Liberal Democratic UnionBoard

Sjevre wrote:

This is a very pro-Israeli narrative. Jews and Palestinians lived together for a long time, not entirely completely, effortlessly.

Firstly, the results of the Balfour Declaration. Even before it, European Jews were already migrating to Palestine, but certainly not too substantially and certainly not too many riots. Here and there, but that is certainly not unusual. But.. thus the Balfour Declaration. This is a letter by British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour to a member of the Rotschild family, who had close ties with Chaïm Weizmann, the main-man in the search for a Jewish state. In that Balfour statement, Balfour gives a kind of indirect permission, or at least has been interpreted as such, for Jews to migrate to Palestine, a British Protectorate after WW1. This happens en masse. This migration got out of hand until that Peel or at least Peel Commission plan was put into plan. This divided Palestine in two. The Zionists said yes, what would you be like as a people? Finally our own country. Well, at least since they had been looking for it for so long. And then again in the holy land. In addition, the Arabs, or at least the Palestinians, said no. I understand their reasoning too. You live with Jews in the neighborhood for centuries, and in twenty years there is mass migration and they get their own country at the same time as you. Then there was a plan that was supposed to stop mass migration, to which the Zionists answered no. Which in turn is logically as well.

Seconly. Fast forward: The Nakba. And I will use Wikipedia for it, as it explains it quite good. It was the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Mandatory Palestine during the 1948 Palestine war through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society, culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. During the Nakba in 1948, approximately half of Palestine's predominantly Arab population, or around 750,000 people, were expelled from their homes or made to flee, at first by Zionist paramilitaries through various violent means, and after the establishment of the State of Israel, by the Israel Defense Forces. This occurred in the wake of dozens of massacres targeting Palestinian Arabs and the depopulation of 500 Arab-majority towns and villages, with many of these being either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jews and given new Hebrew names. By the end of the war, 78% of the total land area of the former Mandatory Palestine was controlled by Israel and at least 15,000 Palestinian Arabs had been killed.

This in turn led, albeit not directly, to the foundation of the PLO by Yassar Arafat, who is a known terrorist. I won't deny that. And with this PLO, we are still dealing today. And yes I know I have forgotten very important wars. These obviously contribute to the conflict.

Lastly, comparing the of Israeli settlers in the West Bank to Arab citizens of Israel is a false equivalence. While both groups are civilians, the settlers are living in territory that is internationally recognized as occupied Palestinian land and are often supported by the Israeli government in contravention of international law. Arab citizens of Israel, on the other hand, are living within the internationally recognized borders of the state and are entitled to full rights and protections under Israeli law, although discrimination and unequal treatment persist, and sometimes dominates. Yes, it is good to place the West Bank without supervision from Israel. They should certainly be supervised, but not by Israel. In addition, in my opinion, the Israel settlers are worse. If this were not the case you would not have called them settlers.

Vantier wrote:

First, if we are going back in time, then we shall go to the times when the Assyrian Empire conquered the Kingdom of Israel. The jews living in that "Holy Land", by the way, predate the arabs by over a millenium. The arabs were living in land stolen by the Assyrians, and ever since, Israel remained occupied by anti-semitic powers: from Rome, to the Umayyad Caliphate, to the Ottoman Empire. There were jews living there, but they faced discrimination, for living in lands that historically belonged to them, but were taken from them. The Balfour declaration finally meant that other powers, in this case the UK, accepted that Palestine was the national home for the Jewish people. Considering that the jews were victims of some heavy discrimination in Europe, the lands where they migrated to after being forcefully expelled from their homeland, and that the power controlling Palestine now recognized their right to live there, it isn't surprising that the jews opted to return. This became more intense after WW2, as guilt for ignoring the Holocaust and for having discriminated the Jewish people for so long made Britain attempt to create an independent Jewish state, where the people that had always been victims till that point could finally have a country of their own. Of course, there were already arab "settlers" living there, so Palestine wasn't just given to the jews. To keep things brief, the land was divided, and this division didn't please the arabs. The arabs then proceeded to declare war on the newly founded State of Israel. This was was extremely unbalanced, as Israel had to face all of its neighbors at the same time. When the war concluded, with the victory of Israel.
Now let's put this into perspective. After centuries of not having your own country, centuries of discrimination, and even a genocide, you get the chance to have a place to call home. Then the "natives" declare war on you because they refuse to accept a resolution by the U.N (which they deeply love nowadays, by the way), and declare an illegal war on Israel. Israel then has the chance to expand its borders in order to make the rather very densely-populated jewish population (and as such, more vulnerable to attacks with explosives and famines, as we've seen in Gaza) less crammed and giving them some land to breathe, at the expense of those who lost the war. Let's also remember that by this time, Palestine as an independent state didn't even exist. The land was owned by Egypt and Transjordan, later Jordan. So many arabs living in Israeli land would be very troublesome for their own internal stability, and obviously for population density, and that's without mentioning the eternal causus belli the arabs would have to "free the arabs in Israel". While deportations aren't my cup of tea, just like when Greece and Turkey exchanged population in the 1920's and when India and Pakistan did something similar after the Raj was divided, it was necessary to avoid further suffering for the arabs in Palestine and the Israeli jews. There were migrations from both sides, too, which is often forgotten. In Israel's eyes, the arabs could just move to Egypt or Jordan if they needed more land, but obviously, neither Jordan nor Egypt were interested in giving land to a foreign people. However, there was no way foe Israel to know this. And even if there was, can we really blame them for trying to stabilize their country?

