I know you know the land of milk and honey has copious areas rich in greenery and water
Ok, I think you are very misinformed by Biblical quotes from thousands of years ago, when the climate of Mesopotamia was very different. Israel is considerably more than 50% desert or "arid steppe." The rest is either dry, temperate, and hot, or dry, temperate, and warm (with a tiny mountain peak defined as dry, temperate, and cold). [1] Rain does not fall at all for over half of the year. There is only a single major source of above-ground freshwater, the Kineret lake (also called the "Sea of Galilee"), which wasn't even fully in Israel until 1967, is at "dangerously low levels at times," and which continues to exist in part thanks to Israel pumping freshwater from its seawater desalination plants into the lake to refill it since 2018. [2][3]
The Negev desert [4] covers over half of the state of Israel. The Negev Bedouins live in the Negev. [5]
I am not joking, and hopefully these Wikipedia links can convince you that you have been misinformed.
What people are disputing is your claim that a Morrocan, born and raised in Morocco
Not all Mizrahi Jews are from Morocco, and you have chosen the farthest point in the Ottoman Empire to make your point. Morocco is not even in the Middle East, which is the region we're talking about. While perhaps one could view Moroccan Jews migrating to Israel as immigration, I think it is much more nuanced in the parts of the former Ottoman Empire that were actually in the Middle East. The Jewish communities of Cairo, for example, were about as far from the modern state of Israel as Boston is to New York. The distance from Damascus, the home of another large Mizrahi Jewish community, to the modern state of Israel is half that. They were part of the same country, and were in cities that were extremely close to each other, in the same region. I don't dispute that the Israelis had no right to kick out Palestinian villagers, but I do dispute your definition of Jews as non-natives due to borders that existed for less than 30 years and were imposed by the British (and which some Jews fell inside anyway, e.g. in Jerusalem.)
[The Samaritans] are considered anciently Jewish so the IDF is not allowed to kill them.
There are no laws in Israel that I know of that determine whether or not the IDF can kill someone based on their religion. It would be helpful if you could cite some sources here.
(I think your friends mean that they hold Israeli citizenship? Which probably means they can more easily pass border checkpoints traveling to and from the Palestinian territories and Israel. There are a group of Samaritans that hold dual Israeli/Palestinian citizenship that live in Qiryat Luza. For reference, there are also millions of Muslim Arabs who hold Israeli citizenship and live inside Israel; what is unique about that group of Samaritans is they hold both Israeli and Palestinian citizenship, whereas the Israeli Arabs are simply Israeli and not Palestinian. The situation in Palestine is super messed up either way and I don't condone the Israeli government's actions towards the Palestinians, though.)
This is all fine and accurate but it seems like you are not addressing my point. First, for the purposes of my analogy the relevant detail is that Israel/Palestine has substantially more fresh water then Saudi Arabia. So now, applying your logic from above it would be justified for the Saudis to come and displace Israelis/Palestinians. Why? Because they used to be under Ottoman rule. See why your remark justifying colonization of Palestinian is absurd?
You know, I wish that a reality can be realized where everyone coexists happily. But when a people have been harmed so directly and for so long acknowledging these points is the only way towards that reality. If we keep arguing then things will never change.
The fundamental fact is hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were wronged. Today millions are victims. We can’t just ignore that or marginalize it via debate.
Ok, I think you are very misinformed by Biblical quotes from thousands of years ago, when the climate of Mesopotamia was very different. Israel is considerably more than 50% desert or "arid steppe." The rest is either dry, temperate, and hot, or dry, temperate, and warm (with a tiny mountain peak defined as dry, temperate, and cold). [1] Rain does not fall at all for over half of the year. There is only a single major source of above-ground freshwater, the Kineret lake (also called the "Sea of Galilee"), which wasn't even fully in Israel until 1967, is at "dangerously low levels at times," and which continues to exist in part thanks to Israel pumping freshwater from its seawater desalination plants into the lake to refill it since 2018. [2][3]
The Negev desert [4] covers over half of the state of Israel. The Negev Bedouins live in the Negev. [5]
I am not joking, and hopefully these Wikipedia links can convince you that you have been misinformed.
What people are disputing is your claim that a Morrocan, born and raised in Morocco
Not all Mizrahi Jews are from Morocco, and you have chosen the farthest point in the Ottoman Empire to make your point. Morocco is not even in the Middle East, which is the region we're talking about. While perhaps one could view Moroccan Jews migrating to Israel as immigration, I think it is much more nuanced in the parts of the former Ottoman Empire that were actually in the Middle East. The Jewish communities of Cairo, for example, were about as far from the modern state of Israel as Boston is to New York. The distance from Damascus, the home of another large Mizrahi Jewish community, to the modern state of Israel is half that. They were part of the same country, and were in cities that were extremely close to each other, in the same region. I don't dispute that the Israelis had no right to kick out Palestinian villagers, but I do dispute your definition of Jews as non-natives due to borders that existed for less than 30 years and were imposed by the British (and which some Jews fell inside anyway, e.g. in Jerusalem.)
[The Samaritans] are considered anciently Jewish so the IDF is not allowed to kill them.
There are no laws in Israel that I know of that determine whether or not the IDF can kill someone based on their religion. It would be helpful if you could cite some sources here.
(I think your friends mean that they hold Israeli citizenship? Which probably means they can more easily pass border checkpoints traveling to and from the Palestinian territories and Israel. There are a group of Samaritans that hold dual Israeli/Palestinian citizenship that live in Qiryat Luza. For reference, there are also millions of Muslim Arabs who hold Israeli citizenship and live inside Israel; what is unique about that group of Samaritans is they hold both Israeli and Palestinian citizenship, whereas the Israeli Arabs are simply Israeli and not Palestinian. The situation in Palestine is super messed up either way and I don't condone the Israeli government's actions towards the Palestinians, though.)
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Israel#/media/Fil...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in...
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee
4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negev
5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negev_Bedouin