Israel - Hamas War V

[Bironic]

2 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

What are these secular Nationalisms we're saying influenced the Zionists? If we mean Britain, France, Germany, etc, then calling it secular is bizarre. These nations were anything but secular during that period.

Meaning they were not religious by nature. French after 1789 were not French because they followed a specific religious denomination but because they spoke French...(or were made to speak French one might argue), and this is also true for almost all the other national movements in 19th century europe. This is a bit different with Zionism obviously since while partly secular(most of the leaders weren't very religious) it was also religious since it was Jewish(which is a religion) and not for example all the German, Yiddish or Hebrew speakers(no matter their religious affiliation).

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

So lets focus on this. A grievous harm was perpetuated in Europe

Yes and you know what was the lesson Europe learnt from it?(Not only talking about the Holocaust here, since that was just one of the many horrors Europe endured during that time) Do not dwell on old grievances. Not only 800000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in 1911/1947-1949 but 800000 Jews (only counting here the ones from Arab/muslim states), 14 million Germans, millions of south asians, millions  of basically every european nation or ethnicity (with the exception of the Swiss ), borders were changed at the whim of imperalist powers that had no regard for the common man, spheres of influence were drawn on maps, walls were built separating entire families, people lost their life, their dignity, their land, their money, they had no right to return, those wars and borders destroyed decades, centuries even millenia of histories... and what did europe learn from it, if you want to formulate it in a very harsh one liner: shit was done, let's move on(this is meant as a joke not at face value). Not saying its easy, it took us ages to come to that point, and there are still significant parts of politicians that would love to revise some of those old injustices, and some actually do... but that's a different topic...

Have to read the rest of your posts to answer those points, will take some time.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Bironic

[Ran]

IDF must be reading these threads, as a spokesperson just said that the ground invasion will be called off if Hamas were to exit their tunnels, release their hostages, and surrender.

I think it's a good deal, they should give it serious consideration.

 

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

IDF must be reading these threads, as a spokesperson just said that the ground invasion will be called off if Hamas were to exit their tunnels, release their hostages, and surrender.

I think it's a good deal, they should give it serious consideration.

Yeah, I think they'll be right behind Putin lining up for surrender to the ICC 

[Ran]

Just now, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Yeah, I think they'll be right behind Putin lining up for surrender to the ICC 

Yep.

Saw an assessment on the BBC that the UK thinks Russia has suffered 480,000 killed and wounded to date. Shocking number.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

I know not all of the people I've been responding to have been saying colonialism is unimportant, or a canard, so I apologize if I'm overemphasizing this point in response to that atrocious comment. But to me, as a child of another land divided and scarred and left with religious divisions that were stoked for the profit of Empire, a post-colonial analysis of Israel and Palestine is the only one that gives a unifying narrative to Israeli's and Palestinian's, and dwelling on the harms of that time allow us to imagine a way forward that is respectful of the people on the ground, their histories, and devoid of the tactics and strategies of the colonial powers that are still so broadly used today.

I don't think this is true. The British undoubtedly made an unholy mess of this region (as they did in many places) and so yes, modern colonialism is responsible for the initial conditions that ultimately lead to this conflict, but colonialism has little to do with what happened in the next three quarters of a century. The issue here is that this specific bit of land is extremely important to the participants of the conflict and no side will give it up without being forced to do so. In fact, this has been true for a very long time now and this region has been hotly contested for millennia and changed hands dozens of times. It's not at all the same set of motivations as colonialism.

[Bironic]

14 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

The scars of Britain and France's colonial ambitions are the pathways of today's strife in so many places. Yet note, they continue to have a fucking veto over international decision making.

