What I haven’t seen mentioned yet in the other comments is how a lot of orthodox Jews are against zionism because it goes against their religion, which says that the promised land can only be achieved after the Messias has returned to earth. Creating a promised land in the name of Judaism before this has happened is blasphemy even. Saying it’s about religious land is zionist propaganda because, even to Jewish people, it isn’t.

The claim that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes back hundreds or thousands of years is a lie. It is a lie designed to obfuscate the clear and simple fact that it started in 1947 and is NOT about religion but about settler colonial land theft, occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

GRAZIANI: ‘Italy has as much right here as anybody else… England has a right to Egypt, France to Tunisia, Algeria, Spain to Morocco… but none of them have our pedigree. We have hundreds of years of right here.’
OMAR: ‘Hm. Soon you will take everything from me, and you want me to justify your thefts? No nation has the right to occupy another.’
GRAZIANI: ‘…we’re back here, that’s all. No‐one can deny us… read the date on this coin. It’s a coin of the Caesars. Dated, minted, in Libya.’
OMAR: ‘You will also find Greek, Turkish, Phoenician coins—all over Libya you’ll find them. Buried in our sand.’

(Source.)

This applies to Palestine in a similar way. Palestine was once the property of empires like the Neo‐Assyrian Empire, the Neo‐Babylonian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and elsewhat, but nobody would seriously argue that Syria, Iraq, Italy, Greece, Turkey, or any other nation should kick out all of the inhabitants and replace them with colonists of their choosing. Likewise, Philistia (which included Gaza) was actually separate from the Kingdom of Israel and remained separate until the Neo‐Babylonian conquest of 604 B.C.E.

The only Jewish people who have a deep connexion to Palestine are the small precolonial minority, and even they had no interest in establishing a ‘Jewish state’. Zionism is a fundamentally European concept, and European Jews have a much slimmer connexion to the land by comparison.

He said that my argument that the Palestinians were being oppressed worse because they are dying at such a greater rate is the same as saying the South in the American Civil War were the oppressed because most people who died were in the south.

False equivalence, and it was needlessly insolent of him to make that comparison. The Palestinians have no interest in protecting chattel slavery or otherwise subjugating people. They just want to be left alone, without a neocolony inhibiting or ruining their lives. Honestly, I think that at this point reclaiming all of their land is a much lower priority for them than surviving.

I’m taking a look through the link that @GrainEater@lemmygrad.ml stickied on c/GenZhou. I’m also trying to learn more about the early history of the region, as I also mostly only know about the more recent history. So, take my post as someone else also learning about this too and sharing my notes, not as someone well-versed on the topic.

Here’s a page from there: Myth: My people were here before your people.

Key points from the page:

The ethnic cleansing, massacres and colonialism needed to establish Israel can never be justified, regardless of who was there first. It’s a moot point. Even if we follow the argument that Palestinians have only been there for 1300 years, does this suddenly legitimize the expulsion of hundreds of thousands? Of course not. There is no possible scenario where it is excusable to ethnically cleanse a people and colonize their lands. Human rights apply to people universally, regardless of whether they have lived in an area for a year or ten thousand years.

A point regarding the historical issue of the population (read the whole page for more info about that):

[T]he Palestinian Arabs of today did not suddenly appear from the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century to settle in Palestine, but are the same indigenous peoples living there who changed how they identified over time. This includes the descendants of every group that has ever called Palestine their home. When regions change rulers, they don’t normally change populations. Throughout history, peoples have often changed how they identified politically. The Sardinians eventually became Italians, Prussians became Germans. It would be laughable to suggest that the Sardinians were kicked out and replaced by a distinct foreign Italian people. We must separate the political nationalist identity of people from their personhood as human beings, as nationalism is a relatively modern concept, especially in the Middle East.

“Jewish history … forms a part of the Palestinian past and heritage, just like every other group, kingdom or empire that settled there does … These positions can be maintained while simultaneously rejecting Zionism and its colonialism”

If we reject the “we were there first” argument, and not treat it as a legitimizing factor for Israel’s creation, then we can focus on the real history, without any ideological agendas. We could trace how our pasts intersected throughout the centuries. After all, there is indeed Jewish history in Palestine. This history forms a part of the Palestinian past and heritage, just like every other group, kingdom or empire that settled there does. We must stop viewing Palestinian and Jewish histories as competing, mutually exclusive entities, because for most of history they have not been. These positions can be maintained while simultaneously rejecting Zionism and its colonialism. After all, this ideologically driven impulse to imagine our ancestors as some closed, well defined, unchanging homogenous group having exclusive ownership over lands corresponding to modern day borders has nothing to do with the actual history of the area, and everything to do with modern notions of ethnic nationalism and colonialism.

