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To be annoyed nobody mentioned who started the war

176 replies

Normalized · Yesterday 02:03

Recently on YouTube the Oxford Union Channel released a debate titled this house believes Israel never really wanted peace. I'm not going to go through the arguments back and forth as anyone can watch it, however what's really annoyed me is that's not a single debater, including on the Israel side, mentioned who actually started the war.

There was a lot of talk whether Israel did truly ever want peace or not, but nobody actually spoke of the fact that Israel never started any wars. It was the Arabs and Palestinians who started first the Civil War in 1947, then Israel's war of independence in 1948. I would think the onus for peace is on the party who actually started all the wars.

It's such a weird debate to pull up Israel for 'never truly wanting peace' while completely ignoring the role of the other side who actually started all the wars.

OP posts:
Chrysanthemumsinpots · Yesterday 09:31

Spidermandino · Yesterday 09:14

The Palestinians that are there are the Caanites that became Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Atheist.

The same way the Christian white English people in the UK are not Middle Eastern just because they follow a Middle Eastern religion. They are the native white people who changed their religion.

‘Palestinians’ is a modern political grouping.

Chrysanthemumsinpots · Yesterday 09:41

The latest flar up in violence is clearly an outcome of Islamic violence aimed at imposing Islam over the whole region and murdering/enslaving/forceably converting all other peoples and faiths. The colonial ruling Arabs in Iran provide a lot of the funding (as well as brutally suppressing the Persian people in Iran). Israel is doing what it has done for millennia - fight to prevent its destruction and the murder/enslavement of its peoples. That doesn’t mean Israel is not capable of bad behaviour of its own. Life is never that clear cut.

OneWiseEagle · Yesterday 09:49

So what if those whose ancestors emigrated to America 100s of years ago came back here to the UK and tried to reclaim it?

Some were forced against their will, eg by displacement.

How would this be tolerated?

JHound · Yesterday 09:56

Normalized · Yesterday 02:03

Recently on YouTube the Oxford Union Channel released a debate titled this house believes Israel never really wanted peace. I'm not going to go through the arguments back and forth as anyone can watch it, however what's really annoyed me is that's not a single debater, including on the Israel side, mentioned who actually started the war.

There was a lot of talk whether Israel did truly ever want peace or not, but nobody actually spoke of the fact that Israel never started any wars. It was the Arabs and Palestinians who started first the Civil War in 1947, then Israel's war of independence in 1948. I would think the onus for peace is on the party who actually started all the wars.

It's such a weird debate to pull up Israel for 'never truly wanting peace' while completely ignoring the role of the other side who actually started all the wars.

Probably not mentioned as people will debate when the “war” started. For many it started with the creation of Israel and the displacement of scores of Palestinians.

LuckyHazelFox · Yesterday 09:58

JHound · Yesterday 09:56

Probably not mentioned as people will debate when the “war” started. For many it started with the creation of Israel and the displacement of scores of Palestinians.

Edited

How convenient.

Chrysanthemumsinpots · Yesterday 09:58

OneWiseEagle · Yesterday 09:49

So what if those whose ancestors emigrated to America 100s of years ago came back here to the UK and tried to reclaim it?

Some were forced against their will, eg by displacement.

How would this be tolerated?

Why do you think they should be treated differently to the millions of people with no link to the uk who have come here over the last decade or so?

LuckyHazelFox · Yesterday 09:59

OneWiseEagle · Yesterday 09:49

So what if those whose ancestors emigrated to America 100s of years ago came back here to the UK and tried to reclaim it?

Some were forced against their will, eg by displacement.

How would this be tolerated?

You've really just compared forcing Jews out in the first place to emigration? Fuck me.

chirrupybird · Yesterday 10:03

Normalized · Yesterday 02:03

Recently on YouTube the Oxford Union Channel released a debate titled this house believes Israel never really wanted peace. I'm not going to go through the arguments back and forth as anyone can watch it, however what's really annoyed me is that's not a single debater, including on the Israel side, mentioned who actually started the war.

There was a lot of talk whether Israel did truly ever want peace or not, but nobody actually spoke of the fact that Israel never started any wars. It was the Arabs and Palestinians who started first the Civil War in 1947, then Israel's war of independence in 1948. I would think the onus for peace is on the party who actually started all the wars.

It's such a weird debate to pull up Israel for 'never truly wanting peace' while completely ignoring the role of the other side who actually started all the wars.

Wasn't it the fact that Israel was artificially created after WW2 that caused all the upheaval the land was inhabited by other people at the time and they were not best pleased.

