The reality is at some point you have to move past history to make the best decision now. It's neither moral nor practical to uproot or kill the people currently living in Israel because the original settlement was wrong or misguided.
Palastinian claims over Israel make as much sense as Taiwanese claims over mainland China (or PRC claims over Taiwan). And I say that as someone who is very against continued aggression from Israel and for recognition of a Palastinian state.
What about Israel regularly attacking the Syrian territory near its capital using Lebanese airspace without permission and allegedly using civilian aircraft to shield its warplanes from return fire? Yes, Israel and Syria are formally in a state of war, but so are Russia and Japan.
Iranian forces on the Syrian soil pose a threat to Israel? Sure. But they stay there with permission from the internationally recognized government (does not matter if you like it or not), so those strikes is a clear act of aggression against Syria and violation of its sovereignty.
And I haven't even touched the Golan Heights, continued occupation of which is clearly illegal under the international law. But who cares about the international law if it's your best buddy in the region, right? You may as well recognize its sovereignty over the territory with zero repercussions.
Indeed. No one in the right mind would suggest that the European settlers that colonized North America should go home. However, we very much expect them to treat the remaining Native Americans that they didn't exterminate as equals and also to recognize that a genocide took place.
Israel was founded in much the same way. In 1948, 80% of all Palestinians in what became Israel were driven into exile by Jewish forces. They were prevented from returning while Israel confiscated their property and handed it over to Jewish immigrants. "In Israel, only Jews have a right to return" Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion proclaimed.
To this date, Israel still doesn't allow the Palestinian refugees to return while granting every Jew in the world the privilege of settling in Israel. Israel has not even considered compensating the Palestinians that it ethnically cleansed and whose property it stole.
I think your misconception of the conflict is that it is "all in the past". It is not. 50% of all Palestinians live in exile, unable to visit their homeland. A large fraction of those live in refugee camps or are destitute and dependent on UNRWA for subsistence. Gaza is an open air prison and the underemployment rate is approaching 80%. In the West Bank, extremist Jewish settlers harass Palestinians daily and more and more settlements are being built. In Israel, Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens and explicitly condemned as a threat to the state by leading politicians.
I strongly disagree that we should just give up on stopping the Palestinian colonization. For example, one concrete thing that is absolutely politically attainable would be to completely cut the US funding sent to Israel (billions of dollars a year).
I do not think a colony that's less than 100 years old has to be taken "as a given".
a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country and occupied by settlers from that country. Which country is controlling and settling the Israel? It's not a colony you are thinking of, at best you can claim it's a part-invasion part-colony, but you are not. you are saying that its all a colony. so you are wrong.
> at best you can claim it's a part-invasion part-colony
I think that's a pretty apt description actually. You have to invade a place before you colonize it.
Dov Weissglass, senior advisor to prime minister Ariel Sharon
> Colonialism is where one country assumes political control over another, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance.
The Jews after WWII weren't a country. They were a group of refugees and holocaust survivors. They created a country for themselves in Israel since they had nowhere else to go. Comparing them to rich powerful nations like the British Empire, which took over other nations to gain even more wealth and power, is dishonest propaganda.
Per the definition, Israel is not a colony.
This is where this breaks down. Without support from Britain, France, and the United States the Palestinian majority would not have allowed the formation of Israel.
There are slight differences from traditional colonialism, as there are a few countries working together and the colonists aren't necessarily from those countries. But it still broadly fits that definition.
The British in fact actively fought against the formation of Israel, by forcibly preventing incoming Jewish immigration, and actively fighting against the Jewish defense groups that were to be the Jews' only defense against the Arabs who attacked them once the Brits left in 1948:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/british-restrictions-on...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939
The US enforced an arms embargo against Israel starting from 1948, and only became its ally after it won a major victory in 1967, proving it to be a valuable regional ally.
Still, the main point is that this isn't colonialism, because Israel isn't a colony of any other country or power.
Yes, while they were fine maintaining their empire they opposed a Jewish state. Sometime during or after the war their policy shifted as they would rather not give such prime land over to a group certain to be bitter over their very recent mistreatment. Better to support the colonization of outsiders and make them dependent on you militarily.
And as for the US, you ignore their role in stopping the 1948 war, their role in the Tripartite alliance, and Kennedy's beginning of the military alliance.
I'm not sure what actions by the US during the 1948 war you refer to. From wikipedia:
> This situation caused the United States to withdraw its support for the Partition plan, thus encouraging the Arab League to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could put an end to the plan for partition.
In other words, US policy actually encouraged the attack on Israel and Arab hopes that they could destroy Israel and subjugate the Jews.
The only way US was involved at any later point was as part of the UN efforts to establish a ceasefire, after the Jews successfully defended Israel against the Arab attack. In other words, after the Jews already won.
The US allied itself with Israel during the Kennedy administration, i.e. much much later, because Israel won the 1967 war.
Either way, your representation that Israel was established based on foreign powers is not supported by any facts.
