this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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Palestine is recognised as a state by huge portions of the world. While, yes, it wasn't a state in the history of the region, the Palestinian people lived in the region under British and formerly Ottoman rule. Israeli settlers haven't taken land from the state of Palestine, but they have taken it from the people who have lived in Palestine since the 7th century.
This is just the same argument with different words. They took land from Egyptians and Jordanians when they won the war. There were no "Palestinian people" as any sort of political bloc, prior to 1967.
If the Palestinian people want their own county, they should take one of the many deals they've been offered to have their own country.
I'm not talking about the Gaza strip, I'm talking about the area that was once Mandatory Palestine. That land was conquered by the British during the fall of the Ottoman empire, and subsequently taken over to become (most of) what is now Israel and Palestine. Before the Mandate, you're right that Palestine as an idea didn't exist, but ther were still people there - most of them Arabs, as had been the case for a very long time before Britain invaded and allowed settlers in. Perhaps the Arabs living in Mandatory Palestine should have taken the "deal" offered them by the UN in 1947, but can you blame them? As far as they were concerned their home had been conquered by a colonial power, settlers had arrived from overseas, and now the UN wanted to slice Palestine in two and give half to the settlers! Since then, to the people who have been displaced, I imagine every new deal just seems like they're being hemmed further into a corner. I understand why they wouldn't accept, even though personally I agree that, at some point, they should have - much bloodshed would have been avoided.
Their home has already been conquered, several thousand years prior, and the British did not colonize the area.
Sorry who's home was conquered when? The British Empire might not have colonised Palestine but they did conquer it and allow settlers in with the intention of forming a state for the Jews.
The Ottoman Empire conquered the area from the empire that existed before them, who conquered it from an empire that existed before them, all the way back to prehistory
Roughly it's,
There was never any political entity known as Palestine until Israel sought to create one.
I never intended to disagree with that, but my point was that just because the nation of Palestine didn't exist 500 years ago does not mean that the people who today we call the Palestinians hold no claim to the land.
And it certainly doesn't mean that Israel has a claim to it, does it? There was no State of Israel before 1948, either, what claim did they have to it?
It didn't exist ever.
Israel successfully defended their claim through war, which is ultimately the only way that matters.
War is the only way that matters! Small consolation to the colonised and conquered. Do we not aim to hold ourselves to higher standards in the modern age? Imagine if our world leaders decided that the only thing that mattered is defending land through war!
I don't have to imagine. This is literally every country on the planet.
Things that make you sad can be, and often are, true.
Clearly they don't, otherwise we wouldn't have anyone trying to mediate conflicts, anyone calling for ceasefire in Gaza. Do we just accept Russia invading Ukraine? If Russia flattened the country and took over, do you think that would be justified? Don't get me wrong, I don't think there would be a procession of countries willing to invade and take it back, but that isn't because Russia would have claimed the land, it would be because they fear for their own people's lives.
Why, if you think every country in the world is only respecting borders because of military power, doesn't the US just take over? They certainly have tje military power to back up an invasion of almost any country on the planet.