PLB wrote:another question... when isreal was created and the palastinians displaced, what was the attitude towards them? were they forced to pack up and move or remain where they were and allowed to become a part of isreal?
i'm trying to figure out if the palastinians aggression was caused by initial isreali injustice or the other way around.
Well, the Palestinians were invited to participate in the negotiations after WWII when the creation of Israel was being considered.
The United Nations General Assembly proposed the partition of Palestine into two states, an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem to be under United Nations administration. Most Jews in Palestine accepted the proposal, while most of the Arabs in Palestine rejected it at the urging of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Arabia and Jordan. In fact, the Palestinians refused to participate in negotiations (and thus in my
opinion forfeit their right to bitch about Jewish immigration and the creation of Israel, but hey, that's what you get for taking an all-or-nothing approach).
Violence between Arab and Jewish communities erupted almost immediately. Toward the end of the British mandate, the Jews planned to declare a separate state, a development the Arabs were determined to prevent. On May 14, 1948, the last British forces withdrew from Palestine, and the Jews, led by David Ben-Gurion, declared the creation of the State of Israel, in accordance with the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
So, initially the (soon to be) Israelis invited the Palestinians to share the land. The Palestinians rejected them, and violence broke out on both sides - Freedom fighters / terrorists of both ethnic groups fought over land. Exactly who was right depends on who you ask...
Oddly enough though, there were literally more than a million jews in Palestine before the creation of Israel... Draw your own conclusions from this.
The Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian, and Lebanese militaries immediately attacked in 1948 immediately after the creation of Israel. The Israelis fought back, and captured territory that the UN never intended for them. The Palestinians, who the Israelis had invited to live with them in Israel or create their own state on their own land (depending on which side of the line they lived on), fled the war at the urging of the Arab world. They became the refugees.
Essentially, the Arab world promised the Palestinians that they would destroy Israel, so don't get too comfortable, just sit tight in those refugee camps - Don't worry, you'll move home as soon as this war is won.
Unfortunately for the Palestinians, the Arab world wrote checks that they couldn't back up. The Israelis won in 48. And again they defeated the Arab attackers in 56, 67, and again in 73. Each time Israel was responding to aggression, as the Arab world was super pressured to "DO SOMETHING" by the Palestinians still wasting away in Refugee camps.
So, the Palestinians got screwed, but mostly by their Arab "friends". Shit, with friends like these, who needs enemies?
