I am engaging with this once, and only once as I find these discussions thoroughly loaded. I want to cover 3 points, one of which is rather long and copied from a facebook post a friend made a couple of days ago.
But first, I want to share this picture which perfectly illustrates why certain targets are hit- because Hamas hide their weapons behind civilians rather than trying to keep them safe like the Israelis do for their citizens. This is why there are 'not enough dead Jews', prompting people to call the Israeli response disproportionate. I'm proud of David Cameron and Philip Hammond for standing up for a state who are simply trying to protect their citizens. Giving money to the Palestinian cause is futile, it only serves to line Hamas pockets while their people live in poverty and they certainly won't use it to keep their citizens safe. Even today when Hamas asked for a 2 hour ceasefire to help out their civilians, they continued to fire rockets at Israel while the Israelis observed the ceasefire.
Israel is the only state in the Middle East offering freedom of religion, race and gender according to the Declaration of Independence in May 1948. In recent weeks, the new Chief of Staff appointed to the Haddassah Hospital in Jerusalem was appointed. He was Arab, not Jewish. Israeli hospitals are a great example of this - even Haniyeh's granddaughter has been treated in top Israeli children's hospital, akin to GOSH. Bear in mind, this hospital, Schneider, has its own underground network of bomb shelters and treatment areas incase of a bombing by Hamas. A sad state of affairs. Israeli hospitals have also taken Syrians (when did we forget about the situation in Syria or is it ok when muslims kill muslims?) and treated them in hospitals in the North of the country.
Then, there's this history of Israel which was shared on facebook. It's very thorough.
Contrary to the vicious, agenda-driven, assumed modern wisdom, Jews have been living continuously in what is now Israel for circa 3,700 years, in spite of falling under the control of all manner of Empires in that time until re-gaining independence again in the last century. Many of those who spent centuries in exile experienced mass murder in Christian countries whilst as Dhimmis in Muslim lands they got their fair share of pogroms, expulsions, and hefty Jizyah taxation. So having got their own land back, they are not going to walk away. Understanding and accepting that is the starting point for genuine peace negotiations.
You seem to reject out of hand the fact that there has never been an Arab country called Palestine. But if there had been, we would all know the name of its Kings, its currency, its Capital city etc. It simply hasn’t existed.
The Balfour declaration is indeed key to understanding the political background. The Great Powers made plans to ensure that when the Ottoman Empire fell to them, it would be broken down into stable / manageable Nation States. The various peoples within the part of it known as either Southern Syria or Palestine would each get a self-determined home so that they could live next to each other in peace. They chose to make an Arab homeland out of the section to the East of the River. Thus Jordan was earmarked for the Arabs of Palestine, but they gave control to the Hashemites. The area west of the river had not been a sovereign Jewish country since the time when the Roman Army won wars against the Jews and took control of it, at around the time of Jesus, but it was always known as having been the place from which the Judean People came, because the Romans had simply renamed the Jewish Kingdom of Judea / Judah with the label "Syria Palaestina" in order to disposes the Jews of the name of their country. From that point up until the Balfour declaration, “Palestine” was used by non-Jews as a way to refer the homeland of the Jews. My grandparents (???), both Jewish, met in London at the "Anglo-Palestinian Club" in the 1930's. 80 years ago, no-one understood "Palestinian" to mean anything other than Jewish. In Germany, the Nazis sprayed "Jews, go back to Palestine" on Jewish homes and shops in the months before they started shooting them in the streets. Because even the haters knew that that was the name non-Jews used for the place that Jews come from.
Arafat's genius plan in the mid 1960's, (in all probability adopted from his Soviet advisers) was the idea of giving a political identity to those Arabs who were at that point living in the area. By naming them "Palestinians" it sounded like they were a clearly defined race of people, indigenous to the area. If the term got used enough, eventually most of the world would believe it and this new identity could be used to assume the story of the Jewish people. Once it was taught to Muslim children the world over, they would know no other history than this invention. And constant repetition of it would even get the secular and Christian world to ignore the facts and use terms like “indigenous” for the Arabs of the area.
This is not to deny that many Arabs have spent several generations in the area, bought land, and that by the time the new version of the Jewish state came about, they had become attached to the land where they lived. As you pointed out, the Balfour declaration specified that once the Jewish homeland were back in place: “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. Initially, that would prove very difficult because instead of the Arabs agreeing to any of the UN partition plans, they unanimously rejected the idea of Jews having any part of their historical homeland and sent 5 armies at the same time to kill all the Jews and destroy Israel. Now that is what should get the “inhuman” label.
