[wasimanitoba]

No group would or should have to tolerate a foreign state being established on their soil at gunpoint by colonial powers.

> the Arab countries decided to wage war in Israel after the UN proposed the two state solution

- That doesn't make sense. Israel didn't exist until it was established.

- The Arabs didn't voluntarily leave their villages.

- And during 1947, the Arabs ejected from the Arab side of the UN partition line did not leave because they wanted to give more land to Israel or because of the Arab League intervention a year later in 1948.....They left because of ethnic cleansing by Jewish religious extremists.

> other founding figures in Zionism called for peace and integration in the Middle East.

To the contrary, Israeli leadership wanted all of Palestine and the UN plan was treated as a stepping stone toward Greater Israel.

The current Prime Minister of Israel Netanyahu also rejects a two state solution, insisting for decades that only Israeli sovereignty should be allowed between the Jordan River and the Sea.

[jsmith99]

Colonial powers? Like the Ottomans? (The previous rulers)

[tptacek]

The countries we're referring to were generally all established colonially, in many cases very close in time to the establishment of Israel.

[DSingularity]

While Israel does have a present problem with religious extremists I take issue with the characterization of the Irgun, Haganah, Levi and other terrorist groups that conducted the ethnic cleansing as “religious extremists”.

These were terrorist thugs. They had an objective and they naturally used violence to achieve it. Whatever “religious” views they may or may not have had are secondary. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine was conducted by violent terrorists who wanted to create a country that they dominated.

We can discuss and debate whether their religious views follows from or causes the Zionist terrorism that has prevailed for the past century separately. It’s a valid discussion point but in the context of the ongoing genocide and ethnics cleansing all it does is muddy the waters for many people.