Obama: Israel 'took the land' from Palestinians, 'ceded moral ground' in Gaza

[u/Particular_Log_3594]

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-911851

[u/NonIdentifiableUser]

The idea that Israel “stole the land” makes no sense. The country was formed out of a conquered, subdivided empire, much like the rest of the Middle East. They then proceeded to win multiple defensive wars and as a condition of the wars ending, land was ceded to them for multiple different reasons. This is how geopolitics and war has gone for millennia.

Like if Ukraine was able to somehow take part of Russia by the time this conflict ends (obviously quite unlikely), would people stay they “stole land?” Of course not.

[u/nomad656 → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

Because they kicked off more than 750,000 Palestinians out of their homes during the Nakba.

The documentary Tantura has interviews with Israeli soldier veterans who admitted to committing war crimes like raping young girls, executing unarmed Palestinian villagers and burying them in mass graves.

[u/Noob_Al3rt → u/nomad656]

Yeah and all the Palestinians who wanted to stay and become citizens didn’t get kicked out, right?

[u/Interesting-Yellow-4 → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

They are stealing land in West Bank, illegally. Noone, not even Israel is denying this.

[u/Such-Principle-3373 → u/Interesting-Yellow-4]

It’s probably in my opinion the most unjustifiable thing Israel is actually doing that public pressure could do something about.

[u/Noob_Al3rt → u/Interesting-Yellow-4]

That’s the land they tried to give back to Jordan, which Jordan declined, right?

[u/_Administrator_ → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

Hey Obama, a friendly reminder: Before Israel, there was a British Mandate, not a Palestinian State. Before the British Mandate, the Ottoman Empire existed, not the Palestinian State. Before the Ottoman Empire, there was the Mamlyuk Islamic State of Egypt, not the Palestinian State. Before the Islamic State of Mamlyuk of Egypt, the Empire of Ayubid existed, not the Palestinian State. Goffrey IV of Bulonsky, known as Godfrey de Bouillon, conquered Jerusalem in 1099. Before the Empire of Ayubid, the French and Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem existed, not the Palestinian State. The empires of Omeyad and Fatimid also existed before the Kingdom of Jerusalem, not the Palestinian State. Before the empires of Omeyad and Fatimid, there was the Byzantine Empire, not the Palestinian State. Before the Byzantine Empire, there was the Roman Empire, not the Palestinian State. Before the Roman Empire, the Hasmonees State existed, not the Palestinian State. Before the Hasmoneysk state, it was the Selevkid state, not the Palestinian state. Before the Selevkid Empire, the Empire of Alexander of Macedonia existed, not the Palestinian State. Before the Empire of Alexander the Macedonian, there was the Persian Empire, not the Palestinian State. Before the Persian Empire, the Babylon Empire existed, not the Palestinian State. Before the Babylon Empire, the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea existed, not the Palestinian State. Before the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea, the Kingdom of Israel existed, not the Palestinian State. Before the Kingdom of Israel, there was a theocracy of the twelve knees of Israel, not the Palestinian state. Before the theocracy of the twelve generations of Israel, there was an agglomeration of independent Canaan city-states, not the Palestinian state. In fact, this piece of earth was everything EXCEPT THE STATE OF PALESTINE. Also, they voted Hamas into power. Hamas canceled elections after they assumed power, and the people of Gaza still support them in recent polls. Hamas could surrender to save the lives of people in Gaza, but they won’t.

[u/Asteroidhawk594 → u/_Administrator_]

British mandate of Palestine.
Also Palestine has been the name for the region since Roman times.
There’s issues surrounding it but the Palestinians are indigenous to the area.

[u/SannySen → u/Asteroidhawk594]

There's a difference between the name of the region and an ethnicity or nation state.  Literally no one disputes that the levant was referred to as Palestine since the Romans deliberately renamed it as such after the Bar Kokhba revolt.  But it doesn't follow that there was an ancient Palestinian nation, culture, ethnicity or people.  Palestinians today share a cultural heritage with Arabs, who colonized the area, not Philistines.  This is the only conflict in world history where the speakers of a language that originated in an area are accused of displacing the speakers of a language that did not originate in the area.

