Sixty Years After the 1948 War

On May 15, 1948, the day after David Ben-Gurion declared the "self-evident right of the Jewish people to be a nation," Egyptian ground forces advanced toward Tel Aviv. Syrian and Iraqi soldiers approached from the north and east, and the troops of King Abdullah's Arab Legion marched west across the Jordan River, toward Jerusalem.¹ It was hardly a fair fight, Ben-Gurion wrote in his War Diaries: "700,000 Jews pitted against 27 million Arabs - one against 40."²

Ben-Gurion's chilling ratio was useful in casting Israel as a fragile island in a sea of well-armed Arabs, but it didn't describe the actual fighting conditions on the ground. In fact, in 1948, Israel had more soldiers than all of the invading Arab armies combined. In Clash of Destinies, Israeli historians Jon and David Kimche estimated that the total number of Arab soldiers fighting within Israel's borders in 1948 was 24,000, compared to 35,000 for the Haganah, as Israeli forces were known at the time. The Arabs, the Kimche brothers wrote, initially possessed "greater firepower," but Israel, after breaking a UN arms embargo with shipments of rifles, armored cars, Messerschmitt planes, and millions of rounds of ammunition from Czechoslovakia, had the upper hand. The Jewish State won the war of 1948 above all because it had more and stronger forces.³

Yet Ben-Gurion's David and Goliath narrative would prove enduring, to be echoed by generations of supporters of Israel's cause. "Could a half million ill-armed people hold back a flood of fifty million hate-crazed Arabs?" asked Leon Uris in Exodus, increasing the ratio to 100:1. His best-selling 1958 novel, and the subsequent film starring Paul Newman, would help shape the perceptions of generations of Americans. In Exodus, the story of 1948 is exclusively about the heroic birth of Israel out of the ashes of the Holocaust. Arabs are alternately portrayed as malicious or pathetic.

To be sure, Israelis had every reason to fear that their new state would be stillborn; their experience, borne above all from the Holocaust and its vow of "never again," helped fuel a will to fight that informs Israeli policy today. Yet with Exodus as the über narrative, we can scarcely grasp the roots of the conflict, much less how they reach into the present.

Obscured by Exodus and its many descendant narratives is a Palestinian view of history. To Palestinians, 1948 was not about the "War of Independence," as Israelis call it, but the "Nakba," or Catastrophe. Here the story is not survival and re-birth, but dispossession and loss: more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes during the fighting in 1948, including thousands of families forced by Israeli commanders to march in near-100-degree heat from the Arab towns of Ramle and Lydda (today the Israeli cities Ramla and Lod), on the coastal plain, toward exile in Ramallah and Jordan.⁴ They and their descendants now live in Middle East refugee camps, and in a global diaspora stretching from Dubai to London to San Francisco.

The Nakba remains little known in the West, despite the rivers of ink and forests of newsprint that have chronicled the last six decades of struggle between the two peoples. Yet it is as central to Palestinian identity as the Holocaust is to the identity of Israel.

Seen through a Palestinian lens, the creation of Israel, sanctioned by the United Nations vote, in November 1947, to partition Palestine into two states - one for the Arabs, and one for the Jews - was not "western civilization's gesture of repentance for the Holocaust," as the historian Michael J. Cohen has written.⁵ Rather, Palestinians saw themselves as "the indigenous majority on its ancestral soil," as the Harvard scholar Walid Khalidi has noted, and therefore "failed understand why they should be made to pay for the Holocaust."⁶ Neither did they grasp why the Jewish side, with one third the population, should be awarded 54 percent of Palestine and more than 80 percent of its cultivated citrus and grain plantations.⁷ This helps explain why the Arabs of Palestine, in peace talks five and six decades later, would fail to see Israeli concessions as "generous": From their perspective, they lost 78 percent of their land to Israel in the 1948 war, and are ill-inclined to make further compromise on the 22 percent that remains.⁸

