sanchecl said:
To say that the religious factors in this conflict have only been around since the mid 1980's is to ignore the history of the region. Why do you think the Jews returned to (successfully) re-form Israel in the first place? Religion. You aren't seriously making a statement like that with a straight face are you?
Palestine
It is well known that Hamas was established in 1987 and Islamic Jihad in 1982, only from that date the religious Muslims joined the conflict. Since the existence of Israel, the Palestinian resistance was limited to secular organisations.
Israel and Zionism
Zionism was established in 1897 as a secular nationalist organization. All the first generations of Zionists were atheists or agnostic. The goal of the Zionism is to establish a “Jews homeland “in any suitable place. In their first conference in Switzerland 1897, they proposed one of three countries to be a Jews homeland:
Uganda, Argentina and Palestine.
Religious Jews rejected the idea in the beginning and they considered the Zionism as anti-biblical rules. Only after the non-religious Jews succeeded to create Israel, a new fraction in Zionism is established and called religious Zionists.
Here you can find the response of the religious Jews in 1948 on Zionist leaders:
http://www.nkusa.org/Historical_Documents/tenquestions.cfm
Using religious/historical rights is just during the cold war after the end of colonial era.
For better understanding to the ideology of early Zionists, here are quotes of the greatest Zionists leaders:
Ze'ev Jabotinsky was born 1880 in Odessa-Tsarist Russia to a liberal Jewish family. He is considered to be the most important right-wing Revisionist Movement member (which eventually evolved into the post-1948 Herut Party, and later became the Likud Party):
"There is no justice, no law, and
no God in heaven, only a single law which decides and supercedes all---- [Jewish] settlement [of the land]." (Righteous Victims, p. 108)
"Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native [Palestinian] population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop under the protection of a force independent of the local population --an iron wall which the native [Palestinian] population cannot break through. This is, in to, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 28)
"If you wish
to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land, or find a benefactor who will maintain the garrison on your behalf. ...
Zionism is a colonizing adventure and, therefore, it stands or falls on the question of armed forces." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 45)
"There is no choice: the Arabs must make room for the Jews of Eretz Israel. If it was possible to transfer the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to move the Palestinian Arabs." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 29)
David Ben-Gurion Born in 1886 in Plonsk, Poland. He is considered one of the three founding figures of Zionism beside Chaim Weizmann and Herzl. He is the leader of independence of Israel and the first president:
"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99.
"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically
we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
"Even the immigrant of North Africa, who looks like a savage, who has never read a book in his life, not even a religious one, and doesn't even know how to say his prayers, either wittingly or unwittingly has behind him a spiritual heritage of thousands of years. . . ." (1949, The First Israelis, p. 157)
"The Arabs cannot accept the existence of Israel. Those who accept it are not normal. The best solution for the [Palestinian] Arabs in Israel is to go and live in the Arab states---in the framework of a peace treaty or transfer." (Simha Flapan, p. 99)
