Michael Oren on Twitter - "NYTimes claims US officials told Israelis that actions against Iran’s nuclear program only accelerate it. The same claims were made about the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs, both destroyed by Israel and never renewed. Israel knows best how to defend itself against Iran."
Danielle Kubes: No, Israel is not a settler colonial state, and here's why - "In a post-Black Lives Matter world, any conflict can be explained with an oppressor-oppressed narrative — man-woman, white-Black, Israel-Palestine. This worldview is based on a post-modern French philosophy that likes to dismiss cause, and blame everything on flaws that are inherent in the structure of society. The only solution, therefore, is to tear down society itself. If we actually look at cause-and-effect we can see that Israel built a fence not out of any racist agenda, but because terrorists were blowing themselves up in the Second Intifada. Terrorists were blowing themselves up — ironically? — because they wanted to displace the current inhabitants and settle (or re-settle, as they see it) the land. Similarly, Israel put in checkpoints in the West Bank in the early 2000s, not because it wants to prevent freedom of movement, but because it needs to make sure no bombs or knives are being brought in... Yes, Israel has some settlers — those who came to work the land, those who came because they had nowhere else to go and those who moved into territory won from Jordan and Egypt after the Six-Day War of 1967. But the land was never stolen — it was bought, legally, usually from the Bedouins or from absentee Arab landlords, or won through wars Israel didn’t initiate. Jews have always lived in Israel. They pre-existed Zionism by four or five millennia... Would removing [settlers] and giving over the land advance the peace process and reboot the Palestinian economy? Well, Israel tried that — in 2005 all Jews were fully and forcibly pulled out from Gaza. Turns out, Jewish settlers aren’t the cause at all. In Gaza, before the withdrawal, there was a settlement called Gush Katif . On sandy soil, with no fresh water, where nothing before had grown, this community built greenhouses. The residents installed drip irrigation hoses and added in sensors to track the nutrient levels to ensure proper plant growth. Within the first year, they were growing enough tomatoes for export, and within five, they added lettuce, cabbage, bok choy, parsley and dill. After withdrawal, international Jewish donors purchased the greenhouses for $14 million to give to local Palestinians, in hopes of providing income and jobs. Sixteen years later, half the area has reverted to sand, rubble and waste, having been ransacked or neglected, and the other half is a Hamas training complex. “Settler” is such a dirty word. But look at a picture of Tel Aviv in 1908, before it was purchased from the Bedouins. There were sand dunes where skyscrapers now stand and camels roaming where the headquarters of Facetune, Waze and Fiverr now employ tens of thousands... The true colonial powers were, in the following order, the Assyrians, the Romans, the Muslims, the Crusaders, the Ottomans and the British, lording over both native Jews and Muslims in the region. The last time Israel was ruled by its indigenous population prior to 1948 was in about 586 BC. Israeli Jews are, in fact, the anti-colonial success story of the 20th century — a persecuted and marginalized minority group who reclaimed their ancestral homeland and turned it into the 19th-largest economy in the world. The Palestinians have never yet had a state to call their own. I hope they will, soon. But that will only happen if they stop buying into this false narrative that they are oppressed; that their only problem is their oppressors. Instead, throw off the yoke of Hamas. Take the money now being spent on rockets and use it to plant crops, clean up the beach, attract investors. Follow the same model as the Jews — take what rage and hate you have at your circumstances and use it to look inward and build upward."
Hillel Neuer on Twitter - "Disproportionate: Palestinians fired 4,360 rockets at Israeli civilians last month, now Israel is giving them 1.2 million Pfizer vaccine doses."
Damn Zionists!
Facebook - "The aggression is what Hamas calls “campaigning”. And it works. When they do this, and needlessly cause their own citizens to die, their power increases. Their views are not fringe. Among many Palestinians, they are popular. This is why such actions of the IDF and the Iron Dome Austen are necessary. The Palestinian street supports this. This is not “legitimate response to occupation.” The occupation of Gaza ended 15 years ago."
