Bigots Make Me Learn

I've got one for you.

Palestinians already control Israel.

I'm reading about the Mandate of Palestine and the partitioning plans.

"Palestinian Jew," and, "Palestinian Arab," keeps coming up.

Distinct from groups like Beersheba Bedouin, by the way.

Some Arab populations are called out separately; everyone else is called some kind of "Palestinian."

No side in this fight can claim the moral high ground from about 1937 on.

Not the Jews, not the Arabs, not Muslims, not The British Empire, and most especially not The UN.

Except for the several small Arab populations mentioned as distinct from Palestinian Arabs everyone involved wanted everyone else's land.

When partition started to look like a real thing, they started a civil war over it.

England, who had been saddled with the place since the Ottomans left wanted out and didn't particularly care how they left it once bombs and bullets started flying.

The outcome of that civil war is the establishment of Israel, just in case you're not following, by 1/3 of the Palestinian population which had won the right by force of arms.

All that follows is the refusal of the losers of that fight to accept the loss and the neighbors being upset about it because the new state has the wrong religion.

One can choose to nurse a grievance for generations, or accept things have changed.

There's a not insignificant Arab population in Israel that accepted it and are now citizens, with rights and everything.