For the Palestinians, the Arab armies on the move on May 15, 1948 were therefore not invaders, but defenders; conversely, the fracturing and demise of those forces - for example, the retreat of the Arab Legion from Ramle and Lydda in July 1948, which left the defense of the towns in the hands of raggedy bands of local fighters⁹ - gave the lie to the notion of a monolithic Arab juggernaut poised to destroy Israel. (For Palestinians, this illusion was repeated 19 years later, in the Six Day War, when devastated Arab forces again made a quick retreat, confirming U.S. intelligence estimates that Israel, in the words of former U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach, "could mop up the Arabs in no time at all."¹⁰

Sixty years after the 1948 war, we are intimate with the tragic history of one side, while the traumatic roots of the other remain largely obscured. But the Exodus narrative, with its unitary focus on one side's truth, has done little to resolve what is still considered among the most intractable conflicts in the world. Ignoring fundamental truths about the Nakba, and how they play out today, fuels ignorance and scorn, while doing little to advance the mutual regard essential for a genuine and durable peace. Perhaps an acknowledgment by each side of the trauma of the other - beginning with mutual witness of the war of 1948 - could help bring about a truth and reconciliation so elusive in the last 60 years.

Sandy Tolan is the author of The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East. He is a visiting professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at USC.

Footnotes:

¹ Jon and David Kimche, Clash of Destinies (1960), p. 155. (Jon Kimche was an Israeli journalist, Zionist historian, and correspondent for the London Evening Standard; his younger brother David was a member of Israel's foreign intelligence service, and later director-general of Israel's foreign ministry.) See also Michael J. Cohen, The Rise of Israel: Volume 38, pp. 164-165; Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, pp. 218-235; Walid Khalidi, Before Their Diaspora, pp. 310-313; and the Source Notes section in The Lemon Tree, p. 302.

² From The Lemon Tree Source Notes, p. 303:

David Ben-Gurion described the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 as "700,000 Jews pitted against 27 million Arabs--one against 40" (War Diaries, p. 524, quoted in Flapan's The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities). Chaim Herzog, in a letter to President Truman, said the Israelis were outnumbered "20 to 1." Israeli commander and president Chaim Herzog, in his Arab-Israeli Wars, described the conflict as "a Jewish population of some 650,000 ranged against a Palestinian Arab population of approximately 1.1 million, supported by seven Arab armies from across the borders" (p. 11). These kinds of comparisons were often based on Arab population or troop strength of the entire armed forces of the Arab states that entered Palestine/Israel in May 1948, but do not reflect that numbers of the Arab forces actually engaged in battle in 1948.

³ From The Lemon Tree source notes, p. 303:

In Clash of Destinies, the Kimche brothers estimate that total strength of the invading Arab armies was twenty-four thousand, compared with thirty-five thousand for the Haganah, with the Arab armies initially possessing "greater firepower." Benny Morris, in 1948 and After, pp. 14-15, adds:

The atlas map showing a minuscule Israel and a giant surrounding Arab sea did not, and, indeed, for the time being, still does not, accurately reflect the true balance of military power in the region ... Jewish organization, command, and control ... were clearly superior to those of the uncoordinated armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.

⁴ The account of the expulsions from Ramle is described in detail in The Lemon Tree, pp. 62-69. Additional documentation, from the book's Source Notes, pp. 306-309, includes:

The heat of mid-July 1948 in the central plain of Israel/Palestine is mentioned by Glubb on p. 162 of A Soldier with the Arabs and by Busailah in his Arab Studies Quarterly report, p. 142. Evidence that thousands had already left al-Ramla and Lydda by July 14 comes from numerous interviews with eyewitnesses, including Mohammad Taji, Firdaws Taji, Abu Mohammad Saleh Tartir in the Amari refugee camp, 1998 interviews with the Reverend Audeh Rantisi, and Busailah, p. 140.

The account of the Taji and Khairi families' flight and the landscape they crossed comes from Firdaws Taji and is echoed by numerous other interviews, including those with Mohammad Taji, Abu Mohammad Saleh Tartir, and Rantisi. A similar account is given by Busailah, p. 141.

