There is actually a really simple solution to almost all of the issues surrounding Israel.
Stop trying to kill Jews and other Israeli citizens simply because they exist.
That's it, that's the solution.
Sounds easy doesn't it? It's not rocket science after all.
*taps sign*
Never Again is not a polite request. It's a statement of intent.
They can quit attacking at anytime.
We cannot stop defending, ever, or they will kill us all.
@Render Yes indeed
@Render *sighs
Why can’t the Saudis provide a place for Palestinians? Why won’t they? Do you know?
The total Palestinian population was 1.37 million in 1948, but by the end of 2012 the estimated world population of Palestinians totaled 11.6 million with about half of those living in the Palestinian controlled territories and the remainder kept as 2nd class citizens in refugee camps outside of Israel.
So much for the genocide argument, eh?
@Museek @Render Ren could explain better than I, but basically when the Palestinians who sold their land to the displaced Holocaust survivors upon the creation of Israel by the British emigrated to other Arab countries, they were housed in resettlement camps, where they and their descendants remain to this day. Never welcomed into those fellow Muslim countries. Political pawns.
Not quite, Notokay. All the Palestinians who fled to Jordan after 1948 are full citizens. (Around 3/4s of the Palestinian population in Jordan.) The big issue came around 1967, with the people who fled then from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Those folks still find themselves stateless today, in part out of later malicious compliance, Jordan ceding the West Bank to the PA. It's messy, but not accurate to say that Palestinians were never welcomed by Arab countries.
Definitely. There are reasons in the 1960s and 1970s that the refugees were kept in temporary status, and reasons given in the 1990s, and reasons again in the 2000s.
But it's not accurate to say that other Arab countries didn't accept Palestinians. The vast majority of Palestinian refugees in Jordan (those stemming from the late 1940s) have full citizenship.
@MLClark At least partially because under the terms of the UN splitting up the Palestinian mandate Jordan was supposed to the Palestinian homeland. (of course they were not called Palestinians until 1964).
And then a Palestinian working for the Grand Mufti assassinated the King of Jordan in Jerusalem in 1951 and tried to take over. In 1970 the PLO tried again, leading to Black September.
"In 1970 the PLO tried again, leading to Black September."
Thus the malicious compliance! Jordan in time threw up its hands and said to the PLO, then later PA, "Fine, if you want it, it's yours, we don't have a duty of care over any of this." And revoked documents in a kind of sarcastic "support" of the PA being in charge of the region now.
A whole mess later on - but the initial folks from Mandatory Palestine are among the Jordanian citizens who signed off on it.
@Notokay @Museek
@Museek @MLClark @Render @Notokay
I would appreciate book recommendations for history on this region. I tried to figure out what books to read a few years ago, but became confused and concerned about authors and sources.
My brother recommended a book to me, but research showed the author was a MAGA. 🙁
That's a great question.
I deep-dived into the region this year for articles & a podcast series on Petronationalism, where I focused on the region as it related to Western ambitions for global power via oil futures and during the Cold War.
What I saw in the English lit was a lot of focus on military campaigns (for the war geeks), deconstructions of Islam or British Empire, and of course pointed polemics for today's conflict.
Will mull this q over tonight!
@DianeH @MLClark @Museek @Notokay
Elusive Victory by Trevor N Dupuy
Straight, dry, military history, and unbiased. Written by a US military historian in 1978. Somewhat dated now but does cover both the political and military history of Israel's first four wars in great detail.
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Israel at 50 by Moshe Raviv
Written by a former Israeli ambassador to the UK in 1998. Less war, not so dry, more politics and human costs around the birth and first 5 decades of Israel's history.
...
@DianeH @MLClark @Museek @Notokay
Israel's Moment by Jeffery Herf (2022)
Only covers the period between 1945 and 1949 and the birth of Israel. In particular the brief moment when the Soviet Union supported Israel and the US did not.
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Those are just the first three I pulled off of my shelves. I have many more but the majority are straight military history or somewhat outdated.
@Museek Sorry to jump in (busy night here) but I'm with you. Whenever I've traveled I've always got into the people, the culture, the language and at least some of the history (even if just in school). I loved history and enjoyed Geography and like you, often paired the two.
I find the Middle East conflicts fascinating but incredibly complicated, so want to thank everyone in this discussion (and Ren and ML in particular) for sharing their knowledge 👍
That book was a gateway book for me to appreciate how ill-prepared a Western education made me for the rest of the world's histories... but you've reminded me that there's a similarly comprehensive piece by Peter Mansfield! The 5th edition of A HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE EAST is the one I read. The book covers around 200 years in the region, albeit centrally through Western meddling and its consequences. It's dense, but it also lays out how many players exist in all these countries.
I posted them in chronological order because the older ones are going to be...well...dated. As new information reveals new details that weren't available at publication date.
