[QUOTE=wisernow]
You call it invasion. Why can’t it be called resistance or a popular uprising, supported by other Arab nations, to the decision by a group of countries arbitrarily carving a state for people who had immigrated and usurped land that legitimately belonged to the former?
[/QUOTE]
“Invasion” is a perfectly legitimate military term. The war was almost entirely fought, on the Arabic side, by the armies of other nations entering Israel/Palestine. It was not a war of “resistance” in any sense that that means anything; it was a straight up conventional war that began when Egyptian, Syrian et al. forces entered the former mandate territory.
Because they were quite afraid of their neighbours, you see. For good reason, but there it is.
I agree wholeheartedly. Palestinians have gotten a raw deal from everyone - not just Israel. After all, you’ll notice Jordan did not give them their land, they just occupied it for 19 years and if any Palestinians didn’t like it, they shot them.
Er, you’re a bit behind the times. Of course they’ve SOME of that back; surely you’d heard of the Camp David Accords? As to what they haven’t given back the West Bank, well, there’s a lot of reasons, but that’s not the question you asked in your OP.
There’s basically two reasons for that:
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Because, again, they’re terrified of their neighbours. Israel is under virtually ceaseless attack, after all, and always has been, irrespective of what it does or doesn’t do. They’re attacked when they expand, and attacked when they retreat. Note that the current Lebanon brouhaha happened in large part because Israel continued to be attacked after the 2000 peace treaty, when they withdrew from Lebanon in exchange for a guarantee for peace. That guarantee wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, as it turned out. As you can tell from a map, complete surrender of the West Bank would be a significant security problem, and they have every reason to believe it would be exploited.
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And as to what’s Israel’s fault, because of the goddamned settlers - mostly Jewish religious zealots who’re convinced that God wants them to take it over and kick the Arabs out because their particular book of fairy tales says so. Don’t think I don’t assign some blame to Israel. The settlement problem presents Israel with a political problem it does not seem to know how to solve.
All that said, it’s mighty easy for us to call the shots from our comfortable positions; I’m not a member of a minority that has been persecuted and slaughtered by the millions for generations. If the Israelis are a little worried about their security, you’d have to be an ignoramous not to understand why.
As Sam points out, if Israel was run the same way Syria or Jordan were, they’d have slaughtered or driven out everyone in the West Bank long ago. Jordan could have set up Palestine as a state in 1949; they chose not to, instead treating the Palestinians with a brutality that has never taken place in Israel. I’m not suggesting Israel is perfect or run by saints, but it’s the Arab states who call for the massacre of Jews and teach their schoolchildren that Jews drain the blood from Arab children to make bread. (Yes, that is taught in Arabic schools.) I’ve never heard Israel call for the extermination of the Arab race. If you can’t see why Israel’s just a bit nervous, you need to be a little less dogmatic in your thinking.