Iron Bru › Forums › Non Football › Bombing hospitals › Reply To: Bombing hospitals
I wouldn’t call the British Mandate of Palestine a country in its own right. It was part of the British Empire and not subject to its own control. Before then it was part of the Ottoman Empire and before then it was part of Egyptian led Mameluk Empire. Going further back, the first mention of Palestine was from the Roman Empire, who used it to replace the name of Israel to quash Jewish rebellions against Rome.
None of this is to delegitimise Palestine’s existence, there should be a two-state solution, but it doesn’t delegitimise Israel’s existence either. Jews have existed in the ‘Holy land’ for centuries and most of Israel’s Jews do not actually hail from Europe, but from North Africa and the Middle-East.
The Brits flip-flopped over the mandate and made various promises to different groups. By the end they were not so pro-Israel and the state was only created after Israelis, USA and the UN pushed on it. Before then, I have read tales of Jewish immigrants in Cyprus kept in poor conditions as they tried to go to Israel. It should also be obvious why they were fleeing Europe in the late 40s. There could have been peace there and then, but hostility was there from the start from other Arab states. Was all of it good from the Israeli side? No, I am aware of population resettlements (though, it was not one-sided), but the idea that this somehow delegitimises Israel? Nah.
The states around them were also subject to being created through French and British interests, such as Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. This too has created parts of the country with sects who might want their own nation state, divided by these past decrees. See the Kurds in northern Iraq and Syria, for example. Yet the bemoaning about this is far less.
Regardless, grievance mongering is not creating any hope of peace in the region. Israel is here to stay, and as much as they need to stop things like the settlements of the West Bank and its own divisive rhetoric, the destructive talk of Hamas and its supporters is only creating future hate.