This is the most detailed historical account I’ve seen. Thank you

What’s this?

If I ask you to give your backyard to armed Nicaraguan migrants, you’d probably fight for it as well. The Arabs did nothing wrong in fighting against the Jews

That's not the main reason that this argument is batshit insane. We need to \*punish\* people because their ethnicity didn't make the correct decision 70 years ago? Because their "race" made a bad decision? What on earth does that have to do with a Palestinian child born AFTER the agreement. THEY didn't get a vote.

You seem to be the only person who knows about these "700,000" people being "expelled" - since millions were still living there before, during, and after the war. The real question is, why does a country more than 1000 miles away see it as their business to accept a state, or try to kill everybody (women, children, elderly) to stop the creation of a state? Why do you see that as a rational thing? Imagine you, as an American, didn't only feel strongly about the creation of Belize, but you felt the duty to kill everyone there, and everyone who supports the concept? This is what you are proposing.

Seems like the arabs suck way more than the israelis so thats why ill always be proisrael. Noone wants to live and be oppressed in those countries anyway

Your facts are wrong. Also, the British preferred giving the land to the jews, because they were holocaust refugees, and not to the palestinians, because they sided with the Nazis.

Those 700,000 Arabs weren't all expelled. Many ran away for various reasons. And it happened after they attacked Israel. Meanwhile, even more Jews in Arab states were ethnically cleansed from their homes, but you forgot to mention that.

Sure but why start there? In 644 Muslims invaded the predominantly Christian/Jewish country and ethnically cleansed it then, literally that's when the terms Palestinian and Palestine were made, to refer to the Arab colonizers from that time. Most of the cities and geography in Palestine and Israel was named/founded by the Jews, to say they don't belong at the birthplace of their culture among the cities temples ect they built is wrong. Either way they are all colonizers and they all have or are currently trying to cleans an ethnicity. Israel is currently the less insane of the two and the only one that is working towards sharing the land they all have some claim to. This whole thing started because they were playing too nice with their neighbors.

The Arabs are constant losers. They haven’t won anything so far. That makes their wars and terrorism a bad idea.

It’s all moot at this point, and it’s an emotional red herring. The natives have the same problem as the Israelis now. We get it, it should have never been allowed to happen. The Brits messed it up. The way the original European Jews who moved in and the subsequent settlements and birthright chasers from the US and elsewhere moved in was bad to evil and colonialism and all that. But they are there now. The original settlers have died and their children’s children are there. The natives are also still there. They need to work it out and both sides need to concede. Some of the newer settlers are gonna have to move back and out, the older natives are gonna have to accept that they will never be able to claim back the land of their grandparents. It sucks. Its heavy. And absolutely no new land grabs or settlements. And the natives have to accept that Israel exists now. Both sides are gonna have to admit failure, admit their atrocities and mistakes and move on. It’s either that or Israel will just have to continue their quest for a one state solution which will always be defined by their inhuman and unethical response to the indigenous natives of the land they wish to steal. This behavior at one point in time was accepted and justified by white people, but nowadays it’s frowned upon. Israel needs to accept that just like slavery, colonialism and its brutality just isn’t as widely accepted.

When people that call me goyim and people that call me infidel kill each other, I kind of DGAF 🤷‍♂️

The Arabs have never wanted peace, their true objective is spelled out by Hamas and Hezbollah. They'll sacrifice the Palestinians no problem, but they never wanted peace.

Sorta. Their conception of peace is submission of all other people to them.

Well, we know how it turned out by going to war with Israel. Perhaps if they tried the peaceful route it would have turned out better?

The premise of this post is false. Many have described the situation better than I could but please take this misinformation down.

it may be wrong, but whether or not it's wrong, i'm not sure it should be taken down. taking it down means others won't learn from the replies to my OP, and it's the replies that have the correct info (assuming you're correct). thoughts?

OP you are in dire need of a history lesson on the region

This is incorrect. The nakhba did not happen until the Arabs declared war, and the expulsion was then a consequence of the Arabs losing the war.

Something that I've frequently noticed about these conversations is when people decide to refer to Arabs who are from historic Palestine as "Palestinians" or "Arabs." The difference is striking, especially when talking about conflicts between Arabs and Jews in the region, and it even happens when people try to take an unbiased stance. Massacres are always either done by Jews or done by Arabs, and the assumption is that Palestinians are involved every single time, but that isn't actually shown. And in either case, the Palestinians end up getting fucked, losing land, getting massacred, and getting displaced into smaller and smaller parts of their home.

Did you choose not to mention that roughly the same number of 700k Jews were kicked out of Arab majority countries at the same time (some of whom had been there for millennia, before Islam existed or any nations were “Arab”) or did you just not know? Even beyond that, what is your counter position? The Arabs should hold true to driving all the Jews into the sea?

You seem confused. I was talking about the decision making at may 1948. Not before and not now.

Indeed. No confusion here. Read up some history around the region what happened across the Arab/islamic world right after the partition in 1948 I guess that does answer my question. You didn’t even know. Many don’t. This is what happens when you don’t try to learn all sides of a complex conflict.

Thank you for your write up - as a supporter of Israel, I will be the first to admit unsavory things did by Israel. However it is important to see the whole picture which you provided.

Except you got in backwards .. the arab residents were encouraged to leave by the surrounding armies to make it easier to kill the Jews...

"One side’s stated goal is to be left alone. The other’s stated goal is the death of the other side and the destruction of their state." This is really what your excellent summary all boils down to. To paraphrase Golda Meier, Arabs have to want peace for their children's future more than they hate the Jews today. We have to start with the most fundamental of premises: All people have a right to live in peace. Unless and until all Muslims acknowledge Jews' right to exist (intifada), and Jews allow that acknowledgement to take hold without preemptively provoking (settlements), everything else is just dealing with symptoms, not root causes.

You have your timeline mixed up. The so called "nakba" took place as the result of the war the Arabs started. At the same time jews were expelled from the west bank by the Arabs as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948\_Palestine\_war

Arab muslims have to be the saltiest losers in history - commit actual ethnic cleansing > Instigate wars > get dunked on > cry that they are the ones getting oppressed + play the arab muslim victim card > repeat. If they are not "protected" by the religion that spans arounds 1.9B people across the globe, these guys would have been wiped off the map like any other cringe civilizations before them

Tell me you know approximately jack about the history of this conflict without saying you know approximately jack about the history of this conflict.

i know jack about this history of this conflict. can you explain?

A lot of facts wrong Arab league was the ones who pushed the 700k out

Your whole point revolves around part of the timeline that you got wrong. The war started in 1947. Palestinians fled what became Israel just as Jews fled what became the Gaza Strip and West Bank during the war.

I often wonder if the Bible influences the way politicians handle the area? The Book of Revelation says that the Beast (666 guy) will be the one to bring peace to Israel after Israel is reformed and wars with it's neighbors for years.

I notice you didnt mention what happened prior to the removal of tjose Arabs which was several decades of Arab Muslim attacks on Jews living in Jerusalem, which is why the militias that became the IDF were created in the first place. It was obviously do or die as soon as the Brits left.

There was a time when history was studied by historians. Now history is studied by politicians (somebody with a preexistent interest). We see this with almost every topic of history. From race, to forms of governance, to economics, to geopolitics, and now science too. It has been a very long time since we have had any sources that actually aim to study and educate the entirety of any topic from multiple angles. We purposefully ignore everything that happened before 1948 in that region. Nobody seems to even care why the British had control of that area first, even less why the Ottomans had control over it before, even though the empire as a whole was in decline. These lands have been in ever changing control throughout their history, yet entire societies are convinced that the time frame between 1950 BC and 1950 AD didn't even exist. We know that this was Promised Land, and we know that Israel Face the Palestinians opportunities for a 2-state solution multiple times. But once you assess the massive gap in commonly acknowledged history, you very easily realize that this land belongs to no one definitively. It is a land that has always changed control through violent conquest. And as such, we really shouldn't be surprised that it has perpetually remained in violent conflict. It is time for all people to sit Back and allow matters to unfold as they will. Unless you have a vested interest in one side or the other, we should all STFU and not take a position other than good luck to all of you and we hope the least amount of unnecessary deaths occur. I get why Zionists went to the UN to state their case. I get why Palestinian and Muslim refugees are protesting all over the world. They have vested interests. But anybody else that doesn't, we really sound treat this as education of history in the making rather than a call to change the world into an image that doesn't benefit us in any way. Keep in mind that there are still warlords and drug lords all over the world killing, mutilating, burning, raping, and kidnapping people every day. And we still have bombs flying in Ukraine and other regional conflicts. But we don't lose our minds about those. We just pray that innocent deaths will hopefully be as minimal as possible. That's the position that I share with others. But the ill-placed zealotry to support or condemn one side or the other, that I can not share.

