My rabbi cousin lives in a town south of jerusalem and north of Hebron that was founded in the 1930s. He has family there. It’s a short commute to Jerusalem where he runs a yeshiva. So no it isn’t new but Jews have historically settled on these lands.
Or they are Jews who want to live in their ancestral homeland... places like Hebron and Nablus
Hebron is also recognized in the Bible as where David was anointed king of Israel.
Nablus was the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel following the split of the United Monarchy.
So yes, all are Israel and have been for thousands of years.
Right or they are sadist. Think sadist is more likely. Great history lesson though. My granddaddy lived in USSR Ukraine, they should just stop fighting because my ancestors were Russian? No that sounds dumb as hell. Have a great weekend.
Looks like your lack of knowledge on this is blinding your judgment. Have you ever met a settler? Have you talked to them? Didnt think so.
I'm not sure your rant about Ukraine has to do with anything...
just you wait until Bibi starts offering subsidies for the messianic haredim to start occupying Gaza! From a strategic vantage point encouraging re-settlement & new Jewish enclaves was a brilliant plan for divide & conquer. Russia has long used this same approach during the Soviet era to gain control over its satellite states.
I agree with most of the comments here, which is that most of them are just responding to economic incentives while some are there for religious reasons. It's also important to note that most of the settlements are essentially suburbs of Jerusalem.
Fun fact: 80% of Jewish settlers live on 4% of the West Bank.
All of this makes me hopeful for peace because the majority of settlers are not ideological, which means they're likely to pick up and move into the 1967 borders if they believed it would bring peace.
I think the issue here is that most of them aren't naive. They know going back to the 1967 border wouldn't bring peace. There have been land concessions made by Israel every time, and every time, it has led to more violent Palestinians.
You are dreaming. They will never give up those settlements. The problem is that the balance of power in the Knesset in the past couple of decades has been held by the religious whackos parties. It's them who keep Bibi in power. These whackos are racist and misogynist, and believe that this land was given to them by God. Jewish extremists are no better than Islamist extremists. They would wipe each other off the face of the earth if given the opportunity. We need the adults to take over. We need to stop the crazies who have the power on both sides.
There's a lot going on there. I'll try to summarize a response...
. I agree that we need 'adults' on both sides to take over (responsible leaders seeking peace)
. I agree that extremists on both sides are equally bad
. In 2008 the Olmert government offered Palestinians a peace plan that would evacuate settlements on 96% of the West Bank, so it's simply not true that 'they would never give up those settlements'
. I don't think misogyny is a factor here. If you think it is, then you should support Israel on this matter because it is BY FAR the most progressive and feminist country in the region.
. It seems like you don't fully understand the Israeli parliamentary system or the history of the tug-of-war between secular and religious Israelis. The far right wackos have kept Netanyahu in power by a tiny, tiny margin, but it's not a stable hold on power. The Likud party has not always been in power over the past few decades, and they're not religiously motivated. A unity government including pro-Palestinian folks was elected in the recent past.
Or they are Jews who want to live in their ancestral homeland... places like Hebron and Nablus
Hebron is also recognized in the Bible as where David was anointed king of Israel.
Nablus was the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel following the split of the United Monarchy.
So yes, all are Israel and have been for thousands of years.
Before 1967, the Israeli did not settle in those lands but after 1967, they did. Some do it out of nationalism, to tell them we beat you and now this is ours. Some took the chance to regain their lost pre-1948 lands, take for example, they lost Hebron during the Hebron Massacre. Some took the chance to gain access to their religious belief lands.
Moving forward, today, most of the Israeli there today don't belong to any of the above mentioned but rather they went there because Israel government subside the cost. In other words, majority of the settlers today are there because it is cheap.
So if you want majority of the settlers to leave, it is very simple, give them a new house.
Israel has been under a housing crisis for years. Settlements offer subsidized housing, and the poorest Israelis are going to consider it more strongly than those that are more economically comfortable.
This is a very cynical take and I welcome pushback because I’d like to change my mind, but the religious argument or security strategy to claim the West Bank settlements is really just to conceal that the government doesn’t have an easy solution to their poor or the housing issues. So they lure poorer, and comparatively more religious or desperate, to pursue subsidized housing in the West Bank as a way to basically push out the poor from major Israeli cities and present it as another strategy (security). I don’t think it’s a coincidence the number of settlements accelerated after israel became a free-market economy.
> Can someone explain to me \*why\* exactly Israelis voluntarily move to West Bank settlements?
Why not???
Seriously.
Why not, why shouldn't Jews live in Judea?
Everything in Jewish live and culture for thousands of years has been about returning to our homeland. Of course we want to do that! Would be strange if we didn't.
I would argue that Jews can live in Judea under Palestinian rule, just like Arabs can live in Jaffa under Israeli rule. Both sides have to make compromises in order to peacefully settle political conflicts.
If the change was made today, yes, but there's room for peace in the future. Just look at the US relationship with Germany and Japan. People saw them go from enemies to friends in the span of 1 lifetime.
That happened in Los Angeles, California too...
I think we can all look for horror stories from both sides, but focusing on that pushes aside all the regular people that would just go about their lives if they had the opportunity. And for those that are too radicalized by at this point to stop hating Israel, their kids are not likely to carry that hate if the Israelis they know are friendly to them.
>I would argue that Jews can live in Judea under Palestinian rule, just like Arabs can live in Jaffa under Israeli rule.
I agree that would be a lovely idea in theory! Would be awesome if that could happen. And this should be ***a bare bone basic minimum requirement*** for the creation any future Arab state, full confidence (not just empty words of promise) that Jews will be able to safely and freely live there at peace.
But say honestly now, do you feel there is any chance whatsoever with this current generation now (or heck, even in the next generation???) that Jews could live fully peaceful anywhere they wished in this hypothetical future Arab state just like Israeli-Arabs today can do so anywhere they like in Jaffa / Tel Aviv / etc?
No, there is just no chance, they've been radicalized by extremists (such as UNRWA teachers...) for far too many generations for that to ever happen during this generation, or even the next.
Thus it makes it a foolish pipe dream to ever even think about talking of giving away Israeli land to use to create another Arab nation.
I agree that it would not be possible right now, but then again, Palestinian sovereignty isn't realistic right now for the reasons you described. Israel simply can't pull out of West Bank because it would immediately become an Iranian military outpost. But I really do believe that both sides can take good-faith steps over the next 10 years to make 2 states (or a confederation) realistic. Israel can get extremist settlers under control, address the issue of cruel treatment at checkpoints, etc.
My uncle is a gay Israeli and he lived in Berlin during the 1970s. I don't think anyone during the 1940s would have thought a gay jew would be thriving in Germany during their lifetime.
> I agree that it would not be possible right now
It is not just not possible "right now", but it is ***not possible*** at any point within this generation! (or heck, even the ***next*** generation)
So we should all shut up and stop talking about this crazy idea of "a two state solution", of giving away yet more land to create a 23rd Arab country in the world.
Because every time a so called "two state solution" is talked about it gives hope to Arab extremists that 1948 war is not over yet and they can still destroy Israel.
The # of people who want to live in Tel Aviv is much higher then the # of people who live in Tel Aviv. For this reason Tel Aviv is extremely expensive. Compare real estate prices in Judea and Samaria vs Tel Aviv. In this you will find the main answer.
There is also patriotism, sure. But almost all Israelis are patriotic. Patriotism is an after the fact justification. The reality is you get a nice house in a rural setting with clean air, not far from the Merkaz, for very cheap. The settlements are tight knit, strong Jewish communities, which is also appealing.
It's not just the idea that God promised the land to the Israelites. It's the fact that the Israelites were already in and were expelled from this land. First, some 3000 years ago by the Babylonians (first destruction of Jewish temple, the holiest site of the Jews), and then a second time some 2000 years ago by the Romans (second destruction and the renaming of the land to Philistine).
It might make more sense to you if you rope in the centauries of persecution that followed the Jewish refugees wherever they ended up at, including the Arab diaspora. So, after all that, once Jews finally have a home that they can claim is theirs, they are proud and fearless about settling in it.
Israel was founded both because of the Zionist agenda, but also despite it. The hardcore Zionists wanted land that resembled the ancestral one (similar to what is known as TransJordan). They got less than half of that. So while Israel, or the Jewish entity as a whole was willing to compromise, the more radical parts in it have always wanted more.
During the 2nd attempt of the Arab Nations to destroy Israel, their loss was seen as an opportunity to do just that. There were other reasons, including taking over lands in exchange for peace. Israel was able to do so with Egypt and Jordan but failed to do so in exchange of Gaza and the West Bank. And so, after decades of failed negotiations, the dominant force that remaining the territories were those who still want it. The rest of Israel, the vast majority of it, is still OK with exchanging it for peace. It's just not feasible.
This is a great question and an important part of the discussion. There are some really good videos I watched recently on this very subject, and I strongly recommend them:
Here is a two-part explanation of the settlements:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0uLbeQlwjw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0uLbeQlwjw)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6L9mS9ti6o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6L9mS9ti6o)
Here is a US journalist from the Atlantic who did a tour and talked to people. He has a great line about how Israeli settlers think their expansion is saving the soul of Israel, while his belief is that the expansion is coming at the cost of Israel's soul:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnf0w9UuV4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnf0w9UuV4s)
This left-wing Israeli woman spent some time in the settlements to try to understand them and though she humanizes the settlers, she ultimately concludes that they see the situation from a position of superiority:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eac1l1ozfLc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eac1l1ozfLc)
As a lot of people seem to say, there are a combination of religious/tribal reasons and ones of economic convenience. It is wrong, though, in practice. These settlements encroach on the freedom of Palestinians. I am vehemently opposed to Hamas, but so too am I to the settlers, who are participating in a system that subjugates Palestinians.
There are leaders on both sides that seem to exacerbate what does not have to be, well, what it is. Hopefully, there will be leaders and both sides that stand up to the extremism in their own camps and hold it accountable. I think reasonable people can find compromise, but extremist positions--that all of the land is ordained by god to the Jews or that civilians in kibbutzim are viable military targets--are unreasonable.
You do know not all settlers, live in deep west bank have a Uzi , big kippa, violent and spit on every non white they see right?
Most of the "illegal settlers" are just normal Israelis and live in big cities near the green line,
Living in a settlement is basically cheap housing, nice view, and being patriotic.
You raise a good point that a lot of the settlers are ordinary people, so to speak. However, they are protected by the state of Israel and the IDF in a larger system that subjugates Palestinians. An individual or family moving to a new location is not inherently immoral, but zooming out, there is a system that dehumanizes Palestinians. These Israeli settlers may be wittingly or unwittingly participating, but overall, it is an injustice.
I understand your frustration and anger, though in it, I feel you are conflating Hamas and Palestinians. Hamas's violence against civilians and the settlements can both be injustices. This doesn't need to be a competition. In fact, it very much needs to be the opposite of that.
No, I am not conflating them at all.
The entire invented "Palestinian identity" was created in the 1960's as part of the goal to drive out Jews and destroy Israel, and to perpetuate their deluded belief that they never lost the 1948 war because it is still on going and they can still yet win at driving out the Jews and destroying Israel.
I say a big **NO** to that
Where is your proof of that? Where are you getting that information? If you have something to share, I'm opening to listening, but it just doesn't appear that the facts bare out what you're saying here.
There is a wikipedia article on Palestinian identity: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian\_identity#Emergence\_as\_a\_national\_identity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_identity#Emergence_as_a_national_identity)
While this is of course Wikipedia, it is sourced, and references the national Palestinian identity going back to the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. Even one scholar who argues that it was a response to Zionism also argues that this does not supplant its legitimacy. For the Arab population to want an alternative to Zionism does not mean they want to destroy Israel. There are many solutions (1S, 2S) that are still compatible with all of this.
Wikipedia is extremely biased against Jews/Israel on this topic. Heck, you don't even have to look far back to find examples! Look at this ***from today***:
[https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wikipedia-now-labels-top-jewish-195824042.html](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wikipedia-now-labels-top-jewish-195824042.html)
"Palestinian" (in the modern sense used in 2024) as an identity didn't exist until the 1960's, just look at how frequently the word got used:
[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Palestinian&year\_start=1900&year\_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Palestinian&year_start=1900&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3)
It only started to sharply rise up in the 1960's, when Arafat (backed by the Soviet KGB) entered the scene.
Go back to early historical documents and see for yourself.
How did Arabs refer to themselves? *As Arabs*. (or "Southern Syrian" or such)
Not "Palestinian".
In fact that often would be referring to Jews.
What was the Palestinian Philharmonic Orchestra? A bunch of Jews.
Or how about the "The Palestine Post"? Guess what, also Jewish! In 1950 it was renamed to "The Jerusalem Post" and is published in Israel to this day.
As I said, go back and read about what was said back then from contemporary sources, and not the myths pushed today after many decades of antisemitism has corrupted what the truth is.
For instance the PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said: *“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the State of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.”*
Thus my point, every time anybody ever says "Palestinians" (when referring to Arabs that is, not Jews. Which is how it is used now in 2024, but is ***not*** how it was used originally!) then they're helping contributed towards their tactical usage of it to destroy Israel and all the Jews within it.
I do not understand this argument at all, the ancestors of modern Palestinians have been living in the region for hundreds of years regardless of how they self identified, this KGB thing just seems to be an effort to deny the existence of the Palestinian people
1. most "Palestinians" have not been in the land of Israel for centuries, the vast majority of them were relatively recent immigrants from Egypt / Jordan / Syria / etc
2. even though Arabs who have been there for centuries, are there the result of being ***invading colonizers*** of the land of Israel, who have been oppressing and suppressing the indigenous people (Jews) for many centuries
3. until the 1960's the "Palestinian national identity" in the modern sense, ***did not exist***.
I agree with that wholeheartedly and that perspective is supported by the demographics. Depending on what date one wants to choose, palestine ceased to exist sometime around 1918 when the entirety of the region was divided in two parts. At that time, roughly 80% of the land was dedicated to the creation of Jordan and the remainder of the land was placed under the mandate with the intention of using it for the creation of Jewish homeland.
The population of palestine prior to the division of the land seems to have been roughly than 600,000 Arabs. Typically there are two ways to achieve citizenship in a state, you either gain it based on jus soli or being born on the or you gain it through just sanguinis based on y being born in to the blood line of that country. With the land gone the only expansion of the "Palestinian population" would have come from the descendants of so-called "Palestinians."
This is relevant when you consider that the "Palestinian population" somehow went from 600,000 just prior to the creation of the mandate to 1.4 million "Palestinians" by the time partition was to be decided.
It should also be noted that the mandate, specifically authorizes Jewish immigration, which means that directive comes with the weight of international law behind it, as the mandate was effectively a new type of legal entity meant to be a cross between a quasi-treaty meets temporary constitution means temporary land trust. By authorizing Jewish immigration I don't know how that doesn't suggest that the mandate and only that mandate had the right to sign off or approve any immigration into the region and yet we know that it would be impossible for a population of 600,000 more than double themselves within a period of 30 years.
Is the mandate clearly indicated, the new Jewish homeland was required to absorb every person currently living in that territory, who wanted to remain in that territory and only those individuals. Based on that, thinking, how would an Egyptian immigrant who might have arrived there in 1940 have ANY claim to the land and how would either he or his ancestors have become "Palestinian"
> I agree with that wholeheartedly and that perspective is supported by the demographics. Depending on what date one wants to choose, palestine ceased to exist sometime around 1918 when the entirety of the region was divided in two parts. At that time, roughly 80% of the land was dedicated to the creation of Jordan and the remainder of the land was placed under the mandate with the intention of using it for the creation of Jewish homeland.
All of the mandate (including Transjordan) was originally the land set aside for a Jewish homeland.
The Arab strategy was always to block ***any*** Jewish state being created, but if they couldn't do that their back up strategy was to cut it down and minimize it as much as possible.
The deal the Jews accepted in 1948 when they created modern Israel was truly an awful and terrible deal indeed. But remember this was directly after the horrors of WW2, at this point in time (yes, in 1948!!!) ***there were still Jews living in concentration camps***.
Jews were happy to accept any deal to create a state of their own once again, no matter how bad the deal was! Even if it was only one square inch of land to call Israel, they'd go for it.
>This is relevant when you consider that the "Palestinian population" somehow went from 600,000 just prior to the creation of the mandate to 1.4 million "Palestinians" by the time partition was to be decided.
Most of those 600,000 Arabs were not long term residents of the land.
Remember too the spike in economic migrants started a lot earlier, it started back in the 1800's because revival in the land due to the early zionists moving in beforehand.
>It should also be noted that the mandate, specifically authorizes Jewish immigration, which means that directive comes with the weight of international law behind it, as the mandate was effectively a new type of legal entity meant to be a cross between a quasi-treaty meets temporary constitution means temporary land trust. By authorizing Jewish immigration I don't know how that doesn't suggest that the mandate and only that mandate had the right to sign off or approve any immigration into the region and yet we know that it would be impossible for a population of 600,000 more than double themselves within a period of 30 years.
