The Plight of the Palestinians

It was 3 years ago this week that Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups carried out its horrific attack on Israel.

1,200 were killed in the attacks and more than 250 Israelis were taken hostage. Many died in captivity. 843 days passed before the last hostage's body was released.

As I have written before in these pages, I was in Israel on the day the war started.

I was on a Mediterranean cruise and we docked in Israel on the morning of October 7, 2023 for what was to be a 3 day stay in the country.

We were called back to the ship barely 6 hours into our visit and sailed from Israel that evening.

We have heard a lot about the "plight of the Palestinians" over the last three years.

Those who are supporters of the so-called Palestinian "cause", or are vehemently anti-Israel, repeat the following catch phrases repeatedly.

Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian lands.

Israel is a colonial oppressor.

Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinian people.

Children in Gaza are being starved to death by Israel.

United States military support of Israel is out of control and should cease.

The U.S. has not provided enough economic and humanitarian aid to Palestine.

These arguments are made so often that they are accepted as facts.

This is especially true for those who spend time in college where Palestine is portrayed as a "cool" cause and Israel is depicted as the evil aggressor.

There is so much that people do not know, or have been given misinformation about, concerning Israel and Palestine.

Without knowledge of the most basic facts it is difficult to have views or opinions that are both principled and credible.

Let's look at the popular narratives listed above in relationship to actual facts.

Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian lands.

First of all, it needs to be understood that Palestine has never been a country or nation state at any time in history.

Jewish people populated what is now Israel dating back to when the area was referred to as Judea.

Judeans or Jews were indigenous to Judea and Arabs were indigenous to Arabia.

The Romans started using the name "Palestine" (more accurately Syria Palestine) in the second century A.D. after an insurrection in the Judea territory as punishment to remove the link between the Jews and the province of Judea.

Further, the Jewish faith dates back to 640 B.C. while Islam did not appear on the scene until some 1,200 years later in the area around Jerusalem.

If there is any claim on the area being their "holy lands" based on the timeline of history, the Jews have the more compelling argument as to who has an indigenous right to the land.

What is even crazier is the same people who claim the United States is illegally occupying the lands of Indian tribes are the same ones that argue that Israel is occupying Palestine. 

How does that make any sense?

Israel is a colonial oppressor.

The modern state of Israel was created in 1948,

After World War II, the United Nations put forth a proposal that would create the Israel state out of the British territory in that area of the Middle East. The UN proposed that Palestine would also be recognized as a country for the first time with territory of its own. A two-state solution was devised for both Jews and Palestinian Arabs.

Israel accepted the plan. The Arabs rejected the plan.

Five Arab nations attacked Israel in 1948 immediately after Israel declared its independence based on the U.N. Resolution granting Israel the land in the proposal.

Despite being a fledgling nation and receiving almost no support from around the world (including the United States which largely remained neutral in not supplying arms to either of the belligerents), Israel prevailed in the war.

As a result, after winning the war Israel actually gained territory beyond what was in the U.N. proposal.

Jordan took control of the West Bank and Egypt took control of Gaza. Both the West Bank and Gaza would have made up a Palestine state based on the U.N. proposal if the Arabs had accepted the proposal. Instead, these areas ended up under the control and occupation of Jordan and Egypt.

It was not until 1964 that the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded to unite various Palestinian people.

However, the PLO in its founding documents did not demand the Palestinians in these areas be liberated from Jordan and Egypt.

Why were the Palestinians not concerned about the occupation of their lands by oppressors Jordan and Egypt?

The PLO was only interested in the elimination of Israel.

Of course, Israel later came to take control of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights  (and even the Sinai Peninsula) after it was attacked by Egypt, Jordan and Syria in what came to be known as the "Six Day War" in 1967.

In 1979, Israel reached a peace agreement with Egypt and agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to them as part of the deal. Sinai was returned to Egypt by 1982.

