I have my doubts whether those who discriminate can be reasoned out of discrimination based on historical research, or care much for outside pressure not backed by arms.
:eek:
Modern Israelis would by and large not give a damn about whether their grandparents or great-grandparents occupied the land “legally” or not, and they certainly would not leave the country on that basis.
Hell, many if not most Americans know full well that their ancestors more or less siezed by force or fraud the lands that America is build on from the native americans, but very few (if any?) leave America because of that.
The Arab governments have long been willing to fight to the last Palestinian, and anti-Israel sentiment is a vital safety valve for their own regimes. It won’t happen. Hell, even in today’s climate Syria is busy butchering its opposition and the world has engaged in some seriously stern tisking. What’s more, when the Syrians shelled Hama to rubble, killing tens of thousands, and bussed in other Syrians to view the price of disobedience and rebellion, the global reaction was to commemorate Deir Yassin annually. The narrative of “Muslim injustice to Muslims” generally doesn’t resonate, and the already miniscule chance of the global community exerting pressure on the Arab governments becomes a pipe dream.
No, nobody would care. The Israelis and the Palestinians both are going absolutely nowhere, and any negotiated compromise must be based on a just, equitable and lasting solution. No negotiating platform includes acknowlading that one’s ancestors were or weren’t a valid ethnic/national/whatever group, or were invaders/nogoodniks/mutant wombats. It’s a rabbit trail, designed to delegitimize a people’s drive for self-determination, and it has no place in a rational discussion of the issue.
Perhaps not, but your question was whether any Israelis would leave, not about “by and large” I do agree that for the most part Israelis would not leave. However, like I said it would undermine the country’s confidence.
Anyone familiar with the history of the region would.
Can I ask if you’ve ever actually visited the area, met any Palestinians or Israelis or even read any reputable books on the subject or have you gained most of your knowledge from some articles on the internet?
The above is not meant as an insult but a genuine question.
Nobody disputes that, however the overwhelming majority of Americans, Australians and Afrikaners believe the same thing.
The difference of course being that the Afrikaners and Israelis weren’t remotely as brutal towards the natives as the Americans and the Australians.
Edit: the above is not to question the legitimacy of the Israelis nor to compare the current relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians as between the White South Africans and Black South Africans under Apartheid.
I’m still not sure what that has to do with Palestinian nationalism. Can you concede that it was a real thing? That there were a bunch of Palestinian Arabs in the 1920s and 30s who said “You know what would be nice? If we got our own state.”
Probably you should ask Malthus about that, since he raised it.
Pretty much yes. In fact, I did a Google News Archive search for “Palestine” and “self-determination” between 1920 and 1940. Here is an excerpt from the first article I found:
Here’s the next line in the article:
Of course that’s just one article, but it seems to be fairly representative of the Arab sentiment at the time.
So I have a question for you: Are you able to concede that the “Palestinian nationalism” you have referred to is – at a minimum – inextricably intertwined with opposition to Zionism?
You have a back corner of a large empire that was coming apart at the seams with foreign powers taking out chunks of it and movements of self-determination arising throughout the region–even in the former home of the empire. It would have been amazing if there had not been a movement toward self-determination in a portion of the region that was not connected to any of the other major locations, (Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc.) Had there been no Jewish immigration, there would still have been a movement to organize the Levant into one or more nation-states. (That was, after all, how Lebanon and Jordan came into existence.)
Now, if one adds the pressure that Jewish immigration placed on the local population in terms of land and power, with the immigrants perceived as both “rich” and European–in other words, foreign interlopers–certainly the increasing Jewish presence was an integral portion of both the thoughts regarding independence and the manner in which that nation-building should occur. But to put forth the notion that there would have been no such national identity if there had been no immigration is silly. It is making the claim that the entire Middle East was populated by people seeking their own states while the Palestinians simply wanted to be left alone except to be ruled by some other entity.
It’s also hardly surprising that early Palestinian Nationalism was opposed to Zionism, as its constituents were generally opposed to Zionism as well and they wanted control over all (or, at least, most) of the Levant.
It’s not a concession. I’ve openly stated in this thread that the Palestinian nationalists were opposed to Zionism, because the Palestinian nationalists and Zionists wanted mutually exclusive things. They both wanted nation-states on the same land. If Jerusalem, for example, is ruled by a Palestinian Arab state, it can’t also be ruled by a Jewish state. That’s the nature of ethnic nationalism, and of statehood; it’s exclusivist. But that’s different than saying that Palestinian nationalism was invented to oppose Zionism.
