1) If the land belongs to those who were there "first" then it undeniably belongs to the Jews.
I too am an atheist and I don't accept any 3000 year old claims of any kind by either side. While I have a sentimental attachment to my native Scotland, I have no claim to the place, even though my ancestors were expelled from there a mere 200 years ago. I would have no idea where to find my ancestral home and against who to claim a claim. As for Jews in Palestine, it is not even clear if these white Europeans have an ancestral home there. If they do, it is obvious that they have no idea on what piece of ground it might be found.
The Arabs lived in Palestine/Israel for many generations. They built houses, orchards, villages. It was their land. Many of the people whose land was stolen are still alive.
2) The Jews didn't steal the land, they bought it rightfully.
This statement is simply false. Most of Israel is land which was stolen from the Arabs. Less than 10% was actually paid for. And even this was obtained through the process of feudal clearances - ethnic cleansing. Jewish agencies would buy feudal holdings from the landlord and run the peasants off the land. The tension between Arab and Jew before partition was directly attributable to this process.
3) The Arabs were offered statehood in 1948. They rejected it.
The Arabs were told that their homeland would be partitioned. Jews represented one third of the population and owned about 7% of the land. Despite this, the Arabs were offered a state consisting of 43% of the area of Mandate Palestine. Wouldn't you reject this "offer"?
Then they attacked Israel.
In the months leading up to partition, Jewish terrorists cleared Arabs out of much of Palestine in a systematic attempt to obtain more of the land. When the British finally left, surrounding Arab states attacked. When the smoke finally cleared Israel consisted of 78% of the land and 700,000 Arabs were refugees. While there is fault on both sides, the facts are that the Arabs were offered a bad deal in the beginning and became refugees when they attempted to object.
Over the next 50 years, Israel has repeatedly ignored Arab attempts to reclaim the land stolen in 1948 or even to offer compensation. Unsurprisingly, this has caused some tension between Israelis and Arabs. In 1967, Israel used this tension as a pretext to invade and conquer the rest of Mandate Palestine. Since then, it has pursued a policy of state-supported colonization.
4) Not all Palestinians are refugees, about 1,000,000 have Israeli citizenship.
Who cares? Israeli treatment of those Arabs who have citizenship is decent (although not perfect). But the question is about the 4,000,000 who are refugees or who live under military rule.
5) Those who are refugees have as much claim to Jordanian citizenship (more really) than to Israeli. But they don't want it and Jordan doesn't want them. Why? Why would they rather be refugees in Israel than citizens in Jordan?
Wrong. The land they were expelled from was Isreal, not Jordan. The state which stole their land was Israel, not Jordan.
Stop repeating this lie. Vast bulk of the land that Israel was made from was owned by the Ottomans then kept by the British under the Palestinian Mandate. Was not owned by landlords.
This is before the Arabs even attacked them in 1948 and there was the first Arab war on Israel.
Liar. Here is another refutation. And by the way, the only "ranting" I see here is you. I've presented numerous facts througout these posts. Here is more to expose your lies:
Other instances of purchased land by the Jews in the Mandate. Arab money lenders foreclosing on fellaheen. Jews purchased the land and paid the debts of the fellaheen (Arieh L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession (1984), p. 207):
The fellaheen of Taiyibe, Tira, Tamra and Na'ura had mortaged their lands to money lenders, mostly the family of Abd el-Hadi. Gradually the mortagagees acquired title to large portions of the land. The situation became critical. The fellaheen were unable to repay their loans and there was an immediate danger that they would lose all their land. In order to get free of the oppressive moneylenders they sought to sell part of their holding, a tract of 50,000 dunam.Many of the landowners in the Mandate who sold land to the Jews were not even "Palestinians". Ex: (Avneri, p. 201)
They turned to Hankin and offered to sell the land to the Jewish National Fund, if it would undertake to pay their debts. The Jewish National Fund bought these lands during the years 1936-39. The fellaheen escaped the embrace of the moneylenders...