However, the agreement cost Egyptian President Anwar Sadat his life as he was assassinated by people in the Egyptian Army in 1981 unhappy with the peace agreement with Israel.

In 1993, the Oslo Accords saw Israel agree to withdraw most military assets from Gaza and the West Bank and establish a process for self-determination for the Palestinian people with the long-term objective of establishing a Palestinian state.

In 2005, Israel fully withdrew from Gaza and opened the way for the Palestinians in Gaza to elect their own government leaders. As part of the deal, Israel relocated Israeli settlements out of Gaza leaving Gaza completely to the Palestinians. The Palestinian people elected Hamas to govern their affairs in 2006.

Hamas has been on the list of foreign terror organizations of the United States Department of State since 1997.

Therefore, the Palestinian people actually elected what was then (and remains to this day) a listed foreign terror organization to be their government representatives.

The main objective of Hamas has been to terrorize Israel ever since.

Israel is referred to as an "oppressor" or "occupier" but had not occupied Gaza since 2005 before Hamas attacked Israel in 2023 which required Israel to defend itself.

Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinian people in Gaza.

This is what genocide looks like.

Source: https://nolabels.org/the-latest/what-gazas-population-tells-us-about-the-genocide-charge/

This chart shows the population of Gaza from 1997 to 2026.

Does this look like genocide?

In point of fact, since 1960, Palestine's population has increased 4.6x.

Israel's population has only increased 3.9x.

Children in Gaza are being starved to death by Israel.

If that is the case, someone needs to inform UNICEF.

According to its most recent data, children in Gaza have the lowest rates of malnutrition in the Middle East.

This was based on a UNICEF survey in each country in May and June, 2026.

In fact, children in Gaza actually have lower rates of malnutrition than in Germany!

Or Finland! Finland has three times the level of acute childhood malnutrition that Gaza has.

United States military support of Israel is out of control and should cease.

The United States has provided $175 billion in military aid to Israel since 1948.

On the other hand, the United States Congress has approved $195 billion in appropriations for Ukraine since 2022.

However, many of the same people who claim that the U.S. has not provided enough aid to Ukraine over the last four years believe that it has provided too much to Israel over its 78 years of existence,

The U.S has not provided enough economic and humanitarian aid to Palestine.

Beginning with the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990's  the United States has contributed about $15 billion for Palestinian economic and humanitarian causes for the approximate population of 5 million in Palestine today.

This would be equal to at least $20 billion in current dollars.

Let's compare that to the aid given by the United States in the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II.

Total aid was $13.1 billion at the time but would be equivalent to about $175 billion in today's dollars for a population of 300 million in Europe in the post-WWII period.

In current dollars, U.S. aid to Palestine has been about $4,000 per person ($20 billion /5 million people) over the years.

Conversely, in current dollars, U.S. spending on the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe and its economy was equal to about $600 per person. ($175 billion/300 million people).

If you look at the money that was given to the Palestinians since the mid-1990's, and compare it to the Marshall Plan, you really have to wonder where all the money went? 

The Marshall Plan dollars allowed Europe to rebuild and create robust economies and lives for its people.

Did we get anything to advance the lives of Palestinians from all of that aid money?

It seems that most of the money went for the tools of terrorism and to enrich the leadership of Hamas and the PLO

What did this aid get us?

A continuing cycle of terror that culminated in the horrific attack on Israel in October, 2023.

More war from Hamas and more misery for the Palestinian people.

Where are the protests about all of this wasted money and lost opportunity?

There is a reason that the Palestinian people are living an oppressed life.

The numbers above say it all.

The sad fact in all of this is that we should all have sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people.

They are in a tough situation.

However, most of the arguments made on their behalf is pure propaganda as the facts above illustrate.

There have been many, many chances to improve their situation. 

Unfortunately, hatred of Jews and rejection of Israel's right to exist has always gotten in the way of improving the plight of the Palestinians.

Pray for their plight and pray that they finally see the light and learn to coexist with Israel and the Jewish people.