Jew Watch, being the evil vile hate site that it is, doesn't give any context. First of all, there never was a country called Palestine. There never was an Arab or Muslim state on that land. When the Arabs conquered it in the seventh century, it became part of different Islamic caliphates until the fall of the Ottoman Empire [with an exception during the time of the Crusades] when it became a British mandate. Jews have a historical connection to the land that goes back to more than 3,000 years. In fact, there was a Jewish presence in Israel for more than 3,000 years.
The Arab leadership stated that Palestine was part of southern Syria [in those days, the name Palestine was more so associated with the Zionists and Jewish settlers]. Plenty of Arabs themselves stated that there was no such thing as Palestine. In the words of then-Arab professor Philip Hitti:
There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not.
The UN partition Plan would've given the Arabs a state as well as the Jews. The Arab state would've included the West Bank and Gaza. Yet the Jews accepted it while th Arab states and Arab leadership rejected it. So Arab terrorists attacked Jews. Zionist militias fought back. Jews did fight for control of more cities in order to defend themselves.
On May 14, 1948, Israel was established as a state on the land designated as the Jewish state in the UN Partition Plan. Yet one day later, Israel was invaded by five Arab armies. The Arab leadership aided the Arab regimes in trying to eliminate Israel and to achieve, words of the Arab League Secretary General Azzam Pasha to “be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”
Part of Israel's plan to defend itself and to protect besieged Jews was to capture cities in important locations to have more strategic borders. So Israel did win the 1948 war, even taking some territory designated for the Arab state. But Jordan and Egypt, two of which was among the five Arab countries that did invade Israel, took Gaza and the West Bank illegally.
Egypt and Jordan were unwilling to give up those territories for any Palestinian state. The "Palestine"that the Palestinian terror group fought to "liberate" was Israel proper, not the West Bank or Gaza. Article 24 of the 1964 PLO charter says the following:
This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.Though Israel won the 1948 war, the Arab struggle to eliminate Israel continue. In 1967, Israel had to defend herself again and, as a result, won Gaza, the West Bank, east Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the Sanai Peninsula, the last of which is bigger than Israel itself, 91% of the territory Israel won in 1967 and was returned to Egypt in a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
Israel never won any territory from any war of aggression. In fact, all of Israel's wars are wars of self-defense. So Israel won territory from wars of self defense. The last map is 2000. During the Oslo "peace" process, the Palestinian Authority [PA] was set up and ruled 98% of the Palestinian people. In Camp David in 2000, Israel offered to give the Palestinians a state on 97% of what they claim to be asking for. Yet Yasser Arafat, then PA President, walked away. For the Palestinian Authority violated the principles in the Oslo "peace" process. The PA media and school books called for Israel's destruction and portrayed terrorism as heroic resistance. And Arafat appeared on Palestinian TV praising terrorists. Yet Israel almost gave Arafat a state on all of Gaza, the Arab parts of east Jerusalem and on 97% of Gaza. A few months later, Arafat started a terror war known as the Second Intifada. Yet one year later in Taba, Israel offered Arafat the same offer. It was again rejected by the PA.
Israel sought to have a solution to the territories. In fact, after the Six Day War, Israel offered to return most [if not all] of the territories in exchange for peace. The Arab states responded with the infmaous three nos, "No peace no negotiations, No recognition". The following illustates Israel's willingness to give up territories for peace:
Israel is also worried that an Israeli withdrawal from the territories would create a terror base. Any Israeli withdrawals resulted in a terror base. It resulted in a terror base during Oslo. In fact, from 1995-1996, when 98% of the Palestinian people were under PA rule, there was an increase in terrorism. It included deadly suicide bombings. The 2005 disengagement from Gaza turned Gaza into a terror base. As a result, there was an increase in rocket attacks. Two years later, Hamas took over and set up one of the most oppressive regimes ever.
Plus, Israel has just as much claims to the territories as the Palestinians. For they were part of the historic Jewish homeland. In fact, there was a Jewish presence in them for more than 3,000 years except from 1948-1967.Israel has legal claims to them since she won them from a war of self-defense. And she has security-related claims to them, since the history has shown that any Israeli withdrawal results in the creation of a terror base and in an increase of terror attacks. The basic spirit of UN resolution 242 was that Israel would administer the territories until they would be decided through negotiations. The drafters of Resolution 242 made it clear that the exclusion of the words the and all in the clause that calls for Israel to give up territory was intentional in order to say that Israel wouldn't have to give up all of the territories that she won in 1967.
So those maps on Jew Watch are, at best, misleading. Jew Watch omits the context in order to further their vile anti-Semitic agenda.
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