As a side note, one of the most capable armed forces that attacked Israel in 1948 was the Arab Legion, a forced trained, organized, and armed by the British Empire, and commanded by British officers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Legion#1948_Arab%E2%80%93...
So much for that argument, then.
Before WWII, they wanted to maintain Mandatory Palestine. As the breakup of the Empire became obvious during the war, they changed their tune and supported Israel.
>The only way US was involved at any later point was as part of the UN efforts to establish a ceasefire,
Ignoring the large amount of US arms that ended up in Israel's hands, you act like US stepping in to end the war is a small thing. Prolonging the war would not benefit Israel, and guaranteeing their gains in the aftermath is what gave them the time they needed to truly colonize.
>much much later, because Israel won the 1967 war.
Kennedy was elected in 1960, and served under a term.
> a forced trained, organized, and armed by the British Empire, and commanded by British officers:
Obviously, as before that the region was a part of the British Empire.
Much of your claims that nobody supported Israel seemed to be based on their resistance to arm the nation. Immediately following WWII, the hope was to limit the ability of such nations to wage war, and guarantee them in case they are invaded. Plus, the west's constant worst fear was arming Israel only for the Kibbutz to take control.
So you're just going to keep repeating this claim, that is backed by zero evidence or facts, and is contradicted by established historical facts which I cited.
You claim that Britain decided to support Israel after WWII, which ended in 1945. Yet in 1948, the most powerful military force that attacked Israel was organized, trained, and armed by the British and led by acting British officers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Legion#1948_Arab%E2%80%93...
The rest of your claims are likewise false and counterfactual, and you presented no evidence supporting any of them.
None of your facts mention a time past 1942, except the existence of the Arab Legion which I addressed in my last post. As for evidence, the fact that Britain allowed the creation of Israel in their territory is about all you need.
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory... links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hametz
> British troops intervened to stop Operation Hametz, leading to a small battle with the Irgun. The intervention succeeded in preventing a Jewish takeover of Jaffa, while it failed to expel the Irgun from Menashiya due to stiff resistance. To put pressure on Ben-Gurion to rein in the Irgun, British planes flew over Tel Aviv and also bombed Haganah positions in Bat Yam. Eventually the British issued an ultimatum to Ben-Gurion, threatening to bomb Tel Aviv if he didn't stop the Irgun offensive. The next day, an agreement was reached in which Haganah fighters would replace the Irgun in Menashiya, and the Haganah pledged not to attack Jaffa until the end of the Mandate. British troops were allowed to reoccupy the police fort in Menashiya, but the town remained in Jewish hands.
So the Brits fought directly against Jewish defense organizations, engaged them in firefights, bombed their positions, bombed Jewish civilians, and threatened to bomb civilians in Tel-Aviv - Israel's effective capital and largest city.
All that happened in April-May 1948, just as the Brits were being forced out of Israel.
Yet I'm sure you'll keep claiming that Israel was founded with the help and support of the Brits, because you aren't here to debate facts but to promote an agenda.
The British were doing it for the benefit of British interests, which don't always align with Israeli interests.
The wikipedia pages I linked above are full of literally hundreds of examples of British forces acting against the Jewish residents trying to form their new state and defend themselves against Arab attacks. In many of these cases, British forces engaged the Jewish armed groups in direct combat, just like in Operation Hametz.
You and others are not debating honestly here. Your only goal is to spread counterfactual, false propaganda by any means at your disposal.
It was British Territory, and they allowed a UN resolution through creating the original dual state solution. The petition plan you mentioned earlier was impossible without them. Britain could have ended it before it even started.
>You and others are not debating honestly here. Your only goal is to spread counterfactual, false propaganda by any means at your disposal
Stop making shit up because someone disagrees with you. I have provided plenty of factual information, and anything that goes against your narrative you ignored and go back to claiming my argument only exists out of some desire to spread anti-Israel propaganda. Notice how France and the US have completely disappeared from the discussion.
Multiple times you've completely ignored what I've said about something, and immediately brought it up again in your next post. Like in this post, just because the British opposed Israeli expansion doesn't mean they were against Israel.
During a period where they guaranteed Israel's border with an agreement to intervene in any war. And beyond that, what about the 1956 war? This claim is just ridiculous, not wanting to arm Israel is separate from not making them dependent on the UK military
The UK opposed Israel's creation, armed its enemies, and its officers served in armies that actively attempted to crush the state, while its air force provided air support. If you somehow contest this, and claim that Israel and the UK were close allies despite everything linked to you in this discussion thus far, please provide evidence. It's pointless to continue this while you handwave away numerous and repeated historical references to actual military engagements where the two countries were on opposite sides, and provide no references of your own other than your own assertions.
