Originally Posted by Culpeper
There is virtually no real historical arguement that supports this contentions. Tom Odom is right. He is not coming at it from a pre-determined position. Palestine is much older than many give history credit for. Arabic/Aramaic for Palestine is Filistine (historically now the Gaza strip) ... In fact the Persians named the whole place Philaestina which incorported old Filistin, Judea and Samaria.
Palestine didn't belong to the nations that were trying to destroy Israe. Remember those "Arab" lands were held together under the Ottman empire until WWI... the British and French drew the false lines of what is now Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, etc... so don't blame the locals for herding sheep and fishing and had dotted lines imposed on them (just like the Iraqis!). Until the Balfour Declaration in 1917 these people all lived together from the iron age, through the Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Abassids, the Europeans Crusades (who killed Jews and Moslems with equal delight) and the Ottomans who came in the 16th century.
Hey... arguing historically that Jews once had a kingdom there in 600 BC and they hold now the right to kill anybody who objects or who had liuved on that land in the intervening 2600 years is like arguing the Serbs should get an empire and oppress a million Moslems because they lost a battle in Kosovo 600 years ago. However hsitory has favored Israel and they now have a nice, prosperous land with that horrible Maccabe beer.
Facts as they exist now: Israel is a defacto Jewish state. Done. Not going away. But in 1967 they didn't really face the threat they made us all believe ... -on paper maybe but not actually in the field which is why they won so quickly. The Arabs were a rhetoric-based "aggressive Arab force"... the core of the Egyptian Army was mainly in Yemen at the time, so it was just bluster. Israel doesn't do bluster well. Blitzed the nations around them to disarm them and took what they could and ended the threat... until 1973. It took Egypt/Syria invading to show they they could be defeated militarily and so Camp David led them to make nice with their neighbors Egypt and Jordan.
However, the West Bank and Gaza they are occupied in 1967 is and shall remain the space of the decendants of the locals who have always lived there ... they are now referred to as Palestinians, both Moslems and Christians. Palestinians/Druze and Hashemite bedouins living in Israel are called Arab Citizens of Israel. In fact so many Arab Jews emigrated to Israel from Arab nations (Yemenis, Persians, Jordanians, Syrians, Moroccans, Kurds, Palestinains, Iraqis, Saudis, Egyptians, etc) they are called Mizrahi Jews- ... they constitute 35-40% of the population. So are we talking about people, nations or religion?
Its not about which position you come from its about what the facts of the matter are. I grew up Catholic in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood and Hebrew & Yiddish were my first foreign langauges, but as an American Arabist and geo-political realist one can't take sides even if one likes Israel, you gotta look for a solution for the 9 million Palestinians. Its only fair and it could solve numerous regional and global political problems for all of us.
Israel knows it cannot keep up the occupation. A free, democratic, non-HAMAS run Palestine (because Israel isolating Arafat and the moderates was a HUGE strategic mistake... they gave Palestine to HAMAS) is what we are all after. Israel can use the manpower for industry and Agriculture and Palestinians can use the money for TVs, Coke and advanced university degrees which is what they are known for ... they are the most educated people in the Middle East.
However, if you oppress a people long enough (with 75% male unemployment) they revolt. Ask the Romans about the Zealots and their group the al-Sikariat or better yet ask the British about the Stern Gang and Irgun terrorist groups. Even Arafat admired them as nationalist fighters and modeled the PLO after them.
Unfortunately its all fact... how one chooses to interpret those facts is where we get conflict and disagreement, but the facts remain.
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