Israel Palestine History Simplified-Q&A's FYI

if israel evaporated tomorrow hamas and fatah would go to war.
this isnt theory its how they roll.
hamas gained power in gaza through killing 400 fatah members who stood in thier way.
aipac is the prevention of peace so if aipac and other lobbiest go away somehow militants in gaza will stop shelling sderot?
they will stop highjacking bulldozers?
suicide bombings will stop?
how exactly are these things even remotely related to western lobbiests

take away aipac and the illegal activities of Israel and we have peace-simple and plain. No matter who was on first, or who was pitching or catching, the Palestinians were THERE when zionist used their terrorism to kill them off for the property-they rightfully and legally lived there.

if it weren't for the greed of land and resources.there would be PEACE

and on the other end of the spectrum i could cite the david horowitz foundation.it doesnt make it true just cuz the orginization claims to be for truth. jews and arabs have had a sorted history for thousands of years to portray one group is purely the victim as the other is the aggressor only feeds the misinformation machine that insures this conflict will continue. it doesnt allow room for resolution

one sided

wow good job wptv on a full revisionist telling of history. it clearly took alot of time and effort and diligence to cultivate the message you wanted. as a thinking human being i respect the passion and fortitude to create this work.
but make no mistake no matter how many facts you choose to ignore or rearrange history does not change.it is amazing how determined you are to convince people(maybe yourself) that the palastinians have never done anything wrong but the mean ol jews just cant stop beating them up.
i look forward to your next great work of antisemetic fiction.
if your so inclined (but i know your not) and wish to debate the facts im always willing.
it would be nice if for once you had the courage to stand behind what you say but i have accepted your hit and run tactics. if you choose to dignify my requests for any attempt at resolution i am here waiting.

The two waring sides living side by side in peace would be the ideal.

Thank you again WP, this history lesson can't be given enough and is astounding most people don't understand that the Palestinian's homeland was invaded.... I don't think its gray at all...
Aggressive people with ill intentions taking over your home and abusing you badly (understatement), creating havoc and misery, downgrading one's quality of life (understatement), and permanently destroying one's environment (depleted uranium for one example) is quite a straight forward, and sadly, common circumstance in this world we share!
If the zionists feel Palestine is where they belong (ala directions from the bible) why did they choose to destroy these people's lives and livelihood rather than be respectful - using the bible and god as their reason is rather obviously hypocritical (oh god, another understatement) isn't it? Not that I know that much about the bible, but aren't there ten commandments that we all have in common.... And if the bible is telling them to go live there, in the same light (well darkness in this case), isn't this the same book that says love your brother as yourself? treat your neighbor as yourself?

This fighting started long ago, more than a century. The fighting will continue for generations to come as long as both sides feed the injustice done to them by the other side to their children and grandchildren. Both sides are wrong.
This is not black and white, it is gray areas that are not easily understood.

But didn't Israel remove some settlements?

In August 2005, the Israeli government removed all 7,000 of the Jewish colonizers in the Gaza Strip - and moved many of them to join the other 440,000 colonizers in Jerusalem and the West Bank. There, Israel is speeding up construction of its walls around Palestinian cities and towns, and expanding its colonies around Jerusalem. This continued occupation of Palestinian land is outright robbery at gunpoint. It goes against all UN resolutions and international law.

But President George Bush has already given a green light to the Israeli land-grab, knowing that it means - in Sharon's own triumphant words - "the end of the Palestinians' dreams" of living in peace and security in their own state. Thus, the Zionists' dream of a Jewish homeland has become an unending nightmare for 9 million Palestinians, whose only "crime" is to call Palestine their home, too.

How does Israel get away with all this?

Because the USA covers Israel's ass and pays its bills.

The US has vetoed more than 30 UN Security Council resolutions that would have helped the Palestinians get out from under Israel's boot. The US has blocked all attempts to put international observers into the territories to protect the Palestinians.