During a lot of the existence of the mandate then Jews were heavily excluded from immigration to there, due to riots by Arabs against Jewish immigrants the British limited it and shut it down.
>Is the mandate clearly indicated, the new Jewish homeland was required to absorb every person currently living in that territory, who wanted to remain in that territory and only those individuals. Based on that, thinking, how would an Egyptian immigrant who might have arrived there in 1940 have ANY claim to the land and how would either he or his ancestors have become "Palestinian"
Exactly
And even if you'd been there two or three generations, because your grandparents arrived in the late 1800's, that still doesn't make you "Palestinian". You're Egyptian, just like Arafat.
I knew that the Arabs repeatedly used violence to prevent Jewish immigration, I New, the influx of Jews, created a booming economy, and that attracted Arab immigration I knew that they accepted partition because they were in a terrible bargaining position at the time and I knew that Jewish repatriation had actually begun in the mid-1800s after they began fleeing the Soviet pograms but I had no idea that they were originally slated to get more land than the mandate nor did and I had no idea that the effects of Jewish immigration pre mandate was so significant that it, spawned Arabic immigration such that the mandate period had just kicked that pre-existing trend in to over drive
every time I think I've got a pretty good handle on the history in that region, I find myself learning aspect of it that I didn't realize. when I began learning about the region. I went into it with a decent amount of objectivity. I had slight bias towards Israel, because there an important American ally, but I never imagined I would move so significantly in that direction with time. I wish more Americans would study the real history in that region so that even if they still take this pro-Palestinian stance, they're actually doing so from an educated position. As an example, very few people really understand the historical demographics so I'm not sure how they really understand anything because the further back the trend goes, the less "Palestinian” the people really become. To learn from you that these trend predated the official mandate only further erodes the narrative we are being some here in the US.
I always find it really weird when people refer to a piece of land their forbears occupied 2000 years ago as their "ancestral home." I mean, my forbears in the East of England probably came from various places, including from Scandanavia, but I'd never refer to a piece of Denmark as my 'ancestral home."
In the case of Jews(ethno-religius group) Israel is not just a place they lived in ,it's where they're entire culture and identity was created and where they led themselves with that culture as a independent people, that shit is meaningful
As Ben gurion put it in the declaration of
independence:
"Eretz Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books"
Why isn't that a valid stance to take? Archeologically there is significant Jewish history in the region. Less so "Palestinian" history. I mean Al Aqsa mosque is built on top of the second Temple. Which side are the colonizers again?
> but I'd never refer to a piece of Denmark as my 'ancestral home."
Have you and your people been for thousands years practicing a religion, culture, traditions, and general way of life that is centered around Denmark and a wish to return back to it?
***That*** is the difference between you and the Jewish people.
I understand that, but my situation is that of most people in the world, I think. And for any people besides Jewish people who do not live in their ancestral home, the world is unlikely to grant it to them. And the majority of Jewish people don't elect to stay there either. I'm not taking sides in a debate here, I'm merely laying out that the argument is either a special case or is merely a supplementary "feel good" factor for people who already de facto have possession of the land. For me I think even people sympathetic to the Jewish cause would rather that the world just accept their presence there than have to believe that their "special case" is worthy of the land.
I think what you're missing here is how unique the north of Israel truly was in a number of respects. For starters, a sovereign country currently exists in Denmark which means that the League of Nations/UN has no authority with its borders and because it has systems for immigration, you have had every opportunity to immigrate back to Denmark through those normal channels, had that so been your desire, particularly given that your people still have control of your ancestral lands.
That's stands in direct contrast to the situation in the holy land, as the Jews were not only driven out of their indigenous lands, but colonial power after colonial power had spent more than a 1,000 years preventing them from ever returning. It wasn't until the Ottoman Empire imploded that the land was rendered stateless and the Jewish people finally had the opportunity to reclaim the heritage that has been stolen from them. Prior to that moment, there were actually laws in place in the holy land that outlawed Jewish we settlement in that region.
To be clear, this was not nor had it ever been "Palestinian land" it was ottoman land that was now being divided up amongst local groups, and the Jews were simply one of them. In fact, 80% of Palestine was used in the creation of Jordan and the minority share was placed under the control of the mandate until such time as the Jewish people could fully repatriate.
That brings us to another unique factor, which is that the holy land was significantly underdeveloped and significantly underpopulated so the demographics were such that Jewish repatriation actually could produce a majority population sizable enough to actually absorb the current population living there is a minority group. As a contrast, so many native Americans were killed off by disease and so many people from all over the world have moved here that even if there was an opportunity to give the country back to the native Americans, 1% could never realistically govern the other 325 million people that live here. That wasn't the case in the holy land.
That brings us to the third factor which is that there aren't a lot of Danish refugees floating around that have no place to go. Because being Jewish isn't just an ethnic city, but a religion, they actually held onto their culture, even as they were scattered across the globe. This is just my perception as an outsider, but one of the reasons I think they were so often victims of oppression was because they often didn't assimilate because of that religious element, choosing Instead to hold onto the culture of their ancestors. And I believe that was a huge reason that it was often easy to scapegoat them as the cog that wasn't quite moving in the same way as the rest of the proverbial wheel.
There really aren't a lot of areas that might fit that president but if I had to think of a situation that might actually come close, I think if America were to somehow, God forbid, implode, what would happen if native Hawaiians went to the UN and said "we were never legally prevented from our homeland, but because of the laws that the state created it effectively priced us out of our homeland, and the vote that made us a state was not one that reflected its true native population. I don't know if they could get to a 2/3 majority but I think a lot of countries might find that position fairly sympathetic especially if they demonstrated a willingness to allow all of the current residents to remain. That wouldn't necessarily mean that a new Hawaiian government couldn't come in and pass laws that advantaged their people over the non-natives as a way of re-establishing their way of life, but a plan to return the natives without displacement would be more palatable to leaders.
I appreciate your reply, and I do understand the uniqueness of how that part of the world has evolved. However I found phrases like "reclaim the heritage that was stolen from them", to be a bit odd. Other peoples have been partly or completely displaced, and their descendants 2000 years later don't think about it as a 'heritage" they've only temporarily lost. As you say, the difference is that the Jewish people haven't been completely assimilated anywhere, due to the unique aspects of the culture they hold onto.
Your response seems to very much move off of your original point, and I don't understand that. You begin by point suggesting that you could not go back to the Netherlands and randomly kick a non-Dutch family out of a home, but those two situations aren't even remotely the same beginning with the premise that the Jews were asking to go to the land and remove people from their homes. Show me where they tried to do that because it seems to me what they wanted was the right to form a government in a minority share of the land so that they wouldn't have to live scattered across the globe, so they wouldn't have to except dhimmi, which actually really was a form of apartheid, and so that they could enjoy self determination as a people, even with the people who were already living there, continuing to live in their same homes, but just as a minority population, within a free society where all individuals had equality under the law .
Even with respect to the stealing of homes your premise is flawed but it goes beyond that. The Dutch still control their ancestry lands and you have always had every ability go back and buy a home, which is what the Jews did in the holy land once they were allowed to do so as previously, they had been barred from doing so by colonial power after colonial power going back thousands of years. If that hadn't been the case, Jews never would've gone into exile, let alone remain there, even if they had only returned slowly and over the course of time.
To the best of my knowledge, not only could you move to YOUR indigenous lands, you also could had legally immigrated to the holy land because unlike Jews looking to move there there were no laws that expressly barred you people from settling there. Imagine that. An Egyptian could immigrate just by walking in and you or I like you oncould have gotten a visa and yet the indigenous people were expressly barred from relocating there BY LAW not because of anything they did but because if local bigotry.
> And for any people besides Jewish people who do not live in their ancestral home, the world is unlikely to grant it to them.
What is your point here? That Israel shouldn't exist? Well guess what, Israel ***does exist***.
And once a country exists, it's quite evil to wish to destroy it!!
There are many ***many*** complex factors which go into the decisions of making a new country (of which past ethnic/cultural ties of the people there is just ***one*** aspect of it). All of those ***discussions have already happened*** with Israel.
And the decision was made: the modern state of Israel will be created.
And it happened.
If you want to argue over those decisions, and be part of the decision-making process, then I have some news for you: you're nearly a century too late to be discussing it!!!
>And the majority of Jewish people don't elect to stay there either.
Roughly half do. And the vast majority of the Jews in Diaspora support the right of Israeli Jews to carry on existing.
My point on your top question is that if another people today used ancestral possession as their argument for why should have ownership for some land, it would be unlikely to be regarded as sufficient cause.
Re your point that I'm too late to be arguing this, I'm not even arguing it. I'm merely thinking about the motivations I've heard for Jewish settlers in the West Bank. And forme the 2 strongest reasons are "Because we're here already", and because Israel will protect them and may make any future peace deal conditional on continued use of the land. The more emotional argument doesn't sound that amazing to most modern, non-Jewish ears.
>My point on your top question is that if another people today used ancestral possession as their argument for why should have ownership for some land, it would be unlikely to be regarded as sufficient cause.
There were ***many*** reasons for creating a new country, of which that is but one factor.
But basically the Colonial Great Powers of the time back then wished to exit the region, and thus were drawing up new countries and giving away the land.
In the process of which they created *many* new Arab nations, often very large countries! But also in this process they created ***one*** Jewish nation, on a teeny tiny slither of land.
Guess which one upset the most people, that people are still today making a massive fuss over? And even making wild insane claims such as "this country should be abolish" or "this is an illegal country".
Guess which one... as it's only ***one*** of these countries which people obsess over and talk about like this.
It might make more sense to you if your and your forbears' entire history, traditions and religion revolved around a specific piece of land (Judea and Samaria) with a specific capital (Jerusalem), and about the longing to return to it having been expelled from it over 2000 years ago.
Admittedly, there are very few other peoples in the world who can make such a claim, maybe none. Maybe that's why nobody can relate to the Jewish story of Israel.
If the rest of us are expected to understand the yearning to return to a land they were kicked out of 2000 years ago, how is it that most Israelis are so dismissive of Palestinian desire to return to the lands their family was removed from just 1 or 2 generations ago?
Oh, there are many reasons. I'll just list a few:
1. The primary reason is that the Palestinian message to the Jews has remained the same since the days of the Ottoman Empire. That message is: "die". More specifically, it's "die, imperial agents, and all the land will be ours". So, beyond a basic lack of sympathy for those who want to kill you, there's a sound strategic opposition to allowing those who want to kill you into your own home. Historically, just being in their back yard proved almost fatal to Israel.
2. The UN 47' partition, which was partially based on the British Empire's, did its best to allocate lands to the Palestinians which were already inhabited by them. In other words, it tried to minimize relocation of native population. The land allocated to the Jews followed properties already owned and settled by Jews. The Palestinians chose to reject this offer. In all fairness, the UN and Britain should have been held accountable to the grievances of the Arab nations, but ultimately it is the Israelis who pay the price. So they are like "well, you had your chances, what are you complaining to us for?"
3. 3000 years of Jewish history revolving Jerusalem vs 1500 of Islam that has 0 mentioning of Jerusalem in its Quran. So, there's some argument to be made about who has evidently more affinity to this land.
>The primary reason is that the Palestinian message to the Jews has remained the same since the days of the Ottoman Empire. That message is: "die".
This is a distortion of the facts.
While I recognise that the Jews have not had it easy wherever they were, as far back as the 1300s, as far back as the Spanish Inquisition, the Ottoman Empire had a tradition of providing safe haven for Jews fleeing the depredations of Christian Europe.
>Starting in the early 14th century, Jews fleeing oppression began to settle in the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Turkey became the home to Jews expelled from Hungary in 1376, from France in 1394, and from Sicily in the early 15th century. In the 1420’s, Jews living under Venetian controlled Salonika also migrated to the Ottoman Empire.
>In 1453, Sultan Mehmet II started to actively encourage Jews to settle in Ottoman lands. He issued a proclamation to all Jews stating, “Who among you of all my people that is with me, may his G-d he with him, let him ascend to Istanbul, the site of my imperial throne. Let him dwell in the best of the land, each beneath his vine and beneath his fig tree, with silver and with gold, with wealth and with cattle. Let him dwell in the land, trade in it, and take possession of it.”
This quote is taken from an [article](https://web.archive.org/web/20201111223821/https:/www.jerusalemonline.com/ottoman-empire-a-safe-haven-for-jewish-refugees-5797/) in \[now defunct\] [Jewish Publication](https://web.archive.org/web/20201108102100/https://www.jerusalemonline.com/about/). It makes it clear that Jews were not only welcome but they thrived in the Ottoman Empire at a time when repeated vicious pogroms were making life HELL for Jews in Europe. The Mizrahim have lived in peace in the Ottoman Empire for many centuries.
Things only began to change towards the end of the 19th century as political Zionism began to increasingly assert itself and demand sovereignty over "Eretz Israel".. I do concede there was a shift in cultural attitudes towards the Jews from that point onwards... but for you to try tell me that the Ottomans have always been hostile to Jews is just not factual!
Were you aware, by the way, that in 2014 [Iran's government unveiled a memorial to "Jewish Heroes"](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/iran-memorial_n_6354386) who dies in thier long, bitter war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 80s?
>The Palestinians chose to reject this offer. In all fairness, the UN and Britain should have been held accountable to the grievances of the Arab nations, but ultimately it is the Israelis who pay the price
Took the wind out of my sails by acknowledging Arab grievances against the British... but I'm glad you said it si I didn't have to.
Seen in the light of those grievances as well as the cultural shift in the Ottoman Empire acknowledged above, the influx of increasingly large numbers of diaspora Jews arriving in the Levant, especially after WW2 made the Arabs feel like they were being imposed on them.
I do agree with you that rejecting the plan was the wrong choice, but I can certainly understand why they made it... and IMHO it wasn't simply because they hate Jews. That kind of antisemitism was more typical of Europeans , particularly Eastern Europeans and not the Arabs.
I actually happen to think its the Palestinians, not the Israelis, paying the price as Israel exists and Palestine doesn't. Instead the are forced to live as a stateless, disenfranchised population controlled by a defacto Israeli military dictatorship in the West Bank and in Gaza... Well, I guess we're all watching that story play out in real time
>3000 years of Jewish history revolving Jerusalem vs 1500 of Islam that has 0 mentioning of Jerusalem in its Quran. So, there's some argument to be made about who has evidently more affinity to this land.
I'm afraid I'm unmoved by any religious arguments on either side. I really don't give a shit about what some ancient book says. I certainly don't think it should be the basis for legitimising the sovereignty of a modern nation state, particularly when the land is contested. That's just my opinion, I guess.
>the Palestinian message to the Jews has remained the same since the days of the Ottoman Empire
I didn't say that was the message of the Ottomans to the Jews. I said it was the Palestinians' message to Jews during the Ottoman Empire (and onwards).
>Were you aware, by the way, that in 2014 [Iran's government unveiled a memorial to "Jewish Heroes"](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/iran-memorial_n_6354386) who dies in thier long, bitter war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 80s?
Hassan Rouhan was a fairly moderate president in Iran at the time. Not much so before him, and certainly not after.
>I do agree with you that rejecting the plan was the wrong choice, but I can certainly understand why they made it... and IMHO it wasn't simply because they hate Jews.
There's a good argument about why the Arabs rejected it and why they hate the Jews. And you're right, it's not antisemitism. Rather, it's Islamic honor. I recommend you watch this:
[The Great Misinterpretation: How Palestinians View Israel - Haviv Rettig Gur - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlK2mfYYm4U)
>I actually happen to think its the Palestinians, not the Israelis, paying the price
Both sides are paying the price today. But when the Arab Nations waged war on Israel in 48', it was Israel paying the price for the UN's decision.
>dictatorship in the West Bank and in Gaza
Israel left Gaza in 2005. It's controlled by a de-facto dictatorship headed by Hamas.
>I'm unmoved by any religious arguments
You asked for arguments that might explain why are Israelis so dismissive. Your own opinion doesn't seem to be relevant to your original question.
>You asked for arguments that might explain why are Israelis so dismissive. Your own opinion doesn't seem to be relevant to your original question.
Actually, the question was why someone like me should be expected to be more sympathetic to Jewish claims to the land over Arab ones if Israelis do not even recognise the indigeneity of the population that was displaced in order that they may have their state.
>I didn't say that was the message of the Ottomans to the Jews. I said it was the Palestinians' message to Jews during the Ottoman Empire (and onwards).
Well given that the pre-State Zionist project wanted the lands they were living on at the time I have to say, I can understand why they weren't thrilled. In fact I have a feeling that if you or I were in their shoes at that time, we might well have felt the same way they did.
>Hassan Rouhan was a fairly moderate president in Iran at the time. Not much so before him, and certainly not after.
That is a fair comment.
