I wouldn’t call it a “real” history, just a richer history that leads to a more nuanced understanding of the situation, starting with the Ottoman Empire’s tax reform efforts prior to WWI leading to the fellahin legally conveying their land to town leaders to avoid taxation, the descendants of said leaders considering themselves as landed gentry and who had little connection to the land, in fact most of them were living the high life in Beirut and who were more than happy to sell land to Jews. Or the state of Arab intellectual thought as it transitioned from pan-arabism to regional nationalism. Or the role the Arab League played in manipulating many Palestinians to act against their interests in the leadup to and during the 1948-1949 war (Arabs that ignored the Arab League are now, by and large, Israeli citizens, though they have legit gripes and deserve a fair constitutional government that protects them from the vageries of the volatile Israeli political process). Or how Arab nations allowed/encouraged pogroms to occur against their Jewish residents both before and after the creation of the State of Israel, persecution that (surprise surprise) led Arabic-speaking Jews to flee to the mandate/Israel. I’m NOT saying that Israel did no wrong. I’m just irritated as fuck by Israeli AND Palestinian apologists that ignore the role their side played in making the situation what it is today.
Am I wrong to be a little irritated by the fact that your previous wording was that my “grasp on the rest of the history is poor”, but when asked to explain things, you seem to think that I simply lacked nuance? Because it seems to me in that case that your initial response saying that my grasp was poor was also lacking nuance.
I’m not a middle east expert, or even an enthusiast. I would even flatly state that my grasp of the history in the region is poor, and that my knowledge on the subject lacks nuance… However, before I made the comment, I did a bit of research, for example, reading the Wikipedia article on Israel and its history, and I did leave quite a bit of nuance out intentionally, for example, completely ignoring the fact that Palestine was governed by British Mandate at the time. But I don’t think I misrepresented the facts in some fundamental way. It’s just good to keep things short, punchy, and factual online.
To be clear, I have read your entire comment, and it is very interesting. It adds a lot of nuance. I didn’t expect you to put so much effort into your comment, and I appreciate the effort.
Sorry, this whole mess has me upset, and I haven’t been able to reach an Israeli friend of mine. And I’m sick of one-sided hate, usually coming from ill-informed “liberals” that act like the Palestinians are justified in their violence like it’s a US race riot instead of absolute bloody mayhem, who have never met a member of Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood in real life and seen the murderous hate in their eyes, who never got the soles of their shoes sticky from blood in the streets from a suicide bombing in the Dolphinairum that wiped out over 150 lives in less than a second, who never contemplated the only reason that they are alive right now is because they stopped for a cup of coffee and missed their bus which then exploded killing everyone aboard. Israel is absolutely wrong in a lot of its policies, needs a fair constitution that treats its citizens equally, and like every other country has made bloody terrible decisions from time to time. But the ahistorical propaganda successes that Palestinians have had with bleeding hearts that are supposedly educated absolutely pisses me off. “Israel oppresses us”, yes, because you let your house be used by snipers, yes, because you officially sanctioned bombers to come murder people, etc. It doesn’t justify flattening the Gaza Strip, but to think that Israel is just going to want to talk about it is patently absurd.
Here’s your chance to tell me the real history, then.
I wouldn’t call it a “real” history, just a richer history that leads to a more nuanced understanding of the situation, starting with the Ottoman Empire’s tax reform efforts prior to WWI leading to the fellahin legally conveying their land to town leaders to avoid taxation, the descendants of said leaders considering themselves as landed gentry and who had little connection to the land, in fact most of them were living the high life in Beirut and who were more than happy to sell land to Jews. Or the state of Arab intellectual thought as it transitioned from pan-arabism to regional nationalism. Or the role the Arab League played in manipulating many Palestinians to act against their interests in the leadup to and during the 1948-1949 war (Arabs that ignored the Arab League are now, by and large, Israeli citizens, though they have legit gripes and deserve a fair constitutional government that protects them from the vageries of the volatile Israeli political process). Or how Arab nations allowed/encouraged pogroms to occur against their Jewish residents both before and after the creation of the State of Israel, persecution that (surprise surprise) led Arabic-speaking Jews to flee to the mandate/Israel. I’m NOT saying that Israel did no wrong. I’m just irritated as fuck by Israeli AND Palestinian apologists that ignore the role their side played in making the situation what it is today.
Am I wrong to be a little irritated by the fact that your previous wording was that my “grasp on the rest of the history is poor”, but when asked to explain things, you seem to think that I simply lacked nuance? Because it seems to me in that case that your initial response saying that my grasp was poor was also lacking nuance.
I’m not a middle east expert, or even an enthusiast. I would even flatly state that my grasp of the history in the region is poor, and that my knowledge on the subject lacks nuance… However, before I made the comment, I did a bit of research, for example, reading the Wikipedia article on Israel and its history, and I did leave quite a bit of nuance out intentionally, for example, completely ignoring the fact that Palestine was governed by British Mandate at the time. But I don’t think I misrepresented the facts in some fundamental way. It’s just good to keep things short, punchy, and factual online.
To be clear, I have read your entire comment, and it is very interesting. It adds a lot of nuance. I didn’t expect you to put so much effort into your comment, and I appreciate the effort.
Sorry, this whole mess has me upset, and I haven’t been able to reach an Israeli friend of mine. And I’m sick of one-sided hate, usually coming from ill-informed “liberals” that act like the Palestinians are justified in their violence like it’s a US race riot instead of absolute bloody mayhem, who have never met a member of Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood in real life and seen the murderous hate in their eyes, who never got the soles of their shoes sticky from blood in the streets from a suicide bombing in the Dolphinairum that wiped out over 150 lives in less than a second, who never contemplated the only reason that they are alive right now is because they stopped for a cup of coffee and missed their bus which then exploded killing everyone aboard. Israel is absolutely wrong in a lot of its policies, needs a fair constitution that treats its citizens equally, and like every other country has made bloody terrible decisions from time to time. But the ahistorical propaganda successes that Palestinians have had with bleeding hearts that are supposedly educated absolutely pisses me off. “Israel oppresses us”, yes, because you let your house be used by snipers, yes, because you officially sanctioned bombers to come murder people, etc. It doesn’t justify flattening the Gaza Strip, but to think that Israel is just going to want to talk about it is patently absurd.