I'm saying that neither people has the right to kick another group out.
And yes, that's hypocritical coming from north Americans.
Many people have been living in the area for thousands of years, many christians, many muslims, and many jews. I dont think you really understand the situation, the history of the region or the nature of the propaganda that you bought. Maybe visit israel and speak to the locals, see how they live.
For those who are interested:
Pre World War 2
And as for palestinian land, there was never such a thing as palestine, the closest thing to it was the british mandate for palestine (the sinai, gaza strip, modern day israel, the west bank) in an area as large as syria with a population of 100,000 jews and 900,000 arabs. In the 1917 belfour declaration the british made public their intent to eventually divide the land among the jews and the palestinians in proportion to the population and location, meaning that ~10% of the land would be given to the jews and the rest to the arabs. The british promoted immigration of jews to the region for the next 20 years as well as freedom of speech and many other rights the locals were denied during the ottoman empire, in fact the local population of arabs were not recognized as possessing any sort of land or freedom of speech until 1917. In an effort to stop the immigration of the jews the arabs launched a jihad against the jews of jerusalem in the 1920s. Arab newspapers were published declaring that the only way to rid the area of jews was through violence, thus encouraging violence. And there was violence, well documented by the british empire as their own police forces became occasional victims of the violence.
In an effort to ease the tension the british empire made the area east of the jordan river (a huge piece of land with the majority of the arab population) an area where the jews could not immigrate to. Thus creating Trans-Jordan. After belfour proved to increase tension among the two populations to the point of open violence, the jewish population increased their pressure on the british for a 2-state solution. In 1937 the peel commission proposed a division which gave the jewish population 20% of the remaining mandate of palestine in an area of the region where the majority of the population was jewish. This partition was accepted by the jews and rejected by the arabs, even though the area which the jews were given, was mostly jewish.
Now lets not forget the arab leader of the area at the time (al husseini) was in the process of planning a holocaust of his own before he was exiled by the british government.
Post World War 2
The british relinquished control of the mandate of palestine to the newly formed UN who then drafted a partition plan that would divide the land almost equally among the jewish and arab population, which again, was rejected by the arabs and accepted by the jews. At that period in time the arab population made it public to the UN that any partition of the land would mean war, and the death of all the jews in the region.
When the UN accepted this 2 state resolution, and Israel became a country, egypt, jordan, syria, lebanon and iraq invaded israel, using palestinian land as staging ground. At the time the arab league secretary general let everyone know that the jews will be massacred with no survivors. So the goal was not to take the land, but to kill all the jews. But this is no secret, the words used were "this will be a war of extermination". Israel won the war, and expanded by 40%. Note that the land they took in many cases was used as staging ground for arab attacks. I do not have a doubt in my mind that if the arab league had won, there would still be no palestine today, just larger regions for each of the victorious countries. As is evident because of the actions of egypt and jordan post-war.
Jordan occupied the palestinian west bank, made it part of Jordan, denied the palestinians citizenship or basic rights, but hey, they gave them tents to live in right?
Egypt then took the Gaza strip, which belonged to palestine under the UN charter, so why did they take it right? Not only did they take the gaza strip but they denied the palestinians any rights and defended the border of egypt and gaza with a "shoot first, ask later" policy towards the palestinian population attempting to enter egypt. Wasnt the goal of this war to exterminate the jews and create the land of palestine? Well, mainly to exterminate the jews i guess, a land for the arabs named palestine was just a convenient excuse.
The egyptians and jordanians had no intention of giving the palestinians any size of land, and the new palestinian leader, arafat, didnt protest the occupation. Now why wouldnt he? Why wouldnt such an abid Palestinian independance advocate, advocate for the egyptions and jordanians to cease their arab on arab occupation?
The answer is simple, the egyptian and jordanian governments are far less tolerant than the israeli government with issues such as these. This may be surprising to hear for those who think they know anything about this conflict but do not know the history of the surrounding countries.
As an example: black september in jordan, 1970, a conflict that last 1 year, but
in the initial weeks,
more palestinians were killd by jordanian tanks and weapons than in 64 years in israel. 20 000+ palestinians were killed because king hussein declared that the palestinians were a threat to his legitimacy as a ruler, so they had to be put in their place. This is one of many large scale palestinian massacres perpetrated by an arab country.
If the countries of egypt, iraq, jordan, syria and lebanon were so concerned about the palestinians and eliminating the jews in 1948, than why didnt the powerful iraqi army that was still stationed in jordan after the 1967 war attempt to intervene in this massacre or offer asylum to palestinian victims?
No one is innocent in this conflict, but to say that israel stole palestinian land is a straight up lie. All these conspiracy theory websites, anti israel websites, international community to save palestine organization and similar entities are teaching history that was re-written by them in the last 20 years, if anyone took the time to look for the original documentation on these conflicts, the british write ups on the situation during the 20s 30s and 40s, local newspapers from the time. The UN accounting of how the countries came to be in the late 40s and 50s. They would realise that this land was not stolen.
I doubt anyone here would actually visit israel or the west bank. But if you do, you would realise that much of the anti israel propaganda is unfounded, and exagerated. There are some areas that you can cut the tension with a knife, but thats only in some areas of jerusalem and the west bank and yes a portion of the arab and jewish populations dont like eachother but in the same way that white americans and mexican americans dont like each other if anything.
