#population exchange

''The founding of Israel was based on displacement of Palestinians''- Look, I don't want to minimize that at all because people losing their homes is fucking terrible but that doesn't mean the solution is expelling Israelis now. There was a population exchange between Greece and Tuurkey in 1922. Both sides ethnically cleansed people. It was a terrible thing to do. But both Turkey and Greece exist now as two seperate states with clearly defined borders (if you ignore some shit erdogan tries to pull in the agean). And you don't question Greece's or Turkey's right to not be wiped off.

''Israeli identity is fake because it was based on smth that happened 3000 years ago!!!''- Ok sorry to break it to you but us Greeks have made our entire national identity revolve around who we were 3000 years ago. And if you want to argue abt fakeness of identity I would argue ours was a less organic one. Jewish people maintained the same religion and basic belief systems for 3000 years. They continuously felt the connection with Eretz Yisrael. We switched to Orthodox christianity from whatever 12 god shit we had, we lost most of our literacy that allowed us to keep tpuch with ancient texts, we embraced so many customs from the Ottomans and YET it was still valid when we tried to reclaim our ancient greek identity to build a nation partly on the basis of that

''European colonial powers helped prop up Israel which means it is an imperialistic state!''- Do you think Greece got independence or gained more land purely through OUR military strength lol?

‘Why not?’

‘They’re all the same. The Greeks and Turks and the Bulgars. They’re all the same.’ She accepted a glass of wine. ‘I’ve seen them all. They’ve all had Karagatch.’

‘Who are the best?’ I asked.

‘Nobody. They’re all the same. The Greek officers sleep here and then will come the Turk officers. Some day  the Greek officers will come back again. They all pay me.’ I filled her glass.

‘But the poor people that are out there in the road.’ I couldn’t get the horror of that twenty-mile-long procession out of my mind, and I had seen some dreadful things in my day.

‘Oh well.’ Madame Marie shrugged. ‘It is always that way with the people. Toujours la meme chose. The Turk has a proverb, you know. He has many good proverbs. ‘It is not only the fault of the axe but of the tree as well.’ That is his proverb.’”

The following story was told in early 2005, by a middle-aged man in a northern Greek village where Turkish-speaking Christians from Havza, south of Samsun, settled in 1924. The speaker described the ordeal of his father, who was seven at the time of the mass deportations.

The Times, 5 December 1923

"...We Muslims will never accept this exchange, and we declare that we are pleased with our Greek government. "

- From an appeal to the Lausanne conference by the mufti of Langada, near Salonika, in January 1923