Claims against Israel vs The Actual Facts
Claim Fact

Area has been called Palestine since ancient times.

The designation of Palestine first became popular under the Romans and is less than two thousand years old. The name was punitively imposed by the Romans in order to detach the land's history from the Jews. The history of Israel predates this designation by at least a thousand years.

Source

Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the site of Jesus’ burial

This is where Queen Helena believed it to be but never proven.

Source

Palestinian Prisoners Day - Palestinians remember their countrymen imprisoned in Israeli jails

Palestinians remember on this day murderes of civilian men women and children

Source

Naqba Day - “Palestinian commemoration of the naqba (catastrophe) of refugees’ displacement in 1948.”

The "catastrophe" usually refers to the creation of a Jewish state in Israel and not simply the displacement of Arab refugees.

Source
Naksa Day, “Palestinian commemoration of the naksa (setback) of the 1967 Six Day War.” They are sad at the failure by the combined armed forces of the surrounding Arab states to extirpate the Jewish state. Source
Jews are Judifying Jerusalem Since about 1850, Jews were a majority in Jerusalem. Source

Jerusalem is Palestine's capital

Jerusalem IS the capital of Israel and no Palestinian state currently or has ever existed to claim Jerusalem as its capital. In fact Jerusalem has not been the capital of any country since Israel's destruction by Rome.

Source

East Jerusalem - As if it were a separate city

Out of thousands of years of existence Jerusalem was a divided city for 19 years while under illegal Jordanian occupation. It would be more accurate to describe "eastern Jerusalem" (no cap for Eastern) as a geographic locator, but not as an official identity.

See this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXSvrAe5xEM

Source
Muhammad is said to have told his followers that in a dream, he visited Jerusalem Islam had not yet conquered Jerusalem in Muhammad's lifetime. There certainly was no mosque there. Source
Jewish violence Arab violence is far more frequent and serious Source
The Western Wall is called Judaism’s most important shrine The Temple Mount is Judaism's holiest site. The importance of the Wall, which helped hold up the Mount, is that it was the nearest that Muslim and British rulers let Jews come to the Mount. Source

Green line is a border

It was not a border but an armistice line. This is a frequent mistake identifying the armistice lines of 1949 as official borders. An armistice line is not an agreed upon border it is a temporary arrangement agreed upon by two warring sides.

Source
Illegal Jewish immigration prior to 1948 British barring of Jews violated the League of Nations Mandate, which required “close settlement on the land by the Jews.” Source
Using the name West Bank The term "West Bank" only came into the lexicon as a result of the illegal seizure of the territory by the Jordanian army in 1948. From the perspective of duration, the names Judea and Samaria have far more legitimacy than the West Bank. Source

using the terms “Occupied Palestinian Territories” or “the Palestinian Territories.”

Those terms incorrectly presuppose that the territories belong to Palestinian Arabs. But the area has not been allocated to anyone; the Jewish people have at least as strong legal and historical claim to them. United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, drawn up after the 1967 war, was carefully worded so that the status of the territories would not automatically assume the Arabs were the rightful possessors. A balanced terminology would refer to “disputed Territories” or “Israeli-administered Territories.”

See Here for legal right of Israel

Source
settlements are "colonies" The terms colony and settlement are pejoratives in this context. They unfairly imply that Arabs have more legitimacy there than do Jews. Historically, it was the Arabs who established colonies outside of their indigenous homeland in Arabia. Source

Israel an occupier and its territorial towns as illegal

Occupation has a specific meaning in international law which is not fulfilled by the circumstances of Israeli administration of the West Bank and before that, Gaza as well.

The Court of Appeal of Versailles concluded that Israel is the legal occupant of the West Bank

See Here for legal right of Israel

See this too Does Israel Occupy the West Bank?

 

Source
Jewish towns often were built on privately owned Arab land, and divert water from Arab towns The facts reveal a different situation. Israeli is a net exporter of water to both the West Bank and to Gaza. The main problem has been the contamination and ruin of the water supply through neglecting sewage treatment. This is a result of the Palestinian refusal to cooperate with Israeli projects for political reasons. With the recent advances in desalinization Israel is now an exporter of usable water. Source
Hamas is labeled a “militant turned political group.” Hamas is considered a terrorist group by the United States government and the European Union. It routinely engages in acts of unequivocal terrorism. Source
the Arabs “see” the security barrier as a “land grab.” the security barrier was constructed for the purpose of blocking terrorist infiltrations and that less than 5 percent of the Judea and Samaria is on the Israeli side of the security barrier Source
Jewish "settlements" often are in the news for attacking Arabs or Israeli troops There are far more numerous and lethal Arab attacks. Source
International human rights Such groups have a political agenda that is one-sided. This agenda comes from the highly biased United Nations Human Rights Council that is stacked with oppressive nations that are hostile to Israel and relentlessly condemn Israel while giving their own deplorable human rights records a pass Source
Jewish “price tag” by youth motives of the youth is anger at the Israeli government's perceived tepid protection of Jews and their crops from Arab raids. In fact, Arab violence against Jews in settlements on the West Bank far exceeds violence against Arabs by Jews. Source

Jewish youth are said to destroy Arab crops

This charge bears scrutiny as it is often unclear who is actually carrying out the vandalism. In fact, the most blatant vandalism of the land is the yearly summer campaign by Arabs of setting fires to burn the forests Israelis had planted. Most recently, Arab vandals burned Joseph's tomb, a religious cite of importance to the Jews.