Sure, and possibly it’s just a coincidence that the “Palestinian Nationalism” you describe came about just when Jews were flooding into the area; and was focused on that same area.
But when you look at all their actions and inactions in context, my conclusion is the only reasonable one.
Most of the “Levant” consists of what is now known as Syria, no? And the “Palestinian Nationalism” you refer to did not apply to that area, right?
And by the way, I did a few more Google searches and found no reference at all to a Palestinian declaration of independence in the 1920s.
Would it surprise you to learn that (1) In the late 1940s, the United Nations proposed setting up a Jewish state in Palestine which would NOT have included Jerusalem; (2) Zionist leaders accepted this proposal; and (3) Chaim Weizmann famously stated that the Jews “will take a state even if it’s the size of a tablecloth”?
Would it surprise you to learn that the Arabs rejected this same proposal, even though it would have given them a state?
It’s true that “Palestinian” nationalists and Zionists want mutually exclusive things, but a “Palestinian” state and a Jewish state are not necessarily mutually exclusive. What the Zionists want (and always wanted) was for there to be a Jewish state. What the “Palestinians” want (and always wanted) was for there NOT to be a Jewish state.
No it’s not. There could have been a Jewish state and a “Palestinian” state as early as 1947 and there could be a “Palestinian” state in 2013 if the Arabs would start behaving constructively.
Do you dispute that there was a serious UN proposal in the late 40s to set up a Palestinian State along side a Jewish state? Do you dispute that generally speaking, Jewish leadership accepted this proposal while Arab leadership rejected it?
Only if “reasonable” is a synonym for “cherry-picked.”
You seem to want to claim that there would have been no movement toward Palestinian nationalism if there had been no Jewish immigration and that only the presence of immigrant Jews prompted that movement. You have provided no evidence for that claim.
Arab nationalist movements dated back at least as far as the 1820s. They had different goals and included different regions at different times, but by the time of World War I, there was a general movement among all the peoples of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire to establish more localized, ethnically based nations. Pretending that of all the groups engaged in that movement, only the people surrounded by Lebanon, Jordan, the Sinai, and Egypt were uninterested in participating is silly.
As to the various proposals that one group or another accepted or dismissed, that is not an indication that the community, at large, shared the same beliefs. It is fine to point to Weizman claiming that the Jews would accept a tiny grant of land. (Although it would probably have more effect if we saw the context–or even a citation that he really ever said it.) Show me the same quotation from Ben-Gurion, Begin, Ben-Zvi, or any of the other Jewish leaders. That is cherry-picking at its worst. The same thing holds true for various compromises that were rejected by the Palestinians. That there was enough power in one faction to prevent consensus is not the same as noting that the group, at large, rejected any given proposal or that the motivation of the group, at large, was limited to antagonism to Jews.
Your interpretation is one remote possibility, but it is far from a serious, reasonable one, much less the only reasonable one.
Believe it or not, I’m actually aware of the history behind the founding of Israel! So very little of these facts surprise me. But I think you’re missing my point. What the Palestinian nationalists wanted was an Arab state in all of Palestine. That’s mutually exclusive with a Jewish state in Palestine (or any other state in Palestine). The Palestinian nationalists in the 1920s-40s wanted it all. This might have been really selfish of them. If you want to condemn them, feel free. Hell, I’ll even join you. I’ve argued, many times on this board, even, that Palestinian maximalism was and still is the major thing getting in the way of an actual Palestinian state, and that the maximalists are shooting themselves in the foot.
(Of course, there were Zionist maximalists too, as this emblem of the Irgun shows. They just were less successful in controlling the Zionist movement.)
But I think you’re wrong when you say the roots are anti-Zionist. Palestinian nationalism was anti-anybody. They didn’t want any group controlling land in Palestine except for the Palestinians. But that’s a side effect, not the main thing.
In that case, surely the Palestinian Nationalists would have gone to great lengths after 1948 to eject Jordan and Egypt from Palestine. After all, Jordan and Egypt were occupying much of what the Palestinian Nationalists wanted exclusively for themselves
Perhaps, but here’s what you said before:
Clearly that’s not true, with Jewish nationalism being an excellent counter-example.
So here’s the next question: Why is it that Palestinian Nationalism is “maximalist” to use your word?
Again, if this is true then surely they would have gone to great lengths to get Jordan and Egypt out after 1948.
Is there any evidence that this happened?
ETA: Were there any UN resolutions condemning Jordan or Egypt for illegally occupying Palestine?
