Deeper understanding of why Israel was created

A lot of the posts on this thread demonstrate exactly it why it can't be a 1SS.

You could argue that if there was barren land they had as much right to it as anyone but that's not what happened. They stole actual homes, not just barren land.

I understand the desire for a safe place for the Jews after the Shoah but not at the expense of a population that had nothing to do with it. Perhaps a chunk of Germany should have been carved off for that.

To be clear, my position is rooted in a fundamental opposition to ethnocracies and theocracies of any kind, whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. I believe a just system cannot give preferential treatment to one specific ethnic or religious group over all others. It is divisive and a major source of racism. King Charles recently declared he is defender of the faiths, not just the faith, and people went nuts.

If it had to be theocracy I suppose that could be established constitutionally with the agreement of the Palestinians as a condition for peace. Personally, I don't think it should be either.

A strong police force and army comprised of both Palestinians and Israelis. You're talking as if the Jews are the only victims here. They absolutely were the victims of what could be argued is the greatest crime against humanity but the Palestinians have been victimised ever since. Who is going to guarantee their safety.

@Squeezingwildoranges and @dairydebris ,

Apologies, my last post should have been to @Squeezingwildoranges

I’m not an Israel supporter. But the constant pro Palestine marches have been very disturbing. The Iranian man who held up a placard denouncing Hamas at one of the marches had to be protected by the police and removed for his own safety. I think a lot of the pro Palestinian activism is funded by Iran.

Why do the pro Palestinian marches object to placards condemning Hamas ?
Why is it that the small group protesting about Iran’s human rights abuses outside the National Gallery London get either ignored or heckled by pro Palestinian activists. ?

As for you claim that this cause is the only instance where our tax payer money is being used in ways people object to - well that is clearly a ridiculous claim .

@dairydebris ,

Pre the formation of Israel, there were about 1.2 mio Palestinian Arabs and about half that many Jews. It was a sparsely populated area.

They had as much right to move into the area as anyone else. I also think that totally ignoring the Shoah is to whitewash an important part of the reason out of it, as if it hardly mattered!

As to the solution, in one way I agree with you. They need to share the land, but they need to do so to make sure the Jews are safe in perpetuity. And I think that means a two state solution.

I understand what I think are your rather utopian reasons for advocating a one state solution but until you can answer the following two questions to my (and every other Jew’s) satisfaction, I don’t think it is realistic or will ever happen:

What is to keep it Jewish or even becoming Muslim?

If it does stop being Jewish, what is to guarantee the safety of the Jewish population?

Depends. Yemeni Jews bought the land for Givet Shaul from the residents of Deir Yassin who sold it willingly and then they lived as good neighbours for decades. That was fine. There are numerous documented examples where Palestinians have been legally, financially, or physically forced to give up or "sell" their land through state sanctioned mechanisms, legal pressure, and coercive environments. That might be legal under Israeli law but I don't think that should be allowed.

Do you think legal land purchases shouldn't have been allowed?

The problem is I don't agree with the original idea where Jews from Europe came to the land and justified what was settler colonisation with the argument that thousands of years ago our ancestors lived here. Yes, there were Jews living all over the Middle East with Christians and Muslims and have been for thousands of years so they have had a constant presence but that again doesn't justify dispossessing the Palestinians. The situation is very different now. Israel has been established as a country for decades and there are Israelis who identify as solely Israeli. Anyone calling for the complete erasure of Israel would be supporting genocide. There needs to be a complete change in the mindset of both the Israelis and the Palestinians that the land belongs to both and needs to be fairly shared. There is a lot of bad blood between the two populations but I, personally, believe the majority of people in Palestine are tired of the situation and would support any mechanism which would afford them the rights they deserve. I said the majority but not all. I think it would be harder to convince the Israelis though as it would mean them making the bigger sacrifice which they do not seem to have any intention of doing.

That is absolute rubbish and the same whataboutism that Israel supporters have tried using so many times. The difference is I'm not being forced to pay for those other atrocities whereas my tax money is actively funding the repression of Palestinians against my will. Our Western governments are not only allowing the genocide to happen, they are active participants and hence are tainting me by association. They use veto powers to block UN resolutions frustrating other countries that want try to help. As our governments support the genocide against our will it is only public activism with movements like BDS, that there is any hope of pressure being brought to bear on Israel. This is not something new either. Our governments have been actively supporting this oppression for decades.

Whichever. I agree with your final characterization of Palestinians. But by that measure, neither Palestinians or Jews in the area are colonisers are they?
Both are indigenous to the land. Palestinians no doubt mixed up a bit with colonizing Arabs and other Arabic speaking peoples in the area, and Jewish people a bit mixed up with areas they spread to during the many periods of persecution they've suffered.
I'm sure you're not denying the millenia old links to the land of the Jewish people are you? I wouldnt deny the links of Palestinians.

What do you mean by Arabs? People that speak Arabic. People from Saudi Arabia. Muslims. Or do you mean Palestinians who have deep ancestral roots in the region, meaning their DNA directly links them to the people who lived there thousands of years ago.

Yes. There is something about the anti Israeli/ pro Palestine activism that is beyond rationalism.

