Ok, both sides on the ME violence, please help me out

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

I am trying to understand not only this most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas/Hezbollah, but what are the underpinnings of this conflict. I've gotten some things sorted out in my head that may explain much of the animosity, and wish to share them with you. Please let me know where you think my analysis may be off. Also thanks to anyone who can provide me with more information. Thanks.

1. From what I've read, prior to WWI, the Middle East was basically the Ottoman Empire and Persia. Both Muslims and Jews were allowed to live in the area; one poster said that there was a sizable Jewish population in Bagdad even in the '30s and 40s, and that they had lived there for centuries. Another poster said that there are still over half a million Jews living in Iran (modern name for Persia). I have yet to find that anyone was hounding these Jews with pogroms, etc-were they treated harshly? How were they treated differently from their Muslim and Christian neighbors at that time (Pre-WWI, mainly, but up until 1948 also)

2. During WWI, France and Britain promised political autonomy for Arab regions in return for the Arabs fighting the Turks, who were the Ottoman rulers. The European powers reniged on this promise, and carved up spheres of influence in the region instead. I believe they also allowed emigration of European Jews to the area (question: was there a prohibition from doing this under the Ottomans? I don't know-appreciate information).

3. European Jews bought up land-but here's the rub. Though Palestinians and other Arabs had lived on land for generations, they technically didn't own it, even though under the law of the Ottomans, they owned the olive trees and other trees that produced fruit. So I'm wondering if when the Jews came and bought the land, the Palestinians didn't understand that their concept of ownership was different than their Ottoman landlords. It's sort of like here in America when Europeans bought land from Natives who didn't have the same concept of "owning" the land. I know that this misunderstanding here in America caused many an "Indian War"-the Black Hawk War in Illinois being one example.

4. The Jewish people have had a history of persecution, going back as far as Egypt, then Babylon, and then the Romans. I know at a seder, the history of their time of slavery in Egypt is told-so they have, as a people, kept the history of their people and how they have been persecuted (and survived) alive. We could also mention their persecution in Europe during the Middle Ages, the Spanish Inquisition where Moorish Jews were forced to convert or die, the pogroms in Russia. Then Hitler murdered 6 million of them-the ultimate persecution, and one within living memory of many. I feel compassion for the Jewish people, for I feel that their group psyche is still suffering from all that has come before. But this group concept is where they are operating from-they lash out in fear because they understand how precarious their situation has been throughout much of history. I'm thinking that many Jews just don't believe they can trust goyem to do right by them, so they see fighting back as the only way to handle things. Perhaps I am way off base here; understand that I mean no disrespect; I only wish to understand.

Thank you for taking the time to read these ramblings. If you can give me more insights in these aspects of the situation, perhaps some understanding can come.

[tocqueville]

1. there is plenty of information on Wikipedia

if you look for Israel/Palestine

[mzteris]

2. here's a good history

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761588322/Arab-Israeli_Conflict.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Thanks for the link

From what it says, it appears that at least part of my surmises are correct, namely that there was resentment by peasants that Jews came and bought the land from the owners. I didn't read anything about the trees belonging to the peasants, though, which one poster on another thread suggested; I'm not sure where to find out more about this. If it is true, it is an intriguing concept, and one wonders how the Ottomans sorted it out when land was sold; my thinking was that, like Medieval Europe, when landowners sold land, the peasants went with it. If this is the case, no wonder the Palestinians didn't understand when the Jews ordered them off the land.

It does appear that the British bungling with their promises to both Arabs and Jews is what fueled the early clashes; I wasn't aware that both sides were using terror tactics so early on in the game.

[The Magistrate]

4. A Few Comments, Ma'am

First, under the Ottoman, non- Moslems were second-class citizens under law. Differential taxation, differential treatment in the law courts, limitations on ownership and restrictions of trades were ordinary features of luife.

Second, in the course of the Great War, England and France made agreta many promises, most from the mouths of pretty junior officials. Both Arabs and Jews provided important fighting contingents. The Ottoman did not restrict immigration by Jews, and Zionist immigration was already under way hefore the war. The immigrants did not have citizenship, however, and on the outbreak of the war thoise with Russian citizenship, the great majority, were viewed as enemy aliens. Ottoman administratoion of Palestine during the war was calamatous, and to some degree deliberately so, with tens of thousands of Arabs and Jews dying of starvation and disease. The interplay between the various imperialist promises is simply too intricate to treat in summary form, but it quite true the English and French did not trewat either client fairly, by the client's lights.

