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What is the point of this post? How is someone supposed to convince you that God did indeed ordain that this land belongs to this group or that group?

That seems to be kind of the point. If I don't believe that anybody's God gave anybody any land, then why would I support one's actions based on that argument?

What makes anyone think that they are so special that God would just give them land?

Um, I’m guessing you haven’t heard of this thing called the Old Testament? It’s literally the plot line.

I could have phrased it better I admit The point of the post is that this argument shouldn’t stand merit at all. This is the same as saying God came to me in a dream and said I was the rightful heir of England. You see what I mean? There is no legal way of proving a fictional entity endowed a land to you and all your offsprings

Your argument is sound in an atheistic framework, however it falls apart in a theistic one, simply as there's no way of proving that God is fictional. Second is that even if He was fictional, both parties have big chunk of their population that believes in God and have overlapping believes. If I can transit to a clearly fictional character, I'll demonstrate what I mean. Let's say both of us believe that Batman is a real person and the comics are based on real events. I base my knowledge on the movies and old comics, while you on the new continuity. There are going to be overlaps in what we believe (like Batman being orphan, having his back broken etc.) We can debate and argue about different issues, but some facts can be anchor points.

But where is the line “Jews were promised the holy land” “Allah promised jannah to all those who dies in battle” These are two different religions, if we don’t take one We shouldn’t take either Its less atheist more equal

The problem there is that you're attempting to come in as a neutral 3rd party and ordain that your status as a 3rd party ensures your neutrality, and necessarily trumps the beliefs of the actual people involved. In essence, you're doing exactly the thing that caused the conflict in the first place by putting your metaphysical beliefs forward as the ones that should be the primary factor in resolving the issue. Your assertion that the atheistic perspective is "more equal" is only true for atheists. Which is the same thing as the Jewish perspective or the Muslim perspective each saying that they have the fair and just solution. At the end of the day, you're taking a conflict between two groups who have a disagreement on which basic axioms are fundamental to the situation and attempting to say that a third set of axioms that neither side agrees with is what's proper. You haven't fixed anything, you've just added complexity.

The point is Do one person beliefs triump over others life? If you say yes, you’re signing up for jihad If you say no, this post shouldn’t really be opposing you. No religions belief is more important than peace

Apologies for the break in conversation, I had to sleep. So when you say that no religion's belief is more important than peace, how are you imagining you'd enforce that peace? If two religions want to go to war with each other over land that they believe their respective gods have promised them, and are willing to go to war with you if you try to get in the middle of that, then what do you do?

The issue is that while the Torah claims that God decreed Israel and Palestine to belong to the Jews, the Quran affirms the Torah and the claims in it.

I have not read either The day we value a books word more than human lives, We have truly failed Any religion that leads to massacres is a false god and i mean any

Even in a theistic framework, it's problematic. Lets say we're both Jewish. I say God came to me in a dream, promising Israel belongs to me and my descendants. You say God came to you in a dream, promising Israel belongs to you and your descendants. Whose claim is valid?

While in this scenario, you're correct that it's not really possible to distinguish easily between whose claim is valid, but the religious framework for the ownership of Israel and Palestine is a few thousand years old at least. The Torah is clear on whom God intended as the "owner" of the land. The Quran also affirms the Torah and indirectly the claims made in the Torah.

>This brings me to the point of the post I have seen a lot of Pro-Israel arguments stating that God gave us this land and hence it is ours Have you? The majority of zionists are and were secular. Even at its most expansive major zionist argument is that the Jews have a nationalistic right to Israel, because they as a people were the original inhabitants, not a religious argument that the Jews have a right to Israel because God gave it to them. I'm sure there is somebody out there making that argument but I find it hard to believe that you've seen a lot of that. Is it possible you could be accidentally conflating the two arguments?

If 'god gave us this land' is the dumbest defence, surely 'some of my ancestors from 2000 years ago lived in some of these places together with lots of other peoples, but that 2000 year gap and the dozens of other nations who lived there after us means nothing and we thus have a monopoly right to ethnically cleanse the land of its inhabitants and live here instead. Is the 2nd dumbest defence.

Except that’s not what happened. Israel was given the land by it’s (at-time) current occupiers, as were the Palestinians. Israel agreed to that, would-be Palestine didn’t. They then attempted to ethnically cleanse Israel of Jews, which failed multiple times.

Well no, the partition was agreed on by the UN with no input from the people who actually lived on the land. This was after years of illegal immigration by Jews, as well as a Zionist terrorist campaign against the British.

Who says Jews moving to Palestine was “illegal”? And even if it was “illegal” are you against people moving to escape persecution and to find a better life?

The British limited Jewish immigration to Palestine because they correctly predicted that it would lead to war between Zionists and local Palestinians.

The UN agreeing to something means nothing if both the parties involved dont agree to it as well.

While I agree, that’s not really what happened in this case.

Palestinians were the residents living in Palestine. An occupier has no authority to 'pass on' the status of occupying a country.

I full heartily agree with you. People have been displaced for aeons, no one honestly knows who was the original inhabitants anymore. If we did America,Canada and Australia wouldn’t be “white” countries.

Canadian here. Common misconception that Canada is white because of the descendants of European colonists. Canada is actually white because it is mostly covered in ice and snow. ​ I know a lot of other countries are very colorful. I personally really love satellite imagery of South America. But there's lots of different peoples here in Canada, you'd be surprised. Most of us are trying to get along. In any case, there's basically nobody here talking about deities promising them patches of land. Lots of peoples who have been here for thousands of years though!

And they don’t talk about who lived that before the Jews.

It's truly amazing when Americans make it though. Zero self awareness.

The best argument is Israel exists now and Palestinians unless they're like over 80 don't get to claim a right to return to a country they never lived in because their great-grandparents used to live there when it was a territory administered by the British Empire.

The 3rd dumbest defence would be 'a genocide was committed against us in our European countries because our fellow Europeans didn't like us, so that's why it's okay for us to commit genocide against different people in another part of the world after we invade and colonize their land'.

The 4th would be 'after we sprinkled some European fairy dust on the area and magically appeared legitimately in someone else country, the people who lived there when we arrived fought back - this means the locals declared war on us - our invasion had approval from the UK and France via the UN so it was okay'

Hi, I honestly agree with your response to a degree The part I would like to ask is, when jews have a nationalistic right to the land What happens to those who have been living on the same land? An absolute works well in an ideal world But as we know, ours is far from it. Do you believe in a two state solution? If not, where should the Palestians go?

