To be annoyed nobody mentioned who started the war

[Normalized]

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.

Hard agree.

Nope. When the UN voted to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state, not one Arab had been 'thrown off their land'. They still started a civil war a day later, attacking and massacring random Jews.

In the declaration of independence Israel called on the Arabs to remain on the basis of equal citizenship (many actually did, hence the 20-25% of Israel's population being Arab). The Arabs still started shelling the next morning.

It is well documented that the Arab leaders of surrounding countries told the Arab citizens of the land to leave their homes while they deal with the Jews. Then once the Jews were gone/no longed an issue the arabs could come back. Some even said they would get the property of the Jews as a reward for doing this. Unfortunately the war didn't go to plan and the Jews remained. However in the end in Judea and Samaria which the Jordan occupied they changed the name to the west bank and did kill or kick out the indigenous Jewish along side refugee Jewish and immigration Jewish population. They stole their land, houses and property.

These are historical facts rather than made up 1947/48 fiction pushed by very hateful people. Yes some arabs were definitely pushed out of their homes during the conflict and that was wrong but not on the scale suggested by historical revisionists and not as a Jewish strategy but due to conditions of unrest created by the war.

This is simply inaccurate. I don't want to point out how and why because I don't want to criticise what was done in light of the ensuing suffering on both sides. But if you really believe what you're saying, someone is feeding you fake news.

How many Arabs stayed in the Jewish state? Do they have the same rights as Jews? How many Jews stayed in Arab/Muslim states? Do they have the same rights as Muslims?

It is completely accurate. Before UN vote not a single Arab had lost their home. This is an incontrovertible fact.

The war was started by the Arabs not because they were being oppressed, but because they didn't want the Jews to have any kind of sovereignty in their ancestral homeland.

Which was also the ancestral homeland of non-Israelis.

I can see that you started this thread with only one purpose, to spout misinformation, and there is no talking to someone like that.

Don't mention the persecution and massacre of Christians or the summary execution of their own people or anyone who doesn't fit their ideological beliefs, as it doesn't fit the narrative. We've managed to get this far without anyone having to actually think about this, so best not to bring it up now as we don't want to have to think about the truth of what our 'freedom' fighters do, even when there's no 'freedom' at stake.
Best just to keep to a generalised hate of anything Jewish. It's alot easier.
There no separation of what Israel is doing in Palastine and what Hamas has or would do in Israel and is and would do in Africa.
It's just that Israel are better at it than Hamas at the moment.

Hamas set the terms of reference in how the conflict was to progress through their barbaric actions. Whatever your view on the political situation, those actions were barbaric and had no justification in any armed struggle for freedom. The response has been barbaric too. But you can't set of a chain of events so horrific and of that magnitude and then say the response is disproportionate. Hamas committed numerous war crimes including summary execution of civilians and hostage taking of civilians and using rape as a weapon of war, parading and defiling in public. The list goes on, as do the consequences. If you don't think they actually started it because of history, you can't deny they did bring the rules of engagement to where it is now.

May be read the quote history

@Normalized

Israel started the 6-day war in 1967 which resulted in them taking control of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

What made Israel do that?

Hamas are the enemy

Ordinary Palestinians who just want to live in peace, do a job, raise a family and survive, are not the enemy.

Best estimates are that there are around 30,000 active members of Hamas.

There are approx 2 million Palestinians with Israeli Citizenship plus approx 0.5 million Palestinians living there without citizenship. So we're talking about 1% of Palestinians in Hamas.

Indiscriminately slaughtering ordinary Palestinians in the hopes that some of the dead may turn out retrospectively to be members of Hamas is not the action of anyone with a functioning moral compass.

@LuckyHazelFox

Israel

You believe Jordan, Syria and Egypt were the oppressed and Israel just attacked arab States for the fun of it?

That is an incredibly benign version of the events surrounding that period of history in that part of the world.

@LuckyHazelFox the original poster said that Israel didn't start any wars which is factually incorrect and I am pointing that out.

They started defensive action.

I would like to ask why no one has mentioned Israel’s support of Hamas
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

because that doesn’t fit with their preferred narrative that Israel is always the victim.

You are way behind the times with keeping your enemies close.

Norman Finkelstein says that he refuses to condemn Hamas. He thinks the ‘condemnation chorus’ is part of the problem. because in reality the 7th October represented a slave uprising. He poses the question ‘What choice did they have? Die as slaves or die rebelling against the State which has imprisoned them in an open prison called Gaza, and implemented a policy of murder, oppression and dispossession against the Palestinian people’.

How jolly good of him. He decides to turn his back on his countrymen so his big bold message should be sacred. Just as well he doesn't speak for a whole race.

"turn his back on his countrymen"? He was born in New York.