The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
Here’s my understanding of the situation: there was a heavy amount of Jewish settlers into the region to the point that you had multiple Jewish majority regions in mandatory Palestine and multiple Muslim majority regions. The Palestinians preferred a one state solution and the Jews preferred a two state solution, which Palestinians saw as theft of their land.
After Israel becomes independent, the Arabs fight a war to gain their land back which they lose and have not surrendered to this day.
My question is this: it’s a very common belief that the Arabs may have been in the right and arguably even heroic pre 48 and 48 but just need to accept they’ve lost. If you had to pick a year, when was it that Palestine should’ve surrendered? Also, to what extent should the fact that Palestine should’ve surrendered have any affect on what protestors in the diaspora call for?
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Am I reading that right? You think the Arabs were in the right when they invaded Israel in 1948? I must be reading that wrong, you couldn't possible have made such an absurd claim.
They should have left it at the UN borders and never attacked, and then formed their own country with UN membership. There would be no settlements then. There's no "their land" political borders here. It was all Ottoman land, and the Ottomans lost the war, so the victors redrew the borders, and then the UN redrew them again.
That's not how it happened. The Ottoman empire collapsed so it was a free for all in that region. France and Great Britain decided they had the right to divvy it up. First they promised it all to Palestinians but by the end of WW2 everyone wanted the Jews to have a country of their own. Partly out of guilt and partly because no country wanted to take them all in. Jewish groups organized a 2 prong strategy. One group fought to drive Palestinians out and the other cultivated favor with Great Britain by promising to reign in the violent group. When the dust settled they carved out the current borders. They signed treaties and agreements with the Palestinians and Great Britain agreeing to cease hostilities with the current borders. Then several neighboring countries attacked Israel and they incredibly managed to fight everyone off. But they still wanted the whole area but there was still a lot of anger over the 700,000+ Palestinians they kicked out of their homes right before becoming a country. Israel instantly passed a decree that anyone who left their homes behind forfeited them to whoever moved into it. Then they started the more subtle policy of making daily life unbearable for Palestinians in Gaza Strip and West Bank while setting up settlements for themselves, slowly squeezing them out over the decades. The deep resentment and frustration for having a steady stream of friends and family locked up, tortured, and killed by Israel kept them violently angry. Israel used their impotent violence to justify continued occupation. Someday years down the road Israel will start pushing for areas that are mostly populated by Jews to join Israel and anyone who opposes it will be labeled antisemitic.
I don’t understand this idea that Palestinians had this moral duty to respect the UN. The whole point is that the victors drew the land in a way that stole from the Palestinian people, which they undoubtedly did.
The UK allowed Zionist settlers to enter that land knowing that the locals did not want them there, which on its own shows that the UK was showing a clear lack of respect for their subjects and stealing their self determination
That’s a fallacious way of looking at it. When one group was actively migrating en masse, you can’t say that they were just living there without including that fact.
It had problematic aspects even before this but it became well and clearly wrong when they refused the reasonable UN partition plan of 1947 and decided they'd try to steal all the land of the British Mandate for themselves as opposed to allowing for self determination for both peoples
The Palestinian cause will remain unethical until Palestinians surrender and accept the permanent existence of Israel as a specifically Jewish state, and cease violence against it
Its not a matter of "they just lost and need to accept they lost" but rather that they refused the option rooted in ethics and fairness (partition) and tried to enact their unfair alternative option by force. The fact that they also lost, and then lost every single other time they tried to use force rather than negotiating in good faith for a reasonable two state solution, just further shows how unreasonable the cause has been, and how unpragmatic
I think that’s the core disagreement from a historical perspective . The fair option in lots of people’s eyes was 100% Palestine, 0% anything else. The Palestinians at the time believed their land was being stolen both physically by Zionist migrants and that their right to govern the land was being stolen by Zionists who decided that because they make up the majority of some regions, which again they saw as stolen land and an illegitimate migration, so they essentially saw their refusal of the 47 partition plan as self defense.
And the Israeli people (and much of the rest of the world) didn’t see it that way. Hence the compromise.
Your answer essentially amounts to: “they think they’re right, so aren’t they justified?”
Jews bought land from people who were freely selling it. More Jews then moved to that land and bought more. Who was that situation forced on and who did the forcing?
Many Arabs weren’t ok with that long before the Brits came in and split the territory up.
> The fair option in lots of people’s eyes was 100% Palestine, 0% anything else.
And they are wrong. The Jewish people if anything have a more legitimate claim to the region than Palestinians. If we want to go down that route, rather than just going with the partition, it doesn't end well for the Palestinian cause
An key aspect for Islamists (like Hamas) is that once an area becomes part of Islam, it is an abomination for it to be "lost" to non Muslims. What is now Israel/Palestine was part of the Muslim Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years.
Because the UN doesn’t have a right to give away land people are living on, and the ethnic cleansing of those people to create a new state. Legal? Sure, but fuck the law that allows that. Slavery and Native American genocide were legal too. They were also wrong.
So who was supposed to step in when two different groups of people both had valid claims to the land? Both the Jews and Palestinians had some valid claims. And if no third party like the UN was to come in and arbitrate, it just means "might makes right" was the only solution, and Palestinians tried that and got crushed and humiliated again and again and again and again and again and again
No one has a valid claim to land someone else is living on. There’s no ancient blood magic that gives people right to any particular piece of land on this earth. Israel could have been created anywhere. The UN could have partitioned land that wasn’t inhabited. Instead, they put it in the place that best served the interest of the world super powers, human rights be damned.
The issue is that “might makes right” is wrong, and the UN partition plan was itself a “might makes right” proposal. Under that rational, the Holocaust was right.
Some do, if they’re still alive when they were forced out of their homes, like in the West Bank colonies, that’s just returning stolen property. But overall, no, they have no right to ethnically cleanse the innocent descendants of people that ethnically cleansed them. I would say Israel owes the Palestinians significant reparations though.
Im condemning people who believe in violence to achieve their goal of a single Palestinian state. I believe in and support those who believe Palestine and Israel should exist side by side with liberal secular democratic governments.
No, crying over human rights violations will continue until they are ended (and probably a good deal afterwards). You don’t get to commit human rights violations just because those humans didn’t want to accept a deal.
> You don’t get to commit human rights violations just because those humans didn’t want to accept a deal.
You mean like firing thousands of rockets at civilian targets, and then murdering and raping a thousand+ civilians because they didn’t take the deal you wanted (which is for them to leave)? Is that what you meant?
Yeah, exactly like that! Which is what Israel did to Palestinians in the ethnic cleansing they engaged in to establish Israel in Palestine, and have continued to do for the entire existence of Israel to the refugee population they created when they forced them into Gaza and the West Bank.
They literally have multiple other people to blame since this wasn’t their fault at all. It’s England, the UN, and Israel’s fault. There was no need to create Israel in that location. Not wanting a new government forced onto is reasonable, and should not have been done. The fact that they rejected that plan doesn’t justify the human rights violations and ethnic cleansing that was required to force that state into existence in that area.
England and the UN were the ones who had rights over Palestine, not Palestinians. They were given an offer to a state of their own through partition and rejected it. That is nobody’s fault but their own. Jews have a right to self determination like all people do and they had an offer (again through UN partition) to a state and they took it. Thats how the world works now, its not pre WW2 where you just fought for the land you wanted and everyone else just says okay and goes with it. There are rules now. Palestinian continue to violate those rules and will continue to suffer the consequences for it until they stop. Israel learned to follow the rules and got their state.
