How many new countries have been recently founded by a foreign population arriving in an area from a distance and declaring their intent to take possession of the region in question, against the will of the people who already lived there?
Every single country in the Americas (some of which have been fully settled quite recently). Not to mention the huge expansion of Russia in the twentieth century. Or China, which is founding a new Tibet. There's always Pakistan and the little movement of populations that it caused.
Nah, the only unique thing about Israel is that it was founded by Jews.
We aren't talking about "the neighbors, either", we're talking about the people who used to live there
No, we're not. The Syrians never lived there. The Egyptians never lived there. The Lebanese never lived there. Iraqis never lived there. The Saudis never lived there. Heck, half the Palestinians never lived there themselves until after WWI.
Who has spent 60 years funding the violence, making sure that the refugees stayed refugees to the nth generation, and preventing all settlements? Who finds the concentration on the "The Question of Palestine" very convenient at preventing reform? Don't give me that.
If they wouldn't accept that reality after millenia, why should the Palestinians accept it now?
The Palestinians aren't being asked to disappear. They're being asked to compromise, a concept they have always had extreme difficulty with. And you also know, I think, that Palestinian nationalism didn't even exist 50 years ago (the very word "Palestinian" referred to the Zionists), and if it in part was a reaction to Zionism, it was an equal part reaction to continual betrayal by their Arab 'brethren'. |
