Letters to the Editor
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Still more for Alex (2 continued)
Unfortunately for the Spanish, the same applies to Spain. The Reconquista drove out the moors in 1492, but the radical Islamists still believe in restoring Andalusia (Muslim Spain) and if Israel is actually destroyed (God forbid) Spain will find themselves in their targets next. And so will Europe, as Jihad requires the conversion of all that do not accept Muhammad as the prophet of Allah.
Don't believe me? Study Islam yourself, and tell me where I got it wrong. Do not simply deny that it's there without some sort of supporting documentation.
This is why religion has a role in these events. Like it or not, the Muslim war against Israel is, at root, religiously motivated. These are very difficult wars to win, because there's no negotiating with a foe who believes his reason for fight comes from God. I really wish it was about land or rights or the Palestinians, but the more I study it, I'm afraid its far more serious than that, but we only do a disservice if we lie to ourselves about its nature.
3) Jews lived in the land before it was Israel:
Well, like it or not this is true; Jews have had a continual presence in the land since Biblical times. Arabs only came along with the Arab conquests in the 8th or 9th centuries. (KEEP THIS IN MIND! The Arabs got the land by CONQUEST. Why is it therefore their permanent possession? I suppose because that made it Dar al-Islam, see above. And if conquest is a basis for people to get land, then the Arabs got conquered in turn, and we could say "tough cookies." Except for the Jewish exception, so let's go on)
I will cite Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad" as he cites that much the area known as Israel was, in his day, very lightly populated. The population was small, very light, very few people.
This is part of the reason the early Zionist pioneers were able to buy land from the Ottomons, for inflated prices. They bought it, and quite legally to. Back then there were no laws against it. Today, the Palestinian Authority threatens any Arab who sells land to a Jew with death.
The Zionist pioneers did in fact make the land worth something, even if numbers died from malaria. As they developed the land, itinerant Arab workers came by to get jobs, since it was a better deal to work for the Zionists, many of which were idealistic socialists, than to work for the Turkish royals.
And these itinerants are the real ancestors of most of today's Palestinians.
Eventually, yes, there were certain Jew-phobic Arabs who did not want Jews in there, and they appealed to the British? What did the British do? They cut off 2/3 of the Palestine mandate territory, and gave it solely to the Arabs. This country is today known as Jordan. To this day, it is illegal for a Jew to be a citizen of Jordan. Jordon was given to the Hashemite family (from Arabia, today Saudi Arabia) to rule, as a booby prize, since Laurence of Arabia and the Brits ended up supporting the Saud family to prominence. So this royal family from today's Saudi Arabia became the rulers of Jordan, a Judenrein state on 2/3 of Palestine.
(Doesn't that sound racist? Doesn't that sound artificial? Where was Jordan before the Brits created it? Why were the Hashemites given Jordan when they came from Saudi Arabia? Why are no Jews still allowed in Jordan? What right does Jordan have to exist? And how come no one asks these questions of an artificial Muslim state, but only the Jewish state? Why would there be a double standard?)
Later on half of what was left of the Palestinian mandate territory was given to the Arabs, and a disconnected rest was given to the Jews in 1948. Even this little scrap was too much for the Jews apparently, because the Arabs attacked (1948 war of Independence) by some miracle, the Jews won.
Also, immigration to Israel was not unrestricted; the Brits did not allow Jews to come into the territory during 1939-1945. I.E. during the Holocaust. This was called the white papers. If there were no white papers, a million Jewish lives would have been saved from Hitler's ovens.
Did the Arabs have a say in any of this? I think so; they managed to remove 80% of Palestine from the future state of Israel.
Did Arabs get relocated? Yes. Who's fault was it? You know what I'll probably say.... (Arabs urged the locals to get out of the way so their armies could manuever, then they could come in and take the Jews' property. This tactic was done by Hezzbolah in 2007 too, so don't think its impossible)
But Jews were also relocated, not only from Europe, but also from many Arab countries who kicked out their Jews after 1948. These people will never get their land back either, or any compensation. At least Israel gave them a place to go.
There was also an exchange of population after another manufacture of another artifical Arab country: Pakistan and India. Tens of thousands of Hindus moved to India, and a similar figure of Muslims moved to Pakistan.
I will confess to you a little secret of mine. I always found the Arab argument of "their land" to sound to me like a filthy rich miser refusing to give a nickel to a charity. The Arabs control over 20 countries. Muslims have over 40. They control more land than the continental United States. They've oppressed many of their minorities mercilessly. They could have resettled the Palestinians any time they wanted to, but prefer to forbid them immigration, so they can be used as living bullets against Israel. And we're supposed to feel sorry for them for losing a tiny bit of land to the Jews? I'm sorry, but to my ear that's quite a tiny violin.
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Dayenu
You're right in your assumption - that argument does nothing for me. But more importantly, it does nothing for secular Western democracies, who should not be supporting any sort of state based on theological grounds.
As an aside, it's interesting how ingrained the idea of nationality is in your head. When you say that the Romans or Hittites were 'wiped out', you make it sound like another Holocaust. What you don't seem to be able to grasp is that the actual INDIVIDUALS who made up those categories assimilated into other cultures and continued to exist under another name. That is the crux of the matter - people's inability to stop thinking in essentialist terms. If 'Jews' as a nation ceased to exist because they all simultaneously converted and assimilated, it would be a far different thing from them ceasing to exist because every single individual was killed. I would have no problem with the former (for ANY group or religion). You, on the other hand seem to be one of those people that sees no difference.