Palestinian Territories

They believed that the land was exclusively theirs for three reasons:

1) It's Been Ours for Generations: Arabs were outraged and greatly saddened by the creation of the State of Israel because they believed that the land that had physically belonged to their parents and grandparents should have been theirs for inheritance. In their minds, it did not make sense that a group of German, Polish, French, English, and Russian speaking people should claim land that their ancestors had not even visited for centuries.

2) Jews Will Kick Us Out: Many Arabs were afraid that they might lose their rights and territories under the authority of the Jewish State. In the Middle East, ethnic cleansing was a relatively common phenomenon by victors in wars. (Turks and Greeks expelled each other from territories. Lebanese Christians and Muslims had also done this throughout history.) As a result, Arabs were afraid of losing all of their rights in a Jewish State. Those who stayed realized that this would not be the case, but that was the minority.

3) Pan-Arabism: Many Arabs claimed that a Jewish State would prevent Pan-Arabism from occurring even though the most successful Pan-Arab Nationalist project was the Egyptian-Syrian United Arab Republic which was physically split by Israel. Simply put, a Jewish State in Israel's location drives a geographical wedge between Egypt and North Africa in the west and the Levant, Iraq, and Arabia in the east.

The League of Nations gave Britain a mandate to govern the lands west of the Jordan River after the end of the First World War. The League of Nations disintegrated as a result of the Second World War and was eventually replaced by the United Nations. When the Jews realised that Britain was moving towards granting independence to the Palestinian Mandate on a democratic single-state basis, the Jews began a program of terrorism designed to drive Britain out of Palestine. Britain handed the "problem" over to the United Nations, which initially favoured a division that provided approximately equal shares of the land to each side. After initiating a civil war in which many of the Palestinians fled the future state of Israel or were actually driven out, Israel unilaterally declared independence. For one day, 11th May 1949, Israel consented to negotiate United Nations proposals, during which time Israel was accepted as a member of the United Nations, then Israel reneged on any further discussions. The Palestinians did not accept this situation, but Israeli military power has forced a change of position on the part of the Palestinian leaders.

There are no doubt some Palestinians who would like to see Israel destroyed, just as there are Jews who would like to see the Palestinian Territories destroyed, but most Palestinians who continue to fight would settle for a secure territory behind secure borders. Time is on the Israeli side, as Israelis can continue to build Jewish settlements on Palestinian land as long as Israel remains the colonial power in the Territories.

The British Balfour Declaration of 1917 had regarded Palestine as a homeland for the Jews, subject to the rights of the Arabs, and the Jews had been hopeful of a separate state in at least part of the Palestinian mandate. In order to force Britain's hand, the Jews commenced a program of terrorism, with the Stern Gang as the main participant. In 1946, the British headquarters in the King David Hotel were blown up. By February 1947, the number of British casualties in Palestine has risen sharply and Britain called on the UN to solve the Palestinian problem. The Jews were well organised and well armed, and fighting quickly escalated into war. Between May 1948 and January 1949, 370 Palestinian villages were wiped out just in the coastal strip between Tel-Aviv and Haifa. In many cases, if the villagers refused to leave, they were put onto trucks and driven away to the West Bank.

So, Arabs (both Muslim and Christian) and Jews have been fighting since the 1940s. Some publications that may provide more information include:

· A history of modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples(2004) by Professor Ilan Pappe (University of Haifa, Israel);

· The History of Israel (1998) by Professor Arnold Blumberg;

· Bitter Harvest: A Modern History of Palestine (1989), by Sami Hadawi (official land valuer during the British Mandate)

Answer 2

Jews and Arabs have been fighting for a very long time. More than any could think of. They have, in fact been fighting since Abraham went against Gods plan and had a child with his servant girl. He was supposed to have a child with his wife, Sarah. When the servant girl got pregnant with a son Abraham and Sarah "fired" her. Then when Sarah had her rightful son, Isaac, Isaac was the son who would form the Jews and the Servant girl's son would form the Arabs. To learn more please look up Genesis chapter 16 in the Holy Bible.

None.