Critical Spectator - Posts | Facebook - "This is why Palestinians don't have a country. Incidentally, it also shows what I wrote about a few days ago - the hostilities started by Hamas have little to do with Israel but are a part of a political campaign of revenge against Mahmoud Abbas who called off the elections planned for May, July and August. After their show of fireworks over Israel has ended, after they've "martyred" 260 Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas' is chasing Fatah in the West Bank, hoping to seize the power or win itself greater popular support if the elections ever happen. 🔴 It has nothing to do with Palestinian "struggle for independence" - it's just an intra-Palestinian conflict over money, influence and power."
"In an unprecedented move, Muslim worshipers on Friday expelled Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Mohammed Hussein from al-Aqsa Mosque and prevented him from completing his sermon. The protesters shouted slogans in support of Hamas and denounced Hussein for his affiliation with the Palestinian Authority. Hussein is considered the most senior representative of the PA at al-Aqsa Mosque compound. A resident of east Jerusalem who holds an Israeli-issued ID card, Hussein often appears next to PA President Mahmoud Abbas at public events. The protesters accused Hussein of “ignoring” Hamas and the Gaza Strip and forced him to stop his sermon... Many believe that Hamas intentionally incited riots and violence at al-Aqsa mosque and across East Jerusalem over Ramadan, which eventually led to the 12-day IDF operation in the Gaza Strip, known as Operation Guardian of the Walls. Hamas' operation, in which they and allied terror groups shot over 4,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, was known as the "The Sword of Jerusalem.""
"PS. Now tell me where's the outrage about the sacrilege? Instigating fights on the Temple Mount? When Israeli police cleared the protesters 2 weeks ago, it was, supposedly, such a violation of the sacred place that Hamas started launching rockets on Israel. But all of a sudden it's fine for terrorist supporters to assault other Palestinians? And nobody bats an eyelid. Hypocrites."
Joe Biden has set the Middle East on fire | The Post Millennial - "Right off the bat it should be pointed out that no lesser authority than Biden himself has made clear that presidents are responsible for events that occur while they are in office. Even the leftist violence this summer across the country committed by those who despise Trump was laid at Trump's feet by then candidate Biden... Biden's culpability could not be clearer. He created, quite quickly, exactly the conditions that Hamas needed to attack Israel and take the lives of innocent civilians. In myriad ways he changed the incentives in the region. He made it absolutely clear that for all intents and purposes Hamas could kill with impunity from his administration. This began when Biden chose to restore $235 million of aid to the Palestinians that President Donald Trump had withheld. The message could not have been clearer. When grandpa slips you a birthday card with several hundred million dollars in it its pretty clear he's condoning a spending spree. And even if none of that money went directly to murderous rockets it freed up funds that Hamas would otherwise need to provide basic services to the people it claims to represent. Now Biden says he will work with the Palestinian Authority to fund the rebuilding of Gaza but without allowing that funding to go towards terror. When asked by CNN on Friday how Biden might do this, Martin Indyk, a former Ambassador to Israel under Bill Clinton said, "It beats the hell out of me." So now, after having already showered Hamas with cash before the attacks, Joe Biden will reward the violence with more bags of money. And Hamas is not the only evil regime in the Middle East that Biden is coddling. The desperate doe eyes he is making at Iran in order to restore the nuclear deal has freed that nation to make mayhem at will throughout the region. Just as Barack Obama ignored his own red line in Syria to please Iran so too is Joe Biden signaling that their sponsorship of terrorism will have no consequences."
Of course, everything that goes wrong until the next Republican President will be Trump's fault, just as everything that went right during Trump's presidency was thanks to Obama
Facebook - "Progressive activist mindset: I'm a member of the LGBTQ community. This is why I support Palestine over Israel. I'm an emancipated woman. This is why I support Palestine over Israel. I believe in freedom of speech. This is why I support Palestine over Israel."
