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Comment by cnlevy | Hacker News Reader

> Israel was literally born out of political scheming

Its more of a popular jewish movement that over 100 years changed the ethnic composition of the Palestine region from 1-2% in the 1840s up to 30% in the 1940s.

Political scheming is secondary and was born well after the 1840s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palesti...

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  > changed the ethnic composition of the Palestine region from 1-2% in the 1840s up to 30% in the 1940s.

That was the Ottomans who made that change. After losing a war to Prussia, to collect more taxes in 1856 they openly encouraged migration of all peoples - Jews, Christians, Muslims alike - to the Levant area. By the 1870s Jerusalem was Jewish majority, half a century before the British Mandate era began and even before the First Aliyah.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerus...

I was referring to the well documented deals and shenanigans that were instrumental first to get the promise of support for an Israeli homeland, and then in the UN to get the partition plan approved.

Zionism itself is a product of 19th century nationalisms and of course of a (widespread at the time) colonial mindset.

Do you still think that today its a colonial project ?

Does Israel still encourage colonies in the west bank?

Have Israel and Palestine determined borders ? A ceasefire line is not a border after the ceasefire is broken and the front line moves

Do you really expect you can defend Israel with this kind of lawyering and be taken seriously? "Well akshually a ceasefire line...". For god's sake. Let's not even get into who has violated the supposed ceasefire first, or on the legality of settling your population outside of its line, violated or not (spoiler: illegal in any case). Settlements have been declared illegal many times during the decades, most recently this year by the ICJ, and Israel has known this perfectly well since the start.

Legality ends up following the de-facto reality. What's the future of the legality of Golan annexion ? With the new Syria, its soon going to become legal.

Jewish people coming back to live on its ancient homeland has no legal basis; It's their collective will which allowed its coming into existence (continuous immigration from other countries since the 1840s).

The legality of its existence wouldn't help it survive even one second.

> Do you still think that today its a colonial project ?

Thanks for answering your own question.

So all palestinian Arabs are autochtones and all palestininan Jews are colonists. How many generations to lose that status then ?

> Legality ends up following the de-facto reality.

Then what was the purpose of your previous objection about ceasefire lines? None. You just threw it there hoping to derail the argument with a pointless distraction, and now that it didn't work you are saying legality doesn't matter. This fundamental, shameless dishonesty is common to most defenders of Israel and frankly unsufferable.

I was asking why the post-1948 ceasefire lines are more legal than the post-1967 lines ? If you decide to go after the 1947 UN partition, keep the 1947 lines as the only legal border. If the 1948 war can redefine what's legal, then the 1967 war can do it as well.

I personally think the borders should be decided between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The only agreement to date between them has been the 1991 Oslo accords, with A, B and C zones. Further talks about definitive borders stopped with the Second Intifada in 2000.

Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to their indigenous homeland. Your Western leftist ideology have twisted the definition to your own agenda.

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