There was never a historic country of Palestine, and prior to the creation of the British Mandate of Palestine in 1922 (with the current known borders), the southwestern Levant was politically arranged quite differently. Prior to 1988, there was international consensus in most major organizations (such as the United Nations, European Union, NATO, etc.) that Palestine was not a country since Israel was the only legitimate post-Palestinian State and that the Gaza Strip and West Bank were territories that should be devolved to Egypt and Jordan respectively. The only organizations that dissented from this view were the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference, which have a vested interest in not recognizing Israel.

In 1988, Yasser Arafat declared the Palestinian State in exile. In 1993, the Oslo Accords secured international recognition (including Israel) of the Palestinian Authority as a political entity in charge of securing a future for the Palestinian people. There was a partial devolution of territory and security to several Palestinian areas. In 2005, the withdrawal of Israeli settlements and soldiers from Gaza resulted in the first fully independent Palestinian State in the Gaza Strip. However, Hamas led an insurrection leading to their illegitimate takeover of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority still rules a number of bantustans in the West Bank and exercises limited sovereignty over even those regions. Recently, Palestine gained recognition in the United Nations and had its declaration of independence vindicated by the International Court of Justice.

The way the question is written is to assume that it is not theirs, which is not the case in the slightest. Nobody asks what "entitled" Poles to create a nation-state in Prussian, Russian, and Austrian land or what "entitled" British colonists to create a European-Style country in North America. The people who live in a certain area and have a connection to that area have an intrinsic right to that land. The Jews are no different as concerns Palestine.

According to historical, religious, legal, and political grounds, the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine at least partially, if not entirely, belongs to the Jewish people.

1) Historically: The Jews have an undeniable presence in the land from at least 700 BCE until 70 CE and this is proven not only by the Biblical account, but from Assyrian Ruins, Babylonian documents, Hellenistic inscriptions, and Roman volumes. Jews had a continuous presence in the land from 70 CE until the present day (even though they were nowhere near the majority) even though they were forcibly deported from the territory. The fact that they survived, as opposed to the Arameans or Hittites who were similarly exiled does not illegitimate their claims.

In addition to the population-part of the historical claim, Jews have physical ruins and cities that are very sacred to them in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine. The city of Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Jewish Bible. The city of Nablus used to be the Northern Metropolis of Shechem. Hebron was the first capital of Ancient Israel whence Saul ruled and David ruled until he conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites. Even more recent sites like Masada document the Jewish presence and struggle to persevere.

2) Religiously: The Jewish claim to have a connection to the land of the British Mandate of Palestine is firmly grounded in their religion. Jews as early as the Babylonian exiles wrote about returning to the land because God had promised it to them. According to the Pentateuch, God promised Abraham that piece of land. (This promise is even acknowledged in the Qur'an 5:20-21, 17:104, and 26:59.) Many Jewish Holy Sites are in Israel such as the Kotel Hama'aravi (Western Wall).

3) Legally: By international law, the Ottoman Empire took the territory from the Seljuks and Abbassids by internationally recognized conquest. The territory was ceded to the British as a Mandate by the Ottomans as a term of surrender in World War I. (Even though the British had promised the territory to both the Arabs and Jews during the War, neither promise is legally binding.) According to the terms of the Mandate, even though the British were in control, the League of Nations had official jurisdiction. In 1947, the British gave direct authority to the League of Nations' successor, the United Nations, in accordance with the terms of their Mandate. The UN passed the 1947 Partition Plan that gave both a Jewish State and an Arab State the Right to Declare Statehood. The fact that the Arabs decided not to immediately declare such a state does not make the Israeli declaration any less valid. (It is important to note that Palestine did declare statehood on these grounds in 1988, which further cements the legality of this view.)

4) Politically: Jews invested a lot in building the political and physical infrastructure of the land even before they had control. Jews built farms, trained military brigades, created political parties, studied government, and defended themselves. This created a system that was able to repel the Arab Attacks in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9, secure expanded borders in the Six Day War of 1967, and hold those borders in the Arab-Israeli War of 1973. Israelis were actually able to exert control over this territory.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive, but should capture the sentiment of the question.

