How many times did they call and say there was a bomb in the King David Hotel?
I think it was three. They were worried that it wasn’t evacuated.
Typical Jewish terrorists, afraid that someone would get hurt!
If they’ve been dispossessed, why DON’T they deserve compensation of some sort? Or are they adopting America’s model of how we treated the American Indians?
Did any arabs get chased out?
If more than half the electorate is no longer zionist, I could see it making a difference.
I think a pledge of allegiance to the nation and acceptance of citizenship would be a bare minimum requirement of any right of return for the Palestinians.
When a state does it, it is rarely terrorism. Its usually human rights abuse or war (sometimes war crime). Not that that makes it any better but it doesn’t stop some people from making the distinction and calling you an anti-semite anyways.
Oh please. When was the last time you were called an anti-semite for criticizing Israel? I’ve criticized Israel on this board and have never been called an anti-semite. The only people on this board I’ve call anti-semetic was because they were anti-semites such as the long departed but deeply unmissed Sevastopol, not because they criticized Israel.
Certainly. Just as the Jews who were chased out of Arab lands deserve compensation.
Problem is, of course, not that compensation has not been forthcomming - it is that, of these two groups, identically situated and in approximately equal numbers - one of them has been accepted into their host society and no longer sees “compensation” as of any real necessity, while the other has been held in artificial stasis for decades and has perhaps a third or fourth generation growing up without anything to hope for, except the possibility (now very remote) that they will be “compensated”, or better yet, restored to their ancestral rights.
The real problem is not the lack of compensation, the real problem is that many refugee Palestinians have nothing BUT compensation to hope for - because the societies in which they find themselves keep them that way - as refugees. You never hear (say) Iraqi or Yemenite Jews in Israel speaking of “compensation” or a “right of return”.
There is a big debate over this. At one extreme Israeli partisans say all left voluntarily; at the other extreme, anti-Israeli partisans say they were all chased out as part of a deliberate plan of ethnic cleansing.
I rather suspect the truth is (as usual for the ME) more complex than either.
I do not think there was a deliberate plan of ethnic cleansing - for one, it is hard to explain how, if that were the case, Israel still has a large Arab population. OTOH, there were certainly incidents in which extremist Israeli groups used terrorism agaist Arab villagers - Dier Yassin is the most notable. Such incidents were isolated, repudiated at the time by Haganah leaders, and small in scale. However, the affected villagers had no way of knowng how the battle was going to go, and the justifiable fear of violent retaliation, based on both actual incidents and rumours, drove large numbers to flee.
What is interesting about the aftermath of Dier Yassin was how pretty well everyone involved had reasons to spread rumours about how bad it was:
Note that after the war, the Israelis falsely claimed there was no massacre there; while some Arabs were angry about the lies told that exaggerated the scale and type of the massacre … sadly for them, the Irgun mostly achived its purpose (rumours of massacre caused villagers to flee) while the Arabs did not (Palestinans were not encouraged to fight and there was no international response).
Yup. I really do wish this well-poisioning meme were put to bed.
At least we know why Israel wont let Palestinians become a state… all that “terrorism” as a buzzword build-up is out a window.
For what? Not enough hot chicks in the Army?
Can someone please just answer the question I asked in the very first post of this thread?
I didn’t make this thread to initiate another random debate. I’m asking for a summarized explanation, here.
Seriously, I don’t understand why this can’t be compressed into just a few bullet points or something. I’m just trying to understand why Israel exists, what existed before, why some think it shouldn’t exist, what the current state of things are, etc etc etc.
And please go by the merits of evidence and not blind speculation. I’m looking for basic facts here so I can understand the gist of the situation to gain some context.
And when you’re done, how about someone tell me what’s the deal with America. Keep it short, though.
That question is obviously much broader in scale (and even then, it COULD be reduced to a few bullet points, either way). This is specifically about the nature of the Israel conflict.
This has been done, as best it can be. When dealing with issues in the Middle East, and Israel in particular, there is no “simple” explanation.
The problem lies in the fact that there are 2 opposing sides, and damn near everyone on the planet leans one way or another.
Facts:
–In the late 40’s, the UN established a region to become the nation of Israel. This land was inhabited by Musims and Jews mixed, with a growing number of Jews who were immigrating to the area in anticipation of the establishment of a Jewish state. The same UN mandate also created the nation of Palestine.
