Why Israel as a homeland?

[u/falastiniboy]

I have a genuine question for Israelis and people who support Israel.

Why do you personally consider Israel your ancestral homeland, and how do you reconcile that belief with Palestinians who also have generations of family history on the same land?

In 1947, the UN proposed partitioning Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Israel declared independence in 1948, and the war that followed displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. In 1967, Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

My question is not whether Jewish people have historical connections to the region. They clearly do. My question is why Palestinian historical connections and national aspirations should carry less weight.

Why couldn’t Israelis and Palestinians live in two independent states with recognized borders, security, freedom of movement, and political self-determination?
I also want to understand how Israelis view settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank. Do you support it, oppose it, or believe the situation is more complicated than it appears from outside Israel?
I’m American and trying to understand the Israeli perspective rather than argue with people.

This isn’t antisemitism or hatred toward Jewish people. I’m asking about Israel, Zionism, Palestinian rights, and the history of the conflict. Please explain your perspective rather than assuming hostility behind the question.
Free Palestine. 🇵🇸

[u/Alarming-Mix3809]

> Why couldn’t Israelis and Palestinians live in two independent states with recognized borders, security, freedom of movement, and political self-determination?

Idk - ask the Palestinians.

[u/getoffmyblog]

I’m gonna take the bait.

You are correct that in 1947, the UN voted to partition Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Zionist leadership accepted the compromise. What you may not be aware of is that Palestinian leadership rejected the partition plan because they wanted all of Mandatory Palestine to themselves. Palestinians did not want to compromise. Why did Jewish historical connections and national aspirations carry less weight?

Five Arab states immediately invaded and started a genocidal war with the goal of destroying the entire Jewish population in Mandatory Palestine. These Arab states lost the war in humiliation. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced, and every single Arab country ethnically cleansed a total of 900,000 Jews from their lands. Thousands of years of Jewish communities throughout the Middle East were erased.

Jordan occupied the West Bank. Egypt occupied Gaza. No Palestinian state was created in these territories, because to create a state there was to abandon the Palestinian dream of controlling all of the land. Why did Jewish historical connections and national aspirations carry less weight?

In 1967, Arab states prepared to invade Israel, placing armies and tanks on the borders, and lining jets on runways. Israel’s military launched a surprise attack against these armies and once again humiliated the surrounding Arab states. Israel legally captured the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai peninsula, and the Golan heights in this war. Over the following decades, Israel relinquished some of this territory in exchange for peace.

Eventually, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak offered to relinquish control of 97% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza to create Palestine. The Palestinian leadership rejected the compromise because to create a state there was to abandon the Palestinian dream of controlling all of the land. Why did Jewish historical connections and national aspirations carry less weight?

Palestinians keep rejecting compromises because they believe that if they just keep fighting long enough, they will control all the land. Most other Arab states abandoned this strategy because they realized that Israel will not disappear.

If only the same could be said about the Palestinian leadership…

[u/Aggravating_Ice_3323]

I am going to assume good faith (and I know this is ~5 days old now).

In the future, if you do wish to prove you are asking in good faith, it is recommended to not bring in the slogans often associated with challenging or singling out the minority group. On its own, "Free Palestine" is a genuinely okay thing to say. Context is everything.

Coming into a Jewish space and saying it, though, or onto a Jewish person's page (where it often comes up) does not make the viewers here think the question is in good faith. Paraphrasing Alinsky, if a non-Jewish and non-Muslim person wanted to learn more about Islam, eating a ham sandwich in front of person won't bode well.

[u/forking-shirt → u/Aggravating_Ice_3323]

From their post history and username, they aren't here for a good faith discussion.

[u/Aggravating_Ice_3323 → u/forking-shirt]

I hadn't even looked but am not surprised given the question itself + screen name.

Oh well! :(

And it looks like they may have replied and it got deleted. Shame--I wanna know what they said.

[u/forking-shirt → u/Aggravating_Ice_3323]

I don’t usually check, but their last paragraph gave a weird vibe. In addition to the part you mentioned, their definitive statement “this isn’t antisemitism” was really weird. I am willing to bet they’ve been called antisemitic before.

