Help me understand why the other countries hate Israel?

[rigs32]

Note: The following is over simplified, but it gets the general idea across.

Another issue that leads to tension is what happened in 1948. Some say all Arabs were thrown out of Israel. Others say they were allowed to stay if they wouldn't not fight the Jews. Still others say Arabs were tossed out no matter what. The truth is probably a little of each in various areas.

The surrounding Arab countries threw all the Jews out and Israel took them in. The Arabs who left or were thrown out of Israel were refused admission to many Arab countries, creating the refugee camps. They SHOULD have been able to resettle in Egypt, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, etc, but politics prevented that and left many suffering. Extremists have focused that anger and frustration toward Israel and Jews in general.

Remember that much of the developed world knew about what was happening to Jews in Europe and refused them entry or to bomb the rail lines that carried thousands to the death camps. It wasn't worth it, or they didn't like Jews either. Again, probably a bit of both in various circumstances. There was a heck of a lot of guilt and Israel was created. Yet the Jews living there bear the resulting resentment and the UN - the body that created Israel - routinely condemns their security chocies. While I'm sure no one agrees with all of Israel's actions, I think many of us would agree that they have been beat up more than they deserve.

 

[mickeyfan2]

I think many of us would agree that they have been beat up more than they deserve.

I agree. I also feel they have shown great restaint in many of their actions.

 

[RoyalCanadian]

Another issue that leads to tension is what happened in 1948. Some say all Arabs were thrown out of Israel. Others say they were allowed to stay if they wouldn't not fight the Jews. Still others say Arabs were tossed out no matter what. The truth is probably a little of each in various areas.

You're exactly right -- the truth is somewhere in the middle.

In some cases:

• Arabs were encouraged to leave Jewish controlled Palestine by Arab League military forces in order to clear the way for Arab militay forces.
• Arabs were removed from Jewish controlled Palestine by Israeli forces in order to protect supply and communication lines.
• Arabs were encouraged to stay in Jewish controlled Palestine by Israeli officials because they were not threatening anyone or anything and they were integral members of the society.
• Arabs left Jewish controlled Palestine and returned immediately following the 1948 hostilities.
• Arabs left Jewish controlled Palestine and stayed away, and still live in the squalor of UNRWA refugee camps -- held hostage there by the Arab League as pawns to be used against Israel.

 

[ElizK]

Yup. The arabs are suppose to be Ishmael's decendent and Jewish people are the decendents of Isaac. Both are half brother' and Abraham's sons. Ishmael was the first born, so by Jewish law should have been Abraham's heir, but that right was given to Isaac.

Ishmael was Abraham's illegitimate son - his mother was Hagar, Sarah's "maid". The birthright went to Isaac, the son of Abraham's wife Sarah.

 

[momof2inPA]

The irony of it all is that the Palestinians are demanding in Gaza and the West Bank exactly what they have never wanted the Jews to have -- predetermination and self-governance in areas where they constitute the majority of the population.

Well, there are parts of Texas and California that are predominantly inhabited by Mexicans, but I wouldn't want Mexico to just take that land so those people could make their own rules. If Mexico did take that land, I wouldn't hate them because they were hispanic. I would hate them for taking my country's land.

 

[mickeyfan2]

Ishmael was Abraham's illegitimate son - his mother was Hagar, Sarah's "maid". The birthright went to Isaac, the son of Abraham's wife Sarah.

That is how we see it (Christians and Jews), but I gave you the Arab version. Also they did not consider Ishmael to be illegitimate at that time. It was common for the maid survant of the barren wife to bear her husband's children and they were give full birthrights.

 

[frndshpcptn]

"Well, there are parts of Texas and California that are predominantly inhabited by Mexicans, but I wouldn't want Mexico to just take that land so those people could make their own rules. If Mexico did take that land, I wouldn't hate them because they were hispanic. I would hate them for taking my country's land."

It's not even remotely that black and white.

 

[BuckNaked]

"Well, there are parts of Texas and California that are predominantly inhabited by Mexicans, but I wouldn't want Mexico to just take that land so those people could make their own rules. If Mexico did take that land, I wouldn't hate them because they were hispanic. I would hate them for taking my country's land."

It's not even remotely that black and white.

