Understanding the past is essential for peace and we wish for all suffering to end.
The site
Sources are problematic. One issue is that anyone who writes anything can be quoted on the likes of Wikipedia where the words become authoritative to many readers. Beyond that, it’s easy to take even legitimate words out of context, twist opinions into facts, and package exceptions as the norm. For the origins and fundamentals of the Arab-Israeli conflict, we show verifiable, quality sources and use those mostly from the 1800s through the 1980s that, like the Associated Press and United Nations, often contradict their newer accounts. We also expose the handiwork of the propagandists.
“Radical Islam-Israeli conflict” is the most accurate name, but we went with Arab-Israeli because of its long and common usage. Arab Christians are barely a factor and a considerable percentage of the population in the territories, especially Gaza, descends from Egyptians and the vast majority of them do not have Arab DNA (article). “Palestinian-Israeli conflict” is inappropriate because the surrounding Arab states have always been a big part of the trouble and the pre-1948 inhabitants were not a nation.
The conflict in short
Thinking that Muslim violence is a response to Israeli actions is the basic misunderstanding. Everything Israel has done, albeit not always the wisest, has been reactions to the radicals, who have used the reactions as pretexts to further their objective to destroy Israel. The “resistance” is against Israel’s existence. The refugees of 1948 were a consequence of the Arab war against the Two-State Solution. Israel’s capture of the territories in 1967 was a response to years of Arab terrorism and warmongering. Afterwards, her control of the territories was about preventing the PLO from turning them into a terror state. The Gaza War was a consequence of Hamas actually turning the strip into a terror state- after Israel completed a withdrawal and ended a legal blockade in 2005. That’s the conflict.
Long before 1967 and long before 1948, the minority of extremists violently opposed the Jews from having any autonomy on even an inch of land, even though Palestine was never a state or independent to Muslims; much of their population was the result of immigration; were small in numbers; weren’t a nation; most of the land was uninhabited; the Jews were desperate to return home for the sake of security and freedom; and the Zionists purchased a lot of land- from Arabs. Most of the violence has been based on a radical Islamic belief.
Hamas and the other groups are the latest incarnations of those extremists. They are still against the Two-State Solution and deliberately hurt their own people because they understand much of the world will blame Israel and not them. There were always Arab moderates who wished to live in peace with the Jews, but the radicals have murdered, exiled or intimidated them. Through indoctrination, more and more of the public became extreme and directed their frustrations at Israel instead of their abusers. (Bridge For Peace, Muslim supporters, Son of Hamas.)
Instead of helping Israel deal with the core problem, most of the international community, and especially Arab, Muslim and anti-Western countries, have made it more difficult for her, leading to endless battles and misery on all sides. The Arab world waged war and terror for decades without ever compensating Israel. The Oslo Accords led to Gaza being free in 2005 and, instead of peace, Hamas staged a bloody coup, grew in power and turned it into a mini Iran. Israel wishes to avoid the same in the West Bank, yet the world keeps pushing her towards it.
It’s easy to cherry-pick excerpts, quotes and events to create a narrative.
“Fundamentals” refer to things that didn’t change with future revelations and are not opinions. Many old newspaper articles are not good sources, and having a majority of people in a given group with the same feeling over a matter does not mean they are correct.
For example, the War of 1967 was Israel’s legal response to years of terrorism and warmongering (see preview). That’s a simple, verifiable fact that cannot be denied. What Israel could have done afterwards is a matter of opinion, ideally based on knowledge. It’s unacceptable to say that Israel would have attacked had there been peace before June 1967.
Outside sources
Some links for more information about a particular point are only valid for that point. The few times we direct people to, say, a page of Alchetron or Wikipedia does not mean we find them reliable for other topics. We always seek neutral parties and only use quality Jewish voices to add details to other evidence.
Hotlinking
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