[u/WordWordNvmber → u/[deleted]]

I'm glad that we're basing modern ownership rights on who held what land... 3,000 years ago.

Bibi would agree.

[u/themagpie36 → u/[deleted]]

Dont worry, non-Americans laugh their asses off at this kind of bullshit. It's obvious who the colonial oppressors is in this situation. 

The person comparing Israel and Ukraine is laughable, THEY ARE the invading country shooting limbs off kids and bombing hospitals all the while expandin their territory and commandeering Palestinian homes and harassing civilians.

They are the Russia, not the Ukraine in this war.

[u/SannySen → u/[deleted]]

What do the Philistines have to do with anything?  Do you think Palestine carries that name because they are the ancient descendants of the Philistines?

[u/SkittlesDangerZone → u/_Administrator_]

Great comment

[u/nomad656 → u/_Administrator_]

And during all this time there were indigenous people who lived there until Israeli soldiers came and kicked off 750,000 people from their homes all while raping killing and burying civilians in mass graves.

The documentary Tantura interviews veteran Israel soldiers recounting the crimes they committed during that time.

[u/mccoyboy22 → u/_Administrator_]

What is your point?

[u/rudanshi → u/mccoyboy22]

there is no point, they're just melting down because someone very popular among normie dems criticised their emotional support ethnostate

[u/SannySen → u/[deleted]]

Historians largely agree that the Peleset of the sea peoples and Phillistines of the old testament were probably the first notes of Palestinian identity

Go ask this question on AskHistorians and see what happens.  I think you will find few if any historians agree with this, because it's false.

[u/JoopahTroopah → u/_Administrator_]

But unlike the Ottomans, the Mamlyuk, Abuyid, Omeyad, Fatmid, Byzantiens, Romans, Hasmonees etc many of the Palestinians who had their land taken in the context of this discourse are in large part still alive and wanting their fucking houses back.

[u/mlag000 → u/_Administrator_]

And so what ? PEOPLE where living on those lands. This was not some desert. They STOLE the land those people where living in. Propel who cam from Europe usa and Russia came there and claimed it's their now.

[u/Noob_Al3rt → u/mlag000]

You mean bought the land. Thousands of Israelis bought plots in what is now Israel. And when they formed a new government, to replace the British, there were a bunch of non-Jewish people who stayed right where they were and became citizens. It was only the ones that said “nah we’re gonna kill you guys instead” that got ejected from the country.

[u/IrregularDoughnut → u/Noob_Al3rt]

You mean bought the land. Thousands of Israelis bought plots in what is now Israel

Only about 7% of the land was privately owned.

It was only the ones that said “nah we’re gonna kill you guys instead” that got ejected from the country.

Can you give some source for why you believe that all of the ~750,000 Palestinians expelled during the Nakba were soldiers?

[u/IrregularDoughnut → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

The idea that Israel “stole the land” makes no sense

win multiple defensive wars and as a condition of the wars ending, land was ceded to them

International law doesn't really recognise defensive conquest as a thing. But this is largely about the West Bank, where Israel is exploiting a permanent occupation to try to expand their borders by forcing Palestinians from their homes and expanding settlements. That is very easy and reasonable to describe as stealing land.

[u/mlag000 → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

Yep, conquering is stealing land... People where living there and they had to leave pushed away by colon from Europe, usa and Russia

[u/BonJovicus → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

This post is incredibly ignorant of the history of the region. Almost certainly by design. The fact that you compare Palestine and Israel to Ukraine and Russia is already very disqualifying. 

For starters you only need to go back to many of the founding thinkers of Zionism, who were European Jews that were very much saw a Jewish state as a colonial project. They knew they would need to displace the native population to build the society they wanted. 

