Some intellectuals argue that the conflict is not really about land — and they are wrong. This conflict is precisely about the fact that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
I appreciate the sentiment but disagree with the conclusion. While we must fight for the land and the right to the land, the fight is about dominance, which is why it is not confined to Israel itself and it is not confined to those who want the land for themselves. The world is furious and rejects the notion of the autonomous Jew. Jews are bing attacked in London, Paris, and NYC because they are autonomous, not because they live in land someone else claims for themselves. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the first half of the 20th century, Islam saw itself as weak and subservient, which spurred it to become much more radical than it was before. This explains why the fight is much more than with Israel or Jews, although they are the focal point and tip of the spear.
To quote someone from Redit who astutely noted, "the Ummah follows a policy of irredentism, that goes something like this: Once a piece of land (and its inhabitants) comes under the rule of a legitimate Muslim authority, it forever becomes an inalienable part of the Dar al-Islām. If even one acre of the Dar al-Islām becomes conquered and ruled by a non-Muslim authority, the Ummah has an obligation to restore legitimate Muslim rule there, regardless of the wishes of the local inhabitants, and regardless of the cost in time, money, and lives. The Dar al-Harb includes only lands and peoples who have never been under Muslim rule. Dar al-Harb lands can (and eventually should) become Dar al-Islām lands, but never, ever vice-versa."
Another observation but from Quora, "Under the Islamic law, any land captured by the Muslims will permanently become Islamic land (even if all the natives are non-Muslims). . . .
Under the Islamic law, any land captured by the Muslims will permanently become Darul Islam (Islamic land). This holds good even if all the natives of the occupied land are non-Muslims.
Any occupation of such Darul Islam by non-Muslims is considered illegal by the Sharia and calls Muslims to fight until they regain control over the land. This holds good even if the natives were to rise and liberate their land.
According to this law, Spain and India are Darul Islam and are currently under illegal occupation by non-Muslims.
Based on this theology, many Muslims aspire for Ghazwa-i-Hind or a fantasy to regain Islamic control over India.
The Jews liberated their holy land and established their ancient nation of Israel after 19 centuries. However, under the Sharia law, Israeli lands are under illegal occupation of non-Muslims."
Something to keep in mind when talking about a so-called two state solution.
This is my understanding also. There is a reason why more and more Muslims are coming to Spain, mostly to Andalucía and working to convert the native population into Islam. The current government doesn’t recognize what’s happening.
It’s about Islam, which has prescriptions for land. When the Ottoman Empire was crumbling the leaders began emphasizing Islam as a way to motivate “subjects” to fight for the empire (caliphate). That empire fell, but the Islamicization of muslim politics continues, through the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian Revolution, through Hamas.
I think when people - experts or otherwise - speak of the conflict not being just about land, they are referring to the Arab's motives, not Israel's. The "Palestinians" many refusals to accept any deal offered them signaled their refusal to accept Israel's existence within any borders at all. Also, Islam insists that any land once Muslim remain Muslim into perpetuity. Therefore, it is more about ideology and outright rejectionism on their part. For Israelis, of course, it is all about the land, HaEretz Yisrael but, sadly some have been all too willing to give bits it away in the elusive search for peace.
You make a good point, about it not making sense to ignore that the battleground is land. That would deprive us of a vital piece of the puzzle to understand what is going on. However, for me, it is both about land and about culture, Jew-hatred, as well as other factors, including the need of Arab leaders to deflect blame for their authoritarianism, tribalism, and lack of pan-Arab economic, ethnic, military and national unity and success. It is also about Muslim Crusades against Christianity (with Jews in the cross-fire, as usual, and the United Nations being captive to anti-Western players globally regarding Islamism, Marxism and Russian, Iranian and Chinese colonial enterprises.
Jihadists want to kill Jews. They will find a spiritual vacuum if they succeed and will look for another enemy to fill their emptiness (they already have a backup in Americans, and other muslim sects are also fair game. Maybe if they succeed in killing those, they will move on to intellectuals ;-)). Acquiring land is not a big motivator for them, except in as much as it enables them to kill more Jews, so in that sense you are correct.
