Everyone's state got carved up!
Since 1920, the entire region has been redrawn, broken up, and reshaped - often by colonial powers, dictatorships, or wars. Just a few examples:
- Syria and Lebanon were carved out of the Ottoman Empire by France.
- Iraq was stitched together by the British from three Ottoman provinces. After years of war, the Sunni and Shia divide remains explosive, and millions were displaced by the ISIS conflict.
- Jordan was created by the British in the 1920s as “Transjordan” and handed to a Hashemite monarch.
- Kuwait was split from Iraq by the British, and Iraq invaded in 1990 partly over this dispute.
- Turkey and Greece exchanged over 1.5 million people forcibly in 1923.
- Kurds, despite being a major ethnic group, were never given a state—they were divided between Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. They’ve faced persecution and displacement in all of them.
- Armenians were massacred and displaced during the Armenian Genocide.
- The creation of modern Saudi Arabia involved war, tribal expulsions, and the forced assimilation of different regions.
Millions across the region have been displaced, borders redrawn, and entire peoples scattered. It's tragic - but it’s not unique to Israel or the Palestinians.
The difference is, in most of these cases, people moved on, rebuilt, or were absorbed into neighbouring countries. But when it comes to Israel and Palestine, the region - and the world - has kept this conflict frozen in time, generation after generation, while rejecting every compromise that might have led to peace.
It’s not that it’s the only injustice - it’s just the one that never ends.
And just to correct you on a couple of quite key errors in your short post.
By the early 1950s, over 50% of Jews in Israel were from the Middle East, North Africa, or Asia - not Europe. These were Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews, many of whom were forcibly expelled or fled antisemitic violence from countries like Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria, and Iran.
They were not "forced out of most of it", the first offer to them gave them 80% of the land the remaining 20% being areas where no Arabs lived (they said no) and when the second offer came, it was 50/50.
By 1947, only about 6–8% of the land in Mandatory Palestine was privately owned by Arabs (according to British land records). Jews owned around 7% of the land. The rest - over 80% - was public or uncultivated land, owned by the British Mandate authorities (previously Ottoman state land) so really one empire changed to another.
And saying they were "forced out" is very murky.
In many areas, Arab civilians were explicitly told by Jewish and later Israeli leaders to stay. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, made radio announcements urging Arab residents to remain in place and promised equal rights to those who did. I have seen copies of speeches and articles saying the same thing. His message was clear: those who stayed would be full citizens of the new state and that promise was kept.
In cities like Haifa, Jewish leaders actively begged Arabs to stay and even worked to reassure them during the chaos. However, it was Arab leaders themselves - not the Jews - who told the population to evacuate, expecting to return quickly after what they believed would be a decisive Arab military victory.
There are clear examples of Arab calls to evacuate. In April 1948, the Arab Higher Committee and several Arab military commanders ordered evacuations from various cities. These orders were given to avoid civilian casualties and to clear the way for attacking Arab armies.
Iraqi and Syrian officers operating in Palestine at the time also encouraged the local Arab population to leave, promising that they would return once Israel was defeated.
This isn’t to say that no Arabs were expelled -in some active combat zones, such as Lydda and Ramle, there were forced removals carried out by Israeli forces. But these were military decisions during wartime, not part of a systematic plan to ethnically cleanse the land.
In most areas, Arabs left either voluntarily or under pressure from their own leadership, anticipating a quick return after the expected Arab victory.
All of this is documented, but rather than looking at the full picture people focus on the parts that were forcibly kicked out. I suppose people just ignore all the information which doesn't fit their chosen narrative.
Was it fair on everyone? Of course not. Nor was it fair the 11 times the Jews of Israel were colonised, nor was it fair on every Jewish person who had to leave Judea or Samaria or anywhere else in the region. It was crap, but the bottomline is that it was a pretty fair request for Jews to have autonomy in a tiny, tiny slither of what was their homeland before it was taken.
I really can't grasp why people begrudge them that. The entire width of Israel is about 9 to 100 miles wide depending on where you go. Do you seriously believe people should be sending their kids to war over living at most about 100 miles away from where their grandparents might have lived?
I live 4000 miles from where my Grandparents lived! This is not a reasonable way to live life!