01/15/2024
I don't think anyone has the right to take what isn't theirs. The land currently called Israel was owned by the Palestinians from time immemorial. The original Jews were Palestinian. Jesus was Palestinian.
The Romans conquered the land of Canaan, which they renamed Palestine. The Jews were the predominant faith and did not like their land being occupied and refused to worship the Emperor as a God so they fought back against the Romans and most were expelled from their land and dispersed throughout the Empire. Through time, the Jews who remained became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, and later became part of the Ottomon Empire, which was Muslim or Islamic. By the time they were conquered by the Ottomons, (if you can call an army that kills no one, pillages nothing, and grants you control under their leadership as conquers) the Christians had turned the Temple Mount into a garbage dump, but the Mount is sacred to all three monotheistic religions and the Muslims were appalled at what had become of the sacred site. History records the Leader of the Ottomons wept and got on his hands and knees to clean the Mount of the filth and garbage.
The Muslim leadership, as I said, was kind and educated, tolerant of other faiths and ideals. They understood that kindness gets loyalty, not barbarism, and under the rule of the Muslims, many of the Jews that remained converted, or reverted as the Muslims say, to Islam. Those former Jews are what we today call the Palestinians.
In the Late 1800s, facing persecution in Europe, the idea of Zionism was born in the hopes of creating a homeland for the Jews. At that time it wasn't necessarily needed that it be in Palestine and many areas were considered, but obviously no one wanted to give land to the Jews because the people were by and large racist and anti-Semetic. In 1917, Britain promised to make a homeland in Palestine for the Jews with the Balfour Declaration, but it is doubtful they ever intended to follow through. They had also promised the Arabs their Independance in Palestine if they overthrew the Ottomon Empire.
The Arabs honoured their part of that agreement, but Britain didn't honour their promise to the Arabs. Instead, Britain and France came into control of the various Arab lands and divided them into Mandates, which weren't quite countries, but were more like colonies. So, here were the Arabs and the Jews, each promised a land in Palestine. The Arabs already inhabited the land, so should have had precedance over any newcomers, but they didn't because of their skin colour and their race. Both the Arabs and Jews had some uprisings in the Mandatory Palestine (as the Mandate was called) both trying to achieve nationhood.
Between 1936 and 1939 the Arab Palestinians revolted against the British, demanding the Independance that was promised them and demanded an end to the constant influx of foreign people into Mandatory Palestine (namely the Jews) and an end to the idea of giving their land to the foreign immigrants. The revolt ended in 1939 when Britain signed the White Paper which limited Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine from Europe. Of course, the Zionists were not happy about that ans instituted a system to illegally bring more Jews to the Arab lands known as Aliyah Bet.
Then came the Jewish turn to revolt. Following World War II, in urgent need, thousands of displaced Jews from Europe were sent to Palestine. The Jewish Lehi (Freedom fighters much like Hamas) and the Irgun, a Jewish Military Organization, began what today would be calles Terrorist Attacks against the British, including assassinations and bombings to demand the British keep their promise to the Zionists. In 1946 the Irgun blew up an Hotel in Jerusalem, which was a British Headquarters, killing 92. In 1947 two British Sargents were abducted and hung by Zionists. In 1948 the Lehi assassinated a UN Official in Jerusalem. There were many Terrorist Attacks carried out against the British and UN by these groups who would eventually become known as the Jewis Resistance Movement.
The British Arab Survey of 1950 says that the Arabs outnumbered the Jews in Mandatory Palestine by 600000 in 1948 and Arabs owned almost half of the businesses. The Zionists at this point had labeled all Arab Independance and Freedom Fighters as Terrorists, which they still do to this day. The Zionists also proceeded to limit employment and business opportunities for the Arabs in the Mandate, by simply refusing to employ them or do business with them. But the Zionists had other, bigger, plans for 1948 because by May of that year they Declared their Independance after Britain ended the Mandate for Palestine and Withdrew during the 1948 Palestine War, also known as the Israeli War of Independance.
During that War, much like the Kristallnacht of 1938 in Germany, the Jewish Zionist Immigrants destroyed Arab Businesses, expelled the Indiginous Palestinians from their homes, and overnight created a new "people with out a land", like the Jews themselves once were. Around 700,000 Palestinians were displaced. This Expulsion, is known in Arabic as the Nakba, or "Catastrophe."
The UN had drawn up a nice Partition Plan so that the Jews and Palestinians could each have a home, but the Zionists decided they wanted more of it then the UN offered, and by the Armistice that ended the war in 1949, they got it, and Jordan got the West Bank, and Egypt got Gaza, and still the Palestinians were denied a homeland.
So in 1967 there was all kinds of tension that had built up between Israel and its neighbours. Kind of like the Houthis today, Egypt was blocking Israeli imports through the Straits of Tiran. So the Six Day War commenced, and by the end of that war, Israel had annexed and was occupying the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Israelis Expelled another Million Arabs from these Territories, once again denying a home to another nation of humans.
So, today, every Palestinian is a refugee. Any attempts to militarily gain their independance, like Israel did, are considered Terrorism by Israel and its Allies. When they march peacefully to the wall Israel erected to lock them up, they are shot at. There is no option for them but to suffer, be displaced, or fight back. So they fight, and organizations like Hamas are born, and while I cannot agree with killing anyone, I do understand why they strike out at Israel. I do understand why they hate the people who stole their land, then stole more, then stole even more. I do understand why they hate the West, that has lied, betrayed and cheated them.
Israel, meanwhile, maintains walls and security checkpoints in both Gaza and the West Bank to limit the "Terrorists" movements. Illegal Zionist Settlements pop up all over the West Bank as they continue to claim ownership of a land their ancestors left 2000 years ago, over a people who never left.
Palestinians deserve a homeland, but not just any home land, they deserve to be given their land back. It never should have been stolen in the first place. They were there forever, since the beginning, since they were Jewish themselves. They are the cousins of the Jews, they are the other Semites, Hebrew and Arab are the two Semetic Races. It would be wonderful if they could recognize their shared lineage.
I really hope this teaches you all something. It took me over an hour to research and write it all down. There were a lot more "Incidents" done by both sides, far too many to list them all. Hope you enjoyed the lesson!
