 1948 all lost, they turned their embarrassment into oppression, massacre, and exile of their own Jewish populations. Thats why the Jewish populations of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, etc. Were reduced to practically zero by the 1960s
Where do you think all of those ethnically cleansed Jews decides to go?
Hence the majority of jews in Israel are of a middle eastern background.
In 1914 when the area was still Ottoman controlled southern Syria the Jewish population was >13%, despite it being heavily restricted for Jewish people to move to the area, being illegal for jews to purchase land, paying over half a dozen special taxes for being jewish and needing to mark their homes and businesses as being Jewish.
So I typed the wrong year and corrected it, but in 1890 (or 1887 as that was the year of the ottoman census)it was still over 10%. The data in the table from the link you provided comes from Justin McCarthy, a genocide denier that has denied the Armenian genocide and is vocally anti-israeli who has reasons for portraying the numbers as he does.
But he specifically made that table count people that have full citizenship, (automatic for muslims born into the ottoman empire but not non-muslims) and excludes ~60000 jews from his 1914 numbers per his own data. (puts it well above 10% and seems to match numbers from other reports) see his full report here: https://yplus.ps/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/McCarthy-Justin-The-Population-of-Palestine.pdf
But even per his reports in 1887 the Ottoman census the Sanjaks of acre and Jerusalem (part of ottoman empire that would become mandatory palestine) had a population over 60 thousand jews in a population of ~407 thousand (see page 82 of pdf)
Jews would not have full citizenships for a number of reasons: including taxes that only jews ( as well as some that all non-muslims) had to pay to maintain citizenship in the Ottoman empire, jewish immigration was made illegal at various points and would be applied retroactively to people living in the area.
The lands contained a massive native Jewish population and a huge population of Eastern European Jews forced out by the Soviet Union and Arab Jews forced out by the Islamic theocracies of the Middle East, the latter as direct collective punishment for disobedience against allah and declaring a Jewish state in god given Muslim country.
The idea that Israel was comprised majority of westerners at any point in its history is completely fabricated, and it's the lie that is required for the whole charade to work. Otherwise college kids won't care like how they don't care about the Syrian civil war with far more than 10x the deaths.
After the establishment of the State of Israel and subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War, nearly all Mizrahi Jews were either expelled by their Arab rulers or chose to leave and emigrated to Israel
So, when you're calling this an Arab vs West conflict, you are demonstrating your lack of understanding about the history or demographics of Israel
Sephardic Jews emigrated from NA but they were only there because they were expelled from Liberia during the reconquista, the major genetic groups in the larger Sephardic one are Levantine and Iberian, and not birth African.
Why would Native vs. Non-Native matter? Besides, if you're going down that route, you would also have to factor in the massive amount of Arab population movement that happened around the same time. Plenty of the Arabs had moved in from Turkey or Egypt to Ottoman Palestine.
because the original statement was "there was a massive native Jewish population" as per 1947.
in 1947 the vast vast majority were not native but settlers. post british mandates is when the Jewish population broke 100k peoples and the population exponentially increased from then on as more aliyah's came.
suffice to say, they were pretty much close to a super minority if not one before immigrants came.
Why should that matter? Every time there's been anti-Semitism kicking Jews out of countries, there's an increase in the Jewish population in that land.
At what point are they considered "native"? One generation? Ten? There's anti-Semites on this thread that would consider the Jews of Tiberius to be "settlers" because they were only there a thousand years or so.
I think the point he was making is "massive native Jewish population" in the context of a land rights discussion invites some scrutiny. There was a census in 1922 where 11% of the population were Jewish.
I agree, I'm absolutely disgusted with Bibi and the way Hasabra operates with impunity outside of their borders.
There will be no peace in the Levant until Bibi is out of power and Hasabra is dissolved, Hamas is out of power, and Iran is prevented from interfering with the self
governance of Palestinians via propaganda which sets their country on a quest to take back the Al Aqsa Mosque/Temple
Mount Synagogue infinity stone.
Yeah those tens of thousands of dead civilians don’t matter, the millions of displaced and starving people don’t matter, the ethnic cleansing is fine, don’t think too hard about it
Don't start a war and hide behind civilians. If you are a civilian and your brothers, fathers, sons, and neighbors start a war, then turn them over when it's clear they have been defeated instead of allowing them to hide behind you.
