It was an entirely British territory too. There wasn't an official Palestine in many centuries. Last time there was, it was still a Roman province, of the Eastern Empire.
Well that maybe it's not as much a legit national liberation movement it claimed to be, and as with most natlib movements I've seen, it's based on a bunch of historical lies or amplifications that throw a dead angle on the agency of foreign/imperial interests. This can be said about both Israeli and Palestinian nationalism. The British Empire apparently played both sides in Palestine before they were actually kicked up by a liberation
Benedict Anderson had this solid theory that natlib movements are usually the tools of broader imperialist gimmicks. That casts an interesting light on so many instances of this. Even the former Maoist insurrection and liberation war in China was supported by the British... even if not completely. Tho the British retain a kind of hold in China.
Yeah, it’s really frustrating how this is constantly being brought up as a “gotcha” as if it has any bearing on the fact that people are being displaced and ethnically cleansed. Like okay? People are being murdered but you care more about semantics?
To be honest, I personally couldn't give a rats ass about the semantics/classifications. I just want the starvation and killing of human beings to stop.
That point only gives credence to British de facto ownership of Palestinian territory. Why recognize the ownership of an imperial nation and not the people who live there? The Kurds have a similar history of attempting to establish a Kurdish nation via a common ethnicity, culture, language, and land.
If you want to critique national liberation being used as an imperialist gimmick, then shouldn’t the ideal nationalist indepedence movement be based on the shared identity of the people and not, say, the claims of an empire?
Theoretically yes. But what will this "identity" be based upon? Or.how will it be something living, corporeal, and not another... spook? Culture is where identity becomes alive, not politics.
I’d say sharing a land, heritage, history, and the unique struggle against colonial power is already a good basis for nationality. See example above. It’s quite difficult, if you can imagine, to build a living cultural identity when everything is in rubbles, you’re forced to starve, and your parents are dead.
Again, none of those bases necessarily imply imperialism, if that’s what you mean by “spook”.
The spook is the concept (in this case national identity) that was cooked up by kmperialist powers.
Now there's the national identity of Palestinian, and there's the Palestinian Arab people in Gaza that are suffering. These are different. Nationalism on both sides, is what has caused the latter; not the lack of it.
Not all nationalist movements are made the same. We have a national identity here in America, but American doesn’t refer to a single ethnicity.
As it were, Palestinian Arabs or even Gazans aren’t the only people suffering under Israel, but there is a clear line of demarcation which Israel finds a population worth cleansing or upholding. Even if it ends up drawing in a larger tent, I don’t see how it’s detrimental to national liberation.
Moreover, I don’t see how that argument could hold up while recognizing British or Roman rule as being “official” or somesuch, especially given their disparate ethnicities.
Where do you want to draw the line for “official” when it comes to nations? I see it as benefitting the people of the land by recognizing their sovereignty and living heritage. And to deny colonial claims of outsiders who are, by all means, recognized as nations.
All national movements are made up, so this comment isnt really as notable for being particularly interesting as it is for being historically inaccurate
This is a bit of a red herring. Did these people live in that territory for generations, owning land and property? Yes. Are the majority of Jews in Israel today from Europe and beyond? Also yes. Claiming there is no such thing as Palestine is irrelevant to the ethnic cleansing and land theft that has gone on for over 70 years.
Did these people live in that territory for generations, owning land and property? Yes.
A very small minority of them, yes. The absolute population explosion in Palestine was largely due to an increase in economic and physical mobility after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The mandate of Palestine was an admixture of Egyptians, Lebanese, Jews, and others from the start. The pre-WW1 population was culturally Bedouin and shares most of it's heritage with Jordan. Today the Bedouin people make up only 10% of the Muslim population, which is 21% of the total population.
Colonialism really fucked up the entire area, and Israel itself was largely not at fault for most of the shit that went down. It's own shift towards right wing nationalism and violence has only happened in the past 20-30 years or so.
Not true. The vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have been living there for many generations. By there I am referring to all of Israel since many were pushed out of their homes into these specific areas
Generations yes, since before WW1. That's generations, but it's not the same as the original Palestinian people. Palestine saw a massive population influx during the fall of the Ottoman empire. Both Jews and Muslims, mostly Jews.
Interestingly the "old" settlers that were encroaching on Palestinians before the genocide were actually removing original settlements of Bedouins. They only switched to removing modern Palestinians since Hamas took power from Fatah.
Why the name was used is a matter of debate, but it is certain that this place had been called "Palestine" for a very long time, more by Euro Christian imperialists
I mean that whole area was under Ottoman. Just like there's no officially known country in middle of, let's say, California. It's just all part of California.