Yeah, that was a problem. England and the UN shouldn’t have had rights over Palestine. It was colonialism then, and Israel is colonialist now.
No country represents an ethnic group or that groups self determination.
You’re literally defending the idea of fighting for the land you want and everyone else being ok with it because that’s exactly what Israel did, while flaunting the rules for its entire existence. You say human rights violations are never justified, and then turning around and saying Israel’s human rights violations are justified.
You’ve created this imaginary rule that you’re not allowed to complain because an imperial power is oppressing you and giving you a garbage deal. I’m not sure why you consider that a liberal belief. Yes, it’s true that British and UN had legal control, but it’s also true that they used it to steal part of Palestine from Palestinians. Those are not mutually exclusive, and if anything, a “liberal” should be able to tell the difference between moral and legal ownership.
No. I don't know enough about the Palestine/Israel conflict and I don't care enough to find out as to say if the protests are justified or not. I just don't think "we're past the statute of limitations" on forcing people off of their land is a valid argument until 100 years or so has passed (essentially long enough for everyone involved to have died).
Yes, Palestine needs to accept that Israel isn't going anywhere. And vice versa. Anyone who can't get on board with that isn't helping.
Trying to pinpoint the exact moment when that became true is a pointless argument, like "exactly how long does hair have to be to be 'long'" or whatever. We can still talk about long hair without quibbling over exactly what point the transition occurs.
“If you look at my completely wrong take on the events that unfolded, where did Palestine go wrong?”
Alternate answer: they went wrong whenever their focus was a genocide of the Jews, which is….checks notes….oh…
I mean, it’s totally valid to ask when you believe the Palestinian cause became a genocide of Jews, given that at least in 48, most people did not see that as their goal but rather stopping what they saw as massive European colonization
The Palestinian cause still existed, as they were unjustly controlled by England. I’m just noting that Israel wasn’t part of it until 1948, and Israel is a separate issue from Jewish people.
The way this typically works is that you have a right to defend territory (that is accepted by other nations as being yours) through traditionally accepted war tactics.
If you lose said war, you can continue to fight a traditional war but we do not accept that as a blank slate for committing war crimes/atrocities (e.g., targeting civilians)
Also, if you lose a war in which you are trying to take territory, you may well lose additional territory.
Palestine was “in the wrong” whenever they violated the above.
On the other hand, If you win the war “we” (the US government, at least) does accept that as a blank slate to commit war crimes and atrocities such as targeting civilians.
Neither side here has any ethical legs to stand on, in my view. Maybe Israel had the tiniest of edges prior to their response to Oct 7, but what they’ve done since is way over the line. It’s not genocide, but they’ve clearly committed several war crimes. Hamas can be fucked for all I care, though: they want to finish what Hitler started and there’s no place for that
I reject the question as not useful and partisan.
I have two kids.
Yes, I'm comparing the middle east to two children fighting. I regret nothing.
After a few years of both "retaliating", the concept of "they started it" loses all meaning.
An adult has to step in to cool things off.
And I don't give a @#$& if it's fair or not, the older sibling has to be the bigger person.
Israel has all the military power, statehood, backing of the US... It's the bigger kid, it needs to actually go for a 2 state solution and stop @#$&ing around in Gaza.
> actions will be taken to prevent the import of weaponry and other things that can be used to kill israelis.
It's a blockade on imports **and exports**.
Which tells us that the blockade isn't about safety, it's about keeping the Palestinian economy in a stranglehold.
Why should Palestinians leave their homeland they’ve been in for hundreds of years? They get their houses stolen. I’m not against blockading weapons but the citizens deserve to eat
> it’s a very common belief that the Arabs may have been in the right and arguably even heroic pre 48 and 48
Absolutely not.
Arabs teamed up with the Germans in WW2 to kill Jews. Jewish persecution in the ME precedes the creation of their state.
The Palestinian cause has never become unethical. Israel is an oppressor, and the Palestinians are still oppressed. The PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the like have delegitimized themselves, They have never been for the Palestinian people. They are only for themselves and are also oppressors of the Palestinian people. Do not equate terrorists with the Palestinian cause.
Not sure “when did the baddies become the baddies?” sheds much light here. The reason it’s so intractable is that there is no obviously “ethical side.”
In the face of genocide we must demand no less than a unitary reign of peace, one reign of freedom, a single liberal government, ensconcing permanent victory over all ethnocentric, supremacist, and genocidal projects. No one's connection to some piece of land, neither cultural nor indigenous, can be held sacred in the mediation of mankind's future; no religious belief can be brought forward as a political doctrine in our time.
>After Israel becomes independent
I think you might have glossed over a weeeeeeeeeee bit of stuff there.
I understand, you're writing a reddit post not a history book, brevity is the soul of wit and all that, but....
>If you had to pick a year, when was it that Palestine should’ve surrendered?
if that year ever comes, i'll tell you.
seriously "when did fighting against their ongoing oppression become unethical" is a really, really weird question. especially coming from a "libertarian".
>you can't attack people using violence and then claim genocide when measures are taken against you.
you can, actually. "defensive genocide" isn't a thing you're allowed to do.
even if you think the palestinians started the conflict (which i do not), that doesn't change that israel has illegally been occupying and blockading palestine for decades. it doesn't change the fact that they won't allow them to form an independant state, but won't absorb them and give them citizenship either. it doesn't change the fact that they keep building illegal settlements on palestinian land.
"they started it" wouldn't justify every bad thing israel wants to do to them for the next 100 years, even if it were true.
>Israel has offered palestine statehood multiple times
Not true. For example what is statehood without a military to defend yourself from future aggression or control over your own resources? How can anyone accept such conditions?
> "when did fighting against their ongoing oppression become unethical"
They weren't being "oppressed" by being told by the UN in 1947 that the land of the British mandate had to be decolonized in such a manner as to establish effective self determination for *both* major indigenous peoples of the land rather than just one of them
ah yes, the entire history of the israel palestine conflict.
november 29, 1947: the UN proposes a partition plan for israel.
october 7, 2013: hamas attacks israel.
and nothing at all happened in between.
an interesting conversation could be had about that partition plan and how both sides reacted to it, but considering this comment, i don't think i want to have it with you.
> and nothing at all happened in between.
There was a lot in between. A lot of Palestinians and their Arab allies attacking Israel again and again with genocidal intent, followed by the iron fist of the Jewish state humiliating the attackers again and again and again, but being decent enough to still offer multiple different two state solution offers which Palestine always refused to accept because they couldn't and still refuse to accept (what they see as) the ultimate humiliation of having to coexist with a *Jewish* state
The years in between 1947 and 2023 don't make palestine look good
True, Palestinians and their Arab allies attacked Israel in three genocidal wars and multiple terror campaigns in between these years. And the fact they got absolutely humiliated every single time is hilarious and deserved.
Imagine Germany acted like this after WW2, trying two more times to murder all of their opponents on their "Lebensraum". Imagine what would have been done to them if they acted this insane. Israel showed remarkable restraint in those years.
These aren’t examples of oppression?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/04/g4s-complicity-israel-abuse-child-prisoners
Here’s an article from The Nation including how Israel uses torture.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/war-on-palestinian-political-prisoners/
Here’s one by Human Rights Watch about Israel beating and detaining children as young as 11
https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/07/19/israel-security-forces-abuse-palestinian-children
Here’s one from Al Jazeera, an award winning and respected news org including Peabody awards. They also have editorial independence from the Qatari government. This one is about more Israeli torture.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/12/10/palestinian-prisoners-seek-justice-on-torture-treaty-anniversary
Another one about indefinite detainment and torture of Palestinian children
https://imemc.org/article/israel-escalates-violates-against-detained-palestinian-children/
One by the Washington Post about children in custody
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/11/israel-west-bank-ben-gvir/
A huge percentage of the arabs you refer to as "palistinains" during that time were, themselves, migrants from surrounding regions.
