"What Really Happened in the Middle East"

[Chapter 24]

So my mother's side of the family is Jewish. Quite frankly they do not appreciate my anti-Zionism views and my stance toward Israel.

Well, I was just sent an email by my uncle which contained this video:

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/

Would someone be so kind as to help me to refute this? It definitely comes off as your average cospiratorial presentation contained anti-Arab sentiment. Kind of like what an old angry conservative Jewish person would argue. Call it what you want, I'd still like to refute it point by point if possible. I haven't finished watching it, however I can conclude from it two main points: 1) there is no Palestinian nation to begin with and 2) Arab countries are continually attacking poor ol' Israel while claiming to sympathize with the Palestinian flight, despite the fact that "they" (Arab leaders) never gave the Palestinians any land from the UN mandate that they acquired.
What with the recent turmoil is Gaza happening this video and other sources like it will definitely be emailed among Jews globally (and yes, I mean Jews, not Zionists - none of my family have ever called themselves Zionists and claim you don't necessarily have to be a "Zionist" to defend Israel), despite any misinformation on their part. Which is why refuting videos and other media sources propagating this is very important in order to educate people about Israel.

[redguard2009]

1) The claims that the entire area encompassing modern-day Lebanon, Syria and Jordan was "Palestine Mandate" is false. There were seperate "Mandate of Palestine", "Mandate of Jordan", etc.

2) The video makes the very quick assumption that a foreign ruler (in this case Winston Churchill) has any right to dictate the demographic and political makeup of an occupied territory.

3) It also attempts to legitimize forced rellocation; claiming that Arabs "don't just want Jordan", re: "don't just want to be forced from their lands and homes which they have lived and worked on for hundreds of years and move to an entirely new area already heavily populated".

4) The video suddenly skips ahead to 1948 and the UN mandate. It in no way mentions the periods of 1945-1947 in which the majority of the Jewish population that would call UN's "Israel" home forcefully entered the country and began a campaign of violent forced rellocation, terrorism and genodice. Early Jewish settlers and refugees realized the reality that a large population can not simply "move" into an already-populated area; most of the land is already owned, most jobs are already filled, most men and women already have lives. Though they expected the Arabs of the area to relocate to Jordan, they enacted a process of removing Arabs from their lands, villages and towns for Jewish settlers to repopulate. Of course, the video attempts to romanticize the hard working Jewish worker who turned barren arid desert into fertile farmlands without mentioning that most of the already-available fertile land was stolen from Arab families who were either killed or sent packing to Jordan or refugee camps.

5) The claims that the UN and even Israel gave billions in aid to Palestinian arabs for them to "do the same" is rich. "Even though we kicked you out of your homes, stole the land you worked on for generations and sent you to live in the worst of the worst places that we deemed unfit for cultural development, we did give you some money..." It's equally rich that the video evokes images of the commonplace poverty and social rundown of Palestinian Arab cities, claiming that it's "their own fault" (including the brief image of Palestinians walking bast destroyed homes, piles of rubble, which more likely than not were destroyed by Israel).

6) It also claims that the Arabs refused a "deal" which would have given them 90% of the "original Palestine Mandate". Well, of course they did; why should the Arabs accept anything less than all of their stolen lands? Why should they accept the continuation of illegal settling in Gaza and the West Bank? I find it funny that giving back less than what was stolen is seen as a "kind gesture" by zionists.

7) LOL it also claims that Israel didn't occupy Arab lands; that Arabs in Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights "fled after being urged by Arab governments", "fled the war itself".

8) If jews hate arabs, why did Israel agree to let arabs stay in Israel and grant them rights? Although it (somewhat correctly) makes the claim that arabs in Israel have more rights than "other Arabs" (only correct in a couple of instances of those Arab countries which are particularly oppressive) it deftly avoids the fact that arabs in Israel have less rights than their jewish "overseers".

9) "Palestinians were offered a state in 1948 and again in 2000..." Again, as above, the "gracious offers" they were "bestowed" by the "merciful Jews" were for less-than-complete handovers of occupied territory. The entire creation of Israel in 1948 is, for one, illegal; those lands deemed "Israel" by the United Nations were stolen from Arabs in the first place. Second, after the 1948 war Israel annexed more land; and again in 1967 and 1973 Israeli armed forces entered new land. Jerusalem was declared an Israeli city. Jewish settlers soonafter began illegally settling in these occupied territories -- illegally according to the UN (Israel's creator), all international laws, and accepted as such by the Israeli government. Israeli armed forces did not finally withdraw from Gaza until just a couple of years ago; military and illegal civilian presence in the West Bank continues to this day. And although the Israeli government claims that it is not "involved" in the illegal settling of the West Bank, it has also done absolutely nothing to stop it; from individial Israelis to the construction companies whose services and tools are used to build these settlements - though Israeli forces will actively defend these settlements in the guise of "protecting Israeli citizens" (even though they shouldn't be there).

Both the "offer" in 1948 and the Camp David accords were shitty deals at best, outright robbery in reality. They offered to give back Palestinian Arabs some land while keeping many highly important locations -- Jerusalem for instance -- in Israeli hands.

10) It attempts to shift the blame on Syria and Jordan for their "annexation" of the West Bank and Golan Heights and asks why Palestinian Arabs didn't declare intifada on them. Although the answers seem obvious to any sane, rational mind (Jordan nor Syria declared marshal law in those territories, nor did illegal settling occur, and for all rights and purposes Palestinian authorities had full autonomy).

11) Overall its a sad attempt by zionists to claim why Arabs really fight. "They're not angry that we're occupying their lands -- we offered to give most of them back. They're not angry that they have no homeland -- they could live in Jordan or Syria! They're not angry at the tens of thousands of them that have been killed -- there's plenty more of them left! They just want to kill us all for no reason whatsoever."

For all the villified quotations of Arab leaders throughout the latter half of the 20th century there are no quotations of Jewish and Israeli leaders who make the same sorts of claims, about wanting the destruction of the Arabs. The very founders and heroes of Israel, to this day romanticized and idolized in Israeli society from pre-school on, were bitterly genocidal chaps who actively sought the elimination of Arabs, forced eviction from their lands, etc. It's no secret. It's not frowned upon by Israel today. It's glorified. But it's very often left unsaid when zionists come to talk about how the Arabs want to eliminate them from the world.