Actually, it pretty much is.

 

[RoyalCanadian]

Well, there are parts of Texas and California that are predominantly inhabited by Mexicans, but I wouldn't want Mexico to just take that land so those people could make their own rules. If Mexico did take that land, I wouldn't hate them because they were hispanic. I would hate them for taking my country's land.

Wow -- what an incredible misunderstanding you have of the historical situation in Israel and Palestine. Which part of "The Jews didn't take the Arab's land" don't you understand? The myth of a stable and long-established Arab population in the land given to the Jews by the United Nations is completely without substance and has been disproven time and time again -- even by Arab scholars and politicians.

 

[RoyalCanadian]

Actually, it pretty much is.

Perhaps you could then explain your understanding of the historical land situation in Israel/Palestine to bring us all on board.

 

[BuckNaked]

Perhaps you could then explain your understanding of the historical land situation in Israel/Palestine to bring us all on board.

The historical land situation is that whether the Jews bought land from the Arabs and developed it or not, it was not a Jewish state until the UN dictated that it be so. To tell a an entire population that their country and way of life is being taken away and handed over to another group out of guilt over the Holocaust is reprehensible.

 

[frndshpcptn]

"Actually, it pretty much is."

Actually, it really isn't. Not knowing much about the poster, I can't say if they have an inherent hate of the hispanic people. I'm sure they don't.

The extremist Arabs hate the Jews. They don't just hate them for "taking land." They hate them for even existing in this world - anywhere in this world. That kind of animosity is a whole different ballgame.

And Israel didn't steal land from the Arabs. It was given to them by the U.N. There is a history here - a long, involved history.

I never really understood the significance of Israel until I went there and I listened to the stories of the brave men and women who created a sfae haven for Jews that had no where else in the world to go. America closed its doors, Europe closed its doors - they were homeless and scared. And the new nations of Israel took them in and said "As long as this country exists, you (and all the Jews of the world) will have a place to call home.

And I sleep better at night because of that.

 

[frndshpcptn]

"The historical land situation is that whether the Jews bought land from the Arabs and developed it or not, it was not a Jewish state until the UN dictated that it be so. To tell a an entire population that their country and way of life is being taken away and handed over to another group out of guilt over the Holocaust is reprehensible."

That's a VERY abridged version of events. Technically, it was a Jewish State long before an Arab one.

 

[RoyalCanadian]

The historical land situation is that whether the Jews bought land from the Arabs and developed it or not, it was not a Jewish state until the UN dictated that it be so. To tell a an entire population that their country and way of life is being taken away and handed over to another group out of guilt over the Holocaust is reprehensible.

The land was purchased by the Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In fact, in many areas of what would be the land intended for partition to the Jews was already predominately Jewish by 1936. What had been mostly barren land was rehabilitated by the Jews -- malarial swamps drained, arid land made arable. Health standards jumped by leaps and bounds and so did education standards. It was fairly common for areas of Jewish settlement to then find new Arab neighbours settling nearby -- Jewish settlement attracted a return of Arab settlement to Palestine and, in many cases, they lived peaceably side by side with mutual benefit for both populations.

The "entire population" was not kicked out of the western part of Palestine -- even though history does show that the entire Jewish population was kicked out of the eastern part of Palestine -- that area of the TransJordan that was to be contained under the Hashemite monarchy in the Kingdom of Jordan. No Jews were allowed to live in Jordan after it was handed over to the Hashemite rulers. Western Palestine was mostly empty land -- British dipomatic reports in the mid-19th century reveal that; Mark Twain's own description of the region suggest that there was little more than a handful of Bedouin communities across most of the Plain of Jezreel. It is a complete myth that there was a stable and long-established Arab population in the land partitioned in favour of Israel in 1947.

 

[wide awake]

Besides the land and religion issue, there is anti-Semitism due to the Jew's historical monopoly in money lending...how many of us like our creditors ? I don't think it will ever be resolved, and as a PP said, no one is completely in the right. I don't get the comparison between Texas, California, and hispanics at all...whole new kettle of fish.

 

[JennyMominRI]

Besides the land and religion issue, there is anti-Semitism due to the Jew's historical monopoly in money lending...how many of us like our creditors ? I don't think it will ever be resolved, and as a PP said, no one is completely in the right. I don't get the comparison between Texas, California, and hispanics at all...whole new kettle of fish.