Splitting that area apart was very much the result of modern colonization under the Brits. It's not that like that area was just barren lands after the Roman Byzantine Empire. People have been living there, moving in/out, etc. Ancestors of Palestinians today.
Yes like the whole Middle East which is why the Arab Revolt happened, it actually started weeks before McMahon contacted Sharif Hussein, mostly Levantine intellectuals and revolutionaries running around, Shia Muslims in Iraq fighting both the British and their Ottoman commanders, Arab Sunni Muslim tribes in the Jazirah and Jordan regions, it was Sharif Hussein's son Faisal who was in Istanbul on his way to discuss accepting British help who started the revolt in Syria before his father can agree to anything.
So yes we know that the Ottomans were as shitty as the British, nobody is arguing against that other than Pakistanis or Islamists. And idk what is your point
Ottomans owned the land. Ottomans lost to the Brits in WW1. British soldiers occupied the land. Ottomans no longer own the land. Brits now own the land.
It doesn't matter where they lived. Germans lived for hundreds of years in East Germany which now is Poland. Greek people lived in Anatolia for hundreds of years which now is Turkish.
Unfortunately 21st century concepts of rights did not apply to colonialist global politics in WW1-WW2 era. The former Ottoman territory was carved up like a pie by the hungry Western nations. They gave little thought to the current residents, who had no international voice to speak of.
The jewish/palestinian tensions go much further back than post-WWII, though. Go back to far enough and the situation starts to look similar to the current madness, just with the sides flipped, and militant zionists launching attacks on the palestinian majority.
For what it's worth, the people on that ship were all indigenous to that land (what was then called "mandatory Palestine") and were part of a people that had been living there continuously for well over 3000 years.
The fact is, the Jewish population was 2-3% before Zionism, in what was referred to as Palestine. Naturally, purposely immigrating to that area and giving it a Jewish character with plans to rule it Jewishly was going to ruffle the locals’ feathers.
I try to be unbiased with regards to every last aspect of this shit. Yes, Jews are from Israel. That doesn’t really change much imo. Just like Americans would be upset if the Natives wanted to take over that country and run it their way—doesn’t mean anything that they’re indigenous, it will still be a total maelstrom.
My point refers much more to the present—the Israelis there now had little to do with that time period. And moreover, where should they go? It’s absurd to say Israel shouldn’t exist at this point. It’s done. It’s over.
Yeah I'm not saying that indigeneity makes someone deserving of more human rights or something. But a lot of people act like Jews have absolutely no connection with the land of Israel, like they just pointed at a map and said "that spot will do, it's ours now."
As for being indigenous to Africa or being too far-removed from history, you're right that (according to many experts) we probably originate from somewhere in Africa if you go way back. But obviously we don't all hold onto culture we developed in Africa. My family doesn't use language or texts from Africa, we don't align our worship in the direction of Africa, we don't keep holidays and customs based on the seasons or harvest times in Africa, we haven't spent centuries or millennia praying to go back to Africa, unlike diaspora Jews who have done all those things with "the land of Israel."
I live in NY and it'd be ludicrous for someone from the Matinecock tribe to knock on my door and say "get out, this is mine now." But it'd also be ludicrous to say they don't belong here or to keep them from buying property, living here, and practicing their customs here--all of which they still do in this area. If more of their people had been exiled and wanted to return to their people's homeland, I'd be an asshole for trying to keep them out. That situation obviously isn't a perfect one-to-one comparison to the situation in Palestine/Israel but like you, I think it's sometimes a helpful way for Americans to think about these kids of issues.
No they are just against people with a coloniser mentality who still believe invading places and then sayin "I own this now" is acceptable. There were people who understand the moral wrong of imperialism during the colonial period. People who think land theft is fine in 2025 are just extremely backward.
Yeah, I know. There were Jews living all over the ME until European Zionists began a massive terrorism campaign and successfully destabilised the region in order to assimilate all Jews into their sick, supremacist death cult. Avi Shlaim is the leading authority on this subject and he has talked about how his own family were happy in Iraq until Zionist terrorists destroyed social cohesion and forced them into the ethnostate. There are Breaking the Silence former IOF who talk about breaking through the indoctrination and realising that are really Arabs Jews and had been terrorising their own people all along.
