>There was actually a plan for
>a Palestinian state and a
>Jewish state, which the Arabs
>rejected. The UN went ahead
>without a Palestinian state and
>created a Jewish state.

Not true. The UN did not "go ahead without a Palestinian state." Sure the Arabs rejected it, because although they were an overwhelming majority of the population of Palestine, the UN Partition plan gave them about 48% of the land of Palestine, while Jews who were vastly outnumbered, population-wise, got 52% of the land to create Israel. Furthermore, the Zionist underground terrorist groups who later became the Israeli Army, were being supported financially and militarily (with military equipment) by the West, primarily the US. And since the Palestinians had no standing army and leadership in exile since the end of the 1936-39 revolt, the Zionist military went around taking over land that was supposed to become Palestine even before the Arab armies "invaded" Israel (in May 1948). In April 1948, the Zionist forces massacred 250 lightly-armed villagers in Deir Yassin, then went on to other majority-Palestinian towns and villages and intimidated them with loudspeakers saying if they didn't leave, they would face the same fate as the Deir Yassin villagers. My grandparents, and older aunts and uncles were among those who had to make this "choice." When the Palestinian villagers fled, the Zionists, with their crafty, yet sneaky, public relations machine told the world, "Look, there are no Palestinians living in the land we're taking over, so we'll just add it to the land we're already creating Israel with." Don't get me wrong. It wasn't all Israel's fault. Egypt, which took over the Gaza Strip, and Jordan, which took over the West Bank, did nothing to help the Palestinians become an independent nation, either.
>
>What are you talking about with
>Jerusalem? Since the 1840s, (East
>and West) Jerusalem has had
>a Jewish majority, obviously excluding
>the Jordanian days. It is
>completely wrong to think of
>East Jerusalem as being Arab,
>and West Jerusalem as being
>Jewish. West Jerusalem didn't exist
>in the 1840s, it was
>an expansion later. The only
>time it was Arab was
>when Jordan expelled all of
>the Jews during their control
>of Jerusalem.

Excuse me. Where did you get these twisted "facts" from? Jerusalem had a Jewish majority since the 1840s??????? I know it was Jerusalem, not east and west Jerusalem, but Jerusalem DID NOT have a Jewish majority since the 1840s. There were only a handful of Jews in the WHOLE COUNTRY of Palestine since the 1840s up until the Jewish immigration started well into the 1900s, much of it illegally, mind you. Don't get me wrong. The handful of Jews peacefully coexisted with Palestinians Muslims and Christians since the 1840s and even considered themselves Palestinians and contributed much to Palestine before the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Jews didn't even think of creating a "homeland" in Palestinian until it was brought up in 1898 at a world zionist meeting. And even after that, it was hard for them to get the plan off the ground. It was this meeting that destroyed the peaceful coexistence between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinians Jews and the distinction between Arab and Jew came into play. The European Jews, who obviously lived in Europe, at a time of rampant, racist colonialism poisoned the Palestinian atmosphere with their idea of Jewish racist colonialism and fooled most Palestinian Jews to buy into the idea of Zionist, which today is one of the last remnants of pre-20th Century colonialism. Why is European colonialism universally considered wrong, but Zionism considered a noble cause? Is it because of the guilt of the Holocaust? Is it because of the crafty Zionist PR machine?
>
>The whole point of Israel's establishment
>is that it was to
>be a homeland for the
>Jews. While I disagree with
>much of the messianic importance
>that the original secular Zionists
>placed on the formation of
>a state, I can't deny
>the importance of having access
>to the land of Israel.

Israel's original intention was to extend from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq. Even if it wasn't that extreme, many quotes (that I'll paraphrase) prove that Israel planned on expansionism. They, until recently occupied Southern Lebanon, still occupy Syria's Golan Heights, and Palestine (The West Bank and Gaza Strip) all under the false pretense of security. Let's see Theodor Herzl, the founder of zionism, said something like, "Give us a small piece of land in Palestine, the rest we shall manage for ourselves." Even as recently as the late 1960s, the Israeli general Moshe Dayan said, "One day Israel will extend well into the Jordan valley, even into central Syria or the Euphrates." These are well documented quotes, and may not be acurate word for word, but you get the jist. Even the symbolism of the Israeli flag proves this: the two blue stripes across the top and bottom of the Israeli flag are supposed to represent the Nile River (in Egypt) and the Euphrates River (in Iraq).