Over the past 50 years years, the US Government has given Israel an estimated $90,000,000,000 in aid - that is roughly one-third of all US foreign aid, even though Israelis make up less than .001% of the world's population. Israel receives more US military aid than any other country - each year, the US gives more than $2,000,000,000 to Israel's military machine, most of it for the purchase of US weapons. The helicopters and missiles Israel uses to bombard Palestinian refugee camps are all "made in the USA".

But the TV news says the Israelis are rooting out terrorists...

When the Israeli army invaded Palestinian cities at Easter 2002, it devastated homes and stores, shot Palestinian civilians in cold blood, cut off power and water supplies, and did everything possible to make the civilian population's life hell [see War crimes].

As usual, Israel reserved "special treatment" for the refugee camps: missiles fired from Apache helicopters, houses bulldozed with families still inside them, wounded people left to die, males between 16 and 50 years arrested and deported to detention camps.

The whole bloody operation was whitewashed as "dismantling terrorist infrastructure." Sharon's real strategy was to abort a viable Palestinian state before it could be born, by destroying its leadership and anything else that strengthens the Palestinian people.

What is the "Annexation wall"?

Israel is building a barrier up to 25 feet high - complete with electrified fencing, concrete walls, ditches and barbed wire - supposedly to protect Israel from terrorist attacks. In reality, the Wall is the latest Israeli ploy to steal more Palestinian land and force the Palestinians to leave.

Most of the wall will cut deep into the occupied territories, incorporating into Israel 80% of its illegal colonies and up to 40% of the Palestinian homeland, including fertile farmland and sources of water for Israeli agriculture. It will trap 237,000 Palestinians inside a virtual prison and cut off a further 160,000 from their land and livelihoods. The "Annexation wall" is Israel's monument to more than 50 years of tyranny and theft.

Why did the Palestinian rebellion break out in 2000?

Because the Palestinians had lost all faith in Israel's promises.

In September 2000, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza began demonstrating for an end to Israeli military occupation. Israel responded as it always has: in the first three months of the rebellion, its soldiers shot dead 344 Palestinian protestors, including 80 children.

As the rebellion intensified into armed conflict in 2001, the Israelis elected a strong man to solve their "Palestinian problem": Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Chatila. Under his government, the Israeli army imposed a reign of terror on the Palestinian population that continues to this day [see War crimes].

Isn't Israel fighting terrorism?

The September 11 attacks were a godsend for hawks in Israel and the US.

With the new excuse of the "war on terror", Sharon ruthlessly pursued his objectives: to brand the Palestinian leadership as "terrorists" and create so much suffering among the Palestinian people that they would resort to terrorism as their only defense. In Sharon's strategy, attacks on Israeli civilians were a convenient means of justifying constant harassment of Palestinian communities and destruction of any civic life they had been able to achieve.

How did the Israel-Palestinian peace process begin?

In November 1988, the Palestinian Liberation Organization accepted the UN resolutions as the basis for a political settlement with Israel. Secret negotiations between Israel and the PLO resulted in an agreement that included mutual recognition, limited self-rule for Palestinians, and provisions for a permanent treaty later.

The Israel-Palestinian deal was based on a simple exchange: "land for peace", which meant the end of Israeli military occupation of the West bank and Gaza, and the creation there of a Palestinian state. Signed in Washington, the agreement was sealed by a historic handshake between Arafat and Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin.

So why isn't there peace now?

Because many Israelis refused to abandon their dream of a "Great Israel" that would drive out the Palestinians for good. Israeli extremists bitterly opposed an honest agreement with the Palestinians. In 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli fanatic. In the years that followed - and even while it was promising the Palestinians "land for peace" - Israel expanded its program of illegal colonization in the occupied territories.

Today, about 240,000 Israeli "settlers" live on confiscated land across the West Bank, while another 200,000 have occupied East Jerusalem - all of them protected by the Israeli army, subsidized by the US government, and in blatant defiance of UN resolutions and international law. These "Jewish pioneers" see the Palestinian homeland as part of the "biblical land of Israel", theirs for the taking. We think they've taken more than enough.