Source
Jewish presence in Hebron is a provocation Hebron has great historical importance to the Jews. Jews living there were forced to flee as a result of a pogrom instigated by Arab leaders in 1929. Jews now there live on property they bought or inherited from which they had been evicted in 1929. Source
Breaking the Silence The group's claims are spurious and have not been validated under any serious scrutiny. In fact, the group refuses to provide information that would make it possible to check on the validity of the claims Source
refugee camps as places of wholesome education In reality routine indoctrination to hate Jews and incitement to acts of violence Source
Arab opposition to Jewish immigration is described as nationalist. This reflects a Western perspective. In fact, the main instigators against the arrival of Jewish immigrants to the Palestine Mandate was a political-religious leader, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. His incitement against the Jews was rooted in interpretation of Muslim religious beliefs and racial doctrines imported from Europe. Source
Arabs were deported by Israel in the 1948 war relatively few were deported, and those mostly for military necessity. the Arabs of Safed and (on another page) of Jaffa tried to oust or kill their Jews, lost, and the British escorted the Jaffa Arabs away Source
Massacre at Deir Yassin As CAMERA has previously written about, admissions by Arab officials and evidence presented over the years indicate that the Israeli forces at Deir Yassin encountered stiff resistance and that the number and circumstances in which Arab non-combatants were killed was exaggerated. Source

Judea-Samaria are 22% of Mandatory Palestine. Israel has the other 78%

The Mandate started in the early 1920s. It included Judea, Samaria, Gaza, (even the Golan) and what now is Israel and Jordan. Jordan got 79% of the total Mandate area, when it became independent in 1946. The other 21% is Israel and Judea-Samaria. Based on the original Mandate, Judea-Samaria is about 4% of the Mandate area and Israel, 17%.

Better argument: At the begining of 1917 There was not a single independent country in the Middle East. Not Egypt, Saudi, Syria, Lebanon or Jordan or any other. It was under Turkish rule to this point. It was decided that 99% would be give to the Arabs and 1% given to the Jews. Today the world wants to divide that 1% and create yet another Arab country.

Source
Arab refugees main objective is to return to their lost homeland The reason for the perpetuation of the refugees in camps was to insure that there would never be a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Source
Baruch Goldstein the single instance of a Jew committing a large-scale massacre of Arabs. Meanwhile the much more pervasive and recurrent terrorism and violent extremism of the Palestinians Source
Joseph's Tomb is a "source of considerable friction between Jews, who come here to pray under IDF escort…and local Arabs.” "friction" actually involves Arabs attacking Jewish visitors to the Tomb. Source
The reasons that Palestinian resent Israel, it focuses only on complaints about Israel's policies and behavior In reality it is because of fundamental tenets of Islam and the refusal to accept Jewish sovereignty anywhere on the land as legitimate. incessant incitement against Jews revved up by the state-run media, government officials, mosques and schools. For example there is the recurring false charge that Israel intends to demolish or sieze control of the Al Aksa mosque in Jerusalem. Source
Roadblocks and checkpoints also are said to make Palestinian residents lose hope for peace It was the relentless Palestinian terrorism that necessitated security measures like roadblocks. Source
Fatah is called nationalist and secular It is secular only in comparison to Hamas. Its policies discriminate against Jews, oppress homosexuals, and repress women Source
Arab birth rate Is much lower, nearing Jewish birthrate which is rising Source
Fatah “outwardly” renounced terror. It also states that Fatah recognized Israel's right to live in peace The PLO from which Fatah draws its authority has never changed its covenant, which does not recognize Israel's right to peace. This was reconfirmed in the party's general congress in 2009. Palestinian Authority President Abbas refuses to recognize the Jewish people's right to their country. Source
Islam considers Jews and Christians (and Zoroastrians} as peoples of the book Sharia law contains many discriminatory provisions, relegating the peoples of the book to the status of second class citizens. Contemporary Islamists have adopted extreme racist and violent positions on Christians and Jews. Source
Israeli security forces go easy on Jews and harshly on Arabs different behavior of most Jewish protests, which are usually non-violent, whereas many Arab protests are violent and endanger the security forces. Source

The Palestinians have been living in "Palestinbe" for centuries

The Palestinians actually came to Israel in the 20th century from the surrounding Arab countries. see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYMviMHH0nc Also see an Palestinian explain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3WSTB3wa9U

Source
Israel is destroying or comitting genocide in Gaza https://t.co/54c7Nxa9dg Source
Did Europe/The West "create" Israel as a result of the Holocaust The need to create a Jewish state in Israel was accepted early in the 20th century. Long before Hitler even came to power in Germany. In 1922 The League of Nations gave Great Britain a mandate over "Palestine and Syria" in order to help establish a Jewish Homeland The write: "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and the "grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.". Indeed, If the UK had not delayed, Perhaps many Jews could have been saved during the Holocaust by returning to Israel. Source

Israel started the Six Day War in 1967 and was the aggressor

See https://www.quora.com/Did-Israel-start-the-Six-Day-War-in-1967/answer/Noam-Kaiser

Source

Israeli settlements are illegal

The only binding resolution of international law, a resolution which has never been countermanded to this very day, is the July 1922 Mandate for Palestine. Adopted by the League of Nations, that resolution recognized the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” It called for the creation of a Jewish national homeland anywhere west of the Jordan River.

Once the League of Nations was disbanded and the United Nations formed in its stead, the international community agreed to maintain all agreements.

The legality of the 1922 Mandate was adopted that same year by the U.S. Congress in H.J. Res. 360 and signed by President Warren Harding. The newly created Arab country of Jordan attacked Israel in 1948 seeking to annihilate its inhabitants and illegally occupied Judea and Samaria until 1967. That year, Israel won back the territory originally allocated for a Jewish State as part of the 1922 League of Nations agreement.

There is no such thing as “’pre-67 borders.” They were merely 1949 armistice lines between Israel and neighboring countries after they launched an illegal war of extermination. It has nothing to do with the notion of a unique Arab “Palestinian” entity west of the Jordan River. There was never any internationally recognized legal sovereign occupying Judea and Samaria from the time the British Empire fell until 1967. Jordan’s occupation of the area west of the Jordan River was never recognized.

