Gertrude Bell

After the war, many Jews who had temporarily escaped to other countries tried to return to their homes only to find that landlords would not rent to them or their own homes had been destroyed or taken over. I've read that the British government just wanted this problem to go away. The easy way out was to hand Palestinian land to the Zionists pressuring the British government, which is what they did with little to no consideration for the conflicts they were creating for the native Palestinians living on that land. Israel wasted no time after the UN approved their state, sending an army and bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes and force them off the land (the Nabka). Many descendants of these Palestinians are today living in camps in the West Bank because Israel has limited their ability to make a living.

So long as Israel is determined to own all Palestinian land, there will never be peace. As we saw with our own Native Americans, many tribes were murdered out of existence and others barely survived the depredations of a people who wanted their land even to the point of murdering them. And, yes, Naive Americans fought back just as Palestinians have done. They were simply defending the land they and their ancestors had lived on for thousands of years. I have no solution for this conflict, but ignoring the rights of the natives and allowing their genocide is not the answer.

Jews are the natives in Palestine. When they declared independence all the Arabs countries and Palestinians tried and failed to genocide all of them. They tried again in 1967 and failed, they tried again in 1973 and failed, Hamas has tried 5 times and failed, Hezbollah has tried 3 times and failed.

There will be peace in the middle east when the Arabs give up their quest to kill all the Jews.

Genetic studies of Palestinians show that they're more closely related to the inhabitants of the area thousands of years ago, than the recent Jewish immigrants. Same thing in Britain - most of the ancestry is from the Britons/Celts who were there thousands of years ago, the Romans/Anglo-Saxons/Vikings/Normans just spiced up the mix. Palestinians have a dash of African ancestry from Black slaves during Arab rule. European Jews, naturally, mixed with the people there. Their languages, Arabic and Hebrew, are related too. The main difference now is the Israelis have all the jets and tanks - and friends with even more of them.

Not going down this rabbit hole.

The Palestinians are not Canaanites, ita Ahistorical bullshit.

Eta
https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf

No where in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the word gene or genetics used. Not once.

'Genomic studies confirm that modern Palestinians possess a large proportion of their DNA, often cited between 50% and 87%, from ancient Bronze Age Canaanites' - Wikipedia. If the majority of their heredity can be traced back thousands of years on the same soil, it's kinda hard to argue they're not indigenous. Reminds me of the Italian-Australian on a soapbox in Sydney's Hyde Park, proclaiming that Australia was for Australians, and the Aborigines (who may have been there for 50,000 years) should be 'sent back to where they came from.' He wanted to wipe out the sperm whales, too, since we can now get equally good oil from jojoba beans.

Last edited Mon Feb 23, 2026, 10:12 PM - Edit history (2)

Thats a ridiculous idea, and wikipedia is part of a worldwide antisemitic movement to deligitimize Israel. There isnt a single other group in the world (like Native Americans and First Peoples) who rely on genetics to determine tribal status etc EXCEPT for Palestinians. In fact, many if not most NA tribe completely reject the idea of genetic based affiliations.

200 years ago there wasnt a single Arab in the Levant that called him or herself a Palestinian. Palestinian nationalism emerged in the 20th century, thats a historical fact.

My DNA traces back to Tanzania, the Great Rift Valley to be exact. Can I call myself a African American? No, because that would be stupid.

Here's the UN definition, no mention of genetics:

Link to tweet

...to support their case.

You know, when I go to the McCarter Theater in Princeton, there is always a statement before the play of how the theater is located on Lenape land.

It does the Lenape no good to embrace the argument. They're gone, removed from their ancestral homeland. I would hope that they wouldn't bomb the McCarter theater, or for that matter, my home.

I would be remiss in my ethics if I sought to make an argument that either side lacks enthusiasm for killing the other, that one side's killings are less murderous than the other's.

War is atrocity ratcheting, and the justification for every atrocity is another atrocity. I hope I have enough decency left in my being to think that cycle is appalling.

It has been going on so long that I have become blind to it. Now that the oligarchs are advancing in their plans to finish "the job", the origins have more saliency. Thanks.