Gad Saad on Twitter - "An Egyptian wrote on my public Facebook page that Jews live in Egypt with absolutely no problems. The remaining 18 Jews that is (largely elderly women) are perfectly safe so you see there was never any Jew-hatred in Egypt. Went from 100,000 to 18 by magic. My brother-in-law's family are Egyptian Jews. They left Egypt because they found the love, tolerance, and peace too much to handle. So you see, it's their Islamophobia that caused them to flee Egypt, just like the Islamophobia of my wife's family to flee Turkey & Lebanon, and my family's Islamophobia to flee Lebanon. Oh and on my maternal side, my ancestors fled Syria because of Islamophobia. So many Islamophobic people in my family. We always experience love & tolerance, and yet we flee because of our hateful fear of being decapitated. Shame on us."
Facebook - Mia Khalifa: "Good morning. The only threat to democracy in the Middle East is Israel"
"Talk about someone that should keep their day job. Her mouth is as untalented here as it is exceptionally talented elsewhere. I’d love to see her try an experiment - practicing her profession in Israel and in Gaza and seeing which country will let her stay alive and unscathed doing it. Also a curious position for a Lebanese Christian to take, given that Hezbollah absolutely ruined her family’s once beautiful home country and Israel took in numerous Lebanese Christians fleeing the violence. "
Meme - "Bet7eb telhas teyaz el yahood enta "
"Gad Saad @ @GadSaad Let me translate: "Would you like to lick my ass, you the Jew.?" [Back to my childhood in one tweet.]
Endless such messages that I receive nearly every day from Noble People. It's in the open. He is emboldened. He's proud of his Jew-hatred. He's been fed this hate straight out of the womb, as have hundreds of millions of other people"
It's just anti-Zionism!
B on Twitter - "Iran has and continues to be a pillar behind decolonization and anti imperialism in the Middle East. This is a material analysis on how it’s built up revolutionary Islamic movements to fight against Zionism and colonization and ultimately free the land."
IDF exposes Hezbollah weapons warehouse adjacent to Lebanese school
This isn't Gaza so they don't have the excuse of there being no space. So Israel-haters will just pretend that they're lying
mo mandel a Twitter - "Instead of Birthright paying to send Jews to visit Israel, they should pay to send woke liberals to visit Hamas."
Trump’s triumph with UAE-Israel accord has unleashed a ‘preference cascade’ of Middle East peace developments - "A dam has broken and our media are desperate to avert our eyes from it. I am stunned at the succession of positive developments that has followed the announcement almost a month ago that the United Arab Emirates is normalizing relations with Israel. Momentum is accelerating toward the long dreamed-of goal of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.I have to pinch myself after writing such a thing to remind myself that decade after decade of strenuous effort has failed, frustrating presidents of both parties and stymieing plan after plan put forth by diplomats and NGOs. Yet, improbable as it may seem to the smart set, Donald Trump, denounced as an imminent threat to world peace by almost all the academic, diplomatic, and journalistic elites, may have triggered the process of reconciling the Arab world to peaceful coexistence with Israel...
Among the good news announced just this week:
The Arab League refused a Palestinian Authority initiative to condemn the AE’s normalization and appears to have pressured the PA into softening its position. The handwriting is on the wall for the PA.
Chad, an African republic with a majority Muslim population, has announced it will establish diplomatic relations with Israel and will consider putting its embassy in Jerusalem.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have announced that they will allow Israeli airliners to fly over their airspace traveling east toward the Gulf and beyond to Asia. This will cut several hours of flying time off of flights, and vastly enhance the ability of businesses to form new deals and tourists to travel. It makes clear that Saudi Arabia is following the path of the UAE. As does the following:
The Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca delivered a sermon hinting at normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel...
Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the UAE has instructed all hotels to offer kosher menus. In truth, halal food and kosher food are very similar, so if rabbis are brought in to bless the slaughterhouses and food preparation facilities, this can be accomplished at relatively low cost. Nonetheless the symbolic importance is gigantic, as guests will be reminded of normalization every time they see a menu.)
