I have to participate in a debate in one of my classes, and I’ve been assigned to defend Palestinians point of view. Could anyone possibly offer suggestions regarding sites where I could develop my arguement? I have to look back around 70 AD to Biblical times and come up with something that will help me defend my position. Is there anything in the Bible that I could read? The whole debate is over whose land it is, rightfully so.
You can look to WWII also when the Isrealies migrated there en mass too. As for references, sorry, can’t help you there.
The Israelis hands aren’t clean, although I wouldn’t blame them entirely for what’s going on. I’ll post in this more later if people haven’t presented what I wanted to say. I gotta jet.
Yeah, they used similar tactics to take Palestine during the 50s that the Palistinians are using today, like suicide bombing. Sorry I can’t be too descriptive, but my dad is the one thats done all the reading and he has more or less summed it up for me. But thats the main reason I said to look to the WWII era.
Instead of the Bible, you should probably be looking at the Qu’ran to defend the Palestinian point of view. As I understand it, the Bible supports the Israeli claim by God giving it to… Abraham, I think. Then the Qu’ran says otherwise by saying it given to Muhammed and his followers or something along those lines.
You could probably also defend the Palestinian point of view by just pointing to simple land deeds that predate the creation of Israel, but then you would have to argue that religious claims without proper deeds is meaningless in the secular world. Following that, there would probably have to be some attack on foreign occupation and colonialism prior to the creation of Israel given the fact that Britain was rather crucial in the creation of Israel and probably tried to justify superseding the deeds.
And if you want to do any sort of defense for terrorist actions, you might be able to get away with mentioning the terrorist actions of the Israelis in establishing their state. Zionist Terrorism and all that jazz. However that seems like a Fallacy of Tu Quoque, so you might not get away with it. I’m pretty sure the movie Exodus and the book it’s based on speak of these actions, albeit in a fictional sub-setting.
I believe I heard that the Muslims honor both the Bible and the New Testament, believing that Muhammad was only adding on to the previous words. You might want to ask an actual Muslim for religious texts backing up this position.
Sorry, I double-checked my sources and they were either on Israel’s side or not clear enough.
All I can sufggest is that you also prepare yourself for what the other side may say:A refutal of the Palestinian Claim
Just a note. You’ll want to make sure to avoid emotional terms in this debate. If you start thinking with your heart rather than your head, it can cloud your head during the debate. You want to try and present it clear, logical arguments based in facts with little to no appeal to emotions.
OMG! Eva, another debate?
I still shudder, thinking about a “discussion” you just had with Hades: Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life. Hopefully your next opponent will use more civilized argumentation 
You might look at this article by a Jewish journalist with a proPalestinian view on the conflict.
http://www.zmag.org/shalom-meqa.htm
Here are some snippets from the article:
How did the Zionists acquire land in Palestine?
Some was acquired illegally and some was purchased from Arab landlords with funds provided by wealthy Jews in Europe. Even the legal purchases, however, were often morally questionable as they sometimes involved buying land from absentee landlords and then throwing the poor Arab peasants off the land. Land thus purchased became part of the Jewish National Fund which specified that the land could never be sold or leased to Arabs. Even with these purchases, Jews owned only about 6% of the land by 1947.
Didn’t Palestinians have a chance for a state of their own in 1947, but they rejected it by going to war with Israel?
In 1947 Jews were only one third of the population of Palestine and owned only 6% of the land. Yet the partition plan granted the Jewish state 55% of the total land area. The Arab state was to have an overwhelmingly Arab population, while the Jewish state would have almost as many Arabs as Jews. If it was unjust to force Jews to be a 1/3 minority in an Arab state, it was no more just to force Arabs to be an almost 50% minority in a Jewish state. The Palestinians rejected partition. The Zionists accepted it, but in private Zionist leaders had more expansive goals. In 1938, during earlier partition proposals, Ben Gurion stated, “when we become a strong power after the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and spread throughout all of Palestine.”
Now, if you want to go back in time and look at the Bible interpretation of the origins of Palestine vs Israel saga, take a look at this article. This is what you might expect from your opponent. So get ready
http://www.levitt.com/essays/palestine.html
It is interesting to note that the original Philistines were not Middle Eastern at all. They were European peoples from the Adriatic sea next to Greece. It may have pleased Hadrian to utilize this Hellenistic term for the Jewish land. In any case, the original “Palestinians” had nothing to do, whatsoever, with any Arabs.
You can look to WWII also when the Isrealies migrated there en mass too. As for references, sorry, can’t help you there.
my job is to look at ancient stuff :\ There are a few people assigned to a timeline and I thought it would be interesting to look back around biblical times. But WWII is a major major topic that we have covered, so i’ll probably be looking at that as well (and other important dates) just so I wont be blindsided.
The Israelis hands aren’t clean, although I wouldn’t blame them entirely for what’s going on. I’ll post in this more later if people haven’t presented what I wanted to say. I gotta jet.
yes please 
Instead of the Bible, you should probably be looking at the Qu’ran to defend the Palestinian point of view. As I understand it, the Bible supports the Israeli claim by God giving it to… Abraham, I think. Then the Qu’ran says otherwise by saying it given to Muhammed and his followers or something along those lines.
I did not think about any of that at all, to be honest…that is a great idea. So the Qu’ran is their version of a bible? Or something along those lines?