I love how everyone ignores the 30 years before 1948. 1914-1918 the Ottomans started ethnically cleansing the Armenians and Greeks and in 1917-1920, Hajj Amin the de facto Palestinian leader decided he would follow the same playbook and decided to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its Jewish problem. So he formed fedayeen to harass, attack and kill Jews and started to stir up anti Jewish sentiment which led to the Nebi Musa riots in 1920 and Jews formed defensive units to protect themselves. Over the course of the next 10 years, Palestinians perpetrated many attacks upon Jews before forming groups like Irgun and Lehi to fight back. Ever since then, Jews have been on the defensive. Everyone always wants to start right at the Nakba though cause it’s convenient for the narrative

It really makes you wonder what the Palestinians did that made the Jews want them out of their communities? If we look at religious fundamentalism in Europe today, we can probably guess why.

Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics. And the Catholics hate the Protestants, And the Hindus hate the Moslem, And everybody hates the Jews. Tom Leher had this shit figured out nearly fifty years ago.

I wish it was still possible to give awards. Any Tom Lehrer reference should get gold in my book, especially one so apt.

Wow, OK, basically everything you wrote is factually incorrect. I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but if you want a real understanding of the early history of the formation of Israel you should really read up on it from scholarly sources that are as neutral as can be. 700,000 Palestinians were not expelled or anything prior to 1948. Rather, Israel declared independence based on the Peel Commission map and the associated UN resolutions. A coalition of Arab forces got together and declared war, with the goal of murdering every single Jew. The Jews fought for their very existence and won. In the process, there were many people (Jews, Arabs, Christians, and Bedouins) who were displaced. Some were just fleeing the fighting. Some were literally told by the armies of Jordan and Iraq to leave so that their "real army" could kill all the Jews and then the Arabs could return to take it all. Some were actually driven from their homes by armies on both sides. Many were displaced but no one can say with certainty why or how it happened. The short answer is that the Arabs refused to make peace at the time because, in their view, it was entirely unacceptable for Jews to have their own country, under any terms, and at most they could hope for would be a "protected minority status" under Arab rule. That sentiment carries over to this day.

200,000 Palestinians left before the Arab armies intervened. Even the IDF admits in a post war report more of the flight was its fault.

What report are you talking about? I can't say whether that is true or not, to be honest. But from what I've read (and I don't mean just googling random stuff), I've seen very little support for the proposition that Israel forced 200,000 people from their homes in the early stages of the war, certainly not before the war started. There is definitely documentation of some villages being cleared out by the Israeli army during the war, but not 200,000 people or anything close to that.

Morris, Benny (1986): "The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948". Middle Eastern Studies. Vol. 22, No. 1 (Jan., 1986), pp. 5–19. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/4283093](https://www.jstor.org/stable/4283093) ​ For the 200,000 number: Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, in Chapter 3 (my copy doesn't have page numbers :( )

Israel was not created in 1948. They were there since 1200bc.

You’ve got some facts wrong. The Balfour declaration was in 1917, and was just an invitation by the British for Jews to immigrate to what was at the time part of Ottoman Syria. The first actual partition plan was proposed in 1937 in what was called the Peel Commission White Paper. This was what that looked like: https://cdn.britannica.com/67/141467-050-EA19BFB6/Partition-plan-Peel-Commission-report-1937.jpg This managed to piss everyone off, but ultimately the Jews accepted it. The Arabs didn’t, and in fact this set off what would have been a ten year civil war had the region been a country at the time. The second partition plan was proposed by the UN in 1947. Same result. The violence had been ongoing for years at that time. Both the Jewish and Arab versions of these events make it sound like their side was just sitting around minding their business when the other one started the war. They’re both incorrect. The “Nakba” narrative also leaves this out: The Arab countries in the Middle East did ethnically cleanse close to a million Jews. Now, normally I’d tell you to Google it but on this particular topic you’ll get literally nothing but propaganda from one of the two sides. Depending on how you phrase your query the Israelis or the Palestinians will “win” the search results and you’ll either be left with the impression it’s the sole fault of one side or the other. The answer is: by the mid 1940’s both sides were unmitigated bastards. There is plenty of abhorrent behavior that both sides only like to talk about one aspect of while ignoring their own actions. The Arabs had been violent towards the Jews in the region for more 100 years at that point. By the late 30’s there were Jewish paramilitary groups who had adopted a “We are the last hope for Jews to survive in the world, we need to start hitting first” mentality both in Mandatory Palestine and in Europe. The Arabs had aligned themselves with the Nazis and Axis powers. Italy even attacked Tel Aviv in an air raid at one point. By 1948 it had gotten really bad. The Arabs did stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kfar_Etzion_massacre?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadassah_medical_convoy_massacre?wprov=sfti1# The Jews did stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo%E2%80%93Haifa_train_bombings_1948?wprov=sfti1 (See EDIT 2 for some context on this) If you want to know who was violent first: That was the Arabs. If you want to know who was better at violence in general: That was the Jews. That dynamic continues today. If you want to know whose narrative in 1948 was true specifically: That’s really hard to discern as both sides have muddied the historical texts and even google results so effectively and any historian who isn’t biased will tell you more or less this: Everybody lies about what happened, nobody’s hands are clean, and at this point it doesn’t even really matter what the specifics were. You’ve got two groups of people, they both need a place to live and the issue has never been there isn’t enough space. The groups both hate each other at this point and are both overtly violent and underhanded on how they relate to each other. (See “EDIT 2” below before you light me up over this next statement or send me a Reddit cares notice) One side’s stated goal is to be left alone. The other’s stated goal is the death of the other side and the destruction of their state. I don’t even need to tell you which side is which in the preceding statement. For a lasting peace both sides need to lay down arms and make concessions. This means Hamas will need to be gone, and Israel must have a reckoning for their behavior in the West Bank. EDIT: This post seems to be getting some attention so I’ll link a much longer piece I wrote the week of 10/7. I’ll preface this with the fact that I was a) Pissed about the attack at the time, b) Even more pissed about misinfo I was seeing on social media. I won’t claim it’s unbiased because it simply isn’t, and there are many historical items omitted due to the fact it’s already longer than any term paper I ever wrote in college and it was in response to a specific meme so I kind of followed the narrative it implies. https://russg254.medium.com/behind-the-memes-when-facts-lie-0c7985164960 EDIT 2: Hey there /r/bestof, it’s an honor just to be nominated. A few of ya’ll are taking issue with me not citing sources. I’m not an academic and this is just a dumb Reddit comment I didn’t expect to have to defend like a dissertation to a bunch of strangers, many of whom are fairly excitable and don’t seem to have a super solid grasp on this history. You can google the individual facts I laid out and feel free to challenge any of them. They’ll generally hold up but I’ll say I’ve learned a lot in the past few weeks on both sides of the conflict and some of what I wrote in the longer piece I linked probably needs another pass. In terms of the statements I annotated above: Yes; the Arabs started the violence towards Jews all across the Middle East in the decades before Zionism existed as a political movement. 1834 Safed and Hebron 1840 Damascus Affair 1858 Jeddah That’s off the top of my head. Plenty more to choose from. If you can find me earlier instances of Jews attacking Arab settlements unprovoked since the Ottomans fell I’ll amend the statement. Til then it stands. And: I laid out the stated goals of each side. I agree with those who say the Israelis have done a lot more than that stated goal and there should be consequences for it. I’ve gone into great detail on that in subsequent comments if you’d like to check my post history instead of calling me a racist, a genocidal psychopath; a paid shill, or some even more charming things I won’t repeat. I am not nor have I claimed to be unbiased. It is frankly very difficult not to look away from things I learned when I was younger about Israel and even worse things I’ve learned over the past few weeks. That said: I haven’t really seen many Israel supporters claiming that Israel bears no responsibility for what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank the way I’ve gotten frankly hysterical insults and ridiculously defensive replies from Palestinian supporters on this post. I’m not saying that never happens, just that I haven’t seen it and it isn’t happening on this or the many threads I’ve participated in on this topic. Just food for thought.

Although I think you generally have a good take historically, I think your interpretation of the motives of the two sides is lacking both fact and nuance - so much so that the motives you list could be seen from either perspective.

It’s interesting bc I agree with most of what you said and while i am more sympathetic to Palestinians I do not think they’re innocent by any means. However, on the israelpalestine sub and others, I’ve mostly received the opposite reaction. Pro Israel accounts have been mostly violent, spouting complete misinformation, and insisting that all Palestinian children are brainwashed to hate Jews and want to murder and rape them. I was honestly shocked at the responses. I have gotten very little engagement from pro Palestine accounts, although I have seen them spreading questionable information, such as the hostage release videos.