Most of the land in the Hills of Naftali was the property of absentee owners, residents of Syria and Lebanon. In March 1940 Nahmani made a survey of the holdings of landowners who were not Palestinian citizens. He found they owned a total of 83,467 dunam in the Districts of Safed and Tiberias, 26,000 dunam in the Safed District and 7,000 dunam in the Tiberias District were owned by Circassians, Druse, Iranians and Germans. None of these landowners were citizens of Palestine. .....Ahmed Mardini, a Kurd from Damascus, owned 2,200 dunam; Hassan Farah, a Christian from Marj Iyun, owned 2,000 dunam; and 520 dunam were owned by Abdullah Khuri and the heirs of Shahadrin Khuri, all of whom were from Lebanon...The village of Malkiya, comprising 765 dunam, was owned by the heirs of Hussein Sulayman Buza, Moslem Kurds living in Damascus, and was sold to the Jewish National Fund....[etc.]Avneri gives one example of the benefit the Jews brought to the land in purchasing these tracts of land (p. 207-08)
The P.I.C.A. [Jewish Agency involved in land puchases] owned 2,354 dunam in the village of Tira. It had bought the land many years previously, but had never extablished a Jewish settlement there, and it was being worked by tenant farmers. In 1946 the Jewish National Fund bought the land and undertook to indemnify the tenant farmers. It paid them LP. 6,097 as a compensation and also bought their houses and adjoining gardens for an additional LP. 9,548. The fellaheen who remained in Tira as neighbors to the Jewish settlers gained a further major benefit when malaria was eradicated from the area. Two years before the land was bought in Tira, Dr. Sliternik, the head of the Jewish Agency's Health Department, visited the village with a view to planning for the eradication of the disease. He found that..."almost all the villagers suffered from malaria....The danger is redoubled because of the many swamps in the area, over which we have no control or supervision...." Once the tract was bought the swamps were drained, and the Jewish and Arab settlements were freed from the disease.Many moderate Arabs (finally silenced after the Mufti led Islamic riots of 1936-39) sold the land to the Jews despite the hypocritical threats of other pan-Arab nationalists. Ex.: (Avneri, p. 209):
The fellaheen of the above-mentioned villages had lived on the land for many generations and had struck roots in the villages. Not so with the fellaheen of the Mugrabi villages. Half their lands were owned by emirs, descendants of exiles who had accompanied Abd el-Kader, who for the most part were living in Syria.
The Fahum family of Nazareth sold the Fund [Jewish Nationalist Fund] a 3,000-dunam tract of land "in fee simple and free of tenant farmers." The head of the family, Yussuf Fahum, who was mayor of Nazareth for a time, sold his land despite terrorist threats. According to the Jewish National Fund functionaries who dealt with him, he was a proud man and he despised the hypocritical Arab public figures who sold land to Jews in secret and then gave vent to extreme nationalist utterances. He effected the sale openly and publicly without resorting to intermediaries or fictive owners.
For many years, the moshava Hadera, whose lands had been bought in 1891, was not troubled by land disputes and by claims of displaced people. In 1929, the neighboring Arabs began filing claims on lands that the moshava, had allegedly stolen from them. The Arabs from Fuqara filed a claim for 5,000 dunam; those from Arab ed-Demair claimed 150 dunam; and the Nufeiat Arabs seized a tract of 1,200 dunam. The latter claimed that the land belonged to them, and they were adamant in their refusal to leave.Another methodology of the Arabs, in their attempt to rewrite history on the ground and extort the land from the Jews would occur, especially in Urban areas, when the rich Urban Arab absentee landlords would sell land to the Jews. What occurred was that the Arabs would sell the land in legitimate transactions to the Jews and the Arab landlord would then encourage and foment other Arabs to attack the Jews with the hopeful expectation the Jews would vacate the newly purchased land. Avneri describes the typical scenario (p.179):
The claims of the Fuqara and el-Damair Arabs were disallowed in court. The trial on the claim of the Nufeiat Bedouins was held on July 24-31, 1930. The Court found against them. They appealed, and a Court of Appeals with A. Plunkett, 'Ali Hasne Effendi and A. De Frites as judges heard the case. Judgment was rendered in Nablus on December 5, 1930 denying the appeal. A copy of the decision was forwarded to the Colonial Office, which received ongoing information on the situation in the country in general, and especially on the cases before the Land Court.
The Nufeiat Bedouins, according to the P.E.F. Map of 1878, were totally new to the area north of Hadera - they had been encamped south of the Wadi Hawarith. Nevertheless they persisted in claiming that the land sold in 1891 belonged to them. The Bedouins might have abandoned their claim, had it not been for the support of the Waqf and the Supreme Muslim Council [political Islamic organs during the British Mandate].