Although the U.N. has bloviated time and again about Israel “withdrawing” from the region, those are merely recommendations and political arguments. They are not legal arguments because once that land was allocated for the Jewish state by the binding charter of the U.N., it cannot be rescinded without Israel’s consent any more than Florida can be taken away from the U.S. and be returned to Spain without our consent.

See also Here for legal right of Israel

 

FULL TEXT:

The notion that there is any moral equivalence between Jews building homes in their homeland that they won back in a defensive war (after it was illegally occupied by Jordan) and brutal terrorists illegally occupying land that was never given to them, is reprehensible. But first, a brief history lesson …
The only binding resolution of international law, a resolution which has never been countermanded to this very day, is the July 1922 Mandate for Palestine. Adopted by the League of Nations, that resolution recognized the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” It called for the creation of a Jewish national homeland anywhere west of the Jordan River.
Once the League of Nations was disbanded and the United Nations formed in its stead, the international community agreed to maintain all agreements and not “alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.” [Article 80, UN Charter, emphasis added] This provision wasn’t inserted by accident; it was known as “the Jewish People’s clause” at the time it was adopted in 1945 in order to enshrine the 1922 Mandate into international law.
The Mandate for Palestine adopted by the League of Nations was the last legally binding document delineating regional borders. In Article 5 of the Mandate it explicitly states “The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.”
The Palestine Mandate (and Iraq) was given to Britain to serve as a temporary trustee based on the resolution between the four principle Allied Powers in April 1920 at the San Remo Conference in Italy, which was signed by 51 nations. It was at that conference where the world powers adopted the 1917 Balfour Declaration (which originally allocated the eastern part of the Mandate for a Jewish state as well) creating a Jewish state. This same conference that created the Jewish state west of the Jordan River also created Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq as Arab states.
The legality of the 1922 Mandate was adopted that same year by the U.S. Congress in H.J. Res. 360 and signed by President Warren Harding. The newly created Arab country of Jordan attacked Israel in 1948 seeking to annihilate its inhabitants and illegally occupied Judea and Samaria until 1967. That year, Israel won back the territory originally allocated for a Jewish State as part of the 1922 League of Nations agreement.
There is no such thing as “’pre-67 borders.” They were merely 1949 armistice lines between Israel and neighboring countries after they launched an illegal war of extermination. It has nothing to do with the notion of a unique Arab “Palestinian” entity west of the Jordan River. There was never any internationally recognized legal sovereign occupying Judea and Samaria from the time the British Empire fell until 1967. Jordan’s occupation of the area west of the Jordan River was never recognized. To the extent there is an Arab Palestinian state it is the modern state of Jordan, which already sucked up 77% of the original Mandate of Palestine allocated for a Jewish State under the first plan of the Balfour Declaration.

Source

After Israel accepts the Two state solution there will be peace.

Well, Where to begin? I'll put in bullet points..

  • There are currently around 2 million Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Including the Arabs in Israel, this means there is a 2/3 Jewish majority in Israel incl. Judea and Samaria. Also, Jewish birth rate is passing the Arab birth rate (see Israel's Demographic Miracle – Jewish Policy Center and Jewish, Arab fertility rates in Israel on par for first time). There are about 5 million "Palestinian refugees". Even if only half of those go live in Judea and Samaria this will more than double the number of Arabs which will be in this tiny strip of land. They will inevitably be poor, hostile, many will be supporters of Hamas, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and other groups. they will disrupt the local Arab government and carry out attacks on Israel. Maybe even overthrow the local government like in Gaza.
  • Since Israel will no longer be able to control the borders to “Palestine”, every able bodied Islamist now fighting in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan will come join the party.
  • "Palestine" will be a poor failed state (partially because of the above reason) that will - like the any other Arab country in the Middle East (why should it be different?) - be a dictatorial and corrupt entity with fanatical Islamic elements, Gays will be killed (like in Gaza). Women killed (see honor killings) with infighting and terrorism pouring over to its neighbors. Since they are not really one nation but a collection of Arabs from the Middle East they will be as torn apart as Syria and Iraq which are made up of many Arab groups. (See minute 0:50 in following video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1l5mRP_fzw

  • Since (according to surveys) Most Palestinians won't accept Israel's existence under any circumstances (Hamas which has higher support than the currently ruling PLO in Judea and Samaria, Openly states it will not stop fighting until Israel is gone), there will inevitably be terror attacks against Israel. Israel's international airport is within arm launched rocket fire which means Israel will have no choice but to invade "Palestine" often to try to stop these attacks.
  • Unlike Gaza, Judea and Samaria are literally inside Israel. Israel surrounds it from North, West and South. This means that almost the entirety of Israel and especially its economic center will be under constant rocket fire from a very long border. This is basically an indefensible border. Forget about the "demilitarized" clause everyone talks about. Arms will be pouring into "Palestine" before the Israeli soldiers have finished dismantling their bases. Israel left Lebanon and Gaza, both were immediately turned into launch bases for attacks against Israel.
  • Ultimately, Israel will be condemned over and over at the UN and Security counsel for invading a sovereign country and using disproportionate force to stop these attacks (Just like when Israel tries to stop attack from Lebanon and Gaza). Israel will be even more isolated and support for BDS will soar. The same happened when Israel expelled thousands of Jews from Gaza and left it.
  • Since now Israel has to contend with 5 million or more Arabs (and since they will be poor they will have a very high birth rate) instead of the 2 million it had before, it will be that much harder to defend itself. Jews will end up being a minority West of the Jordan.
  • Up to now Israel had a legal leg to stand on since it was granted the land by the League of nations in 1922 and no matter what you may have heard, the UN cannot undo League of Nations laws (When the UN was created it agreed to maintain all LoN agreements). Only Israel can legally give away part of the country granted to it. But once Israel does that it cannot go back. No matter how bad this mistake turns out, Israel will never ever get back Judea and Samaria (legally). It will continue to live in a life and death struggle with Arabs living in the heart of its homeland. See Israel’s right to build homes is settled … under international law
  • If you think an international force will help I simply point you to history. In 1967 Egypt told the UN force in Sinai to leave and it did so immediately See From Peace(keeping) to War: The United Nations and the Withdrawal of UNEF and FIRST UNITED NATIONS EMERGENCY FORCE (UNEF I). in 2006, UN resolution 1701 sent UN troops to Lebanon to stop arms from getting to Hezbollah. Today Hezbollah is one of the most powerful forces in Syria. Much more powerful than ever. See Hezbollah’s Multiple Violations of UN Resolution 1701. The International community will not sacrifice a single soldier to protect Israel. Assad has murdered hundreds of thousands (!) in Syria in just the past 5 years including the use of chemical weapons and the world does nothing. Will it really help Israel which it condemns every other week?
  • Even if there is less than a 50% chance of the above happening (I think it is closer to 95% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O-qdiZ9Wng ), This is a huge gamble for Israel. If it does happen Israel will cease to exist as we know it; a thriving Western democracy. It will be be in a constant struggle for its life. Skilled Israelis will leave to live in peace elsewhere and the economy will go down the drain with most of it spent on defense. A hateful world will look on as it realizes the two state solution was not such a great idea after all. Would you take that chance with your country?