No one with a certain level of education and knowledge disputes that colonialism was morally wrong, and had massive negative impacts including but not only genocide, slavery etc. France and UK having veto power is obviously stupid, but so is russian veto power and so is this form of veto power in general... (This form of Veto power was the price Roosevelt had to pay to get Stalin into the UN, so you could blame him if you like...BTW France and the UK have not used their Veto power in ages and tend to not use it often anyway, that's more a chinese-russian-american thing). Obviously Veto power has massive advantages but if you look at the world countries like Germany, Japan, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia etc. are as important or more important now than UK or France... not to mention the only two superpwers USA and PRC (And France & UK weren't the only colonial powers btw)

[fionwe1987]

18 minutes ago, Bironic said:

Meaning they were not religious by nature. French after 1789 were not French because they followed a specific religious denomination but because they spoke French...(or were made to speak French one might argue), and this is also true for almost all the other national movements in 19th century europe. This is a bit different with Zionism obviously since while partly secular(most of the leaders weren't very religious) it was also religious since it was Jewish(which is a religion) and not for example all the German, Yiddish or Hebrew speakers(no matter their religious affiliation).

This is patently untrue. If you'll go through the link I provided, you'll see that the UK, specifically, had many major political figures supporting Zionism because they couldn't conceive of Jews as a genuine part of British citizenry. They were Europe's "people apart". This "apartness" wasn't purely religious, but also has to be taken in the broader context of British and European views on all non-White ethnicities. For this reason, any definition of colonial Britain as "secular" is incorrect. 

18 minutes ago, Bironic said:

Yes and you know what was the lesson Europe learnt from it?(Not only talking about the Holocaust here, since that was just one of the many horrors Europe endured during that time) Do not dwell on old grievances. Not only 800000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in 1911/1947-1949 but 800000 Jews (only counting here the ones from Arab/muslim states), 14 million Germans, millions of south asians, millions  of basically every european nation or ethnicity (with the exception of the Swiss ), borders were changed at the whim of imperalist powers that had no regard for the common man, spheres of influence were drawn on maps, walls were built separating entire families, people lost their life, their dignity, their land, their money, they had no right to return, those wars and borders destroyed decades, centuries even millenia of histories... and what did europe learn from it, if you want to formulate it in a very harsh one liner: shit was done, let's move on(this is meant as a joke not at face value). Not saying its easy, it took us ages to come to that point, and there are still significant parts of politicians that would love to revise some of those old injustices, and some actually do... but that's a different topic...

Have to read the rest of your posts to answer those points, will take some time.

Here's a question. Take out the Nuremberg trials and the reckoning over the Holocaust. Do you think Europe would have been able to move on without it? Imagine Germany, as a state, refused to teach the Holocaust in its schools much, and most of its citizens today dismissed the Holocaust as a minor part of their history, and when you bring it up, you're as why you don't talk about the good things Hitler did. Would the Europe of today be possible in such a world?

Bear in mind that about 84% of the world's land was European colonial possession at one time or another, and while that number was lower by the mid-1940s, there was no reckoning at all for the crimes committed and the horrors inflicted over the preceding centuries. And before someone brings up older empires, none compare in size or the period of time, or the rapacious greed and wealth transfer of the European colonial project.

Nor was any measure of equality or respect afforded to former colonies once they gained independence. Instead, their colonial rulers were rewarded in the new world order, allowed a great pantomime of moral superiorty, and to this day, they remain top of the heap of global power that is shaped to their advantage.

We will move on. Once there is acknowledgment, apology and some kind of restitution. Instead, we have denial, dismissal and continued bullying and imposition of a crafted narrative. That is no recipe for reconciliation and moving on. That's the move of bullies, comfortable in the knowledge they have the bigger stick.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I don't think this is true. The British undoubtedly made an unholy mess of this region (as they did in many places) and so yes, modern colonialism is responsible for the initial conditions that ultimately lead to this conflict, but colonialism has little to do with what happened in the next three quarters of a century.

I don't understand how this follows at all. One side was aggrieved by specific acts done by a colonizing power and that aggrievement is very much to do with all the conflict. Arab nations in particular are affected by this - they do not want to support Palestinians directly very much (and have pointedly not done so) but there is broad public support for the Palestinian cause - because of that injustice 75 years ago. If it weren't for that Israel would have had a significantly easier time normalizing relationships with the rest of the Arab league and other countries in the area. That injustice is pretty much the direct cause of Egypt's leader being assassinated and Jordan going through a coup - because the leadership was called out as not respecting that aspect for Palestinians. 

