Land grabbing argument over Israel?

Question

I just read the question on why Jews are seen as land grabbers, and it got me thinking. Saying the Palestinians originally land grabbed the land from the Jews centuries ago can't really be taken as a serious argument can it?

Because then people could say Americans grabbed land from the Native Americans, or that the Saxons grabbed land from the English, and etc, etc. One race / empire has been taking land from another for centuries, thousands of years.

And wasn't it the Romans and Christians who originally took the land from the Jews, and then in the 7th century the Muslims took it. So shouldn't blame be put on the Romans and Christians?

Am I right in thinking that it's not a valid argument for the existence of Israel?

And before I'm seen as anti-Israel for asking this, I'm not!!!! lol

Answer 1

Israel has had 0.1% of the Middle East for about 4,000 years and hasn't yet moved out on a war of an offensive type to take more land.

Yup, they are the expansionist killers, the Israelis are, yep.

LOL, those wacky ayyrabs.....

Stand fast Israel, the civilized world rallies behind you! You shall not face the barbarian horde of islamo-savages alone!

Answer 2

Most have grabbed from others, Israel is the only land given to a people by God.

AND it's ours again, and that is that.

Answer 3

Grabbing land is the easy part.  Holding on to it and building a productive society with a democratic gov is the hard part.

Answer 4

LOL!

Goldie your argument doesn't serve your interest at all.

On the same scale I could say that IF Israel has grabbed land from "Palestinians" then really, they should not complain since that's how it's been done for centuries.

If you do use this argument against Israel saying it stole land and it is an illegal state then you have to accept our argument as well and then you loose again.

EDIT - No Glodie, that's not my argument, not everyone believes what I believe and I think it's wrong to force your beliefs on others.

My argument is

1. It is our historical homeland.

This does not mean we can come and take over and kick the current residents out, this simply means that this is the only place on earth that we can claim to have some right to settle in.

2. We did not bother anybody when we arrived, we did not invade nobody's land, we arrived with the acceptance of the British who ruled at the time and agreed to make a national home for the Jewish people.

3. We bought land, we worked hard, we improved the living situations and this caused Arabs from surrounding countries to immigrate to the region as well.

In fact, if we displaced people then how come the Arab population kept rising?

4. Riots in Palestine began I guess you can say officially in the 1930's these were no different then pogroms in Europe.

Europe claimed Jews are evil and take over their money and the Arabs claimed Jews are evil and are displacing them from their lands - false!

In fact,  the grand mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al Husseini met with Hitler in 1941 in order to discuss the "Final Solution" and make it official in the Middle east as well, his plan did not work but that does not change the fact that he tried.

He did manage to get over 20,000 Muslims to join the S.S

The Jews in Palestine fought back simply because they could, this resulted in long and ugly battle which led the British to give up and turn to the U.N who decided on a 2 state solution - seems reasonable to me.

The Arabs weren't happy with this and neither were the Jews.

The Arabs wanted everything and the Jews wanted all of their historic homeland and especially Jerusalem, their holiest city but the Jews accepted the solution because it was the most reasonable solution at the time, the Arabs did not accept, they had a solution of their own - fight the Jews and drive them into the sea.

They failed more then once and still they refuse to suffer the consequences.

Just to note - the Arabs were not to be displaced from their homes under the Jewish state, they were to stay and become citizens, same goes for the Jews in the Arab state.

Let's go over what the Jews were offered and what the Arabs were offered.

The Arabs already got 80% of Palestine - Jordan.

The remaining 20% of Palestine was to be devided.

Overall the Arabs were getting aproximetly 90% of tottal Palestine.

The Jews were getting a Jewish state in the 20% remaining of Palestine, this Jewish state had a 40% Arab population that were to stay and become citizens.

It was 60% desert and a very large percent of state land(not owned by no one).

The Arabs apart from Jordan, were getting another state next to the Jewish one and they had only about 1% Jews.

These Arabs were under different rulers for centeries, they finaly get independents and they are bothered by the fact that a small percentage is going to be ruled by Jews who need it and deserve it more then anyone else on the face of this planet.

They were bothered when they first arrived, this led to the creation of Israel which they fought with all their power to destroy, they lost the 23rd state that they were offered and they expelled over 850 thousand Jews from other Arab countries which their decendants today are over half of the Jewish population in Israel.

This is just one page of a book that I could write about this conflict but if this isn't enough of an argument for Israel  then their claim of a stolen land is not valid either.

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-r...

Answer 5

No it can't.

I have included the source of the copy/paste answer another user gave. They should include the source themselves when using others words.

Answer 6

it is a valid argument for the existence of israel.The term "Palestine" is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the 12th Century B.C.E., settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what are now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century C.E., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word "Filastin" is derived from this Latin name.3

The Hebrews entered the Land of Israel about 1300 B.C.E., living under a tribal confederation until being united under the first monarch, King Saul. The second king, David, established Jerusalem as the capital around 1000 B.C.E. David's son, Solomon built the Temple soon thereafter and consolidated the military, administrative and religious functions of the kingdom. The nation was divided under Solomon's son, with the northern kingdom (Israel) lasting until 722 B.C.E., when the Assyrians destroyed it, and the southern kingdom (Judah) surviving until the Babylonian conquest in 586 B.C.E. The Jewish people enjoyed brief periods of sovereignty afterward before most Jews were finally driven from their homeland in 135 C.E.

Jewish independence in the Land of Israel lasted for more than 400 years. This is much longer than Americans have enjoyed independence in what has become known as the United States.4 In fact, if not for foreign conquerors, Israel would be 3,000 years old today.

Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not."

Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:

We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.

In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: "There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."

The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria" and that, "politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity." A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."

Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-World War I phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel's capture of the West Bank

the claim that israel belongs to the jews goes back a long time A common misperception is that all the Jews were forced into the Diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. and then, 1,800 years later, suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years.

The Jewish people base their claim to the Land of Israel on at least four premises: 1) the Jewish people settled and developed the land; 2) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people; 3) the territory was captured in defensive wars and 4) God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham.

Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in the Land of Israel continued and often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.

The Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. By the early 19th century — years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement — more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel.1 The 78 years of nation-building, beginning in 1870, culminated in the reestablishment of the Jewish State.

Israel's international "birth certificate" was validated by the promise of the Bible; uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel's admission to the UN in 1949; the recognition of Israel by most other states; and, most of all, the society created by Israel's people in decades of thriving, dynamic national existence.

“Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its 'right to exist.'

Israel's right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel's legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement....

There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its 'right to exist' a favor, or a negotiable concession.”

Answer 7

Land grabbing is a colonial practices. Colonial era is over. This is a historical fact no one can deny. From that fact we can say that Israel is the last colonial conflict yet to be resolved.

The native people of Palestine have the right to exist and live on their native land.

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