“… I appreciate the equal rights of palestinians…” and you’re right, they should have equal rights, but in fact, those palestinian arabs who have Israeli citizenship enjoy those equal rights. They also serve in govt.offices, as doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, members of the Knesset, judges (including judges on the Israeli Supreme Court) and many proudly serve with the IDF.
“….by saying there’s no such thing as a palestinian…” I lived in Israel is 1974. The only people identifying themselves as “palestinian” were a lot of older Jewish Israelis, who were there prior to 1948. My understanding is that the palestinian “identity” began picking up in popularity circa 1968, but has taken a real foothold since about 1980, but mostly among younger folks.
Judea/Samaria was never called “the West Bank” before Jordan took over that territory in 1948, and only after they ethnically purged the region of every Jew, every Kibbutz and every Synagogue. Prior to 1947, at least 90% of that region was bought and paid for with Jewish National Funds. You can view deeds issued by the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate for Palestine to the new Jewish landowners between 1900 and 1947 in the Israel Museum.
In June 1967 Judea/Samaria was liberated by the IDF and restored to it’s legal and rightful owners, ending 19 years of Jordanian occupation. One wonders, if there was a cause among the Arab nations called “palestine”, why didn’t the occupying authorities (Jordan over Samaria/Judea; Egypt over Gaza) work to establish a palestinian homeland in those regions during that time frame?
This is all in accordance with what really happened (I like to call it “history”) rather than the banal poppycock has that spewed forth from the bowels of antisemitic propagandists (on the Right and the Left) over the past few decades.
Lastly, you speak of “crazies who fantasize about a Third Temple” and now we can finally agree. Xtian Nationalists, are all proposing that “perhaps a small nuclear device could be placed under the Dome of the Rock…” and usher in the rebuilding of the Temple, and then Jesus will come back and begin his world dictatorship. That is absolutely the ONLY reason fundagelicals pay lip service to Israel. And what will happen when he doesn’t come back? Well, he won’t. He was never here in the first place.