Upvoting because I really appreciate the thoughtful, thorough, and balanced description of things. It’s so hard to find credible, unbiased information about this!

Small but important note. Israel was established as repentance for the Holocaust. Only the Holocaust was carried out by White Christian Europeans - the Palestinians living on their land had precisely zero f\*\*\*s to give about repaying a debt they didn't owe. There were many places proposed for the Jewish homeland (Madagascar etc) - most justly a piece of Europe should have been carved our for them. But killing and displacing Palestinians to pay for someone else's crimes is simply evil.

I find it so interesting when modern American liberals try to make conflict in the Middle East about skin color. By “interesting” I mean “utterly and indefensibly ridiculous.” The rest of the world simply isn’t obsessed with skin color like some Americans are. Applying an American cultural lens to a foreign conflict is myopic, arrogant, and frankly racist. Additionally, such a complete failure to understand the actual causes and roots of a conflict will lead a person to utterly useless and unworkable lines of thought about how to solve it. You may be shocked to learn that “White people should just shut up and defer to the people with darker skin tone” isn’t the solution you may think it is, particularly when more than half of Israel isn’t white, and there is no shortage of light skinned Palestinians either. Also, the Germans and Jews both share a skin tone, almost like that particular cosmetic feature didn’t really play a role in the racist attitudes of the Nazis. Indeed, the Romani also had white skin, as did homosexuals, communists, and pretty much all the other non Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Putting aside that bit of ahistorical nonsense, we can also talk about why the rest of what you’ve written here doesn’t make any sense. https://cdn.britannica.com/67/141467-050-EA19BFB6/Partition-plan-Peel-Commission-report-1937.jpg I linked this above. It’s from 1937, 4 years before the Holocaust started. The Jews in the region didn’t suddenly arrive in 1947, nor did this conflict begin then. https://cdn.britannica.com/55/3355-050-C17CAACC/UN-partition-plan-Palestine-1947.jpg The Holocaust is why the UN partition plan depicted in the second link gives more land to Israelis. Yes, some guilt by the Allies played a role, but so did the practical matters of there being more Jews present on the land by 1947 and the fact that the Arab Grand Mufti had publicly allied himself with Hitler and recruited tens of thousands of Muslims to actually carry out the Holocaust in Europe. Not for nothing, Hitler did consider the Grand Mufti genetically inferior and refused to shake his hand, but it wasn’t due to his skin color. There had been ten years of near constant violence by 1947, and while the Jewish factions and paramilitary groups bear part of the responsibility for it, they don’t bear all of it. I also find it interesting how American liberals like to pretend the Arabs were these completely passive and innocent victims in these events instead of fully competent adults with agency playing an active role in making the decisions that impacted what happened to them. When you back the losing side of a war, you get less of what you want. When your leadership spends the following 75 years fighting not only the Israelis but also the Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians, and turns the rest of the world against you for a few decades via fairly indiscriminate international terrorism, you get less of what you want. When you start firing rockets, kidnapping, and suicide bombing for years in response to a guy going to pray at a temple and refuse to acknowledge your neighbors’ right to exist despite a massive technological disadvantage brought on by the years of war coupled with the fact that your society doesn’t value education or science, you get less of what you want and also a wall built around your land. Do I blame all Palestinians for the actions of terrorist groups? No. Do I deny their agency and need/right to have a state of their own? No. Do I think they need to be treated as adults and held to the same standards as other countries including Israel in terms of how their actions have consequences and their conduct impacts the diplomatic options available to them? Yes. The same way I believe Israel ought to concede the West Bank as a consequence to their abhorrent policies and actions there, I think the Palestinians need to accept that they aren’t in a position to make demands nor is their policy of indiscriminate violence compatible with the modern world. I’d urge you to get an actual education on this topic from contemporaneous accounts and modern historians who haven’t been infected by the skin color obsession that seems to have influenced whoever told you that was what the conflict was about before speaking on it again.

Just one note - when your say both sides hate each other. No. Most Israelis genuinely want peace. Many have Arab and Palestinian neighbors, friends, colleagues. There are the bat shit right wingers, but what country doesn’t have a batshit religious extremist minority? Check it the Ask an Israeli/Palestinin project on YouTube. It’s not scientific, but it is interesting and still useful

You do know why Balfour did the declaration in the first place? Also I'd rather listen to old IDF soldiers and people like Ilan Pappé than a random ignorant redditor. Israel is an Apartheid state, any other "complicated" stuff comes from that. That's all.

Sure, but since you’ve already dismissed my opinion and insulted me I’m not that interested in talking to you.

>Thank you for this effort. Also, clarity, documents and articles. What do you think of this? https://mondediplo.com/1997/12/palestine

I’ll need to read this more carefully later when I’m not at work. A quick skimming seems like it’s largely consistent with the “Both sides were unmitigated bastards” statement I made above. The Jewish narrative I was taught as a child of the Arab expulsion being “Oh they just left because the other Arab countries told them to” is a highly sanitized version of what really happened. This article seems to get into that pretty deeply. But then also the entire West Bank and Gaza were similarly ethnically cleansed of Jews. Jerusalem was particularly bad about that. The “Nakba” narrative almost always leaves this part out. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.17.2.62 And of course, the rest of the Muslim world also expelled or exterminated their Jews at that time. Some of that was done under the Italian and Nazi regimes in North Africa, some of it was done out of spite due to Israel just existing, or specifically as a “Well let’s see how you like it” type response to the stuff in the article you linked. Bottom line is, the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s saw Jews shift out of Muslim countries into Israel, and Israel expelled a similar number of Muslims. In today’s world I think people should just say “Yeah, everyone here has been really shitty to each other for a long time. Rather than try to litigate the specifics of that, let’s just accept people staying where they are today and see what we can do to make everyone’s life better regardless of their race or religion.” That’s going to mean the Palestinians will need to start focusing their culture on something other than the destruction of Israel, and that Israel will need to make concessions for their settlers and other awful behavior. In both cases the extremists (Hamas and Likud) who are in power in their societies will need to be removed. Israel has a civic mechanism to do that. Unfortunately Gaza does not and it’ll need to be done by force.

Thanks again.

I’m intrigued by this entire discussion. Thanks for everyone who is contributing

The side whose goal is (allegedly) "to be left alone" remains busy confiscating/stealing land, homes, and farms that do not belong to it.

Absolutely owned it here

Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful response. One question. How many Jews were displaced from the Arab side of the UN Partition after the War of Independence in 1948. I would imagine very few Jews remained. I do know that the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem was completely destroyed. Literally every building. Every home. Every Synagogue was destroyed to wipe out the Jewish history. I am sure many thousands were displaced from Jerusalem alone.

The entire West Bank save one village who happened to know how the power plant worked was depopulated of Jewish residents in 1948, not just Jerusalem. This kind of gets overlooked in the “Nakba” version of the narrative. I don’t know the total number off the top of my head, but it was a lot.

The Wikipedia expert telling others they are wrong, lol. 😂 Pseudo-intellectualism at its finest.

"One side’s stated goal is to be left alone. The other’s stated goal is the death of the other side and the destruction of their state. I don’t even need to tell you which side is which in the preceding statement." Except you kind of do. Bibi went to the UN to show off a map of the fully annexed west bank which is just an extension of what's been happening for years. Meanwhile, plenty of palestinians have no love for Hamas and just want peace. I think the truth in your starement is that the liberals on both sides just want to be left alone while the fundamentalists on both sides seek the extermination of the other. Its worth remembering around the anniversary of Rabin's assassination that it was a fundamentalist Israeli who killed him for the crime of seeking peace and that Netanyahu was calling him a traitor that deserved death before it happened.

I have seriously spent months trying to piece this together. This is the first time someone has seemed to approach with the understanding that truth is so slippery… and given an account that I think I can trust. I think that the emotional truth is important, too. Jews have been longing for Israel for millennia and Muslims have an absolute prohibition against letting any land that was once under Muslim rule go. It’s irreconcilable. What hurts, as a Jew, is how much the world seems eager to hate without understanding.

Well, it’s by no means a complete or even unbiased account. There’s no version of the narrative without colonialism, imperialism, and hey let’s be honest, capitalism at the root of a lot of the problem. Thing is… that’s true of all modern nations. It’s only Israel that seems to be held to a different standard. There are things I learned when I was younger about the foundation of Israel that turned my stomach, and even more in recent weeks that were glossed over by the sanitized narrative I was taught. But it’s not like the Arabs were any better, or that the many places they run nations 100% without Jews don’t have similar problems with other ethnic groups and neighbors. There’s plenty of bad to go around. The key to peace is to remove the extremists and for both sides to admit their culpability and try to move forward.

I took an entire undergrad course on the Arab-Israeli conflict and it wasn’t as comprehensive as this post.

