Justifications for Israel

Factual Questions
1

This is NOT to become a GD thread. I do not want a lot of arguing. I am asking for facts.

What are the common arguments presented for the creation and maintenance of the State of Israel, seeing as how it did need to displace so many Palestinians who had been there for thousands of years?

Pretend you’re on Nightline and respond clinically, please. I just want to be informed of the facts of the opinions surrounding the argument, not get into slinging actual opinions around. If I want that, I can always move to the actual GD forum.

2

Leaving aside the religious justification, the Israelis base their secular claims on a promise made by Great Britain during WWI. The British told Zionist leaders that if they supported the UK during the war, they would be awarded Palestine after the war. It was an easy promise to make because at the time Palestine was owned by Turkey not Britain. In fact it was such an easy promise, that Britain also made it to the Arabs. Which created an awkward moment for Britain when they won the war and received Palestine from the Turks as part of the settlement.

3

Is that really true?? Any suggested sites that we can look at?

4

And what is the religious justification? Do you mean that Abraham was promised this land, and it’s still “his” despite the time interval?

5

The religious justification would be found in Genesis 13:14-15, Genesis 17:7-8, and, well, quite a lot of what Christians call the Old Testament, I suppose.

However, the founders of the modern Zionist movement weren’t necessarily terribly religious. (And in fact some ultra-Orthodox Jews have opposed the founding of the modern State of Israel, on the grounds that only the Messiah can restore the Jewish people to the Promised Land.) Zionism was a form of nationalism; like the idea that the Italian people should live in a sovereign and united Italy, their traditional homeland, or the German people should live in a sovereign and united Germany, their traditional homeland, the Zionists believed that the Jewish people should live in a sovereign state in the traditional homeland of the Jewish people. Of course, as a practical matter, Jewish nationalism has proved to be a bit more complicated than French nationalism or Polish nationalism or Indian (that is, South Asian–Bharat) nationalism.

6

Here’s a very interesting report by the Washington Report on the issuing of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the causes and consequences…

Gp

7

Problem is that you can’t then follow up with this

and this

These are by no means unquestionable facts.

8

The “Palestinians” whom you think had been there for thousands of years were actually fairly new arrivals.

There was a Jewish/Israelite state in existence on the land from approximately 1200 BC through 70 AD, with a few minor interruptions. Further, there have been Jews living on the land continuously since 70 AD, there have been Jewish schools and shops and inhabitants without interrpution. There were no Arab-Moslems there until around 650 AD or thereabouts. When Mohammed visited Jerusalem, 600s AD, he preached his message to the Jews living there who rejected him; consequently, his later writings (the Koran) have some pretty vitriolic things to say about Jews. Not unlike Paul, whose message was earlier rejected by the Jews and who replied by saying some very nasty things about them.

Through the years of the Ottoman Empire, and its decline and collapse, there were always Jews in the area. The land became a British protectorate, and the Balfour Declaration promised the establishment of a Jewish state, around WWI times.

In 1948, the U.N. voted to “partition” the land, creating two states, a Jewish State and an Arab state (the term “Palestinian” was not then in use.) The surrounding Arab countries immediately launched a war, promising to “drive the Jews into the sea.” Their propoganda told the Arab inhabitants not to cooperate with the Jews, and they would be able to occupy the entire area. Purely objectively speaking: it was the Palestinians themselves and their surrounding Arab brethren who rejected the idea of a Palestinian state, back in 1948 when the U.N. offered it.

The Arabs who fled were put in refugee camps, where they have remained, in dreadful conditions (objective statement). They received almost nothing in aid from the Arab states responsible for their pitiable encampments, until after 1967, when they suddenly were called “Palestinians” and began terrorist attacks (not just on Israel, now – the reason the U.S. airports installed security systems is that the Palestinian terrorists, under Yassir Arafat, targetted any victim they could find.)

So, the term “Palestinian” has only been in use since 1967-ish. The notion that the State of Israel “displaced” the Palestinians is propoganda and hogwash. The Palestinians displaced themselves, by refusing to accept the U.N.'s two-state partition.

9

C K Dexter Haven - That’s a good, concise summary. Where did you get that info? What’s your source? I tried researching this on the web once so I could take a solid position on the issue, and got so much conflicting information that I gave up.

10

Here is a copy of the Balfour declaration:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/balfour.html

Here’s a copy of the Sykes-Picot agreement, which touches on the matter, but which, unfortunately is difficult to visualize without a map:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sykes.htm

Here’s the Palestine Mandate. Pay particular attention to articles 2,4,6,7, and 11.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/palmanda.htm

Actually, come to think of it, you can find the documents all here:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/mideast.htm

Hope that helps.

11

Dave Swaney[: I have to agree with Izzy - this is just not GQ fodder. I understand the impulse to just get the “facts”. But on issue like this, even the most subtle shadings are disputed. For instance I agree with most everything that C K Dexter Haven said, except his conclusions ( his last two sentences ), which I find a little too strong and perhaps a bit simplistic ( not that I’m calling him simple :wink: - It’s a valid conclusion on one level, but not the whole story IMHO ).