Yes,Ironically Jews were forced into money lending by those same people

 

[LuvDuke]

And herein lies the myth of the Palestinian cause. The Arabs had not been "there for generations." They had come and gone and sold their land to whoever would buy it. The myth of a longstanding Arab population living in Palestine is just that -- nothing more than a myth that is not supported by demographic data of any sort, whether it is Israeli, Arab, or British.

The Jewish return to Palestine began in the late 19th century -- and the land to which they returned was largely uninhabited. The area which was to be given to the Jews under the partition plan of 1948 was land that already contained a majority of Jews with a very small minority of Arabs who had moved to the area, attracted by the improvements made by the Jews -- malaria laden swamps drained, arid land now cultivated, improved schools and medical facilities. For the most part these Arabs were quite amenable to the idea of Jewish pre-determination of land in the areas in which they constituted a majority of the inhabitants.

The deals went sour when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was appointed -- a very anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi man by the name of Al-Husseini. He sided with the Nazis during WW2; called for the complete extermination of the Jews and incited violence against the Jews. He was declared a war criminal at the Nuremberg trials for his active participation in the Holocaust. Egypt gave him asylum after the war, from whence he continued to incite violence against the Jews living in Palestine with the assistance of other Nazi war criminals who found haven there. It is no surprise that Yasser Arafat consider the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to be one of the great heros of the Palestinian people.

Why do the Arab countries hate Israel? It has nothing to do with land. It has nothing to do with the alleged occupation of Arab lands. It has all to do with the fact that they are Jewish. "Murder the Jews," was the Grand Mufti's instructions to the Arabs of his day -- and little has changed.

The irony of it all is that the Palestinians are demanding in Gaza and the West Bank exactly what they have never wanted the Jews to have -- predetermination and self-governance in areas where they constitute the majority of the population.

Are you saying there was no Arab presence in Palestine? A couple of questions:

1) Jerusalem was captured by Muslims in 638 CE: Were they Arabs?

2) Who built the Dome of the Rock in 687CE. Are you saying it wasn't Arab Muslims who built it? If so, what were they?

3) Where in the hell are you getting your information? The fact is, in 1948, there were approximately 1.2 million Arabs living in Palestine vs. just under 600,000 Jews.

You are certainly entitled to your own opinion, but you are NOT entitled to your own facts.

 

[Cool-Beans]

To pretend that the arab/Jew thing only extends back to the 1940s and 1950s is laughable. They have hated each other for a couple thousand years, not just a few decades.

However, I agree about the post-WWII business. The Jews that the Germans didn't get a chance to murder had lost everything but their lives, but they were still alive and had to go some flippin place! We took a few, France took a few more, but there was basically nowhere for them to go. They sure as heck couldn't stay in Germany! They couldn't go home. No family or friends to turn to, because they were all dead. So, they were tired and hungry, beaten-down and homeless.

And it isn't like they took over establsihed cities. They settled in an area the arabs considered uninhabitable and they made it work. They built homes, established schools and a military. They put in irrigation and sewage systems.

They took rocky land and built a modern, westernized country.

Good for them.

 

[LuvDuke]

As one who has lived in the Middle East, the problem is that both the Arabs and the Israelis fantasize about the day when they'll wake up and the other one will have just "gone away". Each one has legitimate beefs with the other and there are no "virgins" when it comes to the Arab-Isreali conflict.

 

[LuvDuke]

The extremist Arabs hate the Jews. They don't just hate them for "taking land." They hate them for even existing in this world - anywhere in this world. That kind of animosity is a whole different ballgame.

There are extremists on both sides with the late Meir Kahane being a good example of a Jewish extremist. Born in NY, Kahane founded the Kach party which had a political platform of forcibly throwing "Arab dogs" out of Israel and won a seat in the Knesset in 1984. Some of Kahane's legislative proposals included revoking the Israeli citizenship of non-Jews and banning Jewish-Gentile marriages or sexual relations

In the Middle East, the word "extremist" isn't always prefaced by the words Muslim or Islamic. Both the Arabs and the Israelis have earned the place they each have in the others heart. They came by it honestly.