An Interesting Read on the Origins of the Palestinian-Isreali Conflict.

[NNadir]

I rarely tread into this forum, since I have nothing to say to either side about the intractable cold/hot war in this region. Everyone is wrong and nobody is right is how I deal with this ongoing horror.

One of my best friends, an American, served in the Israeli Army as a youth, and, in fact, patrolled Gaza, 40 years ago. I am reluctant to discuss any of this with him. (His ex-wife now lives in Israel, where he met her.)

Nevertheless, I am currently reading - and will soon put it aside unfinished - Elkins' Legacy of Violence, which is a big, long, deep book about how the British Empire screwed the entire world and left it in a shambles of war and violence when the British Empire was shrugged off (violently) by the natives.

It has an interesting read on the origins Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the casual and thoughtless issuance of the Balfour Declaration, which had its origins basically in British antisemitism, coupled with contempt for the Arabs.

The idea of the British endorsement of Zionism was basically about getting Jews out of Europe is the way I read it.

Knowing about this does nothing to resolve the situation, but it does delineate quite nicely the origins.

It's all I have to say.

Please don't kill me.

[cachukis]

1. You peeked into Pandora's Box.

Gertrude Bell

[Bluestocking]

2. I have added it to my reading list

[Lonestarblue]

3. I have not read this book, but I have read several others that support this premise.

After the war, many Jews who had temporarily escaped to other countries tried to return to their homes only to find that landlords would not rent to them or their own homes had been destroyed or taken over. I've read that the British government just wanted this problem to go away. The easy way out was to hand Palestinian land to the Zionists pressuring the British government, which is what they did with little to no consideration for the conflicts they were creating for the native Palestinians living on that land. Israel wasted no time after the UN approved their state, sending an army and bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes and force them off the land (the Nabka). Many descendants of these Palestinians are today living in camps in the West Bank because Israel has limited their ability to make a living.

So long as Israel is determined to own all Palestinian land, there will never be peace. As we saw with our own Native Americans, many tribes were murdered out of existence and others barely survived the depredations of a people who wanted their land even to the point of murdering them. And, yes, Naive Americans fought back just as Palestinians have done. They were simply defending the land they and their ancestors had lived on for thousands of years. I have no solution for this conflict, but ignoring the rights of the natives and allowing their genocide is not the answer.

[jmbar2]

4. I learned more about this endless conflict in 1 minute reading your post than I have in a lifetime of press accounts

It has been going on so long that I have become blind to it. Now that the oligarchs are advancing in their plans to finish "the job", the origins have more saliency. Thanks.