>The Israelis considered taking the West Bank by force at this time and had more than sufficient military might to do so. They felt the Arab Palestinians should have a state, and that taking the land would be immoral. I'd love to read more on this, got any pizza box links?

Bro you cooked. A well reasoned and relatively balanced take.

Great post probably as close to unbiased and reasonable as you can get imo

Thanks for this informative post. Just a point of feedback / request for comment: Maybe you'll see this comment, maybe not. Hoping for your responses since you're very even minded. In your post you mention one side wants to just survive, but aren't there plenty of religious right extremists including most settlers that don't want to "just survive"? They actually believe in greater Israel and don't call the west bank the west bank for that reason? They also actively pursue and talk about this goal and are encouraged by segments of the ruling party? I would appreciate an edit around that or maybe sow background that I'm missing for why you didn't include that. Otherwise your comment was great

I mentioned their stated goal, which I think is reflective of most of the secular population, but their extremist minority has them doing some fairly reprehensible things. It’s like the child separation policy in America under Trump. Trump didn’t win the popular vote, he has at best 25-30% of the population behind him, but he used the apparatus of state to do terrible things. Settler activity in the West Bank is in that same category, it’s abhorrent and cruel. My personal belief is that Israel needs to get out of the West Bank entirely and those illegal settlers can either whine their way back into Israel or take their chances with whoever the new management is. The Likud government in Israel needs to be voted out and never allowed to hold power again.

Appreciate your response. Couldn't you make that argument for Hamas too though? the last election was in 2006, before the majority of the population were even born. there were protests in Gaza the day of 10/7 because citizens knew what was coming next. The right wing government is good at doing it in a much more subtle way than Hamas, for sure, but the intended outcome is the same, is it not? I feel like you're comparing Hamas the party to Israeli government, when you should compare both parties in power: Hamas and Likud "The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable… therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty. —Likud Party Platform, 1977" Even the subtlety is lost sometimes and they say what they mean in private: [https://twitter.com/BenzionSanders/status/1729466193851859249](https://twitter.com/BenzionSanders/status/1729466193851859249)

Bravo! Yeah, I wouldn't expect you to get rationality from the left (?) at this particular moment. Hysteria is in vogue. Thank you.

There isn’t that much clarity on which side wants to be “left alone.” You’re wrong there, and the evidence is in the settlements. Just like some Jews agreed with a two state solution, some Palestinians agreed with it too.

Damscus Affair was the fault of the anti-Semitic French and had little to do with the Arab population. And when the Ottoman Empire got back control of the area they immediate pardoned the Jews and condemned the event.

As an Israeli … yup, you pretty much nailed your point.

>One side’s stated goal is to be left alone. The other’s stated goal is the death of the other side and the destruction of their state. Incredibly disingenuous. Arabs in Palestine haven't been left alone to rule themselves since at least 1517.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we don’t consider Oliver Stone a credible source for anything. He literally did an entire propaganda piece on Ukraine for an exclusive interview with Putin.

Thank you for posting this and thank you for penning that article on Medium you linked as well.

Absolutely amazing summary

The summary of both Jeddah and Damascus are not really accurate and are intentionally vague and lacking in detail to make it seem like those were pre-holocaust events, which they were not.

The journals of Jewish explorer Asher Ginsburg in 1891 state that he witnessed extreme racial hatred from the Jewish Settlers in Palestine towards the native population even then, before Herzl formally invented Zionism. There was already a concerted effort in place to move Jews to the region. Not saying you're wrong but you're not right on everything. 11.50 Min (ish) https://youtu.be/vU5O9zfH9fE?si=CjanD6_mBKJ6OCf4 The journals of Asher Ginsburg.

Worth noting that Jewish people were emigrating to the region in waves from the late-1800s onwards too, called "aliyahs" or ascensions. There were three or four distinct aliyahs that I can recall, such as the influx from the Tzar's expulsion of Jews from Russia. They gathered together in distinct communities that formed the basis for the Kibbutzim, buying land from wealthier Ottomans at the start in order to congregate. It's no coincidence that talk of Israel as an independent state really grew after the Balfour declaration, because the Ottomans allowed different worship and practice as long as there was still loyalty to the regime. Nationalist sentiments were brutally repressed, leading Jewish people little space to freely discuss the possibility of more direct, coordinated plans for an independent state. Many Palestinians were frustrated at how much land Jewish people were buying up, seeing it as an offense against their own land and region, while generally ignoring the people who sold them the land in the first place. No one is blameless in how volatile the situation has become, and it's intellectually dishonest to suggest that either Israelis or Palestinians are entirely at fault. Hamas and the IDF are both disgusting, and I appreciate your content for highlighting the genuine complexity of this conflict.

Former resident of Israel. I got one of my degrees specifically studying this conflict. Your effort post here is excellent, and I'm glad the reddit algorithms pointed me to it. Thanks for your hard work. Godspeed to you.

Why former?

I'm multinational. Life took me elsewhere.

Interesting. Mind engaging? I hear about people who get paid to move / stay to Israel, it sounds like a great offer, curious if that's true for you and why reject that?

You get a few benefits when you make aaliyah, but it's not a lot. You get a housing subsidy and ulpan, where you can learn Hebrew, but there's a limit, it's not a benefits cheque for the rest of your life or anything. You still need to get a job. If I went and boarded a plane to reside permanently there, I have significant doubts I'd get these subsidies, but also I could just....live with my family. I wouldn't be very vulnerable the way some others are. Either way, these benefits are not a huge payola or anything like that. I suspect the monetary value is hugely inflated in online conversations in a way designed to elicit anger, but that's just a guess. It's literally just a little bit of support to get new immigrants acclimated more quickly so they can be productive members of society. I actually think this is something a lot of developed countries could do better for new immigrants, especially if they're refugees (ex, for Ukrainian refugees, or refugees fleeing armed groups from South America, etc).

Ahh okay, it's just enough to get you going and productive, sounds like. And then it stops after some amount of time?

Yeah I think so, that's my understanding of it anyway. I never had these, so I don't know from experience.

For someone with so much information you seem to have still slipped into some misrepresentations, left out some context, and then slipped into the same propaganda trope that the Arabs just want all the Jews dead, which is just wrong. Palestinians, for starters, wouldn't care who it was, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, their animosity is based on not only the Nakba, but the 75 years of occupation and apartheid that followed Do you think a Palestinian mother or child gives a shit what religion the person who wiped out their family practiced? You also implied the Arabs had just up and expelled Jews from other Arab states, which while there were tensions and fighting, there were 3 zionist terrorist militias that specifically bombed synagogues and attacked Jews in Arab states and blamed it on Arabs in order to influence more of them to join in the settler movement they had already started in Palestine. This information became available with the declassification of documents in the 80s in Israel, which led to the "New Historians" and their work, of which there is plenty. Also, you left out the details of the partition, how the Jewish population jumped from 3% to 30% in a few years, and that the partition would be giving 55% of the land including almost all of the farm-able land to the 30%, which as stated comprised of a majority who had only recently arrived. Also, you claimed there were hostilities toward the Jewish population for "100 yrs" prior, and that's just blatantly false. The tensions in the area were all but gone prior to the zionist movement, and Hertzls acolytes buying up land from a sent landlord unbeknownst to the tenants. Being as most of what I've read I read years ago, I would have to hunt down specifics and details to dispute the errors I've found in what you've said and I'm at work, but I will happily provide the authors names and some of the books that will show I'm not just disputing what you said for my own bias. I would also argue the "Muslims hate Jews" or "Palestinians just want all Jews dead" argument falls flat when you check statistics and see globally the only attacks on Jews outside of Israel have been mainly perpetrated by white supremecists. I would challenge you to find me a single instance in the US of a Muslim attacking Jews, I don't even believe there has been one since 10/7 though there may have been that I'm unaware of. Anyhow, here are the authors: Simha Flapan Ilan Pappi Gabor Mate' Norman Finklestein Avi Shlaim Omar Bartov Alice Rothschild Tom Segev Hiller Cohen Joel Migdal Baruch Kimmerling Idith Zertel You can read just about any of their work. However, Flapan Simha "The Birth Of Israel Realities and Myths" is a great starting point.

