When Israel became a nation in 1948, there were 499,000 Jews and 438,000 Arabs in the land and most of it was in the Negev desert. Before Israel became a nation again, the territory was called Palestine. Palestine was not a nation and there were no Palestinians. The people who now call themselves Palestinians are a mixture of Arabs, some with Greek DNA. "Palestinian," as applied to the Arab population in this region, was a term coined by Yasser Arafat in 1964, a quick narrative hack to create a connection between the Arabs living there to the area. Instead, this territory was part of the British Mandate for Palestine, a geographical region that the British administered post-Ottoman Empire collapse after the First World War. Again, regardless of your "Promised Land" theology, the territory of Palestine, which belonged to the Ottoman Empire (who sided with Germany in WWI & WWII) was captured and occupied by the British during the first war. Wars have consequences. The British gave land back to Jordon and Egypt under the U.N. Plan in 1947. Egypt captured Gaza and Jordon captured the West Bank during the Arab-Israeli War 1948, right after Israel became a nation. Why didn't Egypt or Jordon give the land to "Palestinians." Because there were no Palestinian people. In the 6-Day War (1967) Israel was once again attacks by Egypt and Jordon (not Palestinians), and Israel took the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, and the West Bank. In 1979, during the Yom Kippur War and Camp David Accords, as a gesture of peace, Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt. From 2005-Present Israel has NOT occupied Gaza and has cooperated with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to live and work in peace. What some are calling refugee camps are nice towns and schools now and Palestinians work in Israel (Palestinians from Gaza also are allowed to work in Israel). twenty present of Israeli citizens are Arab. A two-state solution is an option for the Israelis, but not for the Hamas controlled Palestinians. They claim all the land. They never owned all the land--as Jews and Arabs of every stripe have lived in the territory for thousands of years.
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1Mike Burnette
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