28th April 2003, 1:11 PM
With the Israeli-Palestinian thing, there are some interesting things to point out. I'm trying to be concise.
1. Jerusalem is the most holy city of Judaism. Jerusalem is the 3rd most holy city of Islam. The (symbolic?) Western Wall of Soloman's temple is within 50 meters of where Mohammed tended his horse before going up to heaven, talking with God at the Dome of the Rock, and returning to Earth. The Dome of the Rock and the Wailing Wall are incredibly close together for such religiously important sites.
2. The earliest Israeli claim to the land stems back to the Bible. The earliest Arab claim is several centuries (if not a millenia) old.
3. Recent claims to Palestine stem from two documents: The Hussein-McMahon correspondence and the Balfour Declaration. In the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence (1915), Britain (given authority over parts of the middle-east in the Treaty of Versaille) promises that, with the exception of Mersina, Alexandretta, and the districts to the West of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo, Arabs will be granted statehood. The Balfour Declaration promises the Zionist Federation (a European Jewish Association) a Jewish home in Palestine. In both of these agreements, Britain is purposefully vague. While Palestine is not to the West of the line segment that connects Damascus to Aleppo, if the line segment is extrapolated, it includes Palestine. Yet Egypt is also to the West of this extrapolation, and Britain had no intentions of keeping Egypt. In addition, Britain does not include a map which would peg them down to concrete promises. They speak of "regions" and "districts," none of which are named as such. In the Balfour Declaration, Britain promises a home for Jews in Palestine, but guarentees no statehood or governmental role. They purposefully change "The Nation Home of Palestine" in the Zionist-proposed agreement to, "a national home in palestine," a much more vague committment.
4. Sorry about #3, so I'll try to sum up 35 years of history in less than 300 pages: Arab noncompliance versus Israeli cooperation. It can be simplified to a familiar childhood situation: The teacher is giving out the toys in nursery school. One child's strategy to get the blocks is to show that he can play responsibly. The other's strategy is to ignore the teacher's authority and refuse to participate in the "sharing" of the blocks. But the teacher recognizes that the troublesome boy deserves more of the blocks more than the cooperative boy despite their actions (population and land ownership-wise). The teacher proposes an Israel that is about a quarter of the size of today's Israel, and it doesn't include Jerusalem. The cooperative boy accepts the deal, while the uncooperative boy rejects it. The uncooperative boy becomes more brazen (and terrorist actions begin). Finally, the teacher has had enough. She's getting out of there. And her final proposal is that Palestine will be controlled by Arabs within 5 years and the Jewish population (and thus representation in the Parliament) will be limited to 1/3 of the country. The uncooperative boy refuses, demanding immediate and complete control of the blocks. The once-cooperative boy gets pissed. He feels betrayed. While simultaneously fighting alongside the teacher in WWII, the once-cooperative boy is carrying out terrorist acts on Arabs and British police forces in Palestine. But during WWII, the uncooperative boy goes to the enemy of the teacher (Hitler) to coordinate a deal. After the Holocaust, it becomes apparent that Jews need their own state in Palestine. Israel declares independence in 1948, and the UN and US recognize the nation almost immediately. Simultaneously, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and practically every Arab nation declares war on Israel. The Israeli military is involved in removing Arabs from Israeli territory. Undeground Israeli terrorist organizations are involved in the killing of an entire Arab village at Deir Yassin. Israel is faced with the problem that a Jewish state that is more than 50% Arab is not a Jewish state, and to accomplish this, they remove Arab civilians. This is what sparks the refugee issue that Black Falcon has mentioned. Jordan and other Arab countries do nothing to assimilate these refugees, Israel is unwilling to take them back, and the refugees themselves want to return to Palestine...
There's a lot of history left, but I find that focusing on history leads one to conclude with could-haves and should-haves. What can be done now? Well, the current Israeli policy against Palestinian violence is as such: you kill my brother, I'll kill you and flatten your entire village. If anyone has ever studied history, they know that this overreaction strategy often leads to martyrs and a STRENGTHENING of the resolve of the enemy. The United States, with its traditional polarized lens, refuses to openly censure Israel for its policies and weapons programs. This has led the Arab world to believe that the United States is a biased judge. To peacefully solve this, we must prove that we can be even-handed.