Of course anyone who is not a Jihadist can not coexist as a neighbor (which is a mild form of land sharing) with such an ideology. But we must not become like them. We must not become like most people used to be before the advent of liberalizing religions (like liberal Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism) or the European secular Enlightenment, which allowed for a diversity of ideologies, cultures and religions to coexist and share land (as neighbors) under the umbrella of a state or a federation of tribes, as long as they are willing to coexist (i.e. not murder each other, and live as neighbors, with respect for each other's property, including land). These developments did not eliminate inter-tribal warfare, but as Pinker has shown, they have reduced it. Unfortunately, modernity has also been destroying family, village and tribe, and also the spiritual connection to land, which has spurred Jihadists and other enemies of modernity to look for an alternative.
Jews can recognize that Palestinians have the same needs for connection to ancestral land, and community that they do, and they can be neighbors with them, as long as they renounce Jihadism and the desire to kill Jews. Or we can choose to be barbarians, like the Jihadists.
Land, as such, is of no importance to Moslems. It provides living space and wealth. It also provides power for the rulers and that, they will never voluntarily give up. They hate the Jewish state just as they hated Christian Lebanon, because they showed the citizens of Moslem states that there is a better way to live and organise. Others, like Iran, want to lead the Moslem world on a crusade to restore the caliphate world-wide. The land itself is not holy but it enables power and space to draw wealth and organise war. One thing in our favour is that Shia Islam as in Iran is far more violent in its outlook aand practice - even in its rituals - than Sunni, and that helps to divide Islamic power. They reject Israel - or Christian Lebanon - in their midst, not because of "lost" land but of fear of the democratic example of those societies. and fear for the example to the own people of democracy. Read the "The Great Hate".
I agree it’s about land. And just to prove the point, I think the Israel’s should expel the pals from northern Gaza and colonize it. The Mideast will then start to get the message about the long term penalties for killing Jews.
Land for peace never made sense because Israel had and has no true partners in the so called peace process
I agree with you. History has shown that to us when Israel gave back land after each victory in the hope of peace. Really worked, didn't it?
I appreciate the sentiment but disagree with the conclusion. While we must fight for the land and the right to the land, the fight is about dominance, which is why it is not confined to Israel itself and it is not confined to those who want the land for themselves. The world is furious and rejects the notion of the autonomous Jew. Jews are bing attacked in London, Paris, and NYC because they are autonomous, not because they live in land someone else claims for themselves. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the first half of the 20th century, Islam saw itself as weak and subservient, which spurred it to become much more radical than it was before. This explains why the fight is much more than with Israel or Jews, although they are the focal point and tip of the spear.
“Ground-breaking” observation - it IS about land. Thumbs up!
To quote someone from Redit who astutely noted, "the Ummah follows a policy of irredentism, that goes something like this: Once a piece of land (and its inhabitants) comes under the rule of a legitimate Muslim authority, it forever becomes an inalienable part of the Dar al-Islām. If even one acre of the Dar al-Islām becomes conquered and ruled by a non-Muslim authority, the Ummah has an obligation to restore legitimate Muslim rule there, regardless of the wishes of the local inhabitants, and regardless of the cost in time, money, and lives. The Dar al-Harb includes only lands and peoples who have never been under Muslim rule. Dar al-Harb lands can (and eventually should) become Dar al-Islām lands, but never, ever vice-versa."
Another observation but from Quora, "Under the Islamic law, any land captured by the Muslims will permanently become Islamic land (even if all the natives are non-Muslims). . . .
Under the Islamic law, any land captured by the Muslims will permanently become Darul Islam (Islamic land). This holds good even if all the natives of the occupied land are non-Muslims.
Any occupation of such Darul Islam by non-Muslims is considered illegal by the Sharia and calls Muslims to fight until they regain control over the land. This holds good even if the natives were to rise and liberate their land.
According to this law, Spain and India are Darul Islam and are currently under illegal occupation by non-Muslims.
Based on this theology, many Muslims aspire for Ghazwa-i-Hind or a fantasy to regain Islamic control over India.
