If you are interested in "historical roots", then you have to refer to the Arab powers. Had they not encouraged Palestinian aspirations, and launched an attack immediately upon the Declaration of Independence, and had they not left the Palestinian refugees to smolder in the camps, instead of helping to resettle them, none of this would be so bad. The fact is, whatever grievances the Palestinians may have had were exacerbated and exploited by the Arab powers in the name of Pan- Arab nationalism.
The British were acting under a League of Nations mandate, administering territory lost by a belligerent power (Turkey was an ally of Germany in WWI), with final disposition to be determined by the League. Its successor, the United Nations, provided the grounds, in international law, for partition of the former "Palestine", and the establishment of the State of Israel.
The urgency on the part of the Zionists to declare Independence was a result of the Holocaust, and the failure of the Great Powers, including the United States, to take seriously enough the situation of European Jewry, under the Nazis, and provide adequate refuge or vigorous diplomatic defense. Thus, Herzl fear of a calamity absent a state of their own was vindicated. The main Jewish population gains had been made during the '30s, not because of ideological Zionists, but because of Jews who had no other means of escape fleeing the Nazis. By the time the United Nations took up the matter, a two- state solution looked sensible. Your comment about the Zionists is a fantasy. You have merely taken isolated instances and speculation, and made an illicit generalization, assuming that all counter claims are mere Zionist propaganda.
Actually, there are good guys and bad guys. Those who have persisted in the use and support of indiscrimate terror bombing are the bad guys. You see it merely as using the weapons at one's disposal. I cannot see targeting schoolbuses in that light.
Israel had a real interest in a settlement, as expressed by the widespread support enjoyed by someone like Barak, until, at least, the latest round of violence. How it stands now is a different, and more troubling, question. |