–Immediately after the establishment of the nation of Israel, it was attacked by it’s neighbors. Israel successfully defended itself, and in fact seized land. This pattern of attacks by neighbors, losses by those attacks, and seizing of land continued for quite a long time. During this process, the land that was initially supposed to be Palestine came under the control of Israel.
–Israel became allied with the US, being a democratic state and having a large number of American expats. Due to cold war pressure, the neighbors of Israel became allied with the Soviet Union, further confusing the issue.
–Extemists on both sides have worked to disrupt negotiations between the Palestinian and the Israeli sides. Negotiations are also hampered by the fact that there currently does not exist a single unified Palestinian government (in fact, at no point has there been one). So while Israel may negotiate with the Palestinian authority in the West Bank, the PA does not control Gaza. Israel will not negotation with Hamas, whom it considers a terrorist organization. Hamas controls the Gaza. Hamas will not negotiate with Israel, who it views as illegally occupying Palestine.
And here we are. There is a lot of heat and passion involved in this issue, as you can see. What I have given is a bare bones description, and I have glossed over a lot of nuance. I feel this is about as much as can be agreed on by all sides, and even this brief summary will probably be picked apart.
So basically two groups of people want to lay claim to the same land to call home, but extremists make negotiations difficult?
The Arab-Israeli conflict is fractally complex - that is, you can take any bit of it, and examine it closely, and it appears as complex as the whole thing. 
So what view would I be likely to take if I were to delve into it?
If it helps with prediction: I am a liberal-leaning agnostic atheist (quantum cosmology + abiogenesis + evolution is sufficient to explain things). I view morality through the lens of evolution as well (utility metrics from stable societal optima). Pretty much disagree with everything guys like Romney say. In general I am against ridiculous wars (looking right at Bush on that one). Yada yada yada.
Based on that, would there be any way to predict what I would probably think about the conflict?
Dude, with all due, first you ask for a summation of the conflict – which, as pointed out by people on either side of the equation – is near impossible to accomplish due to the complexity and long history of the conflict, but still, a number of posters have tried to at least give you some background. And now you’d have us “predict” which side you’d support? Let me tell you, no Kreskins on this board, nor do they need apply.
It’s on you, if interested, to continue to read, research and come to your own conclusions. I know, I know…sometimes that becomes hard work. What to do, what to do.
In my experience, people who say “It’s too complex to simplify” just don’t know how to simplify. If you can’t do it, then you can’t do it and shouldn’t reply. Otherwise I’d rather have the question answered as designated in the OP.
Some issues, if simplified, become meaningless. This is one of them.
Hamas supports rocket attacks using unguided cheap rockets into civilian areas. But they say they don’t, except when they do. How do you feel about that?
The IDF used to (don’t know if they still do) demolish the home of suicide bombers and known rocket launching idiots, regardless of if those homes actually had people still living in them. Which is to say, they would evict whomever lived there, then tear the house down. How do you feel about that?
Hamas encourages suicide bombers.
Israel has “settlers”, who move into what are nominally PA governed regions and set up housing, regardless of whom owns the land, who manages it, or anything other than “this is Biblical Israel, so I have a right”.
Israel enforces a naval blockade of Gaza, this includes blockades of medical equipment and humanitarian supplies. They require all aid shipments to be sent through their channels.
Palestinian militants launch rockets and mortars from hospitals and schools, knowing that the IDF will use counter battery fire to counter-attack.
There is a lot of nuance, and a lot of history to take into account on this issue. Nobody can predict what side ANYONE will take on this. You have to do the reading yourself.
You are perhaps going to achive a unique feat - get all ‘sides’ to agree. Unfortunately, they are likely to agree that the task you have set isn’t very fruitful.
Unfortunately, in a case like this the devil’s in the details. Without knowing the history in some sort of depth, what you will get is not a summary, but an opinion.
However, that being said - in an extreme broad-brush manner: Israel exists today because of several significant things.
First, the development in the 19th century of European ethno-nationalism. This made life extremely uncomfortable for Europe’s Jewish minority, who were everywhere put under attack by ethno-nationalists as “outsiders”. At the same time, the undoubted patriotism and energizing effect of ethno-nationalism inspired Jews to emulation. Ditto with European socialism and atheism, also popular with Jewish intellectuals.