The Jews liberated their holy land and established their ancient nation of Israel after 19 centuries. However, under the Sharia law, Israeli lands are under illegal occupation of non-Muslims."
Something to keep in mind when talking about a so-called two state solution.
This is my understanding also. There is a reason why more and more Muslims are coming to Spain, mostly to Andalucía and working to convert the native population into Islam. The current government doesn’t recognize what’s happening.
It’s about Islam, which has prescriptions for land. When the Ottoman Empire was crumbling the leaders began emphasizing Islam as a way to motivate “subjects” to fight for the empire (caliphate). That empire fell, but the Islamicization of muslim politics continues, through the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian Revolution, through Hamas.
It’s about Islam.
I think when people - experts or otherwise - speak of the conflict not being just about land, they are referring to the Arab's motives, not Israel's. The "Palestinians" many refusals to accept any deal offered them signaled their refusal to accept Israel's existence within any borders at all. Also, Islam insists that any land once Muslim remain Muslim into perpetuity. Therefore, it is more about ideology and outright rejectionism on their part. For Israelis, of course, it is all about the land, HaEretz Yisrael but, sadly some have been all too willing to give bits it away in the elusive search for peace.
Nothing to debate. God gave Israel to the Jews 3000 years ago and the UN re affirmed it 77 years ago.
Just ignore those pesky 2000 years, a minor detail.
You make a good point, about it not making sense to ignore that the battleground is land. That would deprive us of a vital piece of the puzzle to understand what is going on. However, for me, it is both about land and about culture, Jew-hatred, as well as other factors, including the need of Arab leaders to deflect blame for their authoritarianism, tribalism, and lack of pan-Arab economic, ethnic, military and national unity and success. It is also about Muslim Crusades against Christianity (with Jews in the cross-fire, as usual, and the United Nations being captive to anti-Western players globally regarding Islamism, Marxism and Russian, Iranian and Chinese colonial enterprises.
Jihadists want to kill Jews. They will find a spiritual vacuum if they succeed and will look for another enemy to fill their emptiness (they already have a backup in Americans, and other muslim sects are also fair game. Maybe if they succeed in killing those, they will move on to intellectuals ;-)). Acquiring land is not a big motivator for them, except in as much as it enables them to kill more Jews, so in that sense you are correct.
Of course anyone who is not a Jihadist can not coexist as a neighbor (which is a mild form of land sharing) with such an ideology. But we must not become like them. We must not become like most people used to be before the advent of liberalizing religions (like liberal Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism) or the European secular Enlightenment, which allowed for a diversity of ideologies, cultures and religions to coexist and share land (as neighbors) under the umbrella of a state or a federation of tribes, as long as they are willing to coexist (i.e. not murder each other, and live as neighbors, with respect for each other's property, including land). These developments did not eliminate inter-tribal warfare, but as Pinker has shown, they have reduced it. Unfortunately, modernity has also been destroying family, village and tribe, and also the spiritual connection to land, which has spurred Jihadists and other enemies of modernity to look for an alternative.
Jews can recognize that Palestinians have the same needs for connection to ancestral land, and community that they do, and they can be neighbors with them, as long as they renounce Jihadism and the desire to kill Jews. Or we can choose to be barbarians, like the Jihadists.
Land, as such, is of no importance to Moslems. It provides living space and wealth. It also provides power for the rulers and that, they will never voluntarily give up. They hate the Jewish state just as they hated Christian Lebanon, because they showed the citizens of Moslem states that there is a better way to live and organise. Others, like Iran, want to lead the Moslem world on a crusade to restore the caliphate world-wide. The land itself is not holy but it enables power and space to draw wealth and organise war. One thing in our favour is that Shia Islam as in Iran is far more violent in its outlook aand practice - even in its rituals - than Sunni, and that helps to divide Islamic power. They reject Israel - or Christian Lebanon - in their midst, not because of "lost" land but of fear of the democratic example of those societies. and fear for the example to the own people of democracy. Read the "The Great Hate".
I agree it’s about land. And just to prove the point, I think the Israel’s should expel the pals from northern Gaza and colonize it. The Mideast will then start to get the message about the long term penalties for killing Jews.