The first time Israeli and UK forces even trained together was in 2019. The claim that the UK provided long-term military support from the date of Israel's founding is just totally specious.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Declaration_of_1950
> Impact:
> According to Gerald M. Steinberg, the "agreement did not prevent the Arab states from obtaining weapons through their alliance relationships with suppliers, but Israel was excluded.... Little foreign aid was provided by the United States, and Israeli military officials who sought to purchase weapons and ammunition in the United States were rebuffed."
Thus this agreement, that was aimed at stopping the Israeli-Arab arms race (which by itself is a neutral and not a pro-Israeli agenda), led in fact to Israel being blocked from purchasing weapons, while Arabs were still able to purchase them.
This is in fact yet another example of the major powers active in the area - United States, United Kingdom, and France - acting against Israel and its interests.
So I have to conclude you don't bother reading your own links, in hopes other won't as well.
That is the secondary goal of the agreement. The primary one is spelt out immediately
>The Tripartite Declaration of 1950... was a joint statement by the United States, United Kingdom, and France to guarantee the territorial status quo that had been determined by the 1949 Arab–Israeli Armistice Agreements.
I never said that the countries wanted to prop up the Israeli army, they didn't want it to exist.
Similarly, although the US now is closely aligned with Israel, it disavowed the partition plan prior to the Arab invasion.
The country that (ironically, given later alliances) gave the most direct military support to Israel in 1948 was the USSR under Stalin.
Source, please? The Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi did carry out bombings — as did many, many other groups ruled over by the British, not just Jewish ones, so why that's particularly "insane" seems hard to discern — but I don't believe any of the attacks were suicide bombings. Suicide bombings were first introduced by Hezbollah in the 1980s in Lebanon. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/suicide-terrorism
I'm not saying the indignation isn't understandable—of course it is. But users here need to use the site for its intended purpose, not for things that destroy its intended purpose.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26402301.
I oppose all espionage, especially things like blackmail. If that’s not dirty, I don’t know what is.
Thus, it's time to give up. Israel has won.
Besides, the dominant player here is only dominant because of other colonial powers, namely the US.
Antisemitism is such a tired strawman. Am I accused of sinophobia if I critique the CCP? Of course not. But critique of Israel is so often interpreted as 'antisemetic'.
Please think more carefully about using 'antisemitism'. Israeli power does not represent all Jews - and calling 'antisemitism' to deflect critique of it is just disrespectful to the lived experience of historically oppressed Jewish people everywhere.
Do you have concrete examples? I am getting tired as well of hearing this statement. Usually it's an answer to not much differentiated and thoughtless criticism. (Disclaimer: I'm from Germany and this discussion underwent unbelievable depths over here)
Either way, your subjective disagreement with my post is not cause for flagging, which is supposed to be reserved to objectionable content that violates basic rules against SPAM etc. Users are supposed to downvote posts they simply disagree with, not flag them. Nothing in my posts violates any rules, and their flagging is a clear example of abuse.
> The following is a list of United Nations resolutions concerning Israel. As of 2013, Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Since the creation of the Council in 2006, it has resolved almost more resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined. The 45 resolutions comprised almost half (45.9%) of all country-specific resolutions passed by the Council, not counting those under Agenda Item 10 (countries requiring technical assistance).
Are you seriously claiming that Israel has committed about the same amount of atrocities as the rest of the world combined?
Just one example from one country that is not Israel: an estimated 500k civilians have been killed as direct result of the Syrian regimes' atrocities over the past decade alone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war
How many Palestinian in total, including combatants, died in decades of conflicts with Israel?
Fewer than 10k according to the highest estimates.
You are welcome to keep believing that this is all fine, and there's no bias or Antisemitism here. This is certainly the convenient and politically expedient belief to hold.
You know you have no substantive response to the criticisms of Israel. The "actually your criticism of a government is antisemitism" deflection is not convincing to those of us who no longer want our tax dollars supporting the actions of a defacto apartheid state.
> It's abundantly clear that Israel is singled out for "special treatment"
No, what is abundantly clear is that Israel is a state that engages in supremacist tactics, land grabs, war crimes, and is essentially occupying vast tracts of stolen Palestinian land. Everyone knows it, but because of people like yourself who fling the accusation of "antisemitism" against anyone who dares question your neocon war machine, nobody can say it. There would be far more condemnations against Israel from nations all over the planet if it didn't have such disastrous consequences, politically, to do so.
Look at the tip of the iceberg for what happens when someone goes up against your feisty little nation: https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/diplomacy/article/2145304/jap...
They served the PM of Japan food out of a shoe. A tremendously offensive, targeted act of personal humiliation. Many such stories. Any attempt to push back on this ruins careers and lives.
Not a surprise that many of the people most vehemently against free speech are your countrymen - you have the most to lose, because if people can freely discuss things from the Balfour Declaration through the Suez Crisis, the USS Liberty, the first and second Gulf Wars, etc. with the positions and actions of your country accurately accounted, you look pretty bad. Much better to clamp down on discussion and call any serious dialogue on the topic Hate Speech so as to avoid having to answer difficult questions.
