Israel

Palestinian people today is one of the terms referring mainly to Arab people with family origins in Palestine. The religion of Palestinians is primarily Islam, but there are others who consider themselves Palestinian, including Christians, Druze, and Jews.

In British Mandate Palestine, all those granted citizenship by the Mandatory authorities were granted "Palestinian citizenship," including the newly arriving Jewish immigrants. The term "Palestinian" as used by the Mandatory authorities referred to all people residing there, regardless of religion. Following the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people, the use and application of "Palestine" and "Palestinian" by and to non-Arab Palestinians dropped from use; and its use was again taken up by its Arabs after the establishment of the PLO in 1964. The English-language newspaper The Palestine Post for example, primarily served the Jewish community in British Mandate Palestine; after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the newspaper's name was changed to The Jerusalem Post. Today, Palestinian Jews generally identify as "Israelis". The more precise terminology Palestinian Arab which was in use until the 1960s is often contracted/abbreviated - at the expense of some linguistic clarity or for political purposes - to the now commonly used Palestinian. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, it is common for Arab citizens of Israel to identify themselves as both "Israeli" and "Palestinian" and/or "Palestinian Arab" or "Israeli Arab" in most cases.

The Palestinian National Charter, as amended by the Palestine National Congress in July 1968, states that "The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father-whether in Palestine or outside it-is also a Palestinian." The Charter also allows that "The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion are considered Palestinians."

The most recent draft of the Palestinian constitution expands the definition of Palestinian to state that: "Palestinian citizenship shall be organized by law without prejudicing the right of anyone who acquired it before 15 May 1948 in accordance with the law or the right of the Palestinian who was resident in Palestine before that date. This right is transmitted from fathers and mothers to their children. The right endures unless it is given up voluntarily.

The Palestinians are Arabs that moved into Palestine a century ago. Many of them came from Jordan and Syria.

The Palestinians are an Arab-speaking people with family origins in Palestine, an area now known as Israel along with Israeli territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Israel has fought with Lebanon on several occasions including: Israel's entrée into the Lebanese Civil War in 1982, the Occupation of South Lebanon from 1982-2000, or the recent Israeli-Hezbollah War in 2006. All three stem from different causes. The primary ones for each are listed below.

1) The Lebanese Civil War had a number of causes separate to Israel and Israel only entered the War midway through. The causes of the Lebanese Civil War included, but were not limited to:

1. The rising percentage of Shiite Muslims and sinking percentage of Maronite Christians and the Shiites wanting more power.
2. The arrival of Palestinian Militant Organizations like the PLO fleeing Jordan after King Hussein's Black September who brought unrest and chaos with them.
3. The languishing, horrible conditions of the vast numbers of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon.
4. The increasing militancy and radicalization of the Maronite Christian minority.
5. The increasing Syrian support of Shiite Paramilitary Groups

Israel entered the Lebanese Civil War on account of the following two reasons:

1. Palestinian Paramilitary Organizations began to rain rockets down on Northern Israel in an attempt to goad Israel to enter the Lebanese Civil War. The PLO believed that such an entry would unite the Shiites and Sunnis behind one banner to repel the Israelis. The Union did not form, but Israel did retaliate by crossing the border and hunting down the PLO.
2. Christian Falangists, with whom Israel quickly allied, promised Israel a longer term ceasefire and more amicable relations in the future. Israel wanted a chance at peace with Lebanon and therefore supported those who would advocate for this.

2) The Occupation of Southern Lebanon was a result of the Lebanese Civil War. Israeli troops were already in Lebanon and just retreated to positions south of the Litani River, but north of the Israeli-Lebanese border. Hezbollah and other paramilitary groups harassed the Israeli occupying force, leading to minor skirmishes in the area. In 2000, as a sign of restraint, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak withdrew the Israelis to the 1980 borders to the satisfaction of the United Nations, but not to Hezbollah which considers parts of the Israeli-occupied Golan to be Lebanese territory.

3) The Israeli-Hezbollah War began from Hezbollah's gross misinterpretation of how strongly Israel would respond to its illicit activities. The War had a number of causes that included, but were not limited to:

1. Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border: Regev and Goldwasser, violating the strong Israeli sense that no soldier can be ever left behind. This prompted an Israeli incursion into Lebanon to retrieve the soldiers.
2. Hezbollah, upon seeing the Israeli soldiers, launched Soviet Katyusha Missiles into Israel, causing the Israelis to amp up their incursion to a proper invasion and airstrike.

Answer 1

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict takes place in a small portion of the Southern Levant in the Middle East along the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea in territory termed "the former British Mandate of Palestine". This physical territory comprises the nation of Israel, and portions of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. A very real dimension of the conflict also takes place in the world's broadcast and print media, and in national and international political and diplomatic bodies.

Answer 2

In the area between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. However, people around the world have gotten involved, showing their support for different sides. There are spots where more activity is occurring than others, for example Gaza.
Mostly in the Gaza Strip area and surrounding borders.

The Jewish people originate from Abraham who was born in Mesopotamia. If you look in the book of Genesis (from ch.11) you will see the history of the beginnings of the Jews. You will see that Abraham settled in what is now Israel and bought pieces of land that would later become the land of Israel for the Jewish people. The answer is really a large one as there are so many details to put in.