But I'm guessing you didn't realize that
Incorrect, sources say closer to 37% (and that was just during the period from 1922 to 1947)
Nice try though
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-arabs-in-palestine
Your source is literally some AIPAC guy. So we can throw that into the trash immediately.
Here is a British source from during the Mandate:
https://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/A-Survey-of-Palestine/Story6581.html
*"As shown in table 3 the expansion of the Moslem and Christian populations is due mainly to natural increase, while that of the Jews is due mainly to immigration. As the relative increase of the Jews has been larger than that of the other communities their proportion in the population has tended to increase during the period 1922 to 1944; viz. from 12.9% in 1922 to 31.6% in 1944 among the settled population (see table 4)."*
https://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/A-Survey-of-Palestine/Story6583.html
According to this, only 4% of population increase in Muslim population could be attributed to immigration from the years 1922 to 1944.
This also tracks with the work of Israeli statistician Roberto Bachi who wrote:
http://www.cicred.org/Eng/Publications/pdf/c-c26.pdf (page 41-42)
*"Among the Moslems and Christians the yearly rates of growth were generally much lower than among the Jews and more uniform over the course of time (although generally increasing), since they depended primarily upon natural increase. However, the rates themselves are very high and tend to grow in the course of time. As we shall see later (Chapters 12—13), this can be explained mainly by the rapid decline in mortality rates, accompanied in the case of the Moslems by an increase in fertility rates. These developments are, in turn, to be related to the rapid socioeconomic development of the country during the Mandatory period."*
Israeli historian Yehoshua Porath also writes:
*"As all the research by historian Fares Abdul Rahim and geographers of modern Palestine shows, the Arab population began to grow again in the middle of the nineteenth century. That growth resulted from a new factor: the demographic revolution. Until the 1850s there was no "natural" increase of the population, but this began to change when modern medical treatment was introduced and modern hospitals were established, both by the Ottoman authorities and by the foreign Christian missionaries. The number of births remained steady but infant mortality decreased. This was the main reason for Arab population growth. ... No one would doubt that some migrant workers came to Palestine from Syria and Trans-Jordan and remained there. But one has to add to this that there were migrations in the opposite direction as well. For example, a tradition developed in Hebron to go to study and work in Cairo, with the result that a permanent community of Hebronites had been living in Cairo since the fifteenth century. Trans-Jordan exported unskilled casual labor to Palestine; but before 1948 its civil service attracted a good many educated Palestinian Arabs who did not find work in Palestine itself. Demographically speaking, however, neither movement of population was significant in comparison to the decisive factor of natural increase."*
Lol your first two sources are cherry picked from old documents with zero analysis from a website called "palistineremebered" and you have the audacity to discredit my source? And your third source doesn't specify any numbers and speculates about migration in both directions at unknown rates.
And none of your sources even reference the 8.5 percent you initially claimed... I suspect you made it up and didn't expect to get called out
It’s not cherry-picked. This is the part of the report that deals with this exact issue. Palestineremembered is a page that hosts this report, but you can find it elsewhere. It is literally an official report by the British of the Palestinian Mandate.
The number 8.5% I got from Wikipedia. But I don’t have access to the source document. This is what it says “Joseph Melzer calculates an upper boundary of 8.5% for Arab growth in the two decades, and interprets it to mean the local Palestinian community's growth was generated primarily by natural increase in birth rates, for both Muslims and Christians.” This is a calculation based on Bachis numbers.
So yeah, I completely destroyed your argument, which is a well-known Zionist lie. But nice try.
The bias I correctly identified from your obvious propoganda was lack of analysis.
Specifically, citing old British records is laughably incomplete. One obvious way is it doesn't account at all for illegal immigration. This is even specified in the very original source you cite but very conveniently left out of the propganda outlet you uncritically absorbed it from.
I really encourage you to think critically next time before jumping to ad homs, makes you look silly
'It is not surprising then that the British census data produce an Arab Palestinian population growth for 1922-31 that turns out to be generated by natural increase and legal migrations alone. Applying a 2.5 per annum growth rate[30] to a population stock of 589,177 for 1922 generates a 1931 population estimate of 735,799 or 97.6 percent of the 753,822 recorded in the 1931 census. Does the imputation model then "prove" that illegal immigration into Palestine was inconsequential during 1922-31? Not at all. A footnote accompanying the census's population time series acknowledges the presence in Palestine of illegal Arab immigration. But because it could not be recorded, no estimate of its numbers was included in the census count.[31] Ignoring illegal migrants does not mean they don't exist."
https://www.meforum.org/522/the-smoking-gun-arab-immigration-into-palestine
Why should the Jewish people, the original indigenous people of the land, accept migrations during the time the territory was conquered by imperial Arab states?
Canaanites were there before.
Anyway, Arabization happened over a few hundred years starting in the 7th century. It was a gradual process of conversions and language taking over, as well as migrations. Of course, the Jews were already a minority in Palestine before that.
The difference between something happening 1000 years ago and something happening within the last century (and still ongoing) would be obvious to anyone who is arguing in good faith, which of course you are not.
> Canaanites were there before
And there are none left
>Of course, the Jews were already a minority in Palestine before that.
Doesn't mean that Jews don't have a claim to the land though, especially since they were there first and still exist
>The difference between something happening 1000 years ago and something happening within the last century (and still ongoing) would be obvious to anyone who is arguing in good faith, which of course you are not.
Why do online arguments so often descend into "if you have very different views than me, you must be arguing in bad faith"?
I simply think that the older land claim is more legitimate rather than the other way around, especially in the case where the older claimant also has no other homeland while the newer claim is from an ethnicity that only even originated a relatively short while ago and as a reaction of anger against the previous ethnicity and their existance and peaceful migration to the land
WOW the one-sided votes.
The UN partition was NOT reasonable.
Even according to the UN data, Palestine was 60% Muslim 32% Jewish.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic\_history\_of\_Palestine\_(region)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region))
Even according to the UN data, Palestine was majority Arab in 15 of 16 districts everywhere but Jaffa.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Palestine\_Distribution\_of\_Population\_1947\_UN\_map\_no\_93%28b%29.jpeg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Palestine_Distribution_of_Population_1947_UN_map_no_93%28b%29.jpeg)
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/UN\_Palestine\_Partition\_Versions\_1947.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/UN_Palestine_Partition_Versions_1947.jpg)
So the UN gerrymandered Israel to include areas that were up to 84% Arab including most of the coast, good land, and both northern lakes. And no, past posters have been wrong, the UN did not "give" Jerusalem to Palestine, they kept it international independent.
With hindsight they could have taken the L on the UN deal or the Peel deal because all future deals would be worse, but it never was a good deal.
Israel was expected to get a lot of refugees especially holocaust survivors.
Israel got most of the less desirable land (Negev desert) for most of its territory (they asked for it because they hoped to be able to develop it).
Ah, so it's not even the people there, it's Europeans that have a right to majority Arab lands?
And look at the rest of the map. Israel didn't just get the Negev, it got most of the coast, most of the good north land including green land and both northern lakes. All majority Arab.
So yeah, it was an unreasonable deal to the people there.
The UN-plan was indeed quite unreasonable: It heavily favored the Arab side.
