The area currently referred to as Palestine includes the territories of present day Israel and Jordan (refer to map). Between 1517 to 1917 most of this area remained under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
Ottoman Empire was dissolved at the end the First World War. Its successor, modern Republic of Turkey, transferred Palestine to British Empire control under the Treaty of Lausanne when conquered territory was divided up.
In 1917 Great Britain issued the Balfour Declaration for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. In 1922 Britain allocated nearly 80% of Palestine to Transjordan. Thus, Jordan covers the majority of the land of Palestine under British Mandate. Jordan also includes the majority of the Arabs who lived there. In other words, Jordan was the Arab portion of Palestine.
The residents of Palestine are called “Palestinians”. Since Palestine includes both modern day Israel and Jordan both Arab and Jewish residents of this area were referred to as “Palestinians” by the British.
It was only after the Jews re-inhabited their historic homeland of Judea and Samaria, that the myth of an Arab Palestinian nation was created and marketed (successfully) worldwide. Jews come from Judea, not Palestinians. There is no language known as Palestinian, or any Palestinian culture distinct from that of all the Arabs in the area. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. “
“Palestinians” are Arabs indistinguishable from Arabs throughout the Middle East. The great majority of Arabs in greater Palestine and Israel share the same culture, language and religion.
The rebirth of Israel was accompanied by economic prosperity for the region. Arabs migrated to the area to find employment and enjoy the higher standard of living. Much of the Arab population in this area migrated into Israel and Judea and Samaria from the surrounding Arab countries over the past 60-70 years. In documents not more than hundred years, the area is described as a scarcely populated region. Jews by far were the majority in Jerusalem over the small Arab minority. Until the Oslo Agreement, the major source of income for Arab residents was employment in the Israeli sector.
The Palestinian Arabs have been used as a cat’s paw by Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt from time to time as useful pawns in the power struggle against Israel. Neither the Saudis, the Iranians or anyone else sheds much of a tear when the Israelis counter-punch and kill a few thousand Palestinians.
It’s tough to tell the players without a program in “Palestine”, since there are so many factions competing for power and so many groups who are in the employ of different international actors.
Barack liked Palestine and dumped at least US$3 billion there through different vehicles during his term of office. I think that is over now. The one thing that the Palestinians have in common (generally) is an envy of and hatred of Israel.
Israel had a problem with terrorists crossing over into its territory from Gaza. So they build a wall. And 99.9% of the terrorist incidents in territory adjacent to Gaza stopped. The Arabs have tried to tunnel under the wall. When that happened, the Israeli Army went in and bulldozed the area adjacent to the wall, destroying tunnels.
The wall has been a demonstrable success story.
I have an iron clad, guaranteed solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: allow both sides to engage in military action, and see who comes out victorious.
The conclusion of these hostilities must end in an unconditional surrender by the losing side. No treaties, no cease-fires, no compromises. Only unconditional victory by one side and unconditional surrender by the other.
This will end this conflict. I guarantee it.
"Barack liked Palestine and dumped at least US$3 billion there through different vehicles during his term of office. "
And Obama liked Israel enough to dump $24 Billion American tax dollars on that insignificant nation during his term in office, increasing it to $3.8 Billion a year for the next ten years. Plus you have the money the US tax payer is forced to pay a a bribe to Egypt not to attack Israel. Sounds like the American tax payer is getting the short end of the stick all the way around.
I would love a Trump Wall, thank you.
Israel committed the same mistake after the 1967 war that they did in their original invasion of Canaan about 3500 years ago. They failed to force the non-Jews out. They are paying the same price now as they did then.
I think we should have the IRS go into the "Palestinian territories" and extract a few billion of that money that Barack gave them. They're pretty good at that, even on foreign soil. Maybe Bibi wouldn't mind helping.
Absolutely correct, there is NO SUCH THING as Palestine, unless you count the outcast arabs from the surrounding countries that are disparagingly known as "Palestinians"…
Thanks for the clarification as I've never understood the situation. Can't help being sympathetic to the Jews when everyone in the region openly calls for their annihilation.
Then you have incidents like the USS Liberty. Makes you temper your sympathy.
we could save that bribe to the egyptians. i doubt they want any part of the idf
The Jews creates problems for the left. If you react or express concern about something in the society you are quickly being named nazi, fascist, racist and the traditional phrases lefts are using to stigmatize and scare people for having an opinion or disagree with them. Like if you express concern about the recent information that climate data was fixed by Tom Karl resulting in the Paris meeting spending new billions to stop climate change you are called a holocaust denier. So every time the left can use the Jews to link something horrible to someone it is OK. Because everyone with even some limited time in school have learned what took place. But the left support strongly with the Arabs against Israel and nowadays they have included Trump and anyone who voted legally to support the Republicans for being Nazi. And they seem to be fond of every effort Arabs do to discriminate Jews and if you oppose you are a holocaust denier. I find it kind of strange to use that term on Trump when you know what the Nazi did to the Jews and Hitler even got support from some of the Arabs in his effort. So history cannot be the lefts best qualification. Same with the Middle East. It is a an area with conflicts the last 5000 years or so and they will not stop the next millenniums either. But it should be possible for Jews to live within secure borders where they can develop their democratic society and provide science and medicine to rest of the world curing cancer and other health issues. The left is not likely to see it happen since they support the Arabs and call everyone not agreeing with the for holocaust deniers and Nazi. I am starting to think it will not be possible to live peacefully with the left too if they continue like they do these days with their aggressiveness towards anyone supporting Jews right to live within secure borders. But even in the US it seems that there is no such things as secure borders not even the willingness to try to secure is OK, it is Nazification of the US according to the left. Good Luck, you will need it.
That was what the Assyrians (722 BC) and the Babylonians (587 BC) thought back when and they won. Today, I would anticipate a different outcome.
I have a number of thoughts on this (Chris and I often come down on different sides when it comes to foreign aid). A lot of that $24 billion was "soft money" and while it's an uneven relationship and the Israelis definitely have their own agenda (See USS Liberty incident, Jonathan Pollard, etc), I don't think that we're bribing Egypt not to attack Israel. That's been tried before and failed. Egypt is its own problem and the question is whether you want the Suez Canal in the hands of ISIS or not. I realize that's a simplistic response, but my feelings are along those lines.
The Arab World is just as bi-polar today as it was shortly after the death of Mohammed and they're squaring off yet again. The American response should be to let them — but we need to become energy independent first.
We need one.
There are different schools of thought on this, as with most things in the Middle East. My feelings on the matter don't matter, but it's clear that the Arabs don't make good neighbors and "high fences make better neighbors".
The idea has merit.
It is always best to remain circumspect. However, Israel is our only stable ally in the Middle East and that's where the oil comes from.
There is a Saudi view that Palestinians make good (slaves) low wage workers, maids (and whores).
We need all the luck we can get.
Bingo
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