Ottoman landowning law changed in the late nineteenth century to something closer to European practice, as a result of the re-organization of its finances enforced by European banks to whom it was in colossal and bankrupting debt. Land that had formerly been held essentially in common by clans became property of the clan's leading man or family, with the cousins tenants upon it. Absentee landlordism and the concentration of land in a few hands became leading features of the countryside. Most Jewish purchases were from comercial landlords, and a good deal of it was wasteland at the time it was purchased.

The history of Jewish immigration in the early stages of the Zionist enterprise was fraught with violence from shortly after the close of World War One. There is plenty of reason in immediate history for the attitude of most Israelis that they atre in danger from their neighbors without invoking concepts hitorical psychology and spirituality.

This is, obviously, the merest capsule on a subject that literally could fill many books....

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. Thank you for this information

When one realizes the oldest town in the world is Jericho, one realizes we're looking at one of the oldest inhabited places on earth-it is for that reason that I do think it is important to look at history-people often tend to carry grudges for generations, and when the generations go back to antiquity, those grudges can get stronger and stronger. I do think it is important to view the psychological reasons for behavior-to merely react without thought does not usually result in the outcome desired.

[The Magistrate]

8. You Are Most Welcome, Ma'am

There is something to that view of yours, regarding long-term psychological effects, to be sure, but my mind tends to go towards more material and near-term factors, as being simpler and more readily handled. It is a question of taste and temperament, more than anything else.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Two different ways of thinking, that's all

I just wish more threads here would shed LIGHT on the subject and not so much HEAT, if you get my meaning. I've learned a lot from this thread and also from some other threads where people have kindly answered my questions.

[The Magistrate]

10. One Excellent Work On The Formative Period, Ma'am

Is "A Peace to End All Peace", by a gentleman named Fromkin, if recollection serves. It is a history of the period 1914 to 1922 in the Near East, with some prologue supplement, that does a masterful job of laying out the tangles in straightforward form.

"There were only three men who ever understood the whole of that afair: one is dead, another gone mad, and I myself, I have quite forgot the details."

[Tesha]

17. This ain't necessarily so.

> When one realizes the oldest town in the world is Jericho,

This ain't necessarily so, but it serves Western vanity
to believe it so. (Just a hint.)

Tesha

[Time for change]

5. If you have a lot of time, I would highly recommend

"The Siege -- The Saga of Israel and Zionism". It's a bit old, copyright 1986, but it's one of the best books I've ever read. It gives a very detailed and balanced history IMO, and yet it is not dry and not difficult to read if you're interested in the topic.

The idea of a Jewish state started, I believe in the late 19th century. And it had a lot to do with the long history of persecution of the Jews, as you note. There may have been some Jews living in the Middle East prior to that time, but in the late 19th and/or early 20th century, they began migrating to the ME in larger numbers, and buying land and settling there. Some of them did this just to get away from the persecution in Europe, and others (Zionists) had some idea that they would eventually have a state of their own there. I believe that prior to WWI, Britain promised (I believe it was called the Balfour declaration) that they would eventually assist the Jews in setting up a state in Palestine.

Various degrees of tension developed between the Jews and the Muslims who were already living there, as the Muslims must have felt that if the trend continued they would eventually be a minority.

Anyhow, after WWII, largely as a result of the Holocost, Britain finally made good on their promise to help the Jews establish their own state, and they declared a protectorate in Palestine. But there was a great deal of animosity between the Jews and the Muslims, including violence, and there was violence directed against the British as well, so in 1948 the British just up and left.

And almost as soon as they left, war broke out between the Jews and the Arabs, and although the Jews were greatly outnumbered they won that war pretty quickly, and they declared their independence and their own state. I'm pretty sure that following their victory they offered the Arabs the choice to come back to their homes, and some took them up on that offer, but the good majority didn't.

I think that you're right about the fact that the attitude of many Israelis is very defensive and aggressive because of the long history of persecution of the Jews, culminating in the Holocost. Also, it didn't help any that many of the Arab countries in the region avowed that it was their goal to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

All 4 of my grandparents were Jewish, and they lived in Europe at a time when there was much persecution of Jews there. So I was kind of brought up with sort of a black and white attitude towards the whole thing, with the Jews being the good guys and the Arabs being the bad guys - but I've come to realize that it's a lot more complicated than that.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. I'll look for that book

