Who's right, Israel or Palestine?

[Rajaraja Chola]

my answer is: both Irael and Palestine has right.
more and more chinese people sympathize with the Palestinian
but if I must vote either Israel or Palestine, I vote Israel.

Lol Israel is pakistan's enemy

 

[RFS_Br]

In response to nirreich,

It's recorded history that Zionists in 1948 ethnically cleansed lands that had been inhabited by Palestinians for at least 1300 years.

After 1967, you took over the rest of Palestinian territory in a pre-emptive war against Egypt and Jordan, thus giving continuation to plans, in existence even before Israel's creation, of putting the whole of Palestine under Jewish control.

Occupation is written all over your history. You have to be very cynical to pretend otherwise. I can't really believe that it would occur to anyone, specially to anyone actually informed about the history of the conflict, that it is Israel who's in the right. In fact, I believe that any such impression can only survive in a very partial knowledge of the issue and exposition to the media's biased presentation of the conflict.

(I registered specifically to vote on this poll, only to discover that I still can't.)

 

[nirreich]

In response to nirreich,

It's recorded history that Zionists in 1948 ethnically cleansed lands that had been inhabited by Palestinians for at least 1300 years.

After 1967, you took over the rest of Palestinian territory in a pre-emptive war against Egypt and Jordan, thus giving continuation to plans, in existence even before Israel's creation, of putting the whole of Palestine under Jewish control.

Occupation is written all over your history. You have to be very cynical to pretend otherwise. I can't really believe that it would occur to anyone, specially to anyone actually informed about the history of the conflict, that it is Israel who's in the right. In fact, I believe that any such impression can only survive in a very partial knowledge of the issue and exposition to the media's biased presentation of the conflict.

(I registered specifically to vote on this poll, only to discover that I still can't.)

There is one small problem with you theory - it is a false one.

If is Israel is such a big occupier and has this master plan to take more and more land, then please explain how come Israel gave back more lands it occupied to the Arabs that its entire current territory? the Sinai Peninsula in 1979-1982, South Lebanon in 2000, All of Gaza in 2005, and half of the West Bank during the Oslo accord (1994-1999). Furthermore Israel was ready to completely withdraw from the Golan Hights for a peace agreement with Syria and offered more than 90% of the West Bank in return for a political settlement with the Palestinians.

Please explain how your fabricated theory still valid.

As for 1948 if there was an ethnic cleansing then how there are today 1.5 Palestinians living in Israel as citizens (in addition to the Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank)? As for 1967, should Israel apologise for not letting its enemies to destroy it, as they declared before the war erupted? Egypt violated the ceasefire agreement, removed the UN force, blocked maritime movement to Israel's south port, and mobilised its entire military to the Israeli border. Jordan opened fire on Israel and entered demilitarised areas in Jerusalem, and Syria was shelling Israel's villages and towns in the North. So, according to your logic when Israel defended itself it was wrong, it should have surrendered to the Arabs.

I cannot think of anything more ridiculous that someone can write as a criticism.

 

[Thomas]

MOD EDIT

Oh and yeah , what is Israel? Bunch of Europeans on Palestinian land? Palestine is right! In every sense of the word.

After the Romans uprooted most (but not all) of the Jews and dispersed them across the empire. Arab, North African, European, and Beduoins quickly took thier place. From the time the Romans crushed Israel till it was re-established once agian (which was not the first time in Israels history). No other country existed in it's place in between those two time periods.

From the Jewish stand point they simply returned to the country they were uprooted from by the Romans. Really though the conflict is religious in nature with land being the excuse. There never will be a permament peace between Muslims and Israel until God intervenes. Then we will see which side is right. So far It has been Israel winning every attempt to destroy it. Which makes one contemplate who's side God is on.

 

[twilight]

Palestine ... .