Greece, Cyprus and Israel just signed a historic military cooperation agreement. This is clearly aimed at Turkey, which is, along with Iran, one of the chief opponents of the normalization between Israel and the UAE.
And, in a harbinger of much more to come, South Korea is nearing a free trade agreement with Israel, now that it is clear that its extensive trade ties with the Arab world will not be negatively impacted by deepening ties with Israel. This will be hugely important for the two countries but will also signal enterprises in countries all over the world that they are free to invest and trade with Israel without giving up ties to the Arab economies.
These developments and others to come are best understood as a “preference cascade.”"
Trump Broke The Atlantic, in Jealous fit the Failing Magazine Jumps off Cliff, Calls for End of Nobel Peace Prize - "It has been quite a run for the The Atlantic who made up a story about Trump disrespecting Veterans, just last week, to now calling for an end to the Nobel Peace Prize, because Trump has been nominated twice for his historic achievements in making peace... The piece was written by Graeme Wood, a staff writer, who is very emotional. One can almost imagine a man drooling while screaming how much he hates Israel and how much he absolutely hates Trump... Wood writes, using all of the shaming tactics of the Marxist left, ” But if the opening of dialogue, no matter how demeaning or ineffectual, and signing of deals, no matter how undemocratic, are a condition of the prize, then Tybring-Gjedde’s case has merit. All the Nobel Committee really needs to know it could have learned in kindergarten. “Isn’t it strange,” Tybring-Gjedde asked, “that in school you learn that to talk to people is the best thing? And now we are told talking to the wrong people is a bad thing. Maybe [if you talk] you will notice that [the other guy] is not as bad as you think.”Apparently his problem is that he doesn’t like Israel, a common theme from the left,”If Trump wins the prize, it will be the fourth Nobel awarded for peace between Israel and its neighbors... So, right, anyone who supports Trump is a “Troll” how intelligent, we all just must be in kindergarten to appreciate the American President moving other countries toward ending wars, and Jews in Israel don’t deserve any more recognition for being peaceful. Yes, how persuasive, Atlantic magazine, we now see we are just in Kindergarten."
Golda Meir Quote - "If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image"
Not like the left will pity them if they die
Benjamin Weinthal on Twitter - ""There is a humanitarian crisis in Kurdistan but nobody cares because they can't blame Israel" from Kurdish rally"
Facebook - "Leftists aren't wrong when they say that there is absolutely nothing racist about being completely opposed to the Netanyahu government, the settlement policy, and a whole host of other policies. There is indeed nothing racist about being a strong advocate for Palestinian rights in so far as they want Palestinians treated equally and with dignity. But actual anti-Zionism, in which presumably you support the right of indigenous peoples to live in safety and security in their indigenous geographic regions except for one people, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that this is in fact a racist position. Perhaps a needle can be threaded in saying that one secular state with equal citizenship for all is preferable in the abstract, with all parties having 100% equal claims to live there. But scratch the surface of most anti-Zionist and this is not really what they believe. Because after all, if the so-called Palestinians had acted very differently during the 1930s, when they were waves of Jewish immigrants fleeing Europe, this could have been the situation from the get-go. It is rather interesting when you look at the history of the reaction to Jewish immigration, how the Arabs stage many large riots, talked about fears of "replacement", and echoed many sentiments about Jews not replacing them that sounds eerily similar, if not almost identical, to the fears of white nationalist today, with the distinct difference being that overwhelmingly the migrants do not have any such indigenous ties to the land, and in the case of America neither do those members of the "native"!population feeling threatened by such movement. If progressives were honest in their attitudes regarding immigration they would certainly have to agree that the attitude of Palestinians in the 1930s towards Jewish refugees fleeing violence in Europe is no more defensible than the attitude of white nationalists today, and is in fact even less defensible specifically because of this indigenous tie to the land. Indeed the reason that a separate state finally became proposed was because of these riots and subsequent clampdown of Jewish immigration. It became clear to the British that separate states were necessary because the two populations could not live in harmony. The original state set aside for Israel was much tinier than it is today, and only expanded thanks two victories in defensive wars started by the other countries. Perhaps the exception to this were excursions into Egypt and Gaza, but all territory gained in these nondefensive manners was later returned. It could have all been very different. I guess I can't rule out that it could be different in the future, but as long as current attitudes persist, we must apply equal standards to peoples and nations. Applying different standards to one people and one nation is the very definition of racism. And given the origins of Israel, it's becoming increasingly clear that holding it to a standard of "legitimacy" that is different from all other nations is a racist exercise, and the sliver that exists whereby objections to it or not racist is much much smaller than its most outspoken critics imagine."
