Was Churchill really any better than Hitler or Talaat Pasha?

[Knapf]

and one thing is a fact: the great british empire didnt really fight hitler until they knew russians will enter germany soon

Huh? Britain fought Hitler as early as The Battle of Britain 1940. The declaration of war of Britain towards Germany was 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland.

 

[At Each Kilometer]

Huh? Britain fought Hitler as early as The Battle of Britain 1940. The declaration of war of Britain towards Germany was 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland.

Are you talking about the Phoney war? Despite the formal declaration of war between the British & French and das Reich it was period of relatively little military activity, eight months to be exact, between September 1939 and May 1940. In May 1940 started the Battle of France, which ended pretty soon and in July the Battle of Britain.

 

[Knapf]

Are you talking about the Phoney war? Despite the formal declaration of war between the British & French and das Reich it was period of relatively little military activity, eight months to be exact, between September 1939 and May 1940. In May 1940 started the Battle of France, which ended pretty soon and in July the Battle of Britain.

No. I meant the Battle of Britain. But now I think I should have said as early as the start of the long lasting Battle of the Atlantic.

 

[Yury]

How much effort was placed on the former "reforming the societies they lived in and shared culture with"? Examples?

Where to start? Here is Google response:
"Jews in Europe have historically employed various strategies to combat antisemitism, ranging from individual acts of resistance to organized political movements. Here's a breakdown of their efforts:
1. Resilience and Maintaining Identity:
Religious and Cultural Practices: Maintaining Jewish traditions, religious observances, and communal life served as a form of resistance, strengthening Jewish identity and resilience in the face of hostility.
Internal Solidarity: Jewish communities often formed close-knit networks, providing mutual support, financial assistance, and a sense of belonging, which helped them cope with discrimination and persecution.
2. Seeking Legal and Political Protections:
Emancipation and Citizenship: Jews actively sought legal emancipation and citizenship rights in various European countries, advocating for equality and an end to discriminatory laws.
Political Engagement: With the expansion of citizenship rights, Jews increasingly engaged in political activism, seeking to influence policies and challenge antisemitic rhetoric.
Advocacy and Lobbying: Jewish organizations and individuals worked to raise awareness about antisemitism and lobby for legislation protecting Jewish rights.
3. Challenging Antisemitic Stereotypes and Propaganda:
Education and Cultural Contributions: Jews actively contributed to European society in the fields of science, arts, literature, and philosophy, challenging antisemitic stereotypes and demonstrating their value to society.
Counter-propaganda: Some Jewish individuals and organizations worked to counter antisemitic propaganda and educate the public about Jewish life and history.
Building Alliances: Seeking alliances with non-Jewish groups and individuals who opposed antisemitism was crucial in mobilizing broader support.
4. Resistance and Self-Defense:
Underground Networks: In times of extreme persecution, such as during the Holocaust, Jewish individuals and groups formed underground networks, hiding Jews, engaging in acts of sabotage, and assisting in escapes.
Armed Resistance: In some instances, Jews engaged in armed resistance against Nazi persecution, most famously in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
5. Documentation and Memorialization:
Preserving History and Memory: Jews meticulously documented their experiences of antisemitism and persecution, including the Holocaust, to ensure that the memory of these events is not forgotten and to combat Holocaust denial.
Establishing Memorials and Museums: Museums and memorials dedicated to Jewish history and the Holocaust serve as a reminder of the dangers of antisemitism and as a place for education and reflection.
Important Note: The methods employed to fight antisemitism varied throughout history and across different European countries depending on the specific circumstances and the level of threat faced by Jewish communities.

 

[HackneyedScribe]

Google AI isn’t a valid source and the answer here is just a bunch of vagueness, the one specific thing it puts a name to wasn’t even before WW2 meaning it’s beyond the context of your claim. You should at least be giving out some quotes and numbers with specifics while naming the source you got it from.

And even with this vagueness, the effort pre WW2 doesn’t sound like it matches the effort of forced conscription of one’s own people, committing ethnic displacement (including against one’s own people not just Palestinians), waging the inevitable wars that resulted from the practice of settler colonialism, and settling up strings of colonies as human shields to act as buffer zones against those who were displaced, all of which were given source names and quotes from sources. No Google AI responses needed. So your justification for imposing settler colonialism simply because the Jewish people tried to fight for equal rights elsewhere but failed, falls flat considering the Zionists took far more extreme efforts to practice settler colonialism than to fight for equal rights. And this is ignoring that Jewish rights aren’t any more or less important than Palestinian rights, yet the argument puts more importance on preventing some possible perceived future ethnic cleansing against Jewish people, to the point that it justifies the actual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine which was actually happening. If Americans/Germans/what-have-you practiced anti-semitism, it doesn’t justify ethnically displacing a different group of people who would naturally resist the invasion. Such arguments acts as if the rights to “safety and security” of the latter weren’t even worth considering.

 

[Yury]

Google AI isn’t a valid source and the answer here is just a bunch of vagueness, the one specific thing it puts a name to wasn’t even before WW2 meaning it’s beyond the context of your claim. You should at least be giving out some quotes and numbers with specifics while naming the source you got it from.

FYI Google after providing the summary gives a list of references. In that case the list was too long, to copy and paste. I encourage you to run the quiery yourself, but should to warn you, some crap will pop up, there are a lot of antisemites on Internet

 

[HackneyedScribe]

Then give THOSE sources, which you should have read first yourself. And if it says what Google AI claims it to say, and determined that it made a good argument + backs up your claim, only then bother to share it.
Right now you’re just saying “go look for it yourself” but using more words, which is not only lazy but also protects yourself from critiques. Any good argument should be specific enough that it can be critiqued if it’s making factually wrong claims. Avoiding specificity is avoiding accountability for one’s claims. It almost seems as if you’re claiming things first and looking for evidence (with not much effort) later. The practice should be the other way around.

 

[pugsville]

FYI Google after providing the summary gives a list of references. In that case the list was too long, to copy and paste. I encourage you to run the quiery yourself, but should to warn you, some crap will pop up, there are a lot of antisemites on Internet

My experience with AI is the references are often made up.

 

[starstrike]

When you forcibly displace a people because of what ANOTHER group of people (Germans) did to you, there's going to be a high chance of violent resistance from those being forcibly displaced (and the Zionists knew this). That's not safe for anyone unless if you're just willingly blind to all the times when locals resisted settler colonialism including Israeli settler colonialism. If Zionist settlers had the right to take the homes of Palestinians who had nothing to do with the Holocaust, then these very same Palestinians, using the same logic, certainly had even more right to take their homes back from those who actually had something to do with them being ethnically displaced.

Let's not forget that Israel tried both successfully and unsuccessfully to ethnically displace Jews in other countries, just so these Jews would move to Israel and hence give Israel a demographic advantage:

For example, in Yemen, "Tens of thousands of Jews were urged to leave their homes and travel to Israel. As for the Jews who opted to stay [in Yemen], the Jewish emissary in Aden, Shlomo Schmidt, asked permission to propose that Yemeni authorities expel them, but Yemeni authorities did not" - The truth behind Israeli Propaganda on the 'Expulsion' of Arab Jews, by Joseph Massad.
Whereas in North Africa: "A year later it was reported that there was a sharp decline in the number of immigrants from North Africa, as a result of the information that reached them concerning the hardships of settling in Israel. "The first thing one notices now is the obvious reluctance to go to Israel," wrote one of the Jewish Agency emissaries after visiting the transit camps in Marseilles. According to him, it had become a widespread attitude: "The people virtually have to be taken aboard the ships by force." - 1949 The First Israelis by Tom Segev

This certainly doesn't sound like a state that's providing "safety" and "security" to ethnic Jews.

The very act of settler colonialism gives great incentive for a state, Israel included, to use its own civilians as a buffer zone. That is, human shields, nevermind things like the Hannibal Directive..
An example of the Israeli state blurring the line between civilian and military personnel was in the use of settlers, much like the American using of settlers to colonize Native American lands. This put locals in a position of either violently resisting the settlers or losing their land. Once the violent resistance happened, it becomes justification to send in the army. In the Israeli case, settlers received military equipment, military training and had the right to kill "infiltrators", but who were these infiltrators?

"Many of the infiltrators were Palestinian refugees whose reasons for crossing the border included looking for relatives, returning to their homes, recovering possessions, tending their fields, harvesting, and, occasionally exacting revenge. [...] In the period 1919-56 as a whole, 90 per cent or more of all infiltrations, in Morris's estimate, were motivated by economic and social concerns [such as those]." - Israel's Dirty War, Avi Shlaim.

Statement of the Negev Settlements Committee about how Israeli soldiers raping/murdering across the border are causing Arabs to cross the border seeking revenge. Their solution wasn't to punish the soldiers who did these things or to hand them over to the victims, but to use settlers as a buffer zone (to their credit they at least demanded the soldiers stop their raping/murdering):
"In light of this series of horrific events, the representatives of the Negev Settlements Comittee met with the IDF Chief of Staff, General Yiga'el Yadin on April 4, 1950. The representatives emphasized the 'need to put an end and quickly and thoroughly terminate our soldiers' criminal acts such as .... and murder, as a result of which we suffer badly'. At the same time, they demanded to restore the security along the armistice line. For that purpose, they suggested that more infiltrators be killed, and their herds confiscated or destroyed. They also called for the deportation of all the Bedouin who settled illegally near the armistice line, and demanded that the army secure the upcoming harvest, improve the security of the water lines, supply the settlers with additional weapons, and adjust the settlers' military training hours to their agricultural work schedule." - Israel and the Gaza Strip, The First Decade 1947-1957, Arnon Golan, p. 89-90.

"Members of Kibbutz Neve Yair, established by 1948 war veterans, former members of Lehi (the Stern Gang), and located northeast of the murder and .... scene, were renowned for their harsh treatment of infiltrators...Members of other kibbutzim such as Be'eri and Erez regularly participated in anti-infiltration activities that included ambushes, patrols, and retaliation raids... Members of Kibbutz Mefalsim, which was located 20 kilometers north of Neve Yair, considered the killing of unarmed infiltrators an unfortunate necessity that was contrary to the principles upon which they were raised as Zionists and socialists." - Israel and the Gaza Strip, The First Decade 1947-1957, Arnon Golan, p. 89-90.

"The sparsely populated Israeli south was already a high priority: In November 1948, the Israeli government decided to allocate considerable sums of money to habilitate existing settlements and establish 18-20 new settlements. The IDF was assigned to determine their location so as best to integrate them into the territorial defense system....To reinforce the territorial defense system and create the country's reserve for additional kibbutzim and moshavim, Ben-Gurion proposed to combine compulsory service in the IDF with agricultural training in the framework of the NAHAL corps.... The NAHAL corps recruited groups of future settlers from Zionist youth movements. Their service included basic military training, agricultural training in the kibbutzim, and the establishment of military-agricultural settlements in frontier areas, which were later converted into kibbutzim or moshavim." - Israel and the Gaza Strip, The First Decade 1947-1957, Arnon Golan, p. 46-47.

So settler colonies were purposefully built around the areas that they herded Palestinians into as a "defense zone", the Israeli state gave them military training and equipment, had the settlers operate in a military capacity, used these settlers to contain Palestinians whenever Palestinians want to go outside of their containment zone without Israeli permission (including shooting unarmed "infiltrators").

They weren't exactly hiding their intentions at settler colonialism either:

David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister (1948-1953):

"We must expel Arabs and take their places...and, if we have to use force-not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places-then we have force at our disposal." (from Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 66)

"The compulsory transfer of the [Palestinian] Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the first and second Temples. We are given an opportunity which we never dared to dream of in our wildest imaginings. This is more than a state, government and sovereignty, this is national consolidation in a free homeland." (from Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 142)

"In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the [Palestinian] Arab fellahin. it is important that this plan comes from the [British Peel] Commission and not from us. Jewish power, which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out the transfer on a large scale." (from Righteous Victims, p. 143)

"With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement]. I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." (from Righteous Victims, p. 144)

"Just as I do not see the proposed Jewish state as a final solution to the problems of the Jewish people, so I do not see partition as the final solution of the Palestine question. Those who reject partition are right in their claim that this country cannot be partitioned because it constitutes one unit, not only from a historical point of view but also from that of nature and economy" (from Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, p. 22)

"After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the [Jewish] state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of the Palestine" (from The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, p. 22)

Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first President:

"[the indigenous population was akin to] the rocks of Judea, as obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path." (from Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 17)

Moshe Sharett, Israel's second Prime Minister (1953-1955):

"We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but we have come to conquer a country from people inhabiting it" (from Righteous Victims, p. 91)

On partition: "The [Palestinian] Arab reaction would be negative because they would lose everything and gain almost nothing ...They would lose the richest part of Palestine; they would lose major Arab assets, the orange plantations, the commercial and industrial centers and the most important sources of revenue for their government which would become impoverished; they would lose most of the coastal area, which would also be a loss to the hinterland Arab states...It would mean that they would be driven back to the desert." (from Expulsion of the Palestinians, p.59)

"With regard to the refugees, we are determined to be adamant while the war lasts. Once the return tide starts, it will be impossible to stem it, and it will prove our undoing. As for the future, we are equally determined to explore all possibilities of getting rid, once and for all, of the huge [Palestinian] Arab minority [referring to the Palestinian Israeli citizens of Israel] which originally threatened us. What can be achieved in this period of storm and stress [referring to the 1948 war] will be quite unattainable once conditions get stabilized. (from The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, p. 105)

Yosef Weitz, director, Jewish National Fund Land Settlement Committee (1932-1948):

"...the transfer of [Palestinian] Arab population from the area of the Jewish state does not serve only one aim--to diminish the Arab population. It also serves a second, no less important, aim which is to advocate land presently held and cultivated by the [Palestinian] Arabs and thus to release it for Jewish inhabitants." (from Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 94-95)

"It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples...If the Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us...The only solution is a Land of Israel...without Arabs...There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them, save perhaps for [the Palestinian Arabs of] Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one tribe." (from Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, p. 27)

"Once again I come face to face with the land settlement difficulties that emanate from the existence of two people in close proximity...only population transfer and evacuating this country so it would become exclusively for us is the solution. " (from Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 132)

Moshe Dayan, chief of staff, Israel Defense Forces and Minister of Defense during the 1967 war:

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either...There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab Population."
(from Ha'aretz, April 4, 1969)

"We shoot at those from among the 200,000 hungry Arabs who cross the line [to graze their flocks]...Arabs cross to collect the grain that they left in the abandoned villages and we set mines for them and they go back without an arm or a leg. [It may be that this] cannot pass review, but I know no other method of guarding the borders." (from Righteous Victims, p. 275)

At the funeral of an Israeli farmer killed by a Palestinian in April 1956:
"Let us not today fling accusation at the murderers. What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us. For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived...We should demand his blood not from the Arabs of Gaza but from ourselves...Let us make our reckoning today. We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house." (from Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall, p. 101)
...

Displacement of bedouin tribes was done by most countries in the region during the 20th cent. - most of these countries incl. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Syria etc. had Bedouin populations that were disposessed of their claimed ancestral lands by being forced to settle or modernize etc. This was all part of 20th cent. modernization+nationalist efforts. I don't think there's a single country in the region that provided any official documentation for bedouin lands in terms of property rights etc.

The major problem with terming Israel a purely "settler colonial" project is that the "settlers" had provable ancestral and cultural ties to the land that they were "settling" in. This wasn't like the Alfonso de Albequerqe randomly showing up in Goa and bombarding it, or Columbus randomly showing up in the Bahamas and claiming it as part of Spain.

When the British divided up the land into two countries, that should have been the end of it.

 

[HackneyedScribe]

Displacement of bedouin tribes was done by most countries in the region during the 20th cent. - most of these countries incl. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Syria etc. had Bedouin populations that were disposessed of their claimed ancestral lands by being forced to settle or modernize etc. This was all part of 20th cent. modernization+nationalist efforts.

I don't think there's a single country in the region that provided any official documentation for bedouin lands in terms of property rights etc.

Two wrongs don't make a right, especially when one is mostly enforced sedentarization while the other is enforced sedentarization + ethnic cleansing (so even 100% going along with the sedentarization would only delay later abuses).

The major problem with terming Israel a purely "settler colonial" project is that the "settlers" had provable ancestral and cultural ties to the land that they were "settling" in.

This wasn't like the Alfonso de Albequerqe randomly showing up in Goa and bombarding it, or Columbus randomly showing up in the Bahamas and claiming it as part of Spain.

The Palestinians that the Israeli settlers displaced ALSO had ancestral and cultural ties to the land that they lived in. As already sourced in this thread, Palestinians are every bit descendants of the Caanites as the Israelis. They were the descendants of those living there who didn't leave.
The Israelis don't know which exact land 2-3 thousand years ago were theirs on an individual scale, merely that it's within some 500 kilometer vicinity, nor even if their ancestors 2-3 thousand years ago left willingly or unwillingly, while many preferred to see other lands that they lived in for generations as their true home (but the Zionists tried both successfully and unsuccessfully to displace them into Palestine anyway, and then conscripted them to displace Palestinians). But the Palestinians DO know which land is their own that they lived in for generations, not lands within some vague 500 kilometer vicinity. And when they got displaced, you know full well that the vast majority were forced to leave by one means or the other with no right to return. In fact, trying to return could get them legally shot by settlers as "infiltrators".
The entire settler colonial project could only be justified if you put Israeli rights far, far above the rights of Palestinians.

 

[starstrike]

The Palestinians that the Israeli settlers displaced ALSO had ancestral and cultural ties to the land that they lived in.
The Israelis don't know which exact land 2-3 thousand years ago were theirs on an individual scale, merely that it's within some 500 kilometer vicinity, nor even if their ancestors 2-3 thousand years ago left willingly or unwillingly. But the Palestinians DO know which land is their own that they lived in for generations, not lands within some 500 kilometer vicinity. And when they got displaced, you know full well that for the vast majority were forced to leave by one means or the other with no right to return. In fact, trying to return could get them legally shot by settlers as "infiltrators".
The entire settler colonial project could only be justified if you put Israeli rights far, far above the rights of Palestinians.

I think most of the early Jewish settlers bought property legally under whatever laws that existed at the time. They didn't show up with gunboats and armies to conquer it.

Most of the forced displacement happened after 1948 when the Palestinians + Arab countries didn't accept the partition of the country. I mean if you use this logic, then the Hindus who were forced to flee to India in 1947 are entitled to their ancestral lands in Pakistan and so on.

I'm not claiming that the Israelis are blameless or anything like that, but to call it a "settler colonial project" is IMO a stretch and it diminishes what actual settler colonialism was like.

Even geographically, the region is on the Mediterranean sea and has close ties to the entire Mediterranean region including Europe. In fact it was historically one of the most contested regions of the planet with all 3 monotheisms claiming it as their holy land. It wasn't some pristine isolated civilization that didn't know what hit them.

 

[At Each Kilometer]

In the Damascus Eyalet, most precisely in the Jerusalem Sanjak lived a significant Jewish population, Sephardim and Romaniotes.

 

[HackneyedScribe]

I think most of the early Jewish settlers bought property legally under whatever laws that existed at the time. They didn't show up with gunboats and armies to conquer it.

And they had every right to those property that were legally bought from the Palestinians with mutual consent, which consisted of all 5.67% of Palestine that was Jewish bought/owned. Albeit even with this, I don't agree with what they did with the land: Zionist land owners wouldn't hire Arabs to work the land nor rent the land for Arabs to live in whereas Arabs hired from both ethnic groups. This caused a lot of ethnic tension.

Most of the forced displacement happened after 1948 when the Palestinians + Arab countries didn't accept the partition of the country.

Because Jews who owned 5.67% of the land and consisted of 30% of the population (mostly new migrants) suddenly had the "right" to 55% of the land. Why would the Palestinians accept suddenly losing most of their land, because of crimes somebody else on another continent did?

Shortly before the Nakba, Palestinians were the majority in the land.
Source from the British Village Statistics of 1945: https://www.marxists.org/history/palestine/1970/villagestatistics.pdf
Last page shows that the population in 1945 was 1.2 million Arabs and 0.5 million Jews in a total population of 1.7 million people
Out of 26.3 million dunums in land, Arabs owned 12.8 million, Jews 1.5 million, and 1.5 million were public. Much of the rest were claimed by Arabic Bedouin tribes that would eventually be mostly dispossessed, as quoted below in "Suspended in Space: Bedouins under the Law of Israel":

Pasture, in all this, remains an unrecognized form of living. The [Israeli] court's decision thus becomes an objective application of a clear legal rule. The Bedouin claims of possession rely, at most, on "abstract possession" that cannot serve as sufficient ground for concluding that the disputed lands are not Mawat.'2 In other words, such "ab- stract possession," a term the court itself coins, becomes a powerful legal way of making the Bedouins invisible. "Abstract" possession is a working mode of conceptualism, in the sense that it evaluates practices and experiences through decontextualization and abstraction, namely, "outside the narratives that constitute them" (Ewick & Silbey 1995:199), and juxtaposes this abstraction with the "real" project of planting and fencing.
Finally, the demand for formal and documented proofs of ownership and possession are also rendered problematic once put in context. Indeed, Bedouins who are asked to produce proofs of their ownership rights are at a loss as far as documentation is concerned. The Bedouins traditionally were suspicious of attempts to force them into registering their lands. They considered such attempts as means of turning them into subjects of an external authority and into tax-paying and army-serving citizens. The Bedouin historical resistance to all forms of state control made them reluctant to take any measures toward formal registration of their lands (Brand et al. 1978). Under Ottoman and British rule, the absence of formal documentation did not threaten the Bedouins' control of land because their de facto autonomy had largely been respected. However, this situation abruptly changed with the establishment of Israel in 1948. From then on, the formal legal demands for establishing ownership through documentation and registration provided another objective and powerful reason for denying any such claims.
-Suspended in Space: Bedouins under the Law of Israel, by Ronen Shamir, pg 241

I mean if you use this logic, then the Hindus who were forced to flee to India in 1947 are entitled to their ancestral lands in Pakistan and so on

By your logic even 2-3000 years later the descendants of those Hindus would STILL be entitled to their ancestral lands in Pakistan even if their ancestors happily left of their own volitions for reasons that have nothing to do with the partition. And by "entitled to their ancestral lands" I don't mean the actual land their ancestors built a home on, but rather just some random land within a 500 km vicinity of that. And if other people are living there, even if it's for the last 2-3000 years, well they have to leave.

I'm not claiming that the Israelis are blameless or anything like that, but to call it a "settler colonial project" is IMO a stretch and it diminishes what actual settler colonialism was like.

The Zionists had the intention to replace the demography of Palestine with Jewish settlers and to force the Palestinians to leave if necessary. That's settler colonialism by definition.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister (1948-1953):

"We must expel Arabs and take their places...and, if we have to use force-not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places-then we have force at our disposal." (from Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 66)

"The compulsory transfer of the [Palestinian] Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the first and second Temples. We are given an opportunity which we never dared to dream of in our wildest imaginings. This is more than a state, government and sovereignty, this is national consolidation in a free homeland." (from Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 142)

"In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the [Palestinian] Arab fellahin. it is important that this plan comes from the [British Peel] Commission and not from us. Jewish power, which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out the transfer on a large scale." (from Righteous Victims, p. 143)

"With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement]. I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." (from Righteous Victims, p. 144)

"Just as I do not see the proposed Jewish state as a final solution to the problems of the Jewish people, so I do not see partition as the final solution of the Palestine question. Those who reject partition are right in their claim that this country cannot be partitioned because it constitutes one unit, not only from a historical point of view but also from that of nature and economy" (from Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, p. 22)

"After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the [Jewish] state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of the Palestine" (from The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, p. 22)

Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first President:

"[the indigenous population was akin to] the rocks of Judea, as obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path." (from Expulsion of the Palestinians, p. 17)

Moshe Sharett, Israel's second Prime Minister (1953-1955):

"We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but we have come to conquer a country from people inhabiting it" (from Righteous Victims, p. 91)

On partition: "The [Palestinian] Arab reaction would be negative because they would lose everything and gain almost nothing ...They would lose the richest part of Palestine; they would lose major Arab assets, the orange plantations, the commercial and industrial centers and the most important sources of revenue for their government which would become impoverished; they would lose most of the coastal area, which would also be a loss to the hinterland Arab states...It would mean that they would be driven back to the desert." (from Expulsion of the Palestinians, p.59)

"With regard to the refugees, we are determined to be adamant while the war lasts. Once the return tide starts, it will be impossible to stem it, and it will prove our undoing. As for the future, we are equally determined to explore all possibilities of getting rid, once and for all, of the huge [Palestinian] Arab minority [referring to the Palestinian Israeli citizens of Israel] which originally threatened us. What can be achieved in this period of storm and stress [referring to the 1948 war] will be quite unattainable once conditions get stabilized. (from The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities, p. 105)

Yosef Weitz, director, Jewish National Fund Land Settlement Committee (1932-1948):

"...the transfer of [Palestinian] Arab population from the area of the Jewish state does not serve only one aim--to diminish the Arab population. It also serves a second, no less important, aim which is to advocate land presently held and cultivated by the [Palestinian] Arabs and thus to release it for Jewish inhabitants." (from Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 94-95)

"It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples...If the Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us...The only solution is a Land of Israel...without Arabs...There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them, save perhaps for [the Palestinian Arabs of] Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one tribe." (from Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, p. 27)

"Once again I come face to face with the land settlement difficulties that emanate from the existence of two people in close proximity...only population transfer and evacuating this country so it would become exclusively for us is the solution. " (from Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 132)

Moshe Dayan, chief of staff, Israel Defense Forces and Minister of Defense during the 1967 war:

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either...There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab Population."
(from Ha'aretz, April 4, 1969)

"We shoot at those from among the 200,000 hungry Arabs who cross the line [to graze their flocks]...Arabs cross to collect the grain that they left in the abandoned villages and we set mines for them and they go back without an arm or a leg. [It may be that this] cannot pass review, but I know no other method of guarding the borders." (from Righteous Victims, p. 275)

At the funeral of an Israeli farmer killed by a Palestinian in April 1956:
"Let us not today fling accusation at the murderers. What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us. For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived...We should demand his blood not from the Arabs of Gaza but from ourselves...Let us make our reckoning today. We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house." (from Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall, p. 101)

Yigal Allon, commander, Palmach (elite force of Zionist militia Haganah) (1945-1948), Lieutenant General, Israeli army (1948-1949):

"The confidence of thousands of Arabs of the Hula [Valley] was shaken...We had only five days left...until 15 May [1948]. We regarded it as imperative to cleanse the interior of the Galilee and create Jewish territorial continuity in the whole of the Upper Galilee...I gathered the Jewish mukhtars [Kibbutz chiefs], who had ties with the different Arab villages, and I asked them to whisper in the ears of several Arabs that a giant Jewish reinforcement had reached the Galilee and were about to clean out the villages of Hula, [and] to advise them as friends, to flee while they could. And rumour spread throughout Hula that the time had come to flee. The flight encompassed tens of thousands. The stratagem fully achieved its objective." (from The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, p. 122)

Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel (1974-1977, 1992-1995)

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population. ' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!" (from New York Times, October 23, 1979)

Source: What Leading Israelis Have Said About the Nakba | IMEU

Even geographically, the region is on the Mediterranean sea and has close ties to the entire Mediterranean region including Europe. In fact it was historically one of the most contested regions of the planet with all 3 monotheisms claiming it as their holy land. It wasn't some pristine isolated civilization that didn't know what hit them.

It doesn't matter whether Palestine was a "pristine civilization" or a primitive backwater, nor does it matter how close its ties with Europe was. You don't have the right to kick people out of their homes simply for belonging to the "wrong" ethnicity. Their economic condition/Mediterranean ties wasn't a crime and shouldn't be justification for ethnic displacement.

 

[starstrike]

Did israel immediately start displacing Palestinians once the UN agreed to the partition plan? I think the displacement mostly happened during and after the 1948 war, and it was done by both sides.

The Zionists had the intention to replace the demography of Palestine with Jewish settlers and to force the Palestinians to leave if necessary. That's settler colonialism by definition.

You can't use this definition, because they weren't purely "settlers" to begin with - they had ancestral ties to the land, and their circumstances were forced by the Holocaust. You could blame European countries for failing to accommodate them, but again, it's an oversimplification to call it "settler colonialism'.

By your logic even 2-3000 years later the descendants of those Hindus would STILL be entitled to their ancestral lands in Pakistan even if their ancestors left of their own volitions for reasons that have nothing to do with the partition. And by "ancestral lands" I don't mean the actual land their ancestors built a home on, just some land within a 500 km vicinity of that. And if other people are living there, even if it's for the last 2-3000 years, well they have to leave.

Yes, they should be entitied to it at least morally. Obviously, in the absence of exact documentation in terms of which pieces of land they inhabited, they should be given the best approximation of it.
I believe most Jews were forcefully displaced at various times - they didn't just migrate for opportunistic reasons.

Honestly, if I run down the list of all the various atrocities and injustices that have occurred around the world in the last 100 years, this one would rank very very low down on my list - far lower proportionate to the amount of attention that it gets.

 

[HackneyedScribe]

Did israel immediately start displacing Palestinians once the UN agreed to the partition plan? I think the displacement mostly happened during and after the 1948 war, and it was done by both sides.

Attacks were happening before the partition, well before. Either way it doesn't justify ethnic displacement. Most of the population didn't attack anybody.

You can't use this definition, because they weren't purely "settlers" to begin with - they had ancestral ties to the land, and their circumstances were forced by the Holocaust. You could blame European countries for failing to accommodate them, but again, it's an oversimplification to call it "settler colonialism'.

You don't know where their "ancestral ties" exactly was. You know it's within some 500 km vicinity of a dot on a map, but you can't pinpoint where. So if I move to a place 500 km away I'd call that settling (as did the Zionists themselves) Plus, it's been 2-3 thousand years. At some point it gets ridiculous. How far back do you want it to go. By your logic it would be impossible for anyone to be a "settler" of Africa because that's where we all came from, and everywhere else are just settler populations. The "circumstances of the Holocaust" didn't force them to live in Palestine. Zionists used the Holocaust as an excuse, including as an excuse to drive unwilling Jews into Palestine, even though these Jews wanted to live somewhere else but got called traitors for it.

Definition of Settler colonialism based on Cornell Law school: Settler colonialism can be defined as a system of oppression based on genocide and colonialism , that aims to displace a population of a nation (oftentimes indigenous people) and replace it with a new settler population. Settler colonialism finds its foundations on a system of power perpetuated by settlers that represses indigenous people’s rights and cultures by erasing it and replacing it by their own.

Yes, they should be entitied to it at least morally. Obviously, in the absense of exact documentation in terms of which pieces of land they inhabited, they should be given the best approximation of it.

Then by your logic the Bedouin should be given back their land in Israel, along with the rest of the Palestinians, in which they should be given the best approximation of the land they were displaced from (and the ability to approximate this land is way better than land taken 2-3000 years ago) yet I don't see you arguing for Zionist settlers to hand over their land back to the families that it was taken from.
Again, such justifications by Zionists can only work if Jewish rights are viewed with far greater importance than Palestinian rights. Otherwise these very arguments that Zionists make to justify ethnic displacement, could be used for Palestinians to get their land back.

By your logic, a family who lived on the same piece of land for 2-3000 years, must relinquish their land because someone else 2-3000 years ago lost another piece of land 500 km away from the land that you and your ancestors lived on.

I believe most Jews were forcefully displaced at various times - they didn't just migrate for opportunistic reasons.

You don't know which Jews had ancestors who left willingly and which was forcibly displaced. What we do know, with much better documentation, was that the Palestinians were forcibly displaced and because it didn't happen 2-3 thousand years ago, we are capable of having a much better idea of which land their grandfathers actually owned.

Honestly, if I run down the list of all the various atrocities and injustices that have occurred around the world in the last 100 years, this one would rank very very low down on my list - far lower proportionate to the amount of attention that it gets.

Then you are more than welcome to talk about THOSE atrocities. It doesn't mean everybody has to play along. It's an Appeal to Worse Problems fallacy.

 

[starstrike]

It doesn't matter whether Palestine was a "pristine civilization" or a primitive backwater, nor does it matter how close its ties with Europe was. You don't have the right to kick people out of their homes simply for belonging to the "wrong" ethnicity. Their economic condition/Mediterranean ties wasn't a crime and shouldn't be justification for ethnic displacement.

This is another disagreement that I have with the premise - I think this was more of a religious thing than an ethnic one - always was. All 3 monothesisms had made total claims to the land which made any kind of accommodation difficult.

If the Jews had designs on the land, so did the Arabs, who saw the Jewish presence as a threat to their own hegemony over it, hard won as it was a few centuries before.

 

[starstrike]

Then by your logic the Bedouin should be given back their land in Israel, along with the rest of the Palestinians, in which they should be given the best approximation of the land they were displaced from (and the ability to approximate this land is way better than land taken 2-3000 years ago) yet I don't see you arguing for Zionist settlers to hand over their land back to the families that it was taken from.
Again, such justifications by Zionists can only work if Jewish rights are viewed with far greater importance than Palestinian rights. Otherwise these very arguments that Zionists make to justify ethnic displacement, could be used for Palestinians to get their land back.

Yes, this applies to everyone. They are morally entitied to the land they were displaced from in Israel. Whether that is possibie given the current circumstances is a different question. Note that Israel still has a significant minority Arab population, so clearly one side is more accommodating than the other.

 

[HackneyedScribe]

This is another disagreement that I have with the premise - I think this was more of a religious thing than an ethnic one - always was. All 3 monothesisms had made total claims to the land which made any kind of accommodation difficult.

If the Jews had designs on the land, so did the Arabs, who saw the Jewish presence as a threat to their own hegemony over it, hard won as it was a few centuries before.

As said, the Palestinians have every bit as much Caanite ancestry as Jews. The Palestinians were ethnically displaced, they were kicked out of their homes because of their ethnicity, they could be shot for refusing to leave, shot as "infiltrators" for trying to go back, put under blockade if they didn't try to go back. And you say to them that it's a "religious" problem.

Yes, this applies to everyone. They are morally entitied to the land they were displaced from in Israel. Whether that is possibie given the current circumstances is a different question.

In which case Palestinians were entitled to 95% of the land of Israel and Israel should shrink to the remaining 5.67% that they bought legally. Glad we agree.

Note that Israel still has a significant minority Arab population, so clearly one side is more accommodating than the other.

I see you're using present tense. Are you kidding on regarding who's more "accommodating"? Need I remind what's being livestreams in real time for the last 2 years? Having a "significant minority Arab population" is a band-aid on a beheading.

 

[starstrike]

In which case Palestinians were entitled to 95% of the land of Israel and Israel should shrink to the remaining 5.67% that they bought legally. Glad we agree.

Well we can argue about %s, but I definitely don't think that the Israelis need to "go back to where they came from" like some random settler colonialists.

 

[HackneyedScribe]

Well we can argue about %s, but I definitely don't think that the Israelis need to "go back to where they came from" like some random settler colonialists.

The entire point is that Palestinians should be allowed to "go back to where they came from". Something the Israeli state doesn't allow as that would put them under a demographic disadvantage, which could have massive repercussions for the "only democracy in the Middle East".