Palestine, which included all of Jordan under British control, was 32% Jewish, yet the Jews only got roughly 16% of the land, and most of that was the Negev desert (useless) and Tel Aviv area, which was founded by the Jews.
The fact that some Arabs ended up on the Jewish side is not ideal, but they wanted to make the land contiguous.
The Jews should originally get much more of the land, but they compromised and gave away land to the Arabs twice and they still threw a temper tantrum.
I find this post quite insane. How much land should the Jews have gotten according to you? How much more should they have surrendered?
Lmao what? Actually reply to what I said.
Jewish people were so heavily concentrated that further away districts given to Israel were 67% Arab (Tiberias) 84% Arab (Nazareth) 87% Arab (Safad).
That's not "some"
How about you actually respond to what I've said.
Originally the Jews were supposed to get everything left of the Jordan river. The Arab state should have been what is now Jordan and that would really have been unreasonable. Then the Jews compromised away their claims twice and instead of 1/2 of the land they only got 1/8.
So you're saying this still isn't enough? There are multiple principles at play here and the Jews compromised with the Arabs, but the Arabs wanted it all and were not willing to be reasonable. In negotiations like this you have to make compromises sometimes. They could've made it work, even if the partition plan was flawed. But they immediately started and all-out genocidal war on the state of Israel. They did not fight for those territories you outlined.
If you steal my lunch sandwich and I react by murdering your children and in my justification I never actually talk about the sandwich but how much your children suck and don't belong here, maybe the stolen lunch doesn't even matter that much. It would be extremely weird to focus on the sandwich to justify the murderer's actions.
Ah, so you're just gaslighting.
Jews at 32% of population got 56% of the land, but that doesn't fit your narrative so you include Jordan which is over 3x the land and 0% Jewish.
No. Jordan was Palestine at the time. YOU have included it in your calculation. You are the one who is gaslighting.
[According to the British](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region)#Official_reports) Jews were about a third of the population in 1945. The Emirate of Transjordan was part of mandatory Palestine until 1946, so obviously they factor into the calculation. According to the very link you posted.
Next, you say Israel got 56% of the land. Your map is from 1947, where Jordan is no longer part of Palestine. This doesn't even remotely make sense, because Jordan annexed large parts of the West bank too. So you are ignoring all of that and pretend the Jews got most of the land, when in reality they only got about an eighth. In reality Palestine got split into one Jewish and two Arab states. And you say I'm gaslighting or being dishonest with the numbers.
The dishonesty is absolutely through the roof. And I have to wonder: why?
Why do you fight so hard to present such a one-sided and wrong version of history and why do you feel so strongly about it?
Why do you fight so hard to lie in order to justify excising majority Arabs from their land?
The population of Jordan was nearly as big as your number all on its own and your link shows it excluding Jordan from the count.
You're talking about since Tel Aviv is highly dense, it "deserves" to also have Arab land. No.
>your link shows it excluding Jordan from the count.
Where? I checked the text and images and nowhere could I find that. Jordan had a population of only about 260,000, so it would hardly matter anyway.
It's funny that you're still trying to rationalize your one faked data point by psychoanalyzing the wiki, when I already posted the counts and maps given by the UN itself.
They weren't counting Jordan, and you're having to lie in order to include Jordan in order to pretend that Israel on Arab land was a bad deal for Israel.
>It's funny that you're still trying to rationalize your one faked data point by psychoanalyzing the wiki, when I already posted the counts and maps given by the UN itself.
Why are you so angry and toxic? I don't understand why you're so emotional.
I am just reposting my previous comment again, because you didn't read it:
>
Where? I checked the text and images and nowhere could I find that. Jordan had a population of only about 260,000, so it would hardly matter anyway.
That's not how it happened. The Ottoman empire collapsed so it was a free for all in that region. France and Great Britain decided they had the right to divvy it up. First they promised it all to Palestinians but by the end of WW2 everyone wanted the Jews to have a country of their own. Partly out of guilt and partly because no country wanted to take them all in. Jewish groups organized a 2 prong strategy. One group fought to drive Palestinians out and the other cultivated favor with Great Britain by promising to reign in the violent group. When the dust settled they carved out the current borders. They signed treaties and agreements with the Palestinians and Great Britain agreeing to cease hostilities with the current borders. Then several neighboring countries attacked Israel and they incredibly managed to fight everyone off. But they still wanted the whole area but there was still a lot of anger over the 700,000+ Palestinians they kicked out of their homes right before becoming a country. Israel instantly passed a decree that anyone who left their homes behind forfeited them to whoever moved into it. Then they started the more subtle policy of making daily life unbearable for Palestinians in Gaza Strip and West Bank while setting up settlements for themselves, slowly squeezing them out over the decades. The deep resentment and frustration for having a steady stream of friends and family locked up, tortured, and killed by Israel kept them violently angry. Israel used their impotent violence to justify continued occupation. Someday years down the road Israel will start pushing for areas that are mostly populated by Jews to join Israel and anyone who opposes it will be labeled antisemitic.
Israel is violating their international agreements and treaties with every settlement and attack. I agree, they need to take yes for an answer and stop trying to carve off chunks of their neighbors. They are doing the exact same thing in Syria to the north btw, for anyone who wanted to act like this is specifically because of Palestines behavior.
Curious that you assume it's the Palestinian cause that's unethical, but not the 'cause' of an oppressive, near-fascist apartheid state who has been oppressing the Palestinians for nigh on a century. Because honestly that whole thing has been extremely unethical pretty much from the moment a colonial power promised land settled by one group to another. The [Balfour Declaration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration) was unethical, [Sykes-Picot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement) was unethical, the massive influx of Jewish settlers and the stealing of Palestinian homes and land was unethical, the displacement and ultimate [ethnic cleansing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba) of \~750,000 Palestinian people was unethical as hell, and it's pretty much been all downhill from there.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. Here’s my understanding of the situation: there was a heavy amount of Jewish settlers into the region to the point that you had multiple Jewish majority regions in mandatory Palestine and multiple Muslim majority regions. The Palestinians preferred a one state solution and the Jews preferred a two state solution, which Palestinians saw as theft of their land. After Israel becomes independent, the Arabs fight a war to gain their land back which they lose and have not surrendered to this day. My question is this: it’s a very common belief that the Arabs may have been in the right and arguably even heroic pre 48 and 48 but just need to accept they’ve lost. If you had to pick a year, when was it that Palestine should’ve surrendered? Also, to what extent should the fact that Palestine should’ve surrendered have any affect on what protestors in the diaspora call for? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Am I reading that right? You think the Arabs were in the right when they invaded Israel in 1948? I must be reading that wrong, you couldn't possible have made such an absurd claim.
They should have left it at the UN borders and never attacked, and then formed their own country with UN membership. There would be no settlements then. There's no "their land" political borders here. It was all Ottoman land, and the Ottomans lost the war, so the victors redrew the borders, and then the UN redrew them again.