I'm glad your recognize the PLO as a terrorist organization, which it was. Munich remembers that very well. Just to give an example that we westerners remember more vividly.

The difference between Israeli and arab settlers is that the latter are considered citizens, because Israel is a full democracy and, although it is not really secular, there is freedom of speech and worship. That's why arabs can enjoy Israeli citizenship, and why they aren't considered settlers: because they aren't alienated. Meanwhile, if the Israelis living in the West Bank didn't recieve any help and protection from their government, could you imagine what would happen to them? Do you think Fatah would integrate them and give them equal rights, freedom, etc? I find it hard to believe.
The difference is a matter of survival. The arabs who live in Israel can live in Israel, and they are protected too. In the West Bank, if Israelis didn't receive any help from their government, they would be in a very rough position. And if they were left alone, with the chance to regroup and organize their defenses freely, we would've had a two-front war during the October 7 attacks, or, throughout the years, more organized attacks and a much more hostile West Bank. For both jews and arabs. Especially considering that the west Bank has a much larger border with its neighbor Jordan and is closer to countries such as Syria, which would love to have a more organized ally in the West Bank to attack Israel from multiple fronts at the same time, like they did in 48.

Romanum et Britannia Minor wrote:

Err what? Who cares about this conflict.. Just make a hybrid Jewish-Arab state, call it Pale-stein.

Vantier wrote:

First, if we are going back in time, then we shall go to the times when the Assyrian Empire conquered the Kingdom of Israel. The jews living in that "Holy Land", by the way, predate the arabs by over a millenium. The arabs were living in land stolen by the Assyrians, and ever since, Israel remained occupied by anti-semitic powers: from Rome, to the Umayyad Caliphate, to the Ottoman Empire. There were jews living there, but they faced discrimination, for living in lands that historically belonged to them, but were taken from them. The Balfour declaration finally meant that other powers, in this case the UK, accepted that Palestine was the national home for the Jewish people. Considering that the jews were victims of some heavy discrimination in Europe, the lands where they migrated to after being forcefully expelled from their homeland, and that the power controlling Palestine now recognized their right to live there, it isn't surprising that the jews opted to return. This became more intense after WW2, as guilt for ignoring the Holocaust and for having discriminated the Jewish people for so long made Britain attempt to create an independent Jewish state, where the people that had always been victims till that point could finally have a country of their own. Of course, there were already arab "settlers" living there, so Palestine wasn't just given to the jews. To keep things brief, the land was divided, and this division didn't please the arabs. The arabs then proceeded to declare war on the newly founded State of Israel. This was was extremely unbalanced, as Israel had to face all of its neighbors at the same time. When the war concluded, with the victory of Israel.
Now let's put this into perspective. After centuries of not having your own country, centuries of discrimination, and even a genocide, you get the chance to have a place to call home. Then the "natives" declare war on you because they refuse to accept a resolution by the U.N (which they deeply love nowadays, by the way), and declare an illegal war on Israel. Israel then has the chance to expand its borders in order to make the rather very densely-populated jewish population (and as such, more vulnerable to attacks with explosives and famines, as we've seen in Gaza) less crammed and giving them some land to breathe, at the expense of those who lost the war. Let's also remember that by this time, Palestine as an independent state didn't even exist. The land was owned by Egypt and Transjordan, later Jordan. So many arabs living in Israeli land would be very troublesome for their own internal stability, and obviously for population density, and that's without mentioning the eternal causus belli the arabs would have to "free the arabs in Israel". While deportations aren't my cup of tea, just like when Greece and Turkey exchanged population in the 1920's and when India and Pakistan did something similar after the Raj was divided, it was necessary to avoid further suffering for the arabs in Palestine and the Israeli jews. There were migrations from both sides, too, which is often forgotten. In Israel's eyes, the arabs could just move to Egypt or Jordan if they needed more land, but obviously, neither Jordan nor Egypt were interested in giving land to a foreign people. However, there was no way foe Israel to know this. And even if there was, can we really blame them for trying to stabilize their country?

I'm glad your recognize the PLO as a terrorist organization, which it was. Munich remembers that very well. Just to give an example that we westerners remember more vividly.

The difference between Israeli and arab settlers is that the latter are considered citizens, because Israel is a full democracy and, although it is not really secular, there is freedom of speech and worship. That's why arabs can enjoy Israeli citizenship, and why they aren't considered settlers: because they aren't alienated. Meanwhile, if the Israelis living in the West Bank didn't recieve any help and protection from their government, could you imagine what would happen to them? Do you think Fatah would integrate them and give them equal rights, freedom, etc? I find it hard to believe.
The difference is a matter of survival. The arabs who live in Israel can live in Israel, and they are protected too. In the West Bank, if Israelis didn't receive any help from their government, they would be in a very rough position. And if they were left alone, with the chance to regroup and organize their defenses freely, we would've had a two-front war during the October 7 attacks, or, throughout the years, more organized attacks and a much more hostile West Bank. For both jews and arabs. Especially considering that the west Bank has a much larger border with its neighbor Jordan and is closer to countries such as Syria, which would love to have a more organized ally in the West Bank to attack Israel from multiple fronts at the same time, like they did in 48.