Why should Israel give back land to the Palestinian Arabs?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Troianii, Oct 30, 2013.

  1. Troianii

    Troianii Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This isn't an attempt to show that the Israelis shouldn't actually give any land back, but an attempt to provoke deeper thought on the issue, particularly among pro-Palestinians.

    The issue is, essentially, that the Israelis within the last century - less than 100 years ago - took land that belonged to Arabs. Some was taken forcibly, some was taken when Arabs left in large numbers, fleeing the turmoil. The question is, what makes Israel exceptional? Only 25 years before Israel came into existence as a state and took land, the Greeks on the Aegean coast of Anatolia were forcibly removed by the Turks. The Greeks have been deprived of more land than the Palestinians, land which the Greeks can claim back to the Homeric epics, lost in one fell swoop, less than a century ago.

    So why do you care - if you do - greatly about the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but not the Greek-Turk issue? Why do you not care about the Prussians and Pommeranians forcibly removed from their lands (the Soviets removed 14 million Germans from what had been German territory for nearly a millenia)? That happened in the late 1940s.
     
  2. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    a small thing inbetween your turkish example and the Israeli war of independence.

    ww2 happened and a whole new set of geneva conventions wrt occupations was established. the world had had enough of imperialistic conquest and put the final fork in colonialism, by creating all those new countries.
     
  3. TCassa89

    TCassa89 Well-Known Member

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    I believe that all people no matter where they reside deserve a government that is run through them rather than over them
     
  4. frodly

    frodly Well-Known Member

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    The situations you describe were different for many reasons, though still terrible and immoral. As far as the Greek-Turkish example, that was a mutually agreed upon population swap. The Ottoman Empire had been a multi-ethnic Empire, where people of all religions and ethnicities lived intermixed with each other. With the rise of ideas like nationalism and national sovereignty around this time, and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, you saw a desire to create ethnically homogenous territories to form modern nation states. So the Greeks agreed to accept all Greeks living inside the territory of what would become Turkey into Greece, and the Turks agreed to accept all Turkish people living inside Greece into Turkey. The difference is some level of collective acceptance existed. Of course there were people who found this arrangement to be a terrible injustice (of course it was, and is just one of the thousands of examples of the evils of nationalism), but overall people agreed to this arrangement. So the Palestine and Israel comparison doesn't make sense.


    As far as the German example goes, it is a better fit, because German peoples in Romania, Czechoslovakia, what is now Western Poland, etc did not agree to the forced expulsion from their land. It was forced upon them by the Soviet military. Terrible atrocities were committed against German peoples during these forced marches. People were shot as they walked. Children and women as old as 90 were raped. It was a terrible episode in human history. One that is largely forgotten, because WWII was a period of such extraordinary atrocities, and because people kind of felt the Germans deserved to be punished for what they did in the war and in the Holocaust. Of course this is more nationalistic idiocy, placing collective blame upon a group of people, even if those people were in no way complicit. Even at times openly opposed to Nazi activity.

    However there is again a major difference. These people were forced out of their homes into an already established modern nation state, where ethnic commonality existed between the displaced people and the modern nation state. That is not the most important difference though. The most important difference is that few people today expect Israel to give back the land they took in this time period. Just as no one is calling for Greek return to Anatolia, or German return to Gdansk and Kaliningrad (formerly Danzig and Konigsberg). The controversy is over the land occupied by Israel in 1967. Land they have occupied for decades and have been building settlements on for decades now. Settlements make peace an impossibility. Palestine as a functional nation state is not possible as it currently exists. It's territorial integrity is entirely compromised by Israel and the settlements. It is the West Bank and Gaza which are the areas where hostility stems from. There are of course people in the Middle East who want all the land back, but they are not part of elite political discussions. However, the integrity and viability of the territory occupied in 1967 by Israel, is always brought up. It always will be, and it will not be solved as long as Israel refuses to stop building settlements, and agrees to a massive withdrawal of settlers from the West Bank as a condition for peace.

    The other reason people find this more offensive than the other instances, is the colonial nature of the project. German resettlement was a result of losing WWII. Ottoman resettlement was a result of losing WWI. Palestinian resettlement is a result of the atrocities committed against Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Jews responded by traveling thousands of miles away and colonizing a place settled by an entirely different group of people. A group of people wholly disconnected from their suffering. It was essentially extreme nationalism in Nazism (the most extreme form of nationalism in human history), which drove Jews to action. Their action was to embrace their own brand of extreme nationalism in Zionism and displace a group of people who had nothing to do with the long history of oppression European Jews had faced.
     
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  5. Troianii

    Troianii Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ah yeah, so the Prussian and Pomeranian example was...?
     
  6. GlobalCitizen

    GlobalCitizen Well-Known Member

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    Ofc another big difference between Greece and Turkey and Palestine and Israel, is that thousands of rockets weren't smuggled into Turkey from neighboring countries like Armenia, Cyprus, etc. to be used against the Turks. Bulgaria or Romania didn't sponsor terrorist movements that forced Turkey into a security state.
     
