Something I think many people don’t realize is that before the five countries invaded Israel in 1947, the Palestinians living in the region that was given to the Jews were invited to become citizens. Israel didn’t declare independence and then go “get out.” Let me say that again: the Palestinians living in what was to be Israel were invited to become Israeli citizens. 150,000 of them said yes and stayed behind to fight alongside the Jews. The Palestinians were offered almost an equal amount of land, and the surrounding countries told them not to worry, they’d kick out the Jews.

So what about the Palestinians who were forced to leave? The ones whose villages were razed to the ground? That happened. Not pre-emptively, though. The soon-to-be IDF gave villages along the invasion path a chance. Become a citizen. I don’t know how much of a choice that really feels like if you feel the land is yours and you don’t want it to become Israel, but it was a choice.

This is the same choice every other post-Ottoman mandated region eventually had to make like Pakistan and India did — where 2 million people died in battle. For some reason, we treat Israel as if it’s unique, when it really isn’t.

As late as 1995, two years into the Oslo process, Yassir Arafat himself unabashedly told a Jordanian TV interviewer: 

“Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”

There could be peace right now. There are wonderful Palestinians and Israelis trapped in between this awful bitterness and hatred. We have it in us to pressure those against a two state solution. You have to love the right of Palestinians and Israelis to have peace more than you hate what you think of Israel.

A reminder: Deligitimizing Jewish or Palestinian connections to the homeland is a bad look. Peace is the right look. Let’s focus on that.