UAE plans to bankroll first ‘planned community’ in south Gaza

Actually if you talk to a lot of Northern Irish Catholics they were.

Well, terrorists like Martin mc Guiness took part in Irish politics after laying down their arms. That doesn't mean their actions were supported.

Plenty of prominent Israelis & Jews elsewhere where highly critical of Begin and Shamir. Primo Levi, for one, called him a Fascist (fair enough, esp since Irgun founder Jabotinsky praised Mussolini and Begin funded the Argentine junta during the Falklands War)

Really?? Each of those groups leaders became Prime Ministers of Israel. When Begin was asked how he felt about being called the father of terrorism in the Middle East. His answer was, the Middle East? The world! That doesn’t sound like condemning to me.

Most Zionists now condemn Irgun & Lehi, and yes, they were terrorists. Most condemned them at the time too.

I agree re Haganah also doing some morally dubious things but they also stayed on thr straight & narrow Most of the time.

In fairness, most of these examples date from 30-50 years ago, when about half of Palestinians weren't born, but I agree the situation would likely be similar now.

Re civil war, it is disgraceful many Palestinians fought for Assad. I've seen many Arab rights campaigners criticise the West for being too soft on Assad but Arabs who suopprted him should be held accountable too.

How many did the Irgun, Lehi and even Haganah kill/murder in the name of self determination or was that different?

You've ignored all the decisions made over the years by their own leaders, that have bought them to this place.

I don't agree with your dark assessment of the situation. I think there are Palestinians out there who could provide decent leadership and a 2SS is possible. Don't you think?

It requires the shit leaders to get out of the way first, and that's what everyone should be marching for.

It almost sounds as if you want them to be eternal victims. But I can't imagine why that would be hmmmm?

@RedSongBird

The Palestinians have been persecuted, treated worse than dirt with no self determination for decades and not one of the world’s leaders have done anything to help them.

Not done anything to help them? Arab and Israeli leaders have tried again and again and had their hand bitten almost every time. I’d guess the only regime below whose treatment you’d approve of below would be Saddam Husseins.

Jordan. Accepted the most refugees and granted most citizenship. Palestinian groups tried to overthrow govt, sparking civil war (1970-71).

Lebanon. Hosted 200k+ refugees. Armed Palestinian groups a major driver of civil war (1975-90).

Kuwait. Gave 400k employment rights. PLO supported Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, leading to most Palestinians being expelled (1990-91).

Iraq. Saddam hosted many Palestinians right up until he was toppled.

Syria. Hosted 500k refugees. Palestinians took up arms in civil war (2011+).

Israel: granted 150,000 Palestinians citizenship after the 1948 war, now making up about 20% of Israel’s pop, many very well integrated. Pre-2023, 150,000 Palestinians had Israel worker permits including 20,000 Gazans. Evidence that some of those guest workers abetted the Oct 7 massacre.

Come on. Killing Jews has always been the priority over self determination.
You think Hamas planned October 7th to achieve self determination? You think bombing buses is about self determination? You think running over elderly folk and stabbing teenagers is about self determination? You think spending millions of dollars of aid on tunnels and rockets is about self determination? You think the refusal of Palestinian leadership to declare a state back in 1948 and instead attempt a war of annihilation against the Jews was about self determination?
A lot of wilful looking away on here.

Come on. Killing Jews has always been the priority over self determination.
You think Hamas planned October 7th to achieve self determination? You think bombing buses is about self determination? You think running over elderly folk and stabbing teenagers is about self determination? You think spending millions of dollars of aid on tunnels and rockets is about self determination? You think the refusal of Palestinian leadership to declare a state back in 1948 and instead attempt a war of annihilation against the Jews was about self determination?
A lot of wilful looking away on here.

Are you oblivious that they are fighting for self determination ...they don't have choices and are crushed by oppression

If you haven’t read Avi’s book, you should. He explains how his family, a prominent Iraqi family, had to leave Iraq and why. It basically finished his father who was a respected businessman in Baghdad. It is very sad but he doesn’t lay the blame purely on Pan Arabism. It was far more complicated than that.

A fair amount of the oppression they are crushed by is their own ‘leadership’ and the ideological requirements of their movement.

In 1949 the Nationalists lost a war with the Communists and were driven to Taiwan, a small corner of the contested territory. They established a militaristic regime that maintained its claim to all of the land, and both sides attacked each other for three decades.

Thankfully, with passing of the generations, Taiwan reformed and turned to the future, becoming a major economic success and a democracy. They stopped shelling the PRC and vice versa, and built a very large, albeit complicated, economic partnership. They became one of the richest and most advanced nations in Asia, home to probably the worlds most important company, despite being frozen out of international institutions and denied recognition of statehood.

Would Taiwan be happier, richer or more successful had they been encouraged to consider themselves as eternal dispossessed refugees, mounting murderous raids on the Mainland and getting beaten down in an endless cycle of recriminations?

It seem to me that the Palestinians’ own leadership, the international institutions, the Western left and the Arab world have conspired to rob Palestinians of normality, forcing endless misery on them for the sake of other priorities.

