their responsibilities were to the people of those lands and what the British allowed was a situation whereby the majority culture was stiffed by not establishing a coalition government in Palestine to represent Jews, Moslems, and Christians,
Why?
Is that what the British did in the New World when they fought the French and Indians?
Did either nation even take into account the concerns of the locals, except for the purpose of furthering their own political interests?
Len.. Utopia is in a book, not in the real world. And the world at the time of the Ottoman defeat was governed by FAR LESS altruistic rules than we abide by today (when it suits our purpose).
The US did a significant amount by limiting the colonization efforts by the British and French in the region, including intervening in the 1956 Arab-Israeli war to force the British and French troops out of the Suez Canal zone.
The Palestinians just didn't have the ability for create a unified governmental body in the manner that the Israelis did. They didn't have the cultural background for democratic self-government, and any government would merely have reflected the ability of one tribe to dominate the others.
Furthermore, they really didn't seem to be interested in being a nation/state.. If they had, they would have been engaged in an Intifadah against the Jordanians when King Abdallah of Jordan annexed the West Bank into his kingdom, not only when the Israeli's occupied it. Jordan occupied and exploited the West Bank up until 1967, when they foolishly chose to attack Israel in leaque with Egypt's Nassir and lost it to Israel. So it could reasonably be assumed that the PLO and Palestinian resistance in the West Bank was an act of subversion by Jordanian intelligence operatives in order to win back the territories to Jordanian control. However, obviously that kind of backfired on them as they were later prompted to let the abdicate their claims on the West Bank.
but did not prevent an invasion by Zionists from Europe and America to establish, through terrorist means, a "Jewish" state.
Hell, the Arabs have all migrated into the region at one point or another, as did Turks, all during the Ottoman Rule.. What right did they have to do that to the disadvantage of the existing inhabitants?? The Hashemites migrated into Jordan after the Saudis defeated them.
At the very least, British rule stated that any property obtained from an existing Arab owner, had to be paid for. And as was previously reported, sometimes that property was more expensive than it needed to be (kinda like housing prices in the DC area) as demand exceeded supply.
The Palestinians have about as much right to claim that purchased land was "stolen" from them as the Canarsee Delaware indians have for selling Manhattan Island for $24 (actually 60 guilders). They did it, they made a profit, and then the proceeded to try and fight the Jews to drive them off of it so they could reclaim it for themselves.
Tell me if that's not a plain example of stealing?
everyone should just forget about history without accountability and recourse?
Forget it? No.
Constantly reliving it and guiding your vision of the future from a rear-view mirror? Also NO!!
If that was so, why do Holocaust survivors pound the drum about persecution and look for recompense?
So are you equating the rounding up, detention - and in the case of Nazi Germany the elimination - of Jews and other undesirables, to occupation of a land occupied as a result of being attacked by an enemy state (Jordan and Egypt)??
Does that mean that we should never have paid compensation to Japanese-American Internees of WWII?
I think there's a bit of difference. Life is rough.. and we have to deal with the world as it is, while trying to form it into what we would RATHER it be.. Applying Utopian ideals to decisions and policies formed under different "realpolitiks" is not going to solve the issues.
And it also won't solve the Arab-Israeli conflict by assisting in creating a nation/state that is even more racist and intolerant than the Jewish state you hold so much disdain for.
Hawk |
