For a thousand years, Jews had a fairly comfortable existence in Europe

The fate of Jews in Rome and Italy fluctuated, with partial expulsions being carried out under the emperors Tiberius and Claudius. After the successive Jewish revolts of 66 and 132 CE, many Judean Jews were brought to Rome as slaves (the norm in the ancient world was for prisoners of war and inhabitants of defeated cities to be sold as slaves). These revolts caused increasing official hostility from the reign of Vespasian onwards. The most serious measure was the Fiscus Judaicus, which was a tax payable by all Jews in the Roman Empire. The new tax replaced the tithe that had formerly been sent to the Temple in Jerusalem (destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE), and was used instead in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in Rome.
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With the promotion of Christianity as a legal religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine in 313 (the Edict of Milan), the position of Jews in Italy and throughout the empire declined rapidly and dramatically. Constantine established oppressive laws for the Jews; but these were in turn abolished by Julian the Apostate, who showed his favor toward the Jews to the extent of permitting them to resume their plan for the reconstruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. This concession was withdrawn under his successor, who, again, was a Christian; and then the oppression grew considerably. Nicene Christianity was adopted as the state church of the Roman Empire in 380, shortly before the fall of the Western Empire.

At the time of the foundation of the Ostrogothic rule under Theodoric (493 – 526), there were flourishing communities of Jews in Rome, Milan, Genoa, Palermo, Messina, Agrigentum, and in Sardinia. The Popes of the period were not seriously opposed to the Jews; and this accounts for the ardor with which the latter took up arms for the Ostrogoths as against the forces of Justinian—particularly at Naples, where the remarkable defense of the city was maintained almost entirely by Jews. After the failure of the various attempts to make Italy a province of the Byzantine empire, the Jews had to suffer much oppression from the Exarch of Ravenna;

For a thousand years, Jews had a fairly comfortable existence in Europe

Henry IV of Germany, who granted Jews favorable conditions whenever possible, issued a charter to the Jews and a decree against forced baptism

Sociologist Philip Mendes asserts that before the anti-Jewish actions of the 1930s and 1940s, overall Iraqi Jews "viewed themselves as Arabs of the Jewish faith, rather than as a separate race or nationality".[11] Additionally, early Labor Zionism mostly concentrated on the Jews of Europe, skipping Iraqi Jews because of their lack of interest in agriculture. The result was that "Until World War II, Zionism made little headway because few Iraqi Jews were interested in the socialist ideal of manual labor in Palestine." [12]

During the British Mandate from 1918, and in the early days after independence in 1932, well-educated Jews played an important role in civic life. Iraq's first minister of finance, Sir Sassoon Eskell, was a Jew, and Jews were important in developing the judicial and postal systems. Records from the Baghdad Chamber of Commerce show that 10 out of its 19 members in 1947 were Jews and the first musical band formed for Baghdad's nascent radio in the 1930s consisted mainly of Jews. Jews were represented in the Iraqi parliament, and many Jews held significant positions in the bureaucracy, which often led to resentment by the Muslim population.

You know, the writer basically questions the legitimacy of Israel going back to its founding in 1948.

Ray Jay wrote:On topic from today's WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/articles/andrew-r ... 1416613759

There were no fewer than 20 different groups—including the Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus of the Punjab, the Crimean Tatars, the Japanese and Korean Kuril and Sakhalin Islanders, the Soviet Chechens, Ingush and Balkars—many in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who were displaced and taken to different regions.

Yet all of these refugee groups, except one, chose to try to make the best of their new environments. Most have succeeded, and some, such as the refugees who reached America in that decade, have done so triumphantly. The sole exception has been the Palestinians, who made the choice to embrace fanatical irredentism and launch two intifadas—and perhaps now a third—resulting in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis.

I know - it's "different".

Basing his arguments on the principles upon the right to self determination...
And based on the principle of the right to self determination, I think Israel has a more legitimate claim for its existence as a nation state IF there is also a sister state called Palestine.

If it was necessary to form a state safe for Jews, and I think it was, then the other inhabitants of the region also deserve the right to a nation state that they can define.
There are many villains in the failure to create an equal neighbor state to Israel. Principally the undemocratic Arab states neighboring Israel. And the former colonists who sided with real politic rather than the right to self determination...But also the Zionists who sought to achieve a greater state, and still do...