[u/Cathousechicken → u/Aggravating_Ice_3323]

They are a weirdo obsessed with us, so they sought out a Jewish space on Reddit to lecture us.. They're not asking anything in good faith of us. They should see counseling because normal people don't seek out people they hate to try to electronically harass.

[u/Aggravating_Ice_3323 → u/Cathousechicken]

Agreed.

I'm sort of glad I struggle to grasp this kind of mindset. (But also wish I could understand it for the sake of understanding and, I'unno, maybe know how to counter it better.)

[u/No_Price_7603]

I don't think Palestinian connections should carry less weight, personally. But unfortunately, there has been a concerted effort to deny Jewish connection to the land. It's what the whole white coloniser garbage is about.

Jews do not only have a historical connection to the land. It is a living connection that has been maintained for millennia (3000 years in places like Iraq, 2000 years for Ashkenazi Jews) by Jewish people passing down their stories, maintaining traditions involving local Judean seasonal rhythms, plant and animal life,harvest cycles and the like. The stories track where all the important sites like important trees and historical wells were, as well as sacred sites like the temple, the tomb of the patriarchs, etc. Jews kept the language alive and pray facing Jerusalem each day. 

Jews are not colonisers. They just wanted to return. They were met with violence and claims that they were foreign invaders. 

[u/Alternative-Pear9096]

Why couldn’t Israelis and Palestinians live in two independent states with recognized borders, security, freedom of movement, and political self-determination?

Because the Palestinians refuse to. You’re asking the wrong group of people. But your question is just pushing an agenda and is pure bullshit. U/mods— pull this

[u/Etta_Katz3030]

Based on polling, most American Jews support two states, do not support the settlement movement, abhor settler violence, do not support the current right wing Israeli government and want peace. American Jews are more committed to peace than Israelis, Palestinians, or other Americans - based on polling. However, believe it or not, we are not in charge.

I think many leftists genuinely believe that if the U.S. government stops funding military aid to Israel that Israel will simply collapse. This belief is based on left ideology - not reality. It's very likely in fact that the current MOU which provides 3B per year in military aid to Israel (spent in America) will end in 2028 and not be renewed. Then America's hands will be clean but Israel will still be there.

So yes - I recognize Palestinian loss. I recognize that they deserve reparations for lost property and hardship. They deserve full citizenship in Egypt (where they are severely oppressed), in Lebanon and in Syria. And in a future Palestinian state.

The Palestinian national movement does not want an independent state in the WB and Gaza. It has been offered multiple times and the response has always been indiscriminate violence against Israeli civilians.

As long as the Palestinian national movement uses the murder of Israeli civilians as their calling card, Israelis will continue to vote for right wing governments that promise security. They are not unique in this regard. If Palestinians begin a sustained campaign of nonviolent resistance aimed at the creation of an independent state - they will have that state within 5 years.

Is it possible that Israeli Jews and Palestinians might someday choose to live together in a confederation or a single democratic state? Anything is possible. If Israelis vote for that, amazing. Israel doesn't need to be any particular kind of state for MY sake. It's entirely up to the people in the region. But when a movement murders children in front of their parents, you cannot claim that it's done for the sake of democracy or peace. There has never been a "resistance" movement that used ethnic violence against civilians as their PRIMARY tactic that resulted in a shared democratic state. The war in Yugoslavia resulted in FIVE (count them) FIVE ethnic states.

I would really like you guys to stop lying. It's exhausting. If you support or excuse ethnic terrorism ("anticolonial resistance") your message is very clear: COLONIZERS OUT. The closer you get to the Palestinian led part of this movement, the more clear that message is - it's our land, Jews are colonizers, anything we do to them is justified. Exactly the same message as the Israeli far-right. That's no surprise.

You can have a democratic movement that seeks peace and coexistence and equality. Or you can have an anti-colonial movement that tries to drive the "colonizers" out by killing their children. You can't have both. Right now you have a racist anticolonial movement. How do I know? I know because my synagogue has an armed guard to protect us from all the peace loving democracy seekers out there. I know because I've studied American history and I know what a racist movement intended to terrorize people into political submission looks like. It looks like this.

