Twenty Facts about Israel and the Middle East

Arab claiming all kind of malevolence from the part of Israel have only themselves to blame... to attest to this fact, the following is a reasoned depiction of the Arab frivolous narrative.HB

Twenty Facts about Israel and the Middle East
Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp,
and Jeane Kirkpatrick


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |

The world's attention has been focused on the Middle East. We are confronted daily with scenes of carnage and destruction. Can we understand such violence? Yes, but only if we come to the situation with a solid grounding in the facts of the matter—facts that too often are forgotten, if ever they were learned. Below are twenty facts that we think are useful in understanding the current situation, how we arrived here, and how we might eventually arrive at a solution.
ROOTS OF THE CONFLICT
When the United Nations proposed the establishment of two states in the region—one Jewish, one Arab—the Jews accepted the proposal and declared their independence in 1948. The Jewish state constituted only 1/6 of one percent of what was known as "the Arab world." The Arab states, however, rejected the UN plan and since then have waged war against Israel repeatedly, both all-out wars and wars of terrorism and attrition. In 1948, five Arab armies invaded Israel in an effort to eradicate it. Jamal Husseini of the Arab Higher Committee spoke for many in vowing to soak "the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of our blood."
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964—three years before Israel controlled the West Bank and Gaza. The PLO’s declared purpose was to eliminate the State of Israel by means of armed struggle. To this day, the Web site of Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (PA) claims that the entirety of Israel is "occupied" territory.* It is impossible to square this with the PLO and PA assertions to Western audiences that the root of the conflict is Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
The West Bank and Gaza (controlled by Jordan and Egypt from 1948 to 1967) came under Israeli control during the Six Day War of 1967 that started when Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran and Arab armies amassed on Israel’s borders to invade and liquidate the state. It is important to note that during their 19-year rule, neither Jordan nor Egypt had made any effort to establish a Palestinian state on those lands. Just before the Arab nations launched their war of aggression against the State of Israel in 1967, Syrian Defense Minister (later President) Hafez Assad stated, "Our forces are now entirely ready . . . to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland . . . the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation." On the brink of the 1967 war, Egyptian President Gamal Nassar declared, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel."

Because of their animus against Jews, many leaders of the Palestinian cause have long supported our enemies. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem allied himself with Adolf Hitler during WWII. Yasir Arafat, chairman of the PLO and president of the PA, has repeatedly targeted and killed Americans. In 1973, Arafat ordered the execution of Cleo Noel, the American ambassador to the Sudan. Arafat was very closely aligned with the Soviet Union and other enemies of the United States throughout the Cold War. In 1991, during the Gulf War, Arafat aligned himself with Saddam Hussein, whom he praised as "the defender of the Arab nation, of Muslims, and of free men everywhere."Israel has, in fact, returned most of the land that it captured during the 1967 war and right after that war offered to return all of it in exchange for peace and normal relations; the offer was rejected. As a result of the 1978 Camp David accords—in which Egypt recognized the right of Israel to exist and normal relations were established between the two countries—

Israel returned the Sinai desert, a territory three times the size of Israel and 91 percent of the territory Israel took control of in the 1967 war.

In 2000, as part of negotiations for a comprehensive and durable peace, Israel offered to turn over all but the smallest portion of the remaining territories to Yasir Arafat. But Israel was rebuffed when Arafat walked out of Camp David and launched the current intifada.
Yasir Arafat has never been less than clear about his goals—at least not in Arabic. On the very day that he signed the Oslo accords in 1993—in which he promised to renounce terrorism and recognize Israel—he addressed the Palestinian people on Jordanian television and declared that he had taken the first step "in the 1974 plan." This was a thinly-veiled reference to the "phased plan," according to which any territorial gain was acceptable as a means toward the ultimate goal of Israel’s destruction.

The recently deceased Faisal al-Husseini, a leading Palestinian spokesman, made the same point in 2001 when he declared that the West Bank and Gaza represented only "22 percent of Palestine" and that the Oslo process was a "Trojan horse." He explained, "When we are asking all the Palestinian forces and factions to look at the Oslo Agreement and at other agreements as ‘temporary’ procedures, or phased goals, this means that we are ambushing the Israelis and cheating them." The goal, he continued, was "the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea," i.e., the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea—all of Israel.