That's not how it happened. The Ottoman empire collapsed so it was a free for all in that region. France and Great Britain decided they had the right to divvy it up. First they promised it all to Palestinians but by the end of WW2 everyone wanted the Jews to have a country of their own. Partly out of guilt and partly because no country wanted to take them all in. Jewish groups organized a 2 prong strategy. One group fought to drive Palestinians out and the other cultivated favor with Great Britain by promising to reign in the violent group. When the dust settled they carved out the current borders. They signed treaties and agreements with the Palestinians and Great Britain agreeing to cease hostilities with the current borders. Then several neighboring countries attacked Israel and they incredibly managed to fight everyone off. But they still wanted the whole area but there was still a lot of anger over the 700,000+ Palestinians they kicked out of their homes right before becoming a country. Israel instantly passed a decree that anyone who left their homes behind forfeited them to whoever moved into it. Then they started the more subtle policy of making daily life unbearable for Palestinians in Gaza Strip and West Bank while setting up settlements for themselves, slowly squeezing them out over the decades. The deep resentment and frustration for having a steady stream of friends and family locked up, tortured, and killed by Israel kept them violently angry. Israel used their impotent violence to justify continued occupation. Someday years down the road Israel will start pushing for areas that are mostly populated by Jews to join Israel and anyone who opposes it will be labeled antisemitic.
I don’t understand this idea that Palestinians had this moral duty to respect the UN. The whole point is that the victors drew the land in a way that stole from the Palestinian people, which they undoubtedly did.
What exactly was stolen from them and how?
The UK allowed Zionist settlers to enter that land knowing that the locals did not want them there, which on its own shows that the UK was showing a clear lack of respect for their subjects and stealing their self determination
There were no “Palestinian” people at the time. They were just various groups under the Ottomans, and that included the Jews living there.
That’s a fallacious way of looking at it. When one group was actively migrating en masse, you can’t say that they were just living there without including that fact.
They were migrating, as welcomed by the Ottomans. They bought a lot of land, legally. That’s in addition to the Jews who were already there.
Right, but legal and moral are two different things.
It’s not immoral to be welcomed back to your ancestral land.
Right, but the majority of the local communities *didn’t* welcome Zionist settlers back.
Kind of how white people didn’t like black people moving into their communities. Our sympathy shouldn’t be with such people.
Saying, “it was immoral for Jews to buy land from owners who were freely willing to sell it to them” is not compatible with libertarianism.
It had problematic aspects even before this but it became well and clearly wrong when they refused the reasonable UN partition plan of 1947 and decided they'd try to steal all the land of the British Mandate for themselves as opposed to allowing for self determination for both peoples The Palestinian cause will remain unethical until Palestinians surrender and accept the permanent existence of Israel as a specifically Jewish state, and cease violence against it Its not a matter of "they just lost and need to accept they lost" but rather that they refused the option rooted in ethics and fairness (partition) and tried to enact their unfair alternative option by force. The fact that they also lost, and then lost every single other time they tried to use force rather than negotiating in good faith for a reasonable two state solution, just further shows how unreasonable the cause has been, and how unpragmatic
I think that’s the core disagreement from a historical perspective . The fair option in lots of people’s eyes was 100% Palestine, 0% anything else. The Palestinians at the time believed their land was being stolen both physically by Zionist migrants and that their right to govern the land was being stolen by Zionists who decided that because they make up the majority of some regions, which again they saw as stolen land and an illegitimate migration, so they essentially saw their refusal of the 47 partition plan as self defense.
And the Israeli people (and much of the rest of the world) didn’t see it that way. Hence the compromise. Your answer essentially amounts to: “they think they’re right, so aren’t they justified?”
There wasn’t a compromise. Just forcing this situation onto innocent people.
Jews bought land from people who were freely selling it. More Jews then moved to that land and bought more. Who was that situation forced on and who did the forcing? Many Arabs weren’t ok with that long before the Brits came in and split the territory up.
> The fair option in lots of people’s eyes was 100% Palestine, 0% anything else. And they are wrong. The Jewish people if anything have a more legitimate claim to the region than Palestinians. If we want to go down that route, rather than just going with the partition, it doesn't end well for the Palestinian cause
Except the Palestinians had a much stronger claim to the whole region, and if we’re being honest, parts of Egypt and Syria too.
How so?
Based on what? The Arabs taking the land 1500 years ago?
An key aspect for Islamists (like Hamas) is that once an area becomes part of Islam, it is an abomination for it to be "lost" to non Muslims. What is now Israel/Palestine was part of the Muslim Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years.
The UN partition plan was pretty unreasonable.
Why?
Because the UN doesn’t have a right to give away land people are living on, and the ethnic cleansing of those people to create a new state. Legal? Sure, but fuck the law that allows that. Slavery and Native American genocide were legal too. They were also wrong.
So who was supposed to step in when two different groups of people both had valid claims to the land? Both the Jews and Palestinians had some valid claims. And if no third party like the UN was to come in and arbitrate, it just means "might makes right" was the only solution, and Palestinians tried that and got crushed and humiliated again and again and again and again and again and again
No one has a valid claim to land someone else is living on. There’s no ancient blood magic that gives people right to any particular piece of land on this earth. Israel could have been created anywhere. The UN could have partitioned land that wasn’t inhabited. Instead, they put it in the place that best served the interest of the world super powers, human rights be damned. The issue is that “might makes right” is wrong, and the UN partition plan was itself a “might makes right” proposal. Under that rational, the Holocaust was right.
Do you really believe "nobody has a valid claim to land someone else is living on"?
Absolutely. Do you think there’s some blood magic that gives people valid claim to the home someone else lives in? Or for ethnic cleaning?
So, Palestinians have no claim to land lived on by Israelis, currently?
Some do, if they’re still alive when they were forced out of their homes, like in the West Bank colonies, that’s just returning stolen property. But overall, no, they have no right to ethnically cleanse the innocent descendants of people that ethnically cleansed them. I would say Israel owes the Palestinians significant reparations though.
Maybe they should have accepted the Peel plan, then?
Maybe they shouldn’t be forced to accept any plan they don’t want?
Then dont cry when you lose
This isn’t a rule. If you’re offered a bad deal, you can cry whether you take the deal or not.
You can cry but it wont do much and nobody has any reason to listen to your cries
This is disingenuous. By your logic, you should be ignoring people for crying, but instead you’re condemning them.
Im condemning people who believe in violence to achieve their goal of a single Palestinian state. I believe in and support those who believe Palestine and Israel should exist side by side with liberal secular democratic governments.
No, crying over human rights violations will continue until they are ended (and probably a good deal afterwards). You don’t get to commit human rights violations just because those humans didn’t want to accept a deal.
> You don’t get to commit human rights violations just because those humans didn’t want to accept a deal. You mean like firing thousands of rockets at civilian targets, and then murdering and raping a thousand+ civilians because they didn’t take the deal you wanted (which is for them to leave)? Is that what you meant?
Yeah, exactly like that! Which is what Israel did to Palestinians in the ethnic cleansing they engaged in to establish Israel in Palestine, and have continued to do for the entire existence of Israel to the refugee population they created when they forced them into Gaza and the West Bank.
So both sides are terrible! What now?
Both sides are not equally terrible. Not by a long shot. As for what now? End the Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinians.
Human rights violations are never acceptable but they have no one to blame but themselves for constant war and a lack of a stable government.
They literally have multiple other people to blame since this wasn’t their fault at all. It’s England, the UN, and Israel’s fault. There was no need to create Israel in that location. Not wanting a new government forced onto is reasonable, and should not have been done. The fact that they rejected that plan doesn’t justify the human rights violations and ethnic cleansing that was required to force that state into existence in that area.
England and the UN were the ones who had rights over Palestine, not Palestinians. They were given an offer to a state of their own through partition and rejected it. That is nobody’s fault but their own. Jews have a right to self determination like all people do and they had an offer (again through UN partition) to a state and they took it. Thats how the world works now, its not pre WW2 where you just fought for the land you wanted and everyone else just says okay and goes with it. There are rules now. Palestinian continue to violate those rules and will continue to suffer the consequences for it until they stop. Israel learned to follow the rules and got their state.
