chalu2,
re: after 2,000 years of vicious, genocidal Christian/Muslim persecution the Jews wanted a land of refuge, where all Jews could flee if persecuted and endangered
Thank you for stating the obvious.
It is true that the Jews came to late to the realization that they should talk to the Arabs. However, it is important to remember that when the Zionists starting settling Palestine in the early 20th century, Palestine was a sparsely inhabited province of Syria. It was not a country in any sense of the world, and it certainly did not have the institutions of a state to talk to. The notion of Palestine as a country did not emerge until much later.
What political society it did have was largely controlled by the Mufti of Jerusalem, and he insisted on a radical rejection of the Jews. Anybody caught talking to them was declared a traitor and was liable to be shot. When the war came in 1947, he broadcast instructions to the population to get out of the way while the Arab armies drove the Jews into the sea. Didn't quite work out that way.
The Arab radical rejectionism, by the way, is fundamentally religious in nature: once a land has become Arab and Muslim, it is contrary to the will of Allah for it to become again non-Arab and non-Muslim. It is questionable whether any attitude on the part of the Jews could have produced a different result. |
