As I've already stated, more Jews were displaced by Arabs post 1948 than Arabs displaced by Jews. Jews took care of their own whereas the Arabs abused their own.

That's the history few want to touch, but it is the honest assessment of what happened.

Also, I have clearly stated there is nothing pre 1960 that differentiates a Palestinian Arab from any other Arab living on the levant. They are not a distinctive ethnicity when compared to their Arab brothers. Tell me what makes a Syrian Arab in 1948 different from a so-called Palestinian Arab in 1948.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Because they left.

Jews hadn't been the majority in the Palestinian region since the first century AD. Christians were the majority for one thousand years, and Muslims have been the majority in the Palestinian region since 1500 AD. In the 1530's, there were approximately 5,000 Jews in the area compared to 145,000 Muslims.

edit: It wasn't until the 1890's that Jews started abandoning Europe and moving back to Palestine. They were gone for almost two thousand years. Easily enough time for them to "lose their claim."

That being said, Israel exists and now we need to work toward a two state solution.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

They "left".

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

So you are dictating that all countries must have a singular, defined ethnic origin?

Uh oh, Russian Jews. Looks like you're getting the boot!

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Are you going to try to blame Islam 600 years before it was came into existence?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Ogie you're good but not that good. You are lobbying against the ethnic legitimacy of Palestinians while simultaneously arguing the legitimacy of a religious group. You are conflating Jewish people with beingpart of an ethnic group. You are saying that Palestine has never been a state. Jews have never been either an ethnicity or part of a nationality. Jews are part of a religious group. As such how can it be argued that they have a right to claim land as part of an ancestral heritage? Can it be proven that the MANY people who descended upon Israel have a direct link to that part of the world? Or are they simply adherents to the religion? I think we both know the answer to that don't we?

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I'm simply saying they probably would have preferred to stay. I don't think they chose to be without a country for 2,000 years.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

They didn't. They migrated to the quickly developing Europe, with more fertile lands and temperate climates.

Your Jewish persecution begins with Romans, Christians and Pagans in Europe

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

do I need to repost this one? Yes I do...

I'll post it in large type this time so you can't ignore it so easily.



What makes an ethnic group?

Common distinct language: Check
Common distinct history: Check
Common distinct culture: Check
Common distinct genetics: Check (don't believe me, look no further that various diseases Jews are more prone to due to a shared genetics)

The Jews have a common and distinctive history here and thus are rightly labeled as a separate ethnic group from others they live amongst.

While we are on the subject of ethnic groups. What makes the Palestinians a distinctive ethnic group different from the other Arabs in the levant?

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

So why did so many return?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

A majority of Europeans didn't want them there? I'm not an expert on Jewish persecution in the early centuries and why...just that it had existed long before Hitler. And that Islam wasn't involved.

Again, I've said this all in my original Israel thread, but I believe the losing Axis countries should have been responsible for providing land to the Jewish people. That ship has sailed, so now we have to make sure two sovereign nations exist in the current Palestinian region. And Likud and Hamas should be leading neither of them.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

1: those who left for Europe were exiled by the Romans (often in slavery), yet they all originate from Israel. That's why it's called the diaspora.

2: even after the diaspora, Jews lived in major cities in Israel and lived there uninterrupted since the return from the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE. They lived in J'lem, Hebron, Beersheva, Tiverya, and Tzfat primarily.

In fact, an 1860 census of Jerusalem by the British Consulate (this is 20+ years before Zionism) showed the Jews to be a majority of the population in Jerusalem.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Islam wasn't involved but they certainly have taken a prominent role.

The major point here is that it doesn't make sense to say "Palestinians were the majority at this certain time" when the Jews still existed there too and would have existed in far larger numbers had they been given the choice.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

How is the heritage of Ivanka Trump common with that of any of the descendants of the Holocaust. If you have an ability to "convert" in order to join then how is it that you have dinstinctive characteristics?

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I can't wait to see the State of Palestine become a (snort) flourishing democracy that (snort) respects the rights of women, LGBT people, Jewish people, and atheists, and definitely doesn't wage war on its neighbor so it can claim all the land from the river to the sea. O praisèd be the noble "Palestinian"!