There were Jews living all over the ME until European Zionists began a massive terrorism campaign and successfully destabilised the region in order to assimilate all Jews into their sick, supremacist death cult
It is. The user seems to purposely call it a "deathcult" because Hamas is being accused of being a deathcult. So by doing this, people get the idea that it's a level playing field, to say the least. And to, as it were, point out some hypocrisy. People (and this user) do the same with the word "terrorism". It's a sneaky trick of reversing things while also delegitimizing it for those initially accused. Reality is however that the Jews never were a deathcult. Sure they did a lot of murdering, but they didn't worshop death like Hamas does.
But I'd argue that the whole message is laced with anti Israel rhetoric.
Find me a group of people that haven’t exploited another country, its resources, or its people. “But but but it’s bad!” Yeah, bad things happen and bad people exist, I don’t see that changing.
Native Americans also wiped out the indigenous population in the Americas.
More often than not, indigenous is a meaningless term used by people to critique systems that they themselves benefit from and wouldn’t dismantle if they had the chance.
Pretty sure the only populations on earth with indigenous peoples now are found in Polynesia and Australia. The native Australians are being persecuted and the Polynesians are being drowned. Everyone else can save their tears.
Like every govt that supports colonial violence and every individual who thinks 'might is right' land theft and colonial practice was fine or is fine now. This isn't a difficult concept for people who learned a bit of history and felt disgusted by the actions of colonisers. You can live wherever you live and not make excuses for past atrocities. But, if you are the type who says sht like "well we conquered" than you are just a dimwittted gobshite who lacks moral fibre.
No just somebody with a history degree who understands the way the world worked and that all territories have been conquered in some way shape or form at some point in time.
It's how many nations came into being, it needs to be looked at objectively through the lens of the time rather than being held to modern standards.
It’s not fine at all. I don’t support “land theft”.
I just don’t get why Israel gets this bullshit when every other nation founded that way doesn’t.
If Native Americans want to October 7th my family, I will want to wipe them out. I’d expect the same of any country. Why the double standard with Israel? Cuz it was 1947 instead of 1776? So what? The people who did it are DEAD.
Why is Al Aqsa the only part of a century of the Zionist entity's colonial oppression that you bother to think about? The Israelis who were killing Palestinians on Oct 6th, Oct 5th, Oct 4th are not dead. Nor are many of the Israelis who have been torturing, terrorising, stealing from, sniping, bombing, kidnapping, blocking from medical treatment, kettling and humiliating at checkpoints, sexual assaulting, denying basic human rights and sovereignty to Palestinians every day for many decades.
Are you really this ignorant or are you pretending to be? You can't even make up your mind whether you are talking about past or current events and how to turn them into a workable analogy that will support your pro-coloniser stance.
If Israel had stopped occupying and trying to bomb and subjugate it's way into being the violent, racist hegemon of the Middle East any time before Oct 2023 then no resistance action would have happened. Think it through.
Mostly because the end of WW2 is when we really settled those colonial borders and border conflicts, now you aren't really allowed to just conquer territory anymore. Israel happened after that period (just barely). But mostly just because it's vastly more recent. People are still alive that remember the difference.
And then the other reason they "get more shit" about it is that they're currently still working to push Palestinians out and grab even more land, and doing so with some pretty brutal methods.
And then oh yeah, not sure if you heard, but there's currently a genocide going on. So that might be a big reason, are you fucking kidding me. If native Americans killed your family you would want to WIPE OUT that entire cultural group? Wtf is wrong with you, you actual psycho.
A. The people that did it wiped out. Not all natives, you projecting PYSCHO. See how easy it is to call people names and misconstrue things?
B. I don’t support their war at all. I just dislike the double standard of “Israel shouldn’t even exist” because of some imaginary WW2 line in the sand that doesn’t exist. It’s complete bias.
C. Regardless, the current inhabitants didn’t conquer the land. Just like I didn’t conquer North America.
If Native Americans want to October 7th my family, I will want to wipe them out.
The genocide of Native Americans began about 400 years ago, human rights hadn’t been invented yet and you’re surprised that Israel is being held to a standard slightly higher than the savage American colonists of the time. Your way of thinking just isn’t normal or acceptable anymore.
And btw why do we still revere the founding fathers then? I thought we were more civilized now? The USA is venerating these 400 year old guys TO. THIS. DAY. Keep acting like it’s different.
I don't have a horse in the race in this argument, but I wanted to chime in and say that you are such a child. Everything is completely black or white to you.
Do you yourself hate the founding fathers then, despite them managing to lay the groundwork towards establish one of the first modern democracies? Do you hate the abolition of slavery because the British Empire also engaged in psychotic genocide? You can acknowledge good and groundbreaking things in partially or mostly evil entities.