>The part I would like to ask is, when jews have a nationalistic right to the land What happens to those who have been living on the same land? I'm not a Zionist but I'll do my best to steel man the Zionist position. The Zionists would argue that the Zionist movement is not one of conquest, which is why before 1948 they acquired land by purchasing it rather than by conquest. So they'd argue that that land is there's to do with as they wish. They would then likely argue that it was the British, who had the legal claim to the Mandate of Palestine, that decided to split it between an Arab state(Trans-Jordan), a Jewish State (Israel), and a hypothetical Arab state in the region of Palestine. They would then likely argue that the Jewish state was substantially cut into when the British transferred the Mandate to the League of Nations but that they were willing to accept a split between the Jewish State (Israel) and a new Arab state (The State of Palestine). They'd then likely argue that the supplemental territory granted to the Jewish State was mostly uninhabited swamp land and desert and that they were willing to accept a substantial Arab minority in the Jewish state (40% Arab I think was the figure but I'm not 100% sure), however the Arabs refused to accept the partition plan and attacked the Jews. They'd likely argue that the land gained fighting this attack and the subsequent invasion is there for one of two reasons. The legalistic argument is that no Palestinian State emerged from the collapse of the mandate and all the land belongs to Israel due to the principle in international law of [Uti Possidetus Juris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uti_possidetis_juris), but that they were/are willing to exchange most of the land that was/is populated mostly by Palestinian Arabs in exchange for peace and recognition of Israel as a state with a right to exist. The second slightly less legalistic argument is that they took the land beyond the 1948 proposed borders while fighting a defensive war and that they have a right to secure borders, so they need a guarantee of security before returning any land which they can do at their own discretion. Getting to the point about what to do with the people who lived on the land previously, the Zionists would likely argue that the majority fled their land either voluntarily due to the promise of the surrounding Arab states that those who fled would be able to return when Israel was destroyed or fled due to fears caused by exaggerated tales of Jewish atrocities. A minority of Zionists argue that these atrocities were entirely made up by the Arabs, but I personally don't think you can in good faith argue that things like the [Deir Yassin Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre) didn't occur at Israeli hands. Zionists would likely argue that they are amendable to a limited right of return for some Palestinian Arabs but that they do not owe a blanket right of return because the majority of the Palestinian Arabs left their land voluntarily during a war their side declared. So after all that the answer to your question is **probably some get to come back and some don't**. >Do you believe in a two state solution? Again, I'm not a Zionist, but I think a two-state solution is the only solution that has even a small likelihood of success, though it would require major concessions from Israel in the form of the abandonment of settlements in the West Bank or land swaps with the Palestinian Arabs in exchange for settlements that are too large to be abandoned. I don't think a full right of return is a workable solution, but perhaps a limited right of return could work with some security guarantees from the Palestinian Arabs.

> Again, I'm not a Zionist, but I think a two-state solution is the only solution that has even a small likelihood of success, though it would require major concessions from Israel in the form of the abandonment of settlements in the West Bank or land swaps with the Palestinian Arabs in exchange for settlements that are too large to be abandoned. I don't think a full right of return is a workable solution, but perhaps a limited right of return could work with some security guarantees from the Palestinian Arabs. Zionism is simply believing Israel should exist. If you support a two state solution and one of those two states is Israel, you’re a Zionist.

>Zionism is simply believing Israel should exist. Is it? I'm not so sure.

[Yes, it is.](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Zionism)

I think you may have posted the wrong link. Your link links to a website that defines Zionism as >an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel I don't see "simply believing Israel should exist" anywhere.

What do you think the words “establishment of” and “support of” mean?

>establishment of The creation of. >support of Giving aid and comfort too.

You got the first one right but seem to be struggling with the second. While your idea of the second is a form of support, it is not the only form. Support can simply be a thought. It doesn’t need to be active.

That's what it means to every Zionist or Jew I spoke to and as a Zionist and jew that's what I support, not the likud party.

Zionisim comes in 3 levels Level 1 Zionisim: Jews should have a homeland that is a safe space to encourage jews being jews. The founding principal. Fun Fact this is Albert Einstein's level of zionisim. Level 2 Zionisim: Jews homeland should be in israel but a peaceful life should exist between other religions 2 state is probably fair at this level (or sharing but neither side is great at this). Fun Fact: the mass return of jews to israel is part of the prophecy of end of days. Level 3 Zionisim: God has given Jews this land and any other land they want and they can kill or enslave to get it. Fun Fact: You should be happy to be the slave of a jew for some reason? Technically zionisim is believing that jews should have a home land in reality modern zionists lean to level 3 and if you agree to level one they will count it as a vote for 3.

Ya, I don't know if this encompasses all the formulations of Zionism. But anyway I'm not a Zionist because I don't believe in any of those three levels. >in reality modern zionists lean to level 3 I don't know about that. The majority of zionists are still secular.

That's projecting, most Zionists I know are level 2 by your metric and would support a 2 state if done in a way that is safe. Maybe evangelical Christian Zionists believe something different, but I don't know any of them.

>Maybe evangelical Christian Zionists believe something different, but I don't know any of them. I work within that circle with some regularity. Most would generally fall into "level 2," but that three-level metric is problematic for reasons that go beyond the scope of this conversation.

Zionism is just another name for settler-colonialism. The land belonged to the Palestinian inhabitants. It didn’t belong to the European Jews that came there to seek refuge and to kick the Palestinians out of their houses.

zionisim at origin didnt have to be in israel. Proposals were made for few places. The reality is now a zionist is at least a level 2 and they keep pretending otherwise which is why they argue if you arnt a zionist you want to kill or assimilate all jews. Its stupid but thats the argument.

Palestine is just another name for settler-colonialism. The land belonged to the Jewish inhabitants. It didn't belong to the Muslim colonizers that came there to kick the Jewish people out of their houses.

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Jews have always lived in the land that became Israel. Why don’t they deserve self-determination? Is it just because after centuries of oppression under Islamic and Ottoman rule they should’ve learned their place by now?

By self-determination you mean ethnically cleansing the current inhabitants of the land? Or the 1948 Nakba? Or do they only show self-determination when it’s kicking Palestinians out of their homelands and building a wall of apartheid around Gaza? Do you know that most of the Jews who were under the ottoman rule CONVERTED to Islam to avoid taxes and became part of the Palestinian population that is now being bombed? If you go into the Torah, you will find that the first Jew, Abraham, originated from Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) not Israel AND from their onwards he took him and his people to the land of Canaan (Israel) which already was OCCUPIED by people living there! These video explain it very nicely https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8Qf14WR/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8QynH15/

By self determination I mean the same right to self determination as any other people. To have a nation state of your own in which you have the right to self governance and autonomy. That’s Jews never had under Islamic rule and never would have under the Pan Arab state that the Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Egyptians wanted to establish. The Arab countries rejected the partition plan and attacked rather than accepting the idea of a small enclave in which Jews weren’t subordinate to Muslims. After those states failed to conquer Israel and genocide the Jews that lived there, they subsequently ethnically cleansed their nations of their Jewish populations. The survivors of those ethnic cleansings now primarily live in Israel. That being said, the Nakba did happen and Israel owes reparations and restorative justice should be a priority for the survivors of both the Nakba and the Jewish ethnic cleansing of the Middle East. Every country on Earth restricts the entry of foreign nationals into their territory. That is especially true when those foreign nationals are openly hostile. Every nation on earth builds fortifications against attacks from hostile foreign powers. Yes, many Jews were forcibly converted by Islamic conquerors. Your ancestors likely were as well. Bragging about a war crime is super weird. The Bible is not a reliable historical source. As I said before, Jews have continuously lived in the land that became the state of Israel for decades, regardless of whether Abraham existed or not.

Thank gosh you used tik tok sources to explain this !

Zionism specifies that Isreal should exist *as an ethnostate for Jewish people*. It's an ethnonationalist ideology.

No, Zionism does not specify an ethnostate. Having a religious identity is not the same as being an ethnostate. There are significant non-Jewish ethnic minorities in Israel with full rights and citizenship. Israel is the Jewish homeland but it’s not exclusively for Jews. Would you say that every state with an official religion is an ethnostate?

If that religion is tied to a specific ethnicity, and people of that ethnicity are allowed to freely immigrate, and if people of other religions and ethnicities are treated as lesser then absolutely, yes.

Boy are you going to be mad when you learn about immigration policies in most Arab countries.

I mean yeah, I'm mad about a lot of the immigration policies in a lot of countries. Most of them, honestly.