The defense always comes down to "if you don't agree with Israel's foreign policy, you're Anti-Semitic, and therefore a Neo-Nazi", and it's a weak and tired defense. It doesn't work when the people that are calling you out are diverse and have well-researched positions.
Much like America, your nation has sins to atone for, except I don't see any honest dialogue on the topic emerging. Perhaps you personally could learn how to be a voice for change instead of a partisan troll.
Uhm, it was served to everyone at the table. Hardly targeted.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/culture/japanese-pm-abe-se...
> “This was a stupid and insensitive decision,” a senior Israeli diplomat, who had previously served in Japan, told Yediot Aharonot. “There is nothing more despised in Japanese culture than shoes. Not only do they not enter their houses while wearing shoes, you will not find shoes in their offices either. Even the prime minister, ministers and members of parliament do not wear shoes to work... It is equivalent to serving a Jewish guest chocolates in a dish shaped like a pig.”
In one you criticizing a ruling party, in the other you are criticizing the only majority Jewish country in the world.
Your statement itself isn't anti-Semitic but highly ignorant of the key differences. I don't intend to change your views nor biases but I hope you are able to reflect on what you wrote.
So a bunch of foreign powers come in and take land off you and create a new nation state overnight and you’re supposed to just be chill!? Yeah - no shit they were attacked.
I’m not anti-Israel btw. Not in the slightest. I just find it funny that ppl act so shocked that - what was effectively an invasion - was not well received by the locals living in the region in the mid 20th century.
“But it’s their homeland...” Yeah I’d love to see how Americans would react if China/Russia came in overnight and carved out a new action state to give to Native Americans cause it was their homeland hundreds of years ago...
The borders of Lebanon were set by the French in 1920 as part of the Mandate of Syria and Lebanon. It was recognized as independent by the French in 1941, and the French Mandate more or less dissolved following the end of WWII.
The borders of Syria were similarly drawn up by the French in 1920 under the same Mandate. French troops would not evacuate the territory until 1946.
The territory of Jordan was drawn up by the British around 1915, and they are also the ones that created the distinction between the territories of Palestine and Transjordan. It gained a measure of independence in 1922, but remained under British Mandate until 1946, when it was granted independence with The Treaty of London.
In fact, of Israel's 4 immediate neighbors by land, Egypt is the only one to have existed as any kind of autonomously governed territory prior to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the assumption of responsibility by occupying European powers.
The entire region was basically re-drawn and carved up by foreign powers following the end of WWI pretty much by necessity, since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire left an enormous power vacuum. Far from being an anomaly, Israel's creation is actually pretty consistent with the area overall.
> carved out a new action state to give to Native Americans I rather like the idea that Native Americans could have their own country if they choose, as Jews do now, something better than reservations. China and Russia have nothing to do with it.
The local Jewish population was certainly instrumental as were Zionist groups in the UK and elsewhere. But you’re fooling yourself if you think great power diplomacy and the region’s colonial history weren’t also important factors.
I’d encourage you to look into the history of the British mandate, the Balfour Declaration, and the lead up to the 1947 Partition Plan/1948 War. It’s a fascinating story if nothing else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/british-restrictions-on...
To claim that the British were "a foreign power" that helped the budding nation of Israel is, simply put, the opposite of historical fact.
I’m not saying the formation of Israel was 100% the result of intentional British foreign policy. Foreign policy is messy and inconsistent. The various actors in the region were seeking different things at different times.
Yes the British were in some cases trying to disarm Jewish militants, but in many cases they were also the ones who had handed out the arms in the first place (eg. The Jewish Brigade).
I don’t see how you can dispute that this a messy, contested historical saga with many factors to consider.
I urge you to read more widely on this topic. If you’re so certain that your position is the correct one, you stand only to confirm your existing beliefs.
Not much, no. It was largely a symbolic act. Actual British policy remained hostile to the establishment of a Jewish state in Israel.
The fact is, that besides this exceptional, purely symbolic act, the British Empire as a foreign power did all it could to prevent the successful establishment of a Jewish nation in Israel.
> The Jewish Brigade
The Jewish Brigade was part of the British Army, a brigade of Jewish volunteers.
It is true that some individuals who served in that brigade ended up joining Israeli groups that eventually formed the IDF, but these were individual acts by individuals, and by no means an expression of a policy by the British Empire or any other foreign power.
> I urge you to read more widely on this topic.
I'm not sure well read you are on the topic, when your only example of a "foreign power" helping the nation of Israel in its inception is... the Jewish Brigade.
Did you know it was a brigade of individual volunteers within the British Army? If you did, I don't think you'd cite it as an example.
You didn't cite any other example, either.
> In September of 1936, Wingate was posted to Palestine as an intelligence officer with the British Mandate. His obsession with the Bible had a profound effect on his views during this posting, turning him into an ardent Zionist and supporter of the idea of a Jewish state.
So this is yet another example of individual actions based on his personal convictions, not of the British Empire acting at the state level.
