1. Do any Jews of today possess 2000 year old title deeds proving they lost their land illegally? If they do, I suggest they take up their grievance with the Romans.
The idea that a people can possess some kind of ethnic ancestral right to a territory supposedly vacated by their forebears some millenia previously, implying a right in perpetuity, can have no legal basis. Or otherwise Americans of European ancestry, to name just one group of people, will have to pack their bags.
The Jewish population of Palestine [what is now Israel and the occupied territories, the West Bank and Gaza] at the time of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 was a mere 7 percent of the 700 000 inhabitants. The rest were Muslim and Christian Arabs. At the time of the (US-dominated UN) partition vote in 1947 there were only 650 000 Jews in Palestine while there were 1,3 million indigenous Palestinian Arabs, either Christian or Muslim. Under the UN partition plan, a 56 % majority of Palestine (consisting of the most arable land and most of the water was given for a Zionist state to people who constituted 33 % of the population and owned about 6 % [six percent] of the land. The UN had no right to take land, property, bank accounts, furniture, businesses, farms away from one group of people and give award it to another, especially without consulting the people most affected.
As a result of global anti-Semiticism, European Jews had few places to flee and as a result, Palestine ( a historical safe haven for Jews) was overrun by European Jewish refugee fleeing the Nazi holocaust. Jewish refugees deserve compensation by countries of the world which failed to provide safe haven for these people. It was unfair to burden Palestinians with a European problem exacerbated by world inaction and global anti-Semiticism.
Even if some Jews can trace ancestors back to Palestine, many can't and nearly all can't claim to be purely descended from people who fled this area 2000 years ago. Many Jews living in Israel can only trace their ancestry back to Europe, Asia or Africa.
DNA doesn't lie:
Jewish Genetics - DNA, genes, Jews, Ashkenazi
Nearly all Palestinians can trace their ancestry back to Palestine. Many Palestinians remained Jews, so claims that all Jews were forced to flee Palestine 2000 years ago are false. the fact is, many Jews never left Palestine. Of those Jews who remained in Palestine, some converted to Christianity and Islam. Where are these people's ancestral lands, if not in Palestine?
These statements regarding Palestinian ancestry are supported by the same DNA evidence referenced above. These people now find themselves displaced and discriminated against on their ancestral lands by Jews with mixed European, Asian and African ancestry.
2. I agree that Jews remaining in Nazi Europe would have been butchered and that they were legitimate refugees, which is why they had to leave. But the Nazis have been defeated and many Israeli Jews of European can return to the ancestral homelands in Europe.
IMO, Palestine absorbed more than their fair share of European Jews during the time Europe was occupied by the Nazis. At the time, Canada, the US and other countries outside of Nazi influence were generally hostile toward Jews.
MS St. Louis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That's one example of how the rest of the world treated Jewish refugees fleeing persecution and death. Most of the rest of the world reacted about the same as Cuba, the US and Canada.
Palestine, where Jews were historically welcomed by the local people, was one of the few safe havens for European Jews fleeing the horrors of Nazi Europe. We can see how the locals were rewarded by Jewish refugees and the world for burdening a European created problem. As soon as the European Jewish refugees had a chance, they did the same thing to Palestinians as what happened to them. They seized their property by force and turned hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into landless, nationless refugees. Gaza has been overrun by Palestinian refugees fleeing the horrors of Zionist Israel and has become the world's biggest concentration camp. The bombed and starved Palestinian civilians in Gaza live behind walls with razor wire and guard towers. The Israeli military who control the area like a prison. They restrict humanitarian aid to the point where people aren't quite starving, but disease and malnutrition is rampant.
If animals were treated this cruelly, more people would be concerned... But since all Palestinians including pregnant mothers and babies are perceived as terrorists rather than human beings like the rest of us, the west seems content to unshakably support Israel's ongoing crime against humanity.
I'd have thought if any group of people would know the injustice of religious based discrimination, it would be Jews. Apparently these people didn't learn much after centuries of oppression and injustice. I'd say that speaks volumes about human selfishness and greed. By the way, God's record regarding people acting out of selfishness and greed isn't good. If God cares about justice, then I'd say the people responsible for the injustice and oppression suffered by millions of people, most of whom also worship the same God as the Jews, are in for some kind of divine retribution. Judging from the direction this war is evolving, I'd say Judgment Day is coming. As the US declines, so does its ability to prop up Israel militarily and economically. Meanwhile the majority of people in nearby Arab and Muslim countries, continue to grow more hostile to the Zionist State of Israel and Jews in general. I am also against the Zionist State of Israel, but I support the right of innocent civilians (regardless of race or religion) to live their life in peace, rather than in a war zone. Eventually, the war criminals who run Israel will be defeated. Israel will eventually be overrun by hostile Arabs and Muslims and the Jews will again become refugees. Canada and the world will get another chance to demonstrate their willingness to absorb Jewish refugees. However given their record of taking when they arrive in large numbers, I expect many Canadians will react in ways which could be described as anti-Semitic.
CUBert,
While Zionism has always had a racist component, originally it was a peaceful movement with peaceful intentions. That all changed when the Nazi's came to power, and Jews became desperate. As a result of global anti-Semiticism at the time, Zionism became violent. IMO, the original peaceful goals of Zionism were achievable without war. Consider how much of Palestine would be Jewish if all the money spent on war, death and destruction had been spent on buying land legally for Jewish refugees.... Eventually Palestine would have become more and more Jewish and the area would have remained peaceful and became prosperous. The area should have become the world's premiere tourist destination:
RE: ancient ruins, religious significance, warm sunny climate, probably the best beaches on the Mediterranean...
Instead, man's inhumanity to man has turned peaceful Palestine into a war zone and people historically known for their hospitality became hostile nationless refugees.
The Zionist State of Israel in its current form, cannot stand. Eventually the oppressors who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity will face a form of justice. I have little sympathy for their fate. But I am sympathetic to the plight of innocent Jewish, Muslim, Christian and all other innocent civilians who just want to live their live in peace and find themselves in the middle of a war zone. A peaceful solution might result if everyone knew the truth regarding this conflict, stopped supporting war criminals on all sides of this dispute and instead demanded justice. Only when the people suffering injustice and oppression know justice and freedom will this area become peaceful. Attempting to bomb and starve millions of oppressed people into submission will only continue the cycle of violence.
