Comments on: Is the Israel-Palestine conflict fundamentally a nationalist, not a religious, war? https://freethinker.co.uk/2023/12/is-the-israel-palestine-conflict-fundamentally-a-nationalist-not-a-religious-war/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=is-the-israel-palestine-conflict-fundamentally-a-nationalist-not-a-religious-war The magazine of freethought, open enquiry and irreverence Tue, 26 Dec 2023 10:45:08 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: John https://freethinker.co.uk/2023/12/is-the-israel-palestine-conflict-fundamentally-a-nationalist-not-a-religious-war/#comment-237 Tue, 26 Dec 2023 10:45:08 +0000 https://freethinker.co.uk/?p=11343#comment-237 Herzl understood the need to have a major world power backing the zionist project.
For reasons connected with reverses suffered in World War One, this backing came in 1917 from the British Empire in the form of the Balfour Declaration.
During the British Mandate Palestine era (1918-1948), Britain permitted unparalleled levels of inward Jewish migration into Palestine.
The Zionist uprising and Nakba of 1948 effectively meant that the zionists double-crossed the British by driving them and half the Palestinian population out.
After 1948, the zionists switched their “allegiance” to the US Empire.
However, as recent events have indicated, the zionists are currently double-crossing the Americans today, just as they did the British in 1948.

]]> By: CarlW https://freethinker.co.uk/2023/12/is-the-israel-palestine-conflict-fundamentally-a-nationalist-not-a-religious-war/#comment-234 Fri, 15 Dec 2023 17:50:07 +0000 https://freethinker.co.uk/?p=11343#comment-234 Too much nuance is merely obfuscation. Religious justification for the state of Israel is nonsensical to me – all religious, supernatural belief is. Millenia of murder, theft, and expulsion convinced Zionists they needed their own country. Through luck and hard work they got it. I support them in keeping it. The only justification needed is the right of survival.

Blame for the “obscene bombardment” since Oct. 7 belongs on Hamas, Iran, and maybe just a little on the wider world that opposed Israel achieving decisive victories in several previous conflicts. Israel absorbed 700,000 Jewish refugees expelled from Arab and Islamic countries following 1948. Why couldn’t and can’t the Arab world solve the “Palestinian problem” rather than letting it metastasize even further?

There are many well known attempts “to do the arduous work of making a common civic society” by Israel – typically met with rejection by the Arabs and always by the Palestinian leaders. Siding with the appeasers is not far short of asking for the Jews to march into the sea. If that’s your solution, please say it out loud.

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