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So you agree that the Jews left Palestine on their own free will. And were gone for thousands of years.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demograph ... ne_(region) *



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demograph ... ne_(region) *

*Please note the source is an Israeli Jew.



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Lastly, addressing the issue of Palestinians "losing the land" due to wars... the Jews lost Israel countless times over the years. If 1948 and 1967 are reasons the Palestinians have no right to the land, then the Jews would also have no right considering they lost the land to the Assyrians, Babylonians and Romans depending on the century.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

They were given a choice. Much of Palestine was uninhabited except for a few thousand Christians and Arabs for over one thousand years. The Jews were being persecuted in Europe and could have gone back to the Palestinian region at any time. They chose not to.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

the area was controlled by the Ottoman Empire for like 500 years. How stupid are you?

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Well, then the Palestinians have a choice to leave now and it's all good!

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

We're talking way before the Ottomon Empire. Get your centuries straight.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I side with the guys that never left.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I probably won't like their politics but I do respect their right to the land. We don't really seek to have a conversation regarding respect for others do we? If that were a prerequisite for anything this country would have been cooked a couple of centuries ago.

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and before that it was the Byzantines... before them the Romans... before that it was Maccabees.

The point is... which you and LTG ignored (either on purpose or through lack of reading comprehension) is that there has been a continuous and unbroken Jewish presence in all of the major cities of Israel going back to the end of the Babylonian revolt over 2,500 years ago in 538 BCE.

The Jews never left. Many of them were scattered against their will across the lands held by the Roman Empire after the sacking of Jerusalem in 67 CE, but even after the diaspora, Jews remained in the land.

It was during this era that one of the greatest Jewish scholars, The Rambam, wrote his works as a Jew living in Israel in the 11th century. The Kabbalists of in Tzfat did their writings in the 16th Century. I could go on forever here, but the fact is, the Jews never left Israel. They may have at times lost power and been subservient to others, but they never as a people did leave.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

I thought Maimonides lived in Spain and Morocco.

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Born there, but moved to Israel at age 30. He eventually died in Egypt. Most of his work was done while living in Israel.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

I stand corrected.

And again, for anyone who thinks there should be a Jewish state centered around anywhere but Jerusalem, the Jewish Autonomous Region of the USSR, out in the malaria-ridden Russian Far East, was a miserable failure. So no, it wouldn't have worked in Poland or Madagascar, either.

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That is IMU's argument not mine. My argument is that they have been outnumbered by Arabs in the region by a wide margin. I also have made the rather correct argument that Judaism is a religion. If you are going to continue to make the point that Palestinian is a term created to provide Arabs of the region with some sort of distinction then I'm going to make the same point about Jewish people. There isn't any shared ethnic history between Jewish people. They are united by the faith. The vast majority of Jewish people cannot trace their history to that part of the world. That is a fallacious argument for which neither you, Jorr or anyone has an answer for.

The reason that Jewish people are found throughout the world is because their faith has been spread throughout the world. It's located on virtually every continent. Yes it is a religion that emanated from the Middle East but that does not mean that it should supersede the wishes of people that literally have resided there for centuries. Jewish people are followers of the Judaism religion. They are not bound by borders yet you and others continue to make the argument that they are. It's fallacious in the extreme and to be honest it's dangerous.

If you are going to continue to argue that the word Palestinian is a term that was contrived for political reasons then so is the notion that Jewish people are part of an ethnic group. They aren't. Any person of non Middle Eastern descent can voluntarily choose to become part of their faith and that person will instantly have a greater claim on Israel than would any Palestinian. You have essentially had to create a definition of what constitutes ethnicity out of thin air in order to promote your argument. Maybe it is you that lacks comprehension skills.



You also seem to think that it is ok for Europeans to choose who the winners and losers are in that part of the world. If Arabs aren't comfortable with that arrangement then they have a right not to be. They should have been allowed the right to choose whether they were going to be a sovereign nation or not. It shouldn't have been decided by colonial masters.

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Well, that isn't an argument: Judaism is the traditional religion of the Jewish people. But to say there is no shared ethnic history among the Jewish people is in not-even-wrong territory.

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Ok what ethnic connection does Ivanka Trump have with Jewish people?

I can find countless others that have no "ancestral" connection to that part of the world whatsoever.

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