I think a lot of people misunderstand this aspect of the situation re why civilians are staying in Gaza

Israel occupied Gaza and, even before 2023, occupied it by strangling its communication with the outside world. And the West Bank is not, and never has been, Israeli land.

The straits are bisected by an island, which belongs to Egypt, thereby forming 2 straits, the one between the Egyptian island and Saudi Arabia, which as you say, are international waters, and the one between the Egyptian mainland and the Egyptian island, which are Egyptian waters. It was this strait which Egypt closed to Israel which, as it's Egyptian territory, it had every right to do. Israel doesn't have any right to use another country's territorial waters, and threatening war unless it's allowed to is an Act of Aggression, one that led Nasser to send troops to the Sinai.

Yes, Id akso like to know what that creature is ?

Again, wtf is a zionist zombie?

OK.
I can't see any point in discussing this any further with you. The land has been disputed since the year dot so I don't see anything on a social media forum is going to cause a 'meeting of minds' any time soon.
I'm out of here.
Have a nice day.

A lot of what you have said is true but not all. While the 1922 League of Nations Mandate did recognize a need for a Jewish homeland, it also recognized it should not be at the expense of the existing non Jewish population. The Mandate did not divide the land into specific territories earmarked for one group or another. You are correct about Jordan. We could bang on about Resolution 181 but even that is irrelevant. What matters is that the International Court of Justice, the United Nations and the vast majority of the international community classify the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as Occupied Palestinian Territory. In fact the ICJ ruled again as recently as July 2024 that not only is it Palestinian Territory under occupation but that the occupation itself is unlawful under International Law.

The West Bank was recognized as part of a Jewish homeland under the 1922 League of Nations Mandate and Jordan’s 1948–1967 occupation was never internationally recognized, making the territory historically disputed.
So Jordan illegally annexed the land in 1948. They gave the Arabs living there Jordanian passports.
Only the United Kingdom, Iraq, and Pakistan recognized Jordan's annexation.
The Arab League strongly opposed the move, viewing it as illegal, though they later treated Jordan as a temporary trustee.
The broader international community and the UN never acknowledged the annexation as valid under international law
Under international law, an occupying state cannot unilaterally acquire sovereignty over occupied territory by decree or annexation.

How would you define occupation?

I'm genuinely interested because obviously it's been recognized by an Occupied Territory by the UN, ICJ, EU etc.
Why do you think it doesn't reach the threshold?

Again, nonsense.
Israel does not occupy Sinai or Gaza and the West Bank is their land.

@Steve3742" Likewise, the Straits of Tiran are Egyptian. Egypt have every right to close them. Israel may say they consider this an Act of War, but that's just a sign of Israel's aggression. They have no right to use a strait that belongs to another country."
Nonsense.
I think you need to read up on Maritime and International Law.
No-one 'owns' the Straits of Tiran because it is an international maritime strait, though the bordering and nearby sovereign nations include Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The straits lie between the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt) and the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia).
Under international law, international straits used for international navigation are subject to the right of transit passage, meaning no country can broadly close or exclusively own the waters for navigation.

See my reply to taxpayer above. A "pre-emptive strike" are weasel words used by aggressors to make excuses for their aggression. Israel launched an unprovoked attack in 1967 and stole territory from the countries it attacked. Territory it's still occupying.

Ok, in order
Nasser had every right to ask the UN forces to leave Egyptian territory. It was his territory.

Likewise, the Straits of Tiran are Egyptian. Egypt have every right to close them. Israel may say they consider this an Act of War, but that's just a sign of Israel's aggression. They have no right to use a strait that belongs to another country.

Given the inflammatory rhetoric from Israel - that YOU'VE pointed out - moving troops into the Sinai is a justifiable move, to protect against a possible Israeli attack. Which, of course, is exactly what Israel did.

Likewise, military alliances with other countries is a reasonable move, given a neighbour that was threatening war - a war they soon launched with an unprovoked attack.

And rhetoric was, as you've admitted, there on both sides and counts for far less than actions. Israel launched an unprovoked assault on Egypt. Just like Germany did on Poland in 1939.

Germany invaded Poland. We, as an ally came to their defence.
In 1967, Israel invaded Egypt and Syria. Jordan, as an ally, came to their defence.

Why does any of this historical stuff matter? It’s not going to have any impact on the present

That was an interesting post but the only reason I posted the Balfour declaration is because I was busy but wanted to quickly show to the poster I was responding to that Palestine was not invented in the 60's.

It would be fantastic for the current anti Semitism problem we have in this country, just brilliant

I’ve lived in the Middle East, there are thriving gay scenes and there’s a lot of gay sex taking place. It’s a different culture to gay culture in the west especially in terms of identity and discreetness but you’d be surprised how normalised it is.

“His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

There are two important things to keep in mind when it comes to the Balfour Declaration: (1) in 1917, Palestine was not yet under British rule; thus, the British had no actual power to assign it to anyone, and (2) by the time the British were given administrative powers over Palestine, they’d already changed their tune in favor of the Arab aspirations. You also have to understand that the Balfour Declaration never specified the exact nature of this “national home for the Jewish people,” and, as such, the British felt that this promise did not actually contradict the earlier promise they had made to the Arabs in 1916 regarding a unified Arab state in Greater Syria.