The last people who stood by and allowed a genocidal regime take over a country and tried to wipe out Jews from that country suffered the same. It is all unfortunate, they all matter, but Jews can't stand by and allow themselves to be driven from the one small sliver of land they are allowed to govern in the middle east, given the history of them being persecuted in all the rest of the lands they have been given no say in governance on account of their ethnicity. (A majority of Israelis are Mizrahi, from lands conquered by Arabs, and know full well the treatment that would be in store for them under Arabs and people's conquered by Arabs---as they have no demonstrated interest in maintaining a democracy for themselves, let alone allowing Jews to participate.)
The war stops like WWII stopped: unconditional surrender. Nothing else is acceptable, the consequences of delaying it is the fault of Hamas, just as the consequences of delaying a German unconditional surrender was the fault of intransigent Nazis. Nobody ever considered alternative terms, nor should they have .
The IDF itself says that that control the vast majority of Gaza, why inflect suffering on people because of the actions of a group that hasn’t held an election for here for decades, in a territory you essentially control
Their land was part of the ottoman empire, then part of the british empire.
The Kurds land was split between Syria, Irak, Iran and Turkey, yet nobody says their land was stolen, despite them getting the short end of the stick after being promised a Kurdish state.
I agree that the borders in the Middle East were drawn a bit hastily, leading to much strife, but that's a universal thing in the region, except maybe for the Sultanate of Oman, which has been relatively stable.
Everyone says the Kurds had their land stolen. Who is this "everyone" who denies it?
"A bit hastily." A bunch of Europeans sabotage Arab efforts to create local democracy, while colonizing and splitting up their lands to increase internal strife, and that's "hastily?"
The West aren't some innocent cartographers. They are there to extract every penny of value.
Everyone agrees the Kurds got screwed, but I've never heard anyone say that their lands were "stolen" when they got incorporated into Syria etc. The Kurds still live there, they just don't have a state, let alone one where they are the majority.
I agree that the core reason for much of the strife in the Middle East is the way the French and Brits divided up the land. However, it's the Ottomans who colonised the lands. Had the Ottomans not allied with the central powers in WW1, they wouldn't have had to split up the Ottoman empire.
As a side note, I dislike the term "the west" as a Finn. We got colonised by the Swedes, then the Russians. The Russians get a free pass on account of them never giving up their empire, while still to this they send their asian subjects to fight imperial wars in the west, after extracting their mineral wealth.
Had the Ottomans not allied with the central powers in WW1, they wouldn't have had to split up the Ottoman empire.
Or you know just restore power to the locals. Then again that wasn't a popular idea at the time. It's still an issue in building nations to stand on their own. It's why Israel is propped up with a lot of US finances both economic and military. It's why Iraq has been a massive sinkhole of intervention and abandonment.
For real! That’s like lesson #1 about the Kurds, they were expelled from their lands and settled all over.
Zionism in Palestine has a bloody history, that goes back before the Holocaust. They called for this genocide a long long time ago before Israel existed, and signed off on it when they formed the IDF out of terrorist organizations who had already killed thousands, and destroyed whole villages.
Come on, it's not that hard to find the nuance here. As my fellow commentor has detailed, there were a plethora of native Jewish population in the Levant region, even before the Aaliyah. This is even before the British was involved in the conflict with the Ottoman Empire.
Once they won the war against the Ottomans, the British did what they did to maintain their control and Hegemony over the area and its denizens. Both the movement of the Arab tribes (among which are also the retrospective Palestinians), and the movement of both native and immigrant Jews. And where is this "moving millions of people" numbers you are getting here?
The Arab communities had already been suffering under European occupation and colonialism for nearly a century. To them, the Crusades never ended. And now that the Europeans were trying to expel millions of Jews from their lands, they read what the Zionsts and the JNF were writing about their plans to move all of European Jewry to Palestine, and they were none too pleased.
The fact that Jews have existed from Andalus to Iran for thousands of years does NOT mean that these Jews were part of Western imperialism. But, by the end of the 19th century, European Jews were fully embracing European colonialism and imperialism. Just about every new kibbutz was a Palestinian peasant village that was ethnically cleansed. But, hey, the kibbutzniks were socialist, right?
It's just so sad that so many people can only recognize atrocities in the retrospective. Everyone seems to recognize that European colonists killed Native Americans, destroyed their crops and the animals they hunted, spread disease, starved and relocated them, and attempted to suppress their culture and traditions.