Instead of the two state disaster maybe we should think of something else, like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIEeiDjdUuU

Source

Israel is shooting dead stone throwers which is none lethal.

I would add that stones thrown at cars can be lethal objects, as they proved to be in these cases, for instance:
Deaths of Asher and Yonatan Palmer - Wikipedia

Death of Adele Biton - Wikipedia

Death of Yehuda Shoham - Wikipedia

Yonatan, Adele, and Yehuda were BABIES.

Source

Israel Is the Largest Beneficiary of US Military Aid

Israel is not even a major beneficiary of American military aid. The numerical figure reflects official direct US military aid, but is almost meaningless compared to the real costs and benefits of US military aid – which include, above all, American boots on the ground in the host states.

Source

Israel is an apartheid country like South Africa was

See this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocNttZV4G_0

Source

Arabs and not Jews are the indigenous people of Palestine/Israel

ALSO check out http://www.0censor.com/did-israel-steal-the-ancestral-home-of-the-palestinians-part-2/ showing Arabs immigrated much later

In Short: Because the Arabs' culture originated in Arabia they are indigenous to Arabia. Jewish culture originated in Israel which makes them indigenous to Israel.

Full Answer:

To understand this you need to understand what the term indigenous means. It refers to cultures (including religion, language, traditions etc).

Some answers here make an assumption of what indigenous means. It’s an adverb that means “originating or occurring naturally in a place”.

A few people on Quora incorrectly try to place Palestinians as the indigenous people of Israel. That’s incorrect because Palestinians are Arabs who transferred their Arabic culture, religion etc to the land of Israel. It didn’t originate or occur naturally there, it occurred naturally in Arabia.

While many Palestinians may have heritage based on conversion to Islam from Christianity and previously from Judaic culture they are still Arabised. This occurred starting around 632 CE during the Arab conquest of the Levant. These people on the whole traded their culture for a culture originating in the Arabian Peninsula in order to to survive. Therefore they became a part of a foreign culture to the one they were born into and their decedents lost that original culture completely. Their descendants basically joined another (conquering) nation.

I am British, I have a British culture, speak English and have British traditions. My ancestors maybe from Rome or Denmark or France but they didn’t keep whole or even partly intact their language, traditions, national dress and culture, they assimilated. Therefore they joined the British Nation and became British themselves.

It’s not a genealogy based thing, it’s cultural.

Palestinian Arabs are Arabs in every sense, so their culture is native to the Arabian gulf. Unlike my forefathers who assimilated, these Arabs kept the culture they are indigenous to. They also Arabised other cultures. This is a well documented historical fact.

Here is a similar example of how migration affects indigenaety. Many people here in the UK are indigenous to somewhere else. A Polish person here in the UK who has a Polish flag in his car and speaks Polish fluently, eats Kabanos and celebrates the holidays in a traditional Polish customary way is a Polish Brit. He is integrated but not assimilated. He is therefore indigenous to Poland but a citizen of Britain. Politically he’s British but indigenously he’s still Polish. One day his descendents might give up everything Polish and become indigenously British.

Palestinians speak Arabic and are either Muslim or Christian by religion. Christianity is indeed a religion that is indigenous to the region but Islam is indigenous to the Arabian Peninsula. Palestinian Nationalism is barely older than the 1960s. Their flag is the Arab Revolt flag. The same flag used by the Ba’ath Party of Arab Nationalism and a flag used in the Early days by Saudi Arabia. The Christians on the other hand are still Arabised but their religion is a local one however it originated with Judaism, because Jesus (their patriarch) was a Jew, had a Brit Milah, a Bar Mitzva, read the Torah in Hebrew etc.

Jews are indigenous to Israel wether they were a part of the Diaspora or wether they are descendents of Jews who never left the territory throughout the various occupations. In fact over 50% of the population of Israel are Mizrahi Jews from Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Iraq etc and of course Eretz Yisrael itself.

Why are Diaspora Jews indigenous to Israel? Well it’s simple. Jews kept their culture, religion, language (Biblical Hebrew) and on the whole tried to keep their bloodlines as far as possible. Although they maybe a little mixed now, for the vast majority of them, their mitochondrial DNA still carries genes that tie them to the Levant but that’s irrelevant to indigenaety because their customs, language, culture and religion are what makes them indigenous, but even taking DNA into consideration it’s why you can on the whole say a Jew often looks Jewish. The relatively small amount of converts added genetic diversity to the nation but it’s no different from a Black British guy being just as British as me. And I’m not a Jew by the way.

