I would like to understand the Israeli / Palastine conflict

We did take in displaced French, more than once. Some came as Hugenots - Protestant refugees of Catholic persecution. Some came as refugees from the French Revolution and some came as refugees from the Nazis.
We take in refugees from all over the world and eventually forget they were ever strangers. So do many other countries.

The Palestinians are in a fairly unique position though. No one wants them. They're too much of a hot potato unfortunately.
They are left to wander, just as the Jews did for 2000 years. Bitter irony.

"why has nobody in the Arab world taken them in"

Why would they ? if Israel had been set up in France would we have taken in the displaced French {hmm]

The Arab world is not a coherent whole in regard to the Palestinian problem but a lot of nations with conflicting interests. Egypt colluded with the Zionists in the blockade of Gaza.

Sorry, slightly misleading. The Golan heights overlook Syria. If you can be marmalised by Israelis rockets you try not to upset them.

Lebanon took them in and Israel went to war against Lebanon, destabilised that country and caused a civil war. That culminated in the massacres of Palestinian refugees. (Forgot to mention the Golan Heights which were also seized by Israel as part of its drive to secure and expand its borders.)

Egypt got whipped for much the same reason.

Jordan is vulnerable also and never, ever forget control of the water supply in all this.

You also have the Shi'ite/ Sunni conflict and I can't help you there.

any take on why there are refugees after decades - (there can';t be anywhere else in the world that has refugee camps with shopping malls) - why has nobody in the Arab world taken them in?

Part of the deal that was struck after President Truman called in our war debt was the ceding to the US of air-bases on UK soil such as Greenham Common. In effect. the UK became a sort of massive US aircraft carrier/ missile launcher as part of the Front Line in the Cold War. You could say it was how we financed the welfare State.

It was these bases from which the US bombers subsequently took off on the bombing mission to Libya which resulted in the death of Ghadaffi's daughter last time round. Colonel G has always blamed us for that.

Everything has a consequence, usually unexpected.

this is very interesting stuff, also learned a lot

Ok, Glasnost, Britain 'meddled' in Palestine but literally all the other empires had collapsed - Russian, Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman. Britain was acting out of self-interest. Who doesn't? But there was also an underlying moral imperative to be both loyal to the Arab allies who had helped oust the Turks (Germany's allies in WW1) and sympathy for the Jews after WW2. It was 1967 that made the situation impossible to heal, not 1945, and it was Israel's treatment of the Palestinians that made them militant.

There's only so much responsibility we can take for the situation as it is now. The French left Algeria in a mess, not to mention Indo China. The Belgians shrug off the Congo, the Germans don't take any responsibility for Angola and so on.....but I think it is telling that so many of the countries that were part of the British Empire remain in the Commonwealth.

I didn't set out to defend Britain but find myself doing so. There are things we have done which are indefensible but I don't think that we had any choice in this particular conflict other than to do what we did do, given the situation we were in as a result of the two world wars. Our sin was winning!

Yes, Unitarian - very interesting. Learned a lot.

unitarian - thank you for your time in typing out a 'simplified' potted history. I've always wondered about this chunk of the world - I need to wonder no longer. As for a solution - it's worse than 2 toddlers fighting over a toy - there is no right answer and neither are going to end up happy.

Who says MNing is a waste of time!

LOLOLOLOL

"my agenda is the truth" was tongue in cheek. You very rarely get out of your hat, cat and articulate any opinions. You carp. Opinions by definition are subjective. Or would you rather noone had any?

You are quite the agent provocatuer aren't you? Is your aim to hijack the thread and kill it? I suggest you should be ignored. And you touch no nerves over here. You're rather dull.

Mellow, I refer you to
"I'm serious in that you should read lots of stuff, weigh it up in your own mind, and question, question, question all the time. Why? is the word you must have in your head. Do not reach any conclusions without being prepared to change your mind many times, over many a long year." (by me yesterday)

I am entirely in agreement with you. I do want to hear all sides, but anyone who says "my agenda is the truth" on this partic subject can have no credibility with me.

oh and sorry glasnost didn't you know, anyone can LOL anywhere they like on this site - until you get to be a moderator of course

Fascinating stuff (your old hat tribal posts apart obv )

Cat, I'm not sure it matters if people have an axe to grind - and as you said yourself, most people have. Surely the best thing to do is to look at both sides of the argument, and make up your own mind?

Would that be the same James Renton author of The Zionist Masquerade?

Do you think he has any axes to grind?