I also wanted to avoid the pure military histories that dominate my bookshelves.
"This is how we liberated Jerusalem"
"This is the miracle of the Golan Heights battle"
"This is how we built an air force from scratch"
I guessed that those probably won't answer your questions.
@DianeH @MLClark @Render @Notokay I just really appreciate the clear explanations. I also have tried reading and listening but some bits can be confusing for the same reasons. I trust my friends and I have a broad overview but still don’t fully grasp the intricacies as I’m sure a lot of people don’t with our history. What IS clear to me is the actions of terrorists.
I hear you on that. My "breakout" book as a young poli-sci student was THE FATE OF AFRICA by Martin Meredith. GREAT primer on each African nation's distinct journey out of colonial oppression... but at the same time, my mind reeled at all the new names of major political movements & ethnic factions. All our hyperfixation in the West on European history in high school had given me no foundation for all these new terms. It's taken almost two decades to fill in many of those gaps.
@Museek @DianeH @MLClark @Render @Notokay I didn't quite appreciate how this works - the effect of gathering political background information over a long time - when it comes to quickly sorting information from misinformation in a violent conflict until the Ukraine war. I'm not Ukrainian, but when I heard the news that the Russian troops had crossed the border my mind flashed on so many different things I have heard and seen that I instantly knew that Europe will never be the same. 1/
@Museek @DianeH @MLClark @Render @Notokay I also saw other Swedish and Finnish people's emotional reactions mirror my own as I went through them. Meanwhile, US Americans around me seemed confused about the whole thing, probably because they didn't think of all those speeches Putin gave or the Winter War because they've never even heard of the Winter War and US news didn't report on the speeches. I understood the total situation in a way I don't understand the situation in the Middle East.
@MeditatorMom @DianeH @MLClark @Render @Notokay there is so much to keep up with if it’s not your wheelhouse. And, as you mention, it not only takes time, it’s specialized and there are so many gaps in knowledge because we haven’t even heard of some of it.
@Museek @DianeH @MLClark @Render @Notokay yeah, exactly. When you're trying to take in lots of background you've never heard of while trying to understand the news, you don't have much of a BS detector and it can get confusing fast.
And it's hard to avoid - let's face it, there's a LOT of history... there will always be gaps. Also - you should know your own history the best, because you're the custodian of it. So everyone struggles with faraway political violence situations at least sometimes.
@MeditatorMom @DianeH @MLClark @Render @Notokay so true. That makes a lot of sense.
@Museek @Notokay @Render The region has been the site of wars since the Bronze Age. https://www.britannica.com/place/Palestine
We don't need to go back that far. 1919-20 will be far enough back for relevance today.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/arab-riots-of-the-1920-s
@Museek @Render None of the Arab Nations would take them in after they fled or were forced out in the wake of the 1948 war. So they don't want to take them now. The Arab Nations liked them being a thorn in Israel's side. They see them as pawns. They don't want peace for Israel. In chess removing your pawns from the board is bad strategy.
@Museek All of that was prior to Hamas.
From 1953 to 1989 the Soviet Union provided backing, propaganda, and weapons to the Palestinian terror groups.
After Communism disintegrated the mostly secular Palestinian terror groups morphed into or were replaced by hardcore Islamic fundamentalists (that's Hamas among others).
@Render @Museek @Bemet_Or
I visited Khabarovsk in the Soviet Union in 1990, just before the collapse, to visit a ham radio friend. one thing he told me was there was a town also called Khabarovsk about 5 miles away that wasn't on the map and that's where all the Jews lived. he said there were towns like that all over Russia not on any map, and in the Soviet times the government told you where you could live and what your job would be
@Museek @Render @Bemet_Or There's Arab, Persian, and Muslim ultranationalism as well as nazi propaganda and hate from prior wars. Men with golden toilets keep some of it going to give people an enemy other than them. Religious leaders and extremist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah also keep alive. There are generations passing on hate to generations then new gens hate each other.
@Museek @Render @Bemet_Or That isn't to say Israel is never wrong or is perfect. The land increase is a buffer zone. Understandable noone wants rocket launched from middle of country. Israels far right and radical settlers also committed abuses. They need leaders throughout middle east pushing for peaceful solutions.
@AnnetteTRemain @Render @Bemet_Or
And yet, from my understanding, they’re cousins. One descending from the biblical Isaac, the other descending from the biblical Ismael.
That 17 states surrounding one tiny country won’t provide refuge is telling. I have so many questions because one side of this doesn’t make sense.
Why does no one in those states question #Hamas bombing the evacuation route?
Why are all videos taken AFTER instead of DURING strikes? How many deaths are “friendly” fire?
@Render They keep trying , we keep saying and we keep defending ourselves.
Been doing it for a long time now.