General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Map that Ruined the Middle East
I recommend this for those who wish to see a somewhat bigger picture than the tiny snapshot of the past week on DU. It is a very nice, concise history.
http://www.thetower.org/article/the-map-that-ruined-the-middle-east/
If you criticize the creation of Israel, you should also criticize the creation of Lebanon (haven for Christians), Syria, Jordan, and Iraq as well.And behind it all, is our old friends, the empires of England and France.
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)To the spoils go the victor.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)too. But that is what Empires do, which is why our Founding Fathers warned against it.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Many judge what happened at the end of WWII from our point of view today.
Back then, the good guys were the Allies, and the bad guys included people who befriended and aided Hitler. And all the people who befriended the friends of Hitler and of those who opposed any of the allies were viewed as the losers and were not given much due. The Jews were, because of the recent history of the time, viewed as the friends of the allies and the victims of all including the influential Arab nationalist who befriended Hitler and whose bio I cite below.
World Wars I and II ended up with the relocation of many borders around the world.
The peace was hard won and the losers were viewed as outlaws. Remember. Germany was divided. The Allies' main goal was to crush those who resisted their victory. That is understandable.
I think the Allies made good decisions when you consider what difficult choices they had.
Remember the Bosnian War. Yugoslavia was liberated by Tito who united the country. But the underlying rivalries and disputes about land and power were not resolved, if at all, until the Clinton administration.
We do not need to refight WWII. Let's leave well enough alone. The two-state solution and peace are what we should be supporting. Not a remake of WWII. Too late for that.
Warpy
(111,258 posts)but the Emperors and Empresses are dead and gone to dust along with their empires and the only people left to pay them are the people over whose heads those imaginary lines were drawn.
Oh, and us, maybe next week when the oil stops flowing and maybe down the line.
msongs
(67,405 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Which happens to be the mouthpiece of a lobby group.
Uncle Joe
(58,361 posts)Thanks for the thread, Bonobo.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)What makes you think we don't?
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)the creation of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq (unlike Israel) didn't involve the mass immigration of colonialist settlers in the hundreds of thousands who displaced the existing population (which is a completely different thing to a redrawing of political borders).
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)However, there's some important distinctions.
When Lebanon was created, Christians did not try to purge Muslims from the territory. Nor vice versa (in fact for all its problems, Lebanon has made a heroic effort to prevent this - to the point that a Lebanese census hasn't been taken since the 30's, for fear of the harm that could come from the hellraiser-style political puzzle box the French left them with.) Iraq's formation was not predicated on the demands of a foreign interest group against the wishes of the people who lived in Iraq. Speaking of iraq, well, what happened to iraq when it tried to take territory beyond its borders?
Also, your source is the mouthpiece of a right-wing lobby group, "The Israel Project," which, if you missed it, was the subject of some posts by Jefferson23 today.
Lastly, that dude on the left. I envy his 'stache.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)people from death in the Concentration Camps.
I would not criticize the creation of Israel or any of the countries that were carved out of the British Protectorate which was handed over to Britain after the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) was defeated at the end of WWI.
History might have been quite different had the Palestinians sided strongly with the Allies in WWII. But they could not have known that Britain would end colonialism in the area. They could not have known that their wisest move would have been to take the side of he allies against Hitler.
Instead, here is the image the British had of the Palestinians.
Al-Husseini was the scion of a family of Jerusalemite notables.[9] After receiving an education in Islamic, Ottoman and Catholic schools, he went on to serve in the Ottoman army in World War I. At war's end, he positioned himself in Damascus as a supporter of the Arab Kingdom of Syria. Following the fiasco of the Franco-Syrian War and the collapse of the Arab Hashemite rule in Damascus, his early position on pan-Arabism shifted to a form of local nationalism for Palestinian Arabs and he moved back to Jerusalem. From as early as 1920, in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of a violent riot that broke out over the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Al-Husseini was sentenced to ten years imprisonment, but was pardoned by the British.[10] Starting in 1921, al-Husseini was appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, using the position to promote Islam, while rallying a non-confessional Arab nationalism against Zionism.[11][12]
His opposition to the British peaked during the 193639 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, evading an arrest warrant, he fled Palestine and took refuge in, successively, the French Mandate of Lebanon and the Kingdom of Iraq, until he established himself in Italy and Germany. During World War II he collaborated with both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by helping Germans recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS. On meeting Adolf Hitler he requested backing for Arab independence and support in opposing the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national home. At war's end, he came under French protection, and then sought refuge in Cairo to avoid prosecution.
In the lead-up to the 1948 Palestine war, Husseini opposed both the 1947 UN Partition Plan and King Abdullah's designs to annex the Arab part of British Mandatory Palestine to Jordan, and, failing to gain command of the 'Arab rescue army' (jaysh al-inqadh al-'arabi) formed under the aegis of the Arab League, formed his own militia, al-jihad al-muqaddas. In September 1948, he participated in establishment of All-Palestine Government. Seated in Egyptian-ruled Gaza, this government won a limited recognition of Arab states, but was eventually dissolved by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1959. After the war and subsequent Palestinian exodus, his claims to leadership, wholly discredited, left him eventually sidelined by the Palestine Liberation Organization, and he lost most of his residual political influence.[13] He died in Beirut, Lebanon, in July 1974. Husseini was and remains a highly controversial figure. Historians dispute whether his fierce opposition to Zionism was grounded in nationalism or antisemitism or a combination of both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini
And so is history writ, fair or not. That's the way it goes.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And most people do take a consistent stand and criticize all of the above.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)current bush-RW empire caused 'middle east' problems onto the Britts! They may be doing some pre-work on the Jebbie Bush, 'run for the roses' in 2016. Blame the Britts, not the Bush!
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Not a Fan
(98 posts)... that person on the left in white isn't John Kerry in drag?