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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (194172)	7/31/2006 9:07:20 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Still, even in Poland, it was not a matter of moving in a new population and deporting an old one. Check again. Millions of "Oster" Germans were deported to Germany. The inhabitants of East Prussia, Western Poland and the Sudetenland used to be Germans. Today they are Russians, Poles and Czechs. And no, it's not the same people or their descendants. Millions of people were moved in the twentieth century to create new nations. Both Turkey and Greece were new countries born after WWI; something like 4 or 5 million people were moved in the partition of populations. When Pakistan was partitioned from India (India very much objected btw), the partition involved 14 million people. Besides this, the 1.3 million involved in the creation of Israel was peanuts. It just happened that the Arabs threw out all their Jews & reneged on taking in the Arabs of Palestine. They got the UN to pay for them as refugees generation after generation instead.

To: neolib who wrote (194172)	8/1/2006 1:43:19 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi neolib; Re: "I still maintain that there is no modern equivalent of the creation of the state of Israel, and I really do think most of the problems there stem from this act not being carried out carefully enough. I do think the idea was OK, but execution of it resulted in many problems which plague the region today." Nadine is quite right when she notes that there were massive population displacements as a result of WW2 (and WW1 as well). These are facts of history. The creation of the state of Israel is different in that it was not enforced by the big dogs. That is, the awarding of Alsace-Loraine to France was enforced by France, a major power. The awarding of East Prussia to Poland, and East Poland to the USSR was enforced by the Soviet Union. The transfer of various islands in the Pacific was enforced by the United States. By contrast, the creation of Israel was enforced only by the Israelis. Not being a big dog, they have had great difficulty making it stick. The human race argues with each other on a basis of what is "right", but relations between nations are decided on the basis of "might". In pointing out these differences I do not mean to justify them, or to unjustify them (whatever that means). I mean instead to explain them, that is, to explain why it is that there isn't much fighting going on in former East Prussia. The reason is not because Germans are inherently more peaceful than the Arabs, but instead because they were crushed militarily and put into a position of having to accept unconditional surrender. None of the Arab states has ever been forced to unconditionally surrender to Israel. Israel does not have the forces required to obtain that sort of military victory. (By the way, in the present international arrangement, nukes are quite useless.) -- Carl