To this day, the Fatah wing of the PLO (the "moderate" wing that was founded and is controlled by Arafat himself) has as its official emblem the entire state of Israel covered by two rifles and a hand grenade—another fact that belies the claim that Arafat desires nothing more than the West Bank and Gaza.
While criticism of Israel is not necessarily the same as "anti-Semitism," it must be remembered that the Middle East press is, in fact, rife with anti-Semitism. More than fifteen years ago the eminent scholar Bernard Lewis could point out that "The demonization of Jews [in Arabic literature] goes further than it had ever done in Western literature, with the exception of Germany during the period of Nazi rule." Since then, and through all the years of the "peace process," things have become much worse. Depictions of Jews in Arab and Muslim media are akin to those of Nazi Germany, and medieval blood libels—including claims that Jews use Christian and Muslim blood in preparing their holiday foods—have become prominent and routine. One example is a sermon broadcast on PA television where Sheik Ahmad Halabaya stated, "They [the Jews] must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said: ‘Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands.’ Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them."
Over three-quarters of Palestinians approve of suicide bombings—an appalling statistic but, in light of the above facts, an unsurprising one.

THE STATE OF ISRAEL
There are 21 Arab countries in the Middle East and only one Jewish state: Israel, which is also the only democracy in the region.
Israel is the only country in the region that permits citizens of all faiths to worship freely and openly. Twenty percent of Israeli citizens are not Jewish.
While Jews are not permitted to live in many Arab countries, Arabs are granted full citizenship and have the right to vote in Israel. Arabs are also free to become members of the Israeli parliament (the Knesset). In fact, several Arabs have been democratically elected to the Knesset and have been serving there for years. Arabs living in Israel have more rights and are freer than most Arabs living in Arab countries.
Israel is smaller than the state of New Hampshire and is surrounded by nations hostile to her existence. Some peace proposals—including the recent Saudi proposal—demand withdrawal from the entire West Bank, which would leave Israel 9 miles wide at its most vulnerable point.
The oft-cited UN Resolution 242 (passed in the wake of the 1967 war) does not, in fact, require a complete withdrawal from the West Bank. As legal scholar Eugene Rostow put it, "Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until ‘a just and lasting peace in the Middle East’ is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces ‘from territories’ it occupied during the Six-Day War—not from ‘the’ territories nor from ‘all’ the territories, but from some of the territories."
Israel has, of course, conceded that the Palestinians have legitimate claims to the disputed territories and is willing to engage in negotiations on the matter. As noted above, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered almost all of the territories to Arafat at Camp David in 2000.
Despite claims that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are the obstacle to peace, Jews lived there for centuries before being massacred or driven out by invading Arab armies in 1948-49. And contrary to common misperceptions, Israeli settlements—which constitute less than two percent of the territories—almost never displace Palestinians.

Tobe continued

 

continued from previous

The area of the West Bank includes some of the most important sites in Jewish history, among them Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jericho. East Jerusalem, often cited as an "Arab city" or "occupied territory," is the site of Judaism’s holiest monument. While under Arab rule (1948-67), this area was entirely closed to Jews. Since Israel took control, it has been open to people of all faiths.

Finally, let us consider the demand that certain territories in the Muslim world must be off-limits to Jews. This demand is of a piece with Hitler’s proclamation that German land had to be "Judenrein" (empty of Jews). Arabs can live freely throughout Israel, and as full citizens. Why should Jews be forbidden to live or to own land in an area like the West Bank simply because the majority of people is Arab?

In sum, a fair and balanced portrayal of the Middle East will reveal that one nation stands far above the others in its commitment to human rights and democracy as well as in its commitment to peace and mutual security. That nation is Israel.

 

Most people would reject having their homes and land taken by immigrants.

 

Don't tease me into this, Margot, lol.

I remembered doing a bit of reading on Israel because of the sheer wall of pro-Israel sentiment I come across and what I found was actually more (*)(*)(*)(*)ing that what I once believed. The sad fact is, though, that talking about Israel seems to invoke a baseless vile in people and even moderators seem to go through lengths to make sure Israel receives in-proportionate leverage in any debate (not here, though, as I have experienced).

