There is actually a really simple solution to almost all of the issues surrounding Israel.
Stop trying to kill Jews and other Israeli citizens simply because they exist.
That's it, that's the solution.
Sounds easy doesn't it? It's not rocket science after all.
*taps sign*
Never Again is not a polite request. It's a statement of intent.
@Render *sighs
Why can’t the Saudis provide a place for Palestinians? Why won’t they? Do you know?
@Museek @Render Ren could explain better than I, but basically when the Palestinians who sold their land to the displaced Holocaust survivors upon the creation of Israel by the British emigrated to other Arab countries, they were housed in resettlement camps, where they and their descendants remain to this day. Never welcomed into those fellow Muslim countries. Political pawns.
Not quite, Notokay. All the Palestinians who fled to Jordan after 1948 are full citizens. (Around 3/4s of the Palestinian population in Jordan.) The big issue came around 1967, with the people who fled then from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Those folks still find themselves stateless today, in part out of later malicious compliance, Jordan ceding the West Bank to the PA. It's messy, but not accurate to say that Palestinians were never welcomed by Arab countries.
Definitely. There are reasons in the 1960s and 1970s that the refugees were kept in temporary status, and reasons given in the 1990s, and reasons again in the 2000s.
But it's not accurate to say that other Arab countries didn't accept Palestinians. The vast majority of Palestinian refugees in Jordan (those stemming from the late 1940s) have full citizenship.
@MLClark At least partially because under the terms of the UN splitting up the Palestinian mandate Jordan was supposed to the Palestinian homeland. (of course they were not called Palestinians until 1964).
And then a Palestinian working for the Grand Mufti assassinated the King of Jordan in Jerusalem in 1951 and tried to take over. In 1970 the PLO tried again, leading to Black September.
"In 1970 the PLO tried again, leading to Black September."
Thus the malicious compliance! Jordan in time threw up its hands and said to the PLO, then later PA, "Fine, if you want it, it's yours, we don't have a duty of care over any of this." And revoked documents in a kind of sarcastic "support" of the PA being in charge of the region now.
A whole mess later on - but the initial folks from Mandatory Palestine are among the Jordanian citizens who signed off on it.
@Notokay @Museek
@Museek @MLClark @Render @Notokay
I would appreciate book recommendations for history on this region. I tried to figure out what books to read a few years ago, but became confused and concerned about authors and sources.
My brother recommended a book to me, but research showed the author was a MAGA. 🙁
That's a great question.
I deep-dived into the region this year for articles & a podcast series on Petronationalism, where I focused on the region as it related to Western ambitions for global power via oil futures and during the Cold War.
What I saw in the English lit was a lot of focus on military campaigns (for the war geeks), deconstructions of Islam or British Empire, and of course pointed polemics for today's conflict.
Will mull this q over tonight!
@DianeH @MLClark @Museek @Notokay
Elusive Victory by Trevor N Dupuy
Straight, dry, military history, and unbiased. Written by a US military historian in 1978. Somewhat dated now but does cover both the political and military history of Israel's first four wars in great detail.
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Israel at 50 by Moshe Raviv
Written by a former Israeli ambassador to the UK in 1998. Less war, not so dry, more politics and human costs around the birth and first 5 decades of Israel's history.
...
@DianeH @MLClark @Museek @Notokay
Israel's Moment by Jeffery Herf (2022)
Only covers the period between 1945 and 1949 and the birth of Israel. In particular the brief moment when the Soviet Union supported Israel and the US did not.
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Those are just the first three I pulled off of my shelves. I have many more but the majority are straight military history or somewhat outdated.
@Museek Sorry to jump in (busy night here) but I'm with you. Whenever I've traveled I've always got into the people, the culture, the language and at least some of the history (even if just in school). I loved history and enjoyed Geography and like you, often paired the two.
I find the Middle East conflicts fascinating but incredibly complicated, so want to thank everyone in this discussion (and Ren and ML in particular) for sharing their knowledge 👍
@BillyBones @DianeH @Render @MLClark @Notokay I hear you.. same. And yes.. thanks everyone :-)
That book was a gateway book for me to appreciate how ill-prepared a Western education made me for the rest of the world's histories... but you've reminded me that there's a similarly comprehensive piece by Peter Mansfield! The 5th edition of A HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE EAST is the one I read. The book covers around 200 years in the region, albeit centrally through Western meddling and its consequences. It's dense, but it also lays out how many players exist in all these countries.
I posted them in chronological order because the older ones are going to be...well...dated. As new information reveals new details that weren't available at publication date.
I also wanted to avoid the pure military histories that dominate my bookshelves.
"This is how we liberated Jerusalem"
"This is the miracle of the Golan Heights battle"
"This is how we built an air force from scratch"
I guessed that those probably won't answer your questions.
@MLClark @Museek @Render @Notokay
Thanks so much!