Gaza (New)

[The Bedlington Terrier]

That's alright then. The Israelis just turn up in 1947 and say, "Let's be having it!"

[Balanbam00]

That's alright then. The Israelis just turn up in 1947 and say, "Let's be having it!"

in 1867, American writer Mark Twain visited the Holy Land and wrote a book about his journey - "The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress."

". . . A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse. . . . A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. . . . We never saw a human being on the whole route. . . . There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

". . . Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land."

BT: If the Jews turned up in 1947,when did the arabs turn up ?? Mark T said .... ''We never saw a human being on the whole route''.

......Around the same time, Arabs from Egypt, today's Syria, Iraq and other Arab territories came to Palestine as immigrants looking for labor and opportunity. The word was spreading that the Jews were starting to make the desert bloom. Thus, in an ironic twist, the Zionist movement brought not only Jews, but also Arab immigrants to the land of Israel.

[Balanbam00]

The UN, when it was established, declared that it would adopt and recognize all resolutions of the League of Nations.
Therefore, the 1922 League of Nations decision -- that the Jews legally own all territory west of the Jordan -- is legally still binding today.

BT : Please note:..... that the Jews legally own all territory west of the Jordan -- is legally still binding today. (That's the West Bank!!)

During the British Mandate, all official documents, such as birth certificates and identification cards, as well as coins, bills and stamps, had the word Palestine in three languages: English, Hebrew and Arabic. The Hebrew followed with א"י - initials for Eretz Israel (the land of Israel.) Back then, the word "Palestinians" referred to both Jews and Arabs who lived in Mandatory Palestine.

[Balanbam00]

That's alright then. The Israelis just turn up in 1947 and say, "Let's be having it!"

1947:
On November 29, 1947, the U.N. voted on the partition of Palestine to two nation states: two states for two peoples -- one Jewish, one Arab.

The resolution (181) was adopted at the 128th plenary meeting:

United Nations Resolution 181, resolution passed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1947 that called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, with the city of Jerusalem as a corpus separatum (Latin: “separate entity”) to be governed by a special international regime.

The resolution—which was considered by the Jewish community in Palestine to be a legal basis for the establishment of Israel, and which was rejected by the Arab community—was succeeded almost immediately by violence.

The proposal to partition Palestine, based on a modified version of the UNSCOP majority report, was put to a General Assembly vote on November 29, 1947. The fate of the proposal was initially uncertain, but, after a period of intense lobbying by pro-Jewish groups and individuals, the resolution was passed with 33 votes in favour, 13 against, and 10 abstentions.

[Balanbam00]

A few interesting facts about U.N. resolution 181 of November 29, 1947:

The term "Jewish State" appears in the resolution 30 times.

The term "Palestinian State" or even the word "Palestinians" does not appear in the resolution even once.

Again, back then and until the 1960s, the word “Palestinians” referred to both Jews and Arabs who lived in Mandatory Palestine. The resolution explicitly mentions the "two Palestinian peoples”: Jews and Arabs.

This is why the UN partition plan is about separating the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state

Arab-Palestinians only started to call themselves "Palestinians" in the mid-1960s.

[Balanbam00]

1948-1967

Between 1948 to 1967 Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Egypt controlled Gaza. Jordan and Egypt had no legal status in the territories because these were non-binding armistice lines.

During those years, the Arab-Palestinians did not have autonomy in Judea, Samaria and/or Gaza (or in any other area, for that matter). They didn’t start an uprising against Egypt or Jordan, nor demand independence from them.

https://youtu.be/XGYxLWUKwWo

[The Bedlington Terrier]

If I read this lot right Balan, the Canaanites had it, the Romans nicked it, the Turks then nicked it, the British came and took it off them and then contrived with the Zionists and UN to provide diasporic Jews with a homeland following the unimaginable horrors and reality of the Holocaust?

If that is accurate, I assume the indigenous Palestinians were Arabs?