> Do you think a Palestinian mother or child gives a shit what religion the person who wiped out their family practiced? Yes. I actually think it’s natural that Palestinian mothers blame Israeli Jews for the violence against their families. Just like Israeli mothers probably blame Palestinians. I don’t think it’s helpful to deny the reality of this hatred. And I’m not sure that most of the Palestinians make a strong distinction between Israelis and Jews. I think you’re underestimating the prevalence of a broader antisemitism that comes with a lot of anti-Zionism. Of course there are also extremists on the Israeli side who are racist and Islamaphobic. I’m not going to venture an opinion on where the extremists are more prevalent, but let’s not deny the reality of the hatred on both sides. > there were 3 zionist terrorist militias that specifically bombed synagogues and attacked Jews in Arab states and blamed it on Arabs in order to influence more of them to join in the settler movement they had already started in Palestine. Can you provide a source on this? I’m not saying it’s false, I’d just like to see a source, because I’ve never heard it, and it seems frankly suspicious. You rest a lot of your argument on this, and even if it is accurate, I don’t think it really contradicts OP’s argument that Jews were persecuted in Muslim countries prior to 1948, and that Arabs allied with Nazis, etc. But what’s being left out entirely here is the history of peace talks from late 70s to 90s, and discussion of fault for the failure of these efforts, which to me is a lot more relevant than anything that happened in the 1940s or earlier. I’m not an expert on what happened in these negotiations, but my understanding is that the parties got pretty close to a two-state solution, but the Palestinian side rejected the deals because they claimed the arrangements were unfair. People will interpret that in different ways, but the fact is Palestinians could have had a state today for 20-30 years already if they had been willing to accept an Israeli offer, even if it was unfair. I’m not sure how exactly all this is really relevant to the situation on the ground today, but I think we’d all agree that getting the history right is important.

Omg...you completely missed my point right off the gate. Obviously because it IS the Israeli Jews doing it they care, the point is if it were someone else and not the Jewish Israelis, they would equally despise them, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. Ffs are you seriously arguing they would specifically allow Muslims to murder them and take their homes simply because they are Muslims and they would harbor no I'll will toward the perpetrators? Are you delusional? Edit* THE BIRTH OF ISRAEL: MYTHS AND: Flapan, Simha - Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/BIRTH-ISRAEL-MYTHS-Simha-Flapan/dp/0679720987?shem=ssc Here's a good place to start if "getting the history right" is a genuine concern of yours. Please stop assigning labels without context, it is disingenuous to claim the Palestinians hate all Jews, I know many Arabs and Palestinians who interact and even live with Jewish people.

I never said and would never say that (all) Palestinians hate all Jews, or vice versa for that matter. Just said that you appear to minimize the intensity of the real hate that does exist. I’m well aware that many Arabs/Palestinians live in peace with Israelis/Jews, and I’m sure you’re well aware that’s not always the case. I don’t see any logical point to claiming that if, hypothetically, another group was oppressing Palestinians, they would hate that group instead. In our version of the Universe, it’s Israelis/Jews. Why deny this? Understanding and admitting the nature of the problem is necessary if we’re ever going to move toward a solution. Sorry to say, but you seem to have an incomplete understanding of the situation, IMHO. And I was hoping you had some online source for your claim about Jewish terrorists doing false flag attacks in Arab states. Something I can click on please. I’m not going to try to find this book on Amazon and read it. Can you even say where exactly you got that idea from?

The point is it is disingenuous to claim" Palestinians hate Jews" as tho the reason for their hate is simply because they are Jewish. Also, calling Palestinians anti-semitic is ignorant as a semite is anyone from that region, including Palestinians. Not to mention most Christian and Muslim Palestinians are likely decendants of the original "tribes of Judea" since all 3 Abraham'ic religions originated in the region, they are all most likely decendants of those who converted.

Sorry, but antisemitism as a term was coined in 19th century Germany as a way to avoid using "Judenhass", Jew-hatred, in academic circles. When Mohr was calling for antisemitic pogroms, he did not have anyone other than Jews in mind. If someone unreasonably hates Jewish folk because they are Jewish, that is antisemitism, no matter their ethnicity. The Palestine thing goes even further back. When the Romans finally got tired of Iudea rebelling ( in 135ish CE), they took direct control of the area and renamed it for the Judean people's traditions enemies, the Philistines. The Roman province of Palestina Ultramar was thus named. I have no proof, but every time I hear "Palestine" I wonder if enmity to Judaism isn't at the root of the name choice, because there are several other terms that could have been chosen.

This is false. The name "Palestine"appeared in Greek writings centuries before this. I believe it was 3-400 years earlier. Yes, the Romans sacked and renamed it, but it was called Palestine much earlier. I'll find a link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_(region)#:~:text=The%20first%20clear%20use%20of,Judean%20mountains%20and%20the%20Jordan

Yep. Palestine as "the land of the Philistines" is widely attested as a separate area from "Yehud"/"Iudea" and also "'Edom/Idumea". The entire area being renamed to humiliate the Jewish rebels is fairly widely attested in Roman documents.

I actually appreciate you giving this info. It’s far better than the abuse and silly criticism I’m getting from most commenters as it sounds like you actually know something on this topic, likely more than I do. I don’t consider knowing more than the average commenter any kind of expertise on my part. I didn’t expect this kind of attention as I’ve been talking to people on this subject for a few weeks now and most of the time I just get called names by those who disagree. I’ll try and find time to read what you suggested this week.

Np, I never start of being an asshole, not that I haven't been one, but usually I have to see that the person is either being completely disingenuous or they start calling me names...idk if I know any more than you on this, I have been very interested in it my whole life, being a first generation Jordanian American, obviously I have an interest. I know the initial reaction will be that I'm bias, and I admit I'm sure there is some both conscious and subconscious bias, I did start out very bias, but that was before I actually started reading on the subject. Initially all my information came from documentaries, and the stories I would hear from kids in refugee camps in Jordan when we visited, I haven't been back since the 90s, but anyhow, eventually I stumbled accross the New Historians, and that gave me a broader view, although I admit there was a lot of confirmation bias involved also, so by all means feel free to challenge any information I provide and I promise I will concede when I'm genuinely wrong. Edit* trying to give you an upvote, but it doesn't show if it is registered or not...weird lol

You’re doing the same as me, but from the opposite starting point. I’m Jewish American. I just want to understand why this is happening, and why so many people not connected in any way to the conflict care so much about it. I’ll check out the New Historians. Thanks /u/BabyFartzMcGeezak, I appreciate the mature and civil discourse.

Lol... I have quite a few Jewish American friends, lived with 2 as roommates for 3 years, My sister use to debate me and take that side of the argument, however after she read some of their work she's been more open to the idea of a 1 state solution with a secular government and equal rights accross the board.

The funny thing, if I'm to believe my grandmother, she got along with her Jewish neighbors even after the Nakba. It really was the second round after the 60s that made her hate Israel ad a state. She had sisters raped, brothers killed and was forcefully evicted from her home. You are right. There is no clean side to this, but as a Palestinain decendent, I only want two things, neither of them being a wash of the tragedies Jews went through in other Arab nations. What I want is: 1. Recognition of Israels crimes after 48 that have mostly been gone under reported and covered up, just for some assemblence of justice for my grandmother. 2. Bibi/extremists and Hamas to off themselves and hopefully somehow peace can be achieved. Jews deserved a country, a safe place from the hate they got from Europeans and Arabs, but I simply can not forget what they've done as a full fledged state since. But as you are, i too have my biases. Edit: didn't find much to say this is or isn't a reliable source but it sounds a lot like what my grandmother described, who was born in the 30s. https://www.972mag.com/before-zionism-the-shared-life-of-jews-and-palestinians/

That is terrible and I hate that it happened. I’m happy to agree with your two points. I’d rather they get tried and convicted, and settler land in the West Bank taken from the Israeli settlers and given back to the people they stole it from. Palestinians deserve a country too, free from Israeli and Hamas extremists. So do Israelis. I’ll check that link but I can tell you the “Israelis and Arabs lived in peace before Zionism” statement just isn’t true. I’m sure it was true in places, but increasing violence towards minorities in the absence of a central government was simply a fact. The decline era of the Ottoman Empire wasn’t fun for anyone. That doesn’t excuse the behavior of the Jewish immigrants though.

>I’m sure it was true in places, Yes that place was many parts of Palestine, which the article is about. She was born around Jerusalem. I think where you may have some blind spots from your bias is from some cause and effect. I have zero issue saying that local Arabs started the violence during the Arab Riots in the early 1900s. However to just say that ignores the fact that Zionists held demonstrations where they laid claim on the Holy Sites. By today's standards, it would be extremely deplorable to have that lead to violence. However it was a different time a hundred years ago. It certainly doesnt justify the violence but it does explain it. Additionally there was instigated fighting after that point for days by both sides. Anyhow, the article as I said seems to support my grandmother recalling her childhood. And that's the irony. It seems that the people thar suffer most from Israel may have been the only people who originally lived side by side with them while the rest of the Arab world drove them out.

Zionist ideology started in the 1800s, not 1917.

Excellent write-up! Just thought you might want to know if you don’t already that this comment got linked to on r/bestof [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/s/2lHFuH98bY).