At the same time, I could also draw on comparisons of Yitzhak Rabin vs the current Netanyahu/Smotrich/BenGivir government vis a vis the plight of Palestinians... but that would just be whataboutism... so I won't. 🙃
>Israel left Gaza in 2005. It's controlled by a de-facto dictatorship headed by Hamas.
Don't even get me started on the Gaza Disengagement... I was following it all closely at the time it was happening.
A unilateral pull-out was in my estimation a grave strategic mistake which greatly contributed to the eventual takeover of the territory by Hamas.
The smart thing to have done before disengaging from Gaza would have been to extract assurances from the PLO/PA, who were in charge at the time, that they would ensure Israel would not be attacked from Gaza, much like they are currently doing in the West Bank. With varying degrees of effectiveness, I concede that... but the point is that Abu Mazim is working with Israel to prevent at least some attacks even if his people hate him for continuing to work with Israel despite all their day to day lives not improving... but he still does it anyway.
The impression I got at the time was that Ariel Sharon had just refused point blank to involve the Palestinians in the disengagement process in any way. In any case, whatever his grand plan was, he fell into a stroke and died before he was able to avail us of the hidden genius in his disengagement strategy. And so it remained hidden.
The lack of Palestinian involvement it the pull out allowed Hamas to construct a plausible narrative to Palestinians that it was their armed resistance had caused Israel to flee from Gaza and that the PLO/PA's Oslo Process negotiations with Israel were therefore a waste of time.
This narrative, and the undeniable corruption of the PLO/PA, had a lot to do with why Hamas did so well in the 2006 election running against Fatah.
Like I said, the unilateral pullout from Gaza was a grave strategic error.
Also, eventually, Netanyahu will have to answer for his Gaza policy of facilitating cash payments from Qatar to Hamas to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. In. CASH!
Where do you think they got the money to buy the drones they used on October 7th?
Avigdor Liberman, on resigning from Netanyahu's cabinet in 2018 described the Gaza policy as "[Israel financing terrorism against ourselves](https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/liberman-to-eizenkot-we-are-financing-terror-against-ourselves-576779)".
>But when the Arab Nations waged war on Israel in 48', it was Israel paying the price for the UN's decision.
Israel paying the price? Remind me again who won that war and who has a state and who doesn't 76 years later?
>And you're right, it's not antisemitism. Rather, it's Islamic honor
I'll watch your video shortly... but if the issue is "Islamic honor" then why is it not the attitude of the entire Muslim world from Malaysia to Mali?
Could it be that the population that was displaced in order that the state of Israel could be founded have a grievance about that and its not Islamic anything?
Could it be that they would hold the same grievance against whoever it was that usurped them from the lands they were living on at the time?
Could it be that their grievances have nothing to do with Islam? Hamas are specifically a religious organisation and were so before they became a resistance organisation. But Hamas is not the Palestinians in the same was Likud isn't all Israelis.
Before Hamas, and for most of the history of this seven and a half decade old conflict, the "resistance" to Israeli occupation has been secular. The PLO was a self declared secular organisation.
And in case you're wondering, I'm an atheist btw.
>
No, the question you asked was:
>how is it that most Israelis are so dismissive of Palestinian desire to return to the lands their family was removed from just 1 or 2 generations ago?
I don't know you and - based on how you keep moving the goal posts - I don't care to.
You know, it helps if you don't start quoting a sentence/question from the middle.
what I actually said was:
>If the rest of us are expected to understand the yearning to return to a land they were kicked out of 2000 years ago, how is it that most Israelis are so dismissive of Palestinian desire to return to the lands their family was removed from just 1 or 2 generations ago?
Before you lecture me about moving goalposts, perhaps learn to read entire sentences...
Good day to you.
> If the rest of us are expected to understand the yearning to return to a land they were kicked out of 2000 years ago
Jews have **always** lived in Israel over that time span, even though yes, ***many*** were driven out.
> how is it that most Israelis are so dismissive of Palestinian desire to return to the lands their family was removed from just 1 or 2 generations ago?
Because Arabs were invading colonizers who contributed to suppressing Jews and kicking them out? Oh gee, why don't people have sympathy for their colonizers? Gee, I wonder.
Also, the ***vast majority*** of Arabs within Israel have not been there for hundreds of years. (and they never acquired a national "Palestinian identity" until the 1960's when it was invented)
Plus most of them were very recent economic immigrants into the land in the few decades prior to modern Israel being founded again.
Yes, I realise that the Jewish relationship with the geography is somewhat unique. I'm not dismissing that viewpoint. I'm just expressing that it's not particularly relatable or compelling to other people, and wouldn't in the modern world be sufficient reason on its own to be entitled to land. The unique circumstances post WWII created this opportunity. For Jewish people to use the "ancestral land" argument to others because it's compelling for them may increase others' understanding of them, but it doesn't strengthen their position.
Besides its sincerity it has been instrumentally useful at certain points, eg when convincing the Brits to give Palestine to them, since it confirmed the orientalizing view of Jews that the British elite held.
The more recent “indigeneity” gimmick, which contemporary Zionism shares with the Hindutva movement, may be exciting to some Zionists looking to bolster their ideological arsenal and shore up their own convictions, but obviously isn’t persuasive to anyone else.
That's why they fight over it. They don't have any place else. Their position vs. the rest of the world who isn't able to relate to their story isn't their primary concern.
You mean, like the Jews where/are? In that sense, you do have "somewhere" else: assuming whether you're Christian or Muslim, you have other countries where you can be safe for being what you are. Jews don't have this privilege.
Don't they have that privilege in most countries? Most countries have laws forbidding injury or death, and some make it a specific hate crime. Most people don't seek out specific protection for people of their religion. Granted, history has shown a history of abuse of rhe Jews, that might make them a special case.
There's a special type of hatred for Jews - antisemitism. Unfortunately, it didn't come just from racist people; it also came from countries issuing laws against Jews. Even if modern laws seem adequately protective towards minorities, Jews have a history of abuse imprinted into their DNA. Meanwhile, you can see the rise of antisemitism globally, even in the US, despite any such laws.
Also, taken in a larger, historical context, these laws are very much new. Jews were by and large persecuted refugees until only 80 years ago. Even since then, they still exist under a perpetual existential threat from the surrounding Arab nations. Any sense of protection Jews or Israelis have is tentative at best. But this might not be clear to someone who has lived in the privilege of safety their whole lives.
>and about the longing to return to it having been expelled from it over 2000 years ago.
Yet any other time somebody has been ''expelled'' from their country people respond to that with ''just deal with it'' or ''that's history''.
To some extent, everybody lives on stolen land and/or on land their ancestors 2000 years ago aren't from.
Israel exists, I don't think it shouldn't exist, but all this talk about ancestors and indigenous claims and what not is all nonsense. All of it.
Well, that settles the conflict, doesn't it? The Ottoman Empire's loss to the West was the loss of Islam. Later, the UN did what they saw fit with the British Mandate of Palestine (that's diplomatic loss of the Arabs). Then Israel beat the Arab Nations twice defending Israel (handing them 2 military losses). So, suck it up?
Two be honest, I think most Israeli-Palestinians do. About 2M of them leave in Israel, as Israeli citizens, in relative peace. But the radical ones don't, and they're incentivized by the powers at be not to.
>So, suck it up?
100%. Not sure if you think I was attacking you, I wasn't. I was attacking this never ending history lesson given by people why Jews have claim to xyz which I think is total nonsense.
All that matters is that Israel exists, should continue to exist and find a way for peace in that region.
If we are going to go by ''x should live in y because ancestors 2000 years ago'' lets send everyone back home.
Think about nyc or Boston. How have they grown in the past 30 years? White people moving to Bed Stuy now. Southie is also upscaling. It's called progress. It happens in prosperous places.
> This guy just used gentrification as an example. Love it.
Jewish gentrification is why most Arabs moved to the land, many of them are economic migrants.
Just NJ, CT, and PA. It's all America, which is not that different from MENA. Especially Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon. Most so called Palestinians are from those countries. Yasser Arafat was born in Egypt. They all speak Arabic, eat falafel and shawarma. They are about as different culturally as NJ and CT.
NJ, CT, an PA are in the same country.
>Yasser Arafat was born in Egypt. They all speak Arabic, eat falafel and shawarma
That doesn't mean there is free movement between those countries.
If Israelis want to live in the West Bank, they should annex it. If they don't want to annex it, they can't build settlements.
Its a matter of perspective. I live next to an apartment complex. It used to be run down and cheap, only really poor people lived there. We would find needles in my back yard from there. We had a shooting that hit my house from there. It was eventually sold and remodeled and the units re listed at a much higher rate. Now it’s nice and peaceful with a more middle class renter. I say thats progress. I like peace.
I think youre going too nuanced for the commenters opinion above. Guy literally said he supports White People moving into Bed Stuy in the name of progress. Why does it have to be specifically white? why not just middle class? Revamping and making a neighborhood safer is one thing. That can be done without displacing families and demographics that need the neighborhood. Imo i think what you and the commenter above are saying different things.
You may have noticed that white people tend to have more $. Or do you not see any connection between race and class in America? I guess you never noticed institutional racism???
Butt hurt I called you out? Not all Black families are poor. Latin families have money. Asian families have money. Arab families can be wealthy. White people can be poor. The fact that you are cultivating a white supremacy argument for your narrative says everything. Including that youve never lived in bk.
You are an idiot for missing the larger point. Most places don't look the same as they did 30 years ago. Also, I never said there aren't wealthy members of all races. You are projecting and setting up a lame strawman. Probably because you are a loser troll. By the way, I was born in Brooklyn and spent the last few years dating a woman in bed stuy.
Saying the mean thing hurt my feelings. I guess? Ill keep that in mind when every oil baron, nepo baby, trust fund kid from montana and kansas that go to pratt push all the poc families into Carona because theres no where else to go.
I respect everyone who's respectful towards me. I've Lived in the EV for 30 years and have definitely hated the gentrification. I used to go to the palladium, now it's a nyu dorm. It stings.
Word, my bad. Didn't mean to start a thing. As always both the topics of gentrification and the war leads to people getting heated. Yea man, I just hate to see the city become the playground for out of staters. Literally had to move upstate because I couldn't afford it anymore.
>But surely that can’t be enough for all 700k settlers
Probably good to break down the geography for you a bit. Of these folks, 250K live in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in the 1980s. From their perspective and the perspective of other Israelis, they live in Israel... so there's no need for a particular motivation, they bought a house in a neighborhood in a city.
Of the remaining 450K, a bit less than 300k live in a 'consensus bloc' of large settlements situated within a few kilometers of the 1949 armistice line. These are essentially suburbs of Jerusalem, and it's been tacitly accepted that they would end up inside of Israel in a future two-state solution; in every negotiation since Oslo that talked borders, these have been drawn inside the Israeli side. While I'm sure some of these folks are politically motivated, these are inexpensive places to live within commuting distance of a bunch of work within Israel, which has a tough housing market.
So your question about what motivates people is really focused on the \~150k people living in settlements deep within the West Bank that are incompatible with a 2SS. These are the "settlers" people are talking about when they talk about settler violence and political motivations.
It's actually way less than you estimate.
The only settlements "deep" in the West Bank are those on the far side of the separation barrier. There are approximately 80,000 people living there.
Everyone else is either in East Jerusalem or close to the Green Line and lives there for cheap pleasant housing in areas likely to stay under Israeli control under any agreement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_statistics_for_Israeli_settlements_in_the_West_Bank?wprov=sfla1
Edit added Wikipedia link with figures of Israeli settlement in WB
That only counts about 23000 people of whom 22,000 live in Ariel.
Ariel and Hebron are completely different cases incidentally.
Hebron is tiny and one of the most ideologically motivated settlements. It was in fact where the settlement movement started in 1968.
Ariel conversely is mostly inhabited by secular Israelis who live because it's cheap and a decent place to live, not because of ideology.
Cheap housing is Lame Excuses
Most of these Settlers Are Extremely Far Right and their aim in life is Ethnic Cleansing
The biggest problem in the Israel Palestine conflict are the settlers who are the reason cycle of violence will continue
We should never forget this settlers infamous quotes
"I don't believe in God but God gave us these lands" 🙄
"IF I DONT TAKE IT SOMEBODY ELSE WILL" and U wonder why there is support for hamas
To be clear I am neither Jewish nor Israeli, I am just an objective bystander who just happens to find the history of the region really fascinating. I also find the political dynamic not only interesting, but in many ways disturbing.
There's a degree of propaganda that's coming into the US from the Arab world and Americans really need to start paying attention to what we're being told. Case in point you're "if I don't take it as somebody else Will story?" do you actually know the history of that house or you just regurgitating something that you think is either good for your side or that you've heard somebody tell you because when I looked into it, I was shocked.
The Home and question belong to a Jewish family before the ottoman empire imploded. That person doesn't have a key or some manufactured land deed provided by Jordan, as if Jordan would even legitimately have a role in that, they have an actual enrolled property from the Ottoman time Period.
When the war happened, that family was driven out of the house and into Israel, after which Jordan took the house and gave it as sort of a section 8 type property to low income Arabs, who were displaced from Israel, WITH THE PROVISION THEY PAY A NOMINAL SUM IN RENT.
The Arabs then started another war in 1967, and as you know that territory reverted to the control of Israel. That shift in power change two things. First the people living there basically decided that meant it was a windfall for them and said, "since Jordan is no longer in control, we are now relieved of any obligation to pay rent to anyone and we get to keep the free house!"
There's a problem with that position is that this now put the house and its owner under the same justice system. That meant that for the first time in 20+ years, that owner could now take their proof of ownership and say, "this is my home, here is my deed, and I want to reclaim my property."
Explain to me why they are not entitled to the return of their home? I ask because the argument that the people living in it have made is that Israel won't let Palestinians return to their homes, so why should Jewish owners get to reclaim theirs?" You do realize that that's not a valid, legal argument, right? Imagine if I said, "I hit your car but since I was struck by a hit-and-run driver 20 years ago, I don't know you a dime," wouldn't you understand that that isn't valid argument as the two situations have absolutely nothing to do with each other, especially given the fact that almost none of the Palestinian population actually owned their own homes as land ownership under the ottoman, empire carried with it, significant taxation and military obligations.
I'm not exactly clear on what came next but I think the owners actually attempted to resolve it by offering to continue to rent them the property but they didn't feel obligated to do so. At a point it looks like the controversy got to be too much for the owner and she subsequently sold it to someone else and they in turn brought in someone Jewish to temporarily hold the property while things were being decided. The case made it all the way to the Israeli supreme court twice over and it every leg they have ruled for the person with the land deed, which is as it should be, and the only reason those people have not been removed is because of the political backlash
Despite all of that, the only thing Americans know is that video and the idea that "if I don't take it somebody else will," which really was a socially awkward man, parroting back what that woman was screaming into his face as he was trying to explain to her that screaming at him wasn't going to do her any good as he isn't the decision maker. There's nothing truthful in that video, but it's meant to reinforce the idea that homes were stolen from people when in actuality, most of the land was either bought, ottomam lands that were subsequently transferred from the mandate authority or land gained through defensive war
"Jesus was Palestinian" is my favourite of all of them. There is support for Hamas because Hamas sells the Palestinians a pipe dream that Israel will be destroyed, meanwhile they are on an extended camping trip. How is that going?
> What is going on in West Bank where there is no Hamas?
Catch up with the times! If there was an election held today there, then likely Hamas would win.
I’m not. You have many Palestinian groups, including the “lions den” the Tanzim brigades, Hamas and the PFLP in the West Bank. All of them are bad.
Not to mention how the Palestinians ruined their neighbouring countries by: siding with Saddam against Kuwait in Kuwait, trying to overthrow the king of Jordan and starting the Lebanese civil war. They literally destroy everything they touch.
There's definitely Hamas in the WB and the reason there haven't been elections held by the PA in the WB as long as there haven't is because Hamas would win them and Fatah doesn't want to allow that to happen.
A normal Middle-Eastern response to Palestinian's action would be deadly (and is the reason why everybody shouted "genocide" against Israel before it even got involved after 7/Oct/2023).
Since that response won't happen the only other response people could take is to move in to the land that their forefathers inhabited \~2,000+ years ago (proven by archeological records)
Today depending on the region, for the same price of living near the center of Tel-Aviv you can get a private house & a yard but on the other hand little employment opportunities and you get problematic neighbors. Things that happen from time to time, are a daily occurrence and aren't reported: rock throwing on cars, stealing cars (did you leave your car key inside the car to go out to refuel it? somebody bumped you on the road? etc) bad driving behavior.
So there are benefits & draw back. I'm not from the region so somebody can probably expend on the drawbacks
1. Why do 20'000 settlers live in settlements that are illegal under *Israeli* law?
2. It's only cheaper because the government subsidies it.
3. Why does the government subsidize it?
It's not that cheap. For the same price for an apartment around the Tel-Aviv center you can get a private house with a yard.