It's can be very frustrating, but I think I'll dig into this one with you. It will be only so long a person can stare at a wall of facts and scream at it.

 

Israel should be encouraged to pursue a just peace.. and ease up the jiggler on the pressure cooker..

Bibi is bad for Israel and the US.

 

I would go a step further and say that I think Israel is actually the unstable nation in that region. Israel in the Middle East is like a cat in the dog pound. Somehow, they got it into their minds that they can go there, set up a religion, a belief, and an attitude that directly antagonizes and conflicts with everyone there- including the native Jewish people who were present before the importation of Zionist European Jews- and some how make headway. And they seem to have pulled it off by getting a big boyfriend (the US). Now she feels she can poop all over everyone and not face the consequences.

But central to my concept is that the role of aggressor and defender have been switched for decades. Israel has 200 nuclear missiles and Iran has none. Yet it is Israel that feels threatened by Iran...who is suffering an 80% reduction in economy because of persistent sanctions. Iran is starving. Iran is not unstable, its hungry, but they seem to be doing their best to make them unstable. They've basically shut of food and money to Iran and surrounded them with guns and missiles. If every nuke was a tree, Iran stands in the midst of a forest without a stick.

And Iran's the problem...riiiight

 

You're right..

They came seeking sanctuary from persecution in Europe and immediately set about disenfranchising the Palestinians.

Truman's letters to Eleanor Roosevelt are eye opening.. He grieves that the abused have become the abusers upon gaining the upper hand.

The Arab Jews of Palestine despised them because they were Bolsheviks to a man.

 

This is the most IGNORANT NARRATIVE if ever this name dropper had ever written one...

The Jews of the Diaspora are not foreigner to their land and their history, they are returning home to build it after the Jewish dispersal by Vespatianus, Titus, Domitian and finally Hadrian... those that do not follow history are doomed to repeat its mistakes (to paraphrase Santayana).

There are no Arab Jews!!!!!!!!! Sephardim and Mizrahim are not Arabs!!!!!!!!!!!! OTOH There are Jews of the Arab countries!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark Twain stated
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do no wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot...

 

The Israelis are at it again............!!!!!!


RAISING WARM-WATER FISH.........

1. Scientists in Israel found that the brackish water, drilled from underground desert aquifers hundreds of feet deep, could be used to raise warm-water fish. The geothermal water, less than one-tenth as saline as sea water, free of pollutants, and a toasty 98 degrees on average, proves an ideal environment..

2. Israeli-developed designer-eyeglasses, promise mobile phone and iPod users, a personalized, high-tech video display. Available to US consumers next year, Lumus-Optical's lightweight and fashionable video eyeglasses, feature a large transparent screen, floating in front of the viewer's face that projects
their choice of movie, TV show, or video game.

3. When Stephen Hawkins recently visited Israel , he shared his wisdom with scientists, students, and even the Prime Minister. But the world's most renowned victim of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, also learned something, due to the Israeli Association for ALS' advanced work in both embryonic and adult stem cell research, as well as its proven track record with neurodegenerative diseases. The Israeli research community is well on its way to finding a treatment for this fatal disease, which affects 30,000 Americans.

4. Israeli start -up, Veterix, has developed an innovative new electronic capsule that sits in the stomach of a cow, sheep, or goat, sending out real-time information on the health of the herd, to the farmer via email or cell phone. The e-capsule, which also sends out alerts if animals are distressed, injured, or lost is
now being tested on a herd of cows, in the hopes that the device will lead to tastier and healthier meat and milk supplies.

5. The millions of Skype users worldwide will soon have access to the newly developed KishKish lie-detector. This free Internet service, based on voice stress analysis (a technique, commonly used in criminal investigations) will be able to measure just how truthful that person on the other end of the line, really is.

6. Beating cardiac tissue has been created in a lab from human embryonic stem cells by researchers at the Rappaport Medical Faculty and the Technion - Israeli institute of Technology 's biomedical Engineering facility. The work of Dr. Shulamit Levenberg and Prof. Lior Gepstein, has also led to the creation of tiny blood vessels within the tissue, making possible its implantation in a human heart.