Compare that to the British official support of other military and paramilitary groups, such as the Arab Legion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Legion
These examples shows substantial evidence for the British Empire itself formally supporting groups that _fought_ Israel. Indeed the Arab Legion was among the chief military forces to attack Israel in 1948:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bagot_Glubb
> During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Arab Legion was considered the strongest Arab army involved in the war.[3] Glubb led the Arab Legion across the River Jordan to occupy the West Bank (May 1948). Despite some negotiation and understanding between the Jewish Agency and King Abdullah, severe fighting took place in Kfar Etzion massacre (May 1948), Jerusalem and Latrun (May–July 1948).
John Bagot Glubb was a British officer in official capacity leading a force trained and commanded by other British officers to a fight against Israel.
> Wingate quickly conceived of a joint military unit, staffed by both colonial and local Jewish troops, to protect Jewish and British interests, and took the idea to Lieutenant-General Archibald Wavell, the commander of British forces in Palestine. Wavell, intrigued, granted Wingate his permission to set up such a unit. Wingate then pitched the unit to the Jewish Agency and directly to the Haganah (“the defense”), the pre-state Israeli military. The Agency, which originally opposed the idea, eventually had a change of heart, and in June of 1938, the Plugot Ha’Layla Ha’Meyuchadot, the Special Night Squads, were born.
And it sounds like even if it went against the letter of state policy, it certainly fulfilled the spirit of it, at least in other areas of colonial control:
> The SNS fulfilled a dual purpose that likely aided its establishment within a colonial administration opposed to the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine: Though it indeed fought against armed Arab insurgents who rose up in increasingly violent acts against British forces and against the Jewish yishuv (the settlement in Palestine), the unit’s stated purpose Wingate may have given to his superiors was to protect the oil pipelines of the Iraq Petroleum Company. The southern of two pipelines (the “TAPline”) which spanned Iraq to the Mediterranean ran for over 1,000 km from Mosul to Haifa, on the coast of British-controlled Palestine, and moved over 4 million tons of oil per year (between two lines) prior to the Second World War. This line was increasingly being bombed and sabotaged by Arab bands throughout the revolt, and as it ran through the Lower Galilee on its course to the sea, Wingate could easily patrol its length with the SNS from his base in Ein Harod.
> Wingate quickly conceived of a joint military unit, staffed by both colonial and local Jewish troops, to protect Jewish and British interests
The SNS were founded to "protect Jewish and British interests" which were attacked by the Arabs under the British Mandate. At no point did the British government start any group, or take any action, to aid the creation of Israel as a independent nation.
At most, you can claim that they sometimes tried to defend the Jews under their mandate from violent Arab attacks. Which makes sense, given that these Jews were under British mandate, supposed to be protected by the British, and massacres of Jews reflected poorly on the Brits.
Compare that to the official British government's actions in creating the nation of Jordan and founding the Arab Legion, and it's clearly much easier to argue that the British Empire helped create and support the nation of Jordan, while doing nothing for Israel, and in fact creating, training, and commanding one of the major military forces which attacked it after inception.
2) since the british did not opposed jewish state, why did they allow it to form?
3) what's your take on the right to return?
Jews lived in the area continuously for thousands of years before, so some Jews already lived in places like Jerusalem long before the mandate begun. Even modern Jewish immigration to Israel happened before the Mandate, which only begun in 1923.
The Brits tried to limit Jewish immigration into the territory of Israel. The Jews responded by organizing illegal immigration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah_Bet
Though generally the Brits were pretty effective in blocking these efforts, as soon as they left in May 15th 1948, large waves of Jewish immigrants (especially refugees) flowed into the newly-established Israel.
2) since the british did not opposed jewish state, why did they allow it to form?
It wasn't really their choice. The Brits had a mandate in Israel for a specific purpose. They tried to follow an agenda that suited them, and did not include helping the Jewish minority establish their own country, but instead aligned them with the Arab majority in the region - with the obvious goal of gaining and maintaining influence in the region by this choice.
The Jews understood that very clearly, and launched an insurgency campaign to rid themselves of the hostile and indifferent Brits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory...
This conflict soured relations between Israel and the UK for decades, arguably to this day.
The Jews accomplished their goal: the British mandate terminated and the Brits had to leave. However, the UK remained bitter towards the Jews and Israel, which reflected in its policy. The UK organized, armed, trained, and in some cases directly commanded Arab military forces that become major foes of Israel, notably the Arab Legion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War
It also abstained in the crucial vote that legitimized the ultimate creation of Israel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_...
3) what's your take on the right to return?
The "right of return" is a unique invention with no historical precedent. Ethnic groups got into conflicts since the dawn of humanity, and frequently one would displace the other. Nations won territories from each other in armed conflict.
There was never a "right of return" in any of these cases. Refugees are resettled in available locations.
The refugees in this case are deeply hostile to the nation of Israel and in particular to its Jewish population. That's why they became refugees in the first place.