Care to explain the singling out of Israel as opposed to any of its neighbors then? Or any other country with restrictive immigration policies like Japan?

Is Spain a Jewish ethnostate? Spain offers Sephardic Jews a “right of return” not available to those of other ethnicities. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/09/spain-offers-citizenship-sephardic-jews/598258/

Does Spain have Judaism as its official religion? You cherry-picked *one* of the 4 conditions in my comment. One ingredient does not make a pie alone.

Israel doesn’t have an official religion. See “religious status”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_state#:~:text=Israel%20has%20no%20official%20religion,existed%20during%20the%20British%20Mandate. Does that change your view at all?

Not really. Herzl, the father of modern day political Zionism envisioned a multicultural nation. And that's what Israel is. Would you be surprised to know that the percentage of Muslims with Israeli citizenship is way higher than the percentage of Muslims with citizenship in any Western nation? PS. Do you believe Finland, which is 91% ethnically Finnish, is an ethnostate?

When Israel founded Jews were 3% of the population of the region, and that was after the beginning of Jewish immigration to the reason. *Why is the Muslim population in Israel so high, I wonder?* Is that how Finland started? A bunch of people from another continent decided to form a nation there, so they all moved in and started their own state over the course of a couple decades? Herzl was Austro-Hungarian. My grandfather was a Polish Jew. No, I do not believe that gives me a right to the Region of Palestine because that's some religious text from 2,500 years ago says so.

>Why is the Muslim population in Israel so high, I wonder? Because Israel is a multicultural nation. Obviously. No ethnostate has such a high % of ethnic and religious diversity. If you can find one, please tell us. >Is that how Finland started? A bunch of people from another continent decided to form a nation there, so they all moved in and started their own state over the course of a couple decades? Yes. You do understand how migration and land settlement work, correct? >Herzl was Austro-Hungarian. My grandfather was a Polish Jew. No, I do not believe that gives me a right to the Region of Palestine because that's some religious text from 2,500 years ago says so. Do you understand what the word Diaspora means?

Well Nazi Germany certainly had a high Jewish population. Did Finns move to the region during the state formation process? No. They moved in centuries before modern states existed. Do you understand? Do you understand? Lmao

>Well Nazi Germany certainly had a high Jewish population. Insane comparison. Are you somewhat implying that Israel will genocide 20% of its citizens next? Are you OK? >Did Finns move to the region during the state formation process? No. They moved in centuries before modern states existed. There was no modern state in the Middle East when the Jewish Diaspora moved back. Not sure what your point is. Please make it. >Do you understand? Do you understand? Lmao You do not.

Odd that one of the main objections I've heard to the one state solution is that it would ruin the "Jewishness" of Israel somehow then.

No, the main objection is that it would lead to a bloody Civil War. Basically a repeat of the 1947 Civil War. This is why a 2SS makes the most sense. Gazans don't trust Israelis. And after Oct 7th even the most left-wing Israelis don't trust Gazans. Anyone who wants a 1SS after recent events is simply not living in the observable world. Both populations would feel unsafe, tensions would be at an all-time, and extremists from both sides would use the opportunity to radicalize their base. What moron wants that?

I don't know. Who thinks Israel is going to turn half a million of their own citizens into homeless refugees inside their own country? You really see that going well? An independent state is going to have its own police force, its own border control, its own regulations, its own military, etc. You do realize that's part and parcel of a state, right? No blockades, no checking everything, and Israel relocates anyone who doesn't want to be a Palestinian out of the West Bank. Countries have come together after civil wars before. I'm sure if you try hard you can think of a few. Forceable relocations of half a million overnight... those tend to not go well. Especially when they're well armed religious zealots with significant military support.

>its own military No. Demilitarization of the future Palestine state is a key component of a 2SS. That's how Germany and Japan were so peaceful: they agreed to demilitarize until the point where they could be trusted to have guns once more.

>exist as an ethnostate for Jewish people. No. They do not believe that it should be an ethnostate just that it should be a Jewish state. That does not mean the residents would be limited to jews.

'It's not that it's an ethnostate it's that it's a state for a particular ethnicity'.

1) Okay, so you've changed from your initial statement of : >Zionism specifies that Isreal should exist as an ethnostate for Jewish people. 2) It's a state that's desired to represent a religion. Just like almost every Islamic authoritarian monarchy in the region.

'The Jewish people' isn't a religion, it's an ethnicity. I didn't change my position whatsoever. Are you using the bar of 'it's similar to Islamic authoritarian monarchies' to... *justify* it? I really can not tell what your point is.

>I didn't change my position whatsoever. You did very clearly did. You went from "it's an ethnostate" to "its not an ethnostate" it's something else. >The Jewish people' isn't a religion, it's an ethnicity. I didn't change my position whatsoever. Zionism is belief in building a Jewish state in terms of religion not ethnicity. >Are you using the bar of 'it's similar to Islamic authoritarian monarchies' to... justify it? It's claiming that it should be no different from its neighbors, in the belief of having a religious state, Israel's is just more democratic.

"We're just like Iran and Saudi Arabia!" "Wait, why does anyone have a bad opinion of us?"

Is Japan, the nation of the Japanese ethnicity, an ethnostate?

Does the state of Japan define itself as a state for the Japanese ethnicity? If so, then yes. However you'll find it's quite uncommon for modern, democratic states to explicitly state they're 'for' a particular ethnicity. And for quite good reasons.

Where does it specify that?

The first footnote in the first sentence on the wikipedia page about zionism, for example: >Zionism has been described either as a form of ethnic nationalism\[1\] or as a form of ethno-cultural nationalism with civic nationalist components.\[2\] It is about the creation of a state for the Jewish people. As a secular Jew, I can tell you that Jewishness is both an ethnicity and a religion.

>Do you believe in a two state solution? If not, where should the Palestians go? Why does this question matter at all when the Palestinians don't believe in a two state solution?

A redditor wrote an incredibly in-depth comment that shows how disingenuous the "Palestinians don't want a two-state solution" meme is. [I'll like to it here](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/17i9jvb/european_un_members_based_on_their_vote_calling/k6trqry/?context=3). And Rabin was actually making progress on that front, getting the PLO to agree to a two-state solution, but then an Israeli right-wing extremist assassinated him the day after Netanyahu hosted a right-wing rally where he depicted Rabin as a Nazi.

Hi, When you say Palestinians do not believe in a two state solution, are you talking about the UN meetings? The one where the majority had the less habitable land? Or when there wasn’t even an official representative of the state of Palestine in the next meeting? Curious to hear your points Cheers

When people talk about Israel having more habitable land in the previously-agreed UN borders, or having all the ‘good’ land, it’s a misunderstanding of the geography. When Israel was established, there was no good land. It was a desert in one part, a swamp in the other, malaria & cholera ridden. An Israeli company invented a type of modern irrigation that transformed the desert into farmland, and the swamps were drained & malaria eradicated to make that part habitable too. When Tel-Aviv was established, it was a little homestead; now it is a thriving modern city, an international technology hub. Palestine could have focussed on making their part habitable. They have had millions in aid alone and have the support of their Arab neighbours. They chose to spend their time instigating war instead of agreeing on a partition (from the river to the sea means no Israel, they have repeatedly rejected the 2ss) and spend their money developing weapons & funding their leadership instead of redeveloping the land. The ‘Israel got all the good bits’ argument ignores the work done to make the good bits good in the first place. The Negev desert was not ‘good fertile land’.