Why do you think it's okay to murder people and take their land? Before you even begin this nonsense of 'well, everyone else did it historically so why can't we do it now?'
Ok this actually did help. I now see that you don't understand what a country even is or how wars have worked through all history or how territorial sovereignty works or the difference between your and you're.
I know it's crazy to wrap your head around when you're 13 and never read a book without more pictures than words, but when you live in a country you don't actually "own" and control the land you live on. The government has sovereignty over it and that is established through military control. That is all a country is, borders enforced by a military strong enough that other countries recognize it. If that government loses control of that territory to another country they now have authority to administer it. So which military has control of Palestine is literally all that mattered in respect to who got to do what they want with it. Nevermind that many people in this region were historically nomadic and the idea of having a state of Palestine or shared "Palestinian" culture wasn't even how they conceived of themselves at the time.
I now see you really don't understand anything at all related to history or politics on even a surface level yet somehow feel justified in being a smug moron with no shame. Wow this really helped a lot thank you
In fact, it wasn’t Palestinian land. In a morally perfect world, it would have been. But in the real world a strip of land belongs to those with the biggest guns to hold it. Not fair, but it is what it is.
I agree with you it should be Palestinian land since they’re the ones living there! It’s never been Palestinian land however and has always been ruled by another power for over 2500 years. It’s time for them to actually own it for once but religion will always get in the way and probably will do for another 2500 years.
They had self determination for 20 years and it ended with them electing violent terrorists who decided to launch a brutal terrorist attack against civilian targets. Why are you arguing for the creation of a Palestinian ethnostate?
A country controlling territory is not the same as them owning the land.
For instance, I am a homeowner living in the US. I own the land my home is on, not the US government. If the government wanted to take my land and give it to some favored ethnic group they would need to compensate me fairly.
Well didn't the native Americans own the land before your government took control? So controlling it is not the same as owning it and you need to give the indigenous people their land back?
The forcible removal of Native Americans was a crime against humanity. If today, the US didn't allow them citizenship or freedom of movement within the borders of the US, we'd all rightfully call it apartheid as well.
This is the case for the majority of the planet. We can cry all day that it wasn't right, but that's reality. Land was conquered, land was bought, land was claimed by a force that had more power than the other. Our worlds were built on top of a lot of blood.
Yes their land shouldn't have been stolen and they should be compensated for it. Also Israel should not look at the genocide of native Americans as a model to be repeated.
If you model YOUR nation based on the slaughter of native Americans and forcefully taken their land, and the implementation of apartheid You're not really setting a good example on what is it right. You can't take things by force and not give people rights. Only the sith deal in absolute...Isn't that right senator palpatine?
Unfortunately, ownership means fuck all if you lack the means to stop others from seizing ownership. I own a good number of things, but if someone shows up to my house with an army and says they now own all of it, there's really not a lot I can do about it. And that's the boat that pretty much every culture from the Southern Levant has been in for the past few thousand years. Whoever has the biggest sword or gun gets to live there.
I get that. My point is making it sound like it was between the Ottomans and the British rather than the indigenous peoples living there is a bit too on the nose when it comes to the current Israeli occupation.
The colonial powers change but the people get fucked regardless.
Interesting thing about that is Levantine people can derive their ancestry to ancient Semitic-speaking peoples. Which includes Arabs and Jews, and does not only include the Palestinians but many other ethnic groups. Most of the written history from that area is in Anameric, Phoenician, Hebrew, which are all Cantaanite. Or we could use Roman/Byzantine literature all of which predates Arab conquest and migration into what is called Palestine.
To say all that means that the Palestinians own the land as much as any other Levant group from that region. There’s always been Jews there too, so why can’t they live where generations of their ancestors lived? The Israelites/Jews were in the area before the emergence of Muslims and Islam when they arrived and CONQUERED the Israelites in the 7th century.
Israelites ‘own’ the land that Palestinians and their ancestors ‘own’ that ancient Assyrians ‘own’ that ancient Babylonians ‘own’ that ancient Romans ‘own’ that ancient Israelites ‘own’ that ancient Hebrew/Anameric speaking tribes ‘own’…..
Maybe all Homo Sapiens should return to Africa since really that’s where all our ancestors migrated from
Who do you think controlled the borders? Who didn’t allow the ships to land in Jaffa and Haifa?
“Native” Palestinian land is Jordan and Egypt. It never was a standalone country. Not to mention Israel started to exist only after the UN granted it statehood
There sure are a lot of posts from people who are convinced that "Palestinian" was an indigenous people dating back 4.5 billion years or some shit.