The figure of thirty thousand refugees and the terrain they crossed come from estimates by Glubb (A Soldier with the Arabs, p. 162) and from Ben-Gurion's diary of July 15, 1948 (quoted in Segev's 1949, p. 27). Morris (Middle East Journal, p. 83) and Kadish (interview with me, June 2004) estimate that there were between fifty thousand and sixty thousand Arabs in the two towns of Lydda and Ramla in July 1948, including refugees who had arrived from Jaffa and nearby villages. ("Maybe thirty-four thousand [in Ramla and Lydda combined] without refugees," Kadish told me. "So you're talking about fifty-five to sixty thousand people.") PostwarIsraeli figures for the Arab populations of both towns are fewer than five thousand; hence it appears Ben-Gurion and Glubb's figure of thirty thousand refugees is reasonable, if not conservative.

⁵ Michael J. Cohen, Palestine and the Great Powers, p. 292.

⁶ Walid Khalidi, Before Their Diaspora, pp. 305-306.

⁷ Khalidi, Before Their Diaspora, p. 305; John Chappple, Jewish Land Settlement in Palestine, cited in Khalidi, From Haven to Conquest, p. 843.

⁸ See, for example, Robert Malley and Hussein Agha in The New York Review of Books, June 27, 2002, and Malley in The New York Times, July 8, 2001.

⁹ See The Lemon Tree, pp. 59 and 62-64, and the source notes, pp. 305-308, including:

The condition of the towns of Ramla and Lydda were described by Firdaws Taji and in interviews with current and former Arab citizens of Lydda (now the Israeli city of Lod), including Adla Salim Rehan at the Amari refugee camp in Ramallah and Mohammad Saleh Tartir of the Lydda Society at Amari. Khanom Khairi described Sheikh Mustafa's emergency trip to secure bullets in Transjordan.

The state of the defenders of Ramla is described by Taji and Reja'e Busailah (Arab Studies Quarterly 3, 1981, pp. 127-35). Writing more broadly about the Palestinian Arabs during 1948, the Kimche brothers stated:

The local Arabs, who had only the haziest of notions concerning the strength of the Jews, knew even less about the nature of their own forces. ... No one told the Palestinian Arabs in their villages--until it was too late--that the Arab countries were not fulfilling all they had promised and that many of the weapons they had sent were old, decrepit and useless. (Jon and David Kimche, Clash of Destinies, pp. 81-82)

¹⁰ Nicholas Katzenbach's comment comes from an "Oral History Interview" (interview number 3, December 11, 1968), in the LBJ Presidential Library, and is part of a larger discussion, in The Lemon Tree, about U.S. and British intelligence assessments of the strategic threat posed by Egypt to Israel in the spring of 1967. Regarding this, President Johnson famously told Israel's foreign minister, Abba Eban, that the Egyptians would not attack, and that if they did, "you will whip the hell out of them." (The Lemon Tree, p. 131, and the Source Notes section, pp. 328-330.)

Comments

[EbonBear]

Interesting. The problem with the Israel-Palestine mess, as far as I can tell, is that while the people on both sides just want an end to the killing, the politicians don't. For various reasons, it's in the interests of politicians to keep the conflict going.

[Huffyfan]

Thank You sandy for such a brilliant article , when i read the title i was already expecting something completely different , the stuff we normally expect in the US media about Israel . thanks for a different point of view , an Honest point of view for a change . I hope you continue informing the readers . thank you again .

[NABNYC]

Whatever Israel does, however they choose to proceed, they proudly claim they are independent yet they take $10 billion a year from the American taxpayer. For what? Why are the American taxpayers forced to subsidize the people of Israel every single year? Why is it that our own people are losing their homes, their jobs, unemployment is running out, the schools are failing, people have no healthcare, and cannot afford to send their kids to college, yet our politicians steal $10 billion dollars from the "hard working" Americans and send it to Israel every year?

We're not Germany. The U.S. did not create the holocaust. In fact, we helped to end it. Let Israel solve their own problems. And let's ask our presidential candidates to focus on the U.S., and what they will do for us. I'm tired of seeing them all genuflecting to Israel. If they want to represent Israel, they should move to Israel.

There were 17 Israelis killed by any Palestinians, including Hamas, in 2006, and 13 killed in 2007. There were 6 million women violently attacked in their homes in that same period in the U.S. Our politicians ignore the people of the U.S., refuse to do anything for them, and spend all their time out talking about "defending" Israel. When will our politicians start helping us?

[parkerfly38]

When you vote for Ron Paul.

