[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"Even if you are right that Zionism was a response only to European oppression of the Jews, it DESERVED to be a response to Arab oppression of the Jews as well."

[/ QUOTE ]

Zionists have forfeited a gunpoint the lives and property of millions of Palestinians for more than 50 years. You contend that this was and remains justified because, among other reasons, Jews "under the Arabs" suffered persecution. You must also mean Jews "under the Arabs" in countries other than Palestine because Jews had not been "under the Arabs" in Palestine for 500 years before Israel's existence, and were "under the British" for the two generations prior to independence.

On the basis of your status as an American, which rights, if any, should you be compelled to forfeit at gunpoint to some group on the grounds that Americans oppressed that group? Which rights should Israelis forfeit on similar grounds? Or does your rule of rights forfeiture only apply to Arabs?

[/ QUOTE ]

First off, it is not solely the historical oppression that matters in my view, but also the continuing oppression and the likelihood of continuing oppression. As I've started in other posts, if the USA had not reformed its laws and treatments of American Indians and blacks, and the future looked to be as bleak in that way as the past, then I believe those oppressed groups would be entitled to a state or two of the United States as their own countries----(the rationale being not so much a punishment for the oppressors, but rather a reasonable place of sanctuary for the oppressed, since the fault lies with the oppressive laws and customs).

Arab states, laws and customs, however, had not and still have not reformed, and so can be expected to continue to oppress non-Arabs/non-Muslims in the Middle East. Hence Israel is a place of sanctuary from that oppression as well as from European oppression. If the USA had not reformed its laws and treatment of Native Americans and blacks, I would believe that it would have been appropriate as a last resort to forcibly gift each group a state or two of the USA as their own countries, therein to be able to live free of such oppression.

A key point here is that such a sanctuary is not so much a punishment per se or a means of redressing prior wrongs, as it is a vehicle for the oppressed to have a rightful place to be left alone and neither be oppressed nor bothered by barbarians (and yes I'm calling those Americans, Europeans and Arabs who endorse to such unequal laws and customs "barbarians." It is regrettable in this hypothetical scenario that some Americans would have had to be displaced, but that is better than the alternative of continued oppression.

If the countries with horribly anti-Semitic laws and the people with horribly anti-Semitic customs (applies foremost to Europe in the past, and foremost to Arab/Muslim states in the present) would simply ditch their backwards and bigoted laws and views, Israel would not be necessary. But when there are yet today many prominent imams calling Jews the sons of monkeys and pigs, and calling for their deaths; and laws denying Jews and Christians equal legal status, civil rights, and rights in court in Muslim countries; well, that today is where most of the fault just lies. And that is a significant part of the reason why the tiny sanctuary of Israel is necessary even today.