Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine - Page 499

On November 16 2025 03:22 KwarK wrote:

I've always been pro Israel's right to exist and defend itself today while also thinking that the creation of Israel was immoral and generally a bad idea. The arguments in favour of creating Israel such as:
- Okay but the people who wanted to do it wanted to
and
- Well they were oppressed where they were so that makes it okay
and
- Their ancestors lived there
and
- If going somewhere people already live and making your own country is so wrong then why didn't the British colonial office say it was wrong
and
- Okay, so even the British colonial office said it was wrong and actively worked to prevent it but did you know that years earlier a British guy said he wasn't opposed to it
and
- I don't recognize that the people there had a state and so it's fine to displace them
and the ever fruitful
- If the positions were reversed then it'd be wrong because that's different

just don't seem that strong to me.

One thing that has always puzzled me about the people who do think that these are strong arguments is the incontrovertible fact that the arguments completely failed. That's not in dispute. The Palestinians did not simply embrace their displacement and peacefully move into camps. They got rather angry about the whole displacement thing and felt like the land should still be theirs. If no crime was committed against the Palestinians, if nothing was taken from them, why did they fight so hard to keep it and why have they subsequently fought so hard to take it back. It's weird that a people who weren't in any way wronged by their relocation to camps would act this way.

Suppose we ask that they take turns. In 2048 we declare the creation of a Palestinian state, forcibly displace the Israelis, and put all the Israelis in camps in the desert. It ticks all the boxes, Palestinians want to live there, they're oppressed where they are, their ancestors lived there, a Brit says it's okay, and they don't recognize that the Israelis have a state. Then in 2148 the Israelis get another turn living there and we switch every hundred years forever. Unlike the Palestinians the Israelis will surely recognize the overwhelming moral strength of the arguments against them, after all, the arguments were the ones they made. They'll step aside and accept their turn in the camps with grace and dignity.

On November 16 2025 03:55 Billyboy wrote:

The one part you are missing is that Jews were hated basically everywhere, and still being killed in some places (USSR for example).

It doesn't make it right or good, but it was not colonial and there were not easy or good options elsewhere.

On November 16 2025 04:01 KwarK wrote:

I think you’re using a different definition of colonial to me (and everyone else). Colonies do not exist only for resource extraction serving the mother nation under the political control of the mother. Surplus populations migrating, displacing the locals, and creating a new state for themselves have always been called colonies. For example Marseille in France.

But in any case we’re not disagreeing. As you say, it doesn’t make it right or good.

Colonialism is the practice of a nation extending and maintaining its political, social, and economic control over another territory and its people. It involves a dominant power imposing its culture, laws, and values on the subjugated population, often for the exploitation of resources and labor. Historical examples include the European colonization of the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and its modern impacts are still felt globally.

So I think it is a case where there may not be a better word

it also doesn't do a great job of explaining what happened and gives the wrong impression to people without the historical knowledge of what went on.