Jews made way more effort to be a nation in exile and keep their indigenous identity than practically any people’s in human history. We should stop trying to hand over their history and indigenous status to other people.

Hope that clears up indigenaety for you.

Source

Israel commited ethnic cleansing.

What is important to understand is that the post the WWII period was known for having mass displacement of tens of millions of people around the world. The 1947 partition of India/Pakistan caused 14 million displaced people! The displacement of Arabs and Jews (more Jews fled Arab countries than Arabs fled Israel) caused by the Israeli Arab war in 1948 was neither unique nor very big compared to what was going on in the rest of the world at the same period. The fact that of the 81.6 million of displaced people between 1940–1960, only the Palestinians have not moved on and still live in refugee camps(!) in the hope of reversing history is indeed sad for them.

  • 1940-1945 - 40 million Europeans displaced
  • 1948-1950 - 1 million Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians
  • 1940-1950 - 13 million Germans from Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland
  • 1945-1950 - 11.3 million forced laborers from Europeans countries to Germany
  • 1947 - 14 million Partition of Pakistan-India
  • 1945-1950 - 0.75 million Arabs. 0.8 million Jews - Establishment of Israel
  • 1954-1956 - 1 million Vietnam. Christians fleeing north to south

 

Source

Palestinians have been refugees longer than any other people

The UNHRC has a concrete definition of what a refugee is: “A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.”

In other words, the UNHRC defines a refugee as someone who was forced to flee his or her home and cannot return for fear of persecution.

UNRWA, however, defines a Palestinian “refugee” entirely differently. A Palestinian “refugee” is any person whose “normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” So UNRWA counts as “refugees” any local Arab who lived in Palestine for as little as two years, knowing that scores of Arabs immigrated to the area during those years in search of employment amid talks of creating a future Jewish state.

UNRWA states that “Palestine refugees are persons who fulfill the above definition and descendants of fathers fulfilling the definition.” This means that even if original Palestinian “refugees” long ago immigrated to another country and became citizens of that country, they and their descendants are still considered “refugees” according to UNRWA.

The definition flies in the face of what a refugee is supposed to be. It is also in direct contrast to the Convention on Refugees, which dictates that a person who “has acquired a new nationality and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality” is exempted from the status of refugee.

UNRWA’s definition of a “refugee” doesn’t mention UNHCR’s “well-founded fear of being persecuted.” Indeed, the Palestinians have no fear of being persecuted by Israel and would not be considered a “refugees” under ordinary international criteria.

Source

UNESCO declared that Jerusalem is a only holy to Muslims.

Archaeological evidence shows Jewish and Zionist proof thousands of years old. See video

Source

Israel can't change it's borders

Every country's border in the world were determined by wars. Certainly Israel is no different when defending itself. See how how many changes in Europe:

Source

What do Israelis think of the Deir Yassin massacre?

What Palestinians think of the Battle of Deir Yassin may be more important.

Here’s an article, with links, that I wrote several years ago for a local paper:

Deir Yassin – The Lie that Won’t Die

Deir Yassin is a prime example of the “murderous nature of Zionism”, at least in the Arab/Palestinian narrative. However, narratives aren’t fact, but opinions, or, as Ilan Pappe describes himself, “Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts, who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we can that our interpretation of the facts is the correct one, and we do it because of ideological reasons, not because we are truth seekers” (Le Soir, Nov. 29, 1999). He is not the only historical fiction writer around trying to pawn himself off as a legitimate historian.

In 1988 Bir Zeit University published a monograph, the result of several years of investigating the Deir Yassin Incident and interviewing every Arab survivor of the battle. They concluded that the number of people – fighters AND civilians – who died in Deir Yassin could not have been more than 120 (and was most likely 112) – raising serious doubts as to the credibility of those who have accused the Jews of a massacre. If those claiming a massacre were so far off the actual number killed (giving a number more than double the real figure), what does that say about the reliability of their other claims – of rape, mutilation, and intentional massacre of civilians?

PBS, in a 1998 documentary series called “50 Years of War” came to the following conclusion: “Deir Yassin was a legitimate military target. Deir Yassin was strategically located, overlooking the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. Arab military forces located in Deir Yassin and adjacent villages regularly attacked Jewish traffic on that highway, effectively cutting off western Jerusalem from much of the rest of the country. The Jewish fighters who sought to conquer Deir Yassin in April 1948 encountered hours of heavy gunfire from the well-armed villagers and Arab soldiers based there. Large amounts of weapons and ammunition were found in the village by the Jewish forces.”

In addition, the April 2, 1998 issue of the Jerusalem Report revealed that Hazem Nusseibeh, the editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service's Arabic news in 1948, admitted that he was instructed by Palestinian leader Hussein Khalidi to falsify the claims of atrocities at Deir Yassin with the intent to encourage Arab regimes to attack Israel.

Nusseibeh said he met with survivors of Deir Yassin and with Hussein Khalidi and in collusion with them created the story. He said he recalled that Khalidi said to him: “We must make the most of this.”

Nusseibeh wrote the press release which stated that the children of Deir Yassin were murdered and pregnant women were raped. It never happened. Nussbieh also claimed that their attempt at goading the Arab countries to “defend” the Arabs of Palestine backfired on them, causing a massive exodus of Arabs from Palestine, fearing that the same thing they thought had happened at Deir Yassin would happen to them.

Haganah members trying to discredit the Irgun and Lehi added to the confusion by accepting the Arab claims and even adding gory details that later proved untrue (during a Knesset investigation in the 1960s).

It would be fair to say that the story of the Deir Yassin Massacre is another example of “a lie that won’t die”.