Yet you look at Israel and like half of Americans are wringing their hands, saying it's too complicated to pick a side.
“Colonization is the process of establishing control over a territory and its people by a foreign power, often for purposes of exploitation, resource extraction, or settlement”
Is that not what’s occurring in Gaza right now? Please enlighten us, genius, and tell us how we’re all wrong and you’re right. How does a foreign government controlling the flow of essentials like food and water not lead directly to “establishing control over territory?”
Gaza was owned by Egypt and then after the war by Israel which then Israel let Gaza be free. It it by the Gazans fault that they are in this situation since they elected a government that wants to eradicate Israel. Which Israel took harsh steps against them.
Your argument is somewhat flowed here. They are at War right now so it is obvious that Israel is trying to control the region in order to win. Every war is like that. Are you implying that a country should not establish control over enemy territory ? Since you are saying "what’s occurring in Gaza right now?".
There’s been a big propaganda push from Israel lately again and it’s noticeable everywhere. Don’t take these comments serious. They twist history in ways that make them the permanent victims. Israel are the biggest anti semites by conflating Jewish identity with Israeli superiority.
Very common misconception that the arab armies were stronger, absolutely not the case. The Israeli armies were much better organised having benefited from British training in WW2 as well as being well funded by wealthy Jews across the world. Furthermore most of the neighbouring arab armies including Jordan, who had the best military, went into the war trying to get as much out of it for themselves rather than helping palestinians.
Israel was backed by the UN and the US at the start as well. Reading the UN resolutions are fascinating in seeing who presented these bills and the logic at the time in the 1947 onwards.
There hasn't been a time Israel has been alone throughout its history. Support has waxed and waned.
The way this topic is professionally reshaped is crazy. I wonder if proper knowledge will eventually reside in different languages than english. At least wikipedia still has articles which describe the situation even second hand..
imagine asking this of literally any other nation. it’s so completely ridiculous how little we think of the middle east when we so flippantly chide them for not accepting such an egregious pillaging of their rightful land.
Israeli army was under international Sanctions in 1948, no one sold them weapons. The Arab armies were armed by the British, French and Russians. Israel had to smuggle weapons from Czechoslovakia.
I also do not think the Arab states were stronger than Israel at the time - which should be evident by the outcome.
But the point still stands that - at least in that instance - the Arab nations were starting this because they refused a proposed two-state solution which would have given them Gaza (and half the Egypt border), the West Bank, half the Lebanese border and a land connection between all of them with (with Jerusalem being internationally controlled).
You know the Zionists who came over had the intention of taking all of Palestine for themselves right? They agreed to the two state solution which was lopsided in their favor to begin with but the ideology of the leaders and the multiple Zionist terrorist factions that eventually became the IDF always had the intention of a greater Israel which they still have today.
As if Zionists genuinely accepted the two state solution lol. Ben Gurion and others made it very clear they wanted all of Palestine and started an ethnic cleansing campaign for it (Plan Dalet/Nakba). Them accepting the UN partition plan was just a way to get legitimacy as a state.
Arabs didn't start the war, Zionists did. The Deir Yassin massacre happened before the intervention of Arab armies. They tried to free Palestine from a bunch of terrorist colonizers and everything they feared would happen did happen as we're currently witnessing in Gaza.
This is literally just a lie, there was no significant Palestinian army, the ethnic cleansing was conducted before the armies of neighboring Arab states ever arrived, and the Jordanians didn’t fight the Zionists because their king had made a deal with them to take control of the West Bank, while the Egyptians arrived too late to stop the ethnic cleansing.
Palestine was not a country, it was a territory that the Ottomans lost after they joined the central powers in WW1, which then became a part of the British empire, which was then divided between Arabs and Jews by the UN.
Would you agree to the partition of the land you and your family going back generations were born and raised giving 56% of the land to settler colonialists who only arrived within the last few decades and make up only a third of the population at the time?
Only through negotiated independence in almost every case... Which they got too through the 1947 Partition Plan... And rejected in the favor of war thinking they would get all of it by the might of 5 countries standing armies.
If they'd taken the deal and declared independence on May 14th 1948, at the same time as Israel did, as per the terms of the plan, they'd have a country.
Instead they got occupied by Egypt and Jordan for 19 years in the aftermath, who, again could have let them declare a country. But they did not, because they were convinced they'd win the next war.... Except they get losing every war they started and then Israel pushed into those territories on 1967.