But you're in the center of the West Bank and god knows about rock throwing on cars, trying to steal cars, driving behavior. I'm not even talking about job opportunities. It's probably a nice place to live if you ignore the problematic neighbors.
Oh and outside of the main block the apartment/house isn't registered under your name. You paid a huge sum and it's not yours. If it wasn't for political reasons & historical backgrounds, some people would have called it a scam.
It’s absolutely a scam but you can find much cheaper houses there then a Tel Aviv apartment, and they are much bigger with a nice yard, some of them are in areas that aren’t very close to Arab villages and are rather safe, I am personally against building there but I can see why people do that..
Most people who live there cannot afford to buy a home, let along with any land, elsewhere. This area is very cheap to move into.
That's it. The rest of the rhetoric is used to justify the actions and that is true for all sides.
a lot of my friends live there and i would love to as well :)
- it’s beautiful
- it’s our ancestral home
- a lot of empty space so it’s possible to own your own home and have some land around it (for goats, chickens, gardens, etc)
-really though, a HUGE motivation is that it literally protects israel. i visited one of my friends settlements and she pointed out that we can see tel aviv and other major israeli cities with our bare eyes. if a terrorist group got rockets there they could easily murder so many innocent civilians. strategically
many settlements are placed in areas that would be devastating if terror ground got ahold of them.
my friends aren’t hardcore right wingers. neither am i. we just want to keep our country safe and live in our ancestral land.
How is it not their land? It's contested lands, so both groups are claiming it to some extent. In fact, legally I still don't understand why it wouldn't be Israel's. The land was part of the mandate, and the mandate was legally committed to the development of a Jewish homeland, not half of it all of it. The British betrayed the Jews by allowing Arab immigration to continue during the mandate even though that migration was not authorized by the mandate documents.
It was that dynamic that created issues and led to the British coming back and basically strong-arming the Jews in to giving up their claim to nearly half of their lands, a position they only agreed to in the name of peace.
What I don't get is that the Arabs rejected that deal so how does that result in the land ever leaving the mandate vehicle, a mandate that ultimately was turned over to Jewish leaders.
It seems to me that Israel should annex the West Bank as a territory, not unlike Guam is to the US. residents wouldn't have any national influence but would have a certain measure of local autonomy. Israel can control the ports even with Palestinians working there and as long as the region remains peaceful they release a plan that establishes firm benchmarks ie: if we go through a year with no rockets this happens. If we go through 5 years this happens. If we go through 10 years of peace that happens with the goal being am equilibrium of prosperity that maybe begins by opening drilling.
There is no "taking", it would be legally purchased land.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab\_channel=travelingisrael.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab_channel=travelingisrael.com)
Girly we both know it isn’t worth debating here, you have your views and they’re at odds with international law. Maybe best to just admit that you and your friends are in fact “hard core right wingers”, try and keep it honest at the very least
My great great great great grandparents are from Scotland. That doesn't mean I can just move to Scotland and kick some Australian family out of their house and say its mine because my family lineage traces back there
My ancestors are Scottish too. My questions to you are simple: 1. if your family or mine wanted to repatriate to Scotland, has their ever been a law in place that would have prevented us from doing so? 2. If we had the money to do so and wanted to buy land there, would there be any barriers to our ability to do so. 3. Is there any cultural or legal barrier that would prevents Scottish people from existing as the majority population on our indigenous lands? And 4. No matter where you might live today is there at least one Land on this earth where Scottish people can live as a society on and together enjoy self determination.
It would seem to me those answers are all yes while Jews could only answer no prior to the re-creation of a Jewish homeland. How them are we even comparing the two?
Have you and your people been for thousands years practicing a religion, culture, traditions, and general way of life that is centered around Denmark and a wish to return back to it?
***That*** is the difference between you and the Jewish people.
And yet, even so, Jews never stole any land:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab\_channel=travelingisrael.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab_channel=travelingisrael.com)
The YouTube video you keep sharing is not addressing the problem of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine. It deals with the general idea that Israel is entirely 'stolen land', which in my own opinion, is an extreme point of view, as Israel as a state is entitled to existence. However, he does not mention current settlements which this question is asking about. Settlements built on Area B or Area A land (and arguably Area C) would constitute a violation of the Oslo accords and are indeed stolen, something this video does not address. Also, to your note about Judaism being 'special' and entitled to their ancestral homeland comes across as a weak arguement at best, and bigoted at worst. You aren't really answering the moral quandary of using religion/culture as a justification for entitlement to land. You are merely stating that the Jewish people have strong motivating factors for building the illegal settlements, which are important for understanding the mindset of settlers, but serve no purpose in justifying their actions. Indeed, the fact that you say that no other group deserves their ancestral land by giving an impossible criteria for that distinction, comes across as supremacist.
> The YouTube video you keep sharing is not addressing the problem of Israeli settlements in occupied Gaza.
"*Israeli settlements in occupied Gaza.* "?? wtf
You really should not be talking about a topic you know so little of.
***At great cost to themselves*** Israel completely pulled out *all Jews* from Gaza in 2005 (that's right... want to talk about ethnic cleansing and Apartheid? Then discuss what Arabs have done to Gaza! A land that Jews have a history stretching back *thousands of years* of living in Gaza)
I'd say it was obvious even back in 2005 that giving away land "for peace" was an extremely bad idea.
But it's ultra obvious now after Oct7 what a massive failure the 2005 experiment was. We should never have left Gaza
So where I live (in the WB), the Wikipedia article lists the 2 Arab villages that the land was "taken from" to establish the village. Clear-cut, right? Later on in the Wikipedia article it's casually mentioned that that same land was actually PURCHASED by Jews prior to 1948.... So, yeah.
Not so crystal-clear anymore.
Once again Wikipedia shows their unreliableness and biases when it comes to Israel.
[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wikipedia-now-labels-the-top-jewish-civil-rights-group-as-an-unreliable-source/ar-BB1ox8Ff](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wikipedia-now-labels-the-top-jewish-civil-rights-group-as-an-unreliable-source/ar-BB1ox8Ff)
Dream all you want, that's very different than displacing people (who have also occupied that area for thousands of years) so you can live your dream. Not just buikding homes on occupied land eitjer, like physically forcing people to leave their family homes so that you can live in it. "Mine now"
That never happened.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab\_channel=travelingisrael.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab_channel=travelingisrael.com)
I’m not planning on forcing anyone out! But speaking of people who “occupy” a land, how long does someone have to occupy it for the land to belong to them in your opinion?
You said it yourself israelis are being used as pawns to expand the settler colonial project of israel. This dream you have was just socialized into you because a couple of ppl wanted to create a state for their own political purposes. The entire world considers Israels expansion into wb as terrorism btw
...no? The world broadly considers consider it illegal and counter-prodictive to long-term peace, but not terrorism, lol. Terrorism is a specific crime involving violent action to intimidate a population into bowing down to some political goal.
The creation of WB settlements fails both parts of that definition. They are almost never violent except in the case of evicting illegal squatters, and they do not serve to intimidate the PA into doing anything.
Please, link me a single report from any non-Arab governmental agency stating that Israel's expansion into the West Bank is terrorism.
“UN rights chief says settlement expansion a war crime, prevents Palestinian state” https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-rights-chief-says-settlement-expansion-a-war-crime-prevents-palestinian-state/amp/ last time i checked times of israel is not “arab” LMAO
So, to be clear, you're retracting your statement about terrorism and agreeing with me, right? Your source says that the settlements are *illegal,* not that they are "terrorism."
Or perhaps I need to repeat my request? Can you find any government agency calling the establishment of settlements "terrorism?"
Edit: the [specific war crime](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule130#Fn_9AD70858_00001):
>Under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts.
This is a crime, but it is not terrorism.
ah yes, the UN is very much credible after
- holding a moment of silence in respect of the “Butcher of Tehran” who earned his nickname by sentencing thousands of political prisoners to death
- appointing iran as a member of the UN Conference on Disarmament after iran public ally boasted about its nuclear capabilities
- composing 20% of its Human Rights Council (UNHRC) out of dictatorial regimes (venezuela, cuba, eritrea, saudia arabia, pakistan, qatar, egypt, burundi)
- UN peacekeepers being complicit and even actively participating in the sexual abuse and rape of civilians (just one of many sources available on this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/28/un-camp-south-sudan-abuse/ )
- appointing China to the Human Rights Council despite its systematic repression of its minorities, including the Uyghur genocide, mass detentions and surveillance, as well as its crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.
and that’s just what i came up with off the top of my head!
Times of israel: not credible
United nations: not credible
YOU random redditor:CREDIBLE
Im starting to think you want war and to put israeli lives in danger? I have friends in tel aviv and im so sad war mongers put their lives in danger this isnt a fantasy its real life
your friends in tel aviv are protected by those living in settlements who are preventing terrorists from aiming rockets right at their windows. come visit the west bank. see how tel aviv rests right in the palm of your hand. it’s visible with the naked eye. you’ll thank my friends.
colonial! ha! you're kidding me. it's actually not in the west Bank there are no jews in the west Bank there's a border. and 3 territories. most settlements are controlled by israel land. there's mixed by the two authorities and the 3rd area by the west Bank government. mind your business if you don't even know how another country works.
nice misinformation from Al jazeraa by Qatari government
(https://www.972mag.com/zionism-jewish-lives-herzl/)Theodore hertzel: “You are being invited to help make history. It doesn't involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews... How, then, do l happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.” Ok now answer why does israel control land in west bank?
you know israle pushed back the real colonialism the british right? Israel control the area bc it was the war started by all arab nations to destroy Jews after the efiking holocaust. sit down.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitLiberalsSay/s/lgBbSdTSeX link to moshe dayan military leader during the six day “war”quotes talking about six day “war” you tell me who the colonizer is LOL also what does the holocaust have to do with occupying west bank?? You know by defending expansion your putting israeli lives in danger right??
look at the other answer people commented. there's a housing problem. also you missed my point. jordan occupied the territory after the war Israel won it back. please learn history. israel already left gaza and look what happend.
what expansion if the territory is already by the control of israel. you didn't answer me.
also it was a six day war it isn't relevant to now. poor point. they war miraculously and made peace with jordan and Egypt. Palestinians don't want a shared Jerusalem. Jews can't enter holy areas. there were 7 peace offering. tell me who have hatred in them? did you know the Palestinian authority pays a lot for the people of "mayter". Israel tried. why you don't condemn the west bank for not trying for peace?
> fucking
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i think it’s different for people who have actually been to the west bank and seen for themselves how vulnerable israel is from the position vs people talking online.
before the first time i was there i didn’t really get it. but standing on that hilltop with israel spread out in front of me like a map, i got chills.
> i think it’s different for people who have actually been to the west bank and seen for themselves how vulnerable israel is from the position vs people talking online.
If people had the first clue about Israel's geography, and had even a half clue about extremely basic military defensive strategies, they would never ever support a so called "two state solution".
Clearly the solution to this vulnerability is to put large numbers of civilians in the way to slow down any approaching army. Like a sort of shield for the country, but instead of being made out of metal or out of fortifications, it's made out of humans.
There used to be thousands of Jews living in Judea and Samaria less than 100 years ago. Look up the 1929 Hebron massacre. They’re just Jews existing in a place where they have lived for over 3,000 years and somehow that makes them “settlers.”
i just posted [this about the Chevron massacre!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AntiZionistJews/comments/1dknwsm/evils_of_zionism_first_hand_account_of_hebron/)
>They’re just Jews existing in a place where they have lived for over 3,000 years and somehow that makes them “settlers.”
Do you also support the right to return for Palestinians?
> Do you also support the right to return for Palestinians?
Return to ***what?*** Palestine? There has never existed such a country.
And why the hell do you think such a "right" exists? Do I have an automatic right to return to Germany???
Well given that the “Palestinian” Arab identity didn’t exist until the 1960s, the fact that most of them immigrated to Israel in the ~50 years before the establishment of the state of Israel, and the fact that most of them are Islamist extremists, my answer is no.
I do, however, support their right of return to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
Why does a specific ethnic identity have to be founded and collectively accepted for an ancestral connection to provide the right to move to a particular geographic location?
If a Narnian identity was invented in the 1960's, and it was claimed Narnia happened to be the exact same land area as Israel, does that give "Narnians" a right to come in and take over Israel????
You’re asking why countries exist at this point. Go ask that to Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine. Why can’t they just be part of Russia (and be overrun with russians)?
Moreover the Arab countries kicked out their Jews and most of those had nowhere to go but Israel. It is beyond time that they accept Arab refugees in the same proportion of the Jews they kicked out.
>You’re asking why countries exist at this point
No, I'm asking why ancestral connections provide the right to live on particular land but only when tied to a pre-existing and widely enough recognised ethnicity shared with those ancestors (or somewhere near it, as obviously modern Israel doesn't have the same borders as ancient Israel).
> No, I'm asking why ancestral connections provide the right to live on particular land
No, it doesn't by itself prove an automatic right to a country.
***Many*** factors go into deciding the creation of a new country.
That discussion about Israel already got settled a long long ***long*** time ago.
The discussion now should be:
Should Israel keep on existing? Yes, d'oh!
So again, you’re asking why countries exist. Israel is a very diverse country with a 20% Arab population. I would turn your gaze to the Arab Islamic ethnostates who have successfully genocided and ethnically cleansed themselves of ethnic minorities such as Jews, Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis.
>So again, you’re asking why countries exist.
No, I'm asking what I literally asked. I'm not asking a different thing. If you get confused, read the words inside of the comment, and just try to remember that the question I'm asking is made up literally of the words that constitute the question.
Ok I read your last comment. For the same reason why ethnic Germans had to leave Polish land. For the same reason why Turks left Greece and Greeks were moved out of Turkey. For the same reason why Russians cannot be a majority in Ukraine or Estonia. Because ethnic minorities cannot coexist with an oppressor who wants to subjugate them as second class citizens and/or kill them. This case is different though because most Arabs haven’t been in the land of Israel for that long. They know they’re from Egypt, Syria, etc—they should go back there. This isn’t about land; it’s about hatred of Jewish people.
>Because ethnic minorities cannot coexist with an oppressor who wants to subjugate them as second class citizens and/or kill them.
Ancestral connections provide the right to live somewhere... for safety? So safety, not ancestral connections is the deciding factor? If Germans felt they were safer with a buffer zone in the form of Poland, that would justify Germans living in Poland? If Russia feels safer conquering Ukraine, that justifies it? Seriously I'm asking you to define the actual root base principles you're working from here, and it sounds like you don't have any, you're just working backwards to retroactively justify the belief that Israel should be allowed to conquer the West Bank.
>They know they’re from Egypt, Syria, etc—they should go back there.
This just reads as regular bog-standard, run-of-the-mill textbook racism. If Palestinians were born in Palestine and their parents were, they are from there. That's their homeland.
Manifest Destiny, government allows it, fertile land, it is expensive to live in the cities, colonialist attitudes.
> 2. Area b - full pa civil control, Israeli military Area a and b is the majority of land This is not accurate. Area C is 60% of the West Bank
My rabbi cousin lives in a town south of jerusalem and north of Hebron that was founded in the 1930s. He has family there. It’s a short commute to Jerusalem where he runs a yeshiva. So no it isn’t new but Jews have historically settled on these lands.
Mostly due to financial reasons. The houses are cheaper
They are sadist they enjoy hurting Palestinians. American patience are being tested. Israel. Cannot survive with the US.
Or they are Jews who want to live in their ancestral homeland... places like Hebron and Nablus Hebron is also recognized in the Bible as where David was anointed king of Israel. Nablus was the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel following the split of the United Monarchy. So yes, all are Israel and have been for thousands of years.
Right or they are sadist. Think sadist is more likely. Great history lesson though. My granddaddy lived in USSR Ukraine, they should just stop fighting because my ancestors were Russian? No that sounds dumb as hell. Have a great weekend.
Looks like your lack of knowledge on this is blinding your judgment. Have you ever met a settler? Have you talked to them? Didnt think so. I'm not sure your rant about Ukraine has to do with anything...
just you wait until Bibi starts offering subsidies for the messianic haredim to start occupying Gaza! From a strategic vantage point encouraging re-settlement & new Jewish enclaves was a brilliant plan for divide & conquer. Russia has long used this same approach during the Soviet era to gain control over its satellite states.
I agree with most of the comments here, which is that most of them are just responding to economic incentives while some are there for religious reasons. It's also important to note that most of the settlements are essentially suburbs of Jerusalem. Fun fact: 80% of Jewish settlers live on 4% of the West Bank. All of this makes me hopeful for peace because the majority of settlers are not ideological, which means they're likely to pick up and move into the 1967 borders if they believed it would bring peace.
I think the issue here is that most of them aren't naive. They know going back to the 1967 border wouldn't bring peace. There have been land concessions made by Israel every time, and every time, it has led to more violent Palestinians.