Just a note. You’ll want to make sure to avoid emotional terms in this debate. If you start thinking with your heart rather than your head, it can cloud your head during the debate. You want to try and present it clear, logical arguments based in facts with little to no appeal to emotions.
Yes I know -_-;; The thing is, I don’t know a lot about the issue at hand, therefore, I’m not really on either side, personally, since it’s a difficult topic for me…I can see both sides, so I haven’t committed myself to believing in just one or the other. So hopefully feeling that way will allow me to argue more effeciently, but I’m going up against high school students, half of which don’t really care about the class. I’m not a great debater, but there are many others like me, so it wont be really intense and heated. More like ask a question, give an answer, calmly.
Thanks to the rest of you who have helped so far (and you HAVE helped and set me on the right path, since I have no knowledge of this subject.) Giggle @ Seifer 
If anyone has anymore info, feel free to help. I’m gonna start with the Qu’ran first.
The Qu’ran is the Muslim holy book. It details the life of Muhammed and some other stuff. They do recognize the Old and New Testaments as part of their holy scripture, but because the Qu’ran is considered the last inspired Word of God, what it says takes precedent over the Old and New. That’s where the land being given to Muhammed and his followers, or whatever the story is, supersedes the promise of land to Abraham or whoever it was. You REALLY should ask a Qu’ran scholar about all this though.
And just a note, the time period of the Qu’ran isn’t really Biblical timeframe. It’s more of the AD 600/700 variety.
Yeah, well it looks like I’m kind of looking at everything now…my group wasn’t consulting with me (and got all macho and arrogant when they saw that I was on rpgclassics) and pretty much planned everything without me as I was typing that, so I’m on my own now. Since the modern (20th century) stuff seems more easier to come by, i guess I’m sticking with that now.
The A goes before the E. Don’t do that in your debate 
But anyway, why would you want to take your argument back so far? Wouldn’t it just be easier to start with the UN annexing the land the palestinians were on? As far as i understand it, the palestinians were living there happily when the UN cut their country up and gave it to Israel. The fact they had their land stolen from them during the 1940’s is enough to defend why they are fighting to get it back. Going to a text that isn’t known to be real or fictional might make you seem kind of silly in front of those who don’t believe in the bible, or Koran.
Given the debate topic, there’s a strong chance the next opponent won’t.
Good luck Eva. You’ve already got a good selection of brains to pick here in this thread. I can’t really add anything.
Yeah but religion is a big part of who owns the land- both think that it is God-given, so we have to mention that. Not as like sole proof of who owns a land, because that can’t be the driving force of the debate, but just for mentioning.
thanks guys 
What Dev says does have some degree of truth. While religion plays a huge part in this matter, mixing it with politics can result in few easily debatable points. Try to just mention it as something like
“…it is not only because the Palestinian front claims the land as holy territory, due to [Insert some religion-related data here], but there are consistent historic and political factors that sustain the veracity of their claim…”
I’m sure you can come up with something better, but the point is not giving religion too much screen time. It looks well in the background, but it’s better to stick to cold hard facts (Your idea to stick to modern data) when dealing with politics; otherwise it turns emotional, and that isn’t good on a debate.
Off topic… you don’t have much luck with work groups do you?
tear No…it’s just me being a whiny baby though. But oh well, I’m free to do as I please!
I am so stealing that paragraph when I get shot at with a religious question
Go right ahead, I stole your dream for my psychology essay anyway
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1332153,00.html
This talks about it, the guardian also has a story somewhere about the investigation that occured at a later time that quoted a soldier saying “even if its a 3 year old, kill it” and “she was trembling with fear” and that kinda thing. Aparently this isn’t too uncommon and usually, these cases aren’t investigated.
Something else of interest is how Israeli arabs are treated as second class citizens; a doctor has problems buying a house for his family, for example. Situations like that you should look into.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,720353,00.html
A history of the conflict; really it goes back a little over 100 years. You might want to look into the details about immigration of jews, jewish land take over and palestinian expulsion to help support your position.
The palestinian situation isn’t really peachy, you should look into the living conditions of some of the towns or refugee camps. Also, major things the international community have grilled Israel for were the construction of the wall to seal off the palestinians (which led to massive evictions, what people saw as a land grab) and the destruction of houses.
You see…I knew this would happen! Any place, any time, anywhere…you put a debate over these two countries and nothing gets accomplished.
Jesus Christ…even I get mugged by Arabs telling me about Israeli oppression and ill intentions, only to have the Jews swarm me saying that’s all bullshit and the Israelis are totally innocent.
To be honest…I never liked Zionism and the Israeli govt. always placing themselves as victims of Palestinians, meanwhile the Palestinians have tactics that are absolutely deplorable and overzealous. Nothing will get accomplished unless some real radical action takes place, like giving the Palestinians a seperate state under US approval (which’ll never happen b/c all the Jewish lobbyists and money flow), or Israel finally does away with all the Palestinian groups and govt. (which is no more that occupation and a really really unrealistic thing to accomplish). You see? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t with most of these solutions. Sure there are some good solutions, but try telling that to the hard-liners on both sides and the lobbyists.
Jon Stewart was right. It’s as if God made the Holy Land the same for Muslims, Jews, and Christians and said: “Let’s see who wants it the most.”