[Javani]

"Leon Uris in Exodus, increasing the ratio to 100:1. His best-selling 1958 novel, and the subsequent film starring Paul Newman, would help shape the perceptions of generations of Americans."

Ah, yes. The narrative deconstruction of Mearsheimer, etc. who unashamedly claimed they were deceived by a novel. That's pretty pathetic to embrace for professors at high-rank institutions.

Too bad Edward Said isn't around no more. Would have enjoyed his take on this narrativelet. The power of Uris s.Seems to have passed him when he was alive. Surprising, since he actually is an authority on fictional texts and perceptions of the Middle East.

[beaupritchard]

http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/weissmandel_lublin.htm

A short excerpt from the above

"We are writing to remind you of the one factor of which you must never lose sight: that ultimately, the Allies will win the war. After their victory, territorial boundaries will be reshaped as they were after the First World War. Then, the way will be clear for our purpose at this time, with the war drawing to a close, we must do everything in our power to change Eretz Yisrael to Medinat Yisrael and many steps have already been taken in this regard. Therefore, we must turn a deaf ear to the pleas and cries emanating from Eastern Europe. Remember this: all the allies have suffered many losses, and if we also do not offer human sacrifices, how can we gain the right to sit at the conference table when the territorial boundaries are reshaped? Accordingly, it is foolhardy and brazen for us to negotiate in terms of money or supplies in exchange for Jewish lives"





Note - This is the origin of the princible of nonnegotion with terrorist. It is a princible founded in guilt.

[beaupritchard]

I too want to thank you for this article and Arianna and the Huffington Post for printing it.

The Palestinian israeli conflict is not really complex. The palestinians are dispossessed of their land in what amounts to be an occupation and a slow genocide as detailed in The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict http://www.cactus48.com/truth.html.

A macro view of the slow erosion of Palestinian land by socalled peace processes brokered by the United States can be seen here http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/05/10/the-shrinking-map-of-palestine/

And the original sin and planning for dispossesion as payment for wrongs incurred as a result of a failure to negotiate by jewish leadership charged with protecting a people can be found here http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/weissmandel_lublin.htm

[unclewoody]

War Criminals Pay the Price
In a quest for cheap energy resources, the USA attacked Iraq leaving nearly six millions of her citizens homeless, in exile or dead.
As a consequence, the Americans have lost their Constitutional liberties and their protections under the Bill of Rights. The dollar eroding into nothingness, the hapless citizens have fallen victim to corrupt politicians, to greedy investment bankers, to rapacious oil distributors and now to ruthless cereal traffickers.
They indulged in preemptive war.
Such are the penalties for naked aggression against a third world nation that still might throw the invaders into the sea. If God wills.
Similarly, the Arab World waged preemptive war on Israel and killed one percent of her population. Like the Iraqis, the Israelis defended their families, homes and farms. In the American fashion, the Arabs have continued their wars of aggression at the cost of their culture, their commonwealth and their future.

[rroy]

There are people likeDretan who simply cannot come to grips with the fact that the Palestinian People are just that-People!They did not materiialise out of the cosmos!
Nor can people like him/her comprehend that these"People" existed as citizens of a land that has been occupied by Ottoman and British forces for decades.Any attempts at creating a unified solidarity national entity was,to put it mildly,dis­couragedby these Colonialistts occupiers.
In other words there was no "Population Vaccuum"in what in addition to being called Palestine or the Palestinian Protectorate was referred to by Zionist Sectarians as Judea and Samaria.
To legitematise the further ostracisation of Palestinian People by use of Mythological old testament names is a very lame excuse for denying their rights tolands they have lived in and on for centuries.
As a young man not long out of the military after WW2,I read a couple of Leon Huris' books,starting with Exodusand quicklly arrived at the conclusion I will never read another one!They made interesting novels,but were so historicaly inaccurate they were almost laughable.
If people of America could just stop and realise,there were no Palestinians loading Box cars with Europeans who happened to be Jewish,and Palestians lived in an area that was not a population vaccuum,so why are they paying dues for what the Nazis did to European citizens who happened to be Jewish?

