Arctish
Centimillionaire
You are confusing governments with people.All people have a right to call any place they please "their" homeland. It's called "freedom of speech". I asked why it is their land, not whether they have a right to call it that.Why is it "their" land? Because the robbers they succeeded to it from were the 37th nation that stole it rather than the 38th?by the imposition of an entirely artificial state on their land ever since it happened.
Because indigenous people have a Right to call the place where they and their ancestors have lived for thousands of years "their" homeland.
If you mean it is their land by right because it's the place where they and their ancestors have lived for thousands of years, then that sounds like you're answering "Yes." to my question -- it's because the robbers they're successors to were the 37th nation that stole it rather than the 38th. If that sounds to you like a knock-down moral endorsement of the justice of their claim, feel free to explain your peculiar theory of justice.
[And, incidentally, what makes the Arabs "indigenous"? Their ancestors haven't lived there for thousands of years. Their ancestors came from Arabia 1400 years ago and seized it from the Byzantines, i.e., the Romans, whose ancestors seized it from the Jews, whose ancestors seized it from the Canaanites, whose ancestors seized it from the [many seizures skipped], whose ancestors seized it from the descendants of the first H. sapiens sapiens to live there, who seized it from the Neanderthals. "Indigenous" is a word that means whoever the speaker wants it to mean.]
Isn't that exactly your justification for claiming it's the Arabs' land? That they took it from Byzantines unable to fight them off so they get to keep it?At least they do in modern societies. Some folks that still hold to the 'might makes right' way of thinking believe if you can take land from people unable to fight you off, you get to keep it
Or do you mean it wasn't they who took it from the Byzantines -- that was their ancestors in 637 AD? The 1948 Palestinians got it honestly, from their parents?
The Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, etc., ruled the indigenous people of Palestine. They did not replace them with people from Italy or Greece or Turkey, unlike the founders of the State of Israel who did replace the Palestinians with immigrants unless they were Jewish.
Likewise, when people in the region accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, or when they came to believe there was One True God and Mohammed was His Prophet, they did not suddenly become non-indigenous. They weren't Jews anymore (if they had been Jews; not everyone from there followed the Jewish faith) but the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was still their ancestral homeland.
Well, the Israelis didn't take Israel from people unable to fight them off either. That was their great-grandparents in 1948. The current crop of Israelis got it honestly, from their parents. Now, feel free to explain why the magical dividing line between irrelevant ancient history and "historically justified" land claims is conveniently whenever you need it to be to "justify" whichever side of whoever's conflict you take sides in. All rights to land are squatters' rights except maybe the bit the Dutch reclaimed from the sea.
And Zionists have a mirror-image narrative about how the Accords failed because Palestinians.The closest Israelis and Palestinians came to peace was when the Oslo Accords were first being implemented.
The Accords failed because Zionists <snip>
No, they don't.
Some folks like to bullshit about that but are completely unable to provide facts or fact-based arguments to support their claims.
The Palestinians were on-board with the Accords and followed through on their part of the agreement at every step. They recognized the right of Israel to exist, where it was, in peace and security. They were willing to cede approximately 80% of their former lands to Israel in exchange for their own State. They wanted a viable State with contiguous territory and control of their own resources, commerce, borders, security, etc. That's what the Oslo Accords promised.
And Palestinian irredentists want to keep right on colonizing all of Israel and are willing to kill their fellow Palestinians to achieve that end. The question is not whose side is ruled by villains; the question is what causes the sides' respective villains to be in charge.Israeli Zionists wanted to keep right on colonizing all of the West Bank and Gaza, and were willing to kill their fellow Israelis to achieve that end.
Money and power.
As long as Israel has plenty of both coming from Europe and the US, it won't feel the need to change and will continue the ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Israel will continue to take Palestinian land and resources by force until it meets an obstacle the IDF can't overcome or until the money dries up and it loses influence in world affairs..
If the Oslo Accords had succeeded, Arafat would have been hailed as a hero and Fatah would have dominated the elections against Hamas. But the Accords failed and so did Fatah. Hamas promised to do better for the people of Gaza. It hasn't, but that doesn't mean Fatah would have done any better. All you have to do is look at the West Bank to know that Fatah is just as powerless as Hamas to stop the oppression of Palestinians.
And being locked up didn't stop Gandhi from kicking the British out. Of course the Palestinians have Gandhis; finding a Gandhi isn't the problem. The problem is he won't get the street traction Gandhi got, even when he was in jail.Question: Where can Israel find the Palestinian Gandhi? Answer: Exactly where they put him, in administrative detention."Palestinians are left with terrorism or defeat as their only options" is an artifact of Gandhi-tactics not being part of their cultural toolkit. Culture is destiny.
The Palestinians have plenty of Gandhis. The Israelis lock them up, the same way the British locked up Gandhi himself.
True.
He or she won't get the street traction to succeed until Israel has a much to lose by trying to keep the Palestinians imprisoned as the Britain had to lose by trying to hold onto their empire in South Asia.
Last edited: