Grappler Truth Teller Feller wrote on Jan 9^th, 2024 at 7:35am:



  "I don't understand your optimism.," Ben-Gurion declared. "Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? ". '

Unlike you, Ben-Gurion can at least speak honestly.

13. Statement to the Knesset by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, 27 October 1961.

The Herut opposition party in the Knesset moved for a debate on the Arab refugees. In his reply, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion stated that there was only one practical and fair solution to the problem of the Arab refugees: to settle them among their own people. If the Arab riders entered into direct talks with Israel for a peace settlement, Israel would give all possible aid to this end. Text of the statement:

1. The Second World War resulted in a tremendous movement of refugees from one country to another, totalling almost 20 million souls: from India to Pakistan and from Pakistan to India; from East European countries to Germany and from Eastern Germany to Western Germany; from one East European country to another; and it would not occur to anyone to put back the clock and repatriate all the refugees to their pre-war homes.

2. Almost all the Arab refugees from Israel left the country before the establishment of the State, immediately after the publication of the UN resolution. After the establishment of the State, the number of refugees was very small.

3. Almost all the Arabs who lived in Israel on the day the State was established are here today, and they have been joined by some 30,000 refugees whose return was permitted by the Government of Israel for family or other reasons, and by the inhabitants of the "Triangle" area added as a result of the Armistice Agreement.

4. The departure from the country of the Arabs referred to as refugees began immediately after the UN Resolution, from the areas allocated to the Jewish State. We have clear documentary evidence of the fact that they left the country at the orders of the Arab leaders, headed by the Mufti, on the assumption that the invasion of the Arab armies after the departure of the Mandatory Government's forces would destroy the Jewish State, and throw all the Jews, alive or dead, into the sea.

5. Immediately after the establishment of the State, while the invasion of the Arab armies was still in progress, large-scale Jewish immigration began from the DP camps in Germany, from Cyprus and, especially, from the Arab countries: Iraq, Yemen, Egypt. Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Syria and Lebanon.

6. The number of the Arabs who before the UN Resolution lived in the area allocated to the Jewish State by the UN, and who left it voluntarily or at the orders of their leaders, is not larger than the number of the Jewish refugees from the Arab countries, so that what has taken place is an unplanned, but de facto exchange of populations, and there is no practical possibility or moral justification for putting the clock back.

7. There are also Jewish refugees in the State of Israel from areas of Palestine which were settled by Jews before and during the Mandatory period: the Old City of Jerusalem, the Etzion bloc of settlements, Neveh Yaakov, Atarot and so forth.

8. In assessing the property of the Arabs who left Israel, it would be inconceivable not to take into account the property of the Jewish refugees from the Arab countries, and from Palestine itself.

9. If compensation is to be paid and we are not opposed to compensation if the question as a whole is solved the Jewish refugees are just as entitled to compensation as the Arab refugees.

10. If an Arab refugee problem still exists, this is entirely a result of the violation of the UN Charter by the Arab rulers and their callous treatment of members of their own people. Israel did not wait until the Arab rulers should return the property of the Jewish refugees, but, regarding them as human beings and brothers, saw to their absorption, housing, employment, health and the education of their children. The Arab rulers treated the Arab refugees not as human beings and members of their own people, but as a weapon with which to strike at Israel. Some of the neighbouring Arab countries are under-populated, and they have plentiful resources of fertile soil and water as well as a shortage of manpower, but for the purpose of destroying Israel with the aid of the refugees as well they are behaving callously to their own people and treating them as nothing more than a political and military weapon with which to undermine and destroy Israel.

11. Israel categorically rejects the insidious proposal for freedom of choice for the refugees, for she is convinced that this proposal is designed and calculated only to destroy Israel. There is only one practical and fair solution for the problem of the refugees: to settle them among their own people in countries having plenty of good land and water and which are in need of additional manpower.

12. If the Arab rulers comply with the Assembly decision and the principles of the UN Charter and enter into direct talks with Israel for a peace settlement, Israel will give all possible assistance towards the settlement of the refugees among their own people, utilizing her own great experience in the settlement of refugees under conditions much more difficult than those prevalent in neighbouring countries.
https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/General/13-statement-to-the-knesset-by-pm-ben-...

Jewdea.

Al Aqsa is built ON TOP of Solomon's temple. Please explain how that happened.

Frank wrote on Jan 9^th, 2024 at 6:23pm:


In the same way Solomon's temple was built on land formerly belonging to Philistina.

Frank wrote on Jan 9^th, 2024 at 12:17pm:


“Be careful what rhetoric you use to argue against the existence of this or that nation in this world. You might find your logic being used against you one day.”

To those of us who know world history, people who say there was never a Palestine or Palestinians sound like this:

    “There never was a nation of Australia. It was simply a colony of Britain, that was taken from Indigenous tribes in the 18th century. There were no Australians, there never was an AuStRaLiA. It was simply a vastly empty land which was mostly unused and left barren. We decided to put it to good use. The people calling themselves “Australians”, in the Queensland, NSW and Victorian city camps are merely refusing to integrate into the southern continent of the Middle Kingdom. They are just the sad lost counsins of Britain that refuse to face the reality of the 21st century world.”

Chinese Diplomat, 2084. Standing out the front of The CCP headquarters in AustraChina. This is how you sound when you say Palestine never existed and was never a nation.


But Palestine is a nation:

    “There are people who wrongly, but adamantly, say Palestine never existed as a nation. Many who say this know that Palestine is an ancient designation of the land of Canaan, that originates from the Greeks, and derives from Philistine. They also are aware that the Romans renamed the province of Judea, Syria Palaestina (Palestine) after another large rebellion of the Jews was defeated in 132 AD. Of course, those who recognize the Philistines as ancient invaders into the land of Israel, are not keen to ascribe the name Palestine to the land they consider to be the right of the Israelites. So, many who hold this view easily fall for the statement that Palestine was never a nation. But this is incorrect, for most of the A.D. era a people lived in the province of Palestine, first mostly Christian, then Christian and Arab Muslim, then mostly Muslim, but still many were and are Christian. They had survived different invasions, wars, shifts of Empire from Rome, to Byzantium, to Arab Muslim Empires, then a large Turkish Muslim empire. Many converted to Islam over time, some held onto their ancient Christian heritage. They built churches, some as ancient, almost, as Christianity itself, some built mosques, also very ancient.”

These people were “Palestinians,” as I explained in this piece. I understand why people make the assertion “Palestine never existed”. They are under a mental, and sometimes religious, spell which causes them to ignore or excuse information which completely contradicts their understanding of the region. To some degree we are all susceptible to these kinds of “word spells”. But many of them can be dissipated by a broader understanding of history.

I would also encourage someone to pick up a map of Europe from the mid-19th century, then the early 20th century, then the mid-20th century and then again today and observe that Palestine is older than some of the other nations on that map, at least as a nation-state.

It would also be beneficial to look over some ancient maps of Europe and Asia and observe how many ancient countries no longer exist that lasted for far longer as political entities than Australia has as either a colony or as a nation-state.

cont'd:

https://caldronpool.com/palestine-was-never-a-nation/


Also see, Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha

The UN's equal freedom nonsense..... I see the mighty peace-loving UN has stepped into the breach and imposed peace between the warring factions there.... if they keep moving and talking at the lightning speed they have been to date, there won't be a Palestinian left to worry about.... but they sure won't be genociding any more Jews, will they?  And Hezbollah is on notice....

Frank wrote on Jan 10^th, 2024 at 1:02pm:


The term country, as in nation-state, is a relatively recent concept, dating back to post-Reformation Europe.

The Palestinians were still a group of people and their lack of coherent borders is not an argument against their existence. Nor is it an argument to deny them the right to self-determination. The entire Levant didn’t have borders until modern colonialism drew them.

And to this day, Israel refuses to define its borders. Why? See the OP.