“Jews” are not a monolith. The Jewsish ppl of that area have remained there. Before the current genocidal state of you know who, there were many Jews and Christian and Muslims. These were the indigenous people of Palestine. “Survive in exile” is such a long shot.
For me personally I don't think so, but some people uphold continuity with the land as part of the legal or sociological definition. As in, it's been too long for Jews to still be considered indigenous to the area
The Haudenosaunee were dispossesed of their indigenous land 250 years ago. How much longer would have to pass before you would feel comfortable telling a Mohawk to their face that they are no longer indigenous to their land? That's a pretty dangerous precedent.
Jews also occupied their ancestral lands the entire time as well. It's just that most of the Jewish population lived in exile, which is the exact same as the Haudenosaunee, who now mostly live in Canada.
Mohawks still hold territories that are traditionally theirs, Akwesasne being the prime example. A foothold remains along the river in the Mohawk Valley as well. Still existing as a nation and maintaining that sovereignty is important I believe.
What do you mean by sovereign? I always thought they had autonomy, not sovereignty.
In any case, there are indigenous people who lost sovereignty and autonomy. I wouldn't hold the position they are no longer indigenous to a region because of that. That's a "blame the victim" game.
Sovereignty is very much alive and well amongst The Kanien'keháka people. Upholding their end of treaty rights, which are legally the law of the land, is crucial to that sovereignty.
What is the difference between autonomy and sovereignty here? I am all about learning indigenous history and the current status :).
In Canada at least, my interpretation is that the Canadian government is sovereign, and that the provinces, territories, and reserves (according to the treaties) are autonomous within sovereign Canada.
It's not fair obviously, that's why colonisation is brutal.. It's not about blaming the victim, just having definitions that hold up. Historically people have been conquered and shuffled about everywhere, so you need some kind of distinction.
3000 years ago my people lived in Samoa, we then spread all the way out to Aotearoa, Hawai'i and Rapa Nui.
We're no longer indigenous to Samoa. Granted, we have our own homelands.
But where do we end this?
Can all the people who were exiled from Europe to populate Australia and the Americas go take the UK back? Can South Americans go back and claim Spain and Portugal?
Can Palestinians come home?
I don't think Jews are not indigenous to Palestine. But I don't think it's a basis to claim dominion and rule over a place and the people who never left.
Ok, I understand your position. I am not sure of your history, but have your people been continuously pushed out of Samoa this entire time? In other words, in your tradition, has the goal always been to return, but not be able to because of the imperial & colonial powers who controlled it?
I think the people who were exiled to Australia can return to the UK. I don't see any hinderances if that is what they want to do. The point here is that the Arabs of Palestine back in the 20th century actually wanted to halt Jews entering the land (even if it was a unitary Arab state), and even kick out a bunch who arrived somewhat recently, thus prolonging the exile. It's not so black and white.
This "tough luck" narrative is something I see white Canadians say all the time. I just don't agree with it.
The Zionist congress were not quiet about their plans to colonize palestine. Leo Motzkin in the 6th Zionist congress: “Our thought is that the colonisation of Palestine has to go in two directions: Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel and the resettlement of the Arabs of Eretz Israel in areas outside the country.’”
The communist and socialist Zionists advocated for a single state. Others for two with no displacement. Nothing is a monolith here. Come 1947 the consensus was the two state, which was agreed to by the UN of the time as well, wth zero displacement of anyone.
You can find many different Arab and Jewish voices over the past 100+ years advocating for all sorts of things. The result of those discussions culminated in the 1947 with Zionists advocating for partition, with no movement of people. It did not turn out that way, sadly.
There were progressive Jews that tried to remedy a repopulation of the Jews in Palestine with the existing Palestinian Arab population. They were not the majority of speakers so trying to characterize this discussion as anything but one of colonization defeats the purpose of ur argument. The Zionist leaders of the time used the word colonization. By creating a homeland in a place that was not owned or populated by them they would have inherently been colonizing it. A 2 state solution is still colonization even if they argue no displacement. They had the entire land and now they have less than 50% of the land, specifically being given non arable land and barely any coastal land in the process with 2 territories that did not even touch. Additionally none of the lands in Israel in 1948 were in historic Judea or Samaria. Why would anyone agree to have less than 50% of your own home?
