Originally posted by Majorion
Thats very interesting "mattpryor", do you always demonstrate such hostility when you encounter a differing viewpoint? - judging from your avatar,
its quite self evident.
Sorry to hear you didn't like my avatar. I've made a new one just for you. And yes I do get annoyed when people post pictures like this without even
trying to find out whether or not said pictures reflect reality. We're meant to be denying ignorance remember?
Now let's take a look at that "map" shall we?
1946: Well this is an interesting perspective to say the least. For one thing the population of the region (excluding Gaza and Judea/Samara)
was approximately 800,000. This comprised of 80% Jewish, 20% Arab. So please explain how, exactly, this justifies painting the
entire region
green (including, as ZeroKnowledge pointed out, the Negev desert which is largely uninhabitable)? What you have shown here is a largely unpopulated
region, mostly desert, with Jewish population centres in white. And the whole region was governed by the British... so this map is, frankly, just
nonsense. It's fiction.
1947: This probably the only accurate map included (although the context is iffy), and does indeed show the 1947 UN partition plan.
Unfortunately, it never came to pass - although Israel agreed to it, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq did not which is why they attacked Israel in 1948
and used Judea/Samara, Gaza and the Golan Heights as strategic points from which to launch their combined assault.
1949-1967 The bits you've coloured in green here were not Palestinian land - they were occupied by Egypt (Gaza) and Jordan (Judea/Samara)
respectively. During this period there was no call for an independent Palestinian state, but there was a row over who should govern the regions. The
PLO did not come into existence until 1964, and calls for an Palestinian self-governance did not begin until as late as 1974. Pan-Arabists could not
take the land back by force so instead organised and funded an insurgency movement within Israel's borders.
Unfortunately calls to return Judea/Samara and East Jerusalem to Arab rule (made particularly noisy when combined with a relentless terrorist campaign
against Israeli civilians) fell on deaf ears in the West. Particularly given the shambles that had been Arab governance of the region in the inter-war
period. However they found much more sympathy with Western politicians, diplomats and academics using the "self governance" argument, by depicting
the Jordanian residents of Judea/Samara as an oppressed people. Interestingly it is a tactic borrowed from Hitler with regards to the Sudenland region
of Czechoslovakia prior to its invasion in 1939. This tactic persists today, and if you are to understand the politics of the region now, it is
important to understand this perspective.
2000 Now we're (nearly) up to present day. The map presented here ignores the factional differences between "West Bank" Palestinians and
Gaza Palestinians. It also does a remarkable job of over-simplifying the enormously complex demographic realities, if indeed that is what it is meant
to do. For example, about 4/5ths of Israel has a population density of less than 25 people per square kilometre, whereas the main population densities
are in the coastal regions (Tel Aviv, Haifa) and Jerusalem.
So in summary:
- The first map is made up. The whole region was under British control.
- The second map shows the
proposed UN partition plan, which was never implemented because of war.
- The third map is inaccurate as the green bits were not "Palestinian" but Egyptian and Jordanian
- The fourth map is just bizarre - I don't know what it's supposed to be. The only thing I will agree with is that the green bits are "No Jew"
zones, whether they're Fatah or Hamas controlled. You support this do you?
People talk about apartheid in Israel. Show me where the apartheid exists. In Israel proper, all ethnic / religious / social groups have the freedom
work, vote, own property, marry, pray, do whatever the hell they like, and there is certainly no restriction on where you can go out. In the regions
controlled by Hamas and Fatah, Jews are banned. If anything resembling apartheid exists at all, it is in the Palestinian zones and it is
discrimination against Jews, NOT the other way round.
[edit on 16-6-2009 by mattpryor]