To start with the most obvious inaccuracy, “The seizure of the West Bank in particular was a Zionist goal before 1948, and fits into the Zionist project. The intention has always been to seize the most Palestinians land as possible with the fewest Palestinians it as possible.”
Israel begged Jordan to stay out of the 1967 war. Israel did not need or want an additional front in that war. Hussein felt honor bound to support his Arab brothers; Israel stepped up to the additional front and as a result Jordan lost its control and administration of the West Bank. If that was Israel’s ultimate goal, it was certainly not an objective in 1967.
At least as blatant, if not more so, is the claim that Hamas is not a terrorist organization. No matter how “noble” and “justifiable” its goals, terrorism is not an attribute of the virtue of one’s cause, it is a tactic that may be undertaken in support of that cause. October 7 was a textbook example of terrorism (and genocide) that will be cited for centuries.
It was never claimed that Palestine was “empty land.” It was a land without *a* people, i.e., not a nation and had never been a nation since Biblical times. Part of the same blatancy is the claim that Israel is colonialist. It was the Jews (Zionists) who fought British colonialism while the Arabs passively submitted as they had to the Ottoman Empire.
Israel never claimed that all the Arabs who left in 1948 did so voluntarily. Some chose not to live under a Jewish government, some left under the threat of the invading Arab armies to kill anyone found in the territory they conquered regardless of religion, many were forced out or threatened if they stayed. There is no single explanation or “blame.”
I could go on and on but I’ll conclude by pointing out that the “right of return” is an, in fact it is the, absolute non-starter and deal-breaker. The survival of Israel as a Jewish state is at stake and can never be part of any agreement.
