- Before WWI, Palestine region was 14% Jews, 10% Christians, 76% Muslims; the early Zionist claim of "a land with no people for a people with no land" was always a lie
- Promise made by the British during WWI to Arabs: if they help the Turks, they get their independence (Damascus Protocol, 1916)
- Contradictory promise to the Zionists to have their own state (Balfour Declaration, 1917)
- Promise made again by the British in WWII to abandon partition and advocate for one state under Arab and Jewish rule (govt white paper, 1939)
- Rise of the Irgun and Stern Gang, considered to be terrorist organizations (Deir Yassin village massacre and bombing of the King David Hotel in 1948)
- Most of the "War for Independence" was fought on Arab lands according to the UN partition plan; 700,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees
- Herut party, which morphed into current Likud party, was founded in 1948 by Irgun leader Menachem Begin; when Begin visited the U.S. seeking support, Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt were outraged, signatories to a scathing letter to the NYT
- Six-Day War (1967): Israel was the aggressor, i.e. if the neighboring Arab countries were preparing to attack, why were they surprised? Another 300,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees
- In 1967, Arabs accounted for 36% of total population. In pre-1967 Israel, Arabs gained citizenship; in newly acquired Gaza and West Bank, they received occupation
- PLO emerges (secular), adopts terrorist tactics modeled after Irgun; crushing of Egypt frees up long repressed Muslim Brotherhood (fundamentalist), gives up violence in the 1970s; Ahmed Yassin set up an Islamic charity in 1973, recognized by Israel in 1979
- Israel never had any intention of giving up the West Bank, supported fundamentalists like Yassin as counterweight to PLO
- Yassin founded Hamas in 1987; Israel provided financial support until 2020 (Hamas served two purposes, preventing a leader emerging to negotiate Palestinian statehood and proving to the world that the other side were evil terrorists); as late as 2019, Netanyahu claimed that Hamas served a purpose and bragged that Israel controlled "the height of the flame"
- Israel poured gasoline on the fire with Gaza (home of Hamas) economically, building a security fence in 1994 and imposing a land, air and sea blockade in 2007, turning the Gaza Strip into a seething snake pit (Israeli per capita GDP is $55,000 vs. $1,250 for those living in Gaza, one of the starkest economic contrasts in the world next to the North Korea Demilitarized Zone)
- Using Israeli proper, where Arabs make up 21% of the population and three-quarters have citizenship, to claim there is no apartheid is a straw man. The critics are referring to the West Bank, where there are two systems of justice: civilian for Jews (Israeli citizens), military for Arabs (non-citizens). According to Addameer, 40% of Palestinian men in the West Bank have been prisoners in Israel's jails.
- In the ongoing conflict since about 2000, Palestinian deaths have outnumbered Israeli deaths 21-to-1
~ Kevin Duffy, comment, "Here’s THE TRUTH About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (A Comprehensive History)," Ben Shapiro, June 5, 2021
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