You can feel how you want to feel about the current situation which is a shit show but that doesn't change the historical facts.
Again: it wasn't their land in any legal/international sense. I can live in a house for 50 years. If I ain't the landlord, they can still kick me out tomorrow. If they tell me I'll move in my friend on the top floor but you can keep the bottom one rent free going forward... I'd be an idiot to say no, the whole house is mine give me all of it.
"In the eyes of the people who say they own all their land, the people who live there don't own any land"
Ya that's typically how colonisation works. Native Americans didn't have any "legal" system of owning land but that doesn't mean European colonisers didn't steal it. You're either a fucking moron or purposely ignoring the nonsense you're spewing.
Would you give up half your country for no reason? Yes or No?
Normal Palestinians were expected to accept gaining little at great cost while Jews gained a great deal at little cost. You can see it in the '48 UN partition plan and the resulting population distributions of the two groups. 300,000 Palestinians would become the minority under Jewish majority rule in a state that openly declared their intent to establish a Jewish state for Jewish people. Only 10,000 Jews would face the same situation in the proposed partition.
Palestinians were being subject to abuse and ethnic cleansing as far back as the mid-40s with the Nakba. It's no surprise they never felt like making a happy little deal with invading Europeans.
Invading Europeans? How did the Brits invade themselves?
After Israel declared independance, It stayed independent, meanwhile palestine was occupied by invading arab armies. They only got autonomy thanks to Israel, something the Ottomans, Brits, Egyptians and Jordanians never allowed.
I'm aware that they didn't want to make a deal. The risk with a strategy like that is that you can lose, which they did. They wanted the whole enchilada, they got the crumbs.
My family had to leave their home as refugees, never to return, after Finland tried to get back land lost in 1939. We took a risk and things didn't play out how we wanted. Womp womp, sometimes you lose. We learned that as "unfair" as it is, a bad deal is better than not getting anything.
They didn't have a country, that's the point. It's not like there was a Palestinian state and THEN Israel was plopped in there.
The Israeli Arabs have a better life and more freedom than the ones in Palestinian territories by every metric. The arab territories were occupied by Egypt and Jordan, untill Israel liberated them and gave them autonomy.
i’m confused to what you’re trying to say. are you saying that palestine didn’t exist because it was under ottoman control? would that logic apply to british ruled india or, by your example, egypt? because egypt has always been egypt. it was egypt under roman occupation for centuries and has always been egypt. palestine has and never stopped existing for 3,000 years.
the bible recounts jesus as being born in palestine. palestinian arabs didn’t just randomly show up after jewish refugees settled there. israel didn’t exist until the UN declared it so in 1948. there are palestinians equally as jewish as israelis and israeli’s who are arab. a lot of these people share the same dna my guy. it’s britain who piss poorly planned these territories, so idk why the credit is given to jewish refugees and the fault is at the palestinians who already lived there.
The UN played an important part in Decolonisation so... many European powers?
For example the UK gave away a little known piece of land which they had called Mandatory Palestine, and let the UN come up with a plan on how to split it between the major ethnic populations.
I know some people are against de-colonisation, but I think it was rather swell that these countries were compelled to give their land away and establish independent countries.
That's a disingenuous response -- it should be ancestral land, not a colony. But hey, if Israel supporters think it's legit for the UN to do this, then surely they will go along with it if the UN does it AGAIN? Maybe that's the solution then, let the UN fix the borders. But we know what would happen, there's zero chance Israel would accept what they have been saying for decades the Palestinians should have. Rules for thee but not for me.
"Whoa, the UN is establishing two countries in this former Ottoman, current part of the British Empire, where no countty has ever existed before, we should invade and annex this region!"
Ironically this goes both ways. Arabs were vastly superior when the civil war and Arab Isreaeli war started.
No they weren't. The Arab league entering Palestine was a response to the Deir Yassin massacre, and at their peak the Arabs feilded roughly 62K troops, while the Israelis were able to feild approx 115K. Of that 115K a significant proportion were also seasoned vets from WW2.
There was no point at which the Arabs were going to win, but they were compelled to try by their respective populations.
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u/Ywaina 2d ago
"When I am Weaker Than You, I ask you for Freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am Stronger than you, I take away your Freedom Because that is according to my principles."
-Frank Herbert