Duruznik said:
3. Although we DO have a legitimate claim here, so do the Palestinians. While we were technically here first, we were gone for nearly 2,000 years. In this time, the Palestinians moved in. They have lived here ever since, and rightfully view this place as their ancestral home.
I Would strongly question the legitimacy of a 2000 year old claim. For instance I bet the Indians would be quite annoyed of all the people who were said to have emigrated from there(initially, thousands of years ago) suddenly return to India and demand their own nation there. If you emigrate from an area and stay away for 2000 years you lose all legitimate claims to it(feels quite implicit, or else we will have one hell of a time trying to sort out who owns what land in Europe).
Duruznik said:
4. We DID settle here for around 60 years BEFORE 1948 (starting with the first wave of immigrants in 1882). We LEGALLY purchased land from the Turkish lords and later from the British mandate. The places where we were settled in higher concentrations were given to us in 1947 by the U.N., while the rest was given to the Palestinians.
At this point, both sides had an internal argument: there were factions (on both sides) that demanded that they simply seize the entire land. On our side, David Ben Gurion silenced these claims, claiming that this was better than nothing. The Palestinians however, decided that they did not agree with the U.N. proposal. When the British mandate left in 1948, we hastily declared independence. The Palestinians attacked the next day.
In this war, and in others, we captured land as SPOILS OF WAR, wars that we usually did not wish for in the first place, but the Palestinians had other ideas. HOWEVER, we DID EXPEL locals from their ancestral homes in 1948 and n 1967. This cannot be justified, but many of these people have ill intent towards Israel, so we can't just let them in. See the problem?
Quite a few points are raised here and many of them good. Firstly the legality of the purchased land can be questioned(It was part of colonial times where the colonial power did what they wished without consulting the local people- they would have no hesitation to sell Palestinian land to an Israeli without consulting the Palestinians living there). Then again I am willing to concede that was in accordance to the laws of the time, as draconian as they were, and discussing wrongs conducted by Ottoman or British overlords 100 years past is no constructive way of solving the argument.
I will also admit that the Arab states were wrong in initiating a war in 1947(even though to be fair Israel received more land in the area than they should have, if population distripution was considered).
Yet this does not change the basic premises that the entire international system is built on mainly no spoils of war. Israel had no right to violate the UN resolution and take the land promised to the Palestinians regardless of how the Palestinians acted. This is not disputed land we are talking about; it is Palestinian land. I would be the first to concede that Israel had the right to occupy the land in order to occupy the land during the war to defend itself. After the conflict ended they should however have granted the land back to the Palestinians rather then annex it. I'm guessing if anyone demanded the return to the 1948 borders(the legal borders of Israel) Israel would instinctly refuse.
Duruznik said:
5. Palestinian terrorists have repeatedly attacked us during cease-fires, and we've lost many CIVILIANS. They in turn used Palestinian civilians as human shields, and we have, more than once, killed Palestinian civilians in our attempts to retaliate. Frankly, I think that we've been somewhat clumsy in our retaliations, especially during the recent Gaza operation, and there have been many accusations on our side of war crimes. Yes, we've over-reacted, but also many accusations that Hamas make are, indeed, false.
Indeed I will in no way defend Hamas(they are justly considered a terrorist group). Yet it remains to be said that the amount of Israelis Hamas kills is negligable compared to the thousands of civilians the Israeli army slaughters whenever it feels like bombing one of its neighbouring countries. Moreover it isn't Hamas that is accusing Israel of committing atrocities it is groups such as Human rights watch and Amnesty International whom accuse the Israel army of crimes such as:
Using Palestinians as Human shields during house to house fighting.
Gunning down civilians in the open waving white flags(that civilians use white flags indeed shows how degenerate the fighting is as normally civilians are to be ignored while surrendering soldiers are supposed to use white flags[and its a war crime to mow them down as well]).
While it is true that you cannot have war without war crimes(that is individual soldiers will always act with unforgivable brutality during war), Israel's tendency to ignore all excesses by its own Soldiers by obstinately claiming it to be the best behaved army in the world is in itself a war crime, committed by the leaders of the nation.
Moreover Hamas exists because of the hatred to Israel. The stronger Palestinian hatred towards Israel is, the stronger Hamas will be. The best way to get people to hate you is to kill their friends or family. This means that for every civilian Israel kills it strengthens Hamas. Now Israel generally kills several civilians for every Hamas member it claims to have killed, meaning I would arque by waging war against Hamas in such a fashion that it strengthens it.
Duruznik said:
7. What the world sees as illegal settlements, we see in a slightly different light:
A) Small settlements that were part of a right-wing government plan some 30-odd years ago. These settlements are in land privately owned by Palestinians, and many have, or are, being dismantled. Others, however, are not, and I view this as a shame. Many of these places are full of extremist right-wingers, who attack government officials who come to make reports.
B) The larger, older settlements that have dozens of thousands of citizens. These are not on private Palestinian land, rather on public territory inside the disputed regions. These are practically impossible to take apart; where would we put the tens of thousands of refugees? We don't have that much land to begin with...
Hmm I have already explained why this isn't disputed land because legally there is no dispute; much of the land of what is now considered Israel is Palestinian land-in the west bank you might dispute whether it is Jordanian or Palestinian-but it defiantly isn't Israeli.
Then again considering that there are around 4 million Palestinian refugees waiting to return to the land the Israelis drove them away from, I would say that some thousand refugees seems like a comparable small sacrifice on part of the Israelis especially as it is the country with the best economy to support refugees. Moreover the argument that the Israelis need the land is very weak. Initially there weren't that many jews living in Israel, but masses were encouraged to move there. Hence the Israelis have basically brought people from all four corners of the world to settle in Israel then start illegally annexing land from their Neighbours claiming they need more space.
In conclusion I would say that whenever there is a debate it seems that the Palestinian core demands are so reasonable, generous even. So they want a separate state in Gaza and the West Bank relinquishing all the land that the UN originally granted them which Israel conquered. They also want refugees driven from their home to be allowed to return. Once again a very reasonable demand(indeed the right for refugees to return has always been one of the staples in international law). Israel should stop trying to snatch parts of the west bank and Jerusalem and realise that the Palestinians are basically giving them the land that the Palestinians were initially promised.
