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The Israel-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history

newtboy says...

The one's in the 40's that were in line behind the last person allowed in each year based on the numbers they allow in per country were too late. Yes.
I think most Jews that illegally immigrated to Palestine in the 30's didn't come from Germany.
Yes. Those that fled in the 30's were only fleeing fear, not actual attack. Those that fled in the late 30's and 40's were mostly fleeing actual attack. It is somewhat shameful that we didn't recognize what was happening and let more in, but that has little to do with Israel.
Before the massive illegal immigration of the 30's, Arab and Jewish Palestinians treated each other equally well. After the influx of millions of Jews, illegally, against protest by the non Jewish populations, there were problems created by both sides, but the Jewish side was the invader side, the Palestinian side was the 'native' side. And, as you say, the Invading Jewish Palestinians were the minority, but took all the power in the area, by force. They had far more money than the Palestinian side, and more access to weapons, and took advantage of those advantages.
Again, Holocaust survivors are only owed something from GERMANY. The Palestinians did NOTHING to them, yet they are the one's who've had their land and autonomy taken, and have been forced to live in a walled off refugee camp for decades by the invaders.
Yes, the surrounding countries banded together because they saw the invaders would continue to invade and expand into their territory, they were 100% right. Sadly, the US supported Israel and made it a one sided fight in favor of the invaders.
The Nazis were not fighting invaders, they were invaders, fighting a 'race' (more than one really) at home and fighting an expansionist war of aggression...sounds familliar.
Not taking up arms and invading would have seen Jews still alive and well in the area, but not in absolute control, not expanding their control, and not in such numbers. They had been there for centuries. Only when the millions more invaded and seized power to create an exclusionary religious state and displace and subjugate the locals was there a problem.

bcglorf said:

The Jews were not fleeing anything but fear in the 30s...or came too late and missed the cutoff.

So, the Jews that fled in the 30s weren't legitimately fleeing anything but fear, and the Jews that fled after the 30s weren't legitimate because they waited until too late. Gotcha.

Perhaps you came closer to summarizing your position earlier:
Perhaps if those Jews were still in Europe fighting against the Nazis, they wouldn't have made it out of Germany.

Historically, there is a zero percent chance that more Jewish fighters in Europe could've kept the Nazi's from making it out of Germany. Worse, the ambiguity of your sentence also suggests that maybe your suggesting that if the Jews had stayed in Europe fighting, it was them that wouldn't have made it out of Germany, which would be quite correct.

You are making it very difficult to interpret your view in any kind of positive light. Despite the fact that one of the greatest genocides in history was about to hit them and their children, you insist that Jews fleeing in 30s were fleeing "nothing but fear". More over, you seem adamant in defending the notion that as the holocaust survivors landed in Palestine and were being looked after by existing Jewish Palestinians, it is they and they alone that were the aggressors in Palestine. It is well established history that BOTH Arab and Jewish Palestinians treated each other equally poorly through the 30s and 40s. More over, the Jewish Palestinians remained the minority. I'm inclined to lend a bit of understanding to an aggressive response from holocaust survivors yet again facing repression and saying NO! Doubly so when upon accepting a 2 state solution, all the surrounding nations of the middle east jointly declared war upon them with the declared intent of driving the Jews into the sea. It was only 2 years prior that the whole of Europe was controlled by Nazis trying to do the same thing. What can be realistically expected of the Jewish refugees in Palestine? Fighting kept them alive, in Palestine and I find it hard to fathom an alternate history were laying down arms would've seen any Jews still alive in the area,

The Israel-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history

greatgooglymoogly says...

The formation of Israel and the question of stealing land can be debated, but at this point it is history and cannot be changed. At some point a nation needed to arise out of the ashes of the Ottoman empire. The problem was, when one did it didn't encompass the entire area. Arab Palestinians didn't vote to accept the border, but neither did they declare war on Israel in 1948, how could they if they weren't even a state? The root of today's problems have to do with the taking of land by act of war. Palestinians are punished for the acts of the other arab nations.

I found it highly surprising the video didn't mention the countless UN resolutions condemning Israel's acts of land confiscation, usually with the USA and Israel the only ones opposing it. In war you can defend yourself, even invade the enemy's territory. But when it's over you have to go back your home, you can't keep a permanent army presence on the captured land and slowly allow your citizens to start living in the captured territory. The fact that the land wasn't part of Jordan made it easier for people to give Israel a pass since they weren't stealing land from a nation, just a nation-less people. That doesn't make it any more justifiable. Israel should have occupied the territory until the end of hostilities and then completely withdrawn.