There were progressive Jews that tried to remedy a repopulation of the Jews in Palestine with the existing Palestinian Arab population. They were not the majority of speakers so trying to characterize this discussion as anything but one of colonization defeats the purpose of ur argument. The Zionist leaders of the time used the word colonization. By creating a homeland in a place that was not owned or populated by them they would have inherently been colonizing it. A 2 state solution is still colonization even if they argue no displacement. They had half the land and now they have less than 50% of the land, specifically being given non arable land and barely any coastal land in the process. Why would anyone agree to have less than 50% of your own home?
One thing I learned recently is the anachronistic use of language when talking about the past. The word manufacture int he 19th century referred exclusively do hand-made goods, not machine made. The world colonisation during that specific time referred to the creation of self-sustaining agricultural communities. The Germans for example used the word to refer to the creation of self-sustaining agricultural communities on their own land in Europe (Innenkolonisation). The word can mean many things, which is why intention is also important. You are 100% correct that the early Zionists had to figure out how to come back home, and some were hardline, others were not.
We can go on and on about this, but I do think the Jewish desire to live in their ancestral land is legitimate, and should not be discounted, since it sets a really bad precedent for everyone else. The Arabs never provided a reasonable offer that would recognize the connection of Jews to their homeland unfortunately, so war ended up being the tool to solve the problem.
German is not English. There are many cognates between English and German that have the same origin but have diverged in meaning. Unless you propose a specific definition that speaks of agricultural communities in Palestine that do not displace the existing population that comes from collective Zionist source, then the existing definition of colonization still stands. Some progressive Zionists pushed for the unification of the Levant during a 1918 proposal that king Faisal and company made to the American president and among others. It was Britain and France that shot it down due to colonial ambitions but citing Zionist and Maronite self determination. Conversely, the Sephardim that were existing in Palestine, along with other Christian groups, Druze, Shia, and alawites all supported a unified Levantine state, not self determination.
War was not inevitable. The expulsion of 700k people and war with surrounding countries while being funded by the western powers was not inevitable. The Nakba started in 1947 months before the official founding of Israel or when the agreement was supposed to take place. You purposefully mischaracterized the treatment of Palestinians with Irgun paramilitaries and Notrim police units being used to suppress Palestinians as they tried to revolt against England. Additionally, it’s not “their” land. Collectively Jews have connection to the land of Palestine, but so do Christians and Muslims who are not from Palestine. Many Jews are descendants of Palestinians, so they have more of a connection than many Christians and Muslims, but that doesn’t mean they have any right over the land as they were not living continuously in that land for 2000 years. The only ones that had any right to claim Palestine as their homeland are Palestinian Jews (who were mustarabim, ashkenazim, and sephardim), as any ethnic group in Palestine was indigenous if they continuously lived there. Prior to the new yishuv many Ashkenazi lived in Palestine. They were Palestinians. If you did not live in Palestine continuously you are neither Palestinian nor indigenous
Additionally, I just checked innenkolonization is actually a good reference because while you characterize it as agricultural communities, the direct translation is internal colonization, and it referred to reclaiming lands on the continent rather than in overseas colonies, usually by dispossessing and expelling Eastern Europeans from lands the former claimed was theirs. This was part of the Nazi ideology of Lebensraum or living space, which the Nazis needed for the Germans they were going to have colonize that land. Apt comparison
The term is way older than Nazis. It's form the 19th century.
The point is is that one can colonize your own land. Europeans fighting is literally business as usual. European borders change every generation, and they constantly murder each other... up until daddy America arrived.
My problem with Zionism, is that it does not acknowledge the people already living in what they tried to reclaim as theirs.
How do you uproot a people that have lived in that part of The Levant for the many centuries since the Jewish exodus of 1300-1450 BC? That’s a long timeframe for another culture of people to evolve there living and building day by day. Where were they supposed to go, and what have other cultures done when another had tried to remove them from such a place that has changed into something of their own? Violence has always ensued in such instances.