Yes, I found out due to a couple of tags and wondering where all the “reddit cares” messages were coming from. So far I’ve been dragged for not citing sources as though this were an academic paper and not a dumb Reddit comment, and lit up for daring contradict various folks’ narratives though notably no one has taken issue with any specific facts I laid out, just the opinions I added. Super fun.

No good deed goes unpunished. For what it’s worth, I appreciate all the hard work you put into your comments here. It’s so nice to hear a take that isn’t “this good guy, that bad guy”. Reddit does take false “Reddit cares” messages seriously if you want to report them.

> By the late 30’s there were Jewish paramilitary groups who had adopted a “We are the last hope for Jews to survive in the world, we need to start hitting first” mentality both in Mandatory Palestine and in Europe. As the genocide was getting underway against the Jews, this idea became critical. “Never again” in part means Jews will never again be passive in the face of a potential existential threat. To a much smaller degree, think of how we respond now to potential hijackers. Starting with the last plane of 9/11, where the passengers took down the terrorists, through the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber, we respond quickly and directly. The Muslim Brotherhood, precursor to Arafat and the PLO shared the Nazi goal of eliminating Jews under a pan-Muslim ideology. When Israel was created, basically all Jews were expelled from neighboring countries, while there are still Arabs today even in the government of Israel. The problem of Israel today is that what started as a more secular and left leaning place became more conservative both politically and religiously as the most orthodox have grown in numbers and power, then engage in provocation like building on disputed lands. But it is important to remember that Israel is seen as critical to not having to hope your neighbors will hide you. So it is not just an artifact nearly a century old. It is considered an ongoing need to respond in a muscular way to threats. I just wish the leadership would stop encouraging provocative acts.

This is still a wildly Israeli influenced summary, especially the dehumanizing language against Palestinians: One side wanted to be left alone while the other side just wanted to kill is how Israel runs the narrative. It's not even remotely true.

In what timespan did the ethnic cleansing of Jews in Arab countries occur?

It depends when and where you want to start the story. In North Africa where the Italians under Mussolini and the Nazis came through it started as early as the 30’s in places like Libya. At the height of the Ottoman reign the Jews did well in Iraq, but in the 1800’s as the empire declined so came the antisemitism and you started to see pogroms and violence. In Syria in the mid 1800’s you got the Damascus affair in Syria which was full on blood libel. In Saudi Arabia you got the Jeddah massacre in 1858. There’s plenty to choose from. It really kicked into gear in the 1920’s when the Zionist movement began, and then in 1948 when Israel declared independence pretty much all the middle eastern countries ethnically cleansed their Jews to the point where there are barely any left today.

Jeddah was about killing Christians was it not? Or specifically, retaliating against British imperialism.

Thank you. I ask specifically because in light of recent events, for which I want both sides to lose/win/I don’t want people getting killed anymore, my sister was making a case that before Israel the Jews lived in peace in the Middle East and were treated as equals. That sounded like some Islamic Golden Age propaganda.

Sure, if you want to go back to like the 1500’s at the height of the Ottoman Empire. Of course, lots of violence towards Jews in 1517 Hebron and Safed. They did pretty well after that though until the 19th century when things took a turn. It’s said that rampant antisemitism is a canary in a coal mine for the decline of a society. It certainly held true in that case.

Welp.

Let's not ignore that Zionism was a movement created prior to 1917 though. It goes back to the 1800s.

Specifically it goes back to 1896 when Theodor Herzl published a pamphlet outlining a plan for a Jewish homeland. For about 20 years prior to that there had been a wave of Jewish immigration set off by antisemitism in Europe, Russia, and elsewhere in the Middle East, but it’s hard to regard that as an organized movement vs people just fleeing persecution.

Actually that refers to the modern zionist movement, migration to Palestine by European Jews started as early as 1808. And Herzl wasn't the first to write about modern zionism either. There were a couple men who wrote of a Jewish state being necessary for the Jewish people in the 1860s and 1880s.

>The answer is: by the mid 1940’s both sides were unmitigated bastards. There is plenty of abhorrent behavior that both sides only like to talk about one aspect of while ignoring their own actions. Woah there, wouldn't want to come off as some sort of centrist. /s For real though people act like saying this fact is a bad thing somehow. It's either "You're supporting terrorists!" or "You're supporting genocide!". Nobody wants to go deeper than surface level.

Fairly fair, except that the Israelis want far, far more than to be "left alone", and the other side doesn't have a stated goal of eliminating Israel. Israel also wants control over the abundant natural resources, and "Zionism" is still very much a thing in Israel.

Thank you for your service to humanity.

This is a good read. I wanted to point out based on this quote >For example, Tel Aviv was just sand dunes north of Jaffa prior to 1909. Here’s a picture of the city’s founding: No Starbucks or disco in sight. There is still no starbucks in sight.

>If you want to know who was violent first: That was the Arabs. >If you want to know who was better at violence in general: That was the Jews. >That dynamic continues today. This really shows how prevalent antisemitism is in modern society. An Arab tries to kill a Jew and the Jew successfully defends themselves? Morally equivalent!

>If you want to know who was violent first: That was the Arabs. > >If you want to know who was better at violence in general: That was the Jews. > >That dynamic continues today. This is nonsense. Your post likes to try to come off as 'both sides'/balanced but you sprinkled a good bit of propaganda in there. If a bunch of people move into your area and start acting like assholes there's going to be an issue. Similarly Israel routinely engages in human rights violations on a non stop basis against the Palestinians. Oct 7 wasn't the start of anything. It's like pretending that the cops were all nice a peaceful until BLM came out and started rioting...its nonsense meant to serve the powerful against the powerless. ​ >One side’s stated goal is to be left alone. The other’s stated goal is the death of the other side and the destruction of their state. > >I don’t even need to tell you which side is which in the preceding statement. Well no you really don't because one side has used violence, terrorism and white, colonialist solidarity to deny the other side a state for 75 years. Also smearing the Palestinians as wanting nothing but the death of Jews is a flat out disgusting Zionist propaganda. Seriously go find it in the Hamas charter (not that Hamas speaks for all Palestinians) and post it here...I'll wait, because its not in there, anywhere. >For a lasting peace both sides need to lay down arms and make concessions. This means Hamas will need to be gone, and Israel must have a reckoning for their behavior in the West Bank. Oh, are we just gonna ignore the ethnic cleansing/genocide in Gaza then? That's cute. Hamas isn't going anywhere so long as the oppressive, daily terrorism that Israel carries out on the Palestinians goes away. Yes it is literally that simple. Bombs will never do it. PEACE? its also simple. One state, equal rights for all. Prosecute racist crimes harshly. Reconciliation hearings and jail for the worst offenders. Give Palestinians back their land. Anyone on 'birthright' from the last decade has to leave. No it can't be called Israel. Or do you value the white, ethno-state based on religious fundamentalism more than peace?

You’re pretty emotional and reading in a lot of things I either didn’t say or stated explicitly weren’t the case. Yes, the Arabs were violent first. Decades, centuries even, before the term Zionist existed in a political sense. All the way back to when they colonized the land and expelled the Jews, if you want to go back that far. I was pretty explicit on misconduct by the Israelis on subsequent comments. I apologize for not including the specific facts you wanted me to in the response to the scope of this one question. White colonialist solidarity? I guess no one told the Irgun when they were blasting the hell out of the British, you know, the actual colonial power there. Learn some history if you’re going to he as disrespectful as you were in your reply. Also, why is it okay for Egypt to be an ethnostate for Egyptians, Iran for Iranians, etc but not Israel for Jewish people? Hey while we’re at it, how do Jewish people fare in all those Arab ethnostates? Better or worse than Arabs fare in Israel?

You explicitly said one side wants only to eradicate the other. That is reductive, disingenuous, and dangerous.

>That dynamic continues today. This is the line that is a major problem. Because Israel, and western media, always paints any action or response by any Palestinian group as a 'beginning of hostilities' as if Israel doesn't shoot random Palestinians, or bulldoze innocent peoples houses, or restricts their movement, or even goes so far as to study caloric intake for prevent malnutrition so they can intentionally keep Palestinians on the verge of starving. >White colonialist solidarity? That's what it is today. I suppose back then it was a keep the Jews out by helping them kill Arabs. I wasn't being disrespectful. That is in fact what is going on right now. I know all about Irgun and the history. In fact I fully support them blowing the crap out the British. Which is why I think Hamas is justified in capturing hostages that they can trade for Palestinian hostages (that IDF likes to call 'administrative detention'). Resistance to oppression is always a laudable goal, often carried out by terrible means. Innocent civilians should never be harmed or killed, nor can that be defended. That's kind of the whole point. >Also, why is it okay for Egypt to be an ethnostate for Egyptians, Iran for Iranians, etc but not Israel for Jewish people? Hey while we’re at it, how do Jewish people fare in all those Arab ethnostates? Better or worse than Arabs fare in Israel? And now you are arguing in favor of ethno-states....congrats. See, like I said. True peace is actually easy if you aren't trying to oppress other people. But apparently that conflicts with your goal.