The video mentions the land they grabbed from Egypt, the almost empty Sinai peninsula that was an incredible strategic value. They were plenty happy to hand it back for a peace treaty, mainly because the hardcore Zionists weren't determined to expand the state of Israel there as they are in the west bank, which has much more history for their people. Notice how they went out of their way to establish a salient to Jerusalem during the 1948 war.

The only reason at some point in the last 40 years Israel hasn't just put up a fence and closed the border permanently(surely the safest choice if you're really worried about suicide bombers) is they wouldn't be able to move beyond that border and capture more land, which is what the orthodox Jews demand. People living in the west bank live under different laws based on their religion. Israeli civil code if they're settlers, military rule if they're Palestinians. How ironic that Israel is lauded as the great democracy in the middle east, yet deny the right of representation to millions under their control.

Saudi Arabia Grand Mufti Declares Fatwa on Chess

Fausticle says...

Here another fun fact for the geniuses at this news desk. The Arabs got chess from the Persians who got it from India.

Why the flying FUCK would they have christian symbols on them!?

The Israel-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history

bcglorf says...

The Jews were not fleeing anything but fear in the 30s...or came too late and missed the cutoff.

So, the Jews that fled in the 30s weren't legitimately fleeing anything but fear, and the Jews that fled after the 30s weren't legitimate because they waited until too late. Gotcha.

Perhaps you came closer to summarizing your position earlier:
Perhaps if those Jews were still in Europe fighting against the Nazis, they wouldn't have made it out of Germany.

Historically, there is a zero percent chance that more Jewish fighters in Europe could've kept the Nazi's from making it out of Germany. Worse, the ambiguity of your sentence also suggests that maybe your suggesting that if the Jews had stayed in Europe fighting, it was them that wouldn't have made it out of Germany, which would be quite correct.

You are making it very difficult to interpret your view in any kind of positive light. Despite the fact that one of the greatest genocides in history was about to hit them and their children, you insist that Jews fleeing in 30s were fleeing "nothing but fear". More over, you seem adamant in defending the notion that as the holocaust survivors landed in Palestine and were being looked after by existing Jewish Palestinians, it is they and they alone that were the aggressors in Palestine. It is well established history that BOTH Arab and Jewish Palestinians treated each other equally poorly through the 30s and 40s. More over, the Jewish Palestinians remained the minority. I'm inclined to lend a bit of understanding to an aggressive response from holocaust survivors yet again facing repression and saying NO! Doubly so when upon accepting a 2 state solution, all the surrounding nations of the middle east jointly declared war upon them with the declared intent of driving the Jews into the sea. It was only 2 years prior that the whole of Europe was controlled by Nazis trying to do the same thing. What can be realistically expected of the Jewish refugees in Palestine? Fighting kept them alive, in Palestine and I find it hard to fathom an alternate history were laying down arms would've seen any Jews still alive in the area,

The Israel-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history

bcglorf says...

I can't figure out whether I hope you view the Middle Eastern(and most recently Syrian) refugees coming into Europe as 'invaders' too or not.

It really stretches the imagination to fail to at least give some degree of legitimacy to Jewish flight from Europe in the 30s and 40s. Immigration to anywhere was strictly illegal to them, including over here in Canada and America too.

You see Jewish invaders from Europe taking over Palestine where I see refugees fleeing a legitimate threat to their lives. The holocaust seems to have proven out the fears of European Jews that left in the 30s, no?

You also completely ignore the actual situation on the ground in Palestine between Jewish and Arab Palestinians. You make it sound like peace loving, tree hugging Arabs stepped back and watched as Jewish invaders stripped them of their land at gun point out of malice. Truth is, neither Jewish nor Arab Palestinian populations were treating each other particularly well by the 1930s. The Arab population was every bit as racist, unfair and violent to the Jewish Palestinians as the other way around.

newtboy said:

Neither.
Perhaps YOU didn't watch the video, or do you just refuse to acknowledge the facts that the Jewish population was quite small, and was treated fairly under 'Palestinian rule' (whether under the Ottomans, Brittan, or France)?
They didn't fight until AFTER Zionisation....or invasion. They declared war because the Jews in droves illegally immigrated there and TOOK/STOLE the land by force and asserted political and military control, and instantly started expanding their control to their neighbors and expelling or disenfranchising non Jews.
Yes, it's absolutely the Jew's fault for stealing other people's land. Yes, it's the Brit's and French's fault for not enforcing the legal immigration plans that were set up and for allowing all the insane illegal immigration/invasion, then later their and the USA's fault for supporting the invaders politically, militarily, and financially.
They absolutely should have KEPT them in Germany/Europe and taken state land and given it to the Jews to form their own state...not allowed them to relocate and take an innocent party's property because they want it. Before the Jewish invasion, the Jews in Palestine were treated just fine...not so with the Palestinians after the invasion.