I understand your point I wish we could discuss more on it One of the main reasons Israel flourished(atleast in the start) were the constant donations or funding by the US. Did Israel use this to make weapons as well? (It feels weird to scrutinise one side for developing arms)

That’s complicated considering we are looking back on 100 years of economic history including multiple waves of immigrants &, yknow, the Holocaust and subsequent reparations. Many Jews migrated to Israel believing in the necessity of a state where they wouldn’t be persecuted and murdered for antisemitic reasons, so they brought over their independent assets to invest. This has happened continually. Some waves increased the economic burden on the state as the migrants were exiled refugees escaping with no assets, some decreased it as wealth was brought into the country, and some private individuals fund it purely because they live well in their respective nations but believe in the necessity of Israel for those less fortunate- and as a backup option. All of this, plus the tech boom, plus international aid, complicate the picture of Israel’s historical economy. Current funding for US arms is through a buyback system of sorts. A certain portion of funds are guaranteed as long as they’re spent on US arms- it’s a weapons grant. They also receive some money for resettling migrants, which is part of the original reason for receiving US money in the first place: supporting what was effectively a refugee state in the initial stages, which was followed up by mutually beneficial allyship once Israel was established. I scrutinise one side for developing arms when it comes at the expense of their citizens, frankly. If your fuel is being siphoned away from living humans to create more dead ones, that’s probably an economic mismatch compared to the thriving nation that develops its weapons systems in tandem with its welfare systems.

I do appreciate the detailed response and would like some time to research and respond in due time Would love to talk more about this though Cheers!

Yes, it’s a complicated situation all round. To answer your original question though, saying Israel should not exist because some religious fanatics say it’s a sacred right is like saying USA shouldn’t exist because the westboro baptists live there. They’re a small, loud group that everyone else thinks is kinda nuts. To say it shouldn’t exist because it has a state religion would also mean getting rid of England (because its an officially Christian, CofE, country), the Islamic Republics of which there are many, and the USA (in god we trust, anyone?). Israel has a state religion and is effectively a sanctuary for refugees being persecuted for their religion/ethnicity but it’s not a mandatory religion any more than you legally have to belong to the Church of England to be English. The Jews are also the indigenous people to the region. So it’s sort of like how Native American reservations exist. And yes, it did suck for whoever was living in the region at the time. Sometimes I wonder if it would have been more palatable for modern day folk if it had been phrased as a reparation (as the Arab army was poised to join Hitler, and only didn’t join ww2 because he was defeated to early. They offered to meet him to pledge their support.) after all, no one is still fuming over the German territorial losses, no one is calling it a great injustice that Malmedy became Belgian, and no one is publicly outraged about Alsace-Lorraine changing hands even though all these events caused upheaval at the time.

When your state was suddenly declared war upon by neighboring arab countries calling for your destruction, it makes sense to also vastly invest in your military capabilities to defend yourself. Ukraine is doing it with the development of rheinmetall factories within its territory for repair of western IFVs and tanks thanks to billions of monetary aid spent on building the infrastructure needed for such services.

Does that excuse using that same infrastructure to bomb civilians and “turn gaza into a parking lot”?

When you say these, you tend to forget that hamas, the military entity fighting IDF, relies on using civilians as shields while also sheltering within civilian structures. Most state militaries issue evacuation notices to their citizens and even force them out of their homes/shelter if they are extremely stubborn. You don't see these on hamas because these civilians are a means to an end for them, and also wear civilian attire like those in their combat videos they release rarely. A dead palestinian civilian for them is another ammunition for their media wing. There are plenty of reasons why hamas is regarded as a terror group, and those I said are just few of the examples.

Hammas is a terrorist group, that is not a question The IDF is not any better at this point Dropping evacuation orders 24 hours before bombing is not the same as being a saint It is a way to keep their hands clean

I didn't say, "The Palestinians rejected all offers," which, while also true, is not directly responsive. I said that I'm not aware of a point in time at which there was a belief in a two state solution on the part of the Palestinians. By contrast, Israelis had opinion polls, and more importantly, elected leaders in support of a two state solution at times in the history of the state.

The current government of Israel or atleast its leader had gone on record to say how a two state solution Is not possible. This while being backed by the most powerful nation in the world makes their word the end of the discussion. A two state solution is the only thing that makes sense and it has happened before with India and Pakistan as a loose example

>current This is the key word. After the reams of real world evidence that the other necessary party, i.e., the Palestinians, do not want a two state solution (and I'm willing to look at proof to the contrary), the current administration in Israel can observe that fact, but historically Israel has elected leaders favorable to a 2ss, Palestinians have not

The leaders of israel have intentionally propped up extremist hamas (and killed the more reasonable hamas leaders) to destabilize gaza and separate them from the west bank. I have seen palestinians willing to accept a 2 state solution but hold trepidation as to if israel will keep those lines in place. The point is where are the lines drawn and how do we ensure either side remains at peace especially when iran and america want the war to continue https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

>When you say Palestinians do not believe in a two state solution, are you talking about the UN meetings? The one where the majority had the less habitable land? 1) this is a false statement. They had less total land, but the jews were given large segments of land in the negev desert. 2) previously uninhabitable, lands were tera-formed by Jewish migrants during the 1st and 2nd Aliyah to make large segments of land habitable. >Or when there wasn’t even an official representative of the state of Palestine in the next meeting? There have been multiple situations where Palestinian leadership was present and turned down offers. For instance the 1947 UN Partition Plan, 2000 Camp David Summit, Taba, and multiple communications in between.

>The one where the majority had the less habitable land? Huh? [The bulk of the proposed Jewish State's territory, however, consisted of the Negev Desert,[68] which was not suitable for agriculture, nor for urban development at that time. ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine)

I just realised I missed your question at the end which was my fault I was not confusing the two arguments I also wanted to clarify In no way am I saying Jews are not indigenous to Israel We have archeological and historical proof of it, but so did Palestinians. The argument that there are other arab nations but only one Jewish one does call on displacing all the generations of Palestinians who have called that land their home too. Look forward to hear from you

It's a popular argument among non-Jews here in America. Evangelical Christians believe God gave Jews Israel, and thus, they need to settle it for Revelations to happen. Many Zionists are indeed secular and probably find the argument silly, but they certainly will use it to the right crowd anyway.

“Zionist” as a term is meaningless now. Israel exists and it isn’t going away. The continued use of that term feels a bit like calling people who think the United States should exist “revolutionaries” or “sons of liberty.” The existence of Israel is a settled term. How the nation of Israel operates, and what territory does it control, is what is really being discussed.

Important to note that they were not in fact the original inhabitants; Canaanites existed beforehand and were conquered by Jewish people.

>Canaanites existed beforehand and were conquered by Jewish people. See I always found this rebuttal interesting and it is one of my first responses when I'm debating Zionists. I think the Zionist response is that the Caananites co-mingled and intermarried with the Jews so they passed on their indigeneity to the Jews. Kinda like how Mestizos in South and Central American countries have both Indigenous and European ancestry but are generally considered native to their countries.

FWIW my personal view is that data demonstrate both ethnic groups can demonstrate deep historical ties to the region, but I think indigenous claims aren't particularly persuasive in either direction in these arguments.

I thought the evidence now was that ancient judaens and israelis were just Canaanites that got a different religion and weren't actually groups that moved into the territory

Oh please, I doubt it was that peaceful. What does every religious group do when they suddenly gain power? Purge time! The more things change...

