Comments by "Sandy Tatham" (@sandytatham3592) on "Middle East Eye"
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@adrianjoseph1267 : Both the Jews of the UK and the Hejazi Arabs supported the British in WWI. They were each promised the right to self-determination should the Allied Powers defeat the Germans and Ottoman Empire. Today the Arabs have self-determination in 99% of the land, in countries called Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, much of the land oil-rich. Israel is a tiny less than <1% of the Middle East Ottoman land, and the Jews share their country with 21% Arabs and other minorities who accepted life in the Jewish state of Israel.
DNA is not a criteria for being #indigenous. You also need legal approval for DNA testing in many European countries, such as France, so please stop with this genetic nonsense. "Indigenous Peoples are distinct social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy, or from which they have been displaced" is the World Bank definition. When Jewish slaves were taken to Europe by the Romans, they maintained their indigenous status even though they were #displaced. When Jews were dispersed around the world in order to survive economically, they maintained their indigenous status even when living in the #diaspora. Around 60% of Israeli Jews today were 'cleansed' from their multi-generational homes in Arab countries after the founding of Israel in 1948.
Israeli Arabs have "equal rights" under the law. There are Israeli Arab Muslims in the Knesset, on the Supreme Court, as city Mayors, and in the highest echelons of business, education, health and technology. They also serve in the IDF and other security groups. I suggest you watch the five minute PragerU video called "Does Israel Occupy the West Bank?" where international law professor Eugene Kontorovich outlines the precedent for international property law as it applies to Israel. The Arabs have no legal right to any of the land from the river to the sea. They rejected the partition offer of 1947. Now they forfeited any moral right to a state.
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@sarahgold3363
So you are "a fervent believer in the existence of Israel"? And you also advocate for Israel to grant citizenship to FIVE million Arab Muslims? This is in addition to the TWO million Arab Muslims who already have Israeli citizenship, which includes national voting rights? Do you understand that this would sign the death warrant of Israeli Jews? And possibly the death warrant of those Israeli Muslims who are descended from families who accepted citizenship in 1948, a decision which is deemed 'haram' (treasonous) by devout Muslims?
My resolution would be much more pragmatic. It would be for the surrounding Arab nations to grant citizenship to the 'Palestinian' Arabs who have been held as perpetual stateless refugees, then for Israel to offer them residence visas, which could include a pathway to citizenship. That way they would get all the rights of security, civil law, economic benefits, education, health, property ownership, voting rights for civil leadership, etc. but not national voting rights. And they could also be deported if they commit violence or any other illegal act.
I guess you are aware that giving citizenship to the 'displaced' Arabs was forbidden, or at least discouraged, by the Arab League after they lost the 1948 war? They have been held in limbo and used as geopolitical #weapons against the Jewish state of Israel. Lebanon provides the clearest example of a host state's denial of rights, the use of refugees as political #pawns, and illegal discrimination ( hrw.org/ legacy/ campaigns/ Israel/ return/ arab ).
As for "divided up the land spoils without any consideration for the people that already lived there", what do you think the Ottoman Empire would have done if they had not been defeated? Would the Arabs have self-determination in 99% of the Ottoman Middle East lands today? Would Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have self-rule and the right to constitute their individual countries on the basis of their interpretation of Islamic Sharia?
The Allied Powers were under NO legal obligation in 1918 to give up the land for self-determination to the occupants... but THEY DID. Israel is on LESS than 1% of that dismembered Ottoman Middle East land, and one-fifth of Israel's citizens are Arabs who have equal rights with Jews and freedom of worship. But you still complain...🙄
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@BenJamin-rt7ui : Each situation is different and it depends on whether the indigenous peoples seek that kind of control. Australia recently had a referendum to "enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament". Many strong indigenous leaders were totally against it, arguing that they wanted to be treated just like all other Australians, so it failed. New Zealand is going through a different process, maybe similar to the Americas, but I don't know a lot about it. I think it's more important for individual countries to recognise and promote their indigenous cultures which, in many cases, have been lost.
I've just been in Morocco where the Berber-Amazigh people had been struggling for decades for the right to use their own language, rather than just Arabic/French. In 2011 it was finally approved as an official language and is now included on public buildings and taught in 31% of schools. Many Moroccans who don't believe in Islam want to reduce the influence of Islam/Arabisation that Morocco underwent after the Islamic conquests, though that's far off in the future because 'blasphemy' (being critical of Islam) still carries serious punishment at this time. But the Berbers are the majority people in Morocco so, if/when Islam reduces in power, it could happen.
Israel was in a unique position where, on the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, the British and French were ceded control of the land. They had promised their allies, the Hejazi Arab nationalists and the Zionists, territorial compensations for their support during World War I. In 1922 the League of Nations acknowledged the Jewish people as having historic connections to their ancestral land and agreed to the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" so long as the civil and religious rights of the current occupants was not compromised. Today over two million Israeli Arabs (mostly Muslim) have equal rights and freedom of worship, and they participate in all levels of society and government. If Iran's Islamic regime was overthrown, that would give the indigenous groups there a chance to reclaim sovereignty of their ancestral homelands, ie. the Kurds, Balochis, Azerbaijanis, etc. The same could one day happen with Pakistan, which is a mixture of Punjabis, Balochis, Kashmiris, Kalashas, Pashtuns, etc. I would definitely support the Tibetans having sovereignty in their ancestral homeland, and maybe the East Turkestan Uyghurs, though there is little chance of China ever allowing this.
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