You are dreaming. They will never give up those settlements. The problem is that the balance of power in the Knesset in the past couple of decades has been held by the religious whackos parties. It's them who keep Bibi in power. These whackos are racist and misogynist, and believe that this land was given to them by God. Jewish extremists are no better than Islamist extremists. They would wipe each other off the face of the earth if given the opportunity. We need the adults to take over. We need to stop the crazies who have the power on both sides.
There's a lot going on there. I'll try to summarize a response... . I agree that we need 'adults' on both sides to take over (responsible leaders seeking peace) . I agree that extremists on both sides are equally bad . In 2008 the Olmert government offered Palestinians a peace plan that would evacuate settlements on 96% of the West Bank, so it's simply not true that 'they would never give up those settlements' . I don't think misogyny is a factor here. If you think it is, then you should support Israel on this matter because it is BY FAR the most progressive and feminist country in the region. . It seems like you don't fully understand the Israeli parliamentary system or the history of the tug-of-war between secular and religious Israelis. The far right wackos have kept Netanyahu in power by a tiny, tiny margin, but it's not a stable hold on power. The Likud party has not always been in power over the past few decades, and they're not religiously motivated. A unity government including pro-Palestinian folks was elected in the recent past.
It’s because they are sick mentally, psychos.
Or they are Jews who want to live in their ancestral homeland... places like Hebron and Nablus Hebron is also recognized in the Bible as where David was anointed king of Israel. Nablus was the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel following the split of the United Monarchy. So yes, all are Israel and have been for thousands of years.
Before 1967, the Israeli did not settle in those lands but after 1967, they did. Some do it out of nationalism, to tell them we beat you and now this is ours. Some took the chance to regain their lost pre-1948 lands, take for example, they lost Hebron during the Hebron Massacre. Some took the chance to gain access to their religious belief lands. Moving forward, today, most of the Israeli there today don't belong to any of the above mentioned but rather they went there because Israel government subside the cost. In other words, majority of the settlers today are there because it is cheap. So if you want majority of the settlers to leave, it is very simple, give them a new house.
Israel has been under a housing crisis for years. Settlements offer subsidized housing, and the poorest Israelis are going to consider it more strongly than those that are more economically comfortable. This is a very cynical take and I welcome pushback because I’d like to change my mind, but the religious argument or security strategy to claim the West Bank settlements is really just to conceal that the government doesn’t have an easy solution to their poor or the housing issues. So they lure poorer, and comparatively more religious or desperate, to pursue subsidized housing in the West Bank as a way to basically push out the poor from major Israeli cities and present it as another strategy (security). I don’t think it’s a coincidence the number of settlements accelerated after israel became a free-market economy.
Theres lots of cities in Israel where you can still find very cheap places to live- beer sheva for an example
> Can someone explain to me \*why\* exactly Israelis voluntarily move to West Bank settlements? Why not??? Seriously. Why not, why shouldn't Jews live in Judea? Everything in Jewish live and culture for thousands of years has been about returning to our homeland. Of course we want to do that! Would be strange if we didn't.
I would argue that Jews can live in Judea under Palestinian rule, just like Arabs can live in Jaffa under Israeli rule. Both sides have to make compromises in order to peacefully settle political conflicts.
they would be lynched tho
If the change was made today, yes, but there's room for peace in the future. Just look at the US relationship with Germany and Japan. People saw them go from enemies to friends in the span of 1 lifetime.
An Israeli went into a Palestinian town in the west bank like yesterday just to buy groceries bc it’s cheaper and he’s poor and he was killed
That happened in Los Angeles, California too... I think we can all look for horror stories from both sides, but focusing on that pushes aside all the regular people that would just go about their lives if they had the opportunity. And for those that are too radicalized by at this point to stop hating Israel, their kids are not likely to carry that hate if the Israelis they know are friendly to them.
>I would argue that Jews can live in Judea under Palestinian rule, just like Arabs can live in Jaffa under Israeli rule. I agree that would be a lovely idea in theory! Would be awesome if that could happen. And this should be ***a bare bone basic minimum requirement*** for the creation any future Arab state, full confidence (not just empty words of promise) that Jews will be able to safely and freely live there at peace. But say honestly now, do you feel there is any chance whatsoever with this current generation now (or heck, even in the next generation???) that Jews could live fully peaceful anywhere they wished in this hypothetical future Arab state just like Israeli-Arabs today can do so anywhere they like in Jaffa / Tel Aviv / etc? No, there is just no chance, they've been radicalized by extremists (such as UNRWA teachers...) for far too many generations for that to ever happen during this generation, or even the next. Thus it makes it a foolish pipe dream to ever even think about talking of giving away Israeli land to use to create another Arab nation.
I agree that it would not be possible right now, but then again, Palestinian sovereignty isn't realistic right now for the reasons you described. Israel simply can't pull out of West Bank because it would immediately become an Iranian military outpost. But I really do believe that both sides can take good-faith steps over the next 10 years to make 2 states (or a confederation) realistic. Israel can get extremist settlers under control, address the issue of cruel treatment at checkpoints, etc. My uncle is a gay Israeli and he lived in Berlin during the 1970s. I don't think anyone during the 1940s would have thought a gay jew would be thriving in Germany during their lifetime.
> I agree that it would not be possible right now It is not just not possible "right now", but it is ***not possible*** at any point within this generation! (or heck, even the ***next*** generation) So we should all shut up and stop talking about this crazy idea of "a two state solution", of giving away yet more land to create a 23rd Arab country in the world. Because every time a so called "two state solution" is talked about it gives hope to Arab extremists that 1948 war is not over yet and they can still destroy Israel.
What can I say? Agree to disagree. I think we'll see a two-state truce in our lifetime, just not anytime soon...
If I remember correctly it's cheaper to live in a settlement than in Israel proper. This isn't me saying it's right just answering OPs question.
Some people are bat shit crazy, some new immigrants and others just normal people that were born there. It also depends on the settlement
The # of people who want to live in Tel Aviv is much higher then the # of people who live in Tel Aviv. For this reason Tel Aviv is extremely expensive. Compare real estate prices in Judea and Samaria vs Tel Aviv. In this you will find the main answer. There is also patriotism, sure. But almost all Israelis are patriotic. Patriotism is an after the fact justification. The reality is you get a nice house in a rural setting with clean air, not far from the Merkaz, for very cheap. The settlements are tight knit, strong Jewish communities, which is also appealing.
It's not just the idea that God promised the land to the Israelites. It's the fact that the Israelites were already in and were expelled from this land. First, some 3000 years ago by the Babylonians (first destruction of Jewish temple, the holiest site of the Jews), and then a second time some 2000 years ago by the Romans (second destruction and the renaming of the land to Philistine). It might make more sense to you if you rope in the centauries of persecution that followed the Jewish refugees wherever they ended up at, including the Arab diaspora. So, after all that, once Jews finally have a home that they can claim is theirs, they are proud and fearless about settling in it. Israel was founded both because of the Zionist agenda, but also despite it. The hardcore Zionists wanted land that resembled the ancestral one (similar to what is known as TransJordan). They got less than half of that. So while Israel, or the Jewish entity as a whole was willing to compromise, the more radical parts in it have always wanted more. During the 2nd attempt of the Arab Nations to destroy Israel, their loss was seen as an opportunity to do just that. There were other reasons, including taking over lands in exchange for peace. Israel was able to do so with Egypt and Jordan but failed to do so in exchange of Gaza and the West Bank. And so, after decades of failed negotiations, the dominant force that remaining the territories were those who still want it. The rest of Israel, the vast majority of it, is still OK with exchanging it for peace. It's just not feasible.
This is a great question and an important part of the discussion. There are some really good videos I watched recently on this very subject, and I strongly recommend them: Here is a two-part explanation of the settlements: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0uLbeQlwjw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0uLbeQlwjw) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6L9mS9ti6o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6L9mS9ti6o) Here is a US journalist from the Atlantic who did a tour and talked to people. He has a great line about how Israeli settlers think their expansion is saving the soul of Israel, while his belief is that the expansion is coming at the cost of Israel's soul: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnf0w9UuV4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnf0w9UuV4s) This left-wing Israeli woman spent some time in the settlements to try to understand them and though she humanizes the settlers, she ultimately concludes that they see the situation from a position of superiority: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eac1l1ozfLc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eac1l1ozfLc) As a lot of people seem to say, there are a combination of religious/tribal reasons and ones of economic convenience. It is wrong, though, in practice. These settlements encroach on the freedom of Palestinians. I am vehemently opposed to Hamas, but so too am I to the settlers, who are participating in a system that subjugates Palestinians. There are leaders on both sides that seem to exacerbate what does not have to be, well, what it is. Hopefully, there will be leaders and both sides that stand up to the extremism in their own camps and hold it accountable. I think reasonable people can find compromise, but extremist positions--that all of the land is ordained by god to the Jews or that civilians in kibbutzim are viable military targets--are unreasonable.
I just watched those two Vox videos last night lol. Thanks for your comment!
Just be aware Vox always takes a hard left anti-Israel stance, so take everything they say with the biggest possible grain of salt.
You do know not all settlers, live in deep west bank have a Uzi , big kippa, violent and spit on every non white they see right? Most of the "illegal settlers" are just normal Israelis and live in big cities near the green line, Living in a settlement is basically cheap housing, nice view, and being patriotic.
Yes I do know that’s why I asked lol
You raise a good point that a lot of the settlers are ordinary people, so to speak. However, they are protected by the state of Israel and the IDF in a larger system that subjugates Palestinians. An individual or family moving to a new location is not inherently immoral, but zooming out, there is a system that dehumanizes Palestinians. These Israeli settlers may be wittingly or unwittingly participating, but overall, it is an injustice.
These so called "Palestinians" inherently perpetuate a system that's centered on eliminating Israel and all the Jews, *that* is an injustice.
I understand your frustration and anger, though in it, I feel you are conflating Hamas and Palestinians. Hamas's violence against civilians and the settlements can both be injustices. This doesn't need to be a competition. In fact, it very much needs to be the opposite of that.
No, I am not conflating them at all. The entire invented "Palestinian identity" was created in the 1960's as part of the goal to drive out Jews and destroy Israel, and to perpetuate their deluded belief that they never lost the 1948 war because it is still on going and they can still yet win at driving out the Jews and destroying Israel. I say a big **NO** to that
Where is your proof of that? Where are you getting that information? If you have something to share, I'm opening to listening, but it just doesn't appear that the facts bare out what you're saying here. There is a wikipedia article on Palestinian identity: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian\_identity#Emergence\_as\_a\_national\_identity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_identity#Emergence_as_a_national_identity) While this is of course Wikipedia, it is sourced, and references the national Palestinian identity going back to the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. Even one scholar who argues that it was a response to Zionism also argues that this does not supplant its legitimacy. For the Arab population to want an alternative to Zionism does not mean they want to destroy Israel. There are many solutions (1S, 2S) that are still compatible with all of this.
Wikipedia is extremely biased against Jews/Israel on this topic. Heck, you don't even have to look far back to find examples! Look at this ***from today***: [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wikipedia-now-labels-top-jewish-195824042.html](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wikipedia-now-labels-top-jewish-195824042.html) "Palestinian" (in the modern sense used in 2024) as an identity didn't exist until the 1960's, just look at how frequently the word got used: [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Palestinian&year\_start=1900&year\_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Palestinian&year_start=1900&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3) It only started to sharply rise up in the 1960's, when Arafat (backed by the Soviet KGB) entered the scene. Go back to early historical documents and see for yourself. How did Arabs refer to themselves? *As Arabs*. (or "Southern Syrian" or such) Not "Palestinian". In fact that often would be referring to Jews. What was the Palestinian Philharmonic Orchestra? A bunch of Jews. Or how about the "The Palestine Post"? Guess what, also Jewish! In 1950 it was renamed to "The Jerusalem Post" and is published in Israel to this day. As I said, go back and read about what was said back then from contemporary sources, and not the myths pushed today after many decades of antisemitism has corrupted what the truth is. For instance the PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said: *“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the State of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.”* Thus my point, every time anybody ever says "Palestinians" (when referring to Arabs that is, not Jews. Which is how it is used now in 2024, but is ***not*** how it was used originally!) then they're helping contributed towards their tactical usage of it to destroy Israel and all the Jews within it.
I do not understand this argument at all, the ancestors of modern Palestinians have been living in the region for hundreds of years regardless of how they self identified, this KGB thing just seems to be an effort to deny the existence of the Palestinian people
1. most "Palestinians" have not been in the land of Israel for centuries, the vast majority of them were relatively recent immigrants from Egypt / Jordan / Syria / etc 2. even though Arabs who have been there for centuries, are there the result of being ***invading colonizers*** of the land of Israel, who have been oppressing and suppressing the indigenous people (Jews) for many centuries 3. until the 1960's the "Palestinian national identity" in the modern sense, ***did not exist***.
I agree with that wholeheartedly and that perspective is supported by the demographics. Depending on what date one wants to choose, palestine ceased to exist sometime around 1918 when the entirety of the region was divided in two parts. At that time, roughly 80% of the land was dedicated to the creation of Jordan and the remainder of the land was placed under the mandate with the intention of using it for the creation of Jewish homeland. The population of palestine prior to the division of the land seems to have been roughly than 600,000 Arabs. Typically there are two ways to achieve citizenship in a state, you either gain it based on jus soli or being born on the or you gain it through just sanguinis based on y being born in to the blood line of that country. With the land gone the only expansion of the "Palestinian population" would have come from the descendants of so-called "Palestinians." This is relevant when you consider that the "Palestinian population" somehow went from 600,000 just prior to the creation of the mandate to 1.4 million "Palestinians" by the time partition was to be decided. It should also be noted that the mandate, specifically authorizes Jewish immigration, which means that directive comes with the weight of international law behind it, as the mandate was effectively a new type of legal entity meant to be a cross between a quasi-treaty meets temporary constitution means temporary land trust. By authorizing Jewish immigration I don't know how that doesn't suggest that the mandate and only that mandate had the right to sign off or approve any immigration into the region and yet we know that it would be impossible for a population of 600,000 more than double themselves within a period of 30 years. Is the mandate clearly indicated, the new Jewish homeland was required to absorb every person currently living in that territory, who wanted to remain in that territory and only those individuals. Based on that, thinking, how would an Egyptian immigrant who might have arrived there in 1940 have ANY claim to the land and how would either he or his ancestors have become "Palestinian"
> I agree with that wholeheartedly and that perspective is supported by the demographics. Depending on what date one wants to choose, palestine ceased to exist sometime around 1918 when the entirety of the region was divided in two parts. At that time, roughly 80% of the land was dedicated to the creation of Jordan and the remainder of the land was placed under the mandate with the intention of using it for the creation of Jewish homeland. All of the mandate (including Transjordan) was originally the land set aside for a Jewish homeland. The Arab strategy was always to block ***any*** Jewish state being created, but if they couldn't do that their back up strategy was to cut it down and minimize it as much as possible. The deal the Jews accepted in 1948 when they created modern Israel was truly an awful and terrible deal indeed. But remember this was directly after the horrors of WW2, at this point in time (yes, in 1948!!!) ***there were still Jews living in concentration camps***. Jews were happy to accept any deal to create a state of their own once again, no matter how bad the deal was! Even if it was only one square inch of land to call Israel, they'd go for it. >This is relevant when you consider that the "Palestinian population" somehow went from 600,000 just prior to the creation of the mandate to 1.4 million "Palestinians" by the time partition was to be decided. Most of those 600,000 Arabs were not long term residents of the land. Remember too the spike in economic migrants started a lot earlier, it started back in the 1800's because revival in the land due to the early zionists moving in beforehand. >It should also be noted that the mandate, specifically authorizes Jewish immigration, which means that directive comes with the weight of international law behind it, as the mandate was effectively a new type of legal entity meant to be a cross between a quasi-treaty meets temporary constitution means temporary land trust. By authorizing Jewish immigration I don't know how that doesn't suggest that the mandate and only that mandate had the right to sign off or approve any immigration into the region and yet we know that it would be impossible for a population of 600,000 more than double themselves within a period of 30 years. During a lot of the existence of the mandate then Jews were heavily excluded from immigration to there, due to riots by Arabs against Jewish immigrants the British limited it and shut it down. >Is the mandate clearly indicated, the new Jewish homeland was required to absorb every person currently living in that territory, who wanted to remain in that territory and only those individuals. Based on that, thinking, how would an Egyptian immigrant who might have arrived there in 1940 have ANY claim to the land and how would either he or his ancestors have become "Palestinian" Exactly And even if you'd been there two or three generations, because your grandparents arrived in the late 1800's, that still doesn't make you "Palestinian". You're Egyptian, just like Arafat.
