Last edited Mon Dec 25, 2023, 07:00 PM - Edit history (1)

For Zionism itself was taking over a land that, before the Zionists came along starting in the late 1800s, was largely if not totally in Palestinian hands. It is similar to the concept of “Manifest Destiny”, which also relegated a people to just portions of a land that once belonged to all of them

that did not belong to anyone.

It was pretty much empty.

Arabs started arriving with the British Mandate

Do it for the benefit of the Russian/Kremlin propaganda machine. Many here will remember the international controversy they stirred up about a year ago when they claimed Ukraine was placing civilians in harms way. All a bunch of BS. The Ukraine war and the Israeli war are two parts of the same picture, as Russia has espoused strong support for hamas. I truly believe Amnesty has chosen sides and/or is bought off by the Kremlin. I will never put any faith in any Amnesty political stance. The organization has some serious soul searching and/or house cleaning to do.

What a world.

Saying that Israel stole the land is tantamount to saying Israel does not have a right to exist. This was the justification by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi, and Jordan to assail the tiny state in 48, 56, 67, and 73. Included in all peace deals with Israel are the words, “Israel has a right to exist”.

We can relitigate history all we want, but the world must face the reality that ISRAEL IS NOT FOING ANYWHERE.

the original Palestinian mandate gave 3/4 of the previously controlled Ottoman Empire land to create Transjordan. The remaining bit was given to the UN by Britain to create both a Jewish and a Palestinian state. The split offered by the UN in 1947 gave 55% of the land to Israel, but 75% of that land was the Negev desert, where no one lived.

Israel accepted their partition, just as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Transjordan accepted their partitions. The only group that did not accept the partition plan are now known as Palestinians, but not so at the time. As Golda Meir states in an interview (can find on you tube), all people east and west of the Jordan were Palestinians - the whole region of the original British mandate.

The population of Arabs in what is now Israel increased by 500,000 between 1918-1947, as did the Jewish population, as Jews were creating arable land out of marshland to the north and desert to the south. Jewish ingenuity and technology attracted much of this migration.

Jews did not steal anything. The UN partitioned the land, the Jews said yes. The Arabs attacked, the Jews took more to be less vulnerable to future attacks. Most of the 700,000 Arabs of the Nakba fled because a war was going on in their homes - getting bombed by Syria and Egypt and Iraq and Lebanon and Jordan. They thought they’d be able to come back once Israel was destroyed. They were wrong.

So, the surrounding Arab nations were reluctant to take in the refugees, keeping them to stay in Israel, Gaza and West Bank so they’d be in play for future attempts to destroy Israel. Those that stayed in Israel, now 2,000,000 strong, live in relative equality side by side with Jews in Israel. Those that are in Gaza and the West Bank have turned the narrative to turn world public opinion against Israel and Jews by engaging in terror attacks in Israel and around the world since 1967 - hijacking of airplanes, suicide bombings, etc. - which coincides with Israel wresting control of Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan from Syria, where neighboring armies had previously staged their attacks from.

I could go on and on about how 1,000,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed from the surrounding 22 Arab nations between 1948-1967, as well as masses being ethnically cleansed by Assyrians, Romans, Arabs from the region in the past, as well as being ethnically cleansed from Europe in WW2 - 6 million exterminated and another 6 million fleeing from 1880 onward.

Look at a map of the Arab Muslim population in the Middle East compared with the Jewish population and realize that what people are saying is they want to take the 0.1 percent of the land controlled by Jews and make that into another failed Arab autocracy.

Why don’t you make an argument for me in support of the “Palestinians” taking over this land from the Jews and tell me where the Jews should go.

"Saying that Israel stole the land is tantamount to saying Israel does not have a right to exist". No it isn't. I live in the US on land that was stolen from indigenous people. Acknowledging a crime doesn't mean that the thieves and/or country that stole necessarily no longer have a right to exist.

"Jews did not steal anything". This is not the case. As well as dispossessing Palestinians, there are indications that the Zionists had disregard for human rights--from Amnesty International's Report, "Israel's apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/ ) ":

"Until 1948, the total land purchased by Jewish individuals and institutions in mandate Palestine amounted
to about 1.6 million dunams (160,000 hectares), constituting around 6.5% of its total area.475 Palestinians
owned about 90% of the privately owned land in the territory.476 At that time, Jews comprised around 30%
of the population and Palestinians around 70%. Within the relatively short period of just over 70 years, a
deliberate Israeli state policy has reversed this situation, often using brutal means, to ensure Jewish Israeli
control over resources.

