Israel And Palestine: Mapping The History

You say: "It wasn't until after 1967 that anyone seemed to come up with idea of the creation of Palestine". and likewise your whole article tries to impress that Palestine is a new entity which needs to be created from the leftover of Israel.

The people of Palestine (Muslims, Jews & Christians) in Modern time had been living in that region for centuries.

They lost their land to the incoming Jews immigrants from different part of the World. The Zionist movement effectively created a Jewish State of Israel from that land in 1940's. This new state was definitely not for the welfare of the then local population (Muslims/Christians).

Eretz Israel was not created out-of-blue.

In 1919, the World Zionist Organization submitted to the Versailles Peace Conference, its official plan for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.

The submitted map (in 1919) included the southern part of Lebanon to the Litani River, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the West and East banks of the Jordan River.

And why should not the displaced people have a right to fight-back, resist the occupation and hope to regain their lost homes????

But one needs a place to call homeland. And hence, only after 20 years of failure, the Palestine had to settle with wat they can get.

But tell me buddy since 1967 had the UN and the world community managed to persuade Israel in allowing the formation of a country for Palestine???? Still the land is not free, the people are not free and the country is not sovereign.

And last, some thing for you to ponder on:

Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, said of his negotiation with the German Chancellor in late 19th century:

"He asked what territory we wanted to have, whether as far north as Beirut or even beyond that.

I said: We will ask for what we need - more immigrants, the more land."

(The Complete Diaries of Theodore Herzl, p. 701)

The word Palestine is derived from Philistinia - the name of a land which basically sits where the Gaza strip is today.

Historic Israel lay to the north of Philistinia, in approximately the same boundaries that Israel has today. When Israel was invaded and subjugated by the Romans -- a European Empire -- the Romans renamed all of Israel to Palestine (their way of pronouncing Philistine, the name of that tiny neighboring land to the south of Israel which had already been gradually disappearing anyway.)

So we can see that even thousands of years ago, Europe had enjoyed its first taste of colonialism abroad, by making Israel its first victim. Because the Israelis resisted their European conquerors, the Romans destroyed the main Jewish temples and drove them from the land, scattering the Jews far and wide.

Later, as the Roman Empire began crumbling due to corruption and economic deterioration, the Roman leadership began looking for some new gimmick to preserve their rule. They found it in the form of a newly rising religion called Christianity. Embracing the executed Peter as their patron saint, Roman leaders began citing their capital as the real spiritual headquarters of the Christian faith rather than faraway Bethlehem or Nazareth. Later even the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity.

Over time, the Roman Empire successively faltered and transformed itself into newer forms,

The Western Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire

European Imperalism has only acted to destabilize the Middle East.

as uri says:


there can only be a political solution

You can't negotiate political solutions with people who don't keep their word, and who don't honour the agreements they signed.

The Shimla Agreement is an example of this. We negotiated an agreement where they agreed to do certain things, and after awhile they just stopped doing them, because signed agreements mean nothing to them.

The Land-for-Peace deal that Israel and Lebanon agreed to, was that Israel would withdraw from South Lebanon in exchange for cessation of attacks on Israel from Lebanon. The Israelis lived up to their part of the bargain -- they withdrew. The Lebanese however, decided they would not honour what they signed, and would continue launching attacks.

Islamic culture justifies breaking of agreements. Islamic culture justified breaking of negotiated settlements.

Taqqiya.

Muslims justify the breaking of negotiated agreements, particularly with their silence whenever they see a Muslim break a signed agreement. You never see a Muslim condemning another Muslim for breaking a signed agreement.

If the Muslim world wants credibility, then they have to behave in a credible way. You can't negotiate a settlement with somebody and sign it, only to break it the next day by saying "well, what about X,Y,Z from 50 years ago?"

ask uri:)

politics is the art of impossible

history tells us you cannot enforce peace through violence

temporal, then why do suicide bombers think they can enforce peace by bombing others? Why is suicide bombing called an "act of self defense" by so many Muslims? How does suicide bombing reduce violence or war? So what is the utility or benefit of doing it?

suicide bombers are delusional, misinformed freaks

you cannot 'discuss' issues with them

they are a cancerous growth

should be targeted and eliminated

how? that we don't know

but i do know one thing

the saffronista insecurista blame game to paint all muslims with one stroke won't alleviate this cancer

Temporal, I am merely pointing out that criticism of suicide bombers from their communities is few and far between. Once that changes, then the suicide bombing will stop. So now you know.

and you are the all informed sage

we bow to your tunneled vison sagacity!