I agree the Palestinians have suffered terribly and Netanyahu is wicked in his disregard of their humanity and rights …. But no other cause has been adopted with such fervour.
The protesters are completely uninterested in the plight of Afghan women or Iranian dissenters.
I understand that as individuals we can’t adopt every cause - but it’s interesting that all the right thinking fashionable people have decided that Palestine is their cause ( rather than the Afghan women or the Iranian dissenters or the Christians who are oppressed and persecuted in Pakistan or Nigeria etc )

Are Arabs colonizers in Israel / Palestine?

How can you be amazed by the idea that this is not colonisation? Its hardly a new suggestion. Obviously its not colonisation, its de-colonisation. The British left!

According to a Gazan journalist I follow (who IS actually based in Gaza), 90% of Gazans want to leave because they don't see any chance of a stable life there in the near future.

He has already been tortured by Hamas for speaking out against them.

What are the thoughts of those on here, who sit in their comfy homes in the West insisting Gazans should not leave, about that?

Good grief, hardly an unbiased website there!

Please explain how an indigenous people can 'colonise' their own ancestral lands?

Do you even know the definition of colonisation?

Colonisation refers to the act or process of acquiring and settling in a territory beyond a nation’s own borders. It typically involves establishing political, economic, and social control over the indigenous population and resources of that region. A colonising power may settle its own people in the new territory, exploit local resources, and impose its cultural, legal, or religious systems.

Key Features

• Political control: The colonising power establishes governance over the territory.
• Economic exploitation: Colonies are often used to extract raw materials and generate wealth for the coloniser.
• Cultural influence: Colonisation often brings language, religion, laws, and customs of the coloniser to the colonised territory.
• Settlement: In some cases, colonisation involves relocating settlers from the home country to inhabit or dominate the land.

Who was the colonising power in Israel - which nation?

Not colonization??? Now I've heard everything. "We must expel Arabs and take their places... and, if we have to use force—then we have force at our disposal."
David Ben-Gurion

https://imeu.org/resources/resources/in-their-own-words-israeli-leaders-on-the-expulsion-of-palestinians-during-israels-establishment/226

Also @Newbutoldfather

I spent some time on a Kibbutz as a teenager and the community spirit was impressive. Israel was based on European liberal Jewry, and thrived on that educated tolerant culture. The new settlers are nothing like that. They are brash, ill educated and racist, and they have 4-6 kids per couple (rest of Israel is less than replacement). It is a dangerous time for Israel.

Where do these new settlers come from?

They speak Hebrew and seem to have been in the area for a while. There are a lot of videos on X showing altercations agitated by 'activists' to do with the farms and the violence is certainly not one sided. Cattle poisoning, rock throwing, arson and stabbing seem to be happening a lot from the Palestinian side.

Isn't the Palestinian birth rate about the same?

So why do you think the Arabs continually rejected that then? Wasn't that offered in 2000, 2001, and 2008?

Do you not think the Jews in the region suffered before and after 1948?

You are aware of the massacres of Jews by Arabs prompting the formation of the Haganah (and the split off of the Irgun and Lehi) before Israel's formation and the decades of terrorist attacks preceding Oct 7th?

Millions of people throughout history have suffered from the combined consequences of war, border redefinition and displacement. Look at India-Pakistan - Bangladesh.

Do you think Palestinians had a particularly special case to use something that happened 3 generations ago as an excuse for decades of terrorism and an attempted genocide (which Oct 7th was) to this day?

I'm not Jewish, have never been to Israel and never did any research on either until after Oct 7th.

I am of the view of the Jewish people, in general, being the scapegoats of the dysfunctional human family which kind of resonates with me as I was the scapegoat of my own family and I also see the similar toxic shame, guilt, self blame, self doubt, internal confusion and siding with the 'enemy' as a self preservation/survival mechanism, among Israelis and the Jewish disapora.

What are your thoughts on that because I find it extremely interesting in relation to the discourse in current Israeli politics?

@Newbutoldfather i think it does matter in terms of context, particularly pre WW2 although it is certainly not the central issue. The British originally had fought for the land against the Ottoman Emire with support from various Arab armies with a vague promise of self-determination. They then pivoted to the Balfour agreement, that led to mass migration of Jewish people that changes the demographic make-up of the region even well before the Shoah. This was clear colonial control. People seem surprised that Palestinians didn’t accept the division of their land, but they had already been subjected to deceit and imposed demographic change for decades which had led to violence and instability perpetrated by both sides. And I have never said Israel was colonization - but its formation is rooted in uk colonialism.

@lifeinthemidlands ,

Is the ‘colonial aspect’ important?

I do think that justice and the long term happiness of everyone depends on a two state solution based on the 1967 borders and a recognition that the Palestinians suffered when Israel was formed.

However, that doesn’t remove the post-Shoah context or that the existence of Israel should ever be challenged, or its original borders.

All decolonisation is messy and there was an awful lot of it in the 19th & 20th centuries. Yet the formation of the modern state of Israel alone, attracts wildly disoportionate passions.

Sure.

But the formation of Israel wasn't colonization. It was decolonization. Just like India / Pakistan. Fumbled if you like.

Colonialism isn't just staying in control, it's deciding who owns and controls the land and what territorial borders exist going forward.

The land had passed through many empires hands before Britain had enough. Them leaving was decolonization.
Shame the 2 indigenous groups couldn't find a way to share. Opinions will differ as to who is more at fault. But Jews are not colonizers in Israel. They are indigenous.