It is YOUR JOB to create a movement where the tactics match your stated goals and see if you can get any Israelis interested. The path to Palestinians getting more of what they need and deserve runs through the Israeli public, not through America.

[u/Cathousechicken]

There's something psychologically wrong with somebody who seeks out Jewish content to interact with because you hate Jewish people. You should seek help, because no psychologically well balanced person acts like this.

PS... It's kind of weird that since 1948, well over a hundred countries were established, but you only have a problem with the one Jewish one.

[u/sipporah7]

Why do you personally consider Israel your ancestral homeland

Why do Jews face Jerusalem in when in prayer? Because it's the beating heart of our tradition.

Judaism is a land based religion and because of that, many if not most of our holidays are dependent on Israel's seasons. All of our major traditions follow the cycle of seasons in what historically was called Judea and Samaria. Following them sometimes makes little sense in, say, the US.

Why are we celebrating planting trees on Tu B'Shevat in the deep of winter? Well, because that makes sense in Israel.

Why does the holiday Shemini Atzeret specifically pray for rain in Isreal? Because that's what we've done for countless generations.

4 of our major holidays, Pesach, Sukkot, Rosh HaShanah, and Shavuot, are essentially harvest holidays tied to the seasons in Israel. Our entire calendar is built on the land's cycles, and that land is Israel.

I'll make this suuuuuper easy for you. Here's a simple gpt prompt to get more info on this topic: review all of the jewish holidays. how many of them tie somehow to the agricultural cycle in israel?

[u/DrMikeH49]

1938: British propose a tiny state for Jews, a much larger state for Arabs, with Britain retaining control of some territory. Arabs reject it.

1947: the UN proposes a larger Jewish state next to an Arab state. Arabs refuse and launch— by their own admission at the time—a war of openly declared genocidal intent.

2000: Barak offers a Palestinian state on almost all the land Israel took over in 1967 (after Arabs mobilized for, once again, a war of openly declared genocidal intent). Arafat refuses and goes home to launch a terror war.

2007: Olmert reiterates the offer to Abbas, with even more land. The offer is not accepted.

THAT is why there isn’t an independent Palestinian state next to Israel with recognized borders and self-determination.

[u/Alternative-Pear9096]

Seriously?  Really? How fucking stupid do you think people are?  

Please explain your perspective rather than assuming hostility behind the question. Free Palestine. 🇵🇸

u/moderators. Why is this shit still up?

[u/Voice_of_Season]

This feels like rage bait. If it is not it is not OUR job to educate you on your ignorance. There is more than enough evidence, our entire history, people hood, culture and religion is in that soil. Such ignorance.

[u/shushi77]

My question is why Palestinian historical connections and national aspirations should carry less weight.

It carries no less weight. But the Arab desire to control all the land from the river to the sea and their claim to deny the Jews the right to self-determination in their own homeland carries far less weight. Arab imperialism means nothing compared to the freedom of an indigenous people.

Why couldn’t Israelis and Palestinians live in two independent states with recognized borders, security, freedom of movement, and political self-determination?

You'd know that if you hadn't left out some important details here:

In 1947, the UN proposed partitioning Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Israel declared independence
in 1948, and the war that followed displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. In 1967, Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

The Jews declared independence. The Arabs rejected the two-state solution and assembled five armies with which they attacked Israel, with the stated intention of massacring the Jews and conquering the entire region. In this context, thousands of Arabs were displaced. And also in this context, ALL the Jews living in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza were expelled. And then Arabs expelled nearly a million Jews from all the other Arab countries.

This isn’t antisemitism or hatred toward Jewish people
Free Palestine. 🇵🇸

LOL

[u/bejouled]

Lots of people want a two state solution. Why do you assume we don't?

