Of course the British favored the Arabs... They KNEW what side their bread was buttered on (the Suez Canal, and various oil interests they were developing).
In fact, oil interests were one of the predominant reasons the US hesitated in providing support to Israel until the Yom Kippur war of 1973.
No one wanted to offend the Arabs and risk having their investments nationalized by alienating them with overt support of the Israeli Jews.
Had it not been for the overt support of Winston Churchill, it's unlikely that the Jews would have received a proper hearing as to why THEY deserved a decent cut out of the Ottoman Empire.
And you can point out the Balfour declaration all you want.. But DO NOT OMIT THE FACT that EVERY ARAB NATION IN THE REGION WAS CREATED ARTIFICIALLY, DISPLACING NATIVE POPULATIONS OR PLACING THEM UNDER THE CONTROL OF REGIMES INSTALLED BY THE BRITISH.
And DO NOT OMIT the fact that the British GAVE what was supposed to be the original Palestinian partition to Jordan, in order to curry the favor of King Abdullah and his Hashemite clan.
The West Bank was originally supposed to be given to the Jews as THEIR reward for supporting the British against the Ottoman Turks.
So forget about the Balfour Declaration... Look at all the OTHER actions by the British in subjugating vast numbers of people under their "favorite" Arab leaders.. Look at the DeBunsen Report, Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, and the Sykes-Picot Agreements.
The Coptic Christians in the upper nile were not provided their own homeland, despite their history being traced by for thousands of years.
The Shiite Arabs in Southern Iraq were not provided a homeland... The Kurds were not provided a homeland...
In fact, a WHOLE number of various tribes and nationalities were SCREWED by the manner in which the British arbitrarily set borders.
So why the hell do people like yourself believe the Palestinians are so "special" with regard to their "grievances"??
No one wants to cast blame upon Jordan which occupied AND ANNEXED the West Bank (which became the "new" and smaller Palestinian homeland after the British reneged on their promise to give it to the Jews).....
Jordan RAPED the West Bank economy during its occupation, treating it like a colony. In fact, at one point the west bank constituted 40% of Jordan's GDP...
So face some facts here... Land was confiscated and doled out arbitrarily all over the Middle East, to those who would support the British.
And you're quite wrong about 90% of Israeli land being confiscated to create Israel. It was previously known as the Yishuv
Here's a good link I found in referencing my answer to you:
umich.edu
I suggest you study it and see all of the other people subjugated under arbitrary rule of certain tribes and clans.
Hawkmoon |