 

[RFS_Br]

nirreich,

You withdrew from the Sinai after a war in which Egypt fought decently and you're caught by surprise. You withdrew from South Lebanon -- a territory you captured in a war your former PM Menachem Begin called a "war of choice" -- after Hezbollah forced you to in what is widely considered the first clear defeat of Israel to an Arab force. You only signed the Oslo Accords after the first Palestinian Intifada -- it was a "concession" you had to make in order to preserve your national security, but before it, many of your political leaders (Golda Meir, for example) openly said they saw no need to ever withdraw from the occupied territories; and following the signing of the agreement, you continued to confiscate Palestinian property and in fact sped up settlement building. You left Gaza in 2005 because, as Israeli officials have openly said, you wanted to prevent the emergence of a unified Palestinian state in the whole of the occupied territories. And as for the Golan Heights, your former PM Ehud Olmert is on record saying that "the Golan Heights will remain in our hands forever". The deal under which you would withdraw from 90% of the West Bank still meant that you would have annexed major settlement blocs built over Palestinian land, including privately owned land, much of the water resources of the area, and also East Jerusalem, where Arab families are still losing their properties to those absurd absentee laws (laws that only apply to Arabs).

In other words, every time you withdrew from a territory, it was either because you were forced to -- Israelis only understand the language of force -- or because you calculated that, by withdrawing from a territory, you could keep a hold on others.

As for the ethnic cleansing, the fact that you couldn't remove all of the Palestinians from their lands doesn't mean there wasn't a systematic attempt to force as many of them as possible so as to assure a Jewish majority in Israel since its early days. 700,000 Palestinians were uprooted -- half of the Palestinian population in 1948 -- and they were prevented to return to their homes and lands and to reclaim their money and bank accounts even after the end of the 1948 war. This has been described by many Israeli historiasns like Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappé and Tom Segev, and many Israeli political and military leaders -- e.g., Ben Gurion and Moshe Dayan -- in statements and letters, strongly indicated that they recognized that. There's no denying that ethnic cleansing took place.

 

[RFS_Br]

Thomas,

No one took place of the Jews after they were uprooted by the Romans. Many studies suggest that Palestinians probably descend from populations who have lived there for thousands of years, dating their presence in the area back to pre-history. This is the conclusion of a genetics paper produced by geneticists at an Israeli university:

"According to historical records part, or perhaps the majority, of the Moslem Arabs in this country descended from local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century AD (Shaban 1971; Mc Graw Donner 1981). These local inhabitants, in turn, were descendants of the core population that had lived in the area for several centuries, some even since prehistorical times (Gil 1992). On the other hand, the ancestors of the great majority of present-day Jews lived outside this region for almost two millennia. Thus, our findings are in good agreement with historical evidence and suggest genetic continuity in both populations despite their long separation and the wide geographic dispersal of Jews." (Source: Nebel (2000), "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews.")

The Arab language and the Islamic religion spread by means of cultural diffusion, not population replacement.

As to your allegation that, for the Jews, settling in Palestine was about returning to their ancestral lands, it is debatable. Zionism was just a nationalist movement like many others in the XIX and XX century. For many Jews, it didn't make much of a difference where they would settle -- in Palestine or somewhere else -- as long as they had a place they could call their country. It's known that one of the first and most prominent Zionists, Theodor Herzl, even considered carving out a Jewish state on what is now Uganda.

Moreover, the "return" narrative conceals the fact that, even if Palestine had not been an independent country in recent history, that doesn't mean that many people lived there and owned homes and lands -- property to which they had a right but which they lost to Jewish migrants who violently forced themselves in the area.

The conflict can be perfectly explained just having the Palestinian loss of property in mind. No religion has to be evoked to understand the policies of each part of the conflict. All Palestinians -- Muslim, Christian and secular -- resent the Israeli occupation. Though many of the armed Palestinian resistance groups have nowadays an Islamic bent, up until the late 80s the fight was carried on mainly by left-wing nationalist groups wherein Palestinian Christians played a very prominent role. Same applies to Israelis -- though they are increasingly religious, their earliest leaders, Israel's founding fathers, were mostly secular socialists.

