Israel To The Jews

[dairygirl4u2c]

jews weren't a majority in israel when the UN took it over for them arond the 1950s, correct?
i ask, cause if they were, that might change things of what i think.

so my understanding is the following:
israel was a muslim country until NATO made it a jewish country, in the 1950s. it'd been muslim for like around 500 years, after muslims stole the land by conquest. before that, it was lead by christians for hundreds of years, who stold the land from the jews by conquest.
before that, it was various other people.

anyways, why should the jews get control of it?
i agree, "my way or the high way" by islam right now isn't a good line of thinking necessarily, and death etc, but is that really a deal breaker that we have to side with judiasm so much?
if England came here and took over, we'd be up and arms, no? if people said we were terrorists, for wanting to take it back, wouldn't that be wrong? if they said "your way or the high way" is bad and we're bad for it, we'd say that it's warranted sometimes, no? if they said "just split the land" or some other misplaced moderateism, that'd be bad, no?

it seems it just comes down to "that's the way it is". i don't think we're necessarily justified, but i just like israel going to the jews. i'm willing to admit, though, maybe i'm wrong. it's not like i've given a very cogent argument.

Edited March 21, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

a good point might be, that the muslims didn't let the jews be part of the government back when they had it, or it was muslim law etc.
but, i'm not sure that's necessarily bad. in malta or catholic countires, is having it the religions way a necessarily bad thing? ya can't have a double standard, that's worst of all.

[Hassan]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1812629' date='Mar 20 2009, 10:08 PM']jews weren't a majority in israel when the UN took it over for them arond the 1950s, correct?
i ask, cause if they were, that might change things of what i think.

so my understanding is the following:
israel was a muslim country until NATO made it a jewish country, in the 1950s. it'd been muslim for like around 500 years, after muslims stole the land by conquest. before that, it was lead by christians for hundreds of years, who stold the land from the jews by conquest.
before that, it was various other people.

anyways, why should the jews get control of it?
i agree, "my way or the high way" by islam right now isn't a good line of thinking necessarily, and death etc, but is that really a deal breaker that we have to side with judiasm so much?
if England came here and took over, we'd be up and arms, no? if people said we were terrorists, for wanting to take it back, wouldn't that be wrong? if they said "your way or the high way" is bad and we're bad for it, we'd say that it's warranted sometimes, no? if they said "just split the land" or some other misplaced moderateism, that'd be bad, no?

it seems it just comes down to "that's the way it is". i don't think we're necessarily justified, but i just like israel going to the jews. i'm willing to admit, though, maybe i'm wrong. it's not like i've given a very cogent argument.[/quote]

The British Mandate of Palestine was a former area of the Ottoman Empire and was overwhelmingly Muslim, the very small Jewish population primairly Urban. It was established as a Jewish state in 1948 with the "War of Israeli Independence".

[Vincent Vega]

Their history goes further than the 1950s.
Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, began his push for a Jewish homeland in the very final years of the 19th century, and wrote such documents as Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews). He held the first Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1898, over which he presided until his death in 1905.
At the end of WWI, the Sykes-Picot agreement was signed, which divided the Middle East up between Russia, France, and Great Britain. While Britain was in charge of her part of the M.E., Foreign Minister Balfour Sent a letter to Baron Rothschild, of the prominent Rothschild family, promising a Jewish homeland. This was sent in 1917 and came to be known as the Balfour Declaration.
Not a whole heck of a lot happened until after WWII. The Holocaust was (naturally) a huge deal to the European Jews. Now more than ever, the Jews had a powerful cause and movement for a homeland. Many began to migrate to Palestine, fearful for their lives in Europe. So many flocked to Palestine that Great Britain was unable to police them properly. As a matter of fact, one famous ship, the [i]Exodus[/i], full of Jews emigrating to Palestine was turned back to Germany in 1947.
Anti-Jewish riots occurred all over Europe, and as a reaction, the UN formed the UN Special Committee on Palestine. The UNSCOP recommended a partition plan be implemented - they suggested a Jewish and an Arab State should be formed, with Jerusalem, a holy city to the three major religions, under the administration of the UN.
David Ben Gurion, the centre-stage Zionist for the post-war movement, declared independence of Eretz Yisrael in 1948. Israel formed the Knesset, their parliament, and elected Ben Gurion as prime minister.
That's a very basic (and I'm sure somewhat incorrect) explanation of the formation of the State of Israel.

[dairygirl4u2c]

yeah. so while it seems par for the course, to be proisrael, as an american, or whatever political view, i don't see that it's so obviously them being in the right.

when ya hear iran say things like "if you truly want to be on nice terms, stop supporting israel", or even osama talking about war etc, and then envision what we'd be saying if England did what they did--- you start to see it from a totally different perspective.