But didn't Israel make Arafat a generous offer that he refused?

Well, Israel says it was "generous" so it must be, right? What it offered was to "give back" 87% of the occupied territories, on condition that Israel would control Palestine's borders, airspace and water supply. It also offered - generously - to let 0.2% of the 4,500,000 Palestinian refugees return home. But the Palestinians know their rights:

under UN resolutions and by international law, they are entitled to 100% of the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, and all Palestinian refugees have the right to return from exile.

Arafat refused to trade his people's birthright for Israel's "generous offer."

What is the status of the Palestinians in the occupied territories?
Under the Red Cross Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a party, the Palestinians in the occupied territories are considered a "protected population" with the right to freedom from: indiscriminate use of force against civilians, wanton destruction of property, torture, collective punishment, the annexation of occupied territory, and the establishment of colonies.

Violation of these rights is a war crime. Amnesty International says Israel has violated Palestinians' human rights for decades "through deliberate killing and torture". [See Amnesty report].

When did the Palestinians start fighting back?

Palestinian resistance to Israel began in the 1960s, with guerrilla attacks carried out particularly by Al-Fatah, a group led by Yassir Arafat International terrorism, aimed at focusing world attention on the grievances of the Palestinians, appeared after the June 1967 War. In 1969, Arafat was elected president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). From 1970, Palestinian fighters began shelling Israeli towns from Jordan and Lebanon.
How did Israel react to the Palestinian resistance?
With Israel's specialty: "collective punishment." The standard Israeli response to Palestinian attacks was to send its air force to bomb refugee camps, targeting the same people it had dispossessed in 1948. In 1980, in defiance of the UN Security Council, it declared East Jerusalem to be a part of Israel - that was one more piece of the Palestinians' heritage stolen. No other country has recognized this annexation, and Israel is still obliged to return East Jerusalem to its legal owners. Israel had another weapon in its war on the Palestinians - with military protection, Israeli government funding and US donations, thousands of Jewish "settlers" began establishing colonies in East Jerusalem and throughout Gaza and the West Bank, in open violation of the Geneva Conventions. Colonization gave Israel a perfect excuse for continuing its military occupation - to "protect the settlers." Which takes us to Lebanon, 1982...
In that year the Israeli army, led by the then defense minister, Ariel Sharon, invaded Lebanon with the stated aim of "eliminating Palestinian terrorism." In reality, the aim was to eliminate any prospect of a Palestinian state in the future. First, Sharon's army stole the PLO's archive of maps and land titles, the evidence the Palestinians had preserved to prove their ownership of land and property seized by Israel in the 1948 war. (Israeli soldiers left this message on the wall: "Palestinian? What's that?") And Sharon wanted to teach the Palestinians a lesson: in September 1982, while his army kept guard, Lebanese death squads entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila, in Beirut, and murdered at least 1,000 defenseless men, women and children. The UN condemned the massacre as "an act of genocide". The massacre horrified many Israelis, and Sharon was forced to resign from the government.

Did the Palestinians lose all their rights?
No, and this is important: the international community recognized that the Palestinians were victims of war. In 1948, the UN Security Council passed a resolution (Number 194) that guaranteed the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in what had become Israel.

The UN created a special agency, UNRWA, to care for Palestinian refugees until their return home. Israel has made laws to keep the Palestinians out, but the refugees' "Right of return" still stands.

When did Israel occupy the remaining Palestinian land?
In 1967, tensions grew once more between Israel and its Arab neighbors. In June that year, Israeli forces invaded and conquered all of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and imposed military rule on the Palestinian communities and refugee camps there. At that point, the Palestinians were a defeated people - virtually the entire population was living in foreign refugee camps, as second-class citizens in Israel, or under Israeli military occupation.

What did the world community have to say about all this?

Following the 1967 war, the UN Security Council passed resolutions 242 and 338 that require Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, in return for Arab countries' recognition of Israel. After initially stalling, Israel accepted those resolutions.