This wasn’t, however, a process confined to Jews - in the (motribund) Ottoman Empire, Arabs, who had simply been Ottoman subjects, became interested in nationalism (among other trends in European thought) in turn.
Therein lies the roots of the conflict. At first, the arrival of Jewish immigrants - mostly socialist and athiest types - was welcomed by the powers that be: the Turkish authorities, and many local Arabs, were happy to sell land to these people (hard cash being in short supply in that place and time). Over time the already-existing local villagers begain to resent, and then to fear, this influx of foreigners.
The British victory over the Turks in WW1 had a galvanizing effect. For various reasons, the British had promised to aid both Jewish and Arab nationalism; in the Balfour Declaration, they made support for Jewish nationalism official. The Arabs felt this was a betrayal, and tensions grew - eventually leading to Arab rioting & murders of Jewish immigrants. This led the Brits to rescind their support for Jewish immigration to the area in their “White Paper” - unfortunately, just as WW2 was in the offing. As a result, many Jews who would otherwise have fled the Nazis had effectively no-where to go.
During WW2, the Zionists sided with the British (in spite of the White Paper - the Nazis were obviously worse) and their hitherto underground army persons were organized by the British into military units - gaining much valuable military experience in the process. The local Arabs, led by the Grand Mufti, sided with the Nazis against the Brit colonialists. As a result, they mostly sat out the war.
When the war ended, the Brits continued to restrict Jewish immigration, on the basis that otherwise the area would become ungovernable. This led to much that was unfortunate - such as the Brits interning concentration-camp survivors back in camps, to avoid having them sneak in; also, to attacks on the Brits by both sides. Eventually, the Brits gave up and left. (A similar process, with even worse results, was happening at about the same time in India: the “partition”).
The newly-formed UN had a plan: partition of the area into a Jewish zone and an Arab zone. This was duly voted and approved. The Jews were delighted, as this gave their state, as it were, a stamp of approval - but it meant nothing on the ground, as the UN did not propose to send troops to enforce the deal.
The Arabs did not approve. They renounced the deal and decided on war, to eliminate the new Jewish zone. As we all know, they lost, and lost badly - the Jews not only defeated them, they siezed control of both zones and more besides. The “zones” were not really militarily-defensible countries - they were simply areas on a map with majority Jewish and Arab populations, respectfully, with gerymandering lines going hither and yon.
The war exacerbated the human problem. For various reasons which are hotly debated (fractially complex, remember? 
), large numbers of local Arabs fled the area. When the state was established, they did not return - they and their descendants are still waiting in miserable camps for the state to go away … Meanwhile, in an opposite reaction, the war so angered the Arab and Muslim nations (being defeated by Jews was considered horribly humiliating) that they begain to make life very difficult for their indigenous Jewish populations who had lived in the ME for thousands of years - who over time mostly immigrated to Israel, generally forced out without a dime (where they now make up half the population).
That takes you up to the formation of the state.
I guess what confuses me about this issue is that I always find myself asking, “Okay, who actually owned the land in the first place?”
Because I always hear “Israel needs to stop building on land that isn’t theirs and killing innocents!” and “The Palestinians need to cut it out with the terrorism nonsense and compromise,” since a shared/two-party state solution was offered and I believe was rejected.
But I can’t determine if these are true claims. Is it accurate to say that the Palestinians owned the land in the first place and feel like they’re being invaded by Jewish settlements, and are thus “defending themselves”?
Since your response to my post, you’ve gotten two additional abridged versions of the conflict, both accurate in as much as they can be in said format, both with different takes. Add those to the three or four prior ones, and I have no idea what else you’d want from the members of this board to do. You’ve been given ample food for thought and it’s on you to process the material.
So turning it around, what do you now think of the conflict? I wouldn’t be surprised at all if you answered that you still need to study the issue further to reach a personal conclusion. Which is exactly the point myself and others are making.
For instance, here are two on-line sources with opposing views on the very topic:
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in a Nutshell
Primer on Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
There’s enough material on both sites to keep you reading for days if not weeks, yet note that one claims to present facts in a “nutshell” and the other claims to be a “primer.” But you’d have us to condense all of that into a single post? Please.
Seriously, no Cliff notes on this topic are going to be of any help in you reaching an independent conclusion.