• Answer:

Answer 1

Because they had nowhere else to go. Europe gave them a home in Palestine as a way of saying sorry but what the fault of the Palestinian people who are being forced to leave their homes. they were in no part involved in the killing of the Jews. Europe is trying to amend one of their sins by committing another. Why didn't they give them a home in Europe? They just wanted to show that they were sorry.

Answer 2

There are two operative parts to that question. There is the implicit question as to whether a Jewish State is something that should exist. There is the explicit question as to whether the geographical location chosen for this Jewish State is proper for its mission.

1) Why a Jewish State: Herzl explained quite well that the European concept of a nation-state was dependent on the idea that all of the people in any particular nation were of the same ethnic stock and heritage. Jews were branded by this system to be "the Other" and were regarded at best as possible equals and at worse as traitors, spies, thieves, and fifth columns. When the Dreyfus Affair turned out marches in Paris that said "Death to the Jews" on account of a kangaroo court against a particular guiltless Jew, it became clear that the Jew could not be integrated into Europe. After the Holocaust, the strongest proof that the Jew and the European Nation-State were irreconcilable, this view persists. In Europe, it is now directed at the Muslims since the Jews are not large enough of a threat to the European System. Unlike Muslims, though, which can return to their countries of origin if the discrimination becomes intolerable, the Jews did not have such a place. This is why the Jewish State is necessary. Since it came into existence it has accepted Jewish political refugees from over 50 nations and flown missions at its own expense to rescue Jews from at least 10 nations.

2) Why Palestine: Ahad Ha'am explains that the Jewish Soul is intrinsically connected to his history and in the same way that a German-American can never be as properly German as a German in Germany, the People of Israel can never be as properly Jewish if they are not in the Land of Israel. The relics in that land speak to a Jewish sensibility and character. There are also religious reasons as expounded by Rav Avraham Kook which posit that the development of a Jewish State in Israel hastens the arrival of the Messiah. There are additional political reasons why Palestine and not Europe. As explained above, the European Culture is strongly anti-Other and making a Jewish State there would have fostered much more contempt and alienation (ironically).

Note on Answer 1

In contrast to Answer 1, Israel was not created in the Middle East as a way to hurt Palestinians and Zionism was not founded as a reaction to the Holocaust. (Herzl, Ahad Ha'am, and Rav Kook were all Zionists long before the Nazis even gained power in Germany, among others.) Additionally, Jews in the Middle East did suffer prior to the advent of Zionism. There were blood libels (which still circulate in the Arab World) about Jews killing Christian Monks or of Jews killing Muslim children to drink their blood. Both are patently false, but the riots they caused killed untold numbers. There was legal discrimination against Jews in nearly every Muslim-majority country in the first half of the twentieth century. (After the first half, most no longer had Jews.) Currently, all of the former Palestinian Jewish population is part of Israel and actively prevented from "returning" to Jordan or the Gaza Strip.

There are three operative parts of this question which must be discussed before any viable answer can be given.

1) Who are Israelis? Israel was a combination of a number of ethnic groups of which Jews were the largest and most central. Jews worked in concert with other minorities in the land such as the Bedouins who openly supported the Kibbutz movement, the Druze whose holy places (like the Tomb of Shuayb-Jethro) the Jews helped to protect from Muslim vandalism, and the Circassians, a Russian Muslim ethnicity that had its lifestyle under siege from the Ottoman Turks and Palestinian Arabs. These groups worked in concert with the Jews to establish what would be a Jewish State with equal rights for non-Jews.

Additionally, there were numerous Arab Palestinians who joined with Jews in a passive way since they were committed to the enterprise of creating a nation of Israel. The Arab community of Abu Ghosh is prime example of just such a Zionist-sympathizing Muslim-Arab community. The combination of the above minorities and some of the Arab majority should dispel the myth that "it's just Jews". Israel is a state with a wide variety of citizens and has a larger minority percentage of its population than any Middle Eastern State except Turkey (which refused to recognize its Kurdish minority until the 1990s).

2) What is Palestine? Palestine, prior to 1949, was never used in the context of describing an actual nation or state. It was a regional term that came from the Roman Province Syria-Palaestina. From the 1500s-1919, Palestine was part of several different Ottoman governates like the Vilayet of Beirut, the Vilayet of Damascus and the Mutasaffirat of Jerusalem. The British Mandate of Palestine was the way that the British merely decided to redraw the lines. While there is certainly a legitimate Arab nationalist aspiration to create a Palestinian Arab state, there never was such a state in the past.

3) What does "take over" mean? Take over in this context traditionally means to forcibly assume control of something that was previously controlled by someone else. Since the British, a foreign power, were in control of Palestine, not the indigenous Arabs, the Israelis could not take over Palestine from the Arabs. This is similar to how the United States annexing Texas is not construed as taking over Mexican land. Texas and the United States were states separate from the Mexican population of Texas even though the majority of Texans at the time of annexation were Mexicans. Israelis (not just Jews, as explained above) fought the British for the control of a region of land. That land just happened to be called Palestine because of the way the map was drawn.

Result:

As this explains, Israel did acquire the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine as the result of a war that was declared against it. However, this does not mean that Israel took over Palestine if we hold to the definitions that we have already reasonably established. It bears mentioning that from its inception, Israel has sought to establish peaceful relations with everyone else. Unfortunately, it has had the need to defend its civilians almost constantly, all the while maintaining the strongest efforts to mitigate collateral harm.