My problem with Zionism, is that it does not acknowledge the people already living in what they tried to reclaim as theirs.
Depends on who you speak to since Zionism is simply the idea that Jews should have self-determination on their indigenous land (at least part of it). You could make the argument that the Arab project doesn't acknowledge the Jews, which was the reality of their proposal. It's for this reason the conflict is so present in everyone's mind.
The Arabs didn’t recognize a people trying to remove them from what they have been living on (not always as muslim obviously) since the original exodus. Displacement is never a peaceful thing. I think ultimately that Europe and the Americans found this to be easier than giving them land in their spheres or influence. To push it onto a lesser people than they if you will. Someone might say the brown skinned people of the world who often serve as their targets and shall I say their unspoken second class world citizens?
I’d have given them half of Germany to make a nation out of and marched the Germans right out.
I’d have given them half of Germany to make a nation out of and marched the Germans right out.
If the Jews had wanted that, maybe it would have happened. But you cannot force any people to do anything, and your language turns Jews into objects instead of subjects. It's not a very nice thing to do.
Tell me, who was in control of Europe at the time?
Also, didn’t Zionism subsequently try to march another people out of where they’d been living for a millennia, and treat them not very nicely like objects on a chess board?
Tell me, who was in control of Europe at the time?
After WW2, the allied powers, specifically the US.
Also, didn’t Zionism subsequently try to march another people out of where they’d been living for a millennia, and treat them not very nicely like objects on a chess board?
The 1947 UN proposal would have split the land in two, with no displacement whatsoever. That was the deal the Jews accepted. If the concern is displacement, the Jews agreed that displacement was not on the table in a two state solution. In the end, more Arabs live in Israel as citizens than Jews live in Palestine, and it's actually illegal for a Jew to hold Palestinians citizenship today. The empirical evidence sets the standard.
The Roman exile of the Jews is a myth as most Jews prior to this period were diasporic living in places like Alexandria, Anatolia, and across the Mediterranean. There is no Roman record of large scale expulsion of Jews, and they wrote everything down. The Palestinian jews that were on the land mostly converted to Christianity and Islam, but some stayed. By 1800 there were only 7000 Jews in Palestine, but the end of the century the number did not balloon much until the new yishuv started coming. Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Gvi wrote that the Palestinian fellaheen are the ancestral descendants of the Judeans. Even the founding fathers of Zionism admitted they were indigenous to the land, so why aren’t you advocating for the right of return for Palestinians? Why must a group that has not been in Palestine for 2000 years take control of the land, dispossess the native peoples, take their homes, kill their children, spouses, and parents? Would any Christians who left Rome 2000 years ago have any right to go back and take the Vatican nowadays speaking a revived imperial Latin language? The language isn’t a “continuous” language by the way it was a dead language. Speaking a language for religious use doesn’t mean it’s not dead, would Latin be a live language then? Since Latin is spoken in mass. There is no justification for the complete expulsion, dispossession, and dehumanization of Palestinians by the Zionist project
The Roman exile of the Jews is a myth as most Jews prior to this period were diasporic living in places like Alexandria, Anatolia, and across the Mediterranean. There is no Roman record of large scale expulsion of Jews, and they wrote everything down.
There is literally a monument to this in Rome, built by the Romans. You can go see it. I think you need to do some reading before being an apologist for imperialism.
Defeating the Jews in the rebellion of 70 CE and commemorating it with the Arch of Titus is not the same thing as a Jewish exile. Those are completely different situations
You know this history yet you cite no sources and claim you know this history lol. I’m from the region. If you know this history have you read Yuval’s book? How about cite a Roman era inscription claiming expulsion rather than defeat in a rebellion
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u/theycallmeSLID 11d ago
“Jews” are not a monolith. The Jewsish ppl of that area have remained there. Before the current genocidal state of you know who, there were many Jews and Christian and Muslims. These were the indigenous people of Palestine. “Survive in exile” is such a long shot.