Disagree.
And yet, here we are.
Again, disagree. I mean if we're going back in history, my understanding is that there was a national (not state) movement to establish a Jewish state (not colonialist, nationalist in that it wasn't a "State that initiated the decision). The area that became Israel was an area that Jews had been coming to for some time.
The British occupied the area and attracted many to it, including Arabs who also emigrated to the area from other nations. Many of the people that would claim to be "Palestinians" were settlers just like the Jews. Now there is some debate as to what came first. the land called Palestine (modern translation) or people known as the Palestinians. My reading of history says the former. Arabs that settled in the hills of Jordan Valley (what we know of as the West Bank) adopted the name "Palestinians" in the 20th century as many, as I pointed out, were settlers looking for work during the British occupation of that area.
Historically, there were several attempts to share the area between Jews and the Arabs that lived there and my understanding is that the Arabs refused.
The following were proposed:
In 1937
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Rejected
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Rejected
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Rejected
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Rejected
And each time the Arabs said no and in some cases attacked Israel and we know how that went. But as long as we're pointing fingers....
The Arab countries have failed the Palestinian people, both militarily (in their failure to defeat Israel and their attacks on Palestinian groups) and intermittent and long periods of Palestinian mistreatment at Arab hands. Conflict between Arabs and Palestinians has claimed upwards of 10,000 Palestinian lives. This behavior flies in the face of apparent Arab support for the Palestinians.
1) Failure to Integrate Refugees: Many Arab governments would rather watch Palestinians suffer in refugee camps in order to use them as pawns against Israel than to let them integrate into Arab society at large. This leads (necessarily) to profound rage among Palestinians, especially in Lebanon where anti-integration policies are strongest. When the Palestinians have revolted against the treatment they have received, they are put down violently by the army of the country in which the refugee camp is located. One of the worst of these such massacres is the Battles of Nahr el-Bared and Ain el-Helwa in 2007.
Palestinians are entitled to residency and work papers in the countries where they live or in which their UNRWA refugee camps sit. Residency and work papers are not citizenship and this would not impose any requirements on Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, or Egypt to grant citizenship or provide a process of citizenship for Palestinians, but they must be able to make a living and not be forced into perpetual poverty. Unfortunately, the Arab countries have been less than forthcoming with this assistance.
2) Palestinian Militant Organizations: The Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas have been searching almost continuously for countries willing to tolerate their activities in favor of a Palestinian State and opposition to the State of Israel. Since most of these organizations are made up of thugs and espouse violence, the neighborhoods near wherever these organizations set-up shop become very problematic. In addition, there is much international condemnation for these organizations. This leads to the armies of whatever country they have lodged themselves in to demand their departure and attack their positions in that country. One of the most important of these fights was the Jordanian removal of the PLO called Black September.
In Black September, King Hussein decided to violently crush the Palestinian “autonomous” areas in Jordan. The two sides fought a war from September 1970 to July 1971. Estimates of the Palestinian dead are between 300 and 20,000, but typical estimates are around the 15,000 mark, making this event in Jordan more deadly to Palestinians than both Intifadas combined.
3a) Failure to Develop Palestinian Territory: Quite simply, here the Jordanians and Egyptians occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but actively positioned themselves to prevent Palestinian autonomy and self-determination. In the case of Jordan, all West Bank Palestinians became Jordanian citizens. However, Jordan made no overt acts to open up the refugee camps and fully integrate the Palestinian Jordanian refugees into Jordanian society, making the refugees reliant on UNRWA for assistance. Most Palestinian Jordanians made their lives as farmers as Jordan did not invest significantly in modifying the infrastructure of the area. This is startling considering that half of the Jordanian population lived in the West Bank from 1949–1967.
3b) Egypt’s Actions in the Gaza Strip: The Egyptians established the "All-Palestine Government" with a seat in Gaza City on September 22, 1948. The All-Palestine Government was supposed to be the forerunner to an eventual Palestinian State that would entirely replace Israel and occupy all of the former British Mandate. Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, one of the major Arab leaders in the former British Mandate of Palestine was declared President. However, this government was merely a puppet government with no administration, no civil service, no money, and no real army of its own. All of the economic, political, and social decisions were made by the occupying Egyptian military. There was no investment in the Gaza Strip during the All-Palestine Government period and the infrastructure began to crumble. Additionally, since Egypt made no moves to grant Egyptian citizenship to the Palestinians, all Palestinian refugees (whether in camps or not) were dependent on UNRWA prolonging the Palestinian Crisis in the area.
When Israel overran Gaza in the Arab-Israeli War of 1956, the Egyptians relocated the All-Palestine Government's official offices to Cairo, Egypt. When Israel withdrew to the 1949 boundaries in 1957, the All-Palestine government remained in Cairo, showing how its “independence” was just a joke. In 1959, Egypt abolished the All-Palestine Government and brought the Gaza Strip under the United Arab Republic (which would later also include Syria). In this way, the Egyptians proceeded to effect a direct military occupation without actually annexing the region, meaning that Palestinians now were under direct Egyptian military occupation. The situation remained like this from 1959 until Israel's conquest of Gaza in 1967.
Ironically, losing the Gaza Strip in 1967 has not ended Egypt’s military relationship with the region. The military has an effect on the Gaza Strip today by supporting the Israeli blockade of the territory and actively stopping the Bedouins who are trying to smuggle food and weapons into the territory.
The Palestinians have the odd designation as a people unable to assimilate into other cultures. There are global refugee organizations within the US State Dept that covers all refugees in the world and then there is a separate organization for the Palestinians.
Part of any solution is understanding how we got to where we are. So if we can't agree how the situation ended up as it is, how can we solve the problem?
One of the to has a higher level of intolerance that is written into documents, charters, constitutions and even religion.
The Arabs will NEVER accept any plan for peace, period because as I said above, the Palestinians are a useful tool wielded by Arab powers against Israel. Any solution has to begin with the Mullahs in Iran and a culture shift with respect to an understanding of Islamic texts supported by a majority of Muslims, especially those with political and military power.
All I can say to that is that we dropped 2 nukes on Japan and leveled most of Germany, in both cases killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and yet, here we are, with both Germany and Japan.
Why is any perceived wrong by the Jews against Arabs some how irreconcilable? See above.
It's not a "proposal, it's a thought experiment meant to get the reader to decide what might happen. I think most people would agree that Jews and Israel would be wiped out, where the opposite isn't true (as Isreal has had that power for decades and chosen not to).
I agree that Israel isn't entirely in the right. They have their own crimes to answer for.
