Some thoughts on Israel

[Purple State]

The fialure of the jews to fully accept the bulk of the arab populations. Why which I mean the nakba in 1948 and the failure to grant palestinians citizenship.

Exactly. The sensible solution would have been to grant palestine independence and as a single state and grant citizenship to everyone, Jew and Arab (and Christian) instead of creating two separate ethnocracies in a plan reminiscent of South African Bantustans (or maybe it was South Africa who got the Bantustan idea from this situation).

Explain how that would have made sense. Giving the Jews any land at all resulted in a war. How would sharing the land been any better? Maybe it would have been called a civil war or ethnic strife instead of a war of independence. Either way the Arab countries and Palestinians would have waged war against the Jews and either way the result would have been the same.

Because there wouldn't be a massive theft of Arab property?

I am pretty sure sharing the land would have been viewed as exactly the same "theft" of Arab property. The result would have been exactly the same.

The emigration of Jews into the land resulted in: a) the rise of fledgling communities, b) jobs for Arabs, c) working of land long left idle and legally owned.

Not all entirely true. I was sure I'd discussed this somewhere previously so I ran a search and dug up what I had to say last time:

It was arguably the Jews who first sought a separation of the two communities through the agricultural settlements - moshavin and kibbutzim - of the second and third aliyot. These new migrants adopted a labour policy best summed up by their two slogans: 'conquest of land' and 'conquest of labour' which meant ensuring that only Jewish people fulfilled the jobs. This formed an essential part of the expansion of the Jewish population in the region as Arab labour was both plentiful and willing to work for lower wages than European Jews which would necessarily discourage immigration of new settlers. So this 'conquest of labour' necessarily meant the severing of ecnomic links between the two communities which naturally created tensions, particularly as Zionists were buying up land from largely absentee landlords and displacing Palestinian farmers who were no longer needed. Of course this leads to indigenous resistance, but as James Gelvin notes 'this resistance was mainly defensive, devoid of political goals, and rather haphazard' (Modern Middle East: A History, p.210). This is all prior to the First World War by the way.

The separation from the native Arabs in Palestine occurred mostly as a reaction to the circumstances of the time and is also revealing of the differing characteristics of the different aliyot (Jewish emigrations). At first there was a definite link between the two. Neither party ultimately minded the other. However, when it came to the following aliyot there had been rising tensions between the Palestinian farmers and Jewish settlers, whether a result of Jewish encroachment on Palestinian lands or Palestinian jealousy of Jewish success cannot be determined and does not have a definitive answer. In the end, the tensions resulted in occasional raids by Arabs on Jewish settlements. Jews took up arms and became much more cloistered and setup fort-like communities. It was this ethnic tension that severed economic ties between the two peoples and resulted in the heightened nationalism of the Jews in support of Jewish labor over Arab.

[Silent Hunter]

"Terrible happenings"? I do not call the Jewish experience in Europe over a period of 800 years "terrible happenings".

[Purple State]

"Terrible happenings"? I do not call the Jewish experience in Europe over a period of 800 years "terrible happenings".

I'm not sure if you mean that in a "it was much worse for the Jews" or "the Jews had it great!" kind of way. You should probably explain your views.

[Silent Hunter]

"Terrible happenings"? I do not call the Jewish experience in Europe over a period of 800 years "terrible happenings".

I'm not sure if you mean that in a "it was much worse for the Jews" or "the Jews had it great!" kind of way. You should probably explain your views.

I meant the former. As well as The Holocaust, there were pogroms in most countries in Europe, several wholesale expulsions (including, shamefully, from England) and ghettoisation.

[Earth]

...And when a nation attacks you it is fully in one's right to defend oneself and take whatever land is needed to advance one's own protection and security.

This is just whitewashing, and dishonest. Framing your argument this way just comes off as an excuse for brutal acts, justifying the means to an end. In no way is Hamas excused from criticism either, just to make it clear.

[Purple State]

...And when a nation attacks you it is fully in one's right to defend oneself and take whatever land is needed to advance one's own protection and security.

This is just whitewashing, and dishonest. Framing your argument this way just comes off as an excuse for brutal acts, justifying the means to an end. In no way is Hamas excused from criticism either, just to make it clear.

In what way? When the nations surrounding Israel attacked in 1948 (and 1967 and 1973), Israel had to defend itself. Was it supposed to immediately return to its former borders after its victory? No, it sought buffer zones and other regions to help strengthen its defenses. When Mexico and the U.S. had a border dispute over a small strip of Texas, the U.S. invaded up to Mexico City and took the entire West. What was disingenuous about what I said before?

[Bono]

Now some thoughts in the other direction.
It never ceases to amaze me how the palestinians who left Israel in 1948 and afterwards are given a perpetual and tramsissible status of refugees--in the palestinian territories which they themselves administer! This would be like if Portugal were still demanding the return of the people who ran from the colonies in 1975 to the colonies, keeping them in camps with in some cases rights differing from the Mainland citizens, and granting the status of refugee to their sons, grandsons and great grandsons.

[Bono]

Well, Israel is getting closer to the political level of its neighbors--arab parties were just banned from the coming elections.

[Purple State]

Well, Israel is getting closer to the political level of its neighbors--arab parties were just banned from the coming elections.

That was addressed in the Random Country Thread for Israel. Basically, those parties were breaking the law by refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist and funding terror groups, etc. It is no different than Germany's banning of Nazi parties, etc. If a group is purposefully undermining one's government, it is surely in one's right to put a stop to that group or organization.