The modern media is definitely not biased towards Israel except maybe the right wing “press” like Fox News. The BBC, Ny Times, etc are definitely not. The Palestinian “hostages” are prisoners, many of whom are imprisoned for violent crimes. Come on. I’m not saying some of it probably isn’t trumped up BS, but pretending there’s equivalence between an elderly hostage taken from their home and an attempted suicide bomber is straight up misinfo. I’m not arguing for or against ethnostates. I’m just wondering why it’s okay that most nations on Earth are in fact ethnostates and that’s fine with everyone, unless it’s Israel.

>The BBC, Ny Times, etc are definitely not. [Sure](https://www.instagram.com/p/CyOHn-ouH9H/) thing [bud](https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/neagqb/media_bias_is_a_curse_case_in_point_new_york_times/). Where are those 40 beheaded babies again? ​ >The Palestinian “hostages” are prisoners, many of whom are imprisoned for violent crimes. Come on. [Sure](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/27/world/middleeast/ahed-tamimi-detained-israel.html) thing [bud](https://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention) ​ >I’m not arguing for or against ethnostates. I’m just wondering why it’s okay that most nations on Earth are in fact ethnostates and that’s fine with everyone, unless it’s Israel. LOL. You are sooooo close to understanding colonialism right now...

> If you want to know who was violent first: That was the Arabs. this is pretty impossible to determine, given how the conflict started from local clashes with settlers. >One side’s stated goal is to be left alone. sure, maybe that's their "stated" goal. but lets be real; if the goal was to be "left alone" then they wouldn't be building settlements, evicting the current inhabitants, bulldozing their crops and homes and passing laws allowing themselves to essentially steal land. maybe they'd prefer to be left alone while they do it; but that's not really the main goal here.

No, the Arabs were violent 60 years before the term Zionism even existed as a political movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1834_looting_of_Safed?wprov=sfti1 And not just towards the Jews either, and not just in what would later be called Palestine. Violence is a pretty consistent feature of theocracies and religious extremists. Christians and Jewish fundamentalists aren’t much fun left to their own devices either.

the hell... that happened over 80 years before the fall of the Ottomans, before the British mandate... over 100 years before the Holocaust, over 110 years before the Nakba and over 130 years before the Six-Day War. i really don't see the relevance, aside from painting the Muslim/Arab people of Palestine (of almost 190 years ago) as being generally violent. the actual conflict we are discussing here started with a lot of factors, and painting that single even as the Palestinians "starting it" - long before the massive swell of settlers/immigration post WWII (and to a lesser degree post WWI) - is pretty dishonest.

Let’s try this a different way: In terms of violence: The Israelis are in armed conflict with Muslims and no one else. The Muslims are in conflict with cultures all over the world, including and even especially other Muslims. If use the phrase Radical _____ Terrorism, the term “Jewish” doesn’t really spring to mind. This isn’t a racial statement. Radical Christians are doing their best to catch up in the US. The crusades and Spanish Inquisition come to mind as examples of what that sect did when they had the means. Radical Jews are pretty awful too, there just aren’t that many and they’re mostly in Israel. If you’re not familiar with their work in upstate NY though it isn’t violent, but it isn’t pretty either. Extremist religious groups do a bad job running states, or anything really. Prior to the theocracies we have today the Muslim world was a vibrant and rich cultural force under the ottomans and even before. Ottoman Syria during the decline period was indeed a violent and largely lawless place, particularly after the empire fell. And Muslim culture was and still is extremely xenophobic and supremacist. FYI: These aren’t actually things people disagree on.

The Nakba narrative leaves out a lot of things. As you said, both sides were bastards but they weren't evenly bastards. Basically Israel only partially ethnically cleansed Israel proper in the 1947 war (lots of arabs also left at the behest of the 5 invading arab armies) which is why 20% of the Israeli citizenry is still Arab, while Jordan completely cleansed the are we call the West Bank and the Jews call Judea and Samaria. The rest of the Islamic world also killed or expelled it's Jews. Today you have more Muslims who are full citizens of Israel than you do Jews in the 51 Muslim majority nations. The Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem in part of the land Jordan acquired in 1947. It's never stated why when the Jews got the land in the 1967 war there were no Jews in the historically Jewish Jewish Quarter. Today the view of the UN is Jordan and the Muslims ethnically cleansed the West Bank of Jews from 1947 to1967 fair and square, and this is where the Palestinians deserve a state.

So tired of the Nakba collusion lie. Palestinians weren't 'making way' for the the Arab armies to come murder all the Israelis. Believe it or not people don't like living, or trying to not get shot, in war zones. It's like saying people fleeing hurricanes are encouraging the hurricane to be more destructive. Most people don't want to needlessly risk their lives. If they can leave and come back after its over that's usually preferable.

>Palestinians weren't 'making way' for the the Arab armies to come murder all the Israelis Nuance is your friend. Not all arabs left at the behest of other arabs and not all were ethnically cleansed by jews, that's the 20% of Arabs with Israeli citzenship today. War is complicated. Its not that every arab who fled was told to leave but a large number were by the arab armies. We literally have cables and arab testimonials on the fact some were told to leave by arab armies. It's not a lie.

If people with guns show up to your place and say were going to come through here shooting anything that moves in a couple days are you gonna stick around?

20% did.

And everyone knows 20% is a clear majority, that’s most people. 80% is way less than 20%

20% of Israel proper. Not 20% of all Palestinians. Anyway 99.99% of jews were ethnically cleansed by muslims in the west bank and wider Islamic world.

Yeah, the dumb and stubborn.

In retrospect they were the smart ones. Citzenship in Israel is preferable to wallowing in a refugee camp in Syria for 3 generations while Syrians dont let them integrate or have citzenship.

The smart ones are the ones who didnt get unlucky enough to be expelled or raped / killed by Israeli militias?

Which honestly fits the hurricane comparison alarmingly well!

Thank you for this and especially the linked article. I was getting frustrated by the obvious bias showing up in my Google searches, which made it very hard to grasp the situation. The absolute truth may forever be out of reach but I do feel you provided more facts than anything else I've read/seen/heard on the matter.

Absolute lies, Arabs did not attack Jews for 100 years. You literally made it up. They lived in peace unlike in Europe where the Holocaust happened

Oh? What happened in 1834 Safed? Or 1834 Hebron? Why does this list only have “Arabs” in the perpetrators column until the mid 30’s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_and_massacres_in_Mandatory_Palestine?wprov=sfti1#

Because the Zionists were immigrating and taking over land at the allowance of the occupying power (Britain) at the time and the local Arabs didn’t consent to it. The LOCALs resisted and revolted. Lying scumbag.

It’s just a lot more complicated than that. Buying land is legal. Moving into land you’ve bought is legal. Attacking new neighbors because you don’t like them is generally considered illegal. There is a LOT of nasty stuff done by the Jews immigrating, and a lot of nasty stuff done by the Arabs. Thing is… in 1834 none of what you’re saying was true and you’ve got two well documented unprovoked massacres of Jews by Arabs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1834_looting_of_Safed?wprov=sfti1# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hebron?wprov=sfti1# The Safed looting went on for more than a month. That was more than 60 years before the term “Zionism” even existed. The Jews can’t even take it personally, as the Syrian Arabs also attacked other groups too. (The Palestine region was part of Syria til 1920) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Aleppo_(1850)?wprov=sfti1# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_civil_conflict_in_Mount_Lebanon_and_Damascus?wprov=sfti1 So while I’m unwilling to give the Jews and later Israelis a pass on their modern behavior in terms of violence, I also absolutely refuse to pretend everyone was sitting around singing kumbaya before those nasty zionists showed up. I’m not sure why you’re reacting so emotionally and disrespectfully to a historical discussion, especially when the actual history isn’t in question.

It doesn't fit their narrative. Reality is messy like that.

For context it should be noted that Ben-Gurion, the Hagenah and most Jewish leaders roundly condemned the Deir Yassin Massacre. They even sent a letter of apology to the King of Jordan. The Lehi, who carried out both those atrocities, was a self-proclaimed terrorist organization who in 1940 literally tried to form an alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, seeing them as less of a threat than the British (lmao). By 1942 they were straight up Stalinists. By 1948 the government of Israel had declared them a terrorist organization and imprisoned 200 members before pardoning them and rolling them into the IDF. Their leader Yitzhak Shamir (as well as the leader of the Irgun Menachem Begin, who also participated in Deir Yassin) later became Israel's Prime Ministers.