 

[Unbeliever]

Things are a lot more complicated than this.. International Relations are almost never black and white.. So this poll is nonsensical with just these 2 options..

 

[Developereo]

After the Romans uprooted most (but not all) of the Jews and dispersed them across the empire.
[...]
So far It has been Israel winning every attempt to destroy it. Which makes one contemplate who's side God is on.

Was God sleeping 2000 years ago, or is He sleeping now?

 

[nirreich]

nirreich,

You withdrew from the Sinai after a war in which Egypt fought decently and you're caught by surprise. You withdrew from South Lebanon -- a territory you captured in a war your former PM Menachem Begin called a "war of choice" -- after Hezbollah forced you to in what is widely considered the first clear defeat of Israel to an Arab force. You only signed the Oslo Accords after the first Palestinian Intifada -- it was a "concession" you had to make in order to preserve your national security, but before it, many of your political leaders (Golda Meir, for example) openly said they saw no need to ever withdraw from the occupied territories; and following the signing of the agreement, you continued to confiscate Palestinian property and in fact sped up settlement building. You left Gaza in 2005 because, as Israeli officials have openly said, you wanted to prevent the emergence of a unified Palestinian state in the whole of the occupied territories. And as for the Golan Heights, your former PM Ehud Olmert is on record saying that "the Golan Heights will remain in our hands forever". The deal under which you would withdraw from 90% of the West Bank still meant that you would have annexed major settlement blocs built over Palestinian land, including privately owned land, much of the water resources of the area, and also East Jerusalem, where Arab families are still losing their properties to those absurd absentee laws (laws that only apply to Arabs).

In other words, every time you withdrew from a territory, it was either because you were forced to -- Israelis only understand the language of force -- or because you calculated that, by withdrawing from a territory, you could keep a hold on others.

As for the ethnic cleansing, the fact that you couldn't remove all of the Palestinians from their lands doesn't mean there wasn't a systematic attempt to force as many of them as possible so as to assure a Jewish majority in Israel since its early days. 700,000 Palestinians were uprooted -- half of the Palestinian population in 1948 -- and they were prevented to return to their homes and lands and to reclaim their money and bank accounts even after the end of the 1948 war. This has been described by many Israeli historiasns like Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappé and Tom Segev, and many Israeli political and military leaders -- e.g., Ben Gurion and Moshe Dayan -- in statements and letters, strongly indicated that they recognized that. There's no denying that ethnic cleansing took place.

In all the cases I provided of Israeli withdrawal from territories it controlled, Israel did it without any serious external threat of force that can defeat Israel and take the land back, but as a result of internal calculations that got nothing to do with any master plan of annexations:

Israel withdraw from the entire Sinai Peninsula five years (!) after the 1973 War ended, and it ended with Israel Army on the western side of the Suez canal only 100km from Cairo. The fact that Israel was indeed caught by surprise only emphasise its military advantage - and the Arabs understood that too, finally, and since then avoided any more rounds of military conflicts. When Israel decided to withdraw from Sinai it was not because Egypt threatened to use force, on the contrary: because Egypt decided to give Israel what it wants- a full peace agreement. How is that settle with a master plan of occupation? Israel gave Egypt bigger territory than its own!

Contrary to the ill-beliefs in the Arab world about a defeat of Israel in Lebanon, the facts show no such thing. Hizbuallah did not gain any achievements during Israel's military presence in South Lebanon, could not conquer even the most tiny and remote outposts of the Israel Army and the Lebanese militia, and in average around 20 soldiers died every year Israel was in South Lebanon. A painful loss indeed to the Israeli public but hardly a catastrophic one. Israel withdrawal was a result of military and political strategy of defending our country from the border in order to achieve international recognition to our current border with Lebanon (and it was achieved), and because the limited territory the army stayed in Lebanon could not prevent the firing of rockets from grater distance. Israel withdrawal had nothing to do with the use of force or with a master plan of annexations.