The Israel-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history

bcglorf says...

Did you not bother watching the video, or do you just refuse to acknowledge that BOTH Arabs and Jews were Palestinians prior to the civil war at the end of WW2? Arab and Jewish Palestinians fought one another, the UN recommended a 2 state solution, the Jewish Palestinians agreed, the Arab Palestinians and ALL the neighbouring Arab states all jointly declared war on the Jewish Palestinians with the intent of having all of Palestine for themselves.

But yeah, it all the Jews fault, or if not the Jews fault, it's the Brits and European's fault for not supporting the genocide or eviction of ALL jewish Palestinians and relocating them somewhere in a Europe that had just recently killed them by the million...

newtboy said:

I can never understand why anyone thought taking Palestine from the Palestinians because Jews were oppressed in Europe made any sense at all. Why was a new country not carved out of Germany? It makes no sense.
I'm disgusted that my government is Zionist. Land thieves should not be supported, especially when they're conquering religious zealots.
I often wonder how people would react if the Zionists had created their country in Texas, expelled the Texans, then expanded into New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana 'to create a buffer zone' that they then move into, and were supported by the international community?

A particular take on what went wrong with Islam

scheherazade says...

That's in part to do with how during WW2 Europe had the bulk population of Jewish faithed people.

Outside of Europe, the population of Jewish faithed persons was scattered throughout little towns and ghettos (in the social sense, eg. like NY's Chinatown for the Chinese).

There was a small-ish population of Jewish Poles (called the Zionists) that had in the WW1 era moved to Palestine and bought land together to form their own communities.

Basically, the high concentration of Jewish faithed persons in Europe in the WW2 era made it easy to target a large percentage of their overall population.

Judea (Referred to as "Palestine" by the Romans - hence why in modern times Judea was called Palestine) had converted from Judaism to Christianity around 300 ish AD (under the influence of Rome), and then to Islam around 700 ish AD (Under the influence of the Islamic expansions). By WW2, Judaism was an archaic religion in the middle east. Similar to Zoroastrianism, where small pockets still can be found, but its otherwise not represented.

It's not till after WW2 (1948) when Britain carved out the nation of Israel from [at the time British colonial] Palestine, and surviving Jewish Europeans immigrated there from Europe, and subsequently Jewish faithed Arabs/Burburs immigrated there from around the middle east, that there was another major concentration of Jewish faithed persons to be found.

(This is when the Arab vs Israel conflict(s) began. A fun irony is that much of Israel's military in 1948 was German equipment (bf109s, etc), and much of the Arab equipment was British (spitfires, etc).)

(The Nazi government did a lot of killing, tho. The Soviet Union alone lost ~10 million soldiers, ~14-17 million civilians, and ~1-2 million Jewish persons.)

One of the reasons why Israel is so insular in regards to non-Jews, is because their overall population is small enough that they would be bred out of existence in a few generations.

-scheherazade

ravioli said:

On a side note, I was very surprised to learn there were only 15 million Jews in the world today. I really tought there were ten times more. (double-checked in Wikipedia)

Further more, the Jewish population of 1933 was estimated around 15 million at that time too. The nazis killed approx. 6 million of them. Hitler basically killed half of the Jews that existed. That's nuts!

A particular take on what went wrong with Islam

vil says...

Its not an "Arab" problem, its a Muslim problem.
Not the race or language, its the religion and religious/state authorities that are the problem - Muslim society in general is weird. I expect scientists there are like alchemists in medieval Europe - in the service of the rulers, but definitely unclean.

A particular take on what went wrong with Islam

diego says...

ive never been to the middle east, but for various reasons had friends from several different countries in and around the area. i think the answer is simple: muslims, like christians, jews, mormons are not all alike (ok not sure about the mormons!), and even if you have a st augustine or a ghazali saying thats how it should be there will always be those who disagree, vocally or quiet like. Hes right that the culture changed, and he's right that its tragic that arab scientists are basically the butt of a joke, but i think its difficult to ommit that the peak of arab science also coincided with a peak in their power and resources. How many african nobel prizes are there in that period? or from indigenous peoples? Im not saying they are stupid, just that its difficult to get an award for cutting edge top notch science when you are at a serious deficit in resources.