These relations with its neighbours were clearly not the ideal way for the newly re-born Jewish state to live up to the intentions of the Balfour Declaration. Gradually though, over time, and even with constant terrorism from Islamists who just won’t give peaceful co-existence a chance, Israel has become the only liberal and inclusive country in the region. The only country where populations of Christians and Bahai are growing and can practice their religions freely. 20 % of Israelis are Muslim Arabs, and the University Student percentage in Israel is 20% Muslim Arabs, which highlights how everybody has the chance to fulfil their potential. Israeli Arabs know that they don’t live under any kind of “apartheid” like their cousins in Lebanon and Syria do, where professions are denied to them and they are starved to death en masse. Apartheid is treating some of your citizens differently from others. Anyone who truly knows what life for the different Israeli citizens is like knows that this accusation could not be further from the truth. Arab Israelis are free to leave, but they choose to stay because they know the truth. Only agitators manage to see “apartheid” inside Israel. The tensions which exist are because of the uncertainty over the future of the people who live outside of "Israel proper" in the areas now known as the West Bank and Gaza. These people are not Israeli citizens and will not be unless Israel annexes the area and gives them citizenship in return for loyalty to the State. But neither are they citizens of any other sovereign country. Between 1948 and 1967 they were Jordanian, because Jordan (the Arab part of the British Mandate) annexed that area of land when Israel became a Nation and called it The West Bank. But the Jordanians relinquished their claim to that area after they used it to attack Israel and lost it in that war. They cancelled the passports of the Arabs who live there.
So what becomes of these people? Their leaders have been offered nationhood in exchange for recognition and peace. But their response was intifada and war. They weren’t interested in any deal unless it meant wiping Israel out completely. If we assume that no Israeli government is likely to accept that, then we have to look at other options. But certainly, until the Arab Palestinians can vote for peace makers to lead them instead of those who encourage terror and the use of civilian areas for launching rockets at Israeli civilian populations, how can we expect Israel’s leaders to give more land up? We saw that Gaza did not become the Singapore of the Middle East… instead it became a foreign legion for Iran, like Southern Lebanon did too.
In all truth… Hamas and Iran are not the way forward for the ordinary families of Gaza. The people of Gaza and those in Judea & Samaria will always have a friend in Israel if they can take a different path. The energy of people who care about them should be spent on helping them to find leaders who are brave and selfless enough to help their people chose a path of peace.
You asked a question about being kicked out of your house and offered a job etc. I understand that many Arabs who lived in Palestine in 1948 felt that way. So did the very similar number of Jews who were forced out of Muslim countries from North Africa to Iran in the same time period to the point where there are none left in most of those places, in contrast to the 20% of Israelis who are Muslims.
The British Empire was weakened and tired after WW11 and they weren't able to manage the partition peacefully, ensuring a calm transition. But the land was partitioned between the 2 primary peoples who lived in it. Anywhere else in the world, that would have been it. Borders drawn. Peace. There wouldn't be millions of agitators foaming at the mouth from around the globe for the conflict to continue and the wounds to stay open.
For example, Czechs and Slovaks separated from each other peacefully. Many people moved house to the location of their majority, and rebuilt their lives. They are long since settled and able to go as tourists to where they used to live or even buy land there again. Time can heal, if it is allowed to. I don't see people from other continents contributing to statuses / blogs calling for Slovaks to be booted out from their land so that the Czechs can have all of ex-Czechoslovakia. Nor do I see an abundance of articles demanding that Serbs be given power to rule over all of ex-Yugoslavia; questioning the rights of Croatians and Slovenians to peace in their own self-determined land. The Balkans saw horrific bloody warfare when the countries separated, including actual genocide (as opposed to the hysterical lies and accusations aimed at Israel) where Muslims were slaughtered by Serbs just because of their religion. But even after that horror, in a short time the Balkans countries accepted their new realities and moved on.
It seems that it is only the Jewish People whose tiny State deserves to be questioned and attacked forever. Is that an intellectual position or something driven by an irrational emotion such as hatred? And how does it help the average family in Gaza when outsiders are supporting continued hostility and stoking the flames instead of pouring water on them?
Cos no one died when the India Pakistan border was drawn?? The Northern Irish one caused no bother at all either 