I have Jewish relatives in law, and I'm sure that I have Jewish ancestry somewhere down the line. I grew up in a city with a sizable Jewish population, and felt sympathy with them over the horrors of the Holocost. I think the whole situation in Palestine was mishandled, from the Ottoman's neglect to the British making promises that both Arabs and Jews misunderstood. Like you, I cheered when Israel won the '67 and Yom Kippur War-and then I met some Palestinian Christians who had moved to this country. They are an interesting group; from what I gathered, they are sort of like the Lebanese Christians, in that they feel caught in the middle between the Arabs and Israelis. I know that anyone who has tried to build bridges between the three groups (Christians, Muslims, Jews) has had a hard time of it; the PLO stopped one Sufi shaykh from his overtures to Jews. And according to my Christian friend, it is getting harder and harder for Christians to live in Israel. What I found most interesting was that this Palestinian Christian was married to a Muslim from Iraq. Haven't seen either in quite a while; I know they must be beside themselves with worry about their families.

[SeattleGirl]

11. I would like to say thank you to the posters on this thread.

Like the OP, I do not completely understand what is happening (and what happened in the past) in the Middle East, but reading this thread has given me some good information, as well as several books to read to increase my understanding.

I must confess to a degree if impatience with the whole ME issue, but I know that the primary reason for that is my lack of understanding of the history and the dynamics of the region.

So again, thank you to those who have posted here for increasing my understanding a bit, and pointing me toward resources that will further increase that understanding.

[riderinthestorm]

12. Another oft forgotten factoid is that as many Jews were expulsed from Arab

states when Israel was formed as Palestinians who fled the region during the '48 war.

Approximately 800,000 Palestinians fled believing that they would be going home within days if not weeks. Most of the surrounding Arab states forcibly removed their Jewish populations as well in a roughly equal number during that critical year.

I would be pretty surprised if there are still 500,000 Jews in Iran. Do you have a source for that figure? My understanding is the Jewish population in virtually all of the ME states outside of Israel is in the double digits, in most cases in the single digits if not zero.

[bloom]

13. I found this:

Diaspora (outside Israel)

Currently, the largest Jewish community in the world is located in the United States, with almost 5.7 million Jews. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are also large Jewish populations in Canada and Argentina, and smaller populations in Brazil, Mexico , Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, and several other countries (see History of the Jews in Latin America).

Western Europe's largest Jewish community can be found in France, home to 600,000 Jews, the majority of whom are immigrants or refugees from North African Arab countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia (or their descendants). There are over 265,000 Jews in the United Kingdom. In Eastern Europe, there are anywhere from 500,000 to over two million Jews living in the former Soviet Union, but exact figures are difficult to establish. The fastest-growing Jewish community in the world, outside Israel, is the one in Germany, especially in Berlin, its capital. Tens of thousands of Jews from the former Eastern Bloc have settled in Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East were home to around 900,000 Jews in 1945. Systematic persecution after the founding of Israel caused almost all of these Jews to flee to Israel, North America, and Europe in the 1950s. Today, around 8,000 Jews remain in Arab nations. Iran is home to around 25,000 Jews, down from a population of 100,000 Jews before the 1979 revolution. After the revolution some of the Iranian Jews emigrated to Israel or Europe but most of them emigrated (with their non-Jewish Iranian compatriots) to the United States (especially Los Angeles).

Outside Europe, Asia and the Americas, significant Jewish populations exist in Australia and South Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew

more numbers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jewish_population_comparisons

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. thank you for this information!

This is the sort of research that helps sort fact from fiction.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

14. My source was another poster here

who mentioned it on another thread. One reason I put it and other information I had gleaned from threads was to find out if others here agreed with them and thought them accurate. It was a statement made in a long thread and no one challenged it at the time, but I wondered about it. Thanks to bloome's research, we find that it is an incorrect figure.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. A few small points

1) There are approzimately 60,000 Jews living in Iran.

2) Jews were better treated in many Muslim countries than they were in Christendom ,however they were still treated as second class citizens.

3) Goyim is a pejorative word and when I hear a Jewish person use it the word sends chills down my spine. Gentile or non-Jew sounds much better to me. It would be a like a white person referring to a black person or African American as "colored". I know you didn't use the word to be disparaging.

4) The problem with the "who owns" the land debate is it ends up nowhere. IMHO, the best way to look at the situation is that the Israelis are the latest in a long group of peoples to occupy that land. I guess the Arabs have every right to try to push them off that land and the Israelis have every right to resist. But in the twenty first century we should at least try to settle our differences peacefully. If God or Allah believes that land belongs to this group or that group let him sort it out in the next life or by divine intervention.