Source

Jewish History in the "West bank"

see https://www.quora.com/If-the-majority-of-Israel-really-wants-a-two-state-solution-how-do-you-explain-to-the-layman-why-colonies-exist-on-the-West-Bank/answer/Aric-Lo

Source

The Land was not empty when Jews created Israel

I have never heard a Zionist say this, if they did they would be lying.

What is said is the Palestinian narrative is a work of fiction, the majority of Arabs came to what today is Israel between the 1800s and early 1900s due to a need of laborers, this was created by the improvement the early Zionist had done to farmland, bring in irrigation and modern fertilization technics.

I see Drew McCormick is here trying to spread a lie about Mark Twain, what he claims has no truth to it.

Mark Twain never said the area was without a population, he spoke of when he visited Jerusalem beyond the city there were very few people, this was backed up by others who visited and wrote down their personal observations:

Here is what Twain said:

“There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent (valley of Jezreel, Galilea); not for thirty miles in either direction… One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee… Nazareth is forlorn… Jericho lies a moldering ruin… Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation… untenanted by any living creature.”
– Mark Twain, “The Innocents Abroad”, 1867 –

This is a typical method trying to erase what Twain said, yet at the same time they ignore what others said, or act like they never said it.

There are many proofs, such as ancient ruins, broken aqueducts, and remains of old roads, which show that it has not always been so desolate as it seems now. In the portion of the plain between Mount Carmel and Jaffa, one sees but rarely a village or other sights of human life. There some rude mills here which are turned by the stream. A ride of half an hour more brought us to the ruins …”
– B. W. Johnson, in “Young Folks in Bible Lands”: Chapter IV, 1892 –

In other words, between Mt. Carmel and what today is Tel Aviv, there were no villages.

“The land in Palestine is lacking in people to till its fertile soil”.– British archaeologist Thomas Shaw, mid-1700s –

“Palestine is a ruined and desolate land”
– Count Constantine François Volney, XVIII century French author and historian –

“The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is of a body of population”.
– James Finn, British Consul in 1857 –

In 1844, William Thackeray writes about the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem: “Now the district is quite deserted, and you ride among what seem to be so many petrified waterfalls. We saw no animals moving among the stony brakes; scarcely even a dozen little birds in the whole course of the ride.”

“In Judea, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that for miles and miles there was no appearance of life or habitation.”
-Penrhyn Stanley, British cartographer, 1881-

Naturally, this is not shown, instead a fiction is created saying Zionist said no one lived in what was once the Mandate of Palestine, in that area when it was under Ottoman rule.

As for the Ottoman census? Scientific? Now that is a laugh. The first census they took was not until the 1800s, there was one taken prior to this was a Jesuit census taken with oversight by the Ottoman authorities. What is of interest, the Ottomans never once contested this census, only now the Arabs, for it is not convenient to their narrative.

“Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata” – a detailed geographical survey of Palestine in 1696 written in Latin by Adriaan Reland published by Willem Broedelet, Utrecht, in 1714.
Residents of the REGION mainly concentrated in cities: Jerusalem, Acre, Safed, Jaffa, Tiberius, and Gaza.
In most cities, the majority of residents are Christians, Jews and others, very few Muslims who generally are Bedouin, who came to serve as Seasonal workers in agriculture or building.

Nablus: 120 Muslims, 70 Samaritans
Nazareth: 700 people – all Christians
Umm al-Fahm: 50 people-10 families, ALL Christian
Gaza: 550 people- 300 Jews,250 Christian(Jews engaged in agriculture Christians deal with the trading and transporting the products)
Tiberius: 300 residents, all Jews.
Safed: about 200 inhabitants, all Jews
Jerusalem: 5000 people, most of them (3,500) Jews, the rest- Christian (1000), Muslim (500)

As you can see, in the late 1600s and early 1700s there were very few people living in the land, so what brought the influx of Arabs? Why not let the British show us:

The area was underpopulated and remained economically stagnant until the arrival of the first Zionist pioneers in the 1880’s, who came to rebuild the Jewish land. The country had remained “The Holy Land” in the religious and historic consciousness of mankind, which associated it with the Bible and the history of the Jewish people. Jewish development of the country also attracted large numbers of other immigrants – both Jewish and Arab.
– The report of the British Royal Commission, 1913 –

But there was more, you had massive Arab migration to the land as the British had stated in the 1800s, that would explain why no one saw them, wrote about them, and there is no record of them, it would be the fact that they weren’t there.

When the Mandate was put in place the Arabs to prevent the Jews from controlling the land started to pay their citizens, encouraged others with the employment needs in what then was the British Mandate of Palestine to migrate, that is why there was such a mass of migrants in the early 1900s, in fact, if you look at what the British were documenting on this you see the same thing stated by them:

In 1939, British PM, Winston Churchill, stated: “The Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population.

In 1934, the Governor of the Syrian district of Hauran admitted that within just a few months, more than 30,000 Arabs left Hauran for Palestine. The British governor of the Sinai (1922-1936) reported in the Palestine Royal Commission Report that illegal immigration to Palestine was not only occurring from Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria.

The 1844 Ottoman Census shows a Jewish majority living in Jerusalem, Hebron, S’fat, and Gaza City. To claim that the Jews were not there prior to Israel’s establishment is simply false.

So how then did the split in land happen? Where did the claim to Samaria and Judea or the West Bank come in?

Turns out in the war of independence in 1948 the Jordanian army invaded the land, had forced all Jews out where they were conquered, then moved in hundreds of thousands of Arabs, these later became the Palestinians.

This is why people silence me, will not let me post on their line, they can’t stand it when you show the facts to disprove the lies they are peddling.

Source

According to UNRWA all descendants of Palestinians to be “refugees” for an unlimited number of generations.