  7. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    not even remotely equivalent. Prussia was already effectively annexed by Hitler in 1932, and became a german state, with hilter being its prime minister. Prussia was not "created" it was merged with east germany and was part of a deliberate plan by the allies to eliminate prussia as an independent state. to the victor and all that.
     
  8. Troianii

    Troianii Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Prussian rulers in the 19th century essentially created Germany, and it was the Prussian line of monarchy that became the German line of monarchy. After the first world war, the allies separated Prussia from Germany. Barely a decade later they rejoined the Germany that their people in essence created. Funny you should say "to the victor and all that" since the Israelis won their wars.

    But what you're forgetting is that this is a parallel to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, where the core of it really is the people. Here, let's play with maps. First is the German Empire, including Prussia in 2&13:

    [​IMG]

    Prussia in the 1800s and it's greatest period of expansion:

    [​IMG]

    Duchy of Prussia in the 1600s (note that even under Polish occupation/rule, both East and West Prussia were German)

    [​IMG]

    the antecedent to Prussia, the Teutonic Order

    [​IMG]

    Now, once again, before wwi

    [​IMG]

    after wwii

    [​IMG]


    And what happened? The Prussians, who had been in East and West Prussia for centuries (and depending on how you look at it, millenia) were forcibly removed from their land.

    Now, the Palestinians were forcibly removed from their land too, but who was Palestinian territory taken from in 1967? Was it from Palestine? No, it was from Jordan. Palestine as a national identity was conjured when Arabs in land under Jordanian rule came under Israeli rule. They then wanted to separate, and it was ONLY when war against Israel proved not to be viable that they wanted national independence from Israel.

    Worth noting. Doesn't change the matter of the right to self-rule, but worth noting. As it stands, people living in Germany have more rights to lands in Poland than Palestinians have claim on lands in Israel, as a matter of national rights (not individual rights, in which case it's roughly equal in most cases, with Palestinians having a stronger case in a minority of cases).
     
  9. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    We have international law now.. We didn't let Germany keep and colonize Poland our Austria.. We didn't let Saddam keep and colonize Kuwait..

    Moving settlers onto occupied land is against the law.
     
  10. Iolo

    Iolo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Because otherwise these Nazi scumbags will infect the reputation of the whole Jewish people with their murderous colonial racism.
     
  11. unrealist42

    unrealist42 New Member

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    Since 1948 the Israelis have been engaged in existential warfare. The Israelis continue to play a zero sum game while the Palestinians seek a legitimacy and acceptance that will allow them to escape this game that they are unwillingly subject to play. It would not surprise me in the least if a large movement suddenly appeared among the Palestinians that demanded immediate Israeli citizenship and voting rights in all the occupied territories. That would bring about the existential crises which Israelis have been avoiding for the past 60 some years by abstracting the Palestinians into a non-people without a voice.
     
  12. Ronstar

    Ronstar Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    for the same reason the Germans gave back property and art to the Jews that they stole from them.
     
  13. SFJEFF

    SFJEFF New Member

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    I am not Palestinean but the one thing we are certain is that this conflict has been ongoing now for 60 years.

    The conflict will not end until both sides find some accomodation. And it is in all of our interest in the conflict being settled- the Israel Palestinean conflict is a source of infection for the entire Middle East.
     
  14. Troianii

    Troianii Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    attempt to provoke deeper though: failed. :please: I bring great shame to my famiry!
     
  15. frodly

    frodly Well-Known Member

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    A one-state solution is already quite popular among many Palestinians. That is what many Palestinians are calling for as we speak. There are hundreds of Palestinians every single day peacefully protesting and calling for some respect for their basic human dignity. People in the US just don't hear about it, because the corporate media doesn't want to report on this fact.

    Of course the calls are ignored by Israel, and it doesn't cause an existential crisis....
     
  16. unrealist42

    unrealist42 New Member

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    There is today some reports that the right in Israel intends to abandon the two state solution as soon as the latest talks fail, which they will. The plan is to annex the West Bank and offer the Palestinians there citizenship. To prevent the Palestinians from gaining power in the Knesset they are devising schemes that will disenfranchise almost all of the Palestinians currently residing in the West Bank, possibly excluding all the large Palestinian cities from Israel by declaring them parts of Jordan, and/or disenfranchising all the descendants of refugees from Israel proper. Gaza will be left to its own devices.

    It is an insane idea that has a lot of traction in Israel. It certainly will not end the conflict if that is what they are thinking.
     
  17. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    The UN Charter was ratified in 1947. It illegalizes the acquisition of land via conquest.

    Israeli theft of Palestinian land is illegal. They should return to the borders originally set out by the UN in 1948.
     
  18. Ronstar

    Ronstar Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The UN recognized the post-Israel Arab War borders for Israel in 1949.

    The UN also recognizes current western borders of Poland, which were achieved by conquest by the Soviet Union.
     
  19. Troianii

    Troianii Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Thanks for making the point the original post made and he somehow missed
    :)
     

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