SovereignLife Freedom Blog

These maps are very misleading. For example, the 1946 map implies that all land not lived on by Jewish owners was, somehow, owned by Arabs or lived on by Arabs(who at that time did not call themselves by the name Palestinians. It was not until the 1960′s that Arafat chose to invent a national identity he named Palestinian). This is completely untrue. The land at that time was still occupied by the British who governed it under their “mandate”. The largest Southern part of the country was almost completely uninhabited, being mainly a desert, with the few living there being mostly Bedouin, who were nomadic and did not own land. In fact, much of the land was not owned by anyone. Areas in the north where Jewish people lived were mainly bought from absentee landlords who lived in Ankara or Damascus and had no interest in what had been a barren and malaria infested land. In fact, the arrival of Jews from Europe in the earlier part of the 20th century attracted many Arabs into Palestine (the British mandate of Palestine, not an Arab national entity) in search of employment.
Contrast this with the map on the right which is also wholly misleading. What this map actually shows is that all the white areas are governed by the Israeli government, whilst the areas marked in green are governed by the Palestinian Authority. What it does not show you is who “owns” the land, nor are all the towns and villages within the Green Line (i.e. Israel) which are wholly Arab. For those readers who are unaware of the fact, 1.5 million of Israel’s inhabitants/citizens are Arabs, who own land and houses in Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth, Acco, and numerous villages, many of which are steadily growing into towns.
The map of 1949-1967 simply shows the areas that were part of the by now soveriegn state of Israel, and the area of the West Bank that was under Jordanian rule, and nothing more. It has nothing to say about land ownership or who lived where.
Your readers need to be informed of the true facts, not of distorted facts or facts misused in order to perpetuate myths.

Juan Cole’s commentary is a biased analysis of what these maps represent, and a deceitful distortion of real historical facts, served up to suit a particular mindset. For those readers who “appreciate” his analysis, all I have to say to you is that you should not swallow everything Juan Cole has to say, nor should you dismiss what others, like Alan Dershovits has to say on the matter. Read a variety of perspectives and keep a balanced and open mind on a subject which is highly susceptible to irrational emotions. A history of any nation or country can be represented in ways to suit the writer’s prejudices rather than represent the truth, which is in itself not a fixed entity, as events can be described from differrent perspectives.

Perhaps you should go back further than the biased 1946 when Israel was previously the Jewish state, when all of the historical cities and villages were built by the Jews that lived there and see how the land was stolen by their aggressive neighbors. “Palestinians” did not build one city in Israel. Perhaps a little lesson in history that is a little older than 70 years.

Perhaps the Arabs should not have attacked Israel and lost the land in the war of independence in ’47. They lost ALL the wars, and now want the land back? If the so called Palestinians laid down their arms, there would be peace, if the Israelis laid down their arms, Israel would cease to exist. I lived in Israel for a year working on Kibbutz Beit Zera in the Jordan Valley. I worked side by side with Arabs everyday in the banana fields.

The ones that stayed in Israel have more rights than their neighbors in Arab countries do.
Odd isn’t it?

Why don’t you show a map of Israel AD70 and previous?

The son of a Hamas leader recently defected. If you see his interview which you can find on youtube you will know what reasonable people know, that is the Palestinians do NOT WANT PEACE, THEY ONLY WANT ISRAELI’S DEAD. And that is straight for the horses mouth.

When one looks at the vast amount of real estate in the Arab world versus the tiny little strip by the sea that is Israel, the ludicrousness of the Palestinian cause is evident.
For centuries hardly anybody did anything with that land and nobody was interested in it until the Jewish people began purchasing it and cultivating it. There was no such thing as a “Palestinian people” until 1948 when one group of people decided they wanted to reap the benefits from the work that others, i.e., the Jewish settlers, had done.
Like any other country, Israel isn’t without its problems and can’t claim to be a utopia. However it has risen to become a relatively prosperous democracy and a leader in technology and is the only country in the Middle East today that has succeeded in achieving that.
Most other Middle Eastern countries are stuck in the Dark Ages and what prosperity they do have only benefits 1% of the population.