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Mr Illmatic – in answer to your 1st question - yes, in 1967 Arab countries did aggressively attack Israel in an attempt to reclaim it for the Palestinians+ (to quote a notorious phrase) “push the Israelis into the [Mediterranean] sea”.
However, historical context is crucial to understanding this sorry saga so please bear with me while I wade through some history. 20 years before the 1967 war (1948), on an understandable wave of pro-Jewish sympathy following the Holocust, large chunks of Palestine (under British administration after WWI) were given to Jewish refugees from Europe.
Palestinians, not surprisingly, still call the taking of their country “The Catastrophy”. There followed a mass-exodus of Palestinians from what is now known as Israel. Palestinians say they had to flee for their lives after ongoing massacres by the Israeli army (approx. 1m Palestinians sought asylum in neighbouring Arab countries). The Israelis claim that most Palestinians voluntarily left their homes.
By 1967 the Israelis had invaded+occupied the majority of Palestine, apart from the West Bank+Gaza. The Arab countries of the 1960s were far more radical +supportive of the Palestinians than they are now (some had new quasi-socialistic/nationalist regimes with strong ties to the Soviet Union). So, in 1967, on behalf of their Palestinian cousins, an Arab coalition invaded Israel to reclaim Palestine but failed dismally. The Israelis, armed to the teeth with US-weaponry+intelligence, gave the invading Arab armies a bloody nose from which they have never really recovered.
The Israelis took advantage of this+ have occupied West Bank, Gaza+Golan Heights to this day, since becoming the willing US-backed rotweiler of the region … but times have moved on+now the vast majority of Palestinian groups+Arab states (all I think) now recognise Israel’s right to exist, even the most anti-Israeli states of Iran, Libya+Syria want a Palestinian-Israeli political settlement for both states. So far so good (or bad, depending on your point of view!) … but this is where it gets a bit complicated. To answer your second question Mr Illmatic, does the 1967 aggressive invasion by Arab states justify continued Israeli occupation? In my opinion NO - because the context and circumstances of the middle east+Israeli policy have changed entirely.
Since 1967 Israeli government policy - while overtly pursuing a ‘peace process’ mainly for international PR purposes - has also backed the physical colonisation of the rest of Palestine. A large network of generously-funded Israeli settlements have been expanding on a daily basis throughout the West Bank+Gaza during the last 20 years, particularly under Sharon. Palestinians are daily evicted/bombed out of their homes at any opportunity by the Israeli army. A deliberate Israeli policy of wiping out of the Palestinian economy, its culture, its physical infrastructure is rapidly becoming a new genocide.
As a justification up for this territorial expansion, the Israeli government puts up a mixture of historical air-brushing+claims that a Greater Israel is justified on the basis of biblical stories+Zionist ideology. Uncomfortable details like the fact that Palestinians have been the majority community (although the Jews were certainly a minority ethnic minority) since the 7th century are conveniently overlooked. It is a bit like Celts ‘returning’ to Essex to colonise+expel those imposter Angles+Saxons ‘back’ to Germany where they belong, so crazy is the far right Zionist argument. |
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