7. Israel 's Magal Security
Systems, is a worldwide leader in computerized security systems, with products used in more than 70 countries around the world, protecting anything from national borders, to nuclear facilities, refineries, and airports. The company's latest Product, DreamBox, a state-of-the-art security system that includes Intelligent video, audio and sensor management, is now being used by a major water authority on the US east coast to safeguard the utility's sites.

8. It is common knowledge that dogs have better night vision than humans and a vastly superior sense of smell and hearing. Israel 's Bio-Sense Technologies recently delved further and electronically analyzed 350 different barks. Finding that dogs of all breeds and sizes, bark the same alarm when they sense a threat, the firm has designed the dog bark-reader, a sensor that can pick up a dog's alarm bark, and alert the human operators. This is just one of a batch of
innovative security systems to emerge from Israel which Forbes calls 'the go-to country for anti-terrorism technologies.'

9. Israeli company, BioControl Medical, sold its first electrical stimulator to treat urinary incontinence to a US company for $50 Million. Now, it is working on CardioFit, which uses electrical nerve stimulation to treat congestive heart failure. With nearly five million Americans presently affected by heart failure, and more than 400,000 new cases diagnosed yearly, the CardioFit is already generating a great deal of excitement as the first device with the potential to halt this deadly disease.

10. One year after Norway's Socialist Left Party launched its Boycott Israel campaign, the importing of Israeli goods has increased by 15%, the strongest increase in many years, statistics Norway reports.

In
contrast to the efforts of tiny Israel to make contributions to the world so as to better mankind, one has to ask what have those who strive to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth done other than to create hate and bloodshed?

 

Mafia bosses were also notorious contributors to charities and goodwill projects. Pablo Escobar was known to contribute to churches and women's suffrage groups. Is that suppose to excuse them?

 

so says the Jew on Amanpour tonight also

Ex Knesset member Avraham Burg in 2 parts is very very interesting what he says about the Israelis and Bibi and the ticking bomb


You dont get to hear many smart Jews in the media and this is one who has some brain cells left in his skull

part 1
http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/25/4540/

part 2

http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2012/...2-the-1-state-solution-will-happen-by-itself/

 

Of course they are Arab Jews.. The Palestinians are just descendants of Jewish farmers who didn't leave..http://www.haaretz.com/general/shattering-a-national-mythology-1.242015

Your finest scholars know.

And the diaspora began in 500 BC with the the edicts of Nehemiah to dump foreign wives... Add to that the conversion of many Berbers.

Your mythos is greedy and cruel.

 

Well, the Jews did originate from the land, but they were not the sole people living on that land. Israel has seen so many conquerors that the people of that land are the descendants of a mixture of bloodlines, from Roman, to Phoenician, Assyrian, Babylonian...Before European Jews began to import themselves into the area a little bit before WW2, there were the local Jews, and they lived in peace with the local Christians and the local Muslim's. Perfect peace, no, but peace.

As for the Arab Jews...Bender, there certainly are, as well as African Jews. In fact, almost halfway down the Nile there are black Jewish villages that supposedly descended from the very, very earliest traces of Judaism. So include them in your well-wishes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Jews

 

and don't forget these guys

 

Abu sina, did you hear about the team of Rabbis who went to Peru , carried out quickie conversion "Zap you're a Jew" on a group of not-so-clever Peruvian Native/Indians, " turning them in a matter of weeks , into "Jews" on condition that they join those racists settler Jews - thus increasing the Jewish West Bank population . ?


"How 90 Peruvians became the latest Jewish settlers


When a delegation of rabbis travelled to Lima to convert a group of South American Indians to Judaism, they added just one condition: come and live with us in Israel. As soon as these new Jews arrived in the country, they were bussed straight to settlements in the disputed territories. So how are they coping?

In a prefab structure at a school in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut, a few dozen people are sitting and singing a popular Hasidic song: "The whole world is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is not to be afraid." They are singing with feeling, even though most of them don't understand a word of the song. As is the custom in religious schools, the class is divided into a men's section and a women's section. The women are wearing hats and the men's heads are covered by knitted skullcaps. The men and women alike have distinct South American Indian features.
Almost unnoticed, a new branch of Jews is springing up in the settlements, Jews who are connected to Israel and all things Israeli by a very narrow bridge indeed. They have yet to visit Tel Aviv or Haifa, and have never even heard of Degania, the very first kibbutz, or its neighbour, Kinneret. Miki Kratsman, the photographer, and I had the privilege of being the first secular Jews they had ever met. Nevertheless, they are fired with a historic sense of their right to this land.

