Comment by runarberg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by runarberg | Hacker News Reader

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> due to a war they started together with the surrounding Arab nations, while throwing out the Jews living in those Arab nations

I’m not super well versed in the specifics of this history, so correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t these things happen during and after the Nakba?

Reading the timeline of Wikipedia it seems as though expulsion had already started and was well on it way before the Arab League’s armies entered Palestine in May 1948.

Likewise reading about the history of Jewish people in Iraq[1] it seems that the persecution was very much a reaction to Zionist conduct in Palestine. As in most of the anti-jewish laws were passed between July and December 1948, which is several months to over a year into the Nakba.

These actions were certainly unjust and should be condemned, but to me it seems wildly ahistorical to blame the Nakba on them. Plan Dalet started in April 1948 before the Arab league invasion, and certainly before anti-jewish laws in Iraq. And Plan Dalet was not the first instance of ethnic cleansing by Zionsits in Palestine, but rather followed several months of escalations which included depopulating villages as early as November 1947.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Iraq#Mo...

EDIT: I also feel like it needs stated how weird of a justification that is. The Palestinians who were displaced during the Nakba had nothing to do with the Arab invasion and certainly not the discriminatory anti-jewish legislation in neighboring country. These refugees and their descendants are still to this day refugees now three to four generations later. It seems odd to continue to punish them with Apartheid and genocide to this day because of actions they had nothing to do with. Most other groups who have suffered similar and much smaller injustice have gotten apologies and even reparations for (a noticeable example are Japanese Americans after E.O. 9066). Palestinians however still get blamed for crimes they had nothing to do with, except having been victims.

Tbh starting the history doesn't at 1948 doesn't really help much. Around 1948 is when the Jewish and Palestinian narratives are already in full swing and have some of the strongest evidence for each side. On the Jewish side you'd have their invasion by the broader Arab world and their subsequent mentality that they have to defend themselves at all costs. On the Palestinian side you have the Nakba and the resulting trauma that forms their identity.

If you go back earlier you start to see the roots of the conflict more clearly. From Russian Jews being expelled out of Russia and looking towards the Ottoman empire and historic Judea as a place from their home, Ottoman policies around 1900s when they are hyper paranoid about quashing nationalism in their multi-ethnic empire and how that plays into their treatment of Jews they allow to immigrate into their lands, then the British control over Ottoman lands and how they tried to administer to it and designated Judea as a vague "Jewish National Home" which gave neither Jews nor Arabs clarity on the political reality of the region. Then there was the early immigration of Jews to Israel in the 1910s and 1920s which meets some Arab resistance and sparks violence, but the migration stops in the mid 1920s, so tensions cool a bit. Then in the 1930s the Nazis rise to power and immigration of Jews to Palestine _really_ starts. At this point the US has imposed strict quotas on Jews immigrating to the US (in around 1924), so for many Jews Palestine isn't their first choice, but it is a choice for them and the British seem serious about this "Jewish National Home" thing, so they go for it. Then comes the great Arab revolt in 1936 where Arabs in Palestine respond to the large influx of Jewish migrants, demand independence from Britain, and seek to end the Jewish National Home project. Somewhere around the early 1940s WW2 is in swing and the Nazis invade Egypt and establish a SS unit there whose purpose is the genocide the Jews in Palestine. This was a pretty close call, if it wasn't for a British victory in Egypt that held the Nazi's back, odds are the Middle East would look very different today.

And that brings us to 1948 when the British withdraw and the stage is set for the resulting chaos. So there you have it. On one side a population struggling to determine their national identity after the fall of a 600 year old empire and dealing with a large influx of immigrants that they don't want to their lands (and also still struggling to figure out what "their" means). On the other hand you have a group of people trying to flee their home country and having no option but this weird "Jewish National Home" that totally isn't a state according to the British despite it being maybe possible a state for Jews? Then in the middle of a clearly bad situation, Britain withdraws and the Jews and Palestinians have been dealing with the situation sense.

None of this is to say that one side is right or wrong. Rather, if you look around 1948 you're already missing a lot of the buildup to the conflict and the reason there is no trust between the two groups in 1948.

Agreed, the history by it self is not enough, except for the context it is put in. In the case of Israel Palestine this context matters. I like to put it in the context of colonialism and colonial warefare/resistance. Knowing the history is important, and 1948 is certainly a pivotal moment in history, but if you list events as if one thing leads to another (like my parent did) you, at best, end up with a simplistic view, a weird nonsensical justification and, at worst, wrong timeline and a confusing conclusion. Lying with history is after all a pretty known device to provide justification which otherwise wouldn’t be possible.

I like the context of colonization here because in 1948 Europe is in the middle of recolonizing regions lost during WW2 and the whole period after WW2 has been dominated by a) the cold war and b) decolonization. The cold war here seems irrelevant but decolonization seems important. Many post WW2 decolonization efforts were done via colonial warfare and resistance. Many of the colonial nations spent most of their military activity fighting resistance movements in their newly re-established colonies. Examples include the British army fighting the Mau Mau in Kenya, and the IRA in Northern Ireland, the French fighting FLN in Algeria, and the Americans fighting the Viet Cong in Vietnam. Even before WW2 the British were fighting Irish Republicans in Ireland.

In Palestine we have the British handing the colony of Palestine over to the UN in the hopes of a peaceful decolonization, which became moot when Israel declared independence in 1948. After 1967 it becomes obvious that Israel is the colonizer and Palestinians are the colonized. In 1967 Europe is desperately trying to keep colonialism alive so it makes sense they support another western colonizer in the Middle East. After 1967 we also have established resistance movements in Palestine such as the PLA (which later became superseded by Hamas and PIJ). By the 1990s, after the Cold war has ended, it becomes obvious that European colonialism is all but dead. However Israel remains as a beacon of hope, the last remaining colony of European settlers. But everyone knows it can’t stay like that. Decolonization is inevitable. And I think the hope is that the two-state solution is a way for the settlers to keep theirs while Palestine remains subjugated while not a proper colony (not learning the lesson from the partition of Ireland). This however failed, largely because Israel wished to keep colonizing Palestinians.

Of course this is simplistic. However this is the context in which I like to put this history.

I think you are reading too much into my response. The list of events isn't an attempt to justify anything. It is mainly to establish that what happens in 1948 isn't coming out of nowhere, but rather has been brewing and building up for a while in the region. If someone is only familiar with 1948, they're going to really struggle to understand the motivations of either side and will likely end up with a simplistic view of one side or the other as evil depending on what information they get.

As for the colonialist interpretation... that confuses more than it clarifies. There is enough substance to the conflict itself that we don't need to resort to grand sweeping historical narratives.

I didn't say the displacement of Palestinians was because Jews were displaced from the Arab world. What I am saying is if we're going to try to bring "justice" to things long past the plight of Jews in the Arab world should definitely be mentioned. I do think the Arab conduct before the invasion and the war mongering statements made by the Arab League threatening invasion and genocide planted the idea that this is a fight to the death (which I think it was) in the hearts of the Jews.

The Farhud massacre happened in 1941. I don't know if you can blame the whole thing on Zionism, I don't think most Iraqi Jews were Zionist at all - so looks more like Anti Semitism to me. You can say Zionism created the general hatred of Jews among Muslims, even Jews who weren't much into Zionism at all like Iraqi Jews back then. But even if that is the case, that's not really excusing anything. I also suspect for the population to turn against Jews so quickly there must have been seeds of hatred already planted long before, maybe due to culture and religion. Anyway It's quite complex and not something you can summarize in 3 sentences.

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