Reducing it to 'that piece of land' is, well, reductive and not useful in simplifying it. It is why Palestinians and Arab countries do not want to accept refugees or open borders, it is why so many countries still have a hard time with Israeli normalization, it is why countries like Syria are threatening to attack Israel right now - because there is so much popular support for Palestinians in theory. 

[Zorral]

18 minutes ago, Bironic said:

(This form of Veto power was the price Roosevelt had to pay to get Stalin into the UN, so you could blame him if you like..

FDR died on April 12th, 1945.

https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/55407.htm#:~:text=Roosevelt determined that U.S. leadership,concept of the United Nations.

Delegates of fifty nations met in San Francisco, California, USA, between 25 April and 26 June 1945 at the United Nations Conference on International Organization.

[Bael's Bastard]

The British (whose pro-Arab and anti-Jewish contingent are being glossed over in the revisionist accounts here) together with pressure from Arab Palestinians were directly responsible for preventing large numbers of Jews from being able to immigrate to Jewish areas of Palestine, leaving them to be murdered by the Nazis.

The plan to partition Palestine between Jewish Palestinians (with room for refugees from Arab and European lands) and Arab Palestinians was not an injustice. And the only reason the Nakba happened was because Arab Palestinians and their Arab League allies tried to commit genocide/ethnic cleansing against Jewish Palestinians and the Jewish state they founded for Jews wherever they had been exiled to.

Their attempt and failure created a catastrophe for them where they intended a catastrophe for Jewish Palestinians.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Bael's Bastard

[fionwe1987]

8 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I don't think this is true. The British undoubtedly made an unholy mess of this region (as they did in many places) and so yes, modern colonialism is responsible for the initial conditions that ultimately lead to this conflict, but colonialism has little to do with what happened in the next three quarters of a century. The issue here is that this specific bit of land is extremely important to the participants of the conflict and no side will give it up without being forced to do so. In fact, this has been true for a very long time now and this region has been hotly contested for millennia and changed hands dozens of times. It's not at all the same set of motivations as colonialism.

I'm not saying at all that colonialism caused the fissures. I'm saying it exploited the fissures and inflamed them, for considerations, financial and geopolitical, of rulers far away who had little concern for a sustainable, long term, non-extractive governance in the region. And those inflammations do indeed have relevance to what came after.

"Divide and Rule" is the name given to this strategy. And as you've noted, the divisions that were used existed before colonial rule, but they were also codified and given legal power in new ways while the British ruled. In Palestine, this took the form of laws that hindered purchase of land by Arabs. In India, this included creating constituencies for different religions, assigning legislative power based on religious identity over geography, language and other considerations. 

These laws and political structures reinforced these divisions, and gave them new battlegrounds, and this was explicitly done to keep the local populace from uniting against British rule. That is, to benefit someone in England, horrifyingly illogical and stupid governance decisions were taken, that meant the displacement of tens of millions of people as these political concepts the British introduce took force and ran completely out of the control of the British. At which point, they beat a hasty retreat, drawing nonsensical lines on maps without going on the ground, talking to people, listening to what they wanted and aspired to.

Those lines on the maps, surely, are fair grounds for criticism even today, because those are the flash points of conflict, and they literally did not exist before the British. To use a modern term, the British gerrymandered Palestine and India, and placed lines bang in the middle of mixed communities, and fear of being in the wrong side of these lines caused mass displacement during both the Nakhba and Partition. There are people alive today who have just a rock or a bottle of soil from their homes, with little hope of going back, or even meeting their childhood friends and sometimes, family that stayed behind.

1 minute ago, Bironic said:

No one with a certain level of education and knowledge disputes that colonialism was morally wrong, and had massive negative impacts including but not only genocide, slavery etc. France and UK having veto power is obviously stupid, but so is russian veto power and so is this form of veto power in general... (This form of Veto power was the price Roosevelt had to pay to get Stalin into the UN, so you could blame him if you like...BTW France and the UK have not used their Veto power in ages and tend to not use it often anyway, that's more a chinese-russian-american thing). Obviously Veto power has massive advantages but if you look at the world countries like Germany, Japan, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia etc. are as important or more important now than UK or France... not to mention the only two superpwers USA and PRC (And France & UK weren't the only colonial powers btw)

On this, my prescription is simple. No permanent members in the Security Council. You want to be permanent, earn it permanently. No one gets a veto. But there is an exit clause, and if an action taken by the Security Council is such that a member state decides to exit, this should prompt a General Assembly debate automatically, and recommendations should be made to modify the charter that may induce the exiting nation to come back, if there is popular will for it in the General Assembly.