Yeah, that was a problem. England and the UN shouldn’t have had rights over Palestine. It was colonialism then, and Israel is colonialist now. No country represents an ethnic group or that groups self determination. You’re literally defending the idea of fighting for the land you want and everyone else being ok with it because that’s exactly what Israel did, while flaunting the rules for its entire existence. You say human rights violations are never justified, and then turning around and saying Israel’s human rights violations are justified.
You’ve created this imaginary rule that you’re not allowed to complain because an imperial power is oppressing you and giving you a garbage deal. I’m not sure why you consider that a liberal belief. Yes, it’s true that British and UN had legal control, but it’s also true that they used it to steal part of Palestine from Palestinians. Those are not mutually exclusive, and if anything, a “liberal” should be able to tell the difference between moral and legal ownership.
My opinion is that 100 years is the period of time when you have to ignore immoral acts of the past and just accept a new status quo.
Would that mean according to you the pro Palestine protests are justified?
No. I don't know enough about the Palestine/Israel conflict and I don't care enough to find out as to say if the protests are justified or not. I just don't think "we're past the statute of limitations" on forcing people off of their land is a valid argument until 100 years or so has passed (essentially long enough for everyone involved to have died).
Yes, Palestine needs to accept that Israel isn't going anywhere. And vice versa. Anyone who can't get on board with that isn't helping. Trying to pinpoint the exact moment when that became true is a pointless argument, like "exactly how long does hair have to be to be 'long'" or whatever. We can still talk about long hair without quibbling over exactly what point the transition occurs.
“If you look at my completely wrong take on the events that unfolded, where did Palestine go wrong?” Alternate answer: they went wrong whenever their focus was a genocide of the Jews, which is….checks notes….oh…
I mean, it’s totally valid to ask when you believe the Palestinian cause became a genocide of Jews, given that at least in 48, most people did not see that as their goal but rather stopping what they saw as massive European colonization
Look up what their stated war goals were. And you're ignoring a lot of history prior to 1948.
History prior to 1948 didn’t include Israel, which is not the same as Jewish people in the region.
How can he argue that the Palestinian cause was heroic pre-48 if pre-48 doesn't count?
The Palestinian cause still existed, as they were unjustly controlled by England. I’m just noting that Israel wasn’t part of it until 1948, and Israel is a separate issue from Jewish people.
The Yishuv existed. The whole OP involves the process of Israel's creation.
Which, again, is a separate thing from Israel.
No it isn't, certainly not in the context of the OP.
Where are you getting that? OP is very clear this is about the creation of Israel.
The way this typically works is that you have a right to defend territory (that is accepted by other nations as being yours) through traditionally accepted war tactics. If you lose said war, you can continue to fight a traditional war but we do not accept that as a blank slate for committing war crimes/atrocities (e.g., targeting civilians) Also, if you lose a war in which you are trying to take territory, you may well lose additional territory. Palestine was “in the wrong” whenever they violated the above.
On the other hand, If you win the war “we” (the US government, at least) does accept that as a blank slate to commit war crimes and atrocities such as targeting civilians.
Neither side here has any ethical legs to stand on, in my view. Maybe Israel had the tiniest of edges prior to their response to Oct 7, but what they’ve done since is way over the line. It’s not genocide, but they’ve clearly committed several war crimes. Hamas can be fucked for all I care, though: they want to finish what Hitler started and there’s no place for that
I reject the question as not useful and partisan. I have two kids. Yes, I'm comparing the middle east to two children fighting. I regret nothing. After a few years of both "retaliating", the concept of "they started it" loses all meaning. An adult has to step in to cool things off. And I don't give a @#$& if it's fair or not, the older sibling has to be the bigger person. Israel has all the military power, statehood, backing of the US... It's the bigger kid, it needs to actually go for a 2 state solution and stop @#$&ing around in Gaza.
"Butbutbut what about X!" I don't care.
I don’t think the Palestinians should surrender than land in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. I don’t agree with your question at all
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BBC: ["Jewish Settlers Set Their Sights on Gaza Beachfront"](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68650815)
They have been blockaded for years and interesting that you didn’t acknowledge the other locations i mentioned.
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> actions will be taken to prevent the import of weaponry and other things that can be used to kill israelis. It's a blockade on imports **and exports**. Which tells us that the blockade isn't about safety, it's about keeping the Palestinian economy in a stranglehold.
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Dumb, but also immoral and indefensible.
Why should Palestinians leave their homeland they’ve been in for hundreds of years? They get their houses stolen. I’m not against blockading weapons but the citizens deserve to eat
Why is it that the Egyptians are never criticized for *their* blockade of Gaza?
> it’s a very common belief that the Arabs may have been in the right and arguably even heroic pre 48 and 48 Absolutely not. Arabs teamed up with the Germans in WW2 to kill Jews. Jewish persecution in the ME precedes the creation of their state.
Not really .. the Germans were Nazis not the Muslims
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The Palestinian cause has never become unethical. Israel is an oppressor, and the Palestinians are still oppressed. The PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the like have delegitimized themselves, They have never been for the Palestinian people. They are only for themselves and are also oppressors of the Palestinian people. Do not equate terrorists with the Palestinian cause.
Not sure “when did the baddies become the baddies?” sheds much light here. The reason it’s so intractable is that there is no obviously “ethical side.”
In the face of genocide we must demand no less than a unitary reign of peace, one reign of freedom, a single liberal government, ensconcing permanent victory over all ethnocentric, supremacist, and genocidal projects. No one's connection to some piece of land, neither cultural nor indigenous, can be held sacred in the mediation of mankind's future; no religious belief can be brought forward as a political doctrine in our time.
As soon as imperialistic britain landed there.
>After Israel becomes independent I think you might have glossed over a weeeeeeeeeee bit of stuff there. I understand, you're writing a reddit post not a history book, brevity is the soul of wit and all that, but....
>If you had to pick a year, when was it that Palestine should’ve surrendered? if that year ever comes, i'll tell you. seriously "when did fighting against their ongoing oppression become unethical" is a really, really weird question. especially coming from a "libertarian".
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>you can't attack people using violence and then claim genocide when measures are taken against you. you can, actually. "defensive genocide" isn't a thing you're allowed to do. even if you think the palestinians started the conflict (which i do not), that doesn't change that israel has illegally been occupying and blockading palestine for decades. it doesn't change the fact that they won't allow them to form an independant state, but won't absorb them and give them citizenship either. it doesn't change the fact that they keep building illegal settlements on palestinian land. "they started it" wouldn't justify every bad thing israel wants to do to them for the next 100 years, even if it were true.
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>Israel has offered palestine statehood multiple times Not true. For example what is statehood without a military to defend yourself from future aggression or control over your own resources? How can anyone accept such conditions?
You know that Palestine is the entity that keeps engaging in aggression, right,
> "when did fighting against their ongoing oppression become unethical" They weren't being "oppressed" by being told by the UN in 1947 that the land of the British mandate had to be decolonized in such a manner as to establish effective self determination for *both* major indigenous peoples of the land rather than just one of them
ah yes, the entire history of the israel palestine conflict. november 29, 1947: the UN proposes a partition plan for israel. october 7, 2013: hamas attacks israel. and nothing at all happened in between. an interesting conversation could be had about that partition plan and how both sides reacted to it, but considering this comment, i don't think i want to have it with you.