Do you think anyone else will think he is a neutral observer?

whatevs

Britain's meddling in Palestine and thereabouts didn't begin with the Mandate. It started after WW1 and continued til 1948. My reference to my grandfather's involvement was to underline the fact even the most patriotic of Brits (as he was) hasto concurr we've wreaked havoc around the globe. The Britain I'm proud of is the post war govt indeed. The one that gave us the welfare state that the self anointed "patriotic" tories are constantly chipping away at.

Until Britain admits honestly its involvement in causing the mess there will never be peace. We're still up to no good though viz Libya.

This is really interesting I reckon.

www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/james-renton/forgotten-lessons-palestine-and-british-empire

I'm over-simplifying horribly but, I hope, demonstrating that it's fruitless to 'blame' Britain. Our hands are not clean but we didn't bring about this conflict. The seeds of it were there all along and were fertilised in Central Europe. In the post-war world situation for Britain it was a wasteful sideshow which we had to extricate ourselves from.

The Versailles treaty after WW1 included massive reparations which France insisted upon. This meant Germany had to pay back France for damage in the war. It left Germany destitute (people needing a wheelbarrow full of banknotes to buy a loaf of bread). It was this background that allowed Hitler to come to power.

The Allies in WW2 agreed that, after German defeat, it wouldn't be left in the same situation.

So in 1945 Britain was committed to helping to pay for the re-building of Germany from the ground up. Britain was also shattered but no one else was going to help pay for that. We had to keep borrowing and we needed the Empire to provide resources such as rubber (Malaysia), food (Australia, NZ and Canada)etc etc. And oil from Burma and from these allies in the Arab world.

Also, the returning soldiers in WW1 had come home to unemployment and poverty. The Labour govt. was elected in 1945 because that particular generation was determined they were going to come home to 'a land fit for heroes' so there was to be a National Health Service, universal state pension, an complete overhaul of education, university places for a whole generation who wanted it. A bright new world.

It would have been impossible to justify keeping an army in Palestine where there was only a 'British mandate'. It wasn't part of the Empire and it held no strategic or economic interest for Britain. And those men were being killed and maimed by the very people they had liberated from the death camps in europe. Britain had to get out from Palestine but didn't reckon on the drive by the Israelis to expand and recruit.

Sorry yeah WW2. Bed head stll on.

I'm so glad wendy started this thread! I struggle to understand why so many conflicts around the world are happening and the news never seems to explain why.

I watch 'Newsround'on Cbbc with the DC sometimes and think 'ah so that's why!'. It's the only news programme that explains why things are happening as well as what is happening!

I am an educated, intelligent person BTW - honestly!

"My grandfather was sent to Palestine after WW1 to help oversee the creation of the state of Israel and in later years said himself it was the Brits' fault for most of the mess there."

WW2 surely?
I don't see how the British could have done otherwise in the circumstances, though that's with hind-sight. I can see how, at the time, it would have appeared to be Britain's mistake but ordinary British people in the late 40s were probably not aware of the depth of the economic hole we were in. They felt it in the continuing rationing etc. but could 'blame' the war for that and were used to 'making do' but it's only by looking back from a distance that we can see how stretched Britain really was then.

It's also natural to blame the government for just about anything at the time without being aware of the pressures on that govt.
The Labour govt. was elected in 1945 and immediately - and I mean immediately - was smacked in the teeth by Truman's withdrawal of the rolling debt. It was bankrupt before it started and Atlee knew that on the way home from the Potsdam Conference as the election results were still being counted.

Not interested in winning YOUR heart and mind cat. You're excellent at sniping from the sidelines without ever proffering any opinions of your own. And keep inane LOLling off politics.

My grandfather was sent to Palestine after WW1 to help oversee the creation of the state of Israel and in later years said himself it was the Brits' fault for most of the mess there.

What an excellent informative thread.

My inexpert tuppence-worth:

USA and Israelis are gung-ho for democracy but appalled and refuse to recognise Hamas when they are democratically elected.

Hamas are right wing and argue that all Jews should be wiped off the face of the earth.

Israelis exploit this position in order to represent themselves as the victims of the party, while hammering ordinary Palestinians with blocades, bombs, thus driving Palestinian people more into the arms of the hardline Hamas instead of the more moderate Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

Thus it become very difficult to bring the two sides together. When PLO go to meet Israeli government they are at risk of alienating oppressed population and losing their democratic mandate.

However things are a bit more hopeful with Obama in the White House; he is less likely to offer Israelis unquestioning support - or was until things kicked off in the Middle East in a way which needs the Arab states on board to sort it out.