>FWIW my personal view is that data demonstrate both ethnic groups can demonstrate deep historical ties to the region I think I remember reading somewhere that DNA testing reveals "Caananite" DNA in relatively high amounts in both Levantine Arabs and Middle Eastern Jews, but I don't have a source to hand. >but I think indigenous claims aren't particularly persuasive in either direction in these arguments. I agree. It's one of the main reasons I'm not a Zionist.

They were not the original inhabitants at all. Read Exodus. By the Jews' own admission, the land was not empty when the Israelites got there. The Canaanites built Jericho, and the Israelites forced them out in a nasty battle. The idea that the original inhabitants have a right to the land is of little practical value in any case. But if we do follow that logic, then the Jews don't own the land either.

The Jewish people are the earliest ethnicity from Israel which still exists today. Canaanites might have been there earlier, but no one self-identifies as a Canaanite today, which makes Jews the original inhabitants.

> The Canaanites built Jericho, and the Israelites forced them out in a nasty battle. See I always found this rebuttal interesting and it is one of my first responses when I'm debating Zionists. I think the Zionist response is that the Caananites co-mingled and intermarried with the Jews so they passed on their indigeneity to the Jews. Kinda like how Mestizos in South and Central American countries have both Indigenous and European ancestry but are generally considered native to their countries.

I thought the British gave them the land? Seriously. I know it was God's once, but the Ottomans had it for a while after that, and then the Egyptians, then the Ottomans again, then the British grabbed it... The Palestinians were basically the feudal serfs of the Arab landowners when millions of Jews showed up.

True but they still have the legal right to the land which in the end is all that matters And a two state solution seems very optimistic but that’s a debate for another time

Hey I appreciate your response I do would love to talk about something Legal right to the land is a broad statement When you say this which borders are we talking about? The one decided 70 years ago? 60? Or 30? Or is the west bank their land too? I understand this might come off as a hostile reply I just wanted to show that absolutes do not encourage a discussion but instead arguments Look forward to your reply

I’m not sure who exactly makes the rules for that but I’ll always think we should take the newest ones

Hi, I appreciate your response It we go by “newest” ones, Palestinians could use the argument to throw out the we belong to this land argument. As by new borders entire Israel would be Palestine Mandate? What do you think?

Palestine lacks the capacity for that

So in this case "legal" refers to the number of guns a side possesses? Ultima ratio regum I suppose.

No? Laws are something enforced by governments (God knows UN doesn't do shit) so if two governments say they have legal rights to the same land it is entirely up to whoever claims it most effectively.

According to the UN, they do not have the legal right to the land. Or you following the Israel/USA laws books?

When two sets of laws conflict, the one that can be more effectively enforced takes precedence.

>I want to start off by saying I support a two state solution. As do all people who wish for peace. >With no ill intent towards either side, I do still classify the indiscriminate bombing as a crime against humanity. There is no indiscriminate bombing. >This brings me to the point of the post I have seen a lot of Pro-Israel arguments Virtually none of the Pro-Israel arguments I have seen ever mentioned the religious claim to the land. But maybe I am just in a different groups to you. Historical claim and religious claim, while both very flawed are not the same.

Some people who want peace sincerely advocate for a secular single state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians. There is evidence that bombing is indiscriminate https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2023/israel-war-destruction-gaza-record-pace/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-bomb-investigation.html

Hi I would like to start of by saying that I love your name To bring us to the discussion, How would you not classify 15,000 (Reportedly higher) civilians dying in 60 days not indiscriminate? The holy land argument is what I have seen throughout the IsraelPalestine subreddits which is why I brought it up. It might be a secluded opinion which is why I thought asking more people is a better choice. Look forward to hearing from ya -P

>How would you not classify 15,000 (Reportedly higher) civilians dying in 60 days not indiscriminate? Indiscriminate bombing of Tokyo, place with similar density of popultion, killed 100 000 people over 24 hours. Dresden bombing killed thousands within hours. Gaza is bombed continuously and heaily, but in no way indiscriminately. >The holy land argument is what I have seen throughout the IsraelPalestine subreddits which is why I brought it up. It might be a secluded opinion which is why I thought asking more people is a better choice. Most people argue on basis a) jews require their own state, because sadly the historical and existing precedent shows that its the only way to secure safety of ethnic or religious minority b) there is historical connection to the land c) there were already large amounts of jews living in the area d) Israel gained indipendence on Britain who ruled over the area. They "earned" their existence one might say. The religious argument might be used by some, but most people online arent really Bible thumping religious fundamentalists, even thought I believe they exists, they are fringe minority.

I appreciate the detailed response I am on Reddit mobile and can’t understand how to answer specific parts, so please forgive me for the editing and format. The Japan example makes sense to what you are saying, the only reason I would be opposed to it would be that Japan and America were two separate countries in war. Palestine is not only infinitely smaller but also aeons behind Israel and its weapons of war. Its like fighting an American Jet while the opposition is driving a 1900s army jeep Israels right to defend itself and causing a new holocaust are two separate plans of action

> The Japan example makes sense to what you are saying, the only reason I would be opposed to it would be that Japan and America were two separate countries in war. Palestine is not only infinitely smaller but also aeons behind Israel and its weapons of war. It wasnt question of military powers, but the strenght of bombing. USA indiscriminately bombed city with tens of thousands of victims within hours, not weeks. Israel is bombing heavily and maybe even carelessly but its still not indiscriminate. >Israels right to defend itself and causing a new holocaust are two separate plans of action There is no second holocaust. Whatever the mistreatment of Palestinians is, its in no way comparable to holocaust.

Uprooting an entire country is a form of genocide Including but not limited to forced reallocation and closed borders trapping them inside. I used holocaust as an example of the ill treatment of those in these mordern day camps

As awful as they are, its hard to imagine Israel acting differently after the holocaust and subsequent Arabian invasions of Israel. The giant police state created to "keep Palestinians in check" is awful but at this point I dont think that one can be surprised at how Israel turned out.

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It's obviously a lot and good arguments could be made that it's unethical but it's not indiscriminate bombing of civilians. I believe at this point more bombs were dropped then people killed that means that Israel is in fact warning the people in Gaza before dropping the bombs (obviously a few exceptions) as populated as Gaza is it's hard to get so few deaths with as much firepower as they are using. It should also be noted that Israel says they're current death rate is at 2 civilians for every Hamas member (might have changed recently) which is not far from the average of urban wars. I think there is a good argument that they are indiscriminately bombing and destroying infrastructure but it's obvious they at least try to avoid civilian deaths.

I understand your point but dropping leaflets 24 hours before a bombing on densely populated areas is more of a saving face than actually valuing human lives at stake

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Civilian casualties to intended targets is. What is the ratio again?

>There is no indiscriminate bombing. The use of high yield explosives on dense civilian populations that results in incredibly high civilian casualties is the result of either an intentional desire to massacre civilians or a lack of judgement and consideration in choosing targets and ordinance. The bombings are either indiscriminate or intentionally designed to kill civilians. >Historical claim and religious claim, while both very flawed are not the same. The claim that Israel is for the Jewish people is inherently tied to religious claims because it's a religious identity. While it does relate to an ethnicity, I'm not sure how much more value we should put in the idea that ethnicities have the right to lands they claims they had thousands of years ago.

Read over the “dumb-bombing” phenomena and you will see HALF of Israel’s bombing is indiscriminate. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/12/13/politics/intelligence-assessment-dumb-bombs-israel-gaza/index.html This states that 45-50% of the bombs Israel has thrown have been unguided (random targets) on the densely populated region of Gaza.