Are you oblivious that they are fighting for self determination ...they don't have choices and are crushed by oppression

If you haven’t read Avi’s book, you should. He explains how his family, a prominent Iraqi family, had to leave Iraq and why. It basically finished his father who was a respected businessman in Baghdad. It is very sad but he doesn’t lay the blame purely on Pan Arabism. It was far more complicated than that.

Bernard Lewis notes in What Went Wrong? that Muslim countries historically did give Jews a better (not ideal) deal than Christian ones. Nasrid Spain, early Ottoman Empire etc. But Pan Arabist leaders like Nasser changed that in Egypt, Iraq etc and pogroms and expulsions followed.

So do you think Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, Iranian Jews etc etc etc should have the right to return as well? Because in all the chat about how unfair this all is, none of this happened in a vacuum and any actual peace in Israel would be determined by how the entire region is governed and how many countries recognise Israel’s right to exist (along with worldwide Jewry’s - Manchester and Bondi show that it’s not just Israelis who are hated) alongside any sort of two state solution.

My family is ethnically Russian Jewish. My ancestors had no right to Russian citizenship and were pogrommed out of Russia in the 1880s. Ancient history of course but there are countless examples of ethnicity and history meaning nothing when it comes to citizenship.

The camps are horrific and Hamas keeping their own citizens in a torturous holding pattern to prop up their own power is appalling but I’m still waiting to see some other idea that is even remotely possible. Hamas is a murderous terrorist organisation. They don’t want safety or clean water or education - they want money and power and violence. So until someone has a viable plan for removing them from Palestine or protecting Palestinians from them I’m not sure what else can even be done.

You do know that Iran still has a Jewish community protected by law and the representative of the Jewish community has a permanent seat in the Iranian parliament. Avi Shlaim wrote a great book, “Three worlds, memoirs of an Arab Jew” which goes into Jewish life in Iraq. Another good read is about Effendi Sassoon and how he was revered in Iraq. Jews had it a lot worse in Europe and I wish more than anything the world will return to a state where Jews, Christians and Muslims can live in every country without persecution.

So do you think Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, Iranian Jews etc etc etc should have the right to return as well? Because in all the chat about how unfair this all is, none of this happened in a vacuum and any actual peace in Israel would be determined by how the entire region is governed and how many countries recognise Israel’s right to exist (along with worldwide Jewry’s - Manchester and Bondi show that it’s not just Israelis who are hated) alongside any sort of two state solution.

My family is ethnically Russian Jewish. My ancestors had no right to Russian citizenship and were pogrommed out of Russia in the 1880s. Ancient history of course but there are countless examples of ethnicity and history meaning nothing when it comes to citizenship.

The camps are horrific and Hamas keeping their own citizens in a torturous holding pattern to prop up their own power is appalling but I’m still waiting to see some other idea that is even remotely possible. Hamas is a murderous terrorist organisation. They don’t want safety or clean water or education - they want money and power and violence. So until someone has a viable plan for removing them from Palestine or protecting Palestinians from them I’m not sure what else can even be done.

@TomeTome The people commenting this is a good idea make me lose what little faith in humanity I have left.

Not one of the people commenting this is a good idea would live like this themselves. Not one.

Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people. Not the US, not the UAE and not the Israelis.

And nobody say "October 7th" to me either. What about the Nakba and the decades of murder and oppression since then? Also the UAE are complicit in the genocide in Sudan. So they're the perfect bedfellows for US and Israel.

Here is what I believe.

My grandfather (NB I'm not Jewish) was driven from his home by the Germans in WW2. I can't get his home back. But if I fit the requirements I CAN move to Poland and maybe even live in the same area he did.

As Benny Morris and others have documented, there were tragic wrongs committed by Israel during 1948 war including sometimes civilians being driven from their homes and more widely, villages destroyed to prevent return. Even if all Arabs had stayed put (as some Zionists say would have not been an issue), Israel's need to be a Jewish-majority state would have been in inherent tension with that.

Now, as GeneralPeter said, Arabs were able to get citizenship. They can live freely within Israel : imo the major issue is probably lack of much political say but reforming the coalition system could change this.

But they were only able to get citizenship immediately following the war. If a descendant wants to get citizenship now, it's essentially impossible since you can only now become an Israeli citizen if you are Jewish or married to a Jewish person.

I understand WHY Israel does this. I agree that keeping Israel Jewish majority is important for safety (the major reason it was founded). I also think offering limited paths to return would not be appropriate now given the radicalised state of much of the population.

But I DO think there should be a route to it one day in the future. Very stringent, needing particular skills and capped at a low number etc. But I think there is a big difference between 'you do have the chance to live where your ancestors did' and 'you can never do that because you are not Jewish or married to one'.

Moreover, I would make a few other changes to Israel. Politics needs to secularise. The rising mix of religion and politics has helped no one. Theodore Herzl, for one, was clear on the importance of this. The lack of civil marriage etc must change too. I'd also eventually bring Arabic back as a second official language as it was technically until 2018 law change, though that clearly can't be done at the moment.

It has been investigated by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. This was their finding.

So all should be on perpetual benefits and handouts then? Is that utopia? Get free housing, education and contribute to the rebuilding of your community. If that’s a horrid deal, fine, don’t take it.

I’m not sure what’s happened to it but the Knesset was recently discussing a bill to make IDF soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian immune from prosecution. I’m not happy I’ve written this but it is what it is.