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Comment by skinkestek | Hacker News Reader

A more instructive question might be (warning: this is meant to get people thinking, but at least I'll be straight forward about it):

Why does nobody else follow up on the UN resolution from 1948?

(Just like in the case of India / Pakistan UN decided to divide the area into two parts, one for Jews, one for Arabs.)

I can also ask: why does so few other support the single somewhat functioning democracy in the region?

Then, on to your question: After initially being supportive of Israel, USSR took the other side early on and propped up the surrounding nations with weapons so US was kind of forced to do it.

Later on it has turned out to be a beneficial although controversial deal for both parts.

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Er... you mean the UN resolution which produced this map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_... ? Well, today Israel opposes the current "two state solution" proposal which would give the Palestinians a much smaller territory than on that map, so I kind of understand why the proposal from 1948 is not on the table anymore...

Yes, that map which the Arabs never accepted.

Please also keep in mind that Israel have occupied far more land - and promptly given it back as soon as a lasting peace agreement with the country in question was signed (more or less the entire Sinai. And the country who signed a lasting peace treaty and never had trouble with Israel again is Egypt).

Also, please keep in mind that significant more Jews has been chased out of surrounding Arab countries than Arabs from Israel so anyone asking if UN really divided it in a fair way should also have a good case if they weren't up against almost the entire western world, especially academia and journalists who by now have a deep and vested interest in keeping such facts of the table.

Edit: my point in the second paragraph is that I don't think it is fair to demand that Israel retreat from hard-to-attack positions that gives enemies significant advantages (especially Golan) without a lasting peace agreement.

Edit 2: as for Judea and Samaria which constitute a large part of the remaining "occupied territories" they were first captured by Jordan (which was supposed to be the Arab part of the British mandate from the start and which got 70% of the land before the UN resolution which cut the remaining 30% into a Jewish and an Arab part.)

Israel then took it from Jordan in the 1967 war and has been administering it since then.

"Yes, that map which the Arabs never accepted."

This is always presented with the implication that they should have accepted the plan.

I think if someone, even the UN came to you (and by 'you' I mean group of people of multiple religions living in your state / country etc ) and said "I've got a wonderful plan that I want you to accept. You people who currently live in the whole of this land will get to live in less than half of the land. What do you think about that?"

I'm not sure many people would accept this.

You bring up good points. I don't want to undermine them. I think I understand the people on the ground somewhat. My country was occupied for five years and it stuck around into well into my childhood ("Germans" were our natural enemies and the bad guys in pulp literature as well as war comics until well into my childhood at least.)

That said:

Want to hear a joke? The UN. [1]

Have you ever seen me defend the UN on this site?

But, when the UN is responsible for todays situation to such large degree, and when someone pulls out that map, then the fact that only one part agreed to that map becomes a point.

[1]: This however is not a joke: You know why there are so many resolutions from the UN against Israel compared to the other way around? Because USSR used its veto power to block almost every single proposal that suggested condemnation of Arab states while USA allowed a number of those who condemned Israel to slip through.

While it may be true that Jews were "chased out of the surrounding Arab countries", this doesn't justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. A crime is a crime.

Let's be clear, forcibly removing an indigenous population of over 750,000 people (this included my parents) is a crime. These refugees and their decedents have a right to return to their land. This has to be acknowledged and only then will the region move on.

Here, South Africa is a great example of a peaceful coexistence: while it has its problems, the country has moved on after Apartheid.

This is the root Palestinian problem. It's not a complicated story.

All you write until the part about South Africa more or less makes sense but you are leaving out a whole lot:

Yes, forcibly removing 750 000 people can absolutely be considered a crime.

But what then about the more than 750 000 Jews that were forcibly removed from their homes in the neighboring countries?

Should they also have the right to return?

Does it matter that Arab leadership encouraged your parents and others to leave? (In addition to the barbaric actions of certain Israeli groups.)

Because both sides are displaced, only your side was on top of that also betrayed by their own leadership and used as a pawn while the Israeli side took care of its own people including to a large degree Arabs who chose to stay.

When it comes to South Africa I have close friends and even relatives there. A fellow sysadmin friend of mine got knocked to the ground there by a gun (used to hit, not shoot) just last year in a robbery. People have to use guns, barbed wire and more to protect themselves. Politics is more or less crazy as far as I understand.

> I can also ask: why does so few other support the single somewhat functioning democracy in the region?

In the West Bank, Palestinians are not allowed to form an army, have control over borders, or even control of travel around the West Bank. So they are made to nit have their own country (which Israel opposes) but to be part of Israel. So can they vote for Knesset candidates? No. (Yet an orthodox Jew from Brooklyn who has never been to the Middle East can make aliyah to a West Bank settlement and vote for Knesset candidates immediately).

Some "democracy".

> > I can also ask: why does so few other support the single somewhat functioning democracy in the region?

> In the West Bank, Palestinians are not allowed to form an army, have control over borders, or even control of travel around the West Bank.

Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") isn't officially part of Israel as far as I understand. Naturally they don't have voting rights in Israel.

The democracy inside Israel is as I said above somewhat functioning, at least compared to the rest of the region.

> a beneficial although controversial deal for both parts.

How did the US benefit? Did that benefit go to the US population as a whole, or to a few oil companies? Does that benefit exceed the astronomical cost of the many middle eastern conflicts the US has gotten tangled in?

Intel has a significant presence there as has probably a number of other American companies and since they stay there despite the logistic and PR issues there must be some advantages.

A whole lot of other products and tech originate in Israel it seems, so much that every boycott Israel campaign only get so far before everyone figure out it isn't worth the trouble.

Besides Israel has been invaluable in getting intelligence about Russia, which as far as I have understood was the reason why the US military became so close friends with Israel in the first place.

> Intel has a significant presence there

That's a bit tail wagging the dog, isn't it? Intel has no trouble getting engineers to immigrate to the US when it comes to other countries.

> boycott Israel

There's a lot of room between "unquestioning military support" and "boycott".

> Intel has no trouble getting engineers to immigrate to the US when it comes to other countries.

For some reason Intel keep a significant presence in Israel. I'm not an Israeli and not an Intel employee so I can only guess that they find it beneficial somehow.

> There's a lot of room between "unquestioning military support" and "boycott".

Yes?

> For some reason Intel keep a significant presence in Israel.

A great many US companies have a significant presence in a great many countries, that receive far less in military aid and support.

> Yes?

Meaning that boycotts against Israel are irrelevant to what the US gains by supporting Israel - I assume that's why you brought them up?

> A great many US companies have a significant presence in a great many countries, that receive far less in military aid and support.

I think you are replying to something you think I said, let me explain below.

> Meaning that boycotts against Israel are irrelevant to what the US gains by supporting Israel - I assume that's why you brought them up?

No, the reason I brought it up is that if what I heard is correct we are very dependent on Israeli technology and products.

My point is that there are some strong rational reasons why Israel is an interesting partner for the US.

If there was too much bad blood to make that work in 1948, i'm not sure how adding 74 years of additional bad blood will make it any more likely.

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