The Netherlands Subsidized Palestinian Terrorist Murderers Of Slain 17-year-old Israeli - "The Dutch government has publicly acknowledged that funding provided for the salaries of a Palestinian NGO, was used to pay two employees who were indicted for the 2019 murder of 17-year-old Israeli, Rina Schnerb. Her killers are members of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) - which the European Union has designated as a terrorist group - and also employees of the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC)."
Damn Israel, persecuting "human rights activists"!
IDF: Gaza terrorist worked for Doctors Without Borders - "The Palestinian terrorist who opened fire at IDF soldiers earlier this week and killed when they returned fire was a nurse working for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders)... Responding to Israeli media reports on Majdalawi's killing, his brother, Osama, described the married 28 year old on Facebook as a "martyr" who had "bought the weapon with his own money" and acted "completely independently." The Facebook post said Hani Majdalawi had worked for Doctors Without Borders and that he had been "the most socially, psychologically and economically stable among his brothers.""
MJ on Twitter - "i aspire to have the confidence and self-assurance of a liberal white girl who speaks so definitively on a conflict that has over a millenia of nuanced history behind it after reading an instagram infographic and watching a tiktok the day before.
the amount of tiktoks from 19 year olds i’ve seen who think this is explainable in 60 seconds in any capacity that could allow for someone to form an informed opinion is mind numbingly disturbing.
palestinian twitter has found this and decided my stance despite me not even giving it. apparently if you value educating yourself about the complexities of an issue more than just tiktoks (and there are things both sides have done that suck) you are a “dumb bitch.” ironic."
Oilfield Rando on Twitter - "I’m just sayin, sh*t in the middle East got a whole lot better while the most powerful dude on the planet was tweeting out all caps “F**K AROUND FIND OUT” all the time You may not like it, but is what it is"
Facebook - "Many liberals whinging with platitudes about the Palestinians have no idea that 1) the 'occupation' of Gaza ended 15 years ago, and 2) even fewer are aware that both Egypt and the PLO support the blockade."
Facebook - "Everyone always said "Hamas doesn't hate Jews, they just hate 'the occupation'. Well for Hamas the occupation ended over 15 years ago, and it changed absolutely nothing. Israel left, Hamas won the elections, and it has been business as usual for the terrorist deathcult ever since. Frankly it was an early wake-up call for me out of my left naivete. I *really believed* in my optimistically American kumbaya kind of way that if only Israel did the right thing, peace could be achieved. I still think Israel morally did the right thing in leaving Gaza. But at a certain point, your theories must be tested in the real world, and the hard teacher of experiment and experience proves that this theory was, is, and always will be, bupkis. Nothing changed for Hamas when 'the occupation' came to an end for them. We need now be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that people are primarily motivated by ideology, not 'inevitable responses to oppression'. This is a leftist fairytale, promulgated by the Soviets to acquire allies in the workers revolution during the cold war, and to get idiotic fellow-traveller 'intellectuals' in the west on board as well. It too, is a theory that fails the test of reality and experience. If this were true, you'd see identical rates of terrorist action between Palestinian Islamists and Palestinian Christians. You see absolutely no such thing whatsoever. Ideology on the other hand can take the most privileged son of one of the most privileged families in Saudi Arabia and make him believe that flying planes into buildings would be a productive use of his fortunate existence on this Earth. If Hamas were interested in the state of its people it literally could have done what the leftists claimed they always would do once 'the occupation' ended, and focus on building a great nation for its people. The minute it acquired power, it became apparent to everyone it had no such interest. It's not an accident that elections were postponed yet again. Hamas is a death cult motivated by belief in holy war and a deep hatred of Jews, not just in Israel, but everywhere. Its charter reads like white supremacist fan fiction. The Jews are blamed for the French Revolution, World War I and World War II (which they claim 'profited' the Jews immensely, never explaining how the execution of 6 million people plays into this), and are also accused of using organizations like the Free Masons and the Rotary Club to further nefarious ends. What ends exactly? They