...Hoss, many are as indiginous to Palestine as the Jews. Beyond that - does it matter?
They are people and it's all to easy to marginalize them with these sort of arguments...
Collectively... politically, diplomatically, economically, militarily, socially...Palestinian behaviors (
international terrorism beyond their own field of conflict) and intransigence have served to cause the Palestinians to marginalize
themselves; a state of affairs that their adversaries merely play upon for their own purposes;
exactly as the cynical Palestinians
themselves do. As in most things, the Israelis simply do this better than the Palestinians, who seem fated to perpetual comparison as the under-performers in that arena.
...The question to ask is why is it so important to some how make them less worthy of inclusion by asking these sorts of questions?...
This is war. A long-running, hundred-year-long (or better) war, with bursts of relative peace in-between sorties. War is ugly. Brutal. An abomination in the eyes of God, Man and Nature - although the religion practiced by the majority of the Palestinians does not view war with the same condemnatory perspective - another important distinction.
...I realize and understand that but my point is that in 1948 the Arabs living there abandoned the country "until the Jews could be swept into the sea." That act nullified any claim to the land and to the right of return....
I see it in terms of people...
That is your perspective. Others see it in terms of nations or peoples (collectives), rather than 'people' (individuals).
Both perspectives have merit, but matters on a national scale can only be addressed on the macro (nation, or peoples) level, which, of course, is more impersonal. This is difficult for humanitarianism-first types (usually good people) to deal with.
...It doesn't matter if Araft named the people and the land - the people pre-existed the label...
True. Also largely irrelevant, in conflicts between peoples over a narrow slice of land, in which coexistence has proven impossible, and only one will come out the winner.
Fewer than you would like to believe, in the realm of Real World practicalities, in this context.
They abandoned some of those rights when they ran in 1948. They lost other rights when they acceded to Jordanian rule and citizenship in 1949-1950. They lost still more rights when they backed the wrong side in 1967. They weakened what remained through years of intransigence and foolhardy inflexibility and lack of willingness to compromise. They threw away still more as a result of Intifada I and II, and Gaza Wars I and II.
Whatever 'rights' they still have (of an enforceable and 'real' and practical nature) amount to little more than the right to live and breathe and eat and drink.
No longer, practically speaking.
Israel tried for decades to get them to negotiate a viable and sustainable solution for both sides, and Palestinian intransigence sabotaged most such efforts. Although the Israelis do not have a pure, clean record in this respect either, they can demonstrate a history far more inclined to compromise than their adversaries, and, eventually, the Israelis lost their taste for such compromise after 1967.
Still, the Israelis kept at it for another couple of decades, until the era of the Intifadas, with decreasing enthusiasm and hopes for any success, but still hoping against hope that something could still be worked out - almost certain that those hopes were forlorn, but committed to trying, nevertheless.
Israel pretty much gave up on negotiating with the Palestinians after the Intifadas, reaching the conclusion that coexistence was probably now impossible, and - subsequently resurrecting an earlier and harsher Zionist mindset as a survival tactic in light of the impossibility of compromise - has been seizing land ever since, with an eye towards completing the Reconquista of Eretz Yisrael (see the 1922 LoN partition map for a practical and working visual image of what that means).
This is war - a war of peoples and cultures and economics and religion - and the Jews of Israel have already won that war - years ago.
What is left of Rump Palestine - a few scattered, non-contiguous, unsustainable scraps of land, holding an oversized defeated populace - is akin to a chicken that has just had its head cut off.
The headless Palestinian chicken runs and flops about the barnyard, spraying blood from its open neck wound, flapping its wings, kicking up a great deal of dust, and making a bloody mess of things, to no useful purpose. It simply doesn't realize that it's dead yet. Eventually, it has the decency to stop running, it lays down, and goes quiet. A blessing.
Any remaining 'rights' that the Palestinians have are largely limited to the right to live, breath, eat, drink and sleep - to survive - to live. Any other rights related to land-holdings and remaining in-place are largely of a paper-only nature, quickly evaporating into nothingness, unenforceable, and largely meaningless in the practical world, while they remain there.
There is too much bloody history between the Jews of Israel and the Muslims of Rump Palestine, for any practical person with a lick of common sense, to ever expect the Israeli Lion and the Palestinian Bobcat to lie down next to each other and to live in peace forevermore. That may have been possible in 1948. It is now perceived as an absolute impossibility by many people.
And, if they cannot be counted-upon to live peacefully side-by-side - if we would otherwise condemn them to perpetual warfare - then the stronger side is naturally going to take steps to ensure that
ITS descendants are not condemned to such a fate. That means pushing the other side out, doesn't it? Highly unattractive, of course, but logical, and, from their perspective, absolutely necessary, to long-term peace, and even necessary to long-term survival. Not optional, but necessary.
It's an damned ugly proposition, but, from the Israeli perspective, there is, quite probably, no other way to cut the Gordian Knot in the long run - pretty much everything else has already been tried, one or more times, the Palestinians have shown themselves time-and-again to be treacherous, lying negotiating partners - even while the Israelis were still in
Honest Compromise Mode prior to 1967 and the Intifadas beginning in the 1980s - and what few options remain on the table would compromise Israel and its security, to an unsustainable, unacceptable degree.
When you run out of options, you harden your heart, and begin taking more extreme measures. While I seriously doubt that the Israelis have it in them to undertake the actual slaughter of the populations inside what's left of Rump Palestine, the only alternative may end-up being Expulsion, as ugly as that is, and the Devil take the hindmost. And, if not en masse, then bit by bit, as seems to have already been unfolding for some years now.
...Now, I'm not saying the right of return is an option any more, I don't think so...
Agreed.
