Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 09, 2025, 04:32 AMWhere does the arrogance come from which says we have the right to decide how people we will never meet shall live?

It comes from power and conquest, and it goes all the way back to the beginning of recorded history.  A group of people must have a "homeland" where they are in the majority and make the laws by which everyone living in that space lives.

Back in Biblical times, Jews were the first monotheistic religion, and with God on their side they busily smote other tribes in the neighborhood.  Then they got enslaved by the Pharaohs and eventually got deported from the country and wandered around in the desert.  Meanwhile in Italy the Romans with their Pantheon of Gods got busy conquering everyone and building an empire.

Jews were still around, and over the years of the "diaspora" settled communities, the so called "13 Tribes" of Israel.  None were powerful enough to beat the Romans at the War game, but with the help of the Son of God they were able to convert the Roman Emperor to Christianity.  At least the Jews who accpted Jesus was the Messiah, anyhow.  The leftover Jews who did not accept this were once again in the minority to Christians.

Over thee intervening years without a homeland, Jews got shoved around from country to country generally being persecuted all the time.  Things were very unpleasant for them during the years of the Crusades and the Inquisition and later with the Pogroms in Russia.

Meanwhile also unable to conquer the now Christian Romans over in the Eastern part of the Empire, a new Messiah popped up named Mohamed.  He got enough followers for Islam to gain control over MENA, followed by centuries of warfare between Christians and Muslims fighting over land.

Then here on Turtle Island the Europeans showed up and didn't bother with trying to deport the natives, with their guns and the smallpox they were able to easily exterminate them and take over the whole continent.  They herded the few remaining stragglers onto reservations as their homelands.

Over in Europe Jews survived in pockets until Hitler came on the scene, and unable to deport all of them began the process of exterminating them.  Unfortunately for him and his antisemitic followers, he lost the war before he could finish the job, and left the winners of the war, the Brits and Amerikans with the problem of the leftover Jews in Eastern Europe.  Nobody wanted them in their countries, so the Brits who controlled Palestine as a colony and couldn't control it shipped the Jews there, where they formed an enclave where they were in the majority and expelled the Arabs, then they got the UN to give them official status as a country.  After 3000 years, Jews finally had a homeland of their own.

Sadly for them, the war in 1948 did not exterminate the Arabs who lived there before, and besides that as their population grew they wanted more of the land, thus you got the 6 Day war and expansion.  The Muslims in the neighborhood aren't happy with that, so they have been fighting it ever since with a terror war.

So, the origin of the problem is the Brits who held power over Palestine gave it to the Jews which made the Palestinians who lived there unhappy.  Did the Brits have the right to give the land to the Jews?  Sure they did, they  were the colonial owners of the property, not the Palestinians who lived there.  What Trump wants to do is create Reservations for the Palestinians to, the same way reservations were created here for the natives to move to.  This is the alternative to genocide in the takeover of land occupied by one group so another group can move in.  Might makes Right.

RE