As for Israel's readiness for a Palestinian self-government in Gaza and the West Bank it was several years after the first Intifada already evaporated. in 1993 the PLO was no threat to Israel: PLO was internationally isolated because of its support for Saddam in Iraq not only in the West but in the Arab world too. PLO had no funds, no recruits, no terror infrastructure to launch any armed campaign against Israel. Israel decided to legitimise PLO and give the Palestinians a self government because Israel simply does not want to control them and be responsible for millions of Palestinians. Here too, no use of force and no master plan of annexation.

As for the plan to withdraw from more than 90% of the territory, you do not deny it. Mind you, the plan included East Jerusalem as the Capital of the future Palestinian state. Israel indeed wanted to preserve its presence in several areas in the West Bank which are vital for its security. The Palestinian could have got 100% of the West Bank before 1967 when it was under Arab control but back then the Palestinians wanted it all and held this position until the late 1980's, so this is their problem. The Arab lost the 1967 War so they lost their opportunity. Israel will not withdraw again to the same borders which were made it vulnerable for constant attacks between 1948 and 1967. 90% is good enough. And the Gaza withdrawal was hardly to split the Palestinians, as they our help in their internal fightings.

Regarding the second part of your comment on the ethnic cleansing you forgot just tiny little thing which is the context - it was a total war and the Palestinians were the one who started it - they rejected to UN partition plan of 1947 (which gave them more land then they can dream to have today) and a day after the plan was announced they began with terror attacks on Jewish villages and towns. Their intentions were very clear - to destroy the Jewish community with violent means and their leader was the grand Mufti who was a General in the Nazi SS during WWII so you can imagine that their threats were taken quite seriously.

There was no plan of ethnic cleansing and as the Jews did not open the war of course they did not plan in advance to use it in order to conduct such thing. Most of the Palestinians fled without any help of the Jews in fear of the war and while listening to the calling of their own leader to leave in order not to be in the way of the Arab force who will liberate the country and very quickly they will be able to come back and enjoy the property the Jews left. There were several limited cases of intentional deportation of Palestinians by Israeli forces but there was no master plan and the evidence is the existence of Palestinian residence in Israel and in the West Bank/Gaza after 1967. BTW, there were around 500,000 Palestinians who fled their homes while Israel received 800,000 Jewish refugees from all around the Arab world who lost their property and bank account and were given no compensations. Maybe there was an ethnic cleansing in the Arab world from Jews?

 

[nirreich]

As to your allegation that, for the Jews, settling in Palestine was about returning to their ancestral lands, it is debatable. Zionism was just a nationalist movement like many others in the XIX and XX century. For many Jews, it didn't make much of a difference where they would settle -- in Palestine or somewhere else -- as long as they had a place they could call their country. It's known that one of the first and most prominent Zionists, Theodor Herzl, even considered carving out a Jewish state on what is now Uganda.

Moreover, the "return" narrative conceals the fact that, even if Palestine had not been an independent country in recent history, that doesn't mean that many people lived there and owned homes and lands -- property to which they had a right but which they lost to Jewish migrants who violently forced themselves in the area.

The Uganda proposal was rejected by the same Jews you say had no preference where their nation state be located. Apparently they insisted that their state will be in their historic homeland and not anywhere else - that is why they were called Zionists...

As for Palestine the only time it was independent was under Jewish sovereignty, there was never any Palestinian independent state or a Palestinian people which started to define themselves as such only in the 1920's! They though on themselves as Arabs and nothing more and most of the country was deserted - only 600,000 people lived in Palestine when the British received the mandate on it in 1920. and 20% were already Jewish, 90% of them living in this land before the creation of the Zionist movement (and Jerusalem had a Jewish majority).

So the Zionist movement did not see any problem to establish a Jewish state on a small part of the Middle East while giving the locals foll civil rights (which it did immediately after Israel's independence).

 

[Thomas]

Was God sleeping 2000 years ago, or is He sleeping now?