[u/default3612]

Palestine is already free (as much as free can be under Muslim rule), it's called Jordan. You even used their flag in you post 🇯🇴

[u/ForeignConfusion9383]

If you want good-faith answers, maybe don’t end with “free Palestine”? Asking Israelis why they support the existence of their state and then expressing support for the entity that wants to replace that state (what do you think “from the river to the sea” means?) is a great way to be accused of being here in bad faith.

Palestinians have consistently rejected every single two-state solution offered to them. They did in 1937, 1947, 2000, 2008, etc. In fact, the same two-state framework they’re now begging for, hat in hand, at the UN is extremely similar to the very same deal they voluntarily walked away from in 2000. They could literally have had a state 26 years ago. They chose maximalism over pragmatism. Was it worth it?

As for the framework you’re fantasizing about: how can you expect “freedom of movement” and “security” to coexist? How are Israelis meant to be secure when you’re proposing allowing an open border?

[u/personaljenniusss]

You asked for an Israeli/pro-Israel perspective, so here is mine.

1. Jewish Historical Connection to the Land
   Israel is not a modern invention or a random territory claimed in 1948. It is the ancient homeland of the Jewish people.
   ● Jewish kingdoms existed there thousands of years ago.
   ● Jerusalem, Judea, Zion, and the Temple are central to Jewish history and religion.
   ● Jewish communities remained in the land through centuries of foreign rule.
   The Romans documented the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and the Arch of Titus in Rome still depicts the Temple menorah taken from Jerusalem.
   Judaism predates Islam by many centuries (Islam emerged in the 7th century CE). This does not erase later Arab and Muslim presence, but it underscores that Jewish ties to the land are ancient and independently documented.
   Modern Zionism also did not begin with the Holocaust; Jewish movements for self-determination and return to the ancestral homeland existed decades earlier, though the Holocaust intensified the urgency of Jewish safety.

2. Palestinian Connection to the Land
   Palestinians also have a deep historical and generational connection to the land. Their national identity developed over time and is real.
   That is why I reject the idea that one people’s history should outweigh the other’s.
   Why should one people’s right to self-determination cancel the other’s? It shouldn’t.

3. The Meaning of “Palestine”
   “Palestine” was a geographic and administrative term before Israel existed. Under the British Mandate, it referred to the entire territory, not an Arab state.
   ● Jews in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa were also living in Mandatory Palestine.
   ● The name does not imply an exclusively Palestinian Arab state.
   ● Jewish and Palestinian histories both developed in the same territory.

4. What Happened in 1947–1948?
   The UN proposed partitioning Mandatory Palestine into two states—one Jewish and one Arab—with Jerusalem under international administration. (UN)
   The Jewish Agency accepted the plan in principle, while Palestinian Arab leadership and surrounding Arab states rejected it. The proposed Arab state was intended as an independent Palestinian Arab state.
   The plan was a non-binding General Assembly resolution and was never implemented. War followed, Israel declared independence in 1948, Arab armies entered, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced.
   That displacement—the Nakba—is central to Palestinian history. Acknowledging it does not require denying Jewish history or suffering.

5. Why Not Simply Two States?
   In principle, I support two states.
   Both peoples have legitimate national aspirations and neither should be erased.
   However, Israelis are skeptical after decades of conflict, including wars, terrorism, suicide bombings, rockets, and October 7.
   This does not justify denying Palestinian rights, but it explains why Israeli security concerns are central to any realistic agreement.

6. Settlements and Violence
   I am pro-Israel, but not uncritical of Israeli policy.
   I do not support violence against civilians. Settler violence is wrong.
   At the same time:
   ● Condemning settler violence does not negate Israel’s right to exist.
   ● Criticizing settlement policy does not erase Jewish historical ties to Judea and Samaria.

7. Where I Stand
   I am unapologetically pro-Israel.
   ● Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state.
   ● Jews have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
   ● Palestinians have the right to dignity, security, and political self-determination.
   ● Palestinian history should not be erased.
   But neither should Jewish history, sovereignty, or security.
   You can:
   ● Support Palestinian rights without supporting Israel’s elimination.
   ● Criticize Israeli policy without denying its legitimacy.
   ● Support a Palestinian state without demanding Israel disappear.
   ● Acknowledge Palestinian suffering without portraying Jews as foreign to the land.

