• 41 Palestinians killed, 5,000 injured since March at Gaza border protests
    75 replies, posted
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/27/three-dead-and-hundreds-injured-as-israeli-troops-open-fire-on-gaza-border
Named the Great March of Return, the protest action revives a longstanding demand for the right of return of Palestinian refugees to towns and villages which their families fled from, or were driven out of, when the state of Israel was created in 1948. Israel refuses any right of return, fearing that the country would lose its Jewish majority. Yeah no. Step one was being a complete dickbag in WWI. Most of the other nations involved in WWI were caught up in a web of weird defensive pacts. The Ottoman empire saw an opportunity to seize territory and attacked, despite being neutral. They lost because fighting Russia, Britain, and France is a fucking stupid idea even by WWI standards. The Brits gain control of the territory (and then the UN). They started a fucking civil war by launching sniper attacks on Jewish buses after the UN partitioned out A RIDICULOUSLY SMALL PARCEL OF LAND FOR THE JEWS. Followed immediately by bombing public places. Then escalated their bullshit from there into a full blown civil war. The Arab forces got their ass kicked and went crying to the surrounding nations in 1948 as soon as the Brits had completely withdrawn and tried to get every surrounding nation to attack. They did. They lost too. Nope. Not only do you have zero right to any land inside their borders, I'm amazed they are even still around to make the claim. By all means though, cry when the nation you tried to destroy multiple times shoots you when you show up at their border and try to get in.
To be fair, I do not think most palestinians alive today were around in 1948
Which also means they are laying claim to land that they have never held in the first place.
All the more reason they have no "right to return". It goes beyond all rationale to call for a "return" to a place one has never been before.
Not to mention the baffling logistical problems arising in a country already experiencing a housing crisis should such a right be granted.
Most Israelis alive today have nothing to do with anything that happened in 1947-1948. All the guilty parties, if we can call them that, are long gone or at least irrelevant.
FWIW I don't have a "right of return" to, say, Poland even though all my grandparents from there. While Poland grants citizenship to offspring of Jews that were murdered or fled during the Holocaust, they have specific clauses in place that say you're not allowed citizenship unless you can prove said former Polish citizens never served in another country's military or security forces, which literally rules out pretty much all Jews who emigrated to Israel as they were all conscripted to the IDF or another civil service otherwise. Point is, the right of return will have to be addressed as part of any permanent solution to this conflict. Israel may not be able to take in all the Palestinian diaspora, but we'll probably agree to take in a reasonable amount, and pay reparations to the rest. In fact IIRC that was pretty much the proposed solution during the Oslo accords. I think the US even offered to shoulder some or all of the cost of those reparations.
I can only see that happening if indeed the US somehow offers to shoulder the greater part of the burden of reparations, but even then this hypothetical is highly unlikely in the current political climate both in Israel and the US. Even then, on what basis could such selective right of return even stand?
Considering the whole point of the two state solution is to give the Palestinians their own state rather than to reclaim Israel as one it makes states both sides would agree most Palestinians don't NEED to move back into Israel. Assuming that, agreeing on rules that would only allow a limited number of Palestinians Israeli citizenship is just a matter of deciding on the specifics of the arbitrary rules to be used. It can be anything from randomly selecting a set number of applicants each year a-la the American green card lottery to setting specific requirements like ability to prove having a home in Israel, not being a member of any Palestinian armed forces, no criminal record and so on. If there was an actual will by both sides to settle this it really wouldn't be the biggest issue to resolve.
Modern day Palestinians were living there for centuries before modern day Israelies. I think they have a right to it.
Wait, are you saying there are Palestinians there that are several centuries old?
No, generations of Palestinians have live there for centuries? I don't know if you're just trying to zing me or what.
What right do the Israelis have to be there if land claim is only for those who previously lived there in their lifetime
I'm pretty sure most Israelis living there today were born there......
Sure, because we put them there, but what right did they have to be put there in the first place?
Nobody put the current Israelis there, only the way older generations. Is this a sins of the father type of deal here? What, do you propose we banish all the older generations and keep the new ones on basis of birth? Or does their being there by force of past imperialism somehow invalidate by induction all further generations' rights to be there? By this logic no arab has a right to anywhere other than Saudi Arabia because their being in the middle east is a cause of the islamic conquests of old, which I'm sure you'll agree is laughable.
Is it right to push out the natives, wait until they've all died of age and fostered a new generation, then claim that they had no right to the land in the first place?
Other than religious nutjobs, nobody's claiming they had no right to the land in the first place, rather, some are claiming current generations have no right to the land, as they weren't born here.
Does a people not have any claim to the land their fathers were pushed out of? Is it right to claim that they have no right to their father's homes when their fathers were forced out by an external power?
"we" nah there was a huge active effort to stop jews from entering the Palestine Mandate there's a huge misconception that Israel is an artificial state with artificial borders drawn out by the West and the jews that make up israel were also put there by the West but that's the furthest thing from the truth
Ah yes, I remember how we stopped jews from moving to palestine, by having the UN mandate them to have a country.
Indeed, it can be said that those who are born to ones who were genuinely pushed out do have some claim to the land, but this has little to do with the previous insinuation that because jews were put in current day Israel by foreign empires, their children have no right to be here. Also, where do you draw the line on legitimacy by blood? One generation? Two?
British Restrictions on Jewish Immigration to Palestine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine the UN plan was retarded and while the Jews accepted the plan, the Arabs didnt and it all was worthless when the Arabs attacked, sparking the independance war, the only useful outcome of the UN plan was recognizing a possible Jewish state way different from the UN making up a country
It's hard to put a true quantity on the barrier between when a claim is and isn't legitimate. I don't believe that the current Israelis who were born in Israel and will most likely live out the rest of their lives in Israel have no right to be there, I'm saying that it was a mistake to make a state that by it's name and nature gives one people superiority, even just symbolically, over the other.
For the most part I agree with you, but so much history has already transpired and so much blood has been spilled over this that you can't just undo what has been done. The question is, rather, how do you go forward from here?
Ideally? Reconciliation between the two sides that would allow them to live in a more confederation style between their two states with neither side oppressing the other. Realistically? This conflict won't end until one nation or the other is destroyed, there is far, far too much history between the two sides and neither side seems particularly interested in true reconciliation.
adding onto this, the standards for Palestinian refugees are different from the standards for every other group of refugees for palestinians, you count as a refugee if Palestine refugees are defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.”  if you're not palestinian Refugees are persons who are outside their country of origin for reasons of feared persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order and, as a result, require international protection.  The refugee definition can be found in the 1951 Convention and regional refugee instruments, as well as UNHCR’s Statute.   Normally, the children of refugees do not count as refugees, however with Palestinians the children of refugees count as refugees and the children carry down the refugee status onto their children. This even goes for adopted children, if a Palestinian family adopted a Chinese orphan, the orphan would also count as a Palestinian refugee
Then maybe don't start a war. Then a civil war. Then another war. Also maybe don't lose all three pretty spectacularly. Massive amounts of territory changed hands after the world wars. People bitch the most about Israel despite the fact that Israel is a postage stamp of land. Ultimate people can question their right to be there, but, like always, such arguments are meaningless. Their right to be there stems from military authority. Rights almost always extend from power. They have a collection of Merkavas, F15's, and nuclear waheads that are happy to affirm their right to retain territory.
Do you truly believe that might should make right?
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