[baldblackman]

With all due respect it wasn't "700,000 Jews pitted against 27 million Arabs - one against 40.", and while the Arab countries did have numerical advantages most of the solilders where only fighting because they had to, the Jews on the other where figthing for their lives.
AS an African-American I don't have a dog in this fight and I see the whole issue as a diverson from the real problem of over all poverty among the Arabs while a few are sitting on tons of money.

[Javani]

"AS an African-American I don't have a dog in this fight and I see the whole issue as a diverson from the real problem of over all poverty among the Arabs while a few are sitting on tons of money."

True.

[Eoin45]

Excellent point. Thanks.

[prattvictory]

I think it is important to note that Israel has never defined its borders. With each "defensive" war the Israeli territory continues to expand. The ultranationalists, Ben-Gurion included, conceived a country far of greater area than it is today.

That dream of greater Israel continues, inspite temporary setbacks in Lebanon and Gaza. Eretz Israel, undefined, unrestrained, and shielded from accountability by the Western narrative that they are the victims poses a looming threat over the entire Middle East.

Also of note, more settlements were built during the Bill Clinton Administration than any previous Presidency.

[jeffepops]

On the other hand, Israel has returned more captured land -- the Sinai and Gaza -- than it has retained. This being objectively true, your arguement lacks validity.

Israel poses no "looming threat", other to Islamic hegemony over the entire Middle East. Either accept Israel's right to exist, and move from that point forward, or just come out and flatly call for its destruction. There's plenty of land in the region for everyone -- please remember that "historical Palestine" is merely a geographical area such as Mesopotamia , the Balkans, or the old Oregon Territories. Parts of the Palestinian region can now be found in modern nation states (all created in the 20th century) of Jordan, Israel, Syria and Lebanon. The main Arab/Palestinian objection to Israel, from day one, has been that it's Jewish. Period

[prattvictory]

Accept Israel right to exist on what boundary? 1948, 1950, 1956, 1967 or today? Does Israel get to ignore UN 194?

Historical Palestine is made up of the people who have lived there. It is no more the land of Israel than it is the land of the Palestinians whose identity was forged by the Zionist usurpation of their land.

There was a Marshall Plan for Palestine is was a democratic single state. If we had listened to George Marshall we wouldn't be losing lives and fortune in Iraq.

[Eoin45]

"That dream of greater Israel continues..." True. But to provide balance, the dream of many Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese and Saudi Arabians continues to be the complete and utter destruction of Israel - driving them "into the sea". It is my fervent hope that peace loving middle easterners on all sides will one day prevail, but as long as this attitude persists, as long as there are people who are willing to martyr their own children to kill Israelis, as long as hatred of Jews is openly taught in Madrassas, it will not happen.

[prattvictory]

The balance of Israel's appetite for territory is that the people who's land was taken want their land back?

Jews lived in Palestine for centuries under the Muslim majority. Herzl, Ben-Gurion, Jabotinsky and the like decided they were going to create a Jewish State and drive everyone else off the land. And you say the Zionists are the victims? You defy reason.

[oncethere]

Why haven't the Mexicans demanded Southern California back, Why have they not terrrorized the people living there for the last 100 years?

The British left Palestine a vacuum when they turned their Mandate over to the UN. The UN did the best it could to equitably divide the land. The Arabs rejected it's proposal. As far as I know, there were no laws concerning propery and land rights in Palestine at the time and internecine conflicts between neighboring Arab villages were common; it was the way land and cattle disputes were settled. In any event, the Jews bought land from absentee Arab landlords. They created the machinery for self-govt. and revived a language.

History repeats itself and the same dynamics that were present 60 years ago are are being played out today. Arabs refuse to accept Israel, are intent on relentlessly terrorizing its citizens and Israel responds, sometimes in kind, sometimes in excess. Arabs claim "massacres" were committed, as in Jenin a couple years ago, and continue to clamor for the destruction of Israel.

[Chalkeater]

L.A. is half Hispanic. Your argument would be valid if Palestinians were allowed to assimilate in Israel to the same degree.

[oncethere]

Perhaps, Mexicans have been allowed to assimilate because they or their brethern have not clamored for the destruction of California. Also, there are many there illegally, looking for work, who do not have full rights of citizenship, just as there are many Arabs from neighboring states who have come to Israel looking for work. Arabs whose families lived in Palestine in the early days and fled during the war are entitled to restitution. This is not to say that Israeli Arabs are treated as fairly as they should be.

