I’ll accept/concede that it is a very complex matter, but I’m still trying to understand the relevant points here because every time I try to learn about it, there seem to be a billion details and it bogs me down, especially when everything dissolves into an internet debate where it’s impossible to learn anything.
I’m basically trying to cut through the BS in hopes that someone can tell me what I’d find on my own research because I know how incredibly hard and time-consuming it is to become properly educated/informed on any given matter with so much misinformation and truth-by-omissions/confirmation biases/etc floating around out there.
That is why I asked people to “predict” what type of stance I would take if only to give me a good idea of which claims are nonsense and which aren’t since I currently lack the back-knowledge to assess truth value to those claims. Then when I try to apply my mindset of utility and distribution comparisons and evolution (even if through the lense of Guns-Germs-and-Steel type macro-alterations)… it feels muddled when I apply it here.
That of course depends on what land in question you are talking about, and what you mean by “own”. I’m not being needlessly obscure - these issues are significant.
Generally, there is private ownership of property, and then again there is state sovreignty over land.
When the zionists first arrived in what was to be Israel, the sovreign was the Ottomans. The Turks, together with many wealthy Arab landlords, privately “owned” much of the land - in some cases, they had Arab villagers actually living on that land, who did not own it (but had various traditional rights to use it, often without real status in Turkish law). The cash value of this land was very low, as the inhabitants were, for the most part, subsistance farmers who generated little in income for the owners (indeed, during the latter Ottoman period, Palestine was not exactly economically advanced - quite the opposite. Turks considered it a hardship posting).
This made it easy for the Zionists to, quite legally under the existing laws of the land, buy up large amounts of land & live there themselves - in some cases, displacing the original inhabitants. In addition, the zionists imported all sorts of (relatively) technologically advanced notions of farming and other sorts of production (the kibbutzim, or collective farms, were - unusually for a socialist invention - far more productive than local subsistance farms).
This had predictable effects on land values. Local Arab villagers tended, increasingly, to be priced out of the market. Equally predictably, this led local arabs to simultaneously cash in (if they owned land) and resent the encroachment of the foreigners, which were in effect replacing them.
So, initially, the answer is clear from the Zionist POV - the Zionists bought the land. However, the local Arabs had a different view - that this commerce was taking place without their (collective) approval and against their (collective) interests.
All of this of course changes with war - the issue then is: who “owns” land (sometimes not “owned” privately in the first place, but with traditional use rights) when the population flees in advance of an enemy army? Because that is what happened with much local Arab lands after the 1948 war. The Israeli state tended to sieze this land & parcel it out.
The modern “settlements” issue is very different (and a whole other kettle of fish).
So basically the Arabs had neighbors move in who could pay for it + bring advanced technology which brought a certain dominance that made the Arabs feel threatened?
Is it true that Israel offered a two-state option which the Palestinians rejected? Why were they refusing to compromise?
*Apologies if this is a loaded question or possibly inaccurate – I am just Googling here and asking questions.
When the UN created the state of Israel, they also created the state of Palestine… which was immediately overrun by the various forces rushing to destroy Israel, and by the Israeli’s kicking the hell out of those same forces.
A 2 state solution has been on the table all along, but there are sticking points, primarily the much discussed here “right of return”, and the status of Jerusalem.
In the original plan, Jerusalem would have been under the Jurisdiction of the UN.
That is not acceptable to either side, both of whom want control of it for various religious and historical reasons.
Pretty much yes, the yuppies started moving in and re-gentrifying the 'hood, and most of the locals ended up being unable to afford neither staying on nor leaving.
Sort of; the UN brought up the “Partition” idea. The Jewish settlers gladly accepted the offer, the Arabs completely rejected it.
This was, BTW, sort of repeated when Israel was prepared to return nearly all of the land taken in the 6-day war immediately after it, in return for a peace settlment; and the Arabs again refused. Google “three no’s of khartoum”
Well, yes. But remember - what you had was people bringing cash into what had been, up 'till then, mostly a subsistance and sort-of feudal society. That always causes problems. Add ethnic and religious differences, and those problems are worse.
As for rejecting a two-state solution - that wasn’t really a decision up to the local Arabs; nor was it an offer made by the Israelis. The two-state offer was a UN plan. The Israelis accepted it, and the Arabs (collectively) rejected it, it is true; but both acceptance and rejection were, one would suspect, the result of the fact that everyone thought the Arab military might was superior.
The local Arabs were encouraged to reject it by the surrounding Arab states, who promised a swift and decisive victory over the new Jewish state. Given that the Jews were outnumbered by an absurd margin, and were facing invasion by several states with organized armies, the local Palestinians could be forgiven from thinking it was a done deal.
Those other Arab states have, BTW, comprehensively betrayed the Palestinians and their national ambitions. To give but one example, the land currently known as the West Bank was, after 1948, owned by the state of Jordan. In spite of the fact that, then as now, the population was almost entirely Palestinian, and in spite of the UN partition plan, Jordan never at any time offered to create a “Palestinian State” on it - until it lost control over it during the '67 war.
I feel like the land ownership keeps flipping back and forth. I am reading on the links posted earlier that Palestine, long ago, belonged to the Jews, but then there was the diaspora which spread them out – and then the Ottoman Empire took over and Arabs had the land. Then the Jews came back and bought land, which upset the Arabs, etc. Is this about right so far?
