Comment by NeutralCrane

> The first two do not count, Israel did not even exist. They had nothing to offer, they wanted to take some of the land from the Arabs for their own state.

The Palestinian state also didn’t exist. Palestine was under British rule at the time, and prior to that they were ruled by the Ottomans, and prior to that they were ruled by Arab Caliphates and Christian crusaders, and before that the Romans.

That’s what makes the anti-Israel movement hypocritical. There have always Jews in Palestine, and in fact they predate the Arabs by centuries. And a Palestinian state would be just as much a modern creation as Israel is. The only way to legitimize a Palestinian state and delegitimize an Israeli one is a completely arbitrary set of rules. A two state solution is the only one that makes any sense of any kind.

The Palestinian state also didn’t exist.

Sure but even though I myself used the term state in my comment, I do not think that states are what matters. What matters are the people living in the region, it is their right to decide what should and should not happen, whether they are formally organized as a state or not. At the time of the Balfour Declaration the Jews were a five to ten percent minority in Mandatory Palestine. In the end it should have been the decision of the people living there - state or not - whether they want to accommodate the Jews that desired to settle there and even more so should it have been their decision whether they want the land split into two states.

The Israelis illegitimately took have of the land from the Palestinians with force and then occupied the other half when they resisted. Similar things happend all throughout history and they can not be undone. The people of Israel will not be forced back to where they came from just as we will not send all Americans back to Europa, Africa, and Asia to give the land back to the native Americans.

But the Palestinians deserve better than the status quo, they are the ones that were treated unjust. Israel should go out of its way to make good on past wrongs, if it does not hurt them, they are not doing enough. Israel now has a right to exist, they do not have to accept existential threats, but they owe the Palestinians a lot.