[dairygirl4u2c]

yeah. so while it seems par for the course, to be proisrael, as an american, or whatever political view, i don't see that it's so obviously them being in the right.

when ya hear iran say things like "if you truly want to be on nice terms, stop supporting israel", or even osama talking about war etc, and then envision what we'd be saying if England did what they did--- you start to see it from a totally different perspective.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1812761' date='Mar 20 2009, 11:00 PM']yeah. so while it seems par for the course, to be proisrael, as an american, or whatever political view, i don't see that it's so obviously them being in the right.

when ya hear iran say things like "if you truly want to be on nice terms, stop supporting israel", or even osama talking about war etc, and then envision what we'd be saying if England did what they did--- you start to see it from a totally different perspective.[/quote]
Yeah, it's interesting stuff.
I take IB Contemporary History and my graduating year (10) has the prescribed topic of the Arab-Israeli conflict. We've been working on it for this whole semester, and will continue until the end of this year. If you're really interested, a good book I can recommend is "Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A history with Documents" by Charles Smith.
I've always felt pro-Israel, and everything I've learned so far has only supported those views.

[Hassan]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1812761' date='Mar 21 2009, 12:00 AM']yeah. so while it seems par for the course, to be proisrael, as an american, or whatever political view, i don't see that it's so obviously them being in the right.[/quote]


That is in large part due to pro Israel lobying groups and PAC,

AIPAC comes to mind.

Most of the negative news about Israel does not come on the mainstream media. Israel tried to deney the ethnic clensing by Israeli forces for a long time and still try to deney it to an extent. For example

[quote]when ya hear iran say things like "if you truly want to be on nice terms, stop supporting israel", or even osama talking about war etc, and then envision what we'd be saying if England did what they did--- you start to see it from a totally different perspective.[/quote]

Some military action that the Palestinians have engaged in it justifiable, some is terrorism. Some military action by Israel has been justifiable, some is terrorism.

I think Israel is more to blame given the asymmetry of power and that they are responsible for the refugee problem.

[CatherineM]

My dad had a lot to say about the beginnings of Israel. He had been in the Hotel David about 15 minutes before it was bombed. He got warned, and got the heck out of there. I could get him to tell me all about being there, and what the various sides were doing, but could never get him to tell me why he was there.

[Hassan]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1812852' date='Mar 21 2009, 12:39 AM']My dad had a lot to say about the beginnings of Israel. He had been in the Hotel David about 15 minutes before it was bombed. He got warned, and got the heck out of there. I could get him to tell me all about being there, and what the various sides were doing, but could never get him to tell me why he was there.[/quote]


what were his oppinions?

[CatherineM]

[quote name='Hassan' post='1812867' date='Mar 20 2009, 11:46 PM']what were his oppinions?[/quote]

He very much believed that the British arranged their pull out in such a way to maximize the chances of Israel failing. Kind of like what they did in India. They could have managed their pull out there in a way to protect refugees and lead to stability. My dad always thought that England wanted them both to have to come crawling back and admit that they needed to be a colony after all.

[Hassan]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1812877' date='Mar 21 2009, 12:50 AM']He very much believed that the British arranged their pull out in such a way to maximize the chances of Israel failing. Kind of like what they did in India. They could have managed their pull out there in a way to protect refugees and lead to stability. My dad always thought that England wanted them both to have to come crawling back and admit that they needed to be a colony after all.[/quote]


Very interesting.


That reminds me of an event in seventh grade, back in Catholic School, we did a mock Berlin Conference. We were assigned European nations and given the task of advancing our nations through negotiations without, if possible, recourse to war. I was assigned Great Britain and really did a crafty job of manipulating my nations utter naval dominance to secure huge chinks of land while only actually owning small, but strategically vital bits of Africa. A lot of class mates thought I was an idiot for me deals because they failed to understand that in absence of airpower owning land inside the land mass was worth nothing if they didn't have a viable means of access through land or ports, both of which I controlled. So after this wonder little Kissinger job we finish up the project and he congradulates us on not going to war, on how clever our deals were etc. Then he added, "During this time, did you ever once think of the people who lived there".

It really floored me. In all my clever little acts of power balancing and pitting nations against others I never once gave the slightest thought to the millions of lives I was changing. How suddenly entire tribal structures and famlies would bit split apart because I wanted a strategic edge.

Sometimes I wish more world leaders were aked that question.

[txdinghysailor]

I think the Israelis deserve to keep their country. Maybe when the country was first established it wasn't quite legal or fair to the people living there before, but the Israelis have fought several major wars against most of the powerful Islamic nations in the Middle East. They're like a mouse surrounded by3-4 cats, but they've survived so far. In my book they've earned the land their country is on.

[Madame Vengier]

Israel belongs to the Jews, as it is the land given to them by God 4,000 years ago at the establishment of the covenant. This is not make-believe or a myth or a legnd. It is part of salvation history. It is REAL. It makes me laugh when I see things about 1948 or the 1967 borders or even things like "Well, I think...". Timelines and personal opinions don't matter. God gave Israel to the Jews. Period, end of story.

[dairygirl4u2c]

"i think it's clear cut" shrouded in "it's clear cut"..... is worse than "it's a difficult situation" shrouded in "i think it's a difficult situation"
ie, objectively it's more a difficult situation than merely saying God intends it to go to the jews. people who say "i think" are merely acknowledging that it's a diffictult situation but can see both sides. those who think it's clear cut also have reasonable views, but they are the least reasonabel of them all.

i mean, even if it was intended to go to the jews, ya really can't deny that the muslims are not capable of seeing that, given that a person can only take that it goes to the jews necessarily, as a matter of faith. so while a person would think it should clearly go to the jews, they should still be able to sympathize with muslims.

Edited March 21, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c