1. Jerusalem is the most holy city of Judaism. Jerusalem is the 3rd most holy city of Islam. The (symbolic?) Western Wall of Soloman's temple is within 50 meters of where Mohammed tended his horse before going up to heaven, talking with God at the Dome of the Rock, and returning to Earth. The Dome of the Rock and the Wailing Wall are incredibly close together for such religiously important sites.
2. The earliest Israeli claim to the land stems back to the Bible. The earliest Arab claim is several centuries (if not a millenia) old.
3. Recent claims to Palestine stem from two documents: The Hussein-McMahon correspondence and the Balfour Declaration. In the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence (1915), Britain (given authority over parts of the middle-east in the Treaty of Versaille) promises that, with the exception of Mersina, Alexandretta, and the districts to the West of Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo, Arabs will be granted statehood. The Balfour Declaration promises the Zionist Federation (a European Jewish Association) a Jewish home in Palestine. In both of these agreements, Britain is purposefully vague. While Palestine is not to the West of the line segment that connects Damascus to Aleppo, if the line segment is extrapolated, it includes Palestine. Yet Egypt is also to the West of this extrapolation, and Britain had no intentions of keeping Egypt. In addition, Britain does not include a map which would peg them down to concrete promises. They speak of "regions" and "districts," none of which are named as such. In the Balfour Declaration, Britain promises a home for Jews in Palestine, but guarentees no statehood or governmental role. They purposefully change "The Nation Home of Palestine" in the Zionist-proposed agreement to, "a national home in palestine," a much more vague committment.
4. Sorry about #3, so I'll try to sum up 35 years of history in less than 300 pages: Arab noncompliance versus Israeli cooperation. It can be simplified to a familiar childhood situation: The teacher is giving out the toys in nursery school. One child's strategy to get the blocks is to show that he can play responsibly. The other's strategy is to ignore the teacher's authority and refuse to participate in the "sharing" of the blocks. But the teacher recognizes that the troublesome boy deserves more of the blocks more than the cooperative boy despite their actions (population and land ownership-wise). The teacher proposes an Israel that is about a quarter of the size of today's Israel, and it doesn't include Jerusalem. The cooperative boy accepts the deal, while the uncooperative boy rejects it. The uncooperative boy becomes more brazen (and terrorist actions begin). Finally, the teacher has had enough. She's getting out of there. And her final proposal is that Palestine will be controlled by Arabs within 5 years and the Jewish population (and thus representation in the Parliament) will be limited to 1/3 of the country. The uncooperative boy refuses, demanding immediate and complete control of the blocks. The once-cooperative boy gets pissed. He feels betrayed. While simultaneously fighting alongside the teacher in WWII, the once-cooperative boy is carrying out terrorist acts on Arabs and British police forces in Palestine. But during WWII, the uncooperative boy goes to the enemy of the teacher (Hitler) to coordinate a deal. After the Holocaust, it becomes apparent that Jews need their own state in Palestine. Israel declares independence in 1948, and the UN and US recognize the nation almost immediately. Simultaneously, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and practically every Arab nation declares war on Israel. The Israeli military is involved in removing Arabs from Israeli territory. Undeground Israeli terrorist organizations are involved in the killing of an entire Arab village at Deir Yassin. Israel is faced with the problem that a Jewish state that is more than 50% Arab is not a Jewish state, and to accomplish this, they remove Arab civilians. This is what sparks the refugee issue that Black Falcon has mentioned. Jordan and other Arab countries do nothing to assimilate these refugees, Israel is unwilling to take them back, and the refugees themselves want to return to Palestine...
There's a lot of history left, but I find that focusing on history leads one to conclude with could-haves and should-haves. What can be done now? Well, the current Israeli policy against Palestinian violence is as such: you kill my brother, I'll kill you and flatten your entire village. If anyone has ever studied history, they know that this overreaction strategy often leads to martyrs and a STRENGTHENING of the resolve of the enemy. The United States, with its traditional polarized lens, refuses to openly censure Israel for its policies and weapons programs. This has led the Arab world to believe that the United States is a biased judge. To peacefully solve this, we must prove that we can be even-handed.