SFOGuy said:

OK, but the question, even if they are just harnessing the atom for peaceful means, still stands---What about Al Ghazali's prohibition against math?
Personally and culturally?

Obviously, they've rationalized it (again, let's assume every single intended use is peaceful. Unlike, for example, Pakistan's)---

I'm a bit curious what that looks like inside a person's brain.

The rise of ISIS, explained in 6 minutes.

scheherazade says...

Some bits it glosses over :

Puppet dictatorship is basically a description of every US and Soviet backed b-list nation on earth back then. The fact that it's a puppet state shouldn't be used to imply anything.
For example, the U.S.S.R. had modernization programs for its satellite states, building power plants, roads, hospitals, universities, etc, in an attempt to fast forward development and catch up with the west asap. They also did this while spouting secular rhetoric.
In a general attempt to undermine soviet efforts (*both sides tried to contain each other's influence world wide), the U.S. looked for any groups within the U.S.S.R. satellite nations that would be an 'in' for U.S. power/influence. For Afghanistan, this was the people most offended by the U.S.S.R.'s [secular] agenda, and most likely to make good on foreign anti-soviet backing - the religious Jihadists. Everyone knew very well what it would mean for the local people if Jihadists took over Afghanistan - but at the time, the soviets were considered a bigger problem than Jihadists (possibility of nuclear annihilation), so better to have Jihadists in power than soviets.

Also, Assad's release of prisoners was officially part of an amnesty for political prisoners - something the people and foreign groups were asking for.
Saying that Assad tolerated AQ or Isis is misleading. These groups gained power during the Arab spring, when a large portion of the civilian population wanted a new government, but lacked the military power to force change. Militants stepped into the situation by /graciously/ offering their military strength, in exchange for economic/resource/political support to help make it happen. After a short while, these groups coopted the entire effort against Assad. Once they were established, they simply put the people under their boot, effectively replacing Assad with something even worse within the regions they held. Assad lacked/lacks the military power and support to expel the militant groups, so they fight to a stalemate. But a stalemate is by no means tolerance.
One similarity that Syria has to Afghanistan, is that the anti-government kernel within the population that birthed the revolt, did so for anti-secular reasons. In Syria's case, it was in large part people from the region that had earlier attempted an Islamist uprising during Assad's father's reign (which was put down by the government, culminating in the 'hama massacre', leaving some intense anti-government sentiment in the region).
In any case, the available choices for power in Syria are 'political dictatorship' or 'religious dictatorship'. Whoever wins, regular people lose. It's not as if regular people have the arms necessary to force anyone to listen to them. Anyone with any brains or initiative knows that their best option is neither, so they leave (hence all the refugees).

The video also omits the ambiguous alliances in the region. Early on, you had the UAE, Saudis, and Turks supporting ISIS - because an enemy of your enemy is your friend. It wasn't until ISIS started to encroach on them that they tempered their support. Turkey remains ambiguous, by some accounts being the gateway/laundromat for ISIS oil sales... because ISIS is a solution to the 'Kurdish problem' for Turkey.
If you watch some of the VICE documentaries, you can see interviews where locals on the Turkish border say that militants and arms cross form Turkey into Syria to join ISIS every night.
Then you have countries like Iran and Syria fighting ISIS, but by official accounts these countries are the west's enemy. Recently, French leadership (after the Paris bombings) has stated that they are done playing politics, and just want to get rid of ISIS in the most practical manner possible, and are willing to work with Russia and Assad to do it.

It's worth noting that ISIS' main enemy/target is 'non Sunni Islam'. U.S./Europe tend to only mention ISIS attacks on their persons/places, and it leaves western people thinking that ISIS is against the west - but in fact the west is merely an afterthought for ISIS. For every one attack on a western asset/person, there are countless attacks on Shia, etc.

-scheherazade

Disturbing Muslim 'Refugee' Video of Europe

newtboy says...

I don't think my idea would end Daesh overnight, or end prejudice against Muslims or Arabs, but it could certainly help offer useful, badly needed ammunition in both fights.

RedSky said:

I dunno about that, the M-E is such an immense cluster-fuck and a lack of manpower is hardly the only cause of ISIS or reason for its continued existence. Prejudice against *insert nationality here* migrants certainly isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Paris - Doctor Who Anti War speech

aaronfr says...