Basically, a more democratic UN.

But I suspect the UN will have to go the way of the League of Nations before we get to something like this.

[Bironic]

1 minute ago, fionwe1987 said:

This is patently untrue. If you'll go through the link I provided, you'll see that the UK, specifically, had many major political figures supporting Zionism because they couldn't conceive of Jews as a genuine part of British citizenry. They were Europe's "people apart". This "apartness" wasn't purely religious, but also has to be taken in the broader context of British and European views on all non-White ethnicities. For this reason, any definition of colonial Britain as "secular" is incorrect.

I think we are talking about two different things here, I talk about the european phenomenon of Nationalism in the period 1789-1945 and you are talking about the ramifications of imperialism in the world. Secular means non religious it doesn't mean that brown people are equivalent to whites(which they clearly weren't in the 19th century, or that slaves and other colonial subjects had equal rights, or women). Also I would argue that british nationalism is very distinct from the european nationalisms emerging in that period because they already had a state, (plus they were largely unaffected by either the French revolution or Napoleon, which were the major drivers in europe) while a lot of european nations/ethnicities had no state. And thus the influence of those movements (the finnish, polish, german, italian, norwegian, hungarian, serbian, czech etc) on Zionism: None of those had a state. The emergence of Zionism amongst jews in Europe starts at the same time as other European ethnicities start to want their own state, while the mizrahi jews in the muslim world were completely unaffected by european nationalist movements(not by colonialism though). That's not historically disputed. And as mentioned before while Zionism was partly secular it obviously coulnd't be in the same way as german(or any other european) nationalism since it was also jewish, which is a religion, while german or hungarian is obviously not a religion or even a religiuos denmination but a language.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, fionwe1987 said:

On this, my prescription is simple. No permanent members in the Security Council. You want to be permanent, earn it permanently. No one gets a veto. But there is an exit clause, and if an action taken by the Security Council is such that a member state decides to exit, this should prompt a General Assembly debate automatically, and recommendations should be made to modify the charter that may induce the exiting nation to come back, if there is popular will for it in the General Assembly.

Basically, a more democratic UN.

But I suspect the UN will have to go the way of the League of Nations before we get to something like this.

This would be a really good way to ensure that none of those major security council nations would be part of the UN or anything like it. 

[Zorral]

If you have access through your libraries and / or subscription, these London Review of Books pieces should be of interest.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/
 
New on the blog
 
Podcast: War in Gaza, with Amjad Iraqi, Michael Sfard and Adam Shatz
 
On the latest LRB podcast, Adam Shatz is joined by Amjad Iraqi, a senior editor at +972 Magazine, and Michael Sfard, a leading human rights lawyer based in Tel Aviv, to discuss the developing Hamas-Israel war. They talk about the roots and ramifications of the current crisis, and its dire implications for the inhabitants of Gaza. For Israelis and Palestinians alike, the current conflict reinforces intergenerational trauma: the deep-rooted fear of expulsion and annihilation. This conversation was recorded on Tuesday 17 October.

Listen here --- https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/war-in-gaza

‘Get out of there now’
Amjad Iraqi
 
‘For the far-right demagogues in power in Israel this is a historical opportunity to fulfil as much of their wish list as possible: the destruction of large parts of Gaza, the elimination of Hamas’s political and military apparatus, and, if possible, the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians into the Egyptian Sinai.’ Read more
  
An Open Letter on the Situation in Palestine
 
‘We call on our governments to demand an immediate ceasefire and the unimpeded admission of humanitarian aid into Gaza. We also demand an end to all arms shipments and military funding, supplies that can only exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe at hand.’ Read more
    
This was not a pogrom
Jo Glanville
 
‘It is the Palestinians who are stateless now. Hamas’s terrorism has caused devastating damage and death, but it does not have a military arsenal and infrastructure to compare with Israel’s – which is currently being deployed against Gaza – or such powerful allies.’ Read more

[fionwe1987]

1 minute ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

This would be a really good way to ensure that none of those major security council nations would be part of the UN or anything like it. 