Another page: Myth: The “conflict” is ancient

This shallow analysis of the question of Palestine serves multiple functions; First, it is an attractive and easy way to comment on the situation without actually saying anything or taking a side. It is convenient because it spares you the need to do any research or take a stance while simultaneously morally elevating yourself over the “backwards” people in the region. This is done in an attempt to project a false image of understanding or nuance.

[T]he question of Palestine is not some ancient blood feud between eternally warring peoples, it is a recent struggle resulting from settler colonialism infused with reactionary ethnonationalism, both relatively new concepts originating in the last couple of centuries. The analysis of the question of Palestine through any other lens will produce a flawed and misleading understanding of the facts on the ground and will result in shallow and ahistorical interpretations of the region as the one discussed above.

Since iirc the video you linked mentioned this: Myth: The name “Palestine” was a Roman invention

As I said, I am also learning more about the more distant past history of this region, and at the moment I am in the phase of just gathering information and reading up, not yet at a phase of fact-checking certain details (though, as the pages above importantly point out, certain facts are moot points in regard to justifying settler colonization–nonetheless it’s good to be aware of factual historical information).

I’m going to be taking the information on the above pages as a jumping off point as I learn more about it. I noticed that each page in their myths section contains a list of sources, so maybe you (and I) could start looking into those. I know you said you know about the more recent history but I thought this Empire Files video was informative due to containing several quotations from Zionists before and throughout the history of their colonization of Palestine and context about European colonial projects: How Palestine Became Colonized.

Again, this video, like the above website, and also like the video you linked, are all media intended to quickly introduce information to a mass audience, so we should always be taking them as a starting point for more detailed research. As someone else in this thread mentioned, keep learning about the history, keep expanding your knowledge of the context. Read widely with a critical mind and with a materialist analysis and keep wary of the imperialist point of view being the default in many sources. Explicitly Marxist histories of events can help very much in orienting your research but you can also do your best to make that kind of analysis yourself as you become more informed using sources of all kinds as long as you remain critical.

Despite what a lot of people here would say, the conflict in Palestine is indeed extremely complex and does go back quite a long time. But the current state of affairs is not complex. Liberals usually cite this complexity as a means to end conversation and are, unwittingly or not, serving the interest of imperialism by not questioning further. But your uncle is right though. You should learn as much as you can about the region’s history in order to be more well informed. You don’t have to know everything. Studying the complete history of ANY region on earth, no matter how small or insignificant, could fill lifetimes of study and research.

Both Palestinians and the Israeli citizens have “claim” to the region, which has strong cultural and religious significance to both groups. For starters, investigate why the Palestinian region is significant to these groups. But like all history, this is not black and white. You will inevitably find simplistic histories that claim the Jews or the Muslims are the only peoples to have any historical claims to the region. This denies history and anthropology. You might what to investigate the Zionist movement that arose in western Europe and Britain in the mid-nineteenth century. You’ll discover a more nuanced understanding of why the state of Israel was established where it is today after WWII. From there you might also want to read more about things like the Suez Cannel, British colonial India, and the US armaments industry post WWII. I’m sorry I can’t give specific reading recommendations. As long as you read even liberal sources with a keen eye you’ll be good.

But again, this history and research will only contextualize the current situation. You can still use a thorough material analysis to arrive at the conclusion that Israel is ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. Don’t let claims of “complexity” make you feel like your compassion for the Palestinians is misplaced.

Edit: Just wanted to point out that other comrades are coming in hot with great tales and sources. I’ve got some reading to do.

First of all, my guy says “following the call of god” accompanied by a picture of Jesus. Second of all, he says the patriarchs of the Israeli and Judean peoples were themselves settlers and not indigenous to the region. There is no consistent argument for why the Israeli (Israel/Zionists do not speak for Jewish people as a whole!) claim to Israel is more legitimate than the Palestinian if neither “originated” in the region.

Also implicitly mentioned in the video was that the populations of Historical Israel and Judea were not homogenously Jewish.

Just some grist for the mill. The key take away though is that Jewish people had not been the dominant ethnic group in the region in more than 2000s years whereas muslim and Arab peoples have been there continuously since the genesis of Islam.

I don’t have answers as I’m still learning the history myself. But I’m currently reading The Hundred Years War on Palestine, which covers 1917-2017, so it gets you a detailed look earlier than 1947.

More crucially for this discussion with your uncle, perhaps, it describes the emergence of Zionism and Israeli identity as a modern phenomenon, as something distinct from just ‘ancient land disputes’.

It’s available as an audiobook if you find that helpful, and you can find the ebook in Library Genesis if you otherwise have trouble getting a copy.

I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

• yewtu.be
• inv.zzls.xyz
• yt.artemislena.eu
• piped.video