UNRWA’s definition of refugee technically  violates international law, as it contradicts the 1951 UN Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Article 1 of the Convention defines a refugee as:

…a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.

(emphasis added)

Under Article I(c)(3), a person is no longer a refugee if,  for example, he or she has “acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.”

UNRWA’s definition of a Palestinian refugee, which is not anchored in any treaty and thus does not carry the weight of international law, includes no such provision. In fact, UNRWA  defines “Palestinian refugees” to include all offspring of male Palestinian refugees from 1948, including legally adopted children, regardless of whether they have been granted citizenship elsewhere.

The United Nations claims  on its website that UNRWA’s unusual practice does not violate international law and norms, by pointing out that there are other conflicts in the world where refugee status has continued for successive generations (eg. Afghanistan and Somalia).

However, the United Nations’ claim is not only misleading but objectively wrong.  Under the 1951 Convention (1967 Protocol, Article IV Section B), successive generations have refugee status only if it is necessary to maintain what is called “family unity.” For example, imagine that a couple escaped Afghanistan, became refugees in Pakistan, and then had a child. Even though that child never lived in Afghanistan, he or she would nevertheless be granted refugee status in order to keep the family unit from being broken apart by potential developments.

However, under UNRWA’s rules, there is no “family unity” limitation. To the contrary, unlimited future generations may inherit refugee status even when there is no living family connection to pre-1948 British-ruled Palestine and, consequently, there is no danger of tearing apart any family unit.  This is no subtle distinction:  UNRWA has, knowingly or not, created a financial incentive for host countries to deny Palestinians citizenship, so that the nations in question can benefit from the international aid that comes with hosting people who maintain refugee status in perpetuity.

According to a 2012 report by the United States Senate, under the terms of the 1951 Convention, which applies to all other people in the world, the number of real Palestinian refugees living today is only about 30,000. Yet, according to UNRWA, the number of “refugees” is over 5 million, making Palestinians the only group in the world whose refugee population has increased — and dramatically — over time

 

Source
Top 5 Israeli war crimes (massacres), that never actually happened

1. The Tantura massacre

Israeli journalist Amir Gilat published an article regarding a massacre in Tantura in Ma’ariv which was mainly based on a master’s thesis submitted to the University of Haifa by graduate student, Theodore Katz. In a paper on The Exodus of the Arabs from the Villages at the foot of Mount Carmel, Katz said Israeli forces killed 240 Arabs from Tantura during the 1947–1949 Palestine war in 1948.

Having discovered they were publicly accused of war crimes in the pages of Israel’s largest newspaper, veterans of the 33rd battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade were outraged. They maintained that the battle for Tantura was a strategic one, an attempt to stop the maritime smuggling of arms and food and to prevent the Haifa-Tel Aviv road from being cut off; and that throughout the fight for survival in a bloody war launched by the Arabs, they had maintained the strictest ethical standards. While the battle for Tantura was difficult — 14 members of the IDF battalion and about 40 Arabs were killed in street fighting — the veterans insisted Katz had lied about a massacre. [1]

At the end of the legal process, which Katz paid for with Palestinian Authority funding, he was compelled to publish at his own expense newspaper advertisements in which he completely repudiated the massacre lies, eliminating any possibility of generously referring to them as a “contentious version.” Katz’s ads stated:

After checking and re-checking the evidence, I am now certain beyond any doubt that there is no basis at all for the allegation that after Tantura surrendered, there was any killing of residents by the Alexandroni Brigade, or any other fighting unit of the IDF. I would like to clarify that what I wrote was misunderstood, and that I did not mean to suggest that there had been a massacre in Tantura, nor do I believe that there ever was a massacre at Tantura.

2. Massacre of Egyptian POWs in El Arish

Not content with these long-refuted myths, Norman Finkelstein invokes:

“unimpeachable eye-witness testimonies of Israeli soldiers, as well as the testimony of an Israeli military historian, that the IDF executed scores of Egyptian POWs during the June War.”

No further evidence is given, but his footnote cites press reports on the testimony of “eye-witness” Gabi Bron and “military historian” Aryeh Yitzhaki. Both sources had explicitly disavowed the statements attributed to them as media inventions. Egyptian POWs “were not shot, and there were no mass murders,” asserted Bron. “In fact, we helped prisoners, gave them water, and in most cases just sent them in the direction of the [Suez] Canal.” Yitzhaki, who was not a military historian but a clerk in a military archive, was even more emphatic: “In no case did Israel initiate massacres,” he wrote. “On the contrary, it did everything it could to prevent them.” The specific examples mentioned in Finkelstein’s reports proved to be legitimate acts of war; thus an alleged mass killing of hundreds of POWs at El-Arish in the Sinai turned out to be a battle with enemy forces who attacked an Israeli convoy. And all of this was known years before Finkelstein chose to repeat the allegations. The conclusions would seem to be obvious. [2]

3. Lydda Massacre

Lydda, 1948” (The New Yorker, October 21, 2013) written by the well-known and talented Israeli journalist Ari Shavit. In Shavit’s very deceptive and even contradictory recounting, Israeli soldiers led by a certain Lt. Col. Moshe Dayan, and armed with:

a giant armored vehicle mounted with a cannon, menacing half-tracks, and machine-gun-equipped jeeps

joined other Israeli forces attacking Lydda (and its neighbor Ramle) during Israel’s War of Independence. Led by Dayan’s marauding forces the Israelis took control of “key positions” in the town, but the next day fighting flared again, and:

in thirty minutes, two hundred and fifty Palestinians were killed. Zionism had carried out a massacre in the city of Lydda.

Is this really what happened?

The overall commander of the operation in Lydda, Moshe Kelman, met with the town’s leaders to discuss surrender terms, beginning with Simon Garfeh, the Greek Orthodox Archimandrite of Lydda. Garfeh gave the following account, as recorded by historian Dan Kurzman:

“I am the Archimandrite of Lydda,” he announced. “I hope you have come in peace.”