And that is the proof that they are bullies, not responsible members of a global governance that prizes justice and peace. 

I mean, America isn't part of the ICC, so this is obviously true today. Which is also why you can't take the UN as some kind of true trans-national body which is insulated from the national agendas of the Permanent members. Its "fairness" is tinted through their lenses, and while the fact that they're often busy shooting at each other means they can't use the UN to actively force their agenda forward, they can keep it in limbo from doing anything useful. Its a dumbass system that has no chance of success in the long term. 

The current UN structure assumes a, well, permanence to the world order. The more the gap between the real world and this structure, the weaker the UN becomes till it will inevitably get shaken up. 

 

[Bironic]

12 minutes ago, Zorral said:

FDR died on April 12th, 1945.

https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/55407.htm#:~:text=Roosevelt determined that U.S. leadership,concept of the United Nations.

Delegates of fifty nations met in San Francisco, California, USA, between 25 April and 26 June 1945 at the United Nations Conference on International Organization.

Quote

The idea of a veto over the actions of international organisations was not new in 1945. In the League of Nations, every member of the League Council had a veto on any non-procedural issue.^[9] At the foundation of the League, there were 4 permanent and 4 non-permanent members. The League Council had expanded by 1936 to have 4 permanent and 11 non-permanent members, which meant that there were 15 countries with veto power. The existence of such a large number of vetoes made it very difficult for the League to agree on many issues.

The veto was the result of extensive discussion during the negotiations for the formation of the United Nations at Dumbarton Oaks (August–October 1944) and Yalta (February 1945).^[10] The veto provision became known as the Yalta formula.^[11] The evidence is that the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and China all favored the principle of unanimity, not only out of desire for the major powers to act together, but also to protect their own sovereign rights and national interests.^[12]Harry S. Truman, who became President of the United States in April 1945, wrote: "All our experts, civil and military, favored it, and without such a veto no arrangement would have passed the Senate."

From Wikipedia, I was wrong apparently... The big 4 seemed to all wanted to have Veto powers...

[Zorral]

"There is a huge fear in US military and defense policy circles today that the Israel-Hamas war will skid out of control into a regional war that will bring Iran and US directly into the conflict. For a taste of this read Tom Friedman’s column from late last week. It’s a genuinely frightening read."

Gift link to non-subscriber members: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/on-the-brink-4/sharetoken/1IPyjdJqXVLV

Quote

 

I want to note several interconnected developments in the news coming out of the Middle East today.

Already battered by his ongoing criminal prosecution and attempted judicial coup, Benjamin Netanyahu’s standing with the Israeli public appears to have been shattered by the October 7th massacres in southern Israel. In such a perilous position Netanayhu’s allies in and out of government have been spreading various stab-in-the-back type storylines seeking to evade responsibility for the events of October 7th.

The best way I can describe this is that Israel has its own version of the Fox News-rooted right wing big lie machine that Americans are familiar with here. That has been in overdrive for the last three weeks. It has included the government briefing reporters against the country’s security establishment, placing the blame for the massacres squarely on the IDF and Shin Bet, the country’s domestic intelligence and security service.

This is just one example of how Netanyahu’s continued tenure in office has genuinely existential stakes for Israel. Netanyahu has always been known as a conniving and manipulative figure. Lots of successful politicians have been. But in a moment of profound national crisis it is a huge liability for a country to be led by a man who faces dire risks to his reputation, power and liberty that have nothing to do with solving the crisis at hand.

Today Anshel Pfeffer, a reporter with the liberal daily Haaretz, writes that the government’s briefing against the country’s defense establishment has started pushing a new line: the generals don’t care about limiting IDF casualties. They are trying to rush into a ground invasion before before using bunker-busting bombs to do as much damage as possible to Hamas’s network of underground tunnels. In return, the defense establishment started briefing a counter-message. They didn’t attack or name Netanyahu directly but said simply that they are merely following the government’s orders.