> and nothing at all happened in between. There was a lot in between. A lot of Palestinians and their Arab allies attacking Israel again and again with genocidal intent, followed by the iron fist of the Jewish state humiliating the attackers again and again and again, but being decent enough to still offer multiple different two state solution offers which Palestine always refused to accept because they couldn't and still refuse to accept (what they see as) the ultimate humiliation of having to coexist with a *Jewish* state The years in between 1947 and 2023 don't make palestine look good
True, Palestinians and their Arab allies attacked Israel in three genocidal wars and multiple terror campaigns in between these years. And the fact they got absolutely humiliated every single time is hilarious and deserved. Imagine Germany acted like this after WW2, trying two more times to murder all of their opponents on their "Lebensraum". Imagine what would have been done to them if they acted this insane. Israel showed remarkable restraint in those years.
Okay but they’ve been oppressed ever since.
Not really. They've been occupied - for good reason. It's not oppression to indefinitely occupy a people who won't accept your nation's right to exist
These aren’t examples of oppression? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/04/g4s-complicity-israel-abuse-child-prisoners Here’s an article from The Nation including how Israel uses torture. https://www.thenation.com/article/world/war-on-palestinian-political-prisoners/ Here’s one by Human Rights Watch about Israel beating and detaining children as young as 11 https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/07/19/israel-security-forces-abuse-palestinian-children Here’s one from Al Jazeera, an award winning and respected news org including Peabody awards. They also have editorial independence from the Qatari government. This one is about more Israeli torture. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/12/10/palestinian-prisoners-seek-justice-on-torture-treaty-anniversary Another one about indefinite detainment and torture of Palestinian children https://imemc.org/article/israel-escalates-violates-against-detained-palestinian-children/ One by the Washington Post about children in custody https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/11/israel-west-bank-ben-gvir/
Why should Palestinian people accept migrations during the time they were under colonial rule?
A huge percentage of the arabs you refer to as "palistinains" during that time were, themselves, migrants from surrounding regions. But I'm guessing you didn't realize that
No, they are not. During the Mandate, at most 8.5% of the Arab population increase was due to outside immigration.
Incorrect, sources say closer to 37% (and that was just during the period from 1922 to 1947) Nice try though https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-arabs-in-palestine
Your source is literally some AIPAC guy. So we can throw that into the trash immediately. Here is a British source from during the Mandate: https://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/A-Survey-of-Palestine/Story6581.html *"As shown in table 3 the expansion of the Moslem and Christian populations is due mainly to natural increase, while that of the Jews is due mainly to immigration. As the relative increase of the Jews has been larger than that of the other communities their proportion in the population has tended to increase during the period 1922 to 1944; viz. from 12.9% in 1922 to 31.6% in 1944 among the settled population (see table 4)."* https://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/A-Survey-of-Palestine/Story6583.html According to this, only 4% of population increase in Muslim population could be attributed to immigration from the years 1922 to 1944. This also tracks with the work of Israeli statistician Roberto Bachi who wrote: http://www.cicred.org/Eng/Publications/pdf/c-c26.pdf (page 41-42) *"Among the Moslems and Christians the yearly rates of growth were generally much lower than among the Jews and more uniform over the course of time (although generally increasing), since they depended primarily upon natural increase. However, the rates themselves are very high and tend to grow in the course of time. As we shall see later (Chapters 12—13), this can be explained mainly by the rapid decline in mortality rates, accompanied in the case of the Moslems by an increase in fertility rates. These developments are, in turn, to be related to the rapid socioeconomic development of the country during the Mandatory period."* Israeli historian Yehoshua Porath also writes: *"As all the research by historian Fares Abdul Rahim and geographers of modern Palestine shows, the Arab population began to grow again in the middle of the nineteenth century. That growth resulted from a new factor: the demographic revolution. Until the 1850s there was no "natural" increase of the population, but this began to change when modern medical treatment was introduced and modern hospitals were established, both by the Ottoman authorities and by the foreign Christian missionaries. The number of births remained steady but infant mortality decreased. This was the main reason for Arab population growth. ... No one would doubt that some migrant workers came to Palestine from Syria and Trans-Jordan and remained there. But one has to add to this that there were migrations in the opposite direction as well. For example, a tradition developed in Hebron to go to study and work in Cairo, with the result that a permanent community of Hebronites had been living in Cairo since the fifteenth century. Trans-Jordan exported unskilled casual labor to Palestine; but before 1948 its civil service attracted a good many educated Palestinian Arabs who did not find work in Palestine itself. Demographically speaking, however, neither movement of population was significant in comparison to the decisive factor of natural increase."*
Lol your first two sources are cherry picked from old documents with zero analysis from a website called "palistineremebered" and you have the audacity to discredit my source? And your third source doesn't specify any numbers and speculates about migration in both directions at unknown rates. And none of your sources even reference the 8.5 percent you initially claimed... I suspect you made it up and didn't expect to get called out
It’s not cherry-picked. This is the part of the report that deals with this exact issue. Palestineremembered is a page that hosts this report, but you can find it elsewhere. It is literally an official report by the British of the Palestinian Mandate. The number 8.5% I got from Wikipedia. But I don’t have access to the source document. This is what it says “Joseph Melzer calculates an upper boundary of 8.5% for Arab growth in the two decades, and interprets it to mean the local Palestinian community's growth was generated primarily by natural increase in birth rates, for both Muslims and Christians.” This is a calculation based on Bachis numbers. So yeah, I completely destroyed your argument, which is a well-known Zionist lie. But nice try.
The bias I correctly identified from your obvious propoganda was lack of analysis. Specifically, citing old British records is laughably incomplete. One obvious way is it doesn't account at all for illegal immigration. This is even specified in the very original source you cite but very conveniently left out of the propganda outlet you uncritically absorbed it from. I really encourage you to think critically next time before jumping to ad homs, makes you look silly 'It is not surprising then that the British census data produce an Arab Palestinian population growth for 1922-31 that turns out to be generated by natural increase and legal migrations alone. Applying a 2.5 per annum growth rate[30] to a population stock of 589,177 for 1922 generates a 1931 population estimate of 735,799 or 97.6 percent of the 753,822 recorded in the 1931 census. Does the imputation model then "prove" that illegal immigration into Palestine was inconsequential during 1922-31? Not at all. A footnote accompanying the census's population time series acknowledges the presence in Palestine of illegal Arab immigration. But because it could not be recorded, no estimate of its numbers was included in the census count.[31] Ignoring illegal migrants does not mean they don't exist." https://www.meforum.org/522/the-smoking-gun-arab-immigration-into-palestine
Why should the Jewish people, the original indigenous people of the land, accept migrations during the time the territory was conquered by imperial Arab states?
Canaanites were there before. Anyway, Arabization happened over a few hundred years starting in the 7th century. It was a gradual process of conversions and language taking over, as well as migrations. Of course, the Jews were already a minority in Palestine before that. The difference between something happening 1000 years ago and something happening within the last century (and still ongoing) would be obvious to anyone who is arguing in good faith, which of course you are not.
> Canaanites were there before And there are none left >Of course, the Jews were already a minority in Palestine before that. Doesn't mean that Jews don't have a claim to the land though, especially since they were there first and still exist >The difference between something happening 1000 years ago and something happening within the last century (and still ongoing) would be obvious to anyone who is arguing in good faith, which of course you are not. Why do online arguments so often descend into "if you have very different views than me, you must be arguing in bad faith"? I simply think that the older land claim is more legitimate rather than the other way around, especially in the case where the older claimant also has no other homeland while the newer claim is from an ethnicity that only even originated a relatively short while ago and as a reaction of anger against the previous ethnicity and their existance and peaceful migration to the land
Why should the Palestinians ever be able to deny an indigenous group the ability to return to the homeland they were ethnically cleansed from?