Right of Return is an anachronistic fantasy, with an expiration date of June 5-10, 1967.
Trouble is, a great many so-called 'Palestinians' continue to delude themselves that this is a possibility, and refuse to accept anything less, and continue to fight for that.
Reminds me of the political and militancy doings of the 'Biafra' ruckus of the 1967-1970 timeframe, in some ways. A failed state wannabe that never had enough muscle to set up for themselves; a joke, albeit gallows humor; a sick, sad 'joke'.
We can see that impractical mindset right here - on this board system - in the writings of several of our colleagues - who like to pretend that old Ottoman Turk or British Mandate legal standings and status have any bearing whatsoever in connection with land and rights that changed hands as the result of warfare in the late 1940s and beyond, or who like to amuse themselves and waste their time bemoaning the unenforceable nature of a variety of UN resolutions arranged to favor Arab interests to the prejudice of Israel.
The Right of Return is as dead as Julius Caesar.
...But they have a right to the West Bank...
This (the end-game in the long-running Israel-Palestine conflict) will determine that.
And, in truth, the game is already over.
Israel has won.
The victors in a war dictate terms, not the losers.
And, like a farmer, trying to get the headless chicken to lie down, the Israelis are grabbing an acre at a time, and a city block at a time, and re-shaping The Barrier as they go - to nudge the headless chicken to realize that it's dead, and to stop - in this case, to pack-up and leave.
Is that a dirty deal?
Well, yeah.
But, from the Israeli perspective, after years and years of trying to negotiate and to compromise, and getting suicide bombs and rockets and death and violence directed upon them for their troubles, the Israelis have long-since given up on even trying (seriously, anyway) - and have reached the sad, correct conclusion that the Palestinians have to go.
If they can simply force them into Jordan and Lebanon and Egypt, that would be best, rather than resort to more extreme measures.
A touch of humanitarianism on their part, in the midst of something rather distasteful (slow expulsion) that the intransigent Palestinians have forced them into.
...and the constant attempt to delegitimize them as a people who have rights...
There's not much of a 'people' left to fuss over, at this point, and not much land to fuss over, either.
As to attempts to 'de-legitimize' them, well, this is war, and war is an ugly thing; one can hardly conduct - much less win - a war, without positioning your enemy as less 'good' or less 'legitimate' then yourselves. Did we (the US) view the Germans or Japanese as 'legitimate' - just silly and wrong-headed - when we fought to the death in 1941-1945? No.
...is as evil as those who insist Jews should just go back to Europe...
War is, indeed, an evil thing, and the hardening of one's heart, in order to be able to conduct - and win - a war, is not a pretty thing.
Perhaps. But, I confess, I do find myself wondering. One need look no further than the Shrinking Map of Palestine - served up with variations by a number of Palestinian propaganda websites - to see that this may not be true, after all - to see that that very thing - expulsion, fast or slow - is long-since underway, and fairly close to completion.
But, I, like everyone else here, lack a crystal ball, and cannot say, for certain.
...there must be a just solution that recognizes and respects the shared humanity and needs of both peoples...
That is a just and admirable goal.
I also believe that such a solution is now nearly - or completely - impossible - and highly unlikely to materialize, on this plane of existence in which we live.
If I'm wrong - and we can only hope that I am, for the sake of everyone concerned - then I"m wrong, and the world eventually sees Peace in that long-troubled region.
But, unfortunately, I don't think that I am.
And if I'm right, then, the stronger of the two sides will control what happens next.
If the weaker Palestinian side cannot be trusted to live in Peace alongside its Israeli-Jewish neighbor, then the Palestinians will have to go.
If the Palestinians have to go, then there are one of two ways in which that will happen.
1. the Palestinians will die
2. the Palestinians will be expelled - en masse, or slowly, bit by bit
Within the narrow domain of those two very nasty choices, which is preferable?
The option in which they die-off - or the option in which they are still alive, at the end of the sequence?
If there is nothing left on the table but (1) and (2) above - I choose (2), myself; feeling terrible about the interrupted lives and the waste of decades of strife, but rejoicing in the Fresh Start that those displaced people can eventually aspire to. Better than rotting in refugee camps and run-down refugee-like towns for another 66 years or more.
It may come to pass, that we would be better off, as a collective of United Nations, to arrange for the humane, safe re-location of the so-called Palestinians - sending some of them to country A and B and C and D - whomever is willing to take-in a few hundred thousand - and to help them to get that Fresh Start - rather than leaving them rot in-place.
That would (a) finalize Israel's boundaries as Eretz Yisrael - the most they've ever hoped for, (b) get the Palestinians out of the way of Israel, (c) get the Palestinians out of harms' way, (d) split them up into a handful of new immigrant populations in different countries, thereby defusing their militancy, (e) compensate the Palestinians for their troubles and give them a fresh start at happier lives someplace else, and (f) bring Peace to that troubled region, now that the Losing Side has cleared-off and has ceased hostilities.
Which is more humane... to leave them rotting in-place, or to become pro-active on their behalf, in a manner acceptable to the victors in that war and the controllers of that land?
...it's the constant dehumanizing that I object to.
Yes. A necessary evil, while conducting a war, and on the road to winning a war. Since time immemorial. Even in connection with long-running, century-long wars.
When one choose a side in a war, one commits to portraying the Enemy as less (less desirable, less right, less honorable, less good) than one's own side. It was the same 5000 years ago. It will be the same 5000 years in the future, if we haven't managed to curb our aggressive natures by then or destroyed ourselves.
To portray war - and its arguing amongst those supporting different sides - as anything else, may arguably be viewed as delusional, or, more kindly, simply fooling one's self.
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< whew... turns off
running-off-at-the-keyboard switch in the brain, goes for morning coffee >
