Luke, you make a very well-reasoned argument except that you have no idea what you are talking about.
I was cheering you on until you said the culprit was Europe. I was expecting you to say the Arab world, and then we would be in agreement. Odd that they are nowhere to be seen in your suggestions, especially since they have used the Palestinians as the tip of their spear to destroy Israel.
“Palestine!” is the rallying cry of jihadis and rioting mobs, but they treat their “brothers” like shit. Jordan and Israel are the only two countries in the Middle East where Palestinians can be citizens. If i were a Palestinian and had my nose rubbed in that hypocrisy year after year, I would be steaming mad.
Now. “…European statesmen — acting in concert, I might add — who decided to solve their Jewish problem by giving someone else’s land away…”
Ok Luke. You really gotta answer these questions: whose land was given away? why was it their land? and what are its borders? And how far back do you want to go? Because the last time a self-identified nation was there, with all the attributes of a nation – common values, laws, language, citizenship rules, religion (because back then every country had a state religion) – it was Judah, the nation of the Jews. Its boundaries were roughly what they are now. Its capital was Jerusalem. And it was destroyed by the Romans, who renamed it Palestina as some kind of obscure dig at the Jews.
So at the end of this comment I put some history, but now let me attend to the rest of your suggestions, most of which are already in action. Compensation has been on the table at every negotiation, and I hope you think it’s fair to include compensation to the 800,000 Jews from Arab lands who were forced to leave homes they had lived in for centuries. For example, there was a Jewish community in Alexandria since Roman times, and the Arabs didn’t show up till around 700 AD.
As for compensation from Europe – Europe has poured billions of dollars into the West Bank and Gaza, where it turned into weapons and Swiss bank accounts for thugs. the US and Israel have also given the PLO and its various permutations millions of dollars.
As for “an ongoing program of investment in social and economic development, whose aim would be to establish a Western standard of living (on a par with Israel’s) among the Palestinians who choose to live in the West Bank,..”
Israel started doing this when it became clear she would be stuck with the Territories. Israel built roads, hospitals, universities, apartments …. right before Arafat was installed, Palestinians had a higher standard of living than any other Arabs, and it was because of Israel. Then Arafat and his mafia gradually ruined it. But the money kept pouring in! There is still half a billion dollars in Arafat’s Swiss bank account! Only Suha has the key! And as far as I know she is not spending it on her Palestinian people.
“the continuance of such a program to be conditional upon Palestinain adherence to the terms of any final agreement they make with Israel.”
in fact, the Palestinians have gotten all that and more, without having to agree to anything, and without having to take responsibility for anything. They get to go on being terrorists, and they keep getting a free pass.
And Europe has been compensating Jews since soon after the end of the war. My mother was getting checks from Austria until she died.
So. Luke, Palestinians are as diverse in opinions as anyone else, and you can’t read minds. So you don’t know what they think.
So – the land. After the Romans, Jews stll lived in the Gallilee until the Arab Muslim invasion. Jews lived in Jerusalem whenever the current ruler would let them in. There was the influential kabbalist community in Tsfat in the 16th c. The majority of jeruslaem was Jewish from 1850 on. many groups lived in Palestine at different times, but until the 20th c. the only inhabitants who thought of it as a whole, as a nation, were the Jews. The Arabs certainly didn’t.
Everyone who lived there was called Palestinians, kind of like how you would say “New Englanders.” Jews were Palestinians to Europeans. As antisemitism rose in Europe in the 30s, there would be graffiti: “Jews go back to Palestine!”
Are you talking about land owned or worked individually by Arabs which Jews bought over many years, or took after the war of independence? Which the Arabs started instead of accepting the UNs partition, which offered the local Arabs a country? Compensation comes into play here, and of course the Christians and Jews and everyone else whose property was taken should be compensated too.
maybe some of those oil-rich Arab countries can put a little in the kitty. And I think they should also pay to restore all the Jewish holy sites they’ve destroyed like Joseph’s tomb and the Jericho synagogue with the beautiful mosaic floor, and huge chunks of the Temple Mount.
Are you talking about land Israel captured in the 67 war? Israel tried to give Gaza and the West Bank back to Egypt and Jordan, they wouldn’t take them. They wanted the restive locals to be Israel’s problem, as Egypt is now trying to do with Gaza. Great “brothers” those Palestinians have, yes?
So tell me whose land and where it is and then we can talk about what to do with it. I do think Jews should get Hevron, because that was a Jewish town from unrecorded times until 1929, when the local Jews were massacred and driven out.