No, we should instead bow to President Ahmedinejad, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful, who has Himself now started a blog:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060813/ts_nm/iran_president_blog_dc

Peace Be Upon Him! If only He could cut down his word content, which is as vast and as limitless as the Almighty himself! And perhaps a spellchecker would help His Excellency as well, just so we don't have to alter all the dictionaries to match the way he spells things.

Please be sure to vote at the poll located on His website! (Because this is the only vote His Excellency will allow for his unworthy subjects.)

The question listed on his site poll is:
"Do you think that the US and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another word war?"

The poll results so far are:
Yes 7%
No 93%

Truly another amazing landslide victory for the Yes vote in His Excellency President Ahmedinejad's Islamic Republic!

Because we at DesiCritics have been through many a word war, we should invite His Excellency to blog here, so that he may bless us with his great courage and wisdom in averting word war.

@Sanjay #2 - Thanks for tid-bits and I agree with you that Long Long ago, in the Golden age, there use to stay the many-tribes of Judaism in the Holy land.

But my friend with all the blabber you still failed to justify why in Modern times, the local people (muslims,christians) are forced out and a whole lot of immigrants are systematically brought in, given land, homes and the new Settlement.

Just cause in a fairy-age their forefathers used to live their????

The immigration of Jews from all over the world(europe, USSR, africa, Asia, ethopia, india, etc) has turned the jews population of 600,000 in 1948 to 6million now. (eg: 800,000 migrated from USSR in 1980s, 14000 where brought in a single day from ethopia)

If you are okay with this then I think you will even justify bringin in Bangladeshi and Pakistanis back to India, cause once upon a time their forefather used to live there.

The fight of the Palestinian people, the purpose of Intifada, and the support extended to them from all over the world is not against the Jews people or their religion.

As stated by Hezbollah and its leader, they are fighting the Occupation and the Zionist. They want the immigrants/settlers to return back from where they came from and allow the displaced people to get their land/homes back.

(And for all your remaining comments, it seems you always prefer to throw darts in all direction. Try to stick on topic and u will soon get chance to release the other fumes on some other post)

Firstly, the Jews went to Israel because the Europeans kicked them out. The Europeans first kicked the Jews out of Israel itself millenia ago, and then in the 20th century the Europeans kicked the Jews out of Europe and tried to kill them all.

So if the Jews aren't supposed to live in the Middle East and aren't supposed to live in Europe, then where are they supposed to live? Please name the location. Hopefully you'll give me some serious answer, instead of saying Mars.

Indians didn't tell Pakistan/Bengal to separate from India, btw. Where Muslims exist in a majority, then they want to be in total control, subjugating the minorities. Pakistan and Bangladesh are examples of this. But where Muslims are in the minority, then they want secularism and equal rights.

"What's mine is mine, what's yours we share."

Don't flip-flop selectively, it doesn't help the credibility.

Sanjay, and when did u got a non-serious answer from me???? I don't waste on blabber and heres the answer:

In the late 19th century, the Zionist leaders did considered for a time making Argentina as their homeland. This was primarily cause during that time Argentina was a land of honey & milk :)

By early 20th century, America was a developed/modern country and with lots of Jews and sympathiser. Why not move their???

I too sympathize with the Jews and that they should have a place where they can leave peacefully. And that place can very well be the land of Palestine. Maybe you would be surprise to know, the Jews where welcomed by the Muslims to settle in Palestine in the early 20th century.

http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/5bff833964edb9bf85256ced00673d1f!OpenDocument

But all the sympathy is lost for Zionist, when now the history shows how the Victim turned into an oppressor. People who were once without homeland, now made millions other indigenious people homeless.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/ngo/history.html