The Roman dispersion was not the first time They were uprooted for rebelling agianst God. God told them beforehand he would bring them back and he did each time. And I don't see him sleeping now since every attempt to invade and destroy Israel has been crushed.

 

[Harry_Thomason]

Question is on the level of: who was right in WWII, Nazis or allies? The very question is absurd and requires no answer.

 

[RFS_Br]

In all the cases I provided of Israeli withdrawal from territories it controlled, Israel did it without any serious external threat of force that can defeat Israel and take the land back, but as a result of internal calculations that got nothing to do with any master plan of annexations:

Bullshit. There's plenty of evidence -- including statements by your political leaders -- proving otherwise. I won't read or reply to the rest of your screed, if you won't recognize even basic facts.

Regarding the second part of your comment on the ethnic cleansing you forgot just tiny little thing which is the context - it was a total war and the Palestinians were the one who started it - they rejected to UN partition plan of 1947 (which gave them more land then they can dream to have today)

Massacres and dispossession of Palestinians affected mainly non-combattants and villages not involved in the fighting. And even if the "war" could explain the exodus, it doesn't explain why Palestinian refugees were impeded to return to their homes, to claim their lands and money, after the war ended and the UN passed resolutions demanding their return. Interestingly, you take great offense at the Palestinian rejection of a non-binding UNGA resolution passing the partition plan -- a resolution which put mostly Palestinian Arab land under Jewish sovereignty -- though you seem to be pretty indifferent to Israel's own flaunting of UN resolutions.

Anyway, if Palestinians and later on Arabs hadn't started the 1948 war, then Israel would. Zionists never truly accepted the 1948 borders.They pretended they did because that was the clever thing to do: they left it for Palestinians and Arabs to contest the partition, so later on they could garner international support in a future war against their opponents by shifting all of the blame for the conflict on them. (And that has worked, hasn't it? Even today, hasbarists say the war is to be blamed on Arabs alone.)

According to "The Iron Wall", a book by Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, prior to Israel's foundation and the subsequent war Zionist officials were already scheming with King Abdullah of Jordan to sabotage a future Palestinian state. The King was interested in creating a Great Jordan by taking lands from neighboring countries. The Zionists then promised him that, after gobbling up more Arab land following the "independence" war, they'd support his annexation of what'd be left of the proposed Palestinian state. In other words, a war in 1948 was inevitable, whether or not it was the Arabs who made the first move.

Zionist leaders saw in the partition plan only the first stage of their conquest of the whole of historical Palestine. Ben Gurion said in late 30s, "After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine".

And even if the Zionists were the good citizens they pretended to be, even if they had accepted the UN partition with no further attempt to expand their territory at the expense of Palestinians, it'd still be right for Palestinians to fight back against Israel's creation. Terrorism, confiscation of goods and land annexation have been part of the making of the state of Israel from the beginning. Said David Ben Gurion: "We must see the situation for what it is. On the security front, we are those attacked and who are on the defensive. But in the political field we are the attackers and the Arabs are those defending themselves. They are living in the country and own the land, the village. We live in the Diaspora and want only to immigrate [to Palestine] and gain possession of [lirkosh] from them".

Most of the Palestinians fled without any help of the Jews in fear of the war and while listening to the calling of their own leader to leave in order not to be in the way of the Arab force who will liberate the country and very quickly they will be able to come back and enjoy the property the Jews left.

Quoting IDF documents opened to public access in the 1980s, Israeli Jewish historian Benny Morris has found that 55% of Palestinians left under direct attacks of the Haganah, and a further 15% left under terrorist assaults by Zionist groups Irgun and Lehi. Some other Palestinians left because of direct expulsion orders by Jews and psychological warfare intended to frighten them away from their homes. Only a small minority of Palestinians fled on their own accord.

 

[DRaisinHerald]

Question is on the level of: who was right in WWII, Nazis or allies? The very question is absurd and requires no answer.

Just because the Jews suffered heavily during WW2 doesn't mean they get to steal lands, kill people while the rest of the world ignores it.