The Trouble With Talking About The Middle East
The problem we always run into in talking about the Middle East is that there is so much long-standing misinformation about the subject that it requires an extreme effort to discover the truth. This is not a one-sided situation. I remember being taught, when I was growing up, that all of the Arab residents of Israel who left in 1947 did so voluntarily, at the urging of their political and religious leaders. We have long since learned that this is only partially true; that a significant number were driven out by hostility and threats from Jews.
The same is far more true on the other side. The greatest success at this maneuver has been getting the world to swallow the whole notion of a "Palestinian" people, an ethnic group whose claims stand against those of the Jews, but which was never heard of before 1967. This has enabled them to portray the Jewish migration to Israel as a specimen of colonialism, an easily sold fabrication which flies in the face of the obvious fact that you are not a colonialist when you are returning to your homeland. Another is that there was a large population of Arabs in the area of Israel that had been there for a long time- a claim that is easily falsified, as we know that this land was largely depopulated as late as the 1860's.
Another is the endlessly repeated claim that it is a war crime to expel an unalterably hostile population from your country after they have joined in a war against you. At the very time that Israel was founded, the victorious countries of World War II were in the process of removing millions of ethnic Germans from various countries in Eastern Europe, most notably the Sudetenland, where 3 million ethnic Germans were forced to move back to Germany as a result of their hostility to Czechoslovakia in the war. This establishes a clear international precedent for the Israelis to refuse to allow the repatriation of an incurably hostile minority.
Anyway, discussion of this issue inevitably declines into wasting time wading through the falsehoods on both sides, and never ever reaching the point where we can deal with the truth. This is the problem I have had with Sam. I just don't have the time or energy to enter into endless circular arguments with people who do not have the will to discover clear historical fact.
The same is far more true on the other side. The greatest success at this maneuver has been getting the world to swallow the whole notion of a "Palestinian" people, an ethnic group whose claims stand against those of the Jews, but which was never heard of before 1967. This has enabled them to portray the Jewish migration to Israel as a specimen of colonialism, an easily sold fabrication which flies in the face of the obvious fact that you are not a colonialist when you are returning to your homeland. Another is that there was a large population of Arabs in the area of Israel that had been there for a long time- a claim that is easily falsified, as we know that this land was largely depopulated as late as the 1860's.
Another is the endlessly repeated claim that it is a war crime to expel an unalterably hostile population from your country after they have joined in a war against you. At the very time that Israel was founded, the victorious countries of World War II were in the process of removing millions of ethnic Germans from various countries in Eastern Europe, most notably the Sudetenland, where 3 million ethnic Germans were forced to move back to Germany as a result of their hostility to Czechoslovakia in the war. This establishes a clear international precedent for the Israelis to refuse to allow the repatriation of an incurably hostile minority.
Anyway, discussion of this issue inevitably declines into wasting time wading through the falsehoods on both sides, and never ever reaching the point where we can deal with the truth. This is the problem I have had with Sam. I just don't have the time or energy to enter into endless circular arguments with people who do not have the will to discover clear historical fact.
Comments
If one accepts the concept of a "Palestinian people" based on the arbitrary boundaries of the Palestine mandate, the eastern three-quarters of that mandate was split off early on and became the country of Transjordan (now Jordan), so there is already a "Palestinian state" in the majority of Palestine's original territory.
I remember looking at population tables during the period of Zionist colonization (1880s-1940s) and being surprised at how fast the Arab population grew during that period. Later I found out that there was considerable immigration from surrounding areas because the Zionists were developing the economy.
Unfortunately the re-writing of history has real-world consequences for real people. Most of the Palestinian refugees and their millions of multi-generation descendants have never been absorbed into the Arab countries where they live (and where most of them were born), being instead held hostage to the impossible dream of recovering something that never existed -- unlike the much greater numbers of eastern German refugees who were integrated into the remainder of Germany and present so such irredentist problem today.
We not only took this land from the Native Americans, but we murdered them off with unspeakable atrocities. I guess we are just lucky there were no world councils (UN) at the time holding us responsible for our immoral behavior.
This wasn't our land, but military might allowed us to take it. Military might (backed by the US) is what keeps Israel, Israel. History shows that land to have changed hands many times through the thousands of years of wars. It's another war(s) that will decide boundaries, not some claim that a certain people have a superior claim to the land.
Anonymous, the comparison you make between the Israelis and European settlement deserves a more detailed answer than I can give in a comment. I will try to write a post about it in the next couple of days. I will add at this point that Europeans were not returning to their homeland as Jews were when they moved to Israel. That's a big difference.
Other groups have claim (ancient or otherwise) to land. Kurds come to mind. Prior to WW I and going farther back, many countries existed that no longer do, due to military victors drawing the new lines. When the USSR broke up some of those countries wanted their independent country back and cut ties with the USSR. In fact the map looks more like pre WW I with all its little nations dotting Europe and middle Asia. Look at all the boundary changes in just the 20th century alone.
Did you look at population tables for the decades before Zionist colonization, too?
We have about 327000 Gentiles in Palestine in 1851, according to McCarthy, and 663904 Gentiles in Palestine, according to the 1922 census.
The Jews started coming in 1882; where did all the 447454 or so Arabs that were already there, according to McCarthy's figures, come from?
The population of the world increased from 1.23 billion in 1850 to 1.92 billion in 1920 – what planet did all the extra people came from? They didn't come from elsewhere; there were more births than deaths, and that caused an increase in population.
According to my numbers, between 1851 and 1882, there was an increase of 1.0168% per year in the Arab population in Palestine – and this was all before the first Zionists arrived. It was due to the excess of Arab births over Arab deaths. If we extrapolate this rate of increase to 1922, we get 670643 Arabs in Palestine by 1922. The census numbers say 663904, which is very close to what our projection says.
The population increase of Arabs in Palestine between 1851 and 1922 was 1.0% per year – it was that way for the three decades before the Zionists started to come, and it was that way for the four decades after the Zionists started to settle in Palestine. It wasn't necessary for any Arabs to move into Palestine for that population increase over the latter four decades to take place.