Dave Smith on the creation of the state of Israel

In 1947 - this is right in the aftermath of World War II and the British empire was basically crumbling and they had been ruling the territory of Palestine under a Mandate - they basically washed their hands of the situation.  There had been issues for years already and they kicked it over to the United Nations and the United Nations was a brand new organization - a year old or something like that - and they had no authority to create states out of nowhere.  It was a recommendation.  They go "We recommend this partition plan" that would've given 56% of the land to the Jews for a Jewish state and 44% of the land to the Arabs to have an Arab state.  And at the time, the Jews, the Zionist settlers there, they owned about 10% of the land.  And so this recommendation was that they get 56% of the land.  And so immediately, the Zionist settlers accepted.  They went "Yes, great deal, we'll take 56% of this."  And the Arabs were like "No, that's not a fair deal at all."

There's a great book by Sheldon Richman called Coming to Palestine if you're interested in the topic.  Immediately after that, a bunch of essentially Zionist militias started kicking Arabs off of the land, like "Hey, the UN said this part's ours."  And at first a civil war broke out, and in this process hundreds of thousands - between 1947 and 1948 the total number's around 750,000 - Arabs who were forced out or fled.  And then in 1948, Israel declared independence.  And then, in response to that, outside Arab nations invaded, got involved in the fight.  Israel won and then after Israel won the war, they seized about 80% of the land.

So they were offered 56%... they won a war and took 80%...  At the end of the war, the portion that is Palestinian territories today, that was the West Bank and East Jerusalem, that was controlled by Jordan and Gaza was controlled by Egypt.  And then in 1967, Israel launched a preemptive war and they won again.  And then the just took 100% of it.  And then they just took control of the West Bank, all of Jerusalem and Gaza.  And they've had it ever since.

~ Dave Smith, "Joe Rogan on NAKBA 1948 with Dave Smith," JustForPeace, 4:40 mark, November 23, 2023