u/calyxo_world

Israel-Palestine: Historical facts first [chronological order]

1880s: Jews start purchasing lands legally in Arab-Palestine, which was under Ottomans. The Jewish National Fund & Jewish Colonization Association was formed to collect funds to legally purchase agricultural land in Palestine & establish settlements. This was a precursor to the stronger wave of migration that happened between the 1920s & 1940s.

1. 1917- Balfour Declaration: Britain declares that it favors establishing a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, while saying the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish population should not be prejudiced. Palestine was still Ottoman territory at this point; Britain did not yet govern it.

2. World War 1: Britain defeats the Ottomans.

3. Palestine comes under the governance of Britain.

4. Legal purchase of land & settlements increase.

5. Arab-Jew violence in the 1930s increased.

6. 1939- Britain restricts Jewish migration. Opposed by Jews in Europe as they were persecuted in Europe.

7. 1939-1945 Holocaust. This singling out of Jews resulted in more migrations.

8. 1947 Britain leaves Palestine governance & transfers the issue to the UN.

9. UN proposes a plan to partition the land between Arab Muslims & Jews. Roughly half in each's share. Jews accepted the plan; Muslims rejected it. It is noted that Jews legally purchased around 7% of the land by this time and were settled broadly in them only.

10. One day after the UN proposal, Palestinian Muslims launch a full-scale attack on Jews. Jews fight back & for one year civil war continues. After this one-year civil war, Jews control nearly half of Palestine- what was proposed by the UN- and some areas beyond that. And in 1949, Israel declares independence.

11. One day after this, surrounding Muslim nations attacked Israel at once & were defeated by 1949. Israel's control of land increased from half of Palestine (as proposed by the UN) to 78% of the territory. Egypt captured Gaza & Jordan captured westbank. Jordan makes the West Bank part of itself while Egypt imposes military rule on Gaza.

12. 1967: after 6 days of war, Israel captures the West Bank from Jordan while Egypt loses control of Gaza. This vacuum was utilized by Iran, who established Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Now the analytics: Jews purchased land legally from Ottomans & local Muslims. Settlement increases legally. Later they were attacked by others whose ancestors had sold land to Jews in the first place. Jews won the war & kept the territory. No Arab state has allowed asylum to populations of Palestine. The West Bank & Gaza were not given back to Palestine by Egypt & Jordan after 1948 until 1967! Nobody (including Muslim nations) really cares about Muslims of Palestine; they are just pawns in larger geopolitical games. More have been killed in Syria & Africa, but Palestine is cool to protest for. Protestors protest for the sake of it without studying facts of the matter.

I have some points for you to ponder over this.

1. 70+ years, the whole government in your hand. You could have demanded the best public schooling & healthcare, but you stuck to reservations in jobs. This shows that your vision for uplifting your community is limited to just jobs & not overall human resource development.
2. Private sector is built on the foundation of constitutional liberty to practice professions & runs on market values that demand maximum output, which is merit-based, & by demanding reservations, you are basically skewing up the market & not contributing to the Indian economy.
3. Generational reservations have ruined other castes who are not able to enter into its fold.
4. It's very evil to say that rich SCs are getting reservations just because their ancestors were oppressed, while poverty-stricken general students are sliding into depression because their efforts are not being awarded in this nation. What was the fault of the general kids who are not getting admission into colleges and whose lives are ruined and whose families destroyed?

The problem is that the psyche of so-called leaders and bureaucrats is sick with socialistic principles of distribution. They don't want to increase the size of the pie. They just want to fight on the limited amount of pie. I am amazed to see that OBC & SC-ST leaders have done nothing for their communities & are constantly blaming Brahminism for their community's decline even after 70 years of constitutional autonomy over resources! OBC & SC-ST people should realize this is going nowhere but to civil unrest. Demand your leaders to provide you with high-quality education & health at no cost instead of doing vote-bank politics. I believe enough oppression has been done on general students as revenge for the past. Or more, do you want?

Let's talk about Savarkar & disperse the mist around that person in contemporary times. Because it's easy to slander someone when you can't digest his or her views. [Not going into the political standing of asking for forgiveness from Britishers, that being left to politicians. I am going to talk about his ideological stands on various topics.]

He was a rationalist, atheist, nationalist, and humanist; he judged tradition by reason, science, and social utility. Opposed cow worship.
On Hindutva, Hindu civilizational/national identity is based on shared land, ancestry, and culture and India as fatherland and holy land, distinct from Hindu religious belief.
Favored a secular civic state, equal individual rights, one-person-one-vote, majority rule, and no separate communal electorates/privileges; opposed theocracy.
He was strongly anti-caste and supported inter-caste marriage/dining, temple entry, and merit-based priesthood.
He rejected religious superstition, scriptural infallibility, and cow worship and supported cow protection mainly on economic grounds.
He supported women's education and public participation.
He was neither Marxist nor capitalist; he favored economic nationalism and a mixed/interventionist economy: private property alongside selective nationalization, industrialization, protectionism, labor welfare, and opposition to landlordism. He was strongly pro-science, technology, mechanization, and modern industrialization. He wanted a strong central state, national unity, demographic strength, and military preparedness; he rejected absolute nonviolence.

So, why hate him? Because he doesn't fit into left-right or politically correct ideological stands.

I would tell you why he is slandered so much. He opposed Muslim nationalism. And from today's point of view, this might seem to be Islamophobic, but think of that time. Muslim riots were on the rise. The Khilafat Movement was fanning pan-Islamization, & mass radicalization was being done of common Muslims by the Muslim League. And his fears came out to be true by incidents like Direct Action Day. And if you think he was bigoted by having this stance over this issue, then let me mention some other leaders of that who shared this view.

1. Ambedkar (Yes! Might surprise many, but Ambedkar vehemently opposed Muslims ideologically at that time)
2. Lala Lajpat Rai
3. Bipin Chandra Pal
4. Motilal Nehru
5. V.B. Patel (Yes!)
6. Rabindranath Tagore (Yes! He was concerned about pan-Islamism)
7. V.S. Srinivas Sastri (Tamil Nadu)

For those who are curious about Savarkar's stand on Manu Smriti? Following are his words:
“It is impossible to live according to Manusmriti today because times have changed and the rules in the book are not applicable for all times.”
“Manusmriti, just like any other religious text, contains many contradictions.”
“It is absurd to impose greatness on such texts. That attempt is laughable and prohibits progress.”

#savarkar #ideology #philosophy #religion