Israeli Answers

(1) The Gaza Strip is not so important. Until 2005, Israelis lived on the strip and used the land to grow produce and live peacefully. In 2005, Israel made the mistake of expelling all of the Jewish residents. Gaza now produces nothing. In the four years since the withdrawal, over 8000 rockets have been fired by Palestinian terrorists at Israeli targets. Fortunately, most of these rockets are not very good at hitting targets. One missile misfired and caused a major crisis in the Gaza strip when the sewer system backed up as a result.

(2) The Gaza Strip is one of the few places where the British Mandate of Palestine did not overlap with the historically Jewish region called the Land of Israel. Similar to how Palestinians have never made direct references to Tel Aviv being sacred to them, Jews have never made references about Gaza being sacred to them. By and large, for Israelis, the Gaza Strip is significant specifically because it is insignificant.

Palestinian Answer

What makes Gaza important is nothing other than history. It was the first territory that Israel finally conceded as a contiguous region (the West Bank territory conceded was non-contiguous) for a Palestinian State from what used to be the British Mandate of Palestine. It is also a place that shows just how horribly Israel can collectively punish the Palestinian people even when they supposedly wish for a two-state solution on account of the blockade both on land and by sea. The above answer describes how Gaza produces nothing and I would agree with him that Gaza produces nothing. However, this has nothing to do with laziness. When a location has one of the highest population densities in the world, is constantly bombed (Operation Cast Lead was symbolic of more common targeted-strikes), receives minimal raw materials, and has no access to export markets, it is impossible to produce anything.

Framing the question as why Israel occupies Palestine already sets the question as having a certain desired answer and also the lack of a definition for what constitutes "Palestine" makes the question difficult to answer.

"Palestine" is typically interpreted one of two ways. The first way is to refer to all of the land in the British Mandate of Palestine which includes the Modern State of Israel (except for the Golan Heights), the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The second way is to refer to exclusively those territories which the Palestinian Authority claims will serve as a basis for a future Palestinian State: the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Understandably, it changes the argument fundamentally if 78% of the territory in question is exempted from the discussion.

Additionally, the term "occupy" can be seen in either a neutral sense, i.e. that a group of people are in a certain piece of land, or in a negative sense, i.e. that a group of people are preventing a different group of people from exerting control over a piece of land. This answer will proceed under the understanding that "occupy" refers to the first, neutral definition.

As for the 78% of Mandatory Palestine which is now the State of Israel, this came about through Israel's acceptance of UN Resolution 181 and its border defense against Arab aggression to counter international laws that they did not like. As a result, the acquisition in the 1947-1949 of war was not an illegal act since self-defense is not a criminal act unless it is grossly disproportionate to the attack and the war was a relatively balanced affair as well as being resolved at the moment that each Arab state was willing to engage in an armistice. Just to clarify, this means that the 1949 borders of Israel belong to Israel.

As for the remaining Palestinian areas that were acquired in 1967, the situation becomes murkier, but as concerns the West Bank, Jordan attacked Israel first and Israel retaliated. Again the self-defense doctrine comes to the fore. Israel would have the rights to those territories acquired in self-defense. However, Israel was willing to concede some of those rights pursuant to a final, lasting peace with its neighbors, which is all that UN Resolution 242 discusses. Those states that have made peace with Israel since 1967 (Egypt and Jordan) have seen the return of territory (in Egypt's case) or the cession of the rights to occupied territory with tertiary partners (Jordan to the Palestinian Authority).

As for Gaza specifically, at this point in history, there are only two parties that claim it, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Since Hamas is not recognized as an independent government by any country, it retains exclusively de facto control of the area while the Palestinian Authority retains de jurecontrol pursuant to the Oslo Accords of 1993.

As for the West Bank specifically, since Israel ceded the possible claim to the West Bank to Jordan in UN Resolution 242 and Jordan then agreed to cede its rights to claim the land in full to the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Authority has the right to claim the lands of the West Bank. There are certainly Israelis who disagree with the extent of these rights, their viability vis à vis their religion, or use the doctrine of terra nullius to disavow the Palestinian Authority of these rights, but this is the minority of Israelis. Most Israelis want the majority of the West Bank to revert to the Palestinian Authority with a guarantee of peaceful coexistence.

To read more about Israeli-West Bank Issues, please read the Related Question below.