Middle East/ru: Difference between revisions

The Palestinians need a homeland. Their homeland has been stripped from them by the people of Israel.<ref>In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a plan that divided the former British mandate of Palestine into two states: one majority Arab and one majority Jewish. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan and attacked Jewish civilian areas and paramilitary targets. Following Israel’s declaration of independence in May 1948, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan attacked the new state of Israel, but Israeli forces soundly defeated the Arab armies, and Israel took control of much of the territory that would have been allocated to the Arab state. During the war, 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled from their homes or were expelled by Zionist militias. Many refugees from the war expected to return once the fighting had ceased, but Israel made it illegal for them to return and brought in Jewish settlers to occupy the abandoned houses. An event that accelerated the Palestinian exodus was the April 14, 1948, attack on Deir Yassin, an Arab village near Jerusalem, carried out by Irgun, a Jewish terrorist organization. The attackers “killed most of its inhabitants—240 men, women, and children—and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem” (Isidore Abramowitz et al., letter to the ''New York Times'', published December 4, 1948, quoted by the messenger, July 18, 1982). Irgun also carried out attacks on the British administration in Palestine, including bombing the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, resulting in 91 deaths. Another wave of Palestinians fled as refugees during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. In the decades following the war, taking of Palestinian lands to build Jewish settlements accelerated, and by the late 1980s, the Israeli government had taken about 40% of the land that had been occupied by Palestinians on the West Bank. For a comprehensive legal analysis of the taking of Palestinian land, see Stacy Howett, “Palestinian Private Property Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories,” '''Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law''', 34:1, November 2000. [https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vjtl/vol34/iss1/3/ https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vjtl/vol34/iss1/3/]. This taking of Palestinian land continues today. For contemporary accounts, see: Norwegian Refugee Council, “[https://www.nrc.no/news/2023/august/west-bank-entire-palestinian-communities-disappeared-due-to-israeli-settler-violence/ West Bank: Entire Palestinian communities disappeared due to Israeli settler violence]”; Al Jazeera, “[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/silent-annexation-settlers-dispossess-west-bank-bedouins-amid-israel-war ‘Silent annexation’: Settlers dispossess West Bank Bedouins amid Israel war]”; Wikipedia, “[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_demolition_of_Palestinian_property Israeli demolition of Palestinian property]”; UN OCHA, “[https://www.ochaopt.org/data/demolition Data on demolition and displacement in the West Bank]”; and Isabel DeBre, “[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israel-ramps-up-demolition-of-palestinian-homes-in-jerusalem Israel ramps up demolition of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem],” AP/PBS.</ref> And therefore, because the whole world has neglected to hear their cause or give a just and lasting answer, they have taken it upon themselves to form their Palestine Liberation Organization with Yasser Arafat at the head, which has become militant. You always get fallen ones in the midst who will then ruin the very cause and image of the just cause of the people. And therefore, on all sides there is right and wrong—human relativity.<ref>Elizabeth Clare Prophet, lecture on Israel, July 1, 1982.</ref>