The creation of Israel and the expulsion of Arabs in Israelis territory actually made their lives much more difficult .

They [Jews] continued to have a fairly comfortable existence in the Middle East where Muslims ruled.

ANd the Middle East was more comfortable from the 10th century on then it was in Europe? (You'll note I have a reservoir of doubt, so educate me if I need it.)

Although Jewish life improved under Islamic rule, an interfaith utopia did not exist.[9]:58 Jewish people still experienced persecution. Under Islamic Rule, the Pact of Umar was introduced, which protected the Jews but also established them as inferior.[9]:59 Since the 11th century, there have been instances of pogroms against Jews.[12] Examples include the 1066 Granada massacre, the razing of the entire Jewish quarter in the Andalucian city of Granada.[13] In North Africa, there were cases of violence against Jews in the Middle Ages,[14] and in other Arab lands including Egypt,[15] Syria.[16] and Yemen[17] Jewish population was confined to segregated quarters, or mellahs, in Morocco beginning from the 15th century. In cities, a mellah was surrounded by a wall with a fortified gateway. In contrast, rural mellahs were separate villages inhabited solely by the Jews.[18] The Almohads, who had taken control of much of Islamic Iberia by 1172, were far more fundamentalist in outlook than the Almoravides, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Jews and Christians were expelled from Morocco and Islamic Spain.[19] Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, some Jews, such as the family of Maimonides, fled south and east to the more tolerant Muslim lands, while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.[20][21] In 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in an offensive manner. The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.[

In 1656, all Jews were expelled from Isfahan because of the common belief of their impurity and forced to convert to Islam. However, as it became known that the converts continued to practice Judaism in secret and because the treasury suffered from the loss of jizya collected from the Jews, in 1661 they were allowed to revert to Judaism, but were still required to wear a distinctive patch on their clothing.[24]

Confined to city quarters, the Bukharan Jews were denied basic rights and many were forced to convert to Islam. They had to wear black and yellow dress to distinguish themselves from the Muslims.[25]

Under the Zaydi rule, discriminatory laws became more severe against the Yemenite Jews, which culminated in their eventual exile, in what later became known as the Exile of Mawza. They were considered to be impure, and therefore forbidden to touch a Muslim or a Muslim's food. They were obligated to humble themselves before a Muslim, to walk to the left side, and greet him first. They could not build houses higher than a Muslim's or ride a camel or horse, and when riding on a mule or a donkey, they had to sit sideways. Upon entering the Muslim quarter a Jew had to take off his foot-gear and walk barefoot. If attacked with stones or fists by Islamic youth, a Jew was not allowed to defend himself. In such situations he had the option of fleeing or seeking intervention by a merciful Muslim passerby.[26]

In 1834, in Safed local Muslim Arabs carried out a massacre of the indigenous (Old Yishuv) Jewish population of that city in the Safed Plunder.[citation needed]

In 1839, in the eastern Persian city of Meshed, a mob burst into the Jewish Quarter, burned the synagogue, and destroyed the Torah scrolls. It was only by forcible conversion that a massacre was averted.[27] There was another massacre in Barfurush in 1867.[28][29] In 1839, the Allahdad incident, the Jews of Mashhad, Iran, now known as the Mashhadi Jews, were coerced into converting to Islam.[30]

In the middle of the 19th century, J. J. Benjamin wrote about the life of Persian Jews:


"…they are obliged to live in a separate part of town…; for they are considered as unclean creatures… Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt… For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans… If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him… unmercifully… If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods… Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them... Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever please them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life... If... a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (Muharram)…, he is sure to be murdered."[31]

In 1840, the Jews of Damascus were falsely accused of having murdered a Christian monk and his Muslim servant and of having used their blood to bake Passover bread.[32] A Jewish barber was tortured until he "confessed"; two other Jews who were arrested died under torture, while a third converted to Islam to save his life. Throughout the 1860s, the Jews of Libya were subjected to what Gilbert calls punitive taxation. In 1864, around 500 Jews were killed in Marrakech and Fez in Morocco. In 1869, 18 Jews were killed in Tunis, and an Arab mob looted Jewish homes and stores, and burned synagogues, on Jerba Island. In 1875, 20 Jews were killed by a mob in Demnat, Morocco; elsewhere in Morocco, Jews were attacked and killed in the streets in broad daylight. In 1897, synagogues were ransacked and Jews were murdered in Tripolitania.[

the creation of Israel is actually something that suspended this right for the majority of people in Israel at the time...