The problem is that you think that you get to decide where the starting line is. The path you are pointing down requires taking in the totality of history, not using some arbitrary point that is within living memory

For example, when do you think this started?

Was it with the Arab Spring and Assad's put down of the revolution? Maybe the invasion of Iraq in 2003? Perhaps when Iraq invaded Kuwait? When Libya bombed the plane at Lockerbie? The 6-day war? The establishment of the state of Israel? British Colonialism in the Middle East? The Crusades? The Battle of Yarmouk in 636?

Trying to find a singular, root cause is not how you end a conflict. That is done through humanizing your enemy, recognizing the futility of your efforts, finding alternative means to meet your needs, compromising and forgiving.

(source: MA in conflict resolution and 5 years of peacebuilding work)

coolhund said:

Of course it matters! How the hell should the shooting stop if we dont (want to) see the cause?? Just give the guy with the broken leg more pain killers and dont do anything about the leg, huh??
We just keep the circle going because we stay ignorant, even though were oh so morally high western countries.
Intelligent species my fucking ass. Cant even learn from simple history or cause and effect.

the palestine exception to free speech-movement under attack

newtboy says...

That's pretty disgusting....but sadly not at all unexpected. Various factions have seemingly taken control of the bastions of higher learning and systematically destroyed what I always saw as their fundamental function, fostering an ability to logically think for one's self. Anyone not on the 'right' side must be on the 'wrong' side and not worth listening to...or worthy of allowing others to listen to, I guess. That ain't learnin'...that's just mutual mental masturbation.
It's pretty funny/sad/telling that supporters of Palestine are called anti-Semitic, since Palestinians are also Semites, aren't they? The word doesn't mean 'Jewish', it's an ethnicity that includes 'Arabs'.

RT-putin on isreal-iran and relations with america

RedSky says...

@Asmo

Don't really want to get a more general argument about the history of US foreign policy, I was talking more about the present day. The US's rationale for intervention during the Cold War was an exaggerated sense of the spread of communism and later to prevent anything that might precipitate an oil price spike like in the 1973-74/79. Nowadays with greatly expanded US shale oil supply and no Cold War I simply don't see any real incentive, if anything with the furore over debt, quite the opposite.

@enoch

Successful US intervention in the previous century generally involved large sums of money, whether it be propping up a government (Zaire/Congo) or funding an insurgent militia (Guatemala). Same thing with the USSR (North Korea). The ability to influence public opinion or mount credible propaganda campaigns in my opinion is generally exaggerated especially in a large, modern and educated country like Iran. It's also the conspiratorial myth that repressive regimes (like Iran, Russia) frequently turn to when they need to discredit dissent. A good example is:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2013/11/arab-conspiracy-theories

I mention Russia because this is the line pushed aggressively to both his domestic audience by it's wholly state controlled television media and to a mix of foreign and expatriate audiences (of which Russia Today is most successful) through a web of shadowy funding and home grown sounding organisations (see link below for a nice overview, e.g. http://www.globalresearch.ca/). It's pretty important to view what he says as part of a narrative to vastly exaggerate US and western intervention in Ukraine and previously Georgia, because that allows him to construct his myth of being a counterbalance to present day western imperialism.

https://criticusnixalsverdruss.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/propagramm3.jpg

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - Migrants and Refugees

newtboy says...

OK.
Point 1. I do agree, the inability of many migrants to assimilate to their new homeland, and to expect the new land to change to suit them, is an issue...one not limited to Muslims, but one they certainly share.
Point 2. I would say 'asylum' does not exist if one must wait 5 years to even APPLY for it, and during that time must not work. That's ridiculous, just like saying they're running from asylum to asylum. They are moving to where they believe they might be able to eat, and maybe live outside a small, overcrowded cage. If honest, working refugee camps were to be erected in Turkey on the borders, funded by the EU and others, most of the refugees would go no farther...but that hasn't happened...at least not in any working way for the numbers coming.
I won't assume there's much 'insertion' of non-refugee migrants in the masses, they would have to travel across numerous closed borders and through numerous wars just to join the group...I don't think that's happening. Maybe a few that crossed the Mediterranean to Greece, but that's not many if any.
Point 3. Yes, the numbers are overwhelming. That does seem to be a good incentive for the EU and America (and the other Arab nations), and eventually Russia to do more to stabilize Syria, however, and also a good incentive for them to create systems to deal with these people while treating them as people.
Obviously, though, the only permanent solution is to stop them from being forced out of their homeland. No?

vil said:

3 things, I may have mixed them a bit......
^



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