[AdamWykle]

Mr. Tolan, thank your for another incredible post. People constantly render the occupation and the Palestinians history as invicible, then the reason for the Palestinians frustration seems nonsensical, its as if they're implying that they are inherantly upset and violent people.

The Palestinians struggle is a just struggle, their struggling for a state. If we knew the autrocities in the occupied territories, we wouldnt be supporting it, at least those who have a heart would not be supporting it.

Israel has made us sympathize with its position by linking itself emotionally to us, making a connection where there really isnt one.

[jeffepops]

Please clue me in on Palestinian history. When did it begin? How is it different that Syrian, Lebanese or Jordanian history?

I understand that there were people living in the area that is now Israel during the Ottoman empire, but I have never read of any national (Arab) Palestinian identity that preceded the development of Zionism and the state of Israel. The PLO was founded more than 15 years after Israel became an independent state, no Paelstinian state was declared in the West Bank and Gaza when it was occupied by Arab nations (Jordan actually annexed the West Bank, relinquishing claims on the territory only long after losing it to Israel in the 1967 war).

There need to be a just two-state solution, but Palestinians and their surrounding Arab states must stop engaging in terrorism and threats against Israel. It hasn't worked over the last 60 years, and has own caused increased Palestinian suffering

[parkerfly38]

Maybe there's no connection for you, but plenty of other voting Americans do feel a connection. I have, for instance, a stronger connection to Israel, where they generally value basic democratic principles, than I would to Arab regimes where women are marginalized, even victimized, by religious law and great wealth goes to a basic few.

[Annoula]

Thank you, Sandy! Please keep your enlightening posts coming! The American public needs to be educated with a thorough, balanced analysis (and documented data) in order to understand the reality of the situation. Unfortunately, the Zionist lobby has succeeded in packaging a conflict of deep and complex, cultural, religious and ethnic differences to a simplistic, mythical soap opera with a happy ending worthy of a Hollywood production. And the American people, well known for their aversion to "nuance", have been drinking the same Kool-Aid for 60 years. [Who, after all, can resist the cliche of the "humble, outnumbered underdogs" that managed to prevail over the evil and powerful?]
Every time somebody has attempted to present the Palestinian point of view, they have used the handy "anti-Semitic" label to attack and discredit him/her and humiliate him/her to ensure he/she will be silenced for ever. I consider that an insult to our collective intelligence and a serious attack on freedom of expression.
Please, don't let them do that to you. No matter what they say, keep speaking your truth. Something will stick, just as all their lies have stuck over 60 years. THANK YOU FOR EDUCATING US, SANDY!

[cheforacle]

I agree, as an American Jew who loves Israel but recognizes that the hardships and oppression of the Palestinian people must be acknowledged and addressed. That being said your claim that Sandy offers a balanced view is not entirely true. The Arab leaders in 1948 instructed Palestinians to leave their villages while they drive out the Jews. A balanced view must show the indignities and hardships imposed on the Palestinians, the terror and nihilistic hatred of the jihadist suicide bombers, the militancy of the expanding settlements by Israelis in the West Bank, the acknowledgement that Israel did give up its residency in Gaza (which rebuts the claim that Israel is in this for unmitigated expansion) and the recognition that, prior to the assasination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 the Palestinians had a good chance of achieving independence. Both sides bear culpability and views that fail to acknowledge these complex realities are not truly balanced.

[SteveNearDC]

Excellent article.
I for one can't wait for the day when we tell Israel the game is over.
Stand up for yourselves without the backing of the US. No more money. No more weapons.
Make peace or die.
Either way, it shouldn't be our problem.

[parkerfly38]

Why just Israel? Why not the money we give to everyone else, too? Granted, Israel does receive the most foreign aid, but again, why is the onus on Israel to solve the problems of the region?

I think it's because you loons are morally confused. Just because Israel may or may not be wrong in the way it deals with Palestinians does not mean it's AS wrong as its many neighbors, with their far greater share of human rights abuses.

[edtastic]

Great post more honesty like this and we might actually be able to make peace.