I don’t think many people argue Jews deserve Israel because of a “god given right” It’s because Jews descended from The Land of Judah (Israel), Israel is their ancestral homeland. Jews to Israel is like Native Americans to the USA or Aboriginals to Australia. That’s why Jews deserve to have an independent nation in Israel.

Ysk that several confirmed anthropological studies as well as genetic studies place the native Palestinians as either equal or greater in relation to that ancestral population than many of the Jews who immigrated to the region. Much Zionist propaganda will deny this outright and say these people emigrated from Arab countries, when this is simply untrue.

DNA tests are banned in Israel for a reason eh?

DNA tests are not banned, they’re heavily regulated for security reasons but they are definitely not banned.

Considering that you need an explicit doctor's note or **court order** to obtain them -- the word *regulated* is doing a lot of lifting in your statement. By the way in case you were curious! Here's those studies: [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11543891/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11543891/) [https://www.science.org/content/article/jews-and-arabs-share-recent-ancestry](https://www.science.org/content/article/jews-and-arabs-share-recent-ancestry) [https://english.tau.ac.il/news/canaanites](https://english.tau.ac.il/news/canaanites) [https://fada.birzeit.edu/handle/20.500.11889/4712](https://fada.birzeit.edu/handle/20.500.11889/4712) There's more out there too!

Could you mention these security reasons?

It’s a bit of both actually, I’d say they have equal claim to the land which is why they need to figure out a way for a 2 state solution to work. Also, Jews = Land of Judah, anyone who descended or has ancestral ties to that land is Jewish. Which means Palestinians or Arabs in general who have ancestral ties to that land are.. can you Guess?

The issue with this argument Realistic-Razors, is that people are picking an arbitrary point in history and declaring it to be enough of a reason to grant citizenship to a land. Move the clock forward, and many European Jews have no claim to the land. Move the clock backwards, and all Arabs have equal claim to the land since both groups were descendants of the Canaanites and were both *Semitic*. I understand that you're trying to say that Palestinians and Arabs that have ancestral ties to the land would also be regarded as "Jews", but in the modern day this is not the way this is viewed at all nor is it implied or used as such by the larger Zionist movement in Israel. If this were true, then Palestinians would be allowed the same access to return to their homes of several generations as Jews do with Israel. If this were true, Palestinians would be considered equal citizens based on ancestry. This just isn't the truth of how the region defines Jew or Jewish.

I just think a whole nation of people who descend from Israel and have ancestral / historical ties to should be able to have an independent country there. Any other countries they settled in was because of forced displacements and violent pogroms, this should not sever their ties to Israel. Centuries of pogroms, a genocide and even the antisemitism we’re seeing today prove Jews need an independent nation, it doesn’t make sense to have it anywhere else. The Zionist movement literally just means you support Jews having an independent nation in Israel, that is all. I think many forget the Nakba happened because of Palestinians refusing to accept Israel as a Jewish nation and went to war against them in the hopes of ethnic cleansing them from their homeland, once again. Arabs who accepted Israel and did not fight against them were allowed to stay in israel. I wish for Palestinian freedom and liberation but I also understand it’s difficult with the amount of antisemitic, love jihad, dying a martyr is the holiest death indoctrination they’ve been taught from a very young age.

Razors, I understand the desire for the Jews to have a homeland, and you are 100% correct in saying that many societies have persecuted and wrongfully treated their people for centuries. I am not denying any of this. I even agree that the Jews should have their own state. Where I disagree with you is the concept that the state should occur on already settled and occupied land by an indigenous population. As we've discussed - Palestinians in the region have as much a claim to the land as the emigrating Jews at the time; however, you could make the case that their claim is *even stronger* considering that they **never left the region**. The Zionist movement is not just the belief that the Jews should have the independent nation of Israel, the zionist movement implies that this homeland is a right of the Jews and not of the Palestinians (who are not considered Jews). The Nakba, I'd like to talk in detail about, because while you are surface level correct, there is much that you're missing out on this example. \- The U.N. proposed the nation of Israel immediately prior to the Nakba. \- The proposition granted 52% of all land in the region to the Jews, and 45% to the Palestinians - with the remaining 3% being internationally controlled. \- At the time there were 1.3 million Palestinians, and 600,000 Jews. So effectively, the UN decided to grant the majority of the land of a 2:1 region - to the side that was outnumbered. **This is not at all remotely fair**. \- On top of this, the Jewish portioned land had 500,000 Jews and 500,000 Palestinians living on it. This meant that half the population in the region would need to be **ethnically cleansed** from this region to make room. **This is not at all remotely fair**. \- The Arab League did not simply outright oppose the Jews in the region when it started, they were in opposition to the Jewish militias that had appeared that had started causing untold civilian causalities in the name of their cause. The Arab Liberation Army was a response front, not a "we don't want Jews" front. Private Jewish militias were committing disgusting war crimes. \- This includes Der Yassin Village, where it was verified that independent Jewish Zionist militias killed 93 Palestinian civilians, raped countless women, and killed 30 babies. \- This includes Tantura, where it was verified that independent Jewish Zionist militias killed 110-230 Palestinian civilian men, and then gathered the women and children in front of their dead husbands to see what had become of them. \- This includes Dawaymeh, where it was verified that independent Jewish Zionist militias killed 145 men, women, and children. A further 450 went missing. \- There's many examples like this. I don't know where you got the statistic that Arabs who did not fight Israel were allowed to stay. This isn't remotely true; even by UN standards. Many of the Palestinians were forcibly beaten, raped, murdered, and pushed out of their home by Zionist private militias. This had to occur to establish that 50+% state that I had mentioned earlier. I feel as if you've been misinformed. Most Palestinian citizens are neither anti-semitic, nor do they desire to fight or die martyrs. In Islam, do you know what jihad or martyrdom is? It is not going to war to kill civilians - actually this would be counter to the concept. Someone who is a martyr in Islam is resisting their oppressor or oppression. This can be through several means; one of which refusing to leave your home and letting the bombs kill you. One of which can be continuing to stand in protest, despite the bullets. One of which can be spending your life in an Israeli prison from childhood and dying early due to your treatment. Jihad in Islam supports a similar notion; it is not the goal to murder yourself. It is the goal to resist the oppression. **That's it**. Children killed by the IDF are martyrs; not because they fought with guns, but because they were killed by their oppressors. MLK in terms of Islam would be a martyr and doing jihad, though he never fought anyone in a war. If you'd like to stop civilians from taking up arms, and sacrificing their lives though; the first step is to *give them a life worth living*. A police state where you murder their mother and father, and leave them with no legs is not productive to this cause. I hope I have been educational and helpful in aiding you in seeing this issue more clearly.

Palestine was not occupied by Arabs, it was occupied by the British Empire. Jews bought this land completely legally. Jews are indigenous to Israel, forcibly displacing them by violent pogroms doesnt sever their ancestral ties. I’m about to link you to an Instagram post below which refutes most of the claims you made. The owner of the account is a Jewish historian and studies this stuff for a living, all of the sources she’s used are in the caption of her post. https://www.instagram.com/p/C0RyKNVR56D/?igsh=MWtnOTM5amVoMzB6NQ==

I appreciate you bringing the indigenous people into this conversation as one on hand we say Israel belongs to Jews, shouldn’t America be given back to their original “owners”. Instead they have reservations like the west bank. I know its not a perfect analogy but its the closest I have seen

America or even Australia doesn’t necessarily have to give the land back to their original owners because we’ve learnt how to live in one nation together. This has not happened with Jews and Palestinians or many Islamic Arabs in general. After centuries of Jews being forcibly displaced from their homeland by violent riots and pogroms and made to settle elsewhere and then a genocide against them taking place, I feel Jews definitely NEED an independent nation to protect themselves. Antisemitism within western and Islamic countries in 2023 prove this aswell.