The gist seems to be this. The government ordered an all out mobilization with all that entails: a massive reserve call up, securing borders, assembling all the resources for a ground invasion. As a strictly military matter if you get everything prepared and ramped up and then wait, eventually your readiness and effectiveness starts to decline. So what the military seems to be saying is: You told us to get everything ready to move right away. We did. So we need to move now. But the government isn’t quite ready.

There are lots of different considerations at play on both sides of this equation, many of them reasonable, others less so. The fact that there is so little trust between the two sides at such a moment of national crisis is a big deal in itself. But we can get some visibility into what’s happening here from what my seem like a very different side of the story.

President Biden has made a huge and public show of support for Israel. Increasingly in both countries it’s been seen as a bear hug of sorts: an enveloping embrace, promises of money, arms, strategic military support and more and yet focused in many ways on not just on supporting but exercising control over Israel’s coming ground invasion. Key US goals are keeping Israel focused on limiting civilian casualties and figuring out a political solution for Gaza after Hamas. If Gaza is left in anarchy after Hamas is toppled or put back under Israeli military occupation, even the most successful military operation will just delay a return to some version of October 6th.

But the US also has more concrete and immediate goals, which seem to be playing at least some role in the delay of a ground operation. One is the desire, already getting some play in the US press, to negotiate the freedom of more hostages before a ground campaign begins. But a more immediate issue is beefing up the defenses of US military forces in the region. This is something getting a lot less attention in the US press.

There is a huge fear in US military and defense policy circles today that the Israel-Hamas war will skid out of control into a regional war that will bring Iran and US directly into the conflict. For a taste of this read Tom Friedman’s column from late last week. It’s a genuinely frightening read. The US is presently rushing lots of resources into the region both to deter attacks on US forces by Iranian proxy militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and other countries and if necessary retaliate against them. It’s become more clear to me in recent days that those two carrier groups sent to the region aren’t there just to deter Hezbollah and Iran from attacking Israel but to deter attacks US military forces throughout the region.

Many factors figure into Israel’s decision when to begin a ground invasion. I can’t say delays are because of this specifically. But it seems certain that the US rush to reinforce its deployments in the region is playing at least some role in the delay. To return to our earlier topic, this is a clear reason why the political and military leaderships in Israel could be reacting to very different priorities at the moment.

 

 

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

And that is the proof that they are bullies, not responsible members of a global governance that prizes justice and peace. 

I mean, America isn't part of the ICC, so this is obviously true today. Which is also why you can't take the UN as some kind of true trans-national body which is insulated from the national agendas of the Permanent members. Its "fairness" is tinted through their lenses, and while the fact that they're often busy shooting at each other means they can't use the UN to actively force their agenda forward, they can keep it in limbo from doing anything useful. Its a dumbass system that has no chance of success in the long term. 

The current UN structure assumes a, well, permanence to the world order. The more the gap between the real world and this structure, the weaker the UN becomes till it will inevitably get shaken up. 

It's just a requirement of the real world. The US will not (and honestly for the US folks, should not) give another governing party the ability to dictate to the US what it can and cannot do. The UN is not a global governance body nor was it ever intended as such. 

But yes, the US does not prize justice and peace over its own national interests. When they align, great, but often they don't. That's what nations are. You can either have a very imperfect organization that can help some of the time and get some of the major nations involved and participating - or you can have nothing but one-off agreements and random squabbling, like Trump wants. Take your pick, I guess, but I'd prefer the former. 

[Altherion]

20 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

I don't understand how this follows at all. One side was aggrieved by specific acts done by a colonizing power and that aggrievement is very much to do with all the conflict. Arab nations in particular are affected by this - they do not want to support Palestinians directly very much (and have pointedly not done so) but there is broad public support for the Palestinian cause - because of that injustice 75 years ago. If it weren't for that Israel would have had a significantly easier time normalizing relationships with the rest of the Arab league and other countries in the area. That injustice is pretty much the direct cause of Egypt's leader being assassinated and Jordan going through a coup - because the leadership was called out as not respecting that aspect for Palestinians.