Comesround · Yesterday 10:03

You could say the British government never wanted peace for a long time because it suited them to have Ireland as a resource and an annex. I would not say the Irish republicans who wanted the freedoms we associate with a free society were guilty of wanting war. But the British did not particularly want peace if it meant creating a more fair and free society for a very long time. And that is why the flags for Palestine are flown all over Ireland.

comeoncolleen · Yesterday 10:04

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GeneralPeter · Yesterday 10:05

OneWiseEagle · Yesterday 09:49

So what if those whose ancestors emigrated to America 100s of years ago came back here to the UK and tried to reclaim it?

Some were forced against their will, eg by displacement.

How would this be tolerated?

These sorts of parallels never work perfectly. But we can try the thought experiment.

I think Ireland pre-independence is probably the closest we can get.

The land was ruled by another power (Britain). Most Irish had left, either because of poor conditions or oppression, and now constituted a big diaspora population. So far, the parallel holds.

Imagine, in, say 1900, a horrific pogrom by Protestant extremists in North America of Irish-descent Catholics, which had killed over half of the world’s population of Irish people, many many millions over a few years. Let’s say the same had happened to a lesser degree across Europe too, and that many European rulers agreed with the pogromists.

There might have been a movement that said: we Irish aren’t safe except in our own homeland. That homeland should be Ireland, which should be freed of British control and become independent. We Irish will go there to escape persecution and build a country.

If Britain, with UN endorsement, had left the land and created an Irish state, partitioning the land, for two communities.

Should that Irish state have been tolerated?

If the northern Irish Protestants had joined with surrounding European states to invade and destroy the new Republic of Ireland, would that have been justified?

If that attack had failed and Ireland continued to exist, as an Irish state, what should we feel about it and them now?

Chrysanthemumsinpots · Yesterday 10:13

And that is why the flags for Palestine are flown all over Ireland.

Palestinian flags are flown because a lot of shallow thinking people have this vague romantic ideas Gaza with no knowledge of the horrors for the people living there under Hamas rule. And because the ‘Free Palestine’ movement in the west is funded, supported and encouraged by Iran to destabilise the west.

You just need to look at groups like ‘Queers for Palestine’ to see how detached from the reality of Gaza they are.

JHound · Yesterday 10:18

Chrysanthemumsinpots · Yesterday 09:58

Why do you think they should be treated differently to the millions of people with no link to the uk who have come here over the last decade or so?

Are those people kicking people out of their homes?

Chrysanthemumsinpots · Yesterday 10:23

JHound · Yesterday 10:18

Are those people kicking people out of their homes?

Depends what you mean be ‘kicking people out of their homes’. Many areas of London are now only minority white.

EvieBB · Yesterday 10:37

HappiestSleeping · Yesterday 05:50

You should look at history a bit more closely. Have a look at what that area was called around 900 years BC.

The whole thing is crazy. During that time people lived there, all together. It's religion (as always) that split them apart and started the fights.

Agree. Bloody religion has a lot to answer for!

Lentilcakes · Yesterday 10:43

JHound · Yesterday 09:56

Probably not mentioned as people will debate when the “war” started. For many it started with the creation of Israel and the displacement of scores of Palestinians.

Edited

Conveniently forgot that Jews were driven out from Syria, Iran etc.

Lentilcakes · Yesterday 10:44

Chrysanthemumsinpots · Yesterday 10:13

And that is why the flags for Palestine are flown all over Ireland.

Palestinian flags are flown because a lot of shallow thinking people have this vague romantic ideas Gaza with no knowledge of the horrors for the people living there under Hamas rule. And because the ‘Free Palestine’ movement in the west is funded, supported and encouraged by Iran to destabilise the west.

You just need to look at groups like ‘Queers for Palestine’ to see how detached from the reality of Gaza they are.

Edited

This in spades.

Dopop · Yesterday 10:50

SpottyPyjama · Yesterday 05:48

Well, thousands of people were killed and displaced by having their homes stolen, so I’d say so, yes.

More Israeli Jews were killed in the 1948 war than Arabs. The Arabs being the aggressors, FYI.

They could have just, I don't know, accepted half of the loaf as it was offered to them. The Jews were extremely happy to receive half and create a state in their ancestral homeland. But no, the Arabs had to launch a war of annihilation because they wanted the whole lot. You reap what you sow.

Nakba means catastrophe. But the man who coined the phrase - Constantin Zureiq - didn't mean that innocent people had been displaced from their homes. He meant that the Arabs had lost the war they started.

What was happening at the same time? The partition of India and Pakistan.What's your take on this event? Death toll of that was approximately 1 million, and roughly 14 to 15 million people were displaced during the chaotic split. Compared to 700,000 (UN's figures) Arabs?

Why does this conflict receive so much attention despite not even coming close to being among the ten deadliest conflicts of the past 50 years?

I think we all know why.