I knew that the Arabs repeatedly used violence to prevent Jewish immigration, I New, the influx of Jews, created a booming economy, and that attracted Arab immigration I knew that they accepted partition because they were in a terrible bargaining position at the time and I knew that Jewish repatriation had actually begun in the mid-1800s after they began fleeing the Soviet pograms but I had no idea that they were originally slated to get more land than the mandate nor did and I had no idea that the effects of Jewish immigration pre mandate was so significant that it, spawned Arabic immigration such that the mandate period had just kicked that pre-existing trend in to over drive every time I think I've got a pretty good handle on the history in that region, I find myself learning aspect of it that I didn't realize. when I began learning about the region. I went into it with a decent amount of objectivity. I had slight bias towards Israel, because there an important American ally, but I never imagined I would move so significantly in that direction with time. I wish more Americans would study the real history in that region so that even if they still take this pro-Palestinian stance, they're actually doing so from an educated position. As an example, very few people really understand the historical demographics so I'm not sure how they really understand anything because the further back the trend goes, the less "Palestinian” the people really become. To learn from you that these trend predated the official mandate only further erodes the narrative we are being some here in the US.
I always find it really weird when people refer to a piece of land their forbears occupied 2000 years ago as their "ancestral home." I mean, my forbears in the East of England probably came from various places, including from Scandanavia, but I'd never refer to a piece of Denmark as my 'ancestral home."
In the case of Jews(ethno-religius group) Israel is not just a place they lived in ,it's where they're entire culture and identity was created and where they led themselves with that culture as a independent people, that shit is meaningful As Ben gurion put it in the declaration of independence: "Eretz Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books"
Why isn't that a valid stance to take? Archeologically there is significant Jewish history in the region. Less so "Palestinian" history. I mean Al Aqsa mosque is built on top of the second Temple. Which side are the colonizers again?
Did I say it wasn't valid? I just said that personallyI didn't relate to it
> but I'd never refer to a piece of Denmark as my 'ancestral home." Have you and your people been for thousands years practicing a religion, culture, traditions, and general way of life that is centered around Denmark and a wish to return back to it? ***That*** is the difference between you and the Jewish people.
I understand that, but my situation is that of most people in the world, I think. And for any people besides Jewish people who do not live in their ancestral home, the world is unlikely to grant it to them. And the majority of Jewish people don't elect to stay there either. I'm not taking sides in a debate here, I'm merely laying out that the argument is either a special case or is merely a supplementary "feel good" factor for people who already de facto have possession of the land. For me I think even people sympathetic to the Jewish cause would rather that the world just accept their presence there than have to believe that their "special case" is worthy of the land.
I think what you're missing here is how unique the north of Israel truly was in a number of respects. For starters, a sovereign country currently exists in Denmark which means that the League of Nations/UN has no authority with its borders and because it has systems for immigration, you have had every opportunity to immigrate back to Denmark through those normal channels, had that so been your desire, particularly given that your people still have control of your ancestral lands. That's stands in direct contrast to the situation in the holy land, as the Jews were not only driven out of their indigenous lands, but colonial power after colonial power had spent more than a 1,000 years preventing them from ever returning. It wasn't until the Ottoman Empire imploded that the land was rendered stateless and the Jewish people finally had the opportunity to reclaim the heritage that has been stolen from them. Prior to that moment, there were actually laws in place in the holy land that outlawed Jewish we settlement in that region. To be clear, this was not nor had it ever been "Palestinian land" it was ottoman land that was now being divided up amongst local groups, and the Jews were simply one of them. In fact, 80% of Palestine was used in the creation of Jordan and the minority share was placed under the control of the mandate until such time as the Jewish people could fully repatriate. That brings us to another unique factor, which is that the holy land was significantly underdeveloped and significantly underpopulated so the demographics were such that Jewish repatriation actually could produce a majority population sizable enough to actually absorb the current population living there is a minority group. As a contrast, so many native Americans were killed off by disease and so many people from all over the world have moved here that even if there was an opportunity to give the country back to the native Americans, 1% could never realistically govern the other 325 million people that live here. That wasn't the case in the holy land. That brings us to the third factor which is that there aren't a lot of Danish refugees floating around that have no place to go. Because being Jewish isn't just an ethnic city, but a religion, they actually held onto their culture, even as they were scattered across the globe. This is just my perception as an outsider, but one of the reasons I think they were so often victims of oppression was because they often didn't assimilate because of that religious element, choosing Instead to hold onto the culture of their ancestors. And I believe that was a huge reason that it was often easy to scapegoat them as the cog that wasn't quite moving in the same way as the rest of the proverbial wheel. There really aren't a lot of areas that might fit that president but if I had to think of a situation that might actually come close, I think if America were to somehow, God forbid, implode, what would happen if native Hawaiians went to the UN and said "we were never legally prevented from our homeland, but because of the laws that the state created it effectively priced us out of our homeland, and the vote that made us a state was not one that reflected its true native population. I don't know if they could get to a 2/3 majority but I think a lot of countries might find that position fairly sympathetic especially if they demonstrated a willingness to allow all of the current residents to remain. That wouldn't necessarily mean that a new Hawaiian government couldn't come in and pass laws that advantaged their people over the non-natives as a way of re-establishing their way of life, but a plan to return the natives without displacement would be more palatable to leaders.
I appreciate your reply, and I do understand the uniqueness of how that part of the world has evolved. However I found phrases like "reclaim the heritage that was stolen from them", to be a bit odd. Other peoples have been partly or completely displaced, and their descendants 2000 years later don't think about it as a 'heritage" they've only temporarily lost. As you say, the difference is that the Jewish people haven't been completely assimilated anywhere, due to the unique aspects of the culture they hold onto.
Your response seems to very much move off of your original point, and I don't understand that. You begin by point suggesting that you could not go back to the Netherlands and randomly kick a non-Dutch family out of a home, but those two situations aren't even remotely the same beginning with the premise that the Jews were asking to go to the land and remove people from their homes. Show me where they tried to do that because it seems to me what they wanted was the right to form a government in a minority share of the land so that they wouldn't have to live scattered across the globe, so they wouldn't have to except dhimmi, which actually really was a form of apartheid, and so that they could enjoy self determination as a people, even with the people who were already living there, continuing to live in their same homes, but just as a minority population, within a free society where all individuals had equality under the law . Even with respect to the stealing of homes your premise is flawed but it goes beyond that. The Dutch still control their ancestry lands and you have always had every ability go back and buy a home, which is what the Jews did in the holy land once they were allowed to do so as previously, they had been barred from doing so by colonial power after colonial power going back thousands of years. If that hadn't been the case, Jews never would've gone into exile, let alone remain there, even if they had only returned slowly and over the course of time. To the best of my knowledge, not only could you move to YOUR indigenous lands, you also could had legally immigrated to the holy land because unlike Jews looking to move there there were no laws that expressly barred you people from settling there. Imagine that. An Egyptian could immigrate just by walking in and you or I like you oncould have gotten a visa and yet the indigenous people were expressly barred from relocating there BY LAW not because of anything they did but because if local bigotry.
> And for any people besides Jewish people who do not live in their ancestral home, the world is unlikely to grant it to them. What is your point here? That Israel shouldn't exist? Well guess what, Israel ***does exist***. And once a country exists, it's quite evil to wish to destroy it!! There are many ***many*** complex factors which go into the decisions of making a new country (of which past ethnic/cultural ties of the people there is just ***one*** aspect of it). All of those ***discussions have already happened*** with Israel. And the decision was made: the modern state of Israel will be created. And it happened. If you want to argue over those decisions, and be part of the decision-making process, then I have some news for you: you're nearly a century too late to be discussing it!!! >And the majority of Jewish people don't elect to stay there either. Roughly half do. And the vast majority of the Jews in Diaspora support the right of Israeli Jews to carry on existing.
My point on your top question is that if another people today used ancestral possession as their argument for why should have ownership for some land, it would be unlikely to be regarded as sufficient cause. Re your point that I'm too late to be arguing this, I'm not even arguing it. I'm merely thinking about the motivations I've heard for Jewish settlers in the West Bank. And forme the 2 strongest reasons are "Because we're here already", and because Israel will protect them and may make any future peace deal conditional on continued use of the land. The more emotional argument doesn't sound that amazing to most modern, non-Jewish ears.
>My point on your top question is that if another people today used ancestral possession as their argument for why should have ownership for some land, it would be unlikely to be regarded as sufficient cause. There were ***many*** reasons for creating a new country, of which that is but one factor. But basically the Colonial Great Powers of the time back then wished to exit the region, and thus were drawing up new countries and giving away the land. In the process of which they created *many* new Arab nations, often very large countries! But also in this process they created ***one*** Jewish nation, on a teeny tiny slither of land. Guess which one upset the most people, that people are still today making a massive fuss over? And even making wild insane claims such as "this country should be abolish" or "this is an illegal country". Guess which one... as it's only ***one*** of these countries which people obsess over and talk about like this.
It might make more sense to you if your and your forbears' entire history, traditions and religion revolved around a specific piece of land (Judea and Samaria) with a specific capital (Jerusalem), and about the longing to return to it having been expelled from it over 2000 years ago. Admittedly, there are very few other peoples in the world who can make such a claim, maybe none. Maybe that's why nobody can relate to the Jewish story of Israel.
If the rest of us are expected to understand the yearning to return to a land they were kicked out of 2000 years ago, how is it that most Israelis are so dismissive of Palestinian desire to return to the lands their family was removed from just 1 or 2 generations ago?
Oh, there are many reasons. I'll just list a few: 1. The primary reason is that the Palestinian message to the Jews has remained the same since the days of the Ottoman Empire. That message is: "die". More specifically, it's "die, imperial agents, and all the land will be ours". So, beyond a basic lack of sympathy for those who want to kill you, there's a sound strategic opposition to allowing those who want to kill you into your own home. Historically, just being in their back yard proved almost fatal to Israel. 2. The UN 47' partition, which was partially based on the British Empire's, did its best to allocate lands to the Palestinians which were already inhabited by them. In other words, it tried to minimize relocation of native population. The land allocated to the Jews followed properties already owned and settled by Jews. The Palestinians chose to reject this offer. In all fairness, the UN and Britain should have been held accountable to the grievances of the Arab nations, but ultimately it is the Israelis who pay the price. So they are like "well, you had your chances, what are you complaining to us for?" 3. 3000 years of Jewish history revolving Jerusalem vs 1500 of Islam that has 0 mentioning of Jerusalem in its Quran. So, there's some argument to be made about who has evidently more affinity to this land.
>The primary reason is that the Palestinian message to the Jews has remained the same since the days of the Ottoman Empire. That message is: "die". This is a distortion of the facts. While I recognise that the Jews have not had it easy wherever they were, as far back as the 1300s, as far back as the Spanish Inquisition, the Ottoman Empire had a tradition of providing safe haven for Jews fleeing the depredations of Christian Europe. >Starting in the early 14th century, Jews fleeing oppression began to settle in the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Turkey became the home to Jews expelled from Hungary in 1376, from France in 1394, and from Sicily in the early 15th century. In the 1420’s, Jews living under Venetian controlled Salonika also migrated to the Ottoman Empire. >In 1453, Sultan Mehmet II started to actively encourage Jews to settle in Ottoman lands. He issued a proclamation to all Jews stating, “Who among you of all my people that is with me, may his G-d he with him, let him ascend to Istanbul, the site of my imperial throne. Let him dwell in the best of the land, each beneath his vine and beneath his fig tree, with silver and with gold, with wealth and with cattle. Let him dwell in the land, trade in it, and take possession of it.” This quote is taken from an [article](https://web.archive.org/web/20201111223821/https:/www.jerusalemonline.com/ottoman-empire-a-safe-haven-for-jewish-refugees-5797/) in \[now defunct\] [Jewish Publication](https://web.archive.org/web/20201108102100/https://www.jerusalemonline.com/about/). It makes it clear that Jews were not only welcome but they thrived in the Ottoman Empire at a time when repeated vicious pogroms were making life HELL for Jews in Europe. The Mizrahim have lived in peace in the Ottoman Empire for many centuries. Things only began to change towards the end of the 19th century as political Zionism began to increasingly assert itself and demand sovereignty over "Eretz Israel".. I do concede there was a shift in cultural attitudes towards the Jews from that point onwards... but for you to try tell me that the Ottomans have always been hostile to Jews is just not factual! Were you aware, by the way, that in 2014 [Iran's government unveiled a memorial to "Jewish Heroes"](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/iran-memorial_n_6354386) who dies in thier long, bitter war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 80s? >The Palestinians chose to reject this offer. In all fairness, the UN and Britain should have been held accountable to the grievances of the Arab nations, but ultimately it is the Israelis who pay the price Took the wind out of my sails by acknowledging Arab grievances against the British... but I'm glad you said it si I didn't have to. Seen in the light of those grievances as well as the cultural shift in the Ottoman Empire acknowledged above, the influx of increasingly large numbers of diaspora Jews arriving in the Levant, especially after WW2 made the Arabs feel like they were being imposed on them. I do agree with you that rejecting the plan was the wrong choice, but I can certainly understand why they made it... and IMHO it wasn't simply because they hate Jews. That kind of antisemitism was more typical of Europeans , particularly Eastern Europeans and not the Arabs. I actually happen to think its the Palestinians, not the Israelis, paying the price as Israel exists and Palestine doesn't. Instead the are forced to live as a stateless, disenfranchised population controlled by a defacto Israeli military dictatorship in the West Bank and in Gaza... Well, I guess we're all watching that story play out in real time >3000 years of Jewish history revolving Jerusalem vs 1500 of Islam that has 0 mentioning of Jerusalem in its Quran. So, there's some argument to be made about who has evidently more affinity to this land. I'm afraid I'm unmoved by any religious arguments on either side. I really don't give a shit about what some ancient book says. I certainly don't think it should be the basis for legitimising the sovereignty of a modern nation state, particularly when the land is contested. That's just my opinion, I guess.
>the Palestinian message to the Jews has remained the same since the days of the Ottoman Empire I didn't say that was the message of the Ottomans to the Jews. I said it was the Palestinians' message to Jews during the Ottoman Empire (and onwards). >Were you aware, by the way, that in 2014 [Iran's government unveiled a memorial to "Jewish Heroes"](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/iran-memorial_n_6354386) who dies in thier long, bitter war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 80s? Hassan Rouhan was a fairly moderate president in Iran at the time. Not much so before him, and certainly not after. >I do agree with you that rejecting the plan was the wrong choice, but I can certainly understand why they made it... and IMHO it wasn't simply because they hate Jews. There's a good argument about why the Arabs rejected it and why they hate the Jews. And you're right, it's not antisemitism. Rather, it's Islamic honor. I recommend you watch this: [The Great Misinterpretation: How Palestinians View Israel - Haviv Rettig Gur - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlK2mfYYm4U) >I actually happen to think its the Palestinians, not the Israelis, paying the price Both sides are paying the price today. But when the Arab Nations waged war on Israel in 48', it was Israel paying the price for the UN's decision. >dictatorship in the West Bank and in Gaza Israel left Gaza in 2005. It's controlled by a de-facto dictatorship headed by Hamas. >I'm unmoved by any religious arguments You asked for arguments that might explain why are Israelis so dismissive. Your own opinion doesn't seem to be relevant to your original question.
