by Black Sword » Thu Apr 07, 2011 3:53 pm
Correcting WING-0's history since it's a far more complicated than that. There's always been a strong Zionist sentiment in the Western world, thanks to our Christian roots. Britain issued the Barfour Declaration supporting the creation of a Jewish state during World War I, which was admittedly a political measure aimed at weakening the Ottoman Empire, but was still popular in the West. Jewish volunteers fought for Britain in the Middle East and did Britain's dirty work in the Palestine campaign. The Barfour Declaration was then supported by mandate from the League of Nations (and eventually the United Nations).
The Arabs opposed the plans and rioted, but the funny part is, asking any of them with a sense of honesty and they'll admit that Palestine was a major shithole before the Jews began to arrive, and improved as those same Jews vigorously applied knowledge the Arabs lacked to make the place far better. Anyway, the British did nothing when the Arabs began their modern hobby of killing Jews, so the Jews formed milita to defend themselves with. Historians on both sides grudgingly agree that when Arabs weren't playing at slaughter, both sides managed to live side by side as neighbors.
Right before Hitler launched World War II, the British closed Palestine to Jewish immigration. Why? The Arabs had revolted because Jewish refugees of Hitler's persecution thought the Palestine province would be safe and had been arriving in large waves. Arab farmers sold their lands to Jewish settlers at market prices and then moved into cities where they could not find work. I cannot emphasize the bolded part enough. At that time, no one was forced off the land. Britain would never have allowed such a breach, Barfour or no. Anyway, the Arab former-farmers blamed the Jews for their newfound poverty, to the point where Britian passed a law forbidding the Arabs to sell land to Jews just so they'd shut up... a law they didn't bother to enforce. The revolt was put down thanks to cooperation between British forces and Jewish militia. Obviously, the militia felt betrayed when, after spilling their blood for the British, their colonial masters promptly engaged in what could be called a betrayal.
During and after the war, British policy towards refugees seeking shelter in Israel was to round them up in camps (oh, irony) or turn them away, increasing the bad blood between the Jewish settlers, the Arabs, and the British. Once World War II ended, Britain said "fuck it" and asked the new UN to figure it out. UN came up with a resolution for two states, one Jewish, one Arab. Jewish state would get the crappiest land, land everyone knew was incapable of supporting the sort of numbers everyone expected to flood into that state, while the Arabs got the best arable land. Jerusalem was to be an international city administered by the UN.
What happened from there? The Jews said yes. They had gotten the short end of the stick, but it was far better than they could have prayed for from their British overlords. The Arabs said...no. Then Arab bands went to work in earnest. The Jews were on the defensive for quite some time before they turned the tide and absolutely broke the local Arab forces. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs left under the orders of their local leaders and fear of the conflict. Their cousins in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon massed their armies outside of Palestine even as they deliberately sent units into what was technically still British territory.
The day before the British mandate expired, Israel declared independence. The day after independence was declared, the armies outside the borders entered Israel. Outnumbered, outgunned, and out-everything, Israel beat all of them into the ground. What followed was the mass exodus of Jews from the Arab world into Israel as their former neighbors vented their defeat on the nearest helpless Jews, and the ongoing efforts to destroy Israel, not least of which include the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, and the proxies of Hamas, Hizbollah, and the so-called Palestinians.
I have zero sympathy for Palestinians. They were given plenty of opportunity for a peaceful solution in the past sixty years, before the start of any conflict. They've brought it all on themselves. Britain has its fair share of blame, since they should have chosen a side and stuck with it, but the Arab world has had plenty of time to integrate the Palestinians into the populations. Instead, they're kept in camps as a convenient excuse to fight Israel. There won't be any peace because our Israeli friends are aware how tenuous their survival is, and won't do anything that threatens that survival, especially after years of greater and greater concessions just result in more mortars, rockets, and "wasn't me" from their neighbors.
As to the Kurds, they did get screwed, but not the way you understand it. There was supposed to be a Kurdistan and Armenia after World War I. Turkey was going to be a rump state. However, Ataturk was too good a general. He reconquered the land Turkey would have lost, and the Allies were too exhausted to fight it out with someone most of their generals couldn't match, so a different treaty was signed. As Brennus told the Romans, vae victis.
As for Iran, Mosaddegh nationalized British oil concerns without paying anything and was friendly with the local Soviet stooge party. Besides, Mosaddegh was a prick of the first order, to the point where Dwight Eisenhower loathed him enough to write angrily about the Iranian prime minister in his memoirs. Anyway, the first pissed off Britain, who then mentioned the second item to their American little brothers, who were duly pissed off in turn. Mosaddegh declared Britain an enemy of Iran and cut off all diplomatic ties. Britain turned to the Americans, eyebrow upraised, and both went to work. Down went Mosaddegh, the Shah was restored, and Mosaddegh under house arrest. Unfortunately, the Shah was too ambitious, thus overspent, thus Iranian Revolution.
Why do I know all this? How do you guys think I got my history degree? I had to write about the Iranian Revolution for my thesis.
"Where is Black Sword? I'd know his Orakio anywhere!" - BenoitRen
