No. of Recommendations: 3
The Jewish mythology of connection to the biblical territories, ab initio, delegitimizes any other occupants. It is abundantly clear that the lands of Palestine/Israel were neither empty at the time of foundation of Israel nor were Jews, historically, the original nor the only inhabitants of this area.
That's incorrect.
The historically documented connection of the Jewish people to the Mandate territories doesn't delegitimize other occupants. The fact that the Jews are indigenous to the region doesn't mean that no one else is. Nor does the right of the Jewish people to a homeland in the area depend on there being no other inhabitants in the area.
Zionism does not require denying the rights of the Palestinian people to their own homeland as well. That's why the original plan - approved by the UN - was Partition. Exactly what happened in India - two peoples living in a former colonial area, and the solution to give both peoples self-determination was to partition the area. A wrenching and disruptive process, to be sure - the Partition of India was traumatic for nearly everyone involved - but one that ended up having at least a somewhat positive outcome. That process was short-circuited by Egypt and Jordan in the Mandate area.
Where is the acknowledgement of Palestinian history, and why are they denied a nation? That doesn't fit with the aims of Israeli Zionists.
Sure it does. Most Israeli Zionists have historically favored the two-state solution. The Palestinians were denied a nation because Egypt and Jordan seized all the lands that were supposed to be the Palestinian nation as part of their effort to kill or expel the Jews entirely from the region, and decided not to give the Palestinians that land (or any autonomy) because Palestinian suffering was an effective lever to try to expel the Jews from the area.
That's why the Oslo Accords went as far as they did. Most Israeli Jews were aware that the Palestinians were indigenous to the area, and were aware - even after all the efforts to kill and expel them - that Partition was the solution.
A first step is to acknowledge that they are colonists, and not the 2000 year absent landlords they claim to be.
They are not colonists. They are from there. Jews lived in the area for centuries before the Romans and Muslims (successively) colonized them and threw them out. It's wrong to disparage their indigenous history in that land by describing them as "absent landlords," rather than persecuted minority that was driven out by the imperial colonists of the era. They have the same right to live in those lands and have self-determination as an autonomous people as the Palestinians - and denying that right, when it is accepted for all the other peoples of the world, is why most Jews regard anti-Zionism (as opposed to promoting a separate Palestinian state) as being rooted in anti-semitic beliefs.