And just for historical context, Jews are the only nation in history ever to have established a nation state in the land, and the only nation never to have lacked a presence there. Jews pray towards Jerusalem, and have done so for about 2,500 years. That's why.

Spidermandino · Yesterday 10:57

Don’t trust anyone who keeps saying “the Arabs” over and over.

Dopop · Yesterday 11:02

Spidermandino · Yesterday 09:14

The Palestinians that are there are the Caanites that became Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Atheist.

The same way the Christian white English people in the UK are not Middle Eastern just because they follow a Middle Eastern religion. They are the native white people who changed their religion.

Today's Palestinians are a loose conglomartion of Levantine peoples whose ancestry includes long-established inhabitants of the region as well as people who migrated into it from other parts of the Arab world — such as Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Iraq — and whose modern Arab identity developed through centuries of Arabization.

But the concept of a distinct Palestinian national identity is a modern political invention, cooked up by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Soviet Union.

DeterminedRat · Yesterday 11:10

Dopop · Yesterday 10:50

More Israeli Jews were killed in the 1948 war than Arabs. The Arabs being the aggressors, FYI.

They could have just, I don't know, accepted half of the loaf as it was offered to them. The Jews were extremely happy to receive half and create a state in their ancestral homeland. But no, the Arabs had to launch a war of annihilation because they wanted the whole lot. You reap what you sow.

Nakba means catastrophe. But the man who coined the phrase - Constantin Zureiq - didn't mean that innocent people had been displaced from their homes. He meant that the Arabs had lost the war they started.

What was happening at the same time? The partition of India and Pakistan.What's your take on this event? Death toll of that was approximately 1 million, and roughly 14 to 15 million people were displaced during the chaotic split. Compared to 700,000 (UN's figures) Arabs?

Why does this conflict receive so much attention despite not even coming close to being among the ten deadliest conflicts of the past 50 years?

I think we all know why.

And just for historical context, Jews are the only nation in history ever to have established a nation state in the land, and the only nation never to have lacked a presence there. Jews pray towards Jerusalem, and have done so for about 2,500 years. That's why.

I think we all know why.

Did a memo go out about using this stupid phrase in relation to the conflict in Gaza or what? Why does everyone say this and not what they mean? If you want to call people antisemites just do it, have the courage of your convictions and say what you mean instead of this pathetic nonsense.

Comesround · Yesterday 11:16

Dopop · Yesterday 11:02

Today's Palestinians are a loose conglomartion of Levantine peoples whose ancestry includes long-established inhabitants of the region as well as people who migrated into it from other parts of the Arab world — such as Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Iraq — and whose modern Arab identity developed through centuries of Arabization.

But the concept of a distinct Palestinian national identity is a modern political invention, cooked up by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Soviet Union.

Edited

I think that tends to be how people groups operate - being long established on the land to the point that they share much more than the land. A lot of the time we don't really know where they were before. The name we give to them doesn't matter very much. It really only matters that they are a community now, with rights, vulnerabilities, needs and aspirations. We ignore that at the risk of our own humanity.

OneWiseEagle · Yesterday 11:16

GeneralPeter · Yesterday 10:05

These sorts of parallels never work perfectly. But we can try the thought experiment.

I think Ireland pre-independence is probably the closest we can get.

The land was ruled by another power (Britain). Most Irish had left, either because of poor conditions or oppression, and now constituted a big diaspora population. So far, the parallel holds.

Imagine, in, say 1900, a horrific pogrom by Protestant extremists in North America of Irish-descent Catholics, which had killed over half of the world’s population of Irish people, many many millions over a few years. Let’s say the same had happened to a lesser degree across Europe too, and that many European rulers agreed with the pogromists.

There might have been a movement that said: we Irish aren’t safe except in our own homeland. That homeland should be Ireland, which should be freed of British control and become independent. We Irish will go there to escape persecution and build a country.

If Britain, with UN endorsement, had left the land and created an Irish state, partitioning the land, for two communities.

Should that Irish state have been tolerated?

If the northern Irish Protestants had joined with surrounding European states to invade and destroy the new Republic of Ireland, would that have been justified?

If that attack had failed and Ireland continued to exist, as an Irish state, what should we feel about it and them now?

Edited

Well, what do you think? Plus add a few hundred years into the timelines

JHound · Yesterday 11:41

Lentilcakes · Yesterday 10:43

Conveniently forgot that Jews were driven out from Syria, Iran etc.

I am not sure it is conveniently forgotten but not relevant to the topic of the debate and OP.

Chrysanthemumsinpots · Yesterday 11:48

JHound · Yesterday 11:41

I am not sure it is conveniently forgotten but not relevant to the topic of the debate and OP.

You don’t think the treatment of Jews (and Christian’s) in Iran is relevant to Iran’s attempted colonisation of Israel (via Hamas)?