Who is right Israel or Palestine?

Answer 1

Israel is Israel and Palestine is Palestine. Confusion occurs because both things refer to an extant piece of land with people living on it, a nationality, an ethnicity, and a prior piece of land which no longer exists.

Israel is a Jewish State that contains territory from the former British Mandate of Palestine. The remainder of the British Mandate of Palestine belongs to the modern Palestinian State. Israel is a majority Jewish population who returned from their Exile in Europe and the Middle East. Palestinians are a majority Arab population whose families lived in the region for centuries. Palestinians did not simply become Israelis (except for those who did not flee during the Israeli-Arab War of 1948-9) or vice versa.

If the question is asking why Israel exists where Palestine formerly existed, the premise is faulty. Palestine was the name that the British assigned to that piece of land regardless of its history. Prior to the British, the Ottomans administered Palestine as three distinct regions: Vilayet of Beirut (which included Lebanon and northern Israel), the Vilayet of Damascus (which included Syria, Jordan, and southern Israel), and the Mutasaffirat of Jerusalem (which included central Israel and the Palestinian Territories). The name had nothing to do with the previous administration or the indigenous peoples.

As a result, when the Palestinian Jews declared independence, they chose to call their country according to how they see themselves. This is no different than how the British colony of Rhodesia in Africa became independent as Zambia in the north and Zimbabwe in the south. Since the British name was unconnected to the people on that land, the people reasserted their own identity. Since the Palestinian Arabs did not have a unique identity prior to Israeli independence, they continued to use the term Palestinian to describe their experience.

Answer 2

This is a complex issue and both sides claim that they are in the right. This is necessarily a heated question and so it will be impossible to get an unbiased answer. This confrontation pushes both sides into a corner where they each play the "victim card" and say unequivocally that if the world were perfect they would be in charge. Typically the positions concerning "Who is right" go in this way.

Israel:

1) UN Resolution 181: In 1947 the UN Partition Plan, which was passed into law split the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish and Arab State. The Jews decided to agree with the Partition even though the Arabs refused. Because the Resolution passed, Israel had the Right to Declare a State, which they did.

2) Wars Won: Israel fought for its right to exist and has fought three existential wars (the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9, the Six-Day War of 1967, and the Arab-Israeli War of 1973). In each conflict, it was only by Israeli perseverance and cunning that the territory was maintained. If Israel had lost any of these wars, regardless of its international legal case, it would have been denied the ability to re-declare a State.

3) Jewish Nationalism: Jews have lived in other nations under other governments for two millennia and were either actively or passively discriminated against. Israel represents to Jews the guarantee that even if the situation in their current Diaspora country turns sour, they have somewhere to go. This guarantee of a homeland has actually been used in various waves such as the Post-Holocaust refugees, the Mizrahi Exodus, Operations Joshua and Solomon in Yemen and Ethiopia, and the Russian Immigration in the 1990s.

4) Population Exchanges: Just as Palestinians left the British Mandate of Palestine, Jews were forced to leave the Arab World in roughly the same numbers. Around 720,000 Palestinian Arabs fled the new state of Israel, whereas 850,000 Jews fled from Arab countries with 500,000 settling in Israel. As a result, just as Israel took in Mizrahi Jews fleeing the Arab World, it would be contingent on Arab countries to take in Palestinian Arabs fleeing the Jewish State.

5) Jewish Holy Sites: Israel is home to numerous holy Jewish sites across the country, harkening back to the Jewish biblical past and imagery. In addition, the holiest site in the world for the Jewish people is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Palestine:

1) Original Inhabitants: This is the strongest case for the Palestinians and goes back to how the Palestinians lived in the British Mandate of Palestine for at least 800 years as the consistent majority of people in the territory. They have love and reverence for the land and consider it to be an intrinsic part of their identity.

2) Atrocities have no Statute of Limitations: Many Palestinians assert that Israelis stole their land and possessions from 1920-1949, most violently during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9 when numerous massacres were perpetrated by Jewish militias to secure the exodus of the Palestinian People. These Palestinians assert that Israel should not be allowed to profit from this seizure of territory.

3) Muslim and Christian Holy Sites: The Palestinians have numerous holy sites that pertain to their religions as well in the British Mandate of Palestine. Jerusalem holds Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, the third most holy sites in all of Islam. There are also the Christian Monuments such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the cities of Nazareth and Bethlehem. Many Palestinian Muslims and Christians want to live in these places as they used to.

4) Arab Reception: Palestinians have been confined to refugee camps and occasionally attacked in violent pogroms by their Arab neighbors (like the attack on Sabra and Shatila in 1982 and Nahr El-Bared in 2007). Palestinians assert like the Jews that nobody is really looking out for their best interests other than other Palestinians and this is why they could never truly settle in another Arab State.

5) Never Allowed to Declare a State: Whether the Palestinians accepted UN Resolution 181 or not, they were never given an opportunity to Declare the Arab State which that Resolution gave them the right to do. After the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9, Jordan and Egypt occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, effectively preventing the nascent Palestinian organizations from becoming a nation, even though they may have wanted to do so. In the present day, the United States has actively tried to prevent Palestinian access to the forums that would allow it to declare its Right to be a State because of its protection of Israel.

Answer 3

Israel is portrayed as an evil country by some of the media, by many U.N. and E.U. statements, and by much of the Arab and Muslim world.This despite the fact that Israel has better human-rights than any other country in the region (click on the blue text for details).

Israel has been boycotted for decades, and its citizens have suffered from the conflict, yet it continues to be optimistic and it enjoys God's protection.

The presence of the Jews in Israel is questioned by some, despite the Jews' history in and from Israel, and despite God's clear words bestowing Israel to them. Words which are recognized by Islam as well.

Those who condemn Israel for its side in the conflict, fail to condemn the actions of Israel's enemies, no matter how heinous.

See also:

More about Israel

Answer 4

If we are comparing government policies, the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip is, by far the worst. There is no religious freedom in Gaza, nor is there freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom from search and seizure, freedom of domestic movement, and there are many other rights that are denied. The Hamas government could be considered one of the worst regimes on Earth. The Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank is more incapable and inept than actually bad. The Israeli government operates as a Western democracy within the 1949 borders, but operates as a martial Dictatorship in the occupied portions of the West Bank. For an ethnic Palestinian who is not an Israeli citizen, the best place to live would be within 1949 Israel, if he could, but if that is not possible, it would be best for him to live in Palestinian-Authority controlled West Bank. For a Jew (regardless of Israeli citizenship - there are no Jewish Palestinian citizens), it is undoubtedly better to live within 1949 Israel. If you are not a Sunni Muslim, Israel is undoubtedly a safer and freer place than either Palestinian government as well.

If we are simply talking about who is right and who is wrong in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, both sides have meritorious arguments and both sides have serious problems in the ways they have acted in order to secure their claims. Please see this Related Question that discusses the particular issues of who is right in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Who is right Israel or Palestine?