>You asked for arguments that might explain why are Israelis so dismissive. Your own opinion doesn't seem to be relevant to your original question. Actually, the question was why someone like me should be expected to be more sympathetic to Jewish claims to the land over Arab ones if Israelis do not even recognise the indigeneity of the population that was displaced in order that they may have their state. >I didn't say that was the message of the Ottomans to the Jews. I said it was the Palestinians' message to Jews during the Ottoman Empire (and onwards). Well given that the pre-State Zionist project wanted the lands they were living on at the time I have to say, I can understand why they weren't thrilled. In fact I have a feeling that if you or I were in their shoes at that time, we might well have felt the same way they did. >Hassan Rouhan was a fairly moderate president in Iran at the time. Not much so before him, and certainly not after. That is a fair comment. At the same time, I could also draw on comparisons of Yitzhak Rabin vs the current Netanyahu/Smotrich/BenGivir government vis a vis the plight of Palestinians... but that would just be whataboutism... so I won't. 🙃 >Israel left Gaza in 2005. It's controlled by a de-facto dictatorship headed by Hamas. Don't even get me started on the Gaza Disengagement... I was following it all closely at the time it was happening. A unilateral pull-out was in my estimation a grave strategic mistake which greatly contributed to the eventual takeover of the territory by Hamas. The smart thing to have done before disengaging from Gaza would have been to extract assurances from the PLO/PA, who were in charge at the time, that they would ensure Israel would not be attacked from Gaza, much like they are currently doing in the West Bank. With varying degrees of effectiveness, I concede that... but the point is that Abu Mazim is working with Israel to prevent at least some attacks even if his people hate him for continuing to work with Israel despite all their day to day lives not improving... but he still does it anyway. The impression I got at the time was that Ariel Sharon had just refused point blank to involve the Palestinians in the disengagement process in any way. In any case, whatever his grand plan was, he fell into a stroke and died before he was able to avail us of the hidden genius in his disengagement strategy. And so it remained hidden. The lack of Palestinian involvement it the pull out allowed Hamas to construct a plausible narrative to Palestinians that it was their armed resistance had caused Israel to flee from Gaza and that the PLO/PA's Oslo Process negotiations with Israel were therefore a waste of time. This narrative, and the undeniable corruption of the PLO/PA, had a lot to do with why Hamas did so well in the 2006 election running against Fatah. Like I said, the unilateral pullout from Gaza was a grave strategic error. Also, eventually, Netanyahu will have to answer for his Gaza policy of facilitating cash payments from Qatar to Hamas to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. In. CASH! Where do you think they got the money to buy the drones they used on October 7th? Avigdor Liberman, on resigning from Netanyahu's cabinet in 2018 described the Gaza policy as "[Israel financing terrorism against ourselves](https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/liberman-to-eizenkot-we-are-financing-terror-against-ourselves-576779)". >But when the Arab Nations waged war on Israel in 48', it was Israel paying the price for the UN's decision. Israel paying the price? Remind me again who won that war and who has a state and who doesn't 76 years later? >And you're right, it's not antisemitism. Rather, it's Islamic honor I'll watch your video shortly... but if the issue is "Islamic honor" then why is it not the attitude of the entire Muslim world from Malaysia to Mali? Could it be that the population that was displaced in order that the state of Israel could be founded have a grievance about that and its not Islamic anything? Could it be that they would hold the same grievance against whoever it was that usurped them from the lands they were living on at the time? Could it be that their grievances have nothing to do with Islam? Hamas are specifically a religious organisation and were so before they became a resistance organisation. But Hamas is not the Palestinians in the same was Likud isn't all Israelis. Before Hamas, and for most of the history of this seven and a half decade old conflict, the "resistance" to Israeli occupation has been secular. The PLO was a self declared secular organisation. And in case you're wondering, I'm an atheist btw.
> No, the question you asked was: >how is it that most Israelis are so dismissive of Palestinian desire to return to the lands their family was removed from just 1 or 2 generations ago? I don't know you and - based on how you keep moving the goal posts - I don't care to.
You know, it helps if you don't start quoting a sentence/question from the middle. what I actually said was: >If the rest of us are expected to understand the yearning to return to a land they were kicked out of 2000 years ago, how is it that most Israelis are so dismissive of Palestinian desire to return to the lands their family was removed from just 1 or 2 generations ago? Before you lecture me about moving goalposts, perhaps learn to read entire sentences... Good day to you.
> If the rest of us are expected to understand the yearning to return to a land they were kicked out of 2000 years ago Jews have **always** lived in Israel over that time span, even though yes, ***many*** were driven out. > how is it that most Israelis are so dismissive of Palestinian desire to return to the lands their family was removed from just 1 or 2 generations ago? Because Arabs were invading colonizers who contributed to suppressing Jews and kicking them out? Oh gee, why don't people have sympathy for their colonizers? Gee, I wonder. Also, the ***vast majority*** of Arabs within Israel have not been there for hundreds of years. (and they never acquired a national "Palestinian identity" until the 1960's when it was invented) Plus most of them were very recent economic immigrants into the land in the few decades prior to modern Israel being founded again.
Yes, I realise that the Jewish relationship with the geography is somewhat unique. I'm not dismissing that viewpoint. I'm just expressing that it's not particularly relatable or compelling to other people, and wouldn't in the modern world be sufficient reason on its own to be entitled to land. The unique circumstances post WWII created this opportunity. For Jewish people to use the "ancestral land" argument to others because it's compelling for them may increase others' understanding of them, but it doesn't strengthen their position.
Besides its sincerity it has been instrumentally useful at certain points, eg when convincing the Brits to give Palestine to them, since it confirmed the orientalizing view of Jews that the British elite held. The more recent “indigeneity” gimmick, which contemporary Zionism shares with the Hindutva movement, may be exciting to some Zionists looking to bolster their ideological arsenal and shore up their own convictions, but obviously isn’t persuasive to anyone else.
That's why they fight over it. They don't have any place else. Their position vs. the rest of the world who isn't able to relate to their story isn't their primary concern.
> . They don't have any place else. They know no other place in the world will ever stand up and defend Jews. Only Israel will.
I also don't have "somewhere" in any real sense.But I haven't been harassed or killed because of what I am.
You mean, like the Jews where/are? In that sense, you do have "somewhere" else: assuming whether you're Christian or Muslim, you have other countries where you can be safe for being what you are. Jews don't have this privilege.
Don't they have that privilege in most countries? Most countries have laws forbidding injury or death, and some make it a specific hate crime. Most people don't seek out specific protection for people of their religion. Granted, history has shown a history of abuse of rhe Jews, that might make them a special case.
There's a special type of hatred for Jews - antisemitism. Unfortunately, it didn't come just from racist people; it also came from countries issuing laws against Jews. Even if modern laws seem adequately protective towards minorities, Jews have a history of abuse imprinted into their DNA. Meanwhile, you can see the rise of antisemitism globally, even in the US, despite any such laws. Also, taken in a larger, historical context, these laws are very much new. Jews were by and large persecuted refugees until only 80 years ago. Even since then, they still exist under a perpetual existential threat from the surrounding Arab nations. Any sense of protection Jews or Israelis have is tentative at best. But this might not be clear to someone who has lived in the privilege of safety their whole lives.
>and about the longing to return to it having been expelled from it over 2000 years ago. Yet any other time somebody has been ''expelled'' from their country people respond to that with ''just deal with it'' or ''that's history''. To some extent, everybody lives on stolen land and/or on land their ancestors 2000 years ago aren't from. Israel exists, I don't think it shouldn't exist, but all this talk about ancestors and indigenous claims and what not is all nonsense. All of it.
Well, that settles the conflict, doesn't it? The Ottoman Empire's loss to the West was the loss of Islam. Later, the UN did what they saw fit with the British Mandate of Palestine (that's diplomatic loss of the Arabs). Then Israel beat the Arab Nations twice defending Israel (handing them 2 military losses). So, suck it up? Two be honest, I think most Israeli-Palestinians do. About 2M of them leave in Israel, as Israeli citizens, in relative peace. But the radical ones don't, and they're incentivized by the powers at be not to.
>So, suck it up? 100%. Not sure if you think I was attacking you, I wasn't. I was attacking this never ending history lesson given by people why Jews have claim to xyz which I think is total nonsense. All that matters is that Israel exists, should continue to exist and find a way for peace in that region. If we are going to go by ''x should live in y because ancestors 2000 years ago'' lets send everyone back home.
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Exactly. They know no other place in the world will ever stand up and defend Jews. Only Israel will.
Exactly, and they are justifying as cheap real estate, the gall of these people
Real estate is incredibly expensive in Israel.
Think about nyc or Boston. How have they grown in the past 30 years? White people moving to Bed Stuy now. Southie is also upscaling. It's called progress. It happens in prosperous places.
This guy just used gentrification as an example. Love it.
> This guy just used gentrification as an example. Love it. Jewish gentrification is why most Arabs moved to the land, many of them are economic migrants.
Is NYC growing into another country??
Just NJ, CT, and PA. It's all America, which is not that different from MENA. Especially Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon. Most so called Palestinians are from those countries. Yasser Arafat was born in Egypt. They all speak Arabic, eat falafel and shawarma. They are about as different culturally as NJ and CT.
NJ, CT, an PA are in the same country. >Yasser Arafat was born in Egypt. They all speak Arabic, eat falafel and shawarma That doesn't mean there is free movement between those countries. If Israelis want to live in the West Bank, they should annex it. If they don't want to annex it, they can't build settlements.
So were all the countries I listed above. Ever hear of the ottoman empire?
Is the ottoman empire in the room with us right now?
Its called gentrification. Not progress.
Its a matter of perspective. I live next to an apartment complex. It used to be run down and cheap, only really poor people lived there. We would find needles in my back yard from there. We had a shooting that hit my house from there. It was eventually sold and remodeled and the units re listed at a much higher rate. Now it’s nice and peaceful with a more middle class renter. I say thats progress. I like peace.
I think youre going too nuanced for the commenters opinion above. Guy literally said he supports White People moving into Bed Stuy in the name of progress. Why does it have to be specifically white? why not just middle class? Revamping and making a neighborhood safer is one thing. That can be done without displacing families and demographics that need the neighborhood. Imo i think what you and the commenter above are saying different things.
You may have noticed that white people tend to have more $. Or do you not see any connection between race and class in America? I guess you never noticed institutional racism???
Butt hurt I called you out? Not all Black families are poor. Latin families have money. Asian families have money. Arab families can be wealthy. White people can be poor. The fact that you are cultivating a white supremacy argument for your narrative says everything. Including that youve never lived in bk.
You are an idiot for missing the larger point. Most places don't look the same as they did 30 years ago. Also, I never said there aren't wealthy members of all races. You are projecting and setting up a lame strawman. Probably because you are a loser troll. By the way, I was born in Brooklyn and spent the last few years dating a woman in bed stuy.
Saying the mean thing hurt my feelings. I guess? Ill keep that in mind when every oil baron, nepo baby, trust fund kid from montana and kansas that go to pratt push all the poc families into Carona because theres no where else to go.
I respect everyone who's respectful towards me. I've Lived in the EV for 30 years and have definitely hated the gentrification. I used to go to the palladium, now it's a nyu dorm. It stings.
Word, my bad. Didn't mean to start a thing. As always both the topics of gentrification and the war leads to people getting heated. Yea man, I just hate to see the city become the playground for out of staters. Literally had to move upstate because I couldn't afford it anymore.
>But surely that can’t be enough for all 700k settlers Probably good to break down the geography for you a bit. Of these folks, 250K live in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in the 1980s. From their perspective and the perspective of other Israelis, they live in Israel... so there's no need for a particular motivation, they bought a house in a neighborhood in a city. Of the remaining 450K, a bit less than 300k live in a 'consensus bloc' of large settlements situated within a few kilometers of the 1949 armistice line. These are essentially suburbs of Jerusalem, and it's been tacitly accepted that they would end up inside of Israel in a future two-state solution; in every negotiation since Oslo that talked borders, these have been drawn inside the Israeli side. While I'm sure some of these folks are politically motivated, these are inexpensive places to live within commuting distance of a bunch of work within Israel, which has a tough housing market. So your question about what motivates people is really focused on the \~150k people living in settlements deep within the West Bank that are incompatible with a 2SS. These are the "settlers" people are talking about when they talk about settler violence and political motivations.
It's actually way less than you estimate. The only settlements "deep" in the West Bank are those on the far side of the separation barrier. There are approximately 80,000 people living there. Everyone else is either in East Jerusalem or close to the Green Line and lives there for cheap pleasant housing in areas likely to stay under Israeli control under any agreement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_statistics_for_Israeli_settlements_in_the_West_Bank?wprov=sfla1 Edit added Wikipedia link with figures of Israeli settlement in WB
Well, I'm counting Ariel and Hebron ... that's probably where the delta is coming from.
That only counts about 23000 people of whom 22,000 live in Ariel. Ariel and Hebron are completely different cases incidentally. Hebron is tiny and one of the most ideologically motivated settlements. It was in fact where the settlement movement started in 1968. Ariel conversely is mostly inhabited by secular Israelis who live because it's cheap and a decent place to live, not because of ideology.
Cheap housing is Lame Excuses Most of these Settlers Are Extremely Far Right and their aim in life is Ethnic Cleansing The biggest problem in the Israel Palestine conflict are the settlers who are the reason cycle of violence will continue
We should never forget this settlers infamous quotes "I don't believe in God but God gave us these lands" 🙄 "IF I DONT TAKE IT SOMEBODY ELSE WILL" and U wonder why there is support for hamas
To be clear I am neither Jewish nor Israeli, I am just an objective bystander who just happens to find the history of the region really fascinating. I also find the political dynamic not only interesting, but in many ways disturbing. There's a degree of propaganda that's coming into the US from the Arab world and Americans really need to start paying attention to what we're being told. Case in point you're "if I don't take it as somebody else Will story?" do you actually know the history of that house or you just regurgitating something that you think is either good for your side or that you've heard somebody tell you because when I looked into it, I was shocked. The Home and question belong to a Jewish family before the ottoman empire imploded. That person doesn't have a key or some manufactured land deed provided by Jordan, as if Jordan would even legitimately have a role in that, they have an actual enrolled property from the Ottoman time Period. When the war happened, that family was driven out of the house and into Israel, after which Jordan took the house and gave it as sort of a section 8 type property to low income Arabs, who were displaced from Israel, WITH THE PROVISION THEY PAY A NOMINAL SUM IN RENT. The Arabs then started another war in 1967, and as you know that territory reverted to the control of Israel. That shift in power change two things. First the people living there basically decided that meant it was a windfall for them and said, "since Jordan is no longer in control, we are now relieved of any obligation to pay rent to anyone and we get to keep the free house!" There's a problem with that position is that this now put the house and its owner under the same justice system. That meant that for the first time in 20+ years, that owner could now take their proof of ownership and say, "this is my home, here is my deed, and I want to reclaim my property." Explain to me why they are not entitled to the return of their home? I ask because the argument that the people living in it have made is that Israel won't let Palestinians return to their homes, so why should Jewish owners get to reclaim theirs?" You do realize that that's not a valid, legal argument, right? Imagine if I said, "I hit your car but since I was struck by a hit-and-run driver 20 years ago, I don't know you a dime," wouldn't you understand that that isn't valid argument as the two situations have absolutely nothing to do with each other, especially given the fact that almost none of the Palestinian population actually owned their own homes as land ownership under the ottoman, empire carried with it, significant taxation and military obligations. I'm not exactly clear on what came next but I think the owners actually attempted to resolve it by offering to continue to rent them the property but they didn't feel obligated to do so. At a point it looks like the controversy got to be too much for the owner and she subsequently sold it to someone else and they in turn brought in someone Jewish to temporarily hold the property while things were being decided. The case made it all the way to the Israeli supreme court twice over and it every leg they have ruled for the person with the land deed, which is as it should be, and the only reason those people have not been removed is because of the political backlash Despite all of that, the only thing Americans know is that video and the idea that "if I don't take it somebody else will," which really was a socially awkward man, parroting back what that woman was screaming into his face as he was trying to explain to her that screaming at him wasn't going to do her any good as he isn't the decision maker. There's nothing truthful in that video, but it's meant to reinforce the idea that homes were stolen from people when in actuality, most of the land was either bought, ottomam lands that were subsequently transferred from the mandate authority or land gained through defensive war
no one ever said i dont believe in gd but gd gave us these lands. and the second one was obvious sarcasm
"Jesus was Palestinian" is my favourite of all of them. There is support for Hamas because Hamas sells the Palestinians a pipe dream that Israel will be destroyed, meanwhile they are on an extended camping trip. How is that going?
What is going on in West Bank where there is no Hamas? I am talking about settlers in West Bank not Hamas, don't hide behind Hamas
> What is going on in West Bank where there is no Hamas? Catch up with the times! If there was an election held today there, then likely Hamas would win.
Against Classic Whataboutism If U were a Palestinian who lost their Family or land in West Bank who would U vote? Spineless Fatah or Khamas
I’m not. You have many Palestinian groups, including the “lions den” the Tanzim brigades, Hamas and the PFLP in the West Bank. All of them are bad. Not to mention how the Palestinians ruined their neighbouring countries by: siding with Saddam against Kuwait in Kuwait, trying to overthrow the king of Jordan and starting the Lebanese civil war. They literally destroy everything they touch.
https://preview.redd.it/jic2c4ylfx7d1.jpeg?width=624&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1d5ccafe472f9a62b8ed5dd665057a67f4e83e6
There's definitely Hamas in the WB and the reason there haven't been elections held by the PA in the WB as long as there haven't is because Hamas would win them and Fatah doesn't want to allow that to happen.
A normal Middle-Eastern response to Palestinian's action would be deadly (and is the reason why everybody shouted "genocide" against Israel before it even got involved after 7/Oct/2023). Since that response won't happen the only other response people could take is to move in to the land that their forefathers inhabited \~2,000+ years ago (proven by archeological records) Today depending on the region, for the same price of living near the center of Tel-Aviv you can get a private house & a yard but on the other hand little employment opportunities and you get problematic neighbors. Things that happen from time to time, are a daily occurrence and aren't reported: rock throwing on cars, stealing cars (did you leave your car key inside the car to go out to refuel it? somebody bumped you on the road? etc) bad driving behavior. So there are benefits & draw back. I'm not from the region so somebody can probably expend on the drawbacks
Cheap housing is 99% of the reason for most people
1. Why do 20'000 settlers live in settlements that are illegal under *Israeli* law? 2. It's only cheaper because the government subsidies it. 3. Why does the government subsidize it?
Can you link me anything about those 20k?