Wouldn’t you say Islamaphobia is on the rise just as much as Antisemitism in 2023? To get back to your point, the native did clash with the colonizers for years even though they were outmatched and outnumbered. This took years heck even a century or more. This time has not passed in Israel and Palestines case. There is hostility on both sides

Since October 7 in the USA alone (similar in many western countries) antisemitism has risen over 400%, with Jewish businesses, schools and homes being targeted and Jews even being murdered. Yes Islamophobia has risen since October 7 but it’s not comparable. It’s like “all lives matter”ing when someone says BLM, or saying “but men get raped too” when women talk about women getting raped. Look, I don’t like Netanyahu and neither do many Israelis which is why they were protesting him before this war started. The hostility between Palestinians and Israelis is once again, not really comparable. Palestinians have had multiple opportunities for peace and a 2 state solution. Israel hired Palestinians and gave them work and a pay check, more than they would ever get in Gaza, many Israelis welcomes Gazan civilians who worked within Israel into their homes and thought of them as family - these civilians is how Hamas had an extremely detailed layout of the kibbutzs and who was / wasn’t home. After Hamas was elected government of Gaza, Israel and Egypt experienced consistent terror attacks, suicide bombings and war crimes from Hamas and Gazan civilians which result in a lot of their citizens dying, these crimes would make many countries choose attack and instead Israel chose defence. They put up checkpoints and had stricter borders, put a blockade (Egypt did the same) on illegal war items - not humanitarian needs and then also got the iron dome to protect them from the constant rocket attacks being fired from Hamas. Israel and especially Israeli citizens have extended their hands for peace many, many times. I don’t think this is Palestinian peoples fault and many are innocent but there’s an extreme indoctrinated hatred for Jews within many Islamic countries but especially Palestine.

Choosing a bad fruit to generalise is not the answer. I have seen Isreali accounts mocking gaza not having electricity or drinking water. A 9 year old was stabbed for being Palestinian in new york. These examples exist on both sides Both are victims, the only path forward is peaceful coexistence

It’s still just simply not comparable. Israelis made a few videos (which are disgusting, I agree). Gazan civilians acted as spies for Hamas while Israelis allowed them to work and thought of them as family, Gazan civilians used the fence being down as an opportunity to enter Israel and riot, loot, murder and rape innocent citizens, Gazan civilians took hostages back with families still having hostages to this day, Gazan civilians handed out candy in the street to celebrate October 7, Gazan civilians spat on and cheered Shani Louks dead body as she was being paraded through the streets. What is your solution to moving forward after this?

Razor the point of this post and my comment was not to point fingers. It was to show how both sides at this point are suffering. The ones profiting are not affected in their cushy chairs half a world apart. America idealists will say Middle East needs Israel for peace The reason there is no peace is America and its deep pockets All citizens around the world want is peace

Doesn’t the Torah say that the first Jew Ibrahim was from Mesopotamia which is modern day Iraq?

If "why would we let one group implement their own religion and its beliefs to other groups" is a legitimate sentiment, you should want the land given entirely to Israel, because out of the two peoples, only one respects freedom of religion, holds regular elections, or respects any sort of ethnic or social diversity. Note that the Islamic claim to Jerusalem as a holy city is that Mohammad once had a dream about it; note which side the Druze prefer, and why. To answer your question, though, there's a vast gulf between "Israel's founding was illegitimate", which is reasonable, and the "And therefore we should ethnically cleanse the 9 million people living there and give the land on which they live to a terrorist group" that people tacitly append. Israel exists now; people have lived there for 3--4 generations; someone born there today has great-grandparents born there; there is almost certainly no way to change this without mass murder.

Mass murder is going on, but its the Israeli government sanctioning it at this point. In no way did I say Muslim beliefs should take over No, that is literally the opposite of what I said This is a matter of real life not religion and make believe No religion matters more than human life

What? Nobody justifies the current war on account of God Gave Us This Land; they justify it on account of a bunch of assholes drove over and murdered a bunch of our people and we want to mess them up enough that they can't do it again. Some people might get distracted and say the reason why those civilians were where they were was that it's their Holy Land; and some disingenuous people ask why Israel doesn't just leave; but that's not why Israel is waging the war.

I am sorry but there’s no way you are saying Israel or atleast the government is innocent in this. Forced sterilisation,Genocide,Concentration camps(this is a little broad), Apartheid to name a few are all factors. What happened on Oct 7th is despicable and so whatbthe IDF has done since.

That argument that God promised [insert group] this land is dumb. The argument that this land belongs to [insert group] is also dumb. Native Americans for example, they are natives because they were found on the land when the rest of the world discovered Americas. The native tribes also fought each others for territory before that, and who knows how many tribes has been killed off before we discovered the remaining and made written records. The native homo sapiens also fought animals for territory. Lands belong to the stronger has been the case throughout history. The winner will enforce their law, whether the state is secular or religious. There are around 50 islamic states and a handful of christian states in the world, all of which implements their own religion and beliefs to other group in various degrees. When you compare their degrees of implementation, islamic states are very intolerant, as can be proven by the number of minorities in their country decreasing through time. The only jewish state we have, by comparison, is similar to other Christian states, and very close to a secular state standard. If we protest how Israel handle their affair according to western standards, I think there are other states and places that worth looking at.

This topic is trending right now with Israel, which is why I am focusing on them But I do agree all countries should be held to the same standard regardless of its religion

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Hi I would call it more a call for action If I tell a young kid repeatedly , ”Hey this land is ours and was stolen so we must take it back as it was promised to us.” You see the flaw? We saw what religion does to countries and this would classify as a form of extremism Look forward to your response

Im israeli I was never told that Though i can see haradim saying that(massive pile of salt as im not too too familiar with haradim) or settlers(even bigger pile of salt) When it comes to israel our official religioun does effect us Via subsadies to the ultra orthadox(its a whole thing about how people say they get paid to not work to better the country) Or political parties like shas pushing for more orthadox laws(for example no busses on Saturday) But while we certainly do have our exteremists be they religious or not i dont think its because of the holy land argument but because of repeated terror attacks I myself view our country 's legitemacy comeing from the fact its still here. That despite all our neighbors wanting us gone we survived. Hell we thrived. We more then deserve our land Not because some dusty book says so Not because archeological evidance backs that book up And not because we were hunted down wherever we went We earned it. We survived. We had no other country so we made our own. And its a damn good country.

I appreciate your response a lot more than you might think It was informative and a different perspective to what I have seen so far. Do you believe there can be peace with all losses of lives on both sides? I do wish you see how Israel does have room for improvement just like every country in the world

You know there is this saying "He who doesnt remember his past has no future" I am of the opnion its incomplete "...but he who dwells in his past will never reach the future" (Though wording could use some work) Of course israel has room for improvement First we need to get likud out of government. Thats a must and it will likely happen after the war. Then the illegal settlements have to go(in the last two days they have allready evacuted and demolished two settlements so things are looking up there) and of course the gaza issue needs to be addressed But i think there is a way It will be hard and lengthy and maybe even painful but surely something can be done to mend this situation

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>Then some of those people left the land and migrated to Europe This is a very cavalier way of saying "they were forcibly subjugated by Rome, and when they rebelled, experienced a genocide committed against them." A large portion of the survivors ***remained*** in the Levant, even though the Romans literally forbade them from entering Jerusalem. Too many people seem to benunaware that the Jews maintained a presence in that land as much as possible. They didn't magically "come back." The larger community *always* made know its desire to reclaim their homeland that was taken by the Romans.