Addressing the Central Committee of the Histadrut (the Eretz Israel Workers Party) days after the UN vote to partition Palestine, Ben-Gurion expressed his apprehension stating:

"…the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment will be about one million, including almost 40% non-Jews. Such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority... There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60%".[

Ray Jay wrote:Danivon:

I know - it's "different".

I think it's very similar. But we are in the same foxhole and he's wants to kill us. Once you wrestle with the philosophical questions and work your way to a draw, you then have a decision to kill or be killed.

Ray Jay wrote:4. Ricky:

the creation of Israel is actually something that suspended this right for the majority of people in Israel at the time...

The original demographics of the area that was to be the Jewish state was 600,000 Jewish and 400,000 non-Jew per this source.

Several scholars endorse Simha Flapan's view that it is a myth that Zionists accepted the partition as a compromise by which the Jewish community abandoned ambitions for the whole of Palestine and recognized the rights of the Palestinians to their own state. Rather, Flapan argued, acceptance was only a tactical move that aimed to thwart the creation of a Palestinian state and, concomitantly, expand the territory that had been assigned by the UN to the Jewish state.[81][82][83][84][85] Baruch Kimmerling has said that Zionists "officially accepted the partition plan, but invested all their efforts towards improving its terms and maximally expanding their boundaries while reducing the number of Arabs in them."[86]

the creation of Israel is actually something that suspended this right for the majority of people in Israel at the time.

The original demographics of the area that was to be the Jewish state was 600,000 Jewish and 400,000 non-Jew per this source

the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment will be about one million, including almost 40% non-Jews.

It noted that the population of Palestine at the end of 1946 was estimated to be almost 1,846,000, with 1,203,000 Arabs (65 percent) and 608,000 Jews (33 percent). Growth of the Jewish population had been mainly the result of immigration, while growth of the Arab population had been “almost entirely” due to natural increase. It observed that there was “no clear territorial separation of Jews and Arabs by large contiguous areas”, and even in the Jaffa district, which included Tel Aviv, Arabs constituted a majority.[5] Land ownership statistics from 1945 showed that Arabs owned more land than Jews in every single district in Palestine. The district with the highest percentage of Jewish ownership was Jaffa, where 39 percent of the land was owned by Jews, compared to 47 percent owned by Arabs.[6] In the whole of Palestine at the time UNSCOP issued its report, Arabs owned 85 percent of the land,[7] while Jews owned less than 7 percent.[8]

Despite these facts, the UNSCOP proposal was that the Arab state be constituted from only 45.5 percent of the whole of Palestine, while the Jews would be awarded 55.5 percent of the total area for their state.[9] The UNSCOP report acknowledged that

What made their lives more difficult is that the Arab rulers in those countries were so apoplectic about Jews having a state of their own that they mistreated their Jewish citizens (who had nothing to do with the creation of Israel) to a horrendous extent. There's no reason to blame European Zionists for the persecution of Jews throughout the Arab world. Nor should we blame the Japanese Emperor for internment camps in the U.S. for Americans of Japanese dissent.

And, I agree--a two-State solution is the ideal resolution. So, why won't the Palestinians accept it? They refuse to accept an Israel as currently constituted, even with diminished borders. They act as if the Arab peoples have not declared war after war upon Israel.
The PLO has accepted Israel's existence and all negotiations since the 1990s have been on the 2-state basis.

That is murky--at best.

Read "clauses regarding Israel" (to the end) here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinia ... ing_Israel

I submit the PLO charter has never been changed. Further, it's not just the PLO--what about Hamas?

Since virtually every comment on Hamas in American media includes the assertion that the group’s Charter rejects Israel’s right to exist, it’s worth noting the following from the Likud Platform of 1999:
a. “The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.”
b. “Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel.
The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem”
c. “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”
d. “The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting.
There have been some updates to the platform more recently, reflecting Israel’s withdrawal of settlements from Gaza in 2005. But the Likud Party has *never* in its statements of principles, accepted a Palestinian State