Keith Wheeler
Member
RS2 said:Texas - that is true to a degree (i.e., 1948), however look back about 30 years earlier. Up to and through World War I, the area that is Israel today was controlled/owned/occupied by the Ottoman Empire, which chose sides badly in that war. When the Empire fell and Germany et al. lost, the land became a Mandate under Great Britain's control. There NEVER was any autonomous sovereign entity called Palestine. .... In 1967, they tried again and failed again, losing more land to Israel, i.e., The West Bank, Gaza and Golan.
Israel should give back those lands the same way we should give back California, Texas or everything west of Jamestown, Virginia.
Ron
And let's not forget friends, that Jews were moving to "Palestine" not only before 1948, but before WWII, and before WWI! If you were a wandering soul in the mid 1800s and went to that debated chunk of land, you'd find...guess what, Jews! And some nomadic bedouins. And some Arabs, Arabs that didn't align themselves with being Palestinian. Go back another 100 years, or another 1000 and you'd find...Jews. Yeah, yeah, I know , "but CNN said the Jews only moved there starting in 1948".
Some stuff that CNN doesn't tell you:
Ok, sure, some Arabs were forced out of Israel in '48. But at the same time many Jews who lived in neighboring Arab states were under death threats to leave. Many Palestinians were given the choice to stay, but the Arab nations did not give that option to their Jewish citizens (well, it "you stay, you die").
Not all Israelis are Jews. Those Arabs that chose/were allowed to (depending on what you believe) stay in Israel have Israeli citizenship. Prior to the Iraqi elections, the only nation in the mid-east where an Arab woman could vote? Israel.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the "League of Nations Mandate" predate the supposed 1948 Euro-exodus.
But the Arabs didn't want them there? If so, why did the Arab mayors of Gaze, Jerusalem, and Jaffa (as well as other Arab owners of large land tracts) all voluntarily sell land to Jews prior to 1948?
The 1937 British Peel Comission stated that (with regards to land purchased by Jews from Arabs) "much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamp and uncultivated when purchased". Ah. Maybe they were jealous that they did nothing with the dunes and swamp and the Jews were productive? And remember people, at the time of this report, the Brits weren't exactly the Jews best friends...but they were something we don't see much of today: honest.
No independent state of Palestine has ever existed.
Ok, so I'm a Jew. And I'm defending Israel. But I'm not handing you a bunch of "we're the chosen people" rhetoric. I'm giving you facts. And the fact is that in Jews were there long before 1948; this situation did not just pop into being in 1948.
I'm sure that a scant 14 million people hold sway over the world. (heavy sarcasm). The situation remains unresolved because it has become a trump card and a way for corrupt Arab leaders to play their people (and the rest of the world). The reasonable Arab (and Muslim, they aren't the same thing) leaders (Egypt, Jordan) have learned that Israel is a reality and have decided to move on.
I'm amazed at how many people who froth at the mouth when some lazy or biased journalist gets their gun "facts" wrong repeat such tired and incorrect myths about this situation.
Please folks, do some _real_ research on this, and I'm not talking the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" -- the fraudulant document that gave us the conspiracy that the Jews run the world and if you don't buy a Ford then you're under their control.
Maybe this is too much like work....so I'll say Shabbat Shalom and good night.