The idea to try to simply resettle them among the Jews they hate has no precedence in human history. In Israel's case, it will lead to the Jews becoming (again) a persecuted minority, and end their independence. There's no reason to assume an Arab majority will treat the Jews any better than they treated them before 1948 and the decades of conflict that followed - and they already tried to destroy them in 1948.
The Middle East is also not a place where minorities are treated very kindly in general. Neither ethnic minorities, nor religious minorities - and the Jews are both.
TL;DR the "right of return" is an invention by the "social justice" crowd to promote a policy that sounds just and reasonable but is without precedent in human history, and is designed to make the Jews of Israel into a persecuted minority, subject to the same violent attacks they've been suffering for centuries - while stripping them of the protection of having their own state and military force.
I urge you to read more widely on this topic. If you're so certain that your position is the correct one, you stand only to confirm your existing beliefs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizrahi_Jews#Disparities_and_i...
The level of racism in Israel is unique among Western nations:
* 53% of Israelis say Arabs should be encouraged to leave. Only 51% think they deserve equal rights. 46% say that they would not want to live near Arabs [1]. * 52% of Israeli Jews thinks African migrants are "a cancer" [2]. * 96% of Israeli Jews would be uncomfortable with their child marrying a Muslim, 89% say this about a Christian [3] * 72% of all Israeli Jews thinks it is more important to keep Israel a Jewish majority than to keep Israel democratic [4].
[1] https://www.jpost.com/national-news/53-percent-of-israelis-s... [2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/most-israeli-jews-agree-africa... [3] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/04/religious-g... [4] https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/lists/ACRPS-PDFDocumentLibr...
> Trying to use these tensions as a wholesale argument against Israel is like claiming Sweden is an illegitimate country since it's going through social tensions and unrest due to immigration right now.
The tell-tale sign of a right-wing bigot is that they use the uninformed "what about Sweden!"-argument. The idea that immigration of brown-skinned people is a threat to their country because, apparently, and unknown to most Swedes, immigration has caused Sweden to collapse.
Israel is meant to be more like Japan, not like the US: A country for Jews.
Expecting what is essentially a nationalist country to simply accept other nationalities/religions as citizens is disrespectful.
You could make the same racist argument about Japan, but would you do that?
You've made like 10 comments in this thread. I'm not accusing you of anything. But before you accuse others of "propaganda", maybe take a look at yourself and see who's behaving somewhat suspiciously in this thread.
Yet you try to paint me as the suspicious one...
What "bunch of foreign powers", exactly?
Have a look at that Wikipedia article. No other "power" was fighting for Israel, as it was attacked by Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
This narrative of "invasion" and "stealing land" is entirely false and irrelevant to 1948. Iraq doesn't share a border with Israel, neither do Saudi Arabia or Yemen. Israel also didn't claim any territory from any of the others.
It was just tribal warfare, pure and simple. The Arabs didn't like the Jews, so they attacked them.
Folks like to assume that Israel was "helped" by various "foreign powers", notably the US. The reality? Not only did the US not help, but Israel was under a US arms embargo since its inception in 1948. The alliance between the US and Israel only started when Israel decisively won the 1967 war, because at that point the US figured it was in its best interest to ally with Israel.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I’m not anti-Israel. Im saying that ppl shouldn’t be shocked that there was a hostile response by neighboring Arab nations when Jewish ppl asserted their claim to a new state in the region.
Basically what I did a terrible job of trying to get at is - that Israel isn’t special. Try create a new state anywhere and ppl around that area will get mad, doubly so if your beliefs don’t align.
That promise meant next to nothing. The British actually tried to confiscate all the weapons held by the Jewish population before leaving Israel. They fully expected (and arguably, intended and hoped) that the Jews would lose to the Arabs in the ensuing war.
> Im saying that ppl shouldn’t be shocked
I think people "shouldn't be shocked" by the 1948 attack, and the many ensuing attacks, because the Middle East is a tribal region, has been such for centuries, and the Jews are a minority there. The Middle East has been an arena of ethnic and religious conflict for over 2,000 years, after all.
Of course. That's what happens when you unilaterally found a country on someone's else historic homeland and start an apartheid state.
> Right, all these Jews in Israel are using "many dirty tricks". Thanks for demonstrating, once again, that biased attacks against Israel are heavily laced with Antisemitism.
Ah yes, the antisemitism card. Obviously.
The standards you're raising are arbitrary and can apply to all of the other countries that were drawn up after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Many forcibly expelled their Jewish population, while Israel at least offered all residents first-class citizenship. It's tragic that Pan-Arab Nationalist neighbors convinced so many to reject and rebel, and then offered no aid after.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
It's been a colonization project since inception and it continues to this day. Antisemitism is not an excuse to colonize others and commit human rights violations.
