> Sure. E.g. in the 1940s Palestinians went to Hitler and asked him to take care of the Jews.

Yes. Both the Jews and Palestinians courted relationships with Hitler and Mussolini.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haavara_Agreement

https://archive.is/nioNH (Haaretz)

I guess we have to "snap the chalk-line" somewhere. I didn't explicitly establish this but in debates I often snap it at the end of WW2. The period 1914-1945 was full of so much chaos and bloodshed globally, I think the end of WW2 was when people REALLY tried to catch a breather and try to build a newer, better world.

> The initial Jews that came into the area were under constant attacks by Palestinians in the area so they formed militias of their own. These became very successful and split into 3 groups. Hagana which was the moderate one ended up becoming the IDF. The two others were the ones that performed those attacks and indeed performed terrorism (moderate by today's standard but still terrorism).

When you refer to Jews "coming into the area", do you mean the post-WW2 immigration, or some other timespan? Because the Irgun, at least, was actively committing terrorism against the British, even outside of Palestine ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_British_Embassy_bombing ), as early as 1946. This appears to be a mostly one-sided campaign (not targeting the Palestinian Arabs...yet) but definitely set the stage for their level of violence moving forward. Interestingly, neither Morris nor Pappe cover 1946 violence in particular detail (both focus on the Zionist leadership's planning for the following ethnic cleansing). I need to find additional sources for this period.

> Palestinians didn't have that capability of unity. They have very little in common other than hate towards Israel.

Where does that hate come from, though? It didn't coalesce in a vacuum.

> That is both unconfirmed

I'll be perfectly honest, it's really hard not to interpret that as anything other than "Holocaust denial" level delusion. Which, of course, is tragically ironic given the subject. Both authors I mentioned cite documents in IDF archives about the deliberate planning process for the destruction in this timeframe. If you are going to assert that the destruction, its specific methods, or the resulting movements of large numbers of civilians, is unconfirmed, you need to support that with some very robust evidence. I'm not sure what could be more authoritative than "primary source documents from the perpetrator".

> Then they couldn't return since there was a border.

Some of them tried to return (refugees from Huj, in one example from mid-late 1948), and were refused, after internal debates by the Israelis over whether it would "set a precedent". Those debates were documented, and are cited in Morris' book, pgs330-333. Those were deliberate decisions made by Israeli leadership.

> But Israel didn't choose that war, it was forced on them.

Actions have consequences. As an aside, I constantly see this use of the passive voice in discussing this conflict. Israel never does anything, it just has stuff happen to it. Once you notice it, it's a really obvious form of shaping the information environment to condition people to think that nothing could ever possibly be Israel's fault, that no one making decisions in Israel has ever done so with malicious intent. Things just....happen.

> Notice that Israel didn't take neither Gaza or the West Bank during that war. So why didn't the Palestinians finally have a state at that point?
> Did anyone complain to Egypt/Jordan for denying the rights of the Palestinian people?

That's a good question, I'll add it to my list of RFIs as I continue to research.

> The fact is that this is purely because Jews were involved.

I watched a man hooked up to an IV bag in a field hospital BURN ALIVE after an Israeli airstrike. The perpetual victim complex just doesn't resonate with people anymore.

> But as far as this conflict goes, Israel acted WAY better than pretty much any other country in a similar situation. E.g. Turkey which keeps blasting Israel over and over just bombed civilians for a tiny attack. Crickets from the world police...

Yeah, because Turkish airstrikes haven't killed FORTY THOUSAND PEOPLE in less than a year. What a ridiculous deflection.

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At any rate, I hope this discussion has provided enough material for other HNers to educate themselves. The available Israeli sources are detailed and surprisingly candid. I don't expect either of us will illuminate any further understanding.