don't say. They also point to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as real - the 'real plan' the Jews are supposedly using to further their domination of the Earth. *These* are the people that these progressives are indeed defending. This is the aggressor that now demands 'even-handedness' in response, as if there is some negotiation point in the middle between terrorists who want every Jew dead, and Jews who, wouldn't you know it, have the gumption to think they would rather not be dead. There is an individual case between landlords and tenants in East Jerusalem. These cases do have nuances to them, but they have been purposely hijacked by political actors for whom the failure of resolution helps them remain in power. This idea that murder in the face of a court case requires an 'even-handed' response is beyond vile, whatever one thinks of the merits of that case. If you are writing 'while Hamas firing rockets into Israeli communities is absolutely unacceptable', you've already lost the plot. Why the while? Or 'Hamas firing rockets into Israeli communities is absolutely unacceptable, but....'. There is no room for the '"But" brigade' as Salman Rushdie called those moral cowards in the face of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. There is a legal case where there is legitimate discussion, and then there is the actions of murderers who don't even live there killing people from the other side of the country. The only response is self defense. And of course, just to deepen the gaslighting as only a skilled abuser can do, the abused will always be blamed when reacting with totally justifiable anger against its abuser. I'm in favor of a two state solution. I am against the settlements. None of that changes that calls for 'even-handedness' in this are trash. Hamas is not 'inevitably reacting' to Israeli policy, whatever you think of that policy. They are acting out their deeply held violent beliefs. The tenants of Sheikh Jarrah, who are blameless in this murder and are themselves prisoners, who could be murdered if they actually took a deal from the landlords by their fellow Palestinians for 'selling out', should indeed be treated with compassion. Hamas, by contrast, deserves absolutely none."
Gad Saad on Twitter - "The Palestinians have repeatedly offered a very fair and win-win deal. Live as perpetual dhimmis as terrified minorities until you are exterminated (or not), and we will all be happy. Israel should return the "stolen" lands to Falasteen & Quebec should be returned to the Iroquois and Algonquins. Oh, and EVERY other country that has ever existed should engage in a forensic geopolitical revision of history that starts the historical clock when it benefits them. Saudi Arabia should return their lands to the indigenous Jewish tribes that were there long before the Noble Religion took over the region. Oh, and the Palestinians who stole our home in Beirut when we escaped execution are rightfully there because bruh Zionism. I'm with Prof. Dr. @Trevornoah: the Palestinians are noble & kind, while The Evil Juice..."
11-Year-Old Scores Viral Rap Hit but Trips on Gaza Politics - The New York Times - "When the 11-year-old schoolboy from Gaza posted a video of himself rapping the lyrics of one of his favorite artists, he never expected it would make him famous or get him in trouble. It did both. The video of Abdel Rahman al-Shantti rapping in front of his Gaza City school in confident English and flawless hip-hop attitude won him more than a million views and praise from famous rappers around the world. The trouble came when he was asked about his message. “I would like to spread love between us and Israel,” he told an interviewer from a Russian news outlet. “There’s no reason for fighting and wars. We need to let this relationship become better and better.”... Many Palestinians lashed out on social media at the budding rapper and his father, whom they accused of failing to properly teach his son about the Palestinian cause... The Russian outlet, Russia Today, removed the video at the request of Abdel Rahman’s father, Saleh al-Shantti. Mr. al-Shantti also posted his own video contending that his son didn’t mean peace and love with Israel specifically but peace with the world. Calls for coexistence with Israel are taboo in many circles in Gaza, and are seen as an act of normalization — treating Israel as a normal state with which one could have normal relations. Some acts of normalization, including activities or communication with Israelis, may be considered crimes in Gaza... In April, the Gaza authorities arrested several Palestinian peace activists after they held a video chat with Israelis... Asked if he was dismayed by the reaction to his comments, he weighed his words. “Kind of,” he began. Then, his father cut him off before he could complete the thought, saying that he preferred his son not discuss the topic any further."