"We are of Indian origin," says Nachshon Ben-Haim, formerly Pedro Mendosa, "but in Peru, in the Andes, there is no Indian culture left. Everyone has become Christian, and before we became Jews, we also were Christians who went to church."

The miracle of the creation of this community of new Jews has to be chalked up wholly and exclusively to the credit - or debit - of the chief rabbinate of Israel. At the order of the Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, a delegation of rabbis travelled to Peru. During their two weeks in the country, they converted 90 people to Judaism, most of them of Indian origin.

"We found a small river between Trujillo and Cajamarca and everyone immersed in it. We took the people from Lima .........

read more :



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/aug/07/israel1



( several Hundreds more have been converted since then )

Those "new Jews " enjoy more rights in "Israel" than non-Jewish Palestinians.


...

 

Nothing surprises me any more

The creation of that state was one of the biggest horrors and mistakes of our times.

American tax dollars used to build illegal settlements to give them away for free to converts when Americans are losing their homes is just beyond belief but I have to congratulate the masters of deceit and their loyal army of hasbara. They found an open check book, and dumb willing martyrs to die for them when they decided to use the Americans to get what they want. You wont find one of them dying for them in their Holy wars and you wont find one of them dying if they attack Iran. They have plenty fresh American martyrs all lined up and ready to die so they can carry on building and stealing and murdering and bombing while the Americans die in the sands of other lands for them.

 

Once a Jew has been accepted in the fold, he is a Jew who performs the necessary good deeds.
When someone is converted to Judaism he does so on his own free will, there is no convincing nor forceful influencing and, proselytizing is against the Jewish religion laws.

We do not dangle his background before his religion. We do not call them India Jews, we do not call them Siberian Jews nor we call them American Jews... When a Jew returns home he is welcomed as a Jew returning home from the Diaspora... Do you see and feel the difference?

 

Baloney... Shlomo Sand is a man who wanted to sell a book, so is Ilan Pappe and many others turncoats... They made money selling their people down the river... I ad to that the Neturei Karta adherents approximately 7000 worldwide.

 

Not only Bolsheviks, but the originators of modern day terrorism...Bombing civillian buildings, assassinating unarmed peacemakers like Bernadotte and Moyne, terrorizing defenseless native populations using brutal inhuman tactics like at Deir Yasssin...The disgusting fact that these murderous terrorists like Begin, Dyan, Sharon, Shamir et al are still idolized by some of the Israelis to this day is frightening..

 

Just pathetic... No stranger has died for Israel... this is a scurrilous information.
And BTW Israel was not CREATED for it was RECONSTITUTED... this is not an invention of mine for this is in the Preamble of the Mandate for Palestine.

 

Democracy:
# If committed to democracy it would never have practised near-total ethnic cleansing in Palestine in 1948, 1949, 1950, and 1967... not so?
# If committed to democracy it would never have opposed the democratically elected Hamas (2006) government in the Occupied Territories ... not so?

So scratch the "commitment to democracy" bit.
That is only applied by Israel when convenient. But I do concede that even this cherry-picked democracy is better than that practised by its Arab neighbours. However, there is one big caveat. Those nations never claim to be democratic. Israel does.

Human Rights:
# If committed to human rights, why would Israel use white phosphorus in densely built-up civilian areas and use human shields in Gaza?
# If committed to human rights why does it continuously hold prisoners without the right to open trial?
# If committed to human rights why did the future Prime Minister of Israel allow his pet pitbulls free reign in Sabra and Shatila to slaughter civilians?

So scratch the "human rights" bit.

Commitment to peace This is the biggest BS bit of the entire piece
# If committed to peace, then why did Israel provoke Syria on so many occasions in 1966 that it led to war
# If committed to peace, when the Sabra generals are on copious and verifiable record as believing that Nasser would NOT attack in 1967, why did Israel launch a first-strike against Egypt (after first having lied about who made the initial bellicose move)?
# If committed to peace why did Israel reject Anwar Sadat's peace negotiation offers on various occasions?
# If committed to peace why did Israel reject the Arab League's offer of peace negotiations in 2002?
# If committed to peace why did Israel reject the Arab League's repeated offer of peace negotiations in 2007?