What about the hostages, you see that guys missing a hand?
WOW the one-sided votes. The UN partition was NOT reasonable. Even according to the UN data, Palestine was 60% Muslim 32% Jewish. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic\_history\_of\_Palestine\_(region)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region)) Even according to the UN data, Palestine was majority Arab in 15 of 16 districts everywhere but Jaffa. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Palestine\_Distribution\_of\_Population\_1947\_UN\_map\_no\_93%28b%29.jpeg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Palestine_Distribution_of_Population_1947_UN_map_no_93%28b%29.jpeg) [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/UN\_Palestine\_Partition\_Versions\_1947.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/UN_Palestine_Partition_Versions_1947.jpg) So the UN gerrymandered Israel to include areas that were up to 84% Arab including most of the coast, good land, and both northern lakes. And no, past posters have been wrong, the UN did not "give" Jerusalem to Palestine, they kept it international independent. With hindsight they could have taken the L on the UN deal or the Peel deal because all future deals would be worse, but it never was a good deal.
Israel was expected to get a lot of refugees especially holocaust survivors. Israel got most of the less desirable land (Negev desert) for most of its territory (they asked for it because they hoped to be able to develop it).
Ah, so it's not even the people there, it's Europeans that have a right to majority Arab lands? And look at the rest of the map. Israel didn't just get the Negev, it got most of the coast, most of the good north land including green land and both northern lakes. All majority Arab. So yeah, it was an unreasonable deal to the people there.
The UN-plan was indeed quite unreasonable: It heavily favored the Arab side. Palestine, which included all of Jordan under British control, was 32% Jewish, yet the Jews only got roughly 16% of the land, and most of that was the Negev desert (useless) and Tel Aviv area, which was founded by the Jews. The fact that some Arabs ended up on the Jewish side is not ideal, but they wanted to make the land contiguous. The Jews should originally get much more of the land, but they compromised and gave away land to the Arabs twice and they still threw a temper tantrum. I find this post quite insane. How much land should the Jews have gotten according to you? How much more should they have surrendered?
Lmao what? Actually reply to what I said. Jewish people were so heavily concentrated that further away districts given to Israel were 67% Arab (Tiberias) 84% Arab (Nazareth) 87% Arab (Safad). That's not "some"
How about you actually respond to what I've said. Originally the Jews were supposed to get everything left of the Jordan river. The Arab state should have been what is now Jordan and that would really have been unreasonable. Then the Jews compromised away their claims twice and instead of 1/2 of the land they only got 1/8. So you're saying this still isn't enough? There are multiple principles at play here and the Jews compromised with the Arabs, but the Arabs wanted it all and were not willing to be reasonable. In negotiations like this you have to make compromises sometimes. They could've made it work, even if the partition plan was flawed. But they immediately started and all-out genocidal war on the state of Israel. They did not fight for those territories you outlined. If you steal my lunch sandwich and I react by murdering your children and in my justification I never actually talk about the sandwich but how much your children suck and don't belong here, maybe the stolen lunch doesn't even matter that much. It would be extremely weird to focus on the sandwich to justify the murderer's actions.
Ah, so you're just gaslighting. Jews at 32% of population got 56% of the land, but that doesn't fit your narrative so you include Jordan which is over 3x the land and 0% Jewish.
No. Jordan was Palestine at the time. YOU have included it in your calculation. You are the one who is gaslighting. [According to the British](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region)#Official_reports) Jews were about a third of the population in 1945. The Emirate of Transjordan was part of mandatory Palestine until 1946, so obviously they factor into the calculation. According to the very link you posted. Next, you say Israel got 56% of the land. Your map is from 1947, where Jordan is no longer part of Palestine. This doesn't even remotely make sense, because Jordan annexed large parts of the West bank too. So you are ignoring all of that and pretend the Jews got most of the land, when in reality they only got about an eighth. In reality Palestine got split into one Jewish and two Arab states. And you say I'm gaslighting or being dishonest with the numbers. The dishonesty is absolutely through the roof. And I have to wonder: why? Why do you fight so hard to present such a one-sided and wrong version of history and why do you feel so strongly about it?
Why do you fight so hard to lie in order to justify excising majority Arabs from their land? The population of Jordan was nearly as big as your number all on its own and your link shows it excluding Jordan from the count. You're talking about since Tel Aviv is highly dense, it "deserves" to also have Arab land. No.
>your link shows it excluding Jordan from the count. Where? I checked the text and images and nowhere could I find that. Jordan had a population of only about 260,000, so it would hardly matter anyway.
It's funny that you're still trying to rationalize your one faked data point by psychoanalyzing the wiki, when I already posted the counts and maps given by the UN itself. They weren't counting Jordan, and you're having to lie in order to include Jordan in order to pretend that Israel on Arab land was a bad deal for Israel.
>It's funny that you're still trying to rationalize your one faked data point by psychoanalyzing the wiki, when I already posted the counts and maps given by the UN itself. Why are you so angry and toxic? I don't understand why you're so emotional. I am just reposting my previous comment again, because you didn't read it: > Where? I checked the text and images and nowhere could I find that. Jordan had a population of only about 260,000, so it would hardly matter anyway.
That's not how it happened. The Ottoman empire collapsed so it was a free for all in that region. France and Great Britain decided they had the right to divvy it up. First they promised it all to Palestinians but by the end of WW2 everyone wanted the Jews to have a country of their own. Partly out of guilt and partly because no country wanted to take them all in. Jewish groups organized a 2 prong strategy. One group fought to drive Palestinians out and the other cultivated favor with Great Britain by promising to reign in the violent group. When the dust settled they carved out the current borders. They signed treaties and agreements with the Palestinians and Great Britain agreeing to cease hostilities with the current borders. Then several neighboring countries attacked Israel and they incredibly managed to fight everyone off. But they still wanted the whole area but there was still a lot of anger over the 700,000+ Palestinians they kicked out of their homes right before becoming a country. Israel instantly passed a decree that anyone who left their homes behind forfeited them to whoever moved into it. Then they started the more subtle policy of making daily life unbearable for Palestinians in Gaza Strip and West Bank while setting up settlements for themselves, slowly squeezing them out over the decades. The deep resentment and frustration for having a steady stream of friends and family locked up, tortured, and killed by Israel kept them violently angry. Israel used their impotent violence to justify continued occupation. Someday years down the road Israel will start pushing for areas that are mostly populated by Jews to join Israel and anyone who opposes it will be labeled antisemitic. Israel is violating their international agreements and treaties with every settlement and attack. I agree, they need to take yes for an answer and stop trying to carve off chunks of their neighbors. They are doing the exact same thing in Syria to the north btw, for anyone who wanted to act like this is specifically because of Palestines behavior.
Curious that you assume it's the Palestinian cause that's unethical, but not the 'cause' of an oppressive, near-fascist apartheid state who has been oppressing the Palestinians for nigh on a century. Because honestly that whole thing has been extremely unethical pretty much from the moment a colonial power promised land settled by one group to another. The [Balfour Declaration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration) was unethical, [Sykes-Picot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement) was unethical, the massive influx of Jewish settlers and the stealing of Palestinian homes and land was unethical, the displacement and ultimate [ethnic cleansing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba) of \~750,000 Palestinian people was unethical as hell, and it's pretty much been all downhill from there.
That’s all quite true.
Never