Here’s a link on the Sykes-Picot agreement, which I’m assuming Little Nemo’s post was alluding to re: promises to the Arabs:

http://www.ariga.com/treaties/sykes.htm

And here’s a map for it:

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/sykesmap.html

C K Dexter Haven: Granting that the term “Palestinian” is recent and that Islam didn’t penetrate the region until ~ 650 A.D., I think that you could make the argument that the “Palestinians” can make some ( admittedly tenuous and difficult to prove ) claim to having descended from Jewish and non-Jewish Arabs that had emigrated into the region pre-Muhammed. After all some Jewish arabs did convert. And it is a certainty that Syria ( in the broadest sense ) had an Arab majority before the rise of Islam as a result of emigration out of the penninsula. Indeed, that was probably the largest motivation for Muhammed and the Rashidun to attempt to expand outside Arabia, Islam at the time being essentially an ethnic religion that was concerned about the conversion of Arab-speaking populations…

Still doesn’t make their settlements anywhere near as ancient as the Jews :slight_smile: . But then most ( non-Sephardic ) Jews have a pretty remote tie to historic Israel as well. Very little is ever cut and dried in these matters, I suppose :wink: .

  • Tamerlane
12

Hmmm…I don’t think I was very clear. I meant that I agree with C K Dexter Haven’s facts. But they were only some of the facts. And what you include and what you don’t can shade meaning.

For example it’s quite true there was continuous Jewish settlement in that region from truly ancient times. But it is also true that the Jewish population had been miniscule, relative to that of the Arabs ( both Christian and Moslem ) in Palestine, for many, many centuries. The flood of Jewish settlement didn’t begin until post-WW II. Although it is far from an exact comparison ( since the indigenous Jewish population was generally not at great odds with their neighbors day-to-day, pre- the establishment of Israel ), there is some parallel with the Serbs in Albania. There you had a tiny minority that clung to the land because of old historical ties, in the face of a much larger, more recent immigrant population.

Little details like that are facts. But they can be omitted or included to alter the conclusions of the debate. ( By the way, I’ll parenthetically add that I have no dog in the hunt on this particular issue - I think one can find flaws on all sides ).

  • Tamerlane
13

Damn me! That should be…“Serbs in Kosovo.”

  • Tamerlane
14

Personally, I find this question quite offensive. (I’m not saying that you don’t have a right to ask it, just expressing my feelings.)

I live in Israel. Why do I need to justify my country? What is the justification of the United States? Was there any “justification” of the Europeans to come and displace millions of native Americans in the US, Canada and throughout Latin America? What about Great Britain? Is it “justified”? William the Conqueror was justified? The Arab countries that displaced the local people were justified? Was the Roman empire or Alexander the Great justified?

What I can tell you is that we, the Jews, just finished last week a 24 hour fast on the day we call Tisha B’Av. No eating, drinking, bathing or sexual relations. We can’t even study the Torah because it would cause us too much joy. And why do we fast? Because in 586 BCE, we were exiled from the land we had been living in for 800 years previous to that. And we fast because in 70 CE, the Romans exiled us again from the same land. And every year since, we fast, and declare that we never accepted that exile. Never.

Two thousand years ago my great-great-etc-grandfather and grandmother were dragged away from here, maybe not far from my house by Roman soldiers, probably as slaves. And they said to each other, we will be back. And I came back. And that justifies it.

15

OK, I have a good mind to just go over to GD and search for the dozen threads I’ll probably find there, but despite any point I might have about Haven’s assumptions, almost none of this recent discussion actually answers my question.

Many people with great historical claim to land were displaced by decisions not their own. What is the justification presented at the time or since for this action?

16

Although this statement is mostly true, I do not think it is completely true. There were cases (I’ll look for cites if you wish) when Palestinians in some villages were forced to leave at gunpoint by Israeli troops, and others where they fled for their lives simply because Jordanian and Israeli forces were fighting their battles in the middle of their homes. This was never the policy of the Israeli government, but it did happen. It is true that many more Palestinians left voluntarily than were displaced.

The one thing that both sides seem to forget is that a great many Palestinians never left Israel at all. To this day, Israel’s population is almost 20% Palestinian Arab. So in reference to the OP, no it was not “necessary” to displace any Palestinians to establish the state of Israel; Israel works just fine with Palestinians within its borders.

17

sadly, this is a great debate…

Every “fact” put forth by a supporter of the existence of the state of Israel can be interpreted by a Palestinian Hamas member as a “fact” against it.

curwin is closest to the heart of the matter…

Israel existed in ancient times, and exists now due the successful use of force - just like every other nation on earth.

dos centavos

18

When I read the above I thought of the phrase that the Jews used for almost two thousand years. It was used in regular conversation, but especially in bad times whenever and wherever they were being persecuted. The saying was:[list][list][list][list][list][list][list][list]“Next year, Jerusalem”[list]…;j…

19

Besides any use in conversation, it is also a formal part of the liturgy.

L’Shana HaBa’ah B’Yirushalayim (“Next Year in Jerusalem”) is recited at the end of Yom Kippur and at the end of the Passover Seder every year.

Zev Steinhardt

20

Sure there was. Was it any better than any other conquerors’ justifications? No. But reasons included the usual tripe, including that Europeans were more “civilized” than the “savages”, that farming, cities, etc., improved the land that was being “wasted”, that whites were racially superior to the darker-skinned natives, that Europeans brought God to the heathens, etc. etc.

Originally, there was room for both peoples. Later, there wasn’t. Europeans won. Now we assuage our guilt by letting a few tribal nations take back some of our ill-gotten gains through casinos.

All that aside (as it’s beside the point of this GQ), I think Dave’s (general) question, as he later reiterated it, still stands unanswered:

At the time of the founding of the modern state of Israel, what reasons did the creators give for their actions?

Certainly the founders of the USA, the CSA, et al. gave justifications for what they were doing (and still try to justify such things, even though the Southern secession failed and, in retrospect, we can now see that the colonies weren’t suffering THAT badly under British rule–their tax rates were enviable, for one thing). One can only assume that the Israelis did likewise.