From some point on (I'm betting on the second part of the 1990s, after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin) parts of the Israeli establishment decided that it's more worth it to double-down on the "existential threat" discourse because it was good for business instead of really wanting a way out for everyone involved (including the Palestinians), and here we are almost 30 years after the Oslo accords, no end in sight for the tragedy that happens to the Palestinian people, to say nothing of the Israeli citizens that have to live in a constant state of war.
In 2006, Hezbollah fired rockets and missiles at Israeli population centers. Hamas in Gaza has fired rockets at Israeli civilians literally every year since 2001:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_...
Top Iranian officials are constantly going on-record about their intention to destroy Israel:
https://apnews.com/article/a033042303545d9ef783a95222d51b83
Iran is a nation with over x7 the population of Israel, which is also trying to develop nuclear weapons.
It's very easy to dismiss existential concerns when you live in Europe that has been one of the most peaceful regions on Earth for the past 30 years. Try doing that as an Israeli civilian in a bomb shelter, hearing Hezbollah/Hamas rockets explode in your city. That's the reality for millions of Israeli civilians today.
Transnistria, Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine. Not really peaceful.
> Try doing that as an Israeli civilian in a bomb shelter, hearing Hezbollah/Hamas rockets explode in your city.
As an Israeli civilian I say: if you hear rockets explode you chose a wrong city to live at.
You have to understand that Gaza is kind of concentration camp and significant portion of Gaza population are arabs forcefully displaced from villages in Gaza-Ashdod-BeerSheba triangle. Do you expect them to just agree with "facts on the ground" and do nothing?
If it's acceptable for them, who am I to judge?
Election after election they vote for the party (Likud) that does consider Hamas a viable partner, transfers them hundreds of millions USD in cash and refuses to support any alternative government in Gaza.
Your comment revealed the complete breakdown of these necessary elements.
As someone who has enormous sympathy for the suffering of the Jewish people, and Israel as a response to that, I do hope that there are very few of you in Israel.
Otherwise, Israel will disintegrate, and you will discover that when you demonstrate smug selfish indifference to rockets hitting your fellow citizens, those same rockets will eventually hit you too.
You do understand, that Israel was established by people, who didn't suffer in Holocaust, but still demanded retribution from Arabs, who weren't responsible for Holocaust, right?
A lot of Holocaust survivors were afraid to admit it until 90-ties for the reason they were considered sub-humans by fellow Israelis.
> sense of common identity
Please, be kind and explain to me, what common identity can be between me, secular son of Ashkenazi Jew, and minister Deri, Moroccan Arab of Jewish religion, who considers my father as good as dead since he married my non-jewish mother?
The US is home to 350,000,000 people. If you gather the craziest of these in one small place, you'll have enough force to storm a (poorly defended) Capitol.
The US always had various fringe, a-social and anti-social groups. Still, Americans do largely share a sense of identity, especially against a common external threat. To judge by some of the comments here, perhaps to a greater extent than Israeli society currently does.
"In the fighting, 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, were killed while on the Israeli side 67 soldiers and six civilians were killed." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56249927
"It is among just four countries that have never joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a landmark international accord meant to stop the spread of nuclear arms." https://apnews.com/article/secret-israel-nuclear-constructio...
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/1/15/israel-evicting-pal...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-intelli...
Did Israel use white phosphorus on civilian targets in gaza?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2009/01/israel-used-w...
Doesn't seem "outright false" to me.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus_munitions
Key quote:
The Chemical Weapons Convention, sometimes invoked in discussions of WP usage, is meant to prohibit weapons that are "dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare" (Article II, Definitions, 9, "Purposes not Prohibited" c.). The convention defines a "toxic chemical" as a substance "which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals" (CWC, II). An annex lists chemicals that are restricted under the convention, and WP is not listed in the Schedules of chemical weapons or precursors.
The fact that an American intelligence analyst once during the Gulf War miscategorized WP as a "chemical weapon" when Saddam Hussein used it doesn't change its listing under international law.
So, yes, the claim is false.
> No it's not forbidden by the CWC if it is used within the context of a military application that does not require or does not intend to use the toxic properties of white phosphorus. White phosphorus is normally used to produce smoke, to camouflage movement.
> If that is the purpose for which the white phosphorus is used, then that is considered under the convention legitimate use.
> If on the other hand the toxic properties of white phosphorus are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, that, of course, is prohibited, because the way the convention is structured or applied, any chemicals used against humans or animals that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical are considered chemical weapons.
~ Peter Kaiser, spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
Dropping white phosphorus during the daytime (when the illumination features of WP aren't needed) on a school in a dense urban environment is pretty clearly the case where it's considered to be a chemical weapon.
The annex lists chemicals understood to be chemical weapons under the convention, but it doesn't purport to be a complete list, only a set of some examples.
Also, even Amnesty International mentions that the purpose wasn't "illumination" — which would be ridiculous — the purpose was camouflage (which is apparently a typical use case).
Camouflage isn't a valid use of chemical weapons on a dense population when the arguments are taken as a whole. Even Mustard Gas works as a camouflage, it'd mean the whole convention is pretty much unenforceable.