This is putting the cart before the horse: the animosity of the Arab nations towards Israel was the direct cause of the "injustice" 75 years ago (I put the word in quotation marks because it was not so much an injustice as it was a war). Back when the UN was not a hopelessly corrupt and nearly useless agglomeration of bureaucrats, it came up with a plan for the partition of the territory between Jews and Arabs. Today, this partition would be considered extremely generous for the Palestinians, but the Arab states would not agree to it and invaded the newly formed Israel instead. They lost a whole lot more territory than they won and they've been angry about the results ever since.

13 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

I'm not saying at all that colonialism caused the fissures. I'm saying it exploited the fissures and inflamed them, for considerations, financial and geopolitical, of rulers far away who had little concern for a sustainable, long term, non-extractive governance in the region. And those inflammations do indeed have relevance to what came after.

"Divide and Rule" is the name given to this strategy. And as you've noted, the divisions that were used existed before colonial rule, but they were also codified and given legal power in new ways while the British ruled. In Palestine, this took the form of laws that hindered purchase of land by Arabs. In India, this included creating constituencies for different religions, assigning legislative power based on religious identity over geography, language and other considerations. 

These laws and political structures reinforced these divisions, and gave them new battlegrounds, and this was explicitly done to keep the local populace from uniting against British rule. That is, to benefit someone in England, horrifyingly illogical and stupid governance decisions were taken, that meant the displacement of tens of millions of people as these political concepts the British introduce took force and ran completely out of the control of the British. At which point, they beat a hasty retreat, drawing nonsensical lines on maps without going on the ground, talking to people, listening to what they wanted and aspired to.

So far, I fully agree with you.

14 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Those lines on the maps, surely, are fair grounds for criticism even today, because those are the flash points of conflict, and they literally did not exist before the British. To use a modern term, the British gerrymandered Palestine and India, and placed lines bang in the middle of mixed communities, and fear of being in the wrong side of these lines caused mass displacement during both the Nakhba and Partition. There are people alive today who have just a rock or a bottle of soil from their homes, with little hope of going back, or even meeting their childhood friends and sometimes, family that stayed behind.

But this is not what happened in Israel and Palestine. There was an attempt to come up with some division that most of the world could agree on, but the Arabs would not have it -- they wanted the whole territory.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Altherion said:

This is putting the cart before the horse: the animosity of the Arab nations towards Israel was the direct cause of the "injustice" 75 years ago (I put the word in quotation marks because it was not so much an injustice as it was a war). Back when the UN was not a hopelessly corrupt and nearly useless agglomeration of bureaucrats, it came up with a plan for the partition of the territory between Jews and Arabs. Today, this partition would be considered extremely generous for the Palestinians, but the Arab states would not agree to it and invaded the newly formed Israel instead. They lost a whole lot more territory than they won and they've been angry about the results ever since.

Yeah, again - this is gross reduction and not really representative of what happened or - more importantly - the very long aggrievement that Arab nations have towards this. 

A very large part of the anger comes directly from Palestinians being kicked out and forced to leave - the Nakba. That the word for this literally means 'the catastrophe' should give you an idea of how serious this is. This is one of the biggest parts of the tension - the denial of Palestinians to have a right to return to their homes.

Like @Ran said, this is more of an idea and principle - a whole lot of Palestinians out there, the vast majority, do not remember or have any direct tie to that land any more. Their last 3 generations have been in Gaza or West Bank or Jordan or Egypt or in the US, and many of them have absolutely no interest in returning. But the idea of it remains this massive, festering wound, this massive injustice to Arabs everywhere. It doesn't have to do with the specific valuable land, or getting back to a 1948 or 1967 agreement. 

The Nakba is probably the defining part of what makes a Palestinian a specific ethnic and national identity in the way a lot of persecutions and trauma unite peoples. Ignoring this or making it just about a bunch of land is again ignoring a VERY big part of what the conflict is about - and more importantly, understanding what the states in the region and their populace want. As an example, giving Palestinians the West Bank as a country may sound like a step in the right direction or a big win, but to those people it would be making the Nakba permanent and legal.