Weird. We're told that middle east peace isn't possible because of "Zionists" and ordinary people just want peace
Israeli troops kill Palestinian driver, wound his wife - "Israeli soldiers have shot dead a Palestinian motorist who they said tried to ram them at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank – an account disputed by his wife who was with him in the car.
The damn Jews need to lie down and let themselves be killed, since otherwise they are guilty of apartheid
Facebook - "So people who want full normalized relations with the Theocracy of Iran are upset that Israel has normalized relations with the UAE and Bahrain under the pretext of them being 'un-Democratic'? Well... that's... interesting."
Facebook - "Did Israel “occupy” Palestine?
As with most issues related to this thorny topic this is, at best, a half truth... Below you are three maps. Map 1 depicts Ottoman Turkish rule over the area today known as Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip in the South. Map 2 depicts the ‘British Mandate of Palestine’, instituted after Ottoman Turkey was defeated, and collapsed after WWI. Map 3 depicts only the issue of when the Arabs (today known as Palestinians) gained political control over this land. By posting these maps I hope to address this abiding but inaccurate idea that Israel has “occupied Palestine” since 1948. As the first two maps show, in modern history this area was colonised by the Ottoman Turks, and then by the British Mandate. There was no “state of Palestine” in this area, and in fact there never has been - go as far back as you like... There was no “state of Palestine” for Jews to “occupy” at this stage. This was land captured after WWI from a colonial empire (Turks), by a colonial empire (the Brits). It was then administered by the British according tho the 1918 Anglo-French Modus Vivendi, and demarcated by the British as a homeland for the Jewish people, in line with the Balfour Declaration 1917... Other new states *were* created in the region by British colonialism however, including Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon... Look to the 1967 image in Map 3 (forgive the bad colouring) it depicts Jordan as having control over the West Bank of the River Jordan (Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip in the South). There still was no “state of Palestine”. In 1967 Egypt, Jordan and Syria attacked Israel and lost, terribly, in six days. It was only after this war that Israel gained control of the West Bank of the River Jordan, and the Gaza Strip. She has secured the West Bank ever since, and Gaza was given to Palestinian-Arabs unilaterally by Israeli PM Ariel Sharon in 2005, before it succumbed to the terrorist group Hamas. This is where Map 3 becomes very relevant. Because as Map 3 depicts, the first time in history a group of Arabs known through their entirely modern colonial identity (inseparable from the British Mandate) calling themselves Palestinians, gained any form of political control over this land (even though, as stated, 60% of Jordan is Palestinian too, including the Queen of Jordan). And it was Israel that ceded this political control to the Arabs of the West Bank of the River Jordan (today known as Palestinians) in 1994, due to the Oslo Accords. Before Oslo, Arabs from the West Bank of the River Jordan (today known as Palestinians) had never had political control of this land. The modern identity of Palestinian became a national identity in the 1960s, primarily through Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), and especially after the Arab Kingdom of Jordan lost control of the West Bank to Israel. Before this, the ‘people’ or nation in this area were Levantine Arabs. These Levantine Arabs were granted three other states by the British (Syria, Jordan and Lebanon), as well as many other Arab states in the region. Whereas Jews only have one state (Israel). All four of these states were arbitrarily created by the British and French after WWI, not just Israel. And mass-migration occurred in both directions, not just Arabs out of Israel, but Jews out of Arab lands too. All four involved expulsions (primarily of Jews going one way and Arabs going the other). But only one of these states gave Palestinian-Arabs citizenship (20% of Israel today is Arab). The three Arab states created by Britain (and in fact all other modern Arab states) are yet to provide naturalisation schemes and citizenship by birth right to the masses of Palestinian-Arabs stranded in their territories till this day. One can observe this