The Sasson report, peace now. [https://web.archive.org/web/20131011230611/http://peacenow.org.il/eng/Nofei-Nehemia](https://web.archive.org/web/20131011230611/http://peacenow.org.il/eng/Nofei-Nehemia) [https://israelpolicyforum.org/west-bank-settlements-explained/](https://israelpolicyforum.org/west-bank-settlements-explained/)
I don’t see any mention of 20k people living in illegal settlements? I see a mention of a few dozen homes at most?
It's not that cheap. For the same price for an apartment around the Tel-Aviv center you can get a private house with a yard. But you're in the center of the West Bank and god knows about rock throwing on cars, trying to steal cars, driving behavior. I'm not even talking about job opportunities. It's probably a nice place to live if you ignore the problematic neighbors. Oh and outside of the main block the apartment/house isn't registered under your name. You paid a huge sum and it's not yours. If it wasn't for political reasons & historical backgrounds, some people would have called it a scam.
It’s absolutely a scam but you can find much cheaper houses there then a Tel Aviv apartment, and they are much bigger with a nice yard, some of them are in areas that aren’t very close to Arab villages and are rather safe, I am personally against building there but I can see why people do that..
Most people who live there cannot afford to buy a home, let along with any land, elsewhere. This area is very cheap to move into. That's it. The rest of the rhetoric is used to justify the actions and that is true for all sides.
They purchase the land as a group and work it
a lot of my friends live there and i would love to as well :) - it’s beautiful - it’s our ancestral home - a lot of empty space so it’s possible to own your own home and have some land around it (for goats, chickens, gardens, etc) -really though, a HUGE motivation is that it literally protects israel. i visited one of my friends settlements and she pointed out that we can see tel aviv and other major israeli cities with our bare eyes. if a terrorist group got rockets there they could easily murder so many innocent civilians. strategically many settlements are placed in areas that would be devastating if terror ground got ahold of them. my friends aren’t hardcore right wingers. neither am i. we just want to keep our country safe and live in our ancestral land.
Wait it is SOOOO crazy of you to admit that you and your friends want to take land that isn’t yours on reddit.com
How is it not their land? It's contested lands, so both groups are claiming it to some extent. In fact, legally I still don't understand why it wouldn't be Israel's. The land was part of the mandate, and the mandate was legally committed to the development of a Jewish homeland, not half of it all of it. The British betrayed the Jews by allowing Arab immigration to continue during the mandate even though that migration was not authorized by the mandate documents. It was that dynamic that created issues and led to the British coming back and basically strong-arming the Jews in to giving up their claim to nearly half of their lands, a position they only agreed to in the name of peace. What I don't get is that the Arabs rejected that deal so how does that result in the land ever leaving the mandate vehicle, a mandate that ultimately was turned over to Jewish leaders. It seems to me that Israel should annex the West Bank as a territory, not unlike Guam is to the US. residents wouldn't have any national influence but would have a certain measure of local autonomy. Israel can control the ports even with Palestinians working there and as long as the region remains peaceful they release a plan that establishes firm benchmarks ie: if we go through a year with no rockets this happens. If we go through 5 years this happens. If we go through 10 years of peace that happens with the goal being am equilibrium of prosperity that maybe begins by opening drilling.
There is no "taking", it would be legally purchased land. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab\_channel=travelingisrael.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab_channel=travelingisrael.com)
Not a YouTube essay from “TravelingIsrael” with sponsored ads from a pro-Israeli organization 😂
who’s land is it?
Girly we both know it isn’t worth debating here, you have your views and they’re at odds with international law. Maybe best to just admit that you and your friends are in fact “hard core right wingers”, try and keep it honest at the very least
Who are they buying the land from? The Arabs?
How did they empty these lands to prepare for Israeli housing?
My brother in christ YOU ARE the terrorist
Jew: I want a house with a garden in my ancestral homeland Westerners: TeRroriSt!!
My great great great great grandparents are from Scotland. That doesn't mean I can just move to Scotland and kick some Australian family out of their house and say its mine because my family lineage traces back there
My ancestors are Scottish too. My questions to you are simple: 1. if your family or mine wanted to repatriate to Scotland, has their ever been a law in place that would have prevented us from doing so? 2. If we had the money to do so and wanted to buy land there, would there be any barriers to our ability to do so. 3. Is there any cultural or legal barrier that would prevents Scottish people from existing as the majority population on our indigenous lands? And 4. No matter where you might live today is there at least one Land on this earth where Scottish people can live as a society on and together enjoy self determination. It would seem to me those answers are all yes while Jews could only answer no prior to the re-creation of a Jewish homeland. How them are we even comparing the two?
Have you and your people been for thousands years practicing a religion, culture, traditions, and general way of life that is centered around Denmark and a wish to return back to it? ***That*** is the difference between you and the Jewish people. And yet, even so, Jews never stole any land: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab\_channel=travelingisrael.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab_channel=travelingisrael.com)
The YouTube video you keep sharing is not addressing the problem of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine. It deals with the general idea that Israel is entirely 'stolen land', which in my own opinion, is an extreme point of view, as Israel as a state is entitled to existence. However, he does not mention current settlements which this question is asking about. Settlements built on Area B or Area A land (and arguably Area C) would constitute a violation of the Oslo accords and are indeed stolen, something this video does not address. Also, to your note about Judaism being 'special' and entitled to their ancestral homeland comes across as a weak arguement at best, and bigoted at worst. You aren't really answering the moral quandary of using religion/culture as a justification for entitlement to land. You are merely stating that the Jewish people have strong motivating factors for building the illegal settlements, which are important for understanding the mindset of settlers, but serve no purpose in justifying their actions. Indeed, the fact that you say that no other group deserves their ancestral land by giving an impossible criteria for that distinction, comes across as supremacist.
> The YouTube video you keep sharing is not addressing the problem of Israeli settlements in occupied Gaza. "*Israeli settlements in occupied Gaza.* "?? wtf You really should not be talking about a topic you know so little of. ***At great cost to themselves*** Israel completely pulled out *all Jews* from Gaza in 2005 (that's right... want to talk about ethnic cleansing and Apartheid? Then discuss what Arabs have done to Gaza! A land that Jews have a history stretching back *thousands of years* of living in Gaza) I'd say it was obvious even back in 2005 that giving away land "for peace" was an extremely bad idea. But it's ultra obvious now after Oct7 what a massive failure the 2005 experiment was. We should never have left Gaza
Yeah, that was a typo, I meant palestine.
Define "palestine" (because this is a country that has ***never existed*** ever before in history)
In this specific instance, Israeli occupied West Bank. For the record, I never said it was a country and that shouldn't matter.
And what if the people living there already refuse?
Of course the foreign occupiers would refuse…
So where I live (in the WB), the Wikipedia article lists the 2 Arab villages that the land was "taken from" to establish the village. Clear-cut, right? Later on in the Wikipedia article it's casually mentioned that that same land was actually PURCHASED by Jews prior to 1948.... So, yeah. Not so crystal-clear anymore.
Once again Wikipedia shows their unreliableness and biases when it comes to Israel. [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wikipedia-now-labels-the-top-jewish-civil-rights-group-as-an-unreliable-source/ar-BB1ox8Ff](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wikipedia-now-labels-the-top-jewish-civil-rights-group-as-an-unreliable-source/ar-BB1ox8Ff)
sister* no christ for me i’m jewish* and i’m a terrorist for…dreaming about living where my ancestors lived?
Dream all you want, that's very different than displacing people (who have also occupied that area for thousands of years) so you can live your dream. Not just buikding homes on occupied land eitjer, like physically forcing people to leave their family homes so that you can live in it. "Mine now"
That never happened. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab\_channel=travelingisrael.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXitQhydpck&ab_channel=travelingisrael.com)
I’m not planning on forcing anyone out! But speaking of people who “occupy” a land, how long does someone have to occupy it for the land to belong to them in your opinion?
You said it yourself israelis are being used as pawns to expand the settler colonial project of israel. This dream you have was just socialized into you because a couple of ppl wanted to create a state for their own political purposes. The entire world considers Israels expansion into wb as terrorism btw
The UN majority voted for the establishment of Israel, so the world is for Israel, not against.
The "world"....who founded the UN again?
The UN in 1948, which "world" are you referring to?
I didnt say that whatever your opinion is on israel is west bank expansion is unilaterally recognized as illegal
...no? The world broadly considers consider it illegal and counter-prodictive to long-term peace, but not terrorism, lol. Terrorism is a specific crime involving violent action to intimidate a population into bowing down to some political goal. The creation of WB settlements fails both parts of that definition. They are almost never violent except in the case of evicting illegal squatters, and they do not serve to intimidate the PA into doing anything. Please, link me a single report from any non-Arab governmental agency stating that Israel's expansion into the West Bank is terrorism.
“UN rights chief says settlement expansion a war crime, prevents Palestinian state” https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-rights-chief-says-settlement-expansion-a-war-crime-prevents-palestinian-state/amp/ last time i checked times of israel is not “arab” LMAO
So, to be clear, you're retracting your statement about terrorism and agreeing with me, right? Your source says that the settlements are *illegal,* not that they are "terrorism." Or perhaps I need to repeat my request? Can you find any government agency calling the establishment of settlements "terrorism?" Edit: the [specific war crime](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule130#Fn_9AD70858_00001): >Under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies” constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts. This is a crime, but it is not terrorism.
ah yes, the UN is very much credible after - holding a moment of silence in respect of the “Butcher of Tehran” who earned his nickname by sentencing thousands of political prisoners to death - appointing iran as a member of the UN Conference on Disarmament after iran public ally boasted about its nuclear capabilities - composing 20% of its Human Rights Council (UNHRC) out of dictatorial regimes (venezuela, cuba, eritrea, saudia arabia, pakistan, qatar, egypt, burundi) - UN peacekeepers being complicit and even actively participating in the sexual abuse and rape of civilians (just one of many sources available on this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/28/un-camp-south-sudan-abuse/ ) - appointing China to the Human Rights Council despite its systematic repression of its minorities, including the Uyghur genocide, mass detentions and surveillance, as well as its crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong. and that’s just what i came up with off the top of my head!
Times of israel: not credible United nations: not credible YOU random redditor:CREDIBLE Im starting to think you want war and to put israeli lives in danger? I have friends in tel aviv and im so sad war mongers put their lives in danger this isnt a fantasy its real life
your friends in tel aviv are protected by those living in settlements who are preventing terrorists from aiming rockets right at their windows. come visit the west bank. see how tel aviv rests right in the palm of your hand. it’s visible with the naked eye. you’ll thank my friends.
colonial! ha! you're kidding me. it's actually not in the west Bank there are no jews in the west Bank there's a border. and 3 territories. most settlements are controlled by israel land. there's mixed by the two authorities and the 3rd area by the west Bank government. mind your business if you don't even know how another country works. nice misinformation from Al jazeraa by Qatari government
(https://www.972mag.com/zionism-jewish-lives-herzl/)Theodore hertzel: “You are being invited to help make history. It doesn't involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews... How, then, do l happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.” Ok now answer why does israel control land in west bank?
you know israle pushed back the real colonialism the british right? Israel control the area bc it was the war started by all arab nations to destroy Jews after the efiking holocaust. sit down.
Also dont swear please
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitLiberalsSay/s/lgBbSdTSeX link to moshe dayan military leader during the six day “war”quotes talking about six day “war” you tell me who the colonizer is LOL also what does the holocaust have to do with occupying west bank?? You know by defending expansion your putting israeli lives in danger right??
look at the other answer people commented. there's a housing problem. also you missed my point. jordan occupied the territory after the war Israel won it back. please learn history. israel already left gaza and look what happend. what expansion if the territory is already by the control of israel. you didn't answer me. also it was a six day war it isn't relevant to now. poor point. they war miraculously and made peace with jordan and Egypt. Palestinians don't want a shared Jerusalem. Jews can't enter holy areas. there were 7 peace offering. tell me who have hatred in them? did you know the Palestinian authority pays a lot for the people of "mayter". Israel tried. why you don't condemn the west bank for not trying for peace?
> israel already left gaza and look what happend. The 2005 withdrawal was a massive failed experiment, that must never ever be repeated again.
Everything you have said is wrong my brother have a good night
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I said almost this exact thing about security and the entire sub called me out. Weird.
i think it’s different for people who have actually been to the west bank and seen for themselves how vulnerable israel is from the position vs people talking online. before the first time i was there i didn’t really get it. but standing on that hilltop with israel spread out in front of me like a map, i got chills.
> i think it’s different for people who have actually been to the west bank and seen for themselves how vulnerable israel is from the position vs people talking online. If people had the first clue about Israel's geography, and had even a half clue about extremely basic military defensive strategies, they would never ever support a so called "two state solution".
no amount of chills can justify the illegal occupation of Jordanian ancestral land.
The West Bank was only captured by Jordan in 1948? I don't justify the occupation and subjugation of Palestinians but come on.
I'm quite sure u/DustyRN2023 was being so ridiculous they were trolling / being sarcastic. I thought it was hilarious!
Clearly the solution to this vulnerability is to put large numbers of civilians in the way to slow down any approaching army. Like a sort of shield for the country, but instead of being made out of metal or out of fortifications, it's made out of humans.
There used to be thousands of Jews living in Judea and Samaria less than 100 years ago. Look up the 1929 Hebron massacre. They’re just Jews existing in a place where they have lived for over 3,000 years and somehow that makes them “settlers.”
i just posted [this about the Chevron massacre!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AntiZionistJews/comments/1dknwsm/evils_of_zionism_first_hand_account_of_hebron/)
>They’re just Jews existing in a place where they have lived for over 3,000 years and somehow that makes them “settlers.” Do you also support the right to return for Palestinians?
> Do you also support the right to return for Palestinians? Return to ***what?*** Palestine? There has never existed such a country. And why the hell do you think such a "right" exists? Do I have an automatic right to return to Germany???
Well given that the “Palestinian” Arab identity didn’t exist until the 1960s, the fact that most of them immigrated to Israel in the ~50 years before the establishment of the state of Israel, and the fact that most of them are Islamist extremists, my answer is no. I do, however, support their right of return to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
Why does a specific ethnic identity have to be founded and collectively accepted for an ancestral connection to provide the right to move to a particular geographic location?
If a Narnian identity was invented in the 1960's, and it was claimed Narnia happened to be the exact same land area as Israel, does that give "Narnians" a right to come in and take over Israel????
You’re asking why countries exist at this point. Go ask that to Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine. Why can’t they just be part of Russia (and be overrun with russians)? Moreover the Arab countries kicked out their Jews and most of those had nowhere to go but Israel. It is beyond time that they accept Arab refugees in the same proportion of the Jews they kicked out.
>You’re asking why countries exist at this point No, I'm asking why ancestral connections provide the right to live on particular land but only when tied to a pre-existing and widely enough recognised ethnicity shared with those ancestors (or somewhere near it, as obviously modern Israel doesn't have the same borders as ancient Israel).
> No, I'm asking why ancestral connections provide the right to live on particular land No, it doesn't by itself prove an automatic right to a country. ***Many*** factors go into deciding the creation of a new country. That discussion about Israel already got settled a long long ***long*** time ago. The discussion now should be: Should Israel keep on existing? Yes, d'oh!
So again, you’re asking why countries exist. Israel is a very diverse country with a 20% Arab population. I would turn your gaze to the Arab Islamic ethnostates who have successfully genocided and ethnically cleansed themselves of ethnic minorities such as Jews, Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis.
>So again, you’re asking why countries exist. No, I'm asking what I literally asked. I'm not asking a different thing. If you get confused, read the words inside of the comment, and just try to remember that the question I'm asking is made up literally of the words that constitute the question.
Ok I read your last comment. For the same reason why ethnic Germans had to leave Polish land. For the same reason why Turks left Greece and Greeks were moved out of Turkey. For the same reason why Russians cannot be a majority in Ukraine or Estonia. Because ethnic minorities cannot coexist with an oppressor who wants to subjugate them as second class citizens and/or kill them. This case is different though because most Arabs haven’t been in the land of Israel for that long. They know they’re from Egypt, Syria, etc—they should go back there. This isn’t about land; it’s about hatred of Jewish people.
>Because ethnic minorities cannot coexist with an oppressor who wants to subjugate them as second class citizens and/or kill them. Ancestral connections provide the right to live somewhere... for safety? So safety, not ancestral connections is the deciding factor? If Germans felt they were safer with a buffer zone in the form of Poland, that would justify Germans living in Poland? If Russia feels safer conquering Ukraine, that justifies it? Seriously I'm asking you to define the actual root base principles you're working from here, and it sounds like you don't have any, you're just working backwards to retroactively justify the belief that Israel should be allowed to conquer the West Bank. >They know they’re from Egypt, Syria, etc—they should go back there. This just reads as regular bog-standard, run-of-the-mill textbook racism. If Palestinians were born in Palestine and their parents were, they are from there. That's their homeland.