I would like to understand the Israeli / Palastine conflict

[wendylovesbob]

Is there a book which is both readable, and has no agenda?

Or can you explain it to me?

When I read about it in the papers I have no idea about the implications or framework of whatever specific thing is being reported.

Oh dear.
You're not very good at this winning hearts & minds lark are you glasnost?
even Newwave made an effort to acknowledge it's not black/white, (nearly damaged herself in the process though )

"There has been terrible injustice and violence from both sides and I can't see a satisfactory solution. One has to be found though because the failure to broker a lasting peace will always provide fuel for extremism." I'll sign up to that

more from the historians/gegraphers/economists/well-informed persons? this is an intersting thread, I'm learning

There is a timeline from the BBC here that seems to stick to the facts - click on a year to find out what happened.

You can only lay some blame at Britain's door and the British, understandably, had/have very mixed feelings on the matter.

During WW1 the impetus was to oust the Turks who were Germany's allies. Having done so, they didn't really take Jewish claims into account. It wasn't then a Jewish region.

After WW2 the dilemma was far worse because of the shock at the liberation of the concentration camps. So many Jews just didn't want to stay in Europe and the survivors therefore were hard to deny. No one wanted to exacerbate their suffering - and there was guilt because the discovery of the death camps wasn't entirely a surprise. It had been pretty clear since the 30s that they were being hounded to death. I quizzed my dad on this at one time. He was nothing special during the war but he said everyone was aware of the plight of the Jews - it was the details that got to everyone afterwards, the sheer ruthlessness involved.

The infant Israel began with a much goodwill, therefore, as well as financial/political support from Jews in UK and the US.

It was the events of 1967 and after that brought it home that the Israelis were capable of perpetrating a similar persecution on the Palestinians - and that the Palestinians were capable of ruthless terrorism in return.

If anyone is to blame it is the Nazis in the 20th C as well as successive Russian pogroms against the Jews in the 19th and 20th Cs.

You also have to take into account the position of the British after WW2. We had won the war but were on our knees economically. We had our own shattered infrastructure to rebuild, an NHS to set up - and the US called in its debt. The debt was renegotiated but the US left the UK utterly broke. That war debt wasn't paid off until Gordon Brown was Chancellor.

There were bids for independance by parts of the Empire, notably India and, later, Malaysia. The, largely conscript and much decreased, British army was at full stretch and couldn't continue to 'hold' Palestine so long as the Suez Canal was secure and the oil was coming in. It was impossible politically to continue to justify the deaths of National Service boys in Palestine.

If the Israelis had stayed within their original borders and conceded sufficient rights to the indigenous Palestinians within those borders there was a chance for a peaceful settlement. After 1967 that chance was lost.

Now that writing all that has clarified so much in my mind I think that Germany has a huge resposibility to sort this out.

By allying with the Ottoman Empire into WW1, Germany's defeat brought about the collapse of that empire and destabilised the whole region.

By perpetrating the Holocaust the Germans made Jewish nationalism inevitable after the war.

The modern Germany is, perhaps, best placed now to acknowledge this responsibility and attempt to bring the two sides to negotiate. US and UK involvement in negotiations is not considered neutral enough.

A settlement has to include the means for the Palestinians to be economically viable as a state with water resources guaranteed and ports of its own.

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.

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.

"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.

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!

Sorry yeah WW2. Bed head stll on.

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.

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.

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

whatevs

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?

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?

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 )

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.

"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.

LOLOLOLOL

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!

Yes, Unitarian - very interesting. 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!

this is very interesting stuff, also learned a lot

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.