[u/WordWordNvmber → u/BonJovicus]

They very much saw a Jewish state as a refuge after centuries of pogroms. The Zionist movement arose in response to the Dreyfus Affair, when a Jewish French military officer was falsely accused of spying for Germany and France erupted in antisemitism. It convinced Theodore Herzl and others that no matter how secure they felt and how hard they tried to assimilate, Jews would never be truly safe and accepted in Europe. The Holocaust proved him right.

To belittle a desire for a literal refuge in their ethnic homeland as a project to get "the society they wanted" is intentionally lopsided.

[u/TheMCMC → u/BonJovicus]

Colony of where?

[u/marxist_nazeem → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

This is immensely disingenuous. The people had been there for more than a thousand years, regardless of empire. Your analogy doesn’t even hold up. The relationship between Russians to Russia is not nearly the same as European + other Jews to Israel/Palestine

If you actually wanted a proper analogy, it would be that white South Africans and Zimbabweans have just as much claim to Southern Africa—because both countries are just formed out of an empire, they have every right to push out the native Africans.

Yet nobody thinks that, because it’s bonkers

[u/Famous-Garlic3838 → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

"multiple defensive wars"

LOL. LMAO even.

[u/AppropriateTie5127 → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

WTF are you talking about? Do you think the modern state of Israel spawned randomly out of the ashes of the British Empire? Like there wasn't a systematic migration Jews from Europe to the British Mandate?

[u/Noob_Al3rt → u/AppropriateTie5127]

Jews had been migrating there long before the British Mandate (and buying land)

[u/qchisq → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

I mean, sorta? The borders after the 1948 wars were, more or less, the borders we say Israel have today. So Israel minus Gaza, West Bank and Golan Heights. That because everyone agreed that Egypt, Jordan and Syria had those areas after that war. What happened in 1967 is that Israel beat Jordan and Egypt in a defensive war that meant that Egypt, Jordan and Gaza retreated from those areas and Israel occupied it. And after 1945, we've agreed that wars of conquest are illegimate, which is why Argentinas bid for the Falklands and Russias bid for Ukraine are both illegimate. So no, Ukraine taking Kursk or Belgorod oblasts wouldn't be legitimate either

But that's not exactly what Obama is talking about here. He's talking about the settlements in the West Bank. The international community have basically all agreed that the West Bank isn't part of Israel, so Israel trying to force a situation where there's a Jewish majority in an area of the West Bank and using that to create an area that decides it wants to be part of Israel is just as illegimate as the Donetsk Peoples Republic was

[u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

And the illegal colonization they are actively and openly undergoing? Any response for that?

[u/Realistic-Science-59 → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

What about the new settlements that are popping up every day in the existing Palestinian and Lebanese state? Is that land not taken?

[u/VintageSin → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

Israel is ACTIVELY stealing land today what do you even mean. West Bank settlement done by Israeli citizens with no Israeli recourse is ACTIVELY taking land that's not theirs. Let's not mention a majority of Israelis also think they should settle the area of Lebanon that Israel recently took over.

Let's just assume all the pre2000 land acquisition is all on the up and nothing shady. Please explain how Israel allows west bank settlement in any way shape or form.

[u/EstablishmentHuge333 → u/NonIdentifiableUser]

That's like a shoplifter walking into a store, stealing stuff, beating up the security guard and then walking off thinking they didn't steal because they "won" the items fair and square in a fight. "tHaTs JuSt HoW tHe WoRLd WoRkS!"

Donest make sense, does it.

And the country wasn't "formed" it was imposed! An outside party (the UN), who had nothing to do with the land, decided that a previously tiny minority should own most of the land, pushing out the Arabs that had lived their for centuries and making them stateless. Oh and we are going to arm this minority to the teeth, and fund them with virtually unlimited money and diplomatic support at the expense of the majority. No wonder the Arabs were.

Oh, and we are also going to let them keep the land they stole because if it ok for Europe to steal land it has to be ok for other European who are now Israelis .

[u/Noob_Al3rt → u/EstablishmentHuge333]

Almost everything about your post is wrong