The causes for the Balfour Declaration are subject to speculation. Some historians believe the British wanted to reward Chaim Weizmann, one of the most active proponents for a Jewish state, for producing acetone, which was critical to the British war effort during World War I. Others believe the British were desperate for the Americans to enter World War I, and because they held the antisemitic view that Jews had a great deal of power over the American government, they thought that in rewarding the Jews, the Jews would reward them. Others claim Lord Balfour was a Christian Zionist (not to be confused with a Christian who is a Zionist) and he felt that the returning of the Jews to the Land of Israel would hasten the Second Coming of Jesus. Others think the British “embraced” Zionism because they felt that it would justify their colonization of Palestine over the French colonization of Palestine, as the French were also vying for control of that strip of land.

Fundamentally, before the British even set foot in Palestine, they had made contradictory promises of sovereignty to Jews, Arabs, and other Middle Eastern minorities.

But, by the time that the British actually were in Palestine, they actively did everything they possibly could to appease the Arabs, actually working to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state.

Had a Jewish state not become a reality in spite of the British, the Balfour Declaration would have long been forgotten, just like the unfulfilled promises the British made to the Assyrians and Kurds.

The fact of the matter is that virtually every border in the Middle East was carved up by the British and French, yet only the Jewish state is delegitimized on that basis. In fact, some countries were invented by the British entirely. For example, the British aided in the creation of Saudi Arabia by funding and supporting the Al Saud family, which, with their help, came to dominate a large chunk of the Arabian Peninsula. The British quite literally invented Iraq when they created the Mandate of Iraq in 1921 in part of what had long been known as other regions, including Assyria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia. And, of course, the British created Jordan when they handed an enormous piece of the Mandate of Palestine over to the Hashemites in 1922. The Hashemites are from Arabia, not Transjordan.

So you can do the hack thing of trying to delegitimize the State of Israel as a British colonial project by decontextualising one single paragraph-long, non-binding statement (Balfour Declaration) and ignore everything that happened before and since full, but you’re on a hiding to nothing.

The fact of the matter is that by the time the British actually occupied the territory that now encompasses the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, they actively worked with the Arabs against the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state.

Anyone familiar with the complicated history of the conflict beyond the same tired propaganda talking points knows this.

Try harder.

Historical Timeline of the Name "Israel"-

1200 BCE (As a People): The Merneptah Stele is the oldest known artifact to mention "Israel" as a collective group.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the name originates with the patriarch Jacob, who was renamed Israel after wrestling with an angel. His descendants became known as the "Children of Israel".
1000–722 BCE (As a Kingdom): The term later became the name of the ancient Kingdom of Israel in the northern region of the Southern Levant, existing alongside the southern Kingdom of Judah until the northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians.
1948 (As a Modern State): The modern nation formally adopted the name upon the Creation of Israel

Palestinian national identity was invented in the 1960s by the PLO and the Soviet Union (the KGB to be precise).The name Palestine has existed for centuries as a regional designation—used under Roman, Islamic, Ottoman, and British mandate rule—but it was never a sovereign Arab country or independent nation-state prior to 1948.

On the other hand, Jews are the only people who ever created a nation state there. At all other times in the past 3,000 years it was merely an administrative district in an empire whose centre was elsewhere: the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Alexandrian, Roman and Byzantine empires, the Crusaders of the Holy Roman Empire, the various Muslim empires such as the Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Mamluks and Ottomans, and finally the British. Jews are the only people who have maintained a continuous presence in the land. They are its indigenous, original inhabitants.

This is true but the reason I posted it was to show you that Palestine wasn't invented in the 60's as per original assertion. Now I could also quote William Shakespeare as well if you like or perhaps we can go back to Herodotus, well before the Romans as you claim invented the name. We could also go back to the Assyrians who used the name Palastu. Now other than a fairy tale story about a delicate spoiled mummy's boy who deceived his father to steal his brothers inheritance and then became the progenitor of some tribes hiding in the mountains, how often was the land referred as Israel prior to 1948.

That document ^ was a 117-word letter from Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild for the Zionist Federation.
It was aired to rally Jewish support for the Allies and protect the Suez Canal.
It safeguarded non-Jewish civil and religious rights, but omitted Arab political or national rights.

Not familiar with the concept of a pre-emptive strike then?

My goodness, how willfully blind to you have to be not to get what happened in 1967, and it's build up.

Gamal Abdel Nasser publicly talked about destroying Israel in the run up to the Six Day war. In May 1967 was quoted as saying our : “Our basic objective is to destroy Israel.” And that wasn't defensive rhetoric.

Nasser moved Egyptian forces into Sinai, expelled the UN peacekeepers and closed the Straits of Tiran, while Egypt and Syria aligned militarily against Israel; realising it was about to be annihilated, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt on 5 June, beginning the Six-Day War. Israel weren't the aggressor.

Honestly, this is sub-GCSE level history 🙄

fathomjournal.org/1967-nassers-antisemitic-war-against-israel/

November 2nd, 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely,

Arthur James Balfour