So scratch the "commitment to peace" bit.

Commitment to mutual security: LMAO
# If committed to mutual security why did Israel invade Egypt in 1956?
# If committed to mutual security why did Israel invade Syria in 1966 after having provoked her for many years along the Golan border (see Gen Moshe Dayan's admissionn; UN Conl. Jan Mehrten's personal observations))
# If committed to mutual security why did Israel invade the PLO in Lebanon in 1982 when the UN observer force confirms that the PLO had been observing the cease-fire along that border for almost a year?
# If committed to mutual security why did Israel break the cease-fire agreement with Hamas in November 2008 which led to the slaughter of 1400+ Gazans in Operation Cast Lead?
# If committed to mutual security why did Israel renege on the prisoner swap agreement with Hezbollah which led to the Lebanon invasion of 2006?

So scratch the "Commitment to mutual security" conclusion.

So what is left regarding the credibility of the conclusions of that article?

Indeed, that country is Israel.

[Please provide factual rebuttal and not personal or empty rants. It just causes me extra work in adding strawmen posts to the "Special Privilege Demand" thread
References to all of the above have been posted many times before, but if you need to see them again, please respond saying so.]

 

No point in carrying on. This article is chock full of lies and Myths.

MEGA MYTH ALERT!!! MEGA MYTH ALERT!!!! MEGA MYTH ALERT!!!!

If these utterly transparent and oh-so-easily demonstrable lies are the only way to justify Israel’s actions, then no wonder some frustrated nutters insist on lobbing rockets on Israel even when their leadership is trying to maintain cease-fires. These historical events live on in their impact on today's developments. As long as the '181' injustice and the '242' dilly-dallying are still supported by the US and not resolved, this debacle and the flying of planes into tall twin buildings should not be a surprise.

 

Debunking the Palestine lie Your orchestrated Myths are an eyesore already.

http://youtu.be/O7ByJb7QQ9U

 

I may agree about Palestinian hatred towards the Israeli Jews and, certainly, they twisted words and facts to support their aims. This is no different than any other nation. It's called propaganda. But regardless, whether there was one million or ten million Palestinians in the area, Britain decides to take that land and give it to someone else.

It also doesn't express what is actually being discussed in America now- the problem of over-importation. It's not the importation of Jewish people, but the massive importation of European Jews who were embittered, violent, and radicalized, that created problems for Palestinians in the area. Britain, itself, had to pull out of the nation because the Israeli people became to violent, beginning a series of terrorist attacks and guerrilla warfare against them that only increased in intensity. After this, Israel began an unofficial (thus, not expressed in formal history) expansion into areas beyond the lands given them. They forced Palestinians from their lands- rebuilding poor towns and repossessing lands from rich Palestinians to give to Israeli's. This unimpeded violence caused many remaining Paelstinains to flee from their homes even before Israeli forces arrived their much like a people would flee at just the mere word of the coming of Ghengis Khan. This is what gave the illusion that the Palestinians were simply fleeing of their own accord.

Now I doubt that this, alone, prompted the response of the Arab nations to go toe-to toe-with Israel, but they did and they lost. But Israel was heavily supported in their endeavor, and the Arab nations were not "unified" as such an alliance would apply. Still, a loss is a loss. After this, however, Israel escalated its expansion efforts.

History is not clean, but here, Israel was given someone else's land. Terms for consolidation were rejected, but what were the terms? They were obviously unfavorable to Palestinians.

Israel has always resisted Palestinian peace because of a number of reasons. They didn't have to give the Palestinians Gaza, and didn't want to, but you know why they did? Because by including the population of the Gaza strip in Israel proper, they would have been forced to acknowledge the resident Palestinians as citizens, and in a democratic state, when there are more Palestinians that Israeli's, it becomes a Palestinian state. So they give them Gaza....oh, and place them under military occupation.

Why am I surprised your presentation from the conservative "Encounter Books" does not express these points? Could it be political bias?

 

Thanks for that classic example of the Zionist debating variations. I will post it on that ME thread.