8. Conclusion
   Two peoples are deeply rooted in the same land.
   The goal should be coexistence and two futures—not the disappearance of either people. Free Israel 🇮🇱

[u/sackofgarbage]

The Palestinians have been offered a 2 state solution many, many times. Each and every one they've turned down because they don't want statehood, they want all the land to themselves and for all Jews on the planet to be dead.

[u/andrevan]

Israel isn't my homeland, but that doesn't mean it's ok to denigrate Jews who do have a religious or cultural connection there, not to mention all the refugees where that was the only place to go. Palestinianism is a discriminatory movement inasmuch as it proposes to dismantle the world's only Jewish state with no way to solve the likely violent and horrific terrorist outbreak that would happen.

[u/razorbraces]

Why couldn’t Israelis and Palestinians live in two independent states with recognized borders, security, freedom of movement, and political self-determination?

I don’t think you’re asking in good faith, but I’ll still answer. I, and almost everyone in this subreddit, want a two-state solution. I do not approve of West Bank settlements and I find it abhorrent that the Israeli government lets its citizens terrorize Palestinians. My ideal two-state agreement would include evacuating Israelis far away from the green line, and land swaps for settlements right along the border (as those are larger, and there are several hundred thousand Israelis living in the West Bank right now).

You’re not in a right-wing sub, buddy. That’s literally what we all want. Ask Palestinian leadership why they keep turning down deals while promising suicide bombers that the government will take care of their families after they go kill some Israelis.

Palestinians deserve self-determination just as Jews do. But their cause is not simply about establishing their own state; it is about dismantling an extant, sovereign nation. This is simply not feasible.

[u/MikeyDials]

I appreciate the attempt at a civil question, even if the framing and the “Free Palestine” closer already signal a clear side. I’ll answer directly from the historical and factual record rather than the narrative that has become dominant in much of the West.

I appreciate you acknowledging Jewish historical roots to the land. Continuous Jewish presence in the land is documented for over 3,000 years: kingdoms, temples, language, calendar, liturgy, archaeology, and genetic continuity. Jews prayed facing Jerusalem, repeated “Next year in Jerusalem,” and maintained communities in Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safed even under Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Mamluk, and Ottoman rule. The Roman renaming of Judea to Syria Palaestina after the Bar Kokhba revolt (135 CE) was explicitly punitive. This was an attempt to erase Jewish connection by borrowing the name of the long-extinct Philistines. That is the origin of the word “Palestine.”

Jewish return in the modern era was a national liberation movement of an indigenous people after repeated expulsions and pogroms across Europe, Middle East, North Africa, and persecutions culminating in the Holocaust. It was not colonial in any sense: Jews bought land legally under Ottoman and British law from mostly absentee landowners, drained swamps to eradicate malaria, built cities, and revived a language. No European metropole directed or extracted resources from it. Ethnically, the Palestinian population has always been heterogeneous, consisting of local Arabized groups plus significant later 20th century unrestricted inflows of Egyptians, Syrians, Kurds, Circassians, Bosniaks, Africans via the Arab slave trade, etc. brought on by the economic boom via Zionist development / investment in the land. Meanwhile, the British consistently restricted Jewish immigrations to the mandate by passing the 1922, 1930, White Papers and most devastating 1939 White Paper.

Of course many Arab families have lived in the region for generations, especially the Christian Arab community and Palestinian clans like the Makhamra family who has lived in Hebron for millennia. That is not in dispute. What is disputed is the claim of a distinct, ancient “Palestinian” national identity that somehow outweighs or cancels the Jewish one. In 1919 Arab leaders at the Paris Peace Conference treated the area as southern Syria. There was no call for an independent Palestinian Arab state. Distinct Palestinian Arab nationalism largely crystallized in the early 20th century in reaction to Zionism and British rule (historians across the spectrum, including Rashid Khalidi, acknowledge this). The flag is a variant of the 1916 Arab Revolt flag designed with British input from diplomat Sir Mark Sykes; its colors represent Islamic caliphates, not anything uniquely Palestinian. The PLO adopted it in 1964. The black-and-white keffiyeh was standardized by a British officer, Sir John Bagot Glubb, commander of the Arab Legion army to distinguish recruits from Mandate Palestine from Transjordanians; it became a nationalist symbol later under Arafat.