Apart from hard line Arab sects like Hamas and Hezbollah very few rational people deny Jews a homeland, but just to get back to basics, you cannot be happy about the plight of three million disenfranchised people denied basic human rights on the Gaza strip?

Can you?

[Balanbam00]

BT:
You are correct I am certainly not happy that some people like the Palestinians and other similar groups, denied their freedom ,and basic human rights. ( I am a PROUTist,which if you read about it, it is superior to any party today!!) ....but it tates time to grasp it!

What can I do about it ?

I am sure you understand the leadership of Hamas their aims and goals (by the way some news that you may not see in Europe!)

Seething at Gaza leadership, Palestinian youth sets himself ablaze

A young Palestinian father of two sets himself on fire in protest of Hamas' mishandling of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, causing himself moderate injuries across his body; he is not known to be suffering from any mental illness; his brother was injured at a recent border protest.

Saturday night in the city's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, all while cursing the strip's Hamas rulers who he apparently blamed for his family's poverty and the dismal economic situation in Gaza.

Eye witnesses saw the man dousing himself in flammable liquid shouting "damn the government" before lighting himself up. Video footage of the incident shows the young man burning alive and screaming in agony with passersby rushing to put out the flames

Hamas was to blame for the situation in Gaza, as it "spent $260 million in 2017 on rocket manufacturing and tunnel digging. Some $100 million dollars of which came from Iran, and the rest came from tax collection inside the strip and donations from various places."


Hamas was not willing to divert anything toward the water, electricity, health or education systems in the strip. Hamas is willing to sacrifice all of Gaza's residents for weapons.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

Hamas were democratically elected but because the likes of Blair and Bush not liking the outcome of the elections, a lot of funding was withdrawn.

None of this is helping the people living in horrible conditions on the Gaza strip though.

Four of us in Momentum want to visit but Visa applications are all but impossible.

[Balanbam00]

Hamas was voted into Government, I believe that Hamas was a kind of Social organization,helping the poor . Fatah was Abu Mazen ,but there was talk about Arafat sending millions abroad perhaps to his wife ,the slogan being ''Fatah is corrrupt'' Ali Abu Shusha, 31,of the West Bank said at the time ."I want Hamas to run the government. It has clean hands, puts the poor before the rich and will resist the occupier." So that the feeling was for more than 40 years of political domination by Fatah,which is widely viewed by Palestinians as corrupt and ineffective.

At the time the leader of Hamas, Mahmoud Zahar, said proudly in Gaza: "We are going to change every aspect, as regards the economy, industry, agriculture, as regards social aid, health, administration, education." But it will not be an easy transformation, and it will provoke political resistance from a largely secular society.

Israelis warned the world not to give in to wishful thinking and presume that Hamas will suddenly alter its goals. Israel and the world did not negotiate with Mr. Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization until it agreed to recognize the state of Israel in the late 1980's and disavow terrorism. Israeli politicians suggested that the process would have to begin all over again with Hamas.

Ami Ayalon, a former director of Shin Bet now running for a seat with the Labor Party. ''The Palestinian Authority constructed by Fatah no longer exists," he said. "Palestinian society is very confused. When they chose Hamas, it is more because of the corruption and failure of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah than because of religion or terrorism. But they will have to pay the price for their decision."

A Hamas politician from Ramallah, Fadel Saleh, said, "We want honest government and an end to the occupation, and we will work so that every weapon in the hand of a Palestinian is a national weapon, directed against the occupation, not used for security chaos."

Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian analyst, "After 40 years, it's almost natural. That the opposition came from a radical Islamic group is unfortunate, but there was no other serious opposition. Hisham Ahmed, a political scientist at Birzeit University who has written books about Hamas, called the vote "an historic moment in every sense." He said there were scores of reasons to explain the vote, "but the most important factor was not Fatah's split but the causes behind the split, the domination of Fatah by self-serving people who did not keep in touch with the people and ostracized the talented."