War in the middle east, why oh why?

Jerusalem had a jewish majority even before the establishment of Israel as a state.

...And many areas of Israel as it was in 1949 had Arab inhabitants as the only population, until Israel moved by force hundreds of thousands of Arabs in 1948...1949 (maybe 800,000 - this has to be checked).

Anyway, it is very difficult to reach a compromise. It is like in those Science Fiction novels where the human settlers cannot reach a peaceful agreement with the Aliens / natives of the planet.

http://www.primeportal.net/videos/tsahi_be...tion_071606.htm

enjoy

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3279551,00.html

Anyway, it is very difficult to reach a compromise. It is like in those Science Fiction novels where the human settlers cannot reach a peaceful agreement with the Aliens / natives of the planet.

The Palastinian Arab population was not moved by force after the fledgling State of Israel was declared, they abandoned their homes willingly, after listning to the Grand Mufti of Cario on radio broadcasts from Egypt, telling them how the Israelis were going to kill & rape all the women & children and send survivours to concentration camps.

All propaganda of course, also Israel did not have the man-power or resources neccesary in 1948-50 to move vast amount of people, being outnumbered by the Arab population of Palastine at the time many Palastinians headed across the border into Syria, and more went to Jordan, and Egypt.

The new Israeli State said it wished to live in peaceful co-habitation with their Palastinian Arab neighbours and only asked that they respect the law, i.e. give up raiding Jewish settlements etc...etc..

Kevin in Deva

Hehe.
You know what you are talking....

Does Israel move the ~500,000 lebanese these days? I dont think so. Refugees usually move themselves away from something, dont wait the "something" to come and move them.

So, when is the rest of the world going to condemn Syria, Jordan and Egypt for stealing land from the Palestinians? Israel only took that land when they were attacked, post 1948. The three above-mentioned ARAB nations just took the land because they could. Frankly, I would welcome as large-sized Israel as we can, looking at the alternatives.

Anyone who condemns Israel, but is silent on how Arabs have persecuted Palestinians earns the label of Anti-Semite, in my book.

The Palestinians have made their own bed through their intranscience in this crisis. They deserve what they get.

I wonder if Israel will advance to the Litani and whether it will give the hundreds of thousands of refugees from southern Lebanon the right to return. Probably they will, but it's interesting to note that Gurion's plan for a reshaped Middle East, dated 1956, was to annex southern Lebanon.

Some Israelies extermists had a map/plan that included all Jordan and parts from Syria and Lebanon in the new Jewis state.
Everyone agreed that it was madness.

This link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5199392.stm
is from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

50 years from the war of 1956... Another war, with a rather different American approach of the big picture.

The end of the long article (which may not stay on Internet for ever):
...................................................................................
The aftermath

The fallout was huge.
President John F Kennedy became a friend of Harold Macmillan
For a start, it got the Soviet Union off the hook, as it was brutally crushing the Hungarian uprising at the same time.
But it also meant that no longer could Britain - or France - act alone on the world stage.
They did however draw different conclusions.
Harold Macmillan, who succeeded Eden, decided that in future Britain had to side with America. He made good friends with President John F Kennedy and even persuaded Kennedy to let Britain have the Polaris nuclear missile.
Since then, Britain has been reluctant to oppose any US policy. Even during Vietnam, the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson forbade criticism of the US while shrewdly refusing Lyndon Johnson's request to send a token force.

French disconnection

France on the other hand went its own way, led in due course by de Gaulle. It left the military command structure of Nato and turned to leading Europe alongside a newly prosperous Germany.
Just as Britain always thereafter tended to side with the US, so France tended to oppose it.
Modern revisionist theories hold that the mistake was really made by President Eisenhower, in that he showed a weakness that the Soviet Union exploited.
Whatever one's views of that, there is no doubt that Suez represented the end of a long phase of British imperial history

PS: My humble comment - I do not think Eisenhower made a mistake.

This post has been edited by Florin on July 24, 2006 01:16 pm

Hi Guys,

New Connaught Ranger is partly right about 1948. The Jews certainly did expel numerous Arabs then and conducted some massacres to encourage their flight, but as NCR says, many others were encouraged to abandon their homes by their leaders in order to put pressure on the United Nations to intervene. This proved disasterous. The UN did intervene, but only to oversee ceasefire lines and administer refugee camps, not to return the refugees home. This is the origin of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, two thirds of the population of Jordan and a high proportion of the population of many Gulf states such as Kuwait. It also cleared space for Jewish immigration. Today only about 20% of Israel's population is Arab.

Cheers,

Sid.

...And also, even though Sid had the delicacy to not mention it, terrorism in Middle East in the XXth century was started by Jewish groups, and in the 1940's their primary targets were the British, not the Arabs. They went so far as to send letters with explosives to the British Foreign Office (i.e. to the minister leading the department) and other British institutions in London.
The British officers killed in Palestine, including the famous blow up of a whole hotel, were about 200 people were killed (about 80 British, and the rest Arabs as collateral damage) are better known cases.
Well, it seems terrorism is OK if it is performed by the right people.

PS: I just read on news that prime minister Olmert told to Mrs. Rice about the thousands of rockets raining from Hezbollah. Possible next week they will be estimated in the range of millions.

This post has been edited by Florin on July 25, 2006 12:27 pm

"Your terrorist is my freedom fighter".

Hezbollah is using here osnaz tactics, and they do work quite effectively, as we can see for the time being.

"Osnaz" is not in Webster dictionary. Arguably, I assume is not a British word.
In my first post under this topic (on first page of topic) I wrote what I think regarding why all this started. Even Israel claimed the same as me after few days.

This post has been edited by Florin on July 25, 2006 01:00 pm