The Arabs never charged that the Jewish urban community in any way interfered with the development of the Arab towns or that it displaced Arabs from the existing towns. The reason no such charge was made was that the city plots sold to the Jews were sold by rich urban Arabs, who were often themselves the spokesmen of the Arab nationalist movement. Some had even organized the gangs of hoodlums who attacked the Jewish quarters in the cities - the very sections which they themselves had sold to the Jews.Many times the Arabs simply did not respect the rule of law and blatantly flouted it notwithstanding the legitimate land purchases by the Jews. Example (p. 188):
The Government had sold land in Ashrafiya to some prominent Arab families who could prove, as it were, that they had previously owned the land in the area. In 1929 the P.I.C.A. (Jewish Committee involved in land purchasing) bought 2,000 dunam of land from these families. The Jewish National Fund acquired an additional 4,300 dunam. During the period of the riots [1936-39 Grand Mufti led Arab Islamic riots against Jews, British, and moderate Arabs] local Arabs seized theses tracts of land and held them. In 1940, after the seige on Jewish settlements had been lifted, the P.I.C.A. and the Jewish National Fund sought to reassert their lawful ownership. The Arab squatters made various claims to title and to alleged rights in the real property. Their claims were heard, as was customary, in the land court, and were all disallowed. The Jews, pursuant to the Court's finding, sought to plow the lands, but the Arabs did all they could to hinder them and refused to leave the area in dispute.The beneficiaries to State owned land from the British, were largely the Arabs. The British had sold scant State owned land to the Jews which clearly was in abrogation of Article 6 of the Mandate. However, to give you an idea of how the Arabs squandered a lot of this land and were unable, unlike the Jews, to bring life from the land, in the end giving up and selling the land to the Jews, Avneri gives one example (pp. 187-188):
The Arab National Company of Nablus was one of the beneficiaries of the Government's generous land grants in the Beit-Shean Valley. It received a tract of 1,200 dunam for intensive cultivation, to serve as a model for the Bedouins in the Valley. At the same time that the Arab leadership was carrying on its violent struggle against the Jews, other Arab leaders sought to evolve a constructive policy, which would not only prevent the sale of land to Jews but would improve the lot of the fellah as well. Thus the Arab People's Fund and the Arab National Company provided the fellaheen with instructors to teach them how to grow bananas. The crops failed. The fellaheen, on the advice of their instructors, uprooted the bananas and planted citrus goves, and also tried to raise vegetables. These projects failed as well. In the end these lands were sold to the Jewish Nationa Fund.
More lies. Your Arab friends attacked the Jews after the Partition Resolution 181 on Nov. 29, 1947. The Arabs were the sine qua non of this conflict.Now look who started the violence against the Jews. Look closely at you history.
The following from Benny Morris (anti-Zionist himself who can't dispute the unequivocal and fundamental pan-Arab Islamic aggression), The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-49 (1987) at pages, 29ff.:
"The United Nations General Assembly vote of 29 November 1947, which supported the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab, prompted Arab attacks and sniping against Jewish passers-by in the big towns, and on Jewish traffic on the roads, the following day.The AHC (Arab High Committee), which completely rejected Partition, declared a three-day general strike, beginning on 1 December, thus releasing the Arab urban masses for action. On 2 December an Arab mob, unobstructed by British security forces, stormed through the Jewish commercial center of Jerusalem, looting and burning shops and attacking Jews. Arab and Jewish snipers exchanged fire in Haifa and attacks were launched on the neighbourhoods in Tel Aviv which adjoined Jaffa and its suburbs...As in 1936, National Committees were set up in Arab towns to direct the struggle in each locality....Traffic to and from the Jewish neighbourhoods and towns was often interdicted, prompting Jewish retaliatory strikes.
In January 1948, in line with Arab League resolutions in December 1947 supporting indirect intervention, Arab volunteers (some of them ex-soldiers), spearheaded by the battalions of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA), began to move into the country. The first full-scale Arab attacks on Jewish settlements were launched with the aim of destruction and conquest-on Kfar Szol (9-10 January), Kfar Uriah (11 January) and the Ezion Bloc (14 January)....In the countryside, the Arabs gained the upper hand in their efforts to block the roads between the main Jewish population centers: the introduction by the Haganah in January-February of escorted convoys was matched in March by improved Arab tactics and increased firepower, which, in a series of major ambushes of the Khulda, Nabi Daniel and Yechiam convoys, managed to destroy most of the Yishuv's armoured truck fleet.