[DrEthan725]

Let me first say that I feel that ALL people in this world have the inalienable right of self-determination. For example, if the state of Texas wanted to secede from the Union, we should let them. Palestinian Arabs living in The West Bank and Gaza Strip are a reality. They are people with the same rights of self-determination and self-government by virtue only of their humanity. Just like the Israelis.

However, when speaking about "sides of the story" the Palestinians claim that they are an ancient and indigenous people fails to stand up to historic scrutiny. Most Palestinian Arabs were newcomers to British Mandate Palestine. Until the 1967 Six-Day War made it expedient for Arabs to create a Palestinian peoplehood, local Arabs simply considered themselves part of the 'great Arab nation' or 'southern Syrians.'

Read the FULL history of "the other side" of this conflict-- the true and HISTORICALLY ACCURATE origins of "The Palestinians"; at http://www.mythsandfacts.com/article_view.asp?articleID=53 originally published March 31, 2008 on the Myths and Facts website.

[AdamWykle]

okay DrEthan, your link is not factual at all, its actually more Zionist propaganda to convince people that a group of people on that land never existed 60 years ago. All I had to do was read the links title to know that it is filled with false propaganda about whether or not the people of Palestinian are actually a people. These natural inhabitants date back 1300 years ago, and Palestine and its inhabitants the Palestinians are mensioned in American Literature.

In Arabic, Palestine means the land between the seas, because the country has/had a natural geographic border. Respectivily and for many centuries those that dwelled on that land were always refered to as the Palestinians. Please try finding a more neutral link before you incriminate yourself anymore.

[parkerfly38]

Um, the word Palestine derives from the well-documented Latin name for the region, given to it by the Romans.

[AndrewW]

Hypocrisy only a few sentences apart. You support the right of non-indigenous Texans to their own self-determination, but then dismiss the Pals similar desire since they's really just Ay-rabs.

What part of the Palestinans claim is based on their claim of being an "ancient and indigenous people"?? Their claim is based on, as you say, "same rights of self-determination and self-government by virtue only of their humanity." It is based on property rights. It is based on international law.

It is the Israelis who constantly trot out their "ancient" affiliation with the land and the mindnumbingly self-serving and arrogant claim that God made them the "chosen people" and gave the land to them. Perhaps some Pals try to counter with the idea that many (not ALL, MANY) Palestinians HAVE been living there for centuries, or eons. Whatever the reason, it's not germane to the argument, but it seems quite useful to continue the oppression.

[oncethere]

Alright, you've made your point and it is a legitimate one, about Jews-Israelis being arrogant. Many are. Re: reparations---Arabs whose families lived in Palestine and fled Are entitled to restitution. And you are right that Mexicans who live in Ca. legally have full citizenship rights, but there are many who are there illegally and came there, like many Arabs did to Israel , seeking work.

The issue of whether Arabs fled with the hope of returning to a Palestine free of Jews or were driven out of Israel is a controversial one and I don't think we will ever know the full truth. No doubt those tricky Israelis frequently used subterfuge as a tactic, making Arabs believe they were more fiercesome and numerous than they were. But, as one writer above notes, the Jews were fighting for their lives and the Arabs had made it clear that they wanted to kill them all and or drive them into the sea.

Mr.. Tolan seems determined to point out the bad acts committed by the Jews, so let's grant him this point. The principle of "unilateral belligerency," which underlies his assertions, is one I'd like to claim if I attacked or terrrorized someone---that is, it is o.k. for me to do that, but it is not ok for other to fight back.

[Annoula]

"Palestinian Arabs living in The West Bank and Gaza Strip are a reality." [Thanks for the clarification! DrEthan725! For a moment, I thought we had all been hallucinating!}
"They are people with the same rights of self-determination and self-government by virtue only of their humanity. Just like the Israelis" .[Israelis? You must mean, the former European Jews that escaped and were given a country by displacing the PAlestinian people that had been living there peacefully for many generations. Up to then, there were no "Israelis" deserving self-rule. Only German, Russian and Polish Jews and while they were living in Europe, they never expressed the need for self-rule. They only became "Patriotic Israelis" when they took over the land of the Palestinians and kicked them out of their villages]
Sorry, Dr Ethan725, but I find your link full of bias.
It is in fact, "the SAME side of the story" we've been fed for 60 years!