"Since 1948 the Israeli state has enforced massive and cruel land seizures to dispossess and exclude
Palestinians from their land and homes. Although Palestinians in Israel and the OPT are subjected to
different legal and administrative regimes, Israel has used similar land expropriation measures across all
territorial domains under the Judaization policy. This seeks to maximize Jewish control over land while
effectively restricting Palestinians to living in separate, densely populated enclaves. It does not completely
block Palestinian citizens of Israel from moving to predominantly Jewish localities, as demonstrated by
the fact that some mainly young Palestinians have done so, at least in recent years, but it has managed to
minimize their presence there. This policy has been continuously pursued in Israel since 1948 in areas of
strategic importance that include a significant Palestinian population such as the Galilee and the Negev/
Naqab, and has been extended to the OPT following Israel’s military occupation in 1967. Today, ongoing
Israeli efforts to coerce the transfer of Palestinians in the Negev/Naqab, East Jerusalem and Area C of the
West Bank under discriminatory planning and building regimes are the “new frontiers of dispossession” of
Palestinians, and the manifestation of the strategy of Judaization and territorial control.474 The land regime
established soon after Israel’s creation, which was never dismantled, remains a crucial tool in these efforts.

While much of the seizure of Palestinian land and property and the destruction of their villages inside Israel
occurred in the late 1940s and 1950s, massive and racially motivated dispossessions continued into the
1970s. The effects continue to severely impact Palestinians. They are still excluded from their families’ lands, prohibited from accessing and using land and property that belonged to them or their families in 1948,
discriminated against in access to resources, and effectively restricted to living in enclaves within the state.
Indeed, the definition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people and the commitment to Jewish settlement
of the land has precluded any possibility of Palestinians enjoying equality in access to land, property and
resources, with disastrous consequences for their enjoyment of social and economic rights. It has also
contributed to the isolation and exclusion of Palestinian citizens from Israeli society, marking them as a
group with perpetual lesser rights and with no right to claim access to lands and properties that have been
in their families for generations. In this way, it has segregated Palestinian citizens of Israel in a particularly
cruel manner. This process continues until today, and was most recently reaffirmed by the 2018 nation state
law (see section 5.1 “Intent to oppress and dominate the Palestinian people”), which reiterated that Israel
views “the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and shall act to encourage and promote its
establishment and strengthening.”

The Development Authority was responsible for “developing” the State of Israel through the use of
Palestinian property. It settled immigrant Jewish families in Palestinian refugees’ houses and made
land available to state authorities for the development of new Jewish localities. The 1950 Development
Authority Law authorized the Development Authority to own, sell, lease, build and renovate property,
and conduct property transactions only with the state, the JNF/KKL or a body that was authorized for
this purpose by the state, such as municipal authorities."

.....the Jewish Group has always produced thoughtful discussion. Stargazer's response to your commentary and historical analysis is also a lengthy and thorough explanation that represents not just another viewpoint, but perhaps some truth as seen from that viewpoint.
In any case, I would think that my original premise that "nothing about these issues is ever simple" continues to hold true, at least for me and I would hope, to some extant, for both of you.

their first example of antisemitism is......exclusion from country clubs?

even jobs and universities it was somewhat tolerable with hopes for changes as it was happening with women and minorities.

But, as the next paragraphs state:

But since the birth of Israel, and its baptism by fire when the Arab states and local Arabs tried to destroy it, anti-Zionism can only mean the destruction of Israel, which is home to some seven million Jews as well as two million Arabs and other minorities.

Some, willfully ignoring all relevant experience, say the Jews wouldn’t have to go anywhere if Israel ceased to be a state. The Jews could live on harmoniously amid the new Arab majority that would pour into “Palestine from the river to the sea.” But the Jews, once numerous throughout the region, were driven from every Arab country by their Muslim compatriots. The Palestinian Arabs, who harbor bitter grievances that none of those other Arab peoples even claimed, wouldn’t treat the Jews under their rule with greater tolerance. We saw the spirit of many of them on Oct. 7.

Another thought is that fleeing Israelis could settle in America or Europe. Eighty years ago, Jews attempting to escape the Holocaust found these doors sealed, and we have no evidence they would fare better today. Immigration is controversial in America, where we admit about one million people legally and give asylum to tens of thousands each year, while others sneak in. There’s little chance the U.S. would let in all at once seven million Jewish Israelis and have them jump the line ahead of the waiting Latin Americans, Africans and Asians.

There is no escaping the reality that the end of Israel could only mean the death of millions of its Jews. The fulfillment of anti-Zionism means nothing less than a second Holocaust.