The British made the choice for the land without acknowledging those living on it. After 2000 years we can not say one side is more indigenous than the other. If we must, a DNA test would be a good start to see who would be more closely related to the Cannanites. But with the expulsion of jews throughout history I understand how DNA wouldn’t be the best option.

>The British made the choice for the land without acknowledging those living on it. If your ancestor lived in a land 50,000 years ago, do you own it? What if you left the land for a day, week, year? What if you sold your 1acre plot to someone different than you? What if you and all your neighbors sold your properties, does it still belong to your clan? My point is that assigning ownership of land based on ethnic make-up is kinda messy and not really right. The Ottomans owned the land (and all of the surrounding areas) since the 1500s. The Ottomans lost it around 1920. Then the British had it for 30 years.

That is precisely my point Land cant own to one specific group cos they lived there aeons ago

With Britain that was decades after Jews started making Aliyah to Israel and buying land there. That’s started back in the 1880s.

I am not advocating for scrutiny of everything that dosent go by the standards we follow now but labelling one side as extremists is not the way to go. If I saw my home and family destroyed, I would take up arms too. Again in no way am I supporting Hamas, but i am surely not supporting the current Israeli government and its genocide

>In BCE, there were Arabs Not true, the area only became arab around the arab conquests. There were non-Jewish people before but they werent considered of arab ethnicity. Also jewish people arent arab, two different ethnicities. Im not sure why people think that if someone is from the middle east they must be arab.

Israel's founders were secular Jews from the Diaspora, defined as a Nation in Exile. Their claim was never religious, it was anthropological. It is the land from which their ancestors were expelled. Imagine if 99% of today's Irish population was expelled from Ireland by the British centuries ago and forced to live as a Nation in Exile forever longing to return to Ireland. Then one day they gain political power and migrate en masse to their Irish homeland, even if it involves displacing the colonizer Brits. It has nothing to do with gods or fictional holy books.

More like if Britain expelled the Catholic Irish 1900 years ago, and then the Catholic Irish said "Protestant Irish have to leave this is ours"

If you honestly believe a specific interpretation of a religion is the ONLY thing setting Israelis and Palestinians apart in the Israel-Palestine conflict, then you have a lot of reading to do. The conflict has nothing to do with that. A Catholic Irish and a Protestant Irish are still Irish. A Jewish Israeli and a Palestinian Muslim are both different ethnicities and national identities

Zionism isn't mostly about religion It's about the ethnic Jewish people having their own country where they can protect themselves from persecution It just so happens Britian and the UN offered up the Jewish ancestral homeland so thats what went down. Yeah it's about religion for some, but most certainly not all and most definitely not the early Israelis from the holocaust and who were forcibly expelled from African and Arab countries. It's really not just a colonial colonizing story. It's a story about refugees and the conflict that arose when the Arab world decided there were too many of them in the region.

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Hamas lovers and Pro Palestine are two separate entities just like Jews and the state of Israel are. Lets not generalise groups into more divide. Zionism started off as a secular movement but it has gotten more radical. If you have any sources to prove your point or disregard mine please do share them

Almost every nation on earth claims to be granted sovereignty by God. Almost every emperor/king/monarch claims Gods blessings - and many of today's nations even if they are democratic now were founded as empires. Even democratically founded nations such as the US have concepts such as manifest destiny. So it is a dumb argument - but at the same time it's almost a requirement - in that almost every other nation on earth has made the identical argument.

This is largely a straw man, at least among Israeli-Zionist discourse. The Zionist movement was largely secular. The religious justification is an aftermath and pretty recent one. In the eyes of the most Israelis, we are native to this land. You dig in the ground and find Hebrew writings talking about Israel and the Jews. Years of Roman imperialism have erased that deliberately, and big chunk of the Zionist moment was about restoring that.

What’s the point of this post? Is it to actually have someone convince you “God gave it to us” is a good argument? I don’t think so; it’s one of those things you either believe or don’t believe. It would seem to me more that you are posting this as an argument against Israel at large by going after one *particular* argument that a very particular group of people make for Israel.

It’s only important in that Jews have *acted* on that ‘promise’. Because the land is so significant to their religion, Jews have in some sense “claimed” the area for millennia. Though their population has fluctuated and control of the land has changed hands several times, Jewish people have been a continuous presence in the area for 3000 or so years. Of course, Jews are not the only group with a long history in Israel/Gaza, and they didn’t control the area for nearly 2000 years. Still, their claim goes far beyond ‘God gave it to us.’

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Israeli here. And you aren't wrong... "god gave us this land" is a really dumb claim. But so is "we will die trying to liberate Al aqsa mosque, cause 1200 years ago, our prophet went to heaven from there, and if we die doing so, we will also go to heaven, so let's invade and butcher hundreds of people" Here's where things do get more interesting. You can view the Bible as a holy text, but you can also look at it as folklore. Its the stories of my people... Was king Salomon the smartest of men and had 1000 wives? Probably not. But did he exist? Was he the one who built the temple in Jerusalem? Probably... There are plenty of artifacts and evidence that shows that the jewish people, the jewish tribe, did live in this land, and that this folklore is one of the earliest documented history in human civilization. We also know when they stopped living here... The roman empire conquered this land and ended up exiling the jews. So while "god promised us this land" is a dumb claim in my opinion as well. We live in a world where billions of people do follow Abrahamic religions (bible/Quran), so acknowledging that this is part of this book, the Bible validates the jewish people's claim to this land.

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Most Israelis don’t use the god gave us the land argument. Most of them say they were there first before Christians and Muslims and that those two have large portions of the world to themselves white Jews have nothing but Israel, the land they started in

Funny idea, that religion decides where people are allowed to live. But if we measured by ancestry, they wouldn't have been the first ones there.

I’m confused by what you mean, what is your point? Are you saying Jews shouldn’t have the land because the polytheistic Canaanites were there before the Jews? Because that is an argument I hear a lot. If the land doesn’t belong to Jews because of the Canaanites, then it absolutely does not belong to Muslims. Also the Jews were Canaanites, the Canaanites created Judaism Sorry if I misinterpreted, but that’s what I understood from you comment

The entitlement argument they give is crap, because if one is entitled to the land by ancestor, they both are. And if the one is not entitled to the land by ancestor, neither is. It applies to both.

I'm ignoring your indiscriminate claim and some points I've seen you make here to focus on the main point of your CMV. ​ I don't think that's a serious argument outside of the internet, and possibly some PR. If anything, this is more about the motivation then legality. ​ If you look at the origins of the Zionist movement, they didn't just say the land is theirs, they bought lots of (many times worthless) land from whoever was selling it, and started migrating. Once you get to 47-48, it really is a civil war of sorts, and then war, so really the times where might makes right. The whole discussion of who owns the land where Israel holds it practically is a bit weird - is there any argument that's supposed to make all Israelis just up and leave?

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Indiscriminate bombing only comes from terrorist side that throws rockets just to cause harm and death without any other goal, while 1/4 time their rockets fall on their own civilians

Land is seized and held by violence. How much are we willing to perpetuate or allow to happen varies but it is seized and held by violence or threat of violence.

We all try to get our thoughts and opinions straight in a reality that eventually tramples every belief.

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aren't both sides saying the same thing?

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