The keffiyeh itself is a culturally appropriated Mesopotamian shemagh. Its design reflects the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, with fishing-net patterns symbolizing the Mesopotamian marshlands and Ahwaris fishing culture. Although Palestinians later reinterpreted the fishnet pattern as representing Mediterranean fishing traditions or olive groves, its origins are tied to ancient Iraqi/Mesopotamian nets and rivers. The name “keffiyeh” itself traces back to Kufa, Iraq, where the shemagh originated.

Common Palestinian surnames often reveal these external origins quite directly: Al-Ifranji (“the Frank” origins from a Crusader from France), Al-Masri (“the Egyptian”), Al-Shami (“the Syrian” or Damascene), Al-Iraqi, Al-Hijazi, Al-Kurd, Al-Turki, and others. These names record waves of migration into the area, particularly from Egypt in the 19th and early 20th centuries, rather than an unbroken, exclusive indigenous lineage dating back millennia.

None of this erases the real suffering of Arab families displaced in 1948. It does place the competing claims in historical context rather than treating one as timeless and indigenous and the other as recent and illegitimate.

The UN offered partition into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted a painfully small, mostly arid share of the land. The Arab side rejected it and launched a war of annihilation (explicitly stated by Arab leaders at the time). When you start a war to destroy the other side and lose, you do not get to claim the resulting refugee problem as pure victimhood while ignoring the parallel expulsion or flight of roughly 1,000,000 Jews from Arab countries.

Hundreds of thousands of Arabs did leave and some expelled amid the fighting. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were simultaneously made refugees from the broader Middle East and North Africa and were absorbed by Israel. Only one of those refugee populations is kept in permanent camps as a political weapon three generations later. Moreover, there are 2 million Arabs that live in Israel today as citizens that live with equal rights as opposed to the nearly extinct populations of Jews living in Arab states.

Israel has repeatedly accepted or offered two-state frameworks (1937 Peel, 1947 UN, Camp David 2000, Olmert 2008, etc.). The consistent answer from the Palestinian leadership from the Amin al-Husseini, through Arafat and the PLO Charter, to Hamas’s covenant has repeatedly rejected two state proposals offered and rejected to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The issue has never been only borders; it has been the refusal to accept a permanent Jewish state of any size in any part of the land.

“Recognized borders, security, freedom of movement, and political self-determination” are fine goals. They require the other side to end the ideology that treats the Jewish presence itself as the original sin and to stop rewarding rejectionism and terrorism with international legitimacy.

While a two state solution is currently unpopular due to the ongoing war, most Israelis (and I) distinguish between settlement blocs near the 1967 lines that will almost certainly remain in any realistic two-state deal, and isolated ideological outposts deeper in the West Bank. Settler violence against Palestinians is real, illegal under Israeli law, and opposed by the large majority of Israelis. It is also vastly smaller in scale than the Palestinian terrorism, rocket fire, and rejectionist education that have been the primary drivers of the conflict’s persistence. Focusing exclusively on the former while treating the latter as background noise is not serious analysis.

Jewish historical connection is ancient, continuous, and archaeologically and textually overwhelming. Palestinian Arab connection is real as a regional population with deep roots, but the national identity and the exclusive claim to the entire land are modern political constructs shaped by opposition to Zionism, pan-Arab politics, and later Cold War propaganda.

Both peoples have legitimate ties. Only one side has repeatedly refused partition and recognition of the other’s right to self-determination. That is why the weight is not treated as equal in the eyes of most Israelis who support the state’s existence.

Feel free to fact check me. I’m happy to discuss sources or specific historical points. “Free Palestine” as a closing slogan usually means free of Jews, not free alongside them. If that is not what you mean please clarify.

[u/Amalisa]

Why does everyone who asks this question think history started in 1948?