Time for a little history lesson as the Middle East continues to burn unchecked and Arab Palestinians swarm social media sites like Facebook to rally other anti-Semites to attack Israel again; prompted by a liberal’s recent cruel blathering that “EVERYTHING that is wrong w/U.S. Mideast Policy falls at the feet of our blind support for Israel; a nation created by stealing from others and founded upon lessons not learned in the Holocaust.”
There were no such issues nor anyone called a “Palestinian” prior to the end of WWI when the Turks, by their association with Germany, lost the war. The southern portion of their Ottoman Empire was “mandated” to France and Britain under the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916 which assigned (“mandated”) Lebanon and Syria to France and assigned “Palestine” (today’s Jordan, Israel and “West Bank”) to Great Britain, who liked the idea of having Palestine be the national Jewish homeland. (Note that to be “Palestinian” meant one could be either Arab or Jew and both were living across this entire area without problems.)
In 1923 came GB’s administrative mandate that Jews would be permitted only west of the Jordan river. In effect, GB “chopped off” 75% of the originally proposed Jewish Palestinian homeland to form an Arab Palestinian nation called Trans-Jordan (renamed “Jordan” in 1946). Bottom line: the Palestinian Arabs now had their very own “Arab Palestinian” homeland while the remaining 25% of west of the Jordan River would be the Jewish Palestinian homeland.
But this wasn’t enough for the Arabs and those who were living in the Jewish Palestine went on the offensive. Witness the Hebron massacres of 1929 and later the 1936-39 “Arab Revolt.” GB gave up on the whole thing and turned the matter over to the U.N. in 1947 and they decided to settle things by proposing Resolution 181, which essentially gave more of the original 25% of Jewish Palestine to the Arabs based on population concentrations. The Jews agreed but the Arabs rejected it, wanting the entire original 25%.
Israel was then officially “born” on May 14, 1948 and on May 15, 1948, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen together invaded Israel. Most of the Arabs living within the boundaries of the newly born country were encouraged to leave by the invading Arab armies to facilitate the slaughter of the Jews and were promised all Jewish property after the Arab armies won the war. They left because it made (sick) sense: let someone else do the dirty work and come back later to claim the spoils.
But 19 months later, their calculated risk to leave turned out to be a bad idea. It cost Israel a full 1% of its entire population but they won the war. The Arabs who did not leave are today’s Israeli-Arab citizens; those who chose to leave in hopes of later gains were the first wave of “Palestinian Arab refugees.” At the end of it all, what remained of that almost-created second Arab Palestinian State ended up with Egypt occupying the Gaza Strip and Trans-Jordan occupying Judea-Samaria (a.k.a. the “West Bank” of the Jordan River) and Jerusalem. In the next year (1950) Trans-Jordan formally merged this West Bank territory into itself and granted all those “Palestinian” Arabs living there Jordanian citizenship. Since Trans-Jordan was then no longer confined to one side of the Jordan River, it renamed itself simply “Jordan.” The bottom line here is that the Arabs of Palestine ended up with nearly 85% of the original territory of Palestine; now called Jordan but in reality a little more than their original share, the ARAB Palestine.
Now consider this: From 1949-67, when all of Judea-Samaria (the West Bank and Jerusalem} and Gaza were 100% under Arab (Jordanian & Egyptian) control, no effort was EVER made to create a second Palestinian State for the Arabs living there. It is laughable to say Israel should now provide these same Arabs with their own country when their fellow Arabs failed to do so.
This is apparently because the Arabs had other plans for in 1967 the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian armies mobilized along Israel’s narrow and seemingly indefensible borders in preparation for a massive invasion to eliminate her. The battle cry heard throughout the Arab world was then, as it continues to be, “Slaughter the Jews” and “Throw the Jews into the Sea!” How embarrassing that once again, but only six days later, Israel won this war, too, and in doing so gained the entire Sinai Peninsula. Through their own actions, the Arab losers became simply more “Palestinian Arab refugees”.
It makes no sense to to me, but in 1982 Israel gave the rich Sinai Desert back to Egypt.
And so the nonsense from the Arab side continues. The best way I have heard this put is that the so-called “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” is essentially, “In many ways an Islamic religious jihad against the Jews.”
So spare me any sop about Israeli “persecution” and Jewish “understanding”. If anything, the Jews have been far too soft in the face of this Arab insanity. Insanity now spreading around the internet like wildfire with calls for a Third Palestinian Intifada on May 15, 2011.