PLAYER57832 wrote:Ray Rider wrote:There has never been a nation by the name of "Palestine." "Palestine" is a term used to describe an indefinite area of land which includes modern-day Israel.
This is technically true. There were, instead tribes and the tribes were structured in ways not exactly parallel to western countries. However, there were people who lived there and their land was taken because they were not white and Jewish.
Ray Rider wrote:Due to cultural ties and nationalistic sentiment combined with persecution, hundreds of thousands of Jews fled to Israel and for the same reasons hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled from the area. Israel absorbed the cost of their refugees and integrated them into society, while neighboring Arab nations forced many of the Arab refugees to remain in camps, perpetuating the problem.
Hundreds and thousands of Jews fled to Israel because of the Holocaust, but did that tragedy givet hem the right to steal Palestinien land? And to steal it even today?
I was actually talking about the estimated 900,000
Jews who fled Arab nations due to, as I said, cultural ties, nationalistic sentiment, and persecution. They were subsequently integrated into the nation without any aid from the UN.
I'm not sure what you and Tailgunner mean about Israel "stealing” the land. Ben-Gurion said that they had taken the land from the Arabs, and the Arabs viewed it as being stolen. You seem to be assuming a lot from a single statement. That land had been taken by the allies from the Ottomans in World War I and afterwards was handed over to the administration of the British until in 1947 when the UN partitioned it into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. When the Jews declared independence in 1948, Egypt, the newly-formed Arab state of Transjordan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Lebanon, and Syria invaded and were repulsed by the Israeli army of 60,000 troops (with only 19,000 fully armed and prepared for war).* Later on, Israel gained more land during the war of 1967 when it launched a full-scale assault in response to Egypt denying Israel access to the Suez (which would constitute an act of war, Israel had explicitly stated in 1957 and reiterated May of 1967); the signing of defense pacts between most of the Arab nations which was followed by amassing roughly 250,000 troops** on all sides of Israel; the daily threats by neighboring leaders and state-run media; and the escalating terrorist attacks against Israel (41 in 1966 and 37 already in the first four months of '67). Oh, and as a side note,
"Between 1967, when Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and 1987, when the first intifada erupted, those two territories were one of the fastest-growing economies on earth. GDP surged 30 percent a year for a decade, the Arab population nearly tripled, six new universities were launched, and Arab longevity jumped from 43 years to 74."
Btw, a little while back I read Michael B. Oren's Six Days of War and found it quite fascinating; I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Israeli view of the war. I have read many historical books, and this would rate near the top in terms of penmanship: he is excellent at expressing information and nitty-gritty details in a gripping, intriguing fashion. I would also be interested to read an Arab's view on the war, if someone here could recommend a good book.
Also, I am not saying that Israel's behavior of the Arabs has been impeccable. There have definitely been mistakes made; however judging from Israel's actions during its brief existence in modern history, I do believe that those were mistakes and not the norm. In contrast, it is easy to spot in neighboring nations numerous instances of ongoing barbaric practices such as genocide (Gadaffi), real segregation (especially against women), religious persecution, forced female genital mutilation, rampant corruption, punishments of stoning or chopping off hands, encouragement of known terrorist organizations, etc. Yes Israel has it's problems which should not be ignored, but while there has been condemnations of Israel for a range of issues, the world has been giving other much more serious instances of it a blind eye. A very obvious and almost laughable instance of this is the UN Human Rights Council which produces a nearly endless barrage of resolutions against Israel, while only expressing "deep concern" about the atrocities which were happening in Sudan.
It is an inverted moral calculus that tries to persuade the world to demonize one state that tries its civilized best to abide in a difficult time and place, and rides merrily by the examples and practices of dozens of states and leaderships that drop into brutality every day without a twinge of regret or a whisper of condemnation.
*Howard Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 629
**Chaim Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars, p. 149
