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If there is one issue in world politics on which opinions are held most strongly while being least informed it is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Vast numbers of people, almost certainly a majority, believe these falsehoods:
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The Palestinians had their country taken away from them by the Jews.
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The Israelis expelled the Palestinians.
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The Israelis illegally occupy territories that belong to the Palestinians.
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The Israelis refuse to negotiate for peace with Palestinian leaders.
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Israeli intransigence impeded a peace process that Palestinian leaders pursued in good faith.
We summarily dismiss points 1 and 2: – -
There never was, in all history, a State of Palestine.
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There is no evidence that any Arabs were expelled from the State of Israel. There is evidence that in at least one city – Haifa – they were implored to stay. There is also evidence that the Mufti of Jerusalem and Arab leaders urged them to leave before five Arab armies invaded the newly-declared State of Israel, promising them a victory after which the refugees would return to their homes. And there is absolute certainty that hundreds of thousands of Jews were forcibly expelled – stripped of all they possessed – from the Arab states. //
https://phillipsblog.dailymail.co.uk/2011/11/blaming-the-victim.html
The claim that the establishment of a Palestine state would end the dispute is also ridiculous. Such a state was on offer in 1948; Israel offered to give up more than 90 per cent of the West Bank for such a state in 2000; and an even more generous offer was subsequently made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The Palestinian response was in every case war and terror. Yet all this is ignored, and Netanyahu is blamed instead for the impasse. //
The burden of peace is not on Israel. They have made every effort that reasonable people would expect them to make, but the problem is that Israel is not dealing with reasonable people, not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, not in liberal enclaves in the United States, and certainly not in the United Nations. The refusals have been on the part of Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, Iran, and the other usual suspects.