Edit: the entire Gaza War started with Hamas firing rockets packed with incendiary chemicals into dense Israeli urban environments. I would say many things about Hamas, but I would not say that Hamas has used banned chemical weapons against Israel. I suppose if you believe Hamas has used banned chemical weapons against Israelis, you may certainly believe Israel has done the same. But I think your definition of chemical weapons is significantly broader than international law. AFAIK neither side has done this.
Here's a better complete overview of the topic: https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/03/25/rain-fire/israels-unla...
Edit in response to your edit: It's not the incindiary part of WP that's an issue, it's the chemical toxicity to humans and animals. Hamas has not used anything approaching chemical weapons by any definition against Israel, despite your attempt to deflect.
Hamas rockets have in fact been filled with white phosphorus, literally exactly the same substance you're talking about, and fired at Israeli cities, intentionally, in attempts to kill Israeli civilians. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_o...
I assume you've been misinformed, or only presented with information from a specific side. But literally both Hamas and Israel have used white phosphorous. That's not a matter of debate, it's just a fact.
International law doesn't consider WP a chemical weapon, which is why no one claims Hamas has used chemical weapons against Israel. It's also why your claim that Israel used chemical weapons against Hamas is incorrect.
One of the citations from that line on the wiki page has
> Haim Yelin, head of the Eshkol Regional Council, added: "Everyone criticized Israel for the weapons it's been using, but we must realize that the other side is using illegal weapons."
So, yes, people including Israelis claim that the use of WP is a chemical weapon and illegal.
You get how taking unexploded munitions and sending them back over is a different thing than using them originally in the first place, no?
I admit to being a bit suspicious that this quote claims anything about "chemical weapons." What the international community has criticized Hamas for, as per the wiki page, is indiscriminately firing rockets at civilian areas — which is illegal. They used white phosphorus in the rockets as well, but even prior to that, as per the wiki page they were filling rockets with TNT and explosive fertilizers, which use their chemical properties (of explosion) to kill people too. So if chemical properties of lighting on fire count as "chemical weapons" (they don't though), I think the chemical properties of TNT would suffice as well.
As per numerous [1] articles [2] and sources [3] the international community does not even consider Israel to have ever revealed owning chemical weapons (although it is suspected that they do); if white phosphorus was considered a chemical weapon, there would be no question: Israel has publicly used it, and publicly admitted to using and owning it [4]. Your claim is just incorrect.
Edit: even the Human Rights Watch article you linked disagrees with you! It criticizes Israel's use of white phosphorous because it violates international law on indiscriminate weapons use — the same laws Hamas broke with its rocket attacks — and specifically says that white phosphorus is not considered a chemical weapon. Quote:
White phosphorus is not considered a chemical weapon and is not banned per se. But like all weapons its use is restricted by the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law: it must be used in a manner that adequately distinguishes between combatants and civilians, and it may never target the latter.
I think this is the end of the discussion. Even the sources you have tried to provide contradict your claim that Israel used "chemical weapons" on Gazans.
1:https://theconversation.com/is-it-time-for-israel-to-reveal-...
2: https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/10/exclusive-does-israel-h...
3: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_weapons_of_mass_d...
You and others are obsessively focused on any collateral damage caused by Israel which is trying to defend its citizens against deliberate rocket attacks launched by terrorists from civilian population. Meanwhile, you ignore far more egregious violations by the enemies of Israel, like Syria.
You use hyperbolic and unjustified language to condemn Israel for using weapons nobody considers "chemical weapons".
This is bias, pure and simple. Some of you have been brainwashed to obsessively hate Israel. Others were Antisemitic to begin with. Either way, you are now prejudiced.
~ Peter Kaiser, spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
Yes, people consider WP a chemical weapon. It's been cited several times from several different sources from authorities on the matter.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-intelli...
I also condemn in the strongest terms the US's use of WP in urban areas which I also consider a war crime (and several others do as well).
As far as Syria or any other, why do you think I accept their chemical weapon use? But just because someone else is using chemical weapons doesn't give Israel a pass.
Israel was attacked again in 1973, 1991, 2006. They suffer regular rocket and terror attacks to this day.
It's also hard to blame all aggression in the region on the Israeli (Jews) when we recall that they were attacked by all neighboring nations as soon as they tried to find refuge in Israel, before there was any history of hostility.
Simply put: Israel's neighbors targeted it for destruction from day 0.
Carving a piece of land pretty much unilaterally, against the wills of those living there, is already an act of hostility.
In any case most of the rest of the region was carved up by the occupying European powers in much the same way, including the creation of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palesti...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_...
Frankly I've been arguing this for a long time and it's getting more and more difficult as the political center withers.
There are limits even for those of us with family over there who are deeply committed. It's important for Israelis to wake up.
I'm sure you know this but Israel was there long before Palestine existed; Israel was colonised by Islamists in the middle ages, it's the Palestinians that are the invaders.