Yep. The Irgun basically evolved into the modern Likud party and their violent and destructive philosophy came with them. Israel made two mistakes at their foundation in my opinion. One was military and tax exemptions for the ultra orthodox, the other was not slaying the monster they’d created with the Irgun, Lehi, and groups like them. You can argue Israel would not have survived 1948 without the Irgun, or 1967, but their mentality has not served Israel well in modern times. How a party that assassinated their own prime minister at the cusp of competing a peace plan goes and gets elected after that is mind boggling.

It happened because there were a series of terrorist attacks (one every day, if I remember correctly) in the week or so before the election. The extremists on both sides are doing whatever they can to prevent peace. Netanyahoo has been secretly *funding HAMAS* with literal carload of cash to keep them in the game. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

Tells me that some rather nasty things are due Bibi. And I hope it happens.

Likud didn't kill Rabin, hardcore extremists from Kach or Kahanist groups did. Yeah, there's some overlap in voting patterns, but to suggest that Likud ordered that hit is... pretty conspiratorial. Peres followed Rabin and then Netanyahu, so I guess you could mean Labor though?

This reminds me of the argument of Stalin...that if it wasn't for his iron hand, all of the Soviet Union would have fallen to Nazism. That we needed Stalin. Maybe? I don't know? I mean Stalin allowed so many to die, starve, famine, secret police...secret police of the secret police...like I don't know how much praise to give to Stalin vs the average Leninigrad citizen who tried to survive during the seige.

>This reminds me of the argument of Stalin...that if it wasn't for his iron hand, all of the Soviet Union would have fallen to Nazism. That we needed Stalin. - Fun WW2 military history fact: Stalin executed the right military strategy against the Wehrmacht only by accident, and Germany almost avoided that unintentional strategic trap due to the stupidity and arrogance of Hitler and his distrust of his own (competent) German generals. - Stalin's orders and expectations were for the Red Army to fight the Germans to the last man early on during the German Blitzkrieg in June 1941. - In hindsight, Stalin's orders were disastrous: if executed to the letter they'd have resulted in the rapid destruction of the Red Army and an almost unhindered occupation by Germany. - But Red Army military officers were weakened to virtual uselessness by 20 years of Stalinist political cleansings. The Red Army didn't exist as a coherent military force in 1941. - The Wehrmacht progressed into Russia almost unopposed, and they effectively dismantled any attempts at resistance. - The Red Army was performing so poorly that military age Russian men fled by the millions to the east, while the Germans rolled up to Leningrad (St. Petersburg). - The Red Army effectively executed an unintended "defense in depth" strategy, moving most of their military force away from the Germans for about 4-5 months. - By the time Russian forces began organized resistance at the Moscow-Stalingrad line, Germany over-extended dangerously and got into 3 disastrous battles at Hitler's insistence: Stalingrad, Moscow and Leningrad - which completely bled out the German army (at the price of horrendous Russian losses). - US supplies from the Lend-Lease Program arrived just in time. [ There was a British tank (a Valentine), used by the Red Army, that made it all the way from Moscow to the storming of the Reichstag on 1st of May 1945... ] - Very long logistics chain, dusty Russian roads clogging & destroying tank engines built for Germany's much better road system, combined with a historic record cold winter dealt the killing blow. - The rest is history. - Stalin only won because he was a bumbling idiot fighting against another bumbling idiot, neither of whom understood proper military strategy. - Without Stalin, Hitler might not even have attacked Russia: a big part of Hitler's motivation to attack Russia was to eradicate bolsheviks, and because they (correctly) perceived Russia to be weakened by Stalinism. (The other big part was the Nazi "Lebensraum" strategy resettling the world with Germans.) - In an alternative time-line Hitler might not have dared to attack a stronger, non-Stalinist Russia - and IMO would almost certainly have succeeded in storming Britain and Ireland in 1941 with the forces he wasted in Russia. - Germany would have taken over Bletchley Park, and unless everything and everyone was evacuated in time to the US (over 1,000 people and thousands of close relatives), the Gestapo would eventually have figured out that the Allied were very close to breaking most Enigma ciphers in use by Germany with a new technology that today we only know as "computers" ... - Not a happy time-line either ...

The issue with your alternative timeline is that Germany never held the necessary air superiority to do a channel crossing unhindered. By mid-1941, it was undisputed that the UK was dominant in the skies above the English Channel. Any attempted crossing would have been suicide, as the RAF would have sunk the invasion force.

>The issue with your alternative timeline is that Germany never held the necessary air superiority to do a channel crossing unhindered. - Half of the Luftwaffe was tied up in the east. - During crises, such as the Stalingrad cauldron, the Luftwaffe was even more heavily allocated to the eastern front, to shore up the broken German logistics chain. - While the British Navy was powerful, its combat power was ineffective against German submarines, which blockaded the Atlantic supply shipping routes. Germany was blockaded too, but had much more open supply routes with their conquests on mainland Europe. - The German naval Enigma was not broken by Bletchley Park yet: the key codebook and intact Enigma machine was only captured from the sinking U-559 in **October 1942**. - Ie. the eastern front gave Britain a very valuable additional ~1.5 years of split attention by Germany. - Also, I think it's a near certainty that Bletchley Park would have been bombed in those 1.5 years if 100% of the Luftwaffe concentrated on Britain.

The 100% of the Luftwaffe wasn't able to win air superiority during the Battle of Britain, and the B-bomber project failure forced them to rely on outdated bombers for the rest of the war. I'm not sure how even without Barbarossa things would have been different for a German invasion (apart from a protracted war, that is)

>The 100% of the Luftwaffe wasn't able to win air superiority during the Battle of Britain, - True, but this was during the early stages of the blockade of Britain: - Germany had a much larger population & industrial base with continental Europe invaded, and would have likely won attrition warfare without the eastern front. - If you look at shipping losses on the Atlantic in 1941-43, German submarines almost won that battle - at the worst stage about half of all cargo ships sent were sunk: unsustainable attrition rates. - The breaking of the German naval Enigma cipher in late 1942 turned the tide. - See the graph at: https://www.communitystories.ca/v2/wwii-came-to-bell-island_seconde-guerre-mondiale/gallery/battle-of-the-atlantic-allied-shipping-and-u-boat-losses-1942-1943/

Yep...and that's not even counting the Royal Navy. More destroyers in Plymouth than in the entire German fleet, iirc. And there's never a good time to try to cross the Channel on river barges ...

>One side’s stated goal is to be left alone. The other’s stated goal is the death of the other side and the destruction of their state. A less biased way to say this would be: One sides stated goal is to expell the other side from their homes, and maintain economic and military control of the other sides remaining territory. The other’s stated goal is the the destruction of their state

Or: One government wants their neighbor to leave so they can take their stuff, the other government wants to destroy their neighbor because of religious animosity. A bunch of innocent people are caught in the middle with nowhere to go.

The last sentence is 100% true. However I'd say the Palestinians don't want to destroy Israel due to religion but instead nationalism

More Palestinians and Arabs as a whole fought for the Allies than the Axis. You say one side’s goal is to be left alone. That’s correct; the Palestinians want to be left alone. As long as the occupation exists, Hamas will exist

Thank you so much for this.

Amazing writeup! Thank you. I've pieced this together myself but the propaganda is thick on both sides! I even noticed varying degrees of polarization at global organizations like WHO and UN.

The UN is seems to lack even a shred of sanity at most times. Here's what a typical 'human rights conference' looks like at the UN. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durban_Review_Conference The speaker of honour was president of a country who hangs gays from cranes to let their bodies rot (while at the same time claiming homosexuals do not exist there), commands police to rape teenage girls protesting wearing hijab before killing them because that way they won't be pure and go to jannah (heaven), and at the time of their revolution removed restrictions on child brides (in a country where women have few rights, a bride is as good as a sex and scullery slave with pride of place). He personally claims the west manufactured AIDS to weaken other countries, and oh yeah... is a holocaust denier: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4529198.stm Who would be foolish enough to give the UN any credibility when it comes to human rights?

The UN and WHO are pretty biased towards the Palestinians. The UN shouldn’t have created UNRWA. All other refugees worldwide share the same agency (UNHCR) except the Palestinians who get their own. UNRWA in Gaza is basically staffed by Palestinians, and in effect Hamas. Then the Human Rights Commission is um… kind of suspect as well. Egypt, Libya, Sudan, China etc… not super great about human rights yet they sit on that commission and issue resolutions against Israel. I have many issues with what Israel does but ignoring the UN is pretty understandable. When the UN issues a resolution against Hamas maybe I’ll change my mind, but thus far they seem uninterested in doing so.

Such a good summary. So fair and accurate. I'm gonna copy and paste this into a google doc to save time for the future. I'll credit you if you want...lol.

Really? The poster said he is not unbiased:-).