“If it is the desire of the people of this town to live with us in peace,” Kelman assured him, we shall be very happy.” They may open their shops and resume normal life. Can you arrange for the surrender?”

“I shall try,” the prelate answered … “I shall ask the leaders of the Moslem and Christian communities to meet with us immediately in my apartment upstairs.”

He then instructed an aide to run to the Big Mosque to fetch the Moslem leaders, and sent another to his own church to bring the Christian leaders taking refuge there.

About an hour later, a dozen Arab notables were sitting in Garfeh’s living room sipping coffee and chatting with the clergyman, Kelman, and other Israeli officers. Finally, Kelman, putting down his coffee, addressed them:

“Gentlemen, the city has been conquered, and we want your cooperation. We suggest that you find the citizens who have been operating the utilities so that your people can have water and electricity without delay. But first you must accept our terms for peace: Surrender of all fighting personnel and of all arms within twenty-four hours. If these conditions are not met, we shall have to take action.”

“We agree,” one of the Arabs said with quiet resignation. “May the residents stay here if they wish?”

“Yes, they may,” Kelman replied, “if they live here peacefully.” (Genesis 1948, Dan Kurzman, p. 514)

Shockingly, Shavit gives no hint of this. Why would Shavit and his editors omit the crucial fact that Lydda had surrendered, and had agreed to disarm and live in peace, and that the Israelis had agreed to let them stay? Why would Shavit and the renowned New Yorker “fact checkers” ignore Kurzman’s crucial interviews?

Shavit also keeps from his readers the fact that the hard-pressed Israelis withdrew a significant part of their forces from Lydda after the surrender, since they were needed elsewhere. Dayan’s battalion, for example, headed south, to take part in the battle for the Negev. (Moshe Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 112)

The very next day, July 11, the Jordanians sent a patrol to the outskirts of the town, made up of one tank and two armored cars, to probe Israeli strength. Shavit mentions this — he says it was “two Jordanian armored vehicles.”

But for some reason he doesn’t call them “giant armored vehicles,” or “menacing.” Perhaps only Israelis have giant armored menacing vehicles.

Shavit does say that the “two vehicles were of no military significance.” So one of these vehicles in Israeli hands was of great significance, but two in Jordanian hands were, for some reason, irrelevant.

Whatever
the explanation for these contradictions, the Jordanian patrol ran into trouble, and had to shoot its way out of town. The residents, apparently thinking this was a Jordanian assault to retake the town, began attacking the remaining Israeli soldiers. Five Israeli guards stationed outside the Dahmash Mosque were the first to be killed, and almost immediately the entire town erupted in shooting. (Kurzman, p. 515)

Despite the surrender agreement, and the promise to turn over arms, the Israelis, now numbering only 500 men, had to once again take the town in another desperate battle.

Fighting house-to-house to root out snipers, and this time giving no quarter, within an hour much of the town was once again under control, and an estimated 200 Arabs were dead.

But the Dahmash Mosque, was still fighting, held by an estimated 70 fighters, and with an unknown number of others inside. Rather than launch a costly frontal assault, Lt. Col. Kelman decided to breach the mosque’s walls with an anti-tank weapon, known as a PIAT, and then have a platoon rush the building.

After the PIAT was fired, the men that stormed the building found that the defenders were dead, killed by the effects of the armor piercing projectile in the confined space of the mosque. (Kurzman, p. 515–516)

The second battle to take Lydda was over, but now facing the Israelis was the difficult question of what to do with the inhabitants. The town leaders, knowing that they had broken their word to surrender and disarm, and knowing in particular that the five Israeli soldiers outside the mosque had been massacred and their bodies mutilated, feared that the Israelis would now return the favor.

It’s hardly surprising that the Israelis were in no mood to give the residents another chance to break their promise to live in peace. But, of course, the Israelis also didn’t execute or “massacre” them. Instead, the residents were ordered to evacuate the city and move towards the Jordanian lines and Ramallah. [3]

4. Jenin massacre

Among the most disputed and misrepresented facts about the fighting in Jenin was the number of Palestinians killed and the extent of the destruction. Initially, Palestinian officials claimed that hundreds were killed in the “Jenin massacre.” For example, then Palestinian Authority Minister of Local Government Saeb Erekat stated on CNN April 10, one week into the eight day operation: “I’m afraid to say that the number of Palestinian dead in the Israeli attacks have reached more than 500 now.” (See the Backgrounder in CAMERA On Campus Fall 2002 for an in-depth review of PA misinformation.) Later, when international workers investigated the camp and found no evidence of a massacre, Palestinian officials drastically lowered the death toll to 56, a number consistent with what Israel had estimated (Washington Times, May 1). [4]

 

 

5. Deir Yassin

For many decades the number of victims were believed to be around 250, based on Raanan’s false estimate. Modern scholarship puts the number at about half that. Sharif Kan’ana of Bir Zeit University interviewed survivors and published figures in 1988; 107 villagers had died, 11 of them armed, with 12 wounded.[5] Israeli researcher Eliezer Tauber writes that a total of 101 people were killed, 61 definitely in combat circumstances (including 24 armed fighters, with the remained being their family members who were with them); 18 for whom the cause of death could not be determined; about 10 whose deaths are in a “grey zone” whose charactization can be debated; and a further 11 being members of a single family who were gunned down by a single Irgun member.[6]

Source
Mesha Stele

he Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite Stone, is a stele dated around 840 BCE containing a significant Canaanite inscription in the name of King Mesha of Moab (a kingdom located in modern Jordan). Mesha tells how Chemosh, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to Israel, but at length, Chemosh returned and assisted Mesha to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab

Source

Palestinians are an ancient nation

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb-gaIWpq3k

Source