The defeats of March and the prospect of invasion of the emergent Jewish State by regular Arab armies prompted the Haganah's switch in April to the strategic offensive. By then, the Arab exodus from Palestine had begun. By February-March 1948, some 75,000 Arabs, mostly from the urban upper and middle classes of Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem, and from villages around Jerusalem and in the Coastal Plain, had fled to Arab centers to the east, such as Nazareth and Nablus, or out of the country."
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So you see your Arab Islamic friends started the conflict and the exodus of Arabs occurred BECAUSE of their violence in rejecting Resolution 181.
"Tension?" and "Pretext?" hahaha. The Arabs did the following to initiate the 6 Day War on June 5, 1967:
(1) On May 22,Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran to all Israeli shipping. The blockade cut-off Israel's supply route to Asia and stopped all oil from Iran which was Israel's main supply of oil.
(2) On May 18, Egypt ordered the UN Emergency Force, which was in the Sinai as a peackeeping entity since 1956, out of the Sinai.
(3) On May 15, Egyptian troops began moving into the Sinai.
(4) Both Nasser (Egypt), Assad (Syria) and Aref of Iraq in several speeches indicated that the Arab forces were ready to destroy Israel.
(5)Assad moved his forces into the Golan.
Yeah, you're really on to your history.
Ditto for me and Ireland. But Jewish identity is somewhat different, it can't really be compared to an identity based purely on location. It's based on a combination of location, bloodline, faith, and tradition. If this means nothing to you, fine, but ignoring this puts us in the position of having to say, "Okay, whoever had the land when I came upon the situation is the one who has rightful claim." It's an ahistorical approach, and tempting because it's more simple, but not necessarily right.
(The Jews didn't steal the land, they bought it rightfully.)
This statement is simply false. Most of Israel is land which was stolen from the Arabs.
When exactly, and how? Did Israeli armies steal it from the Ottoman Empire? No, the Brits won it. Did Israeli armies steal it from the Brits? No, the Brits and the UN gave it to them. Where along this process EXACTLY, and HOW was it stolen?
Less than 10% was actually paid for.
Well, I've heard up to 80% of the land is uninhabitable desert anyway. So if only about 20% is arable, and the Jews bought 10%.... see where I'm going?
And even this was obtained through the process of feudal clearances - ethnic cleansing. Jewish agencies would buy feudal holdings from the landlord and run the peasants off the land.
Why should squatters have more rights than those who rightfully own the land and pay taxes on it?
The tension between Arab and Jew before partition was directly attributable to this process.
"Tension"? When Arabs kill Jews, it's "tension" and when Jews kill Arabs, it's "ethnic cleansing."
The Arabs were told that their homeland would be partitioned. Jews represented one third of the population and owned about 7% of the land. Despite this, the Arabs were offered a state consisting of 43% of the area of Mandate Palestine. Wouldn't you reject this "offer"?
Again, the majority of this land is uninhabitable. Otherwise, doesn't it seem strange that 33% of the population would be stacked up on 7% of the land? This presentation is very misleading.
When the smoke finally cleared Israel consisted of 78% of the land and 700,000 Arabs were refugees.
They went to Jordan. When they came back, presumably there was no way of knowing who really had lost land and who was simply pouring into Israel because the laws there are less restrictive than laws in Muslim theocracies. As a matter of fact, they can submit claims and those claims are investigated. I've heard up to 20,000 have been settled with Arabs getting land or money to compensate for it.
this has caused some tension between Israelis and Arabs. In 1967, Israel used this tension as a pretext to invade and conquer the rest of Mandate Palestine.
"Tension" again. Yes, I suppose Egyptian blockades cutting off their shipping could be called "tension." Most countries call it an act of war, though.
(Not all Palestinians are refugees, about 1,000,000 have Israeli citizenship.)
Who cares? Israeli treatment of those Arabs who have citizenship is decent (although not perfect). But the question is about the 4,000,000 who are refugees or who live under military rule.
Well, I care! It shows me that despite what you say, Jews are NOT pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing. It shows me that Israelis are indeed willing to coexist with Palestinians, even allow them to participate in the country they have built for themselves. It shows a great deal of trust, good will, and good intentions toward people who have demonstrated such a willingness to annihilate them. I mean, toward people who have financed so much "tension."
Wrong. The land they were expelled from was Isreal, not Jordan. The state which stole their land was Israel, not Jordan.
Well, it was all considered one chunk pre-1948, and the West Bank was Jordan's territory, if I remember correctly.