in the refugee camps (effectively now townships) in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. These Palestinian-Arabs are pointedly and consistently refused citizenship by their host Arab states. Meanwhile, 20% of Israel’s citizens are Arabs, they sit in the Knesset and they partake in almost all Israeli affairs... the truth is that this is a land dispute born of colonialism, no different to Kashmir. It is not a typical “occupation” by one state over another, and it is misleading to frame the conversation in terms of a typical “occupation”, and then to use this emotive basis as a launch pad for “debate”. The “state of Palestine” has never existed. What has happened is that a land dispute over a colonial partition has dragged on. It is also very clear that too much media focus is placed on Israel’s behaviour, and hardly any on the surrounding Arab dictatorships or absolute monarchies who have failed Palestinian-Arabs over and again. Nor is much of a media focus placed on the Palestinian Authority, which has consistently rejected every formal peace offer made, to a point where they no longer have anything to play for, nothing to negotiate and have become such an embarrassment that even Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt have urged them to consider President Trump’s latest proposal (which by historic standards is far less than what the 1947 UN partition plan offered, which Arabs rejected)."
Some "apartheid"
Facebook - "A decent summary. Most of what people “know” about the history of Israel and “Palestine” is nothing more than leftist propaganda. In reality, one colonizing power lost to another colonizing power. But the second colonizing power did the extraordinarily unusual thing of allowing an expelled indigenous people to return. What happened as a result of allowing Jewish immigration to the region? The Arabs of the region revolted, causing massive riots, and chanting that “Jews will not replace us“. Hatred of Jews and immigrants resulted in ugly violence and ugly slogans long before the Nazis of Charlottesville took up this torch. If not for this sentiment, perhaps one state would be possible feasible and good, but this is not the reality on the ground in the region. The mandate of Palestine was a gigantic region given to Arabs compared to a tiny sliver given to the Jews. Subsequently Arabs invaded this tiny sliver multiple times and Israel gained territory in defensive wars started by others. Literally no other country is accused of “occupation“ under these circumstances. This is not to dispute that this did result in some tragic consequences for some completely innocent Arabs. Only that there is no cartoon villain in this story. Communist and leftists simply exploited this hatred during the Cold War, using the same anti-Semitic tropes of Jews as powerful dangerous forces that they had already been using for over a century and were already quite popular both in Russia and the Arab world."
Facebook - "It's kind of hilarious that in end, the one thing Jared Kushner actually did get done was brokering a bunch of (incredibly cynical and transactional) middle east deals."
"There it is. Such blatant, naked hypocrisy. When the only North Star used to guide every thing is whether or not it helps/hurts Trump, principles are ignored out of spite. If Obama had done those deals, you would be celebrating it. Because in reality, you don't care about peace. You care about power.
To every idiot saying these deals are between countries that are already at peace, please know that “peace” here doesn’t mean “end of hostilities", but is more of “normalizing relations". That means these countries will now have diplomatic channels that might *prevent* war in the future. Also, it will help these cultures get to know each other better, for real, outside of propaganda. FFS. If the Dems did this you would be celebrating. This is exactly the problem and why Trump supporters have a point when they say Trump isn’t treated fairly by the media (yessss he has short-comings, none of it changes that fact. Learn to decouple, people)."
Yes, Gaza militants hide rockets in schools, but Israel doesn't have to bomb them - Vox
"Self defence is bad when Israel does it"
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts - "Instead of the predicted catastrophe by the alarmist reporting at the time, the US killing of Soleimani has fractionalized the militias Iran was setting up within Iraq. Iran, without it’s former levels of cash and organization, is losing their grip on the militias to Iraqi leaders."