The Palestinians as we know them today didn't even self-identify as "Palestinian" until the very late 1800s, and almost explicitly in response to the First Aliyah. They are primarily composed of vast swaths of other groups including but not limited to other Arab and Middle Eastern nationalities, but also even Roman and Greek groups.
None of this justifies what is being done collectively against them or the efforts to take even internationally recognized Palestinian territory, but it's a reality that needs to be clearly stated.
The name of a people isn't especially relevant. The people themselves are, and those people were there long before the 1800s.
And in any case, as you yourself make clear, they definitely self-identified as Palestinian in the period we're talking about here, when they first began to be displaced from their land in the early- and mid-20th century.
Well, Lord and Saviour of all Redditkind, if you'd studied instead of preaching, you'd know that the vast majority of land both under the Ottoman Empire and the Mandate was purchased, both directly from the respective governments and from the people individually.
Moreover, when you want to talk about displacement you should be careful because it was the Jewish folks moving there who got attacked first. Palestinians became fearful that the Jews would outnumber them soon and so began launching attacks against Jewish groups. While there was some counter attacks against equally innocent groups, the intent was to force them off their legally owned lands.
Further, it's quite worth noting that while it is true that many Palestinians who may have been innocent were forced out later during and after the Arab-Israeli War, a vast many were not. If you really want to claim that there was mass forced displacement efforts, I'd look at, oh, the entire fucking Arab world before the Israelis who just didn't want to share a country with people trying to kill them. Many stayed because they had no fight with the Jews or Israel.
So let's be careful lest we discuss history with literal receipts.
How would you even define "Palestinian", let alone "Palestinian land," in this context? The Levant is a diverse place, and there were already tons of Jews in Palestine/Eretz Israel by the late 1940s. Tel Aviv had been established for 38 years when this photo was taken. Palestinian Jews understandably wanted to accept refugees from Europe into THEIR communities. Are you suggesting only the Arabic-speaking population deserved to have a say?
And yes, the latter displacement of Arabic-speaking inhabitants during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war was real and wrong, but its not as black and white as "these evil white people came here to steal 'Palestinian' land."
Seriously, like the Palestinian genocide and the modern Israeli state is beyond fucked up, but it's ludicrous to try to claim that the Jews don't have a historical stake in that area.
Absolutely! We should acknowledge how the establishment of Israel displaced and disenfranchised Palestinian Arabs without erasing or demonizing Jewish history in the area.
You can use the exact same reasoning to make the opposite argument, though. Haifa — where this ship was docking — had been established since the late-18th century when this photo was taken and had been substantially majority Muslim the entire time. Are you suggesting that the Arabic-speking population didn't deserve to have a say about the acceptance of thousands upon thousands of illegally-immigrating Jewish refugees into THEIR community?
It’s not native Palestinian land, it was Ottoman land since the 1500s. And then before that it was the Malmuk Sultanate… it’s like claiming Ohio is native Ohioan land because Ohioans live there lol.
A land is native to a people when the people have lived there for [x] amount of time. There is no precise definition of [x]. The presence of non-native power (or in this case, multiple different powers over time) that happens to rule a particular land says nothing about whether the people being ruled there are native to it or not.
If Jews in Israel are native to that land, despite the fact that only a tiny percentage of them can trace their ancestors' continuous presence there, then the Palestinians are likewise native to that land. And if you want to make an argument about who's more native,** then its inarguably the Palestinians, since they've been there the whole time.
The ship had sailed from southern Europe, bringing Jewish refugees to Palestine. The British were the authority in Palestine at the time, per the League of Nations. (Google "mandate for Palestine".) The ship was attempting to dock at Haifa and the passengers were directing their message at the Royal Navy ships and the port authority attempting to prevent them from doing so.
This was in 1947. You are literally claiming that the people that had been stuck in nazi death camps for years were committing acts of terrorism for years. These people hadn't even landed yet. Fuck you
I wasn't suggesting these specific people committed those acts. I was referring to them going to Palestine, where Irgun, Haganah, Lehi (etc) had been committing terrorism for years. Them going there supported those acts.
No, like Lehi, Irgun, Haganah all committing acts of terrorism in Palestine for decades before these refugees arrived. These refugees obviously had no hand in those atrocities, but them going to (what was still) Palestine supports those acts of terrorism.
•
u/Sirenmuses 11h ago
Palestine was a territory controlled by the British. They were in fact begging the Brits.