You’re not looking at the right websites (link SFW) if you think ‘lack of hot chicks’ is a reasonable complaint against the IDF. My only complaint in that regard is that guns aren’t a turn on for me, more often they are a turn off.
If you are looking for a serious answer, for starters I have criticized the creation and continued expansion of settlements on this message board. Shockingly, this is something Israelis have criticized Israel for. Are they anti-semites?
I’ve stopped participating as much in Israel debates since then and I don’t criticize them as much either. I don’t want to be an anti-semite, those guys are dicks.
I agree with that.
So because jews were generous with Jewish refugees, it somehow exonerates them from compensating Palestinian refugees?
Why does it matter if they left voluntarily? If I own a home somewhere and I leave because I fear war is breaking out, have I abandoned my property rights any more than if I leave because peopela re killing Asians in my neighborhood??
The land laws were different in the Ottoman empire than they are here. Most land was not owned in fee simple. A lot of land was owned by the Ottoman Empire (like national parks in the US where ranchers enjoy a tradtional right of grazing); a lot of it was owned communally by tribes or towns; and a lot of it was just wasteland.
When jews started immigrating to Israel, they bought a bunch of land from some absentee landlords (judging from the pictures I have seen, it was pretty rough scrubland). During WWI, the brits promised Palestine to the Jews because they wanted the support fo American jews in convincing the US to enter the war on their side. They ALSO promised Palestinians an autnomous country in exchange for their support during the war.
After WWI, the Brits got Palestine. When the Nazis took over Germany there was a huge wave of jewish immigration (frequently illegal) and it started to cause a lot of tension as Jews wanted the Brits to make good on their promise and the arabs felt threatened by the notion of a Jewish state in palestine.
After WWII, the Brits gave up trying to clean up the mess they created and they were getting ready to leave. Civil unrest or even civil war had started and it looked like there was going to be a war.
In an effort to broker a peace, the UN carved Palestine into an Israel and a Palestine along borders MUCH more favorable to the Palestinains than anythign they could hope for today. The new “Jewish” state was about 55% Jewish and 45% arab and the Arab state would be about 98% arab. If the Palestinians had accepted that deal back then, based on birth rates, they would be living in a majority arab Israel today.
The Jews were supported the partition plan, every arab state voted against it. Palestinian partition plan passed (some people say out of a global sense of guilt about the holocaust, others say that political pressure, bribes, lobbying and death threats were involved).
Britain announced that their mandate would end at midnight May 14, 1948. Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, before the brits officially left. The arab nations of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon attacked that night.
On the eve of the war, the number of Arab troops likely to be committed to the war was about 23,000 (10,000 Egyptians, 4,500 Jordanians, 3,000 Iraqis, 3,000 Syrians, 2,000 ALA volunteers, 1,000 Lebanese and some Saudi Arabians), in addition to the irregular Palestinians already present. The Yishuv had 35,000 troops of the Haganah, 3,000 of Stern and Irgun, and a few thousand armed settlers. - wikipedia
A lot of the arabs fled on the eve of war and have been living in refugee camps for the last 70 years. Their land and prosessions were confiscated by the state of israel and given or sold to Jews.
I think it is pretty clear that Jewish settlers in the occupied territories are being assholes.
True, but the blockade included blocking armaments, of course. And Israel was supplying Gaza with all necessities and humanitarian supplies. Gazans have been living quite well, actually. Of course Israel could not allow ships to go through without, at least, inspecting them.
My point was not that Palestinians do not “deserve” compensation (although, given that the “rights” in issue were in some cases somewhat difficult to enforce, how that would be handled would be complex).
My point, rather, was that the failure to give compensation isn’t the root of the refugee problem.
This point is demonstrated by the different fate of the Jewish refugees in Israel, and the Arab refugees in various Arab countries.
There would also be, as it were, a certain amount of unfairness involved in demanding compensation for the one group, while not demanding it for the other. Given that the Jewish refugrees would, in part, be paying said compensation (through taxes), they may well be somewhat peeved by being first disposessed themselves, then asked to compensate dispossessed Arabs - while denied any possibility of compensation in turn.
Which of course does not affect whatever moral rights those Arabs have to compensation, but does make the practical politics of obtaining that compensation difficult.
In fact, the only way compensation would ever be paid, I would submit, is as part of some sort of comprehensive peace deal - practically speaking.
Or another suggestion, not involving a comprehensive peace, would be for the Arab countries currently hosting Palestinian refugees to tote up the amount they took from their fleeing Jewish citizens - and give that amount to the Palestinains, and call it even - what legal types call a “set-off”.
None of which really matters, of course, because the conflict is not about money.
It would certainly increase the moral sympathies, if it were proved people were forced out. This is in large part a case about moral sympathies at this stage - compensation is owed, but by strict legality, many Palestinians did not privately “own” their lands in the first place, as you know - and it is not a simple question as to whether and to what amount one can be legally “compensated” for having voluntarily abandoned traditional use-rights to land 64 years ago.
A lot is a nebulous term, but the vast majority of Jews in Palestine are either immigrants, or 3 or fewer generations removed from immigrants. The Jewish population of Palestine/Israel was:
I’m not being needlessly obscure - these issues are significant.