Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
Was it inaccurate? I don't think so.
The difference with Israel is it was done in a region surround by those hostile to them, and already occupied by people of similar decent. Conflict was inevitable. If you could go back to that time and show how much death, destruction, and suffering had occurred because of that decision, that 100 years later there is no peace for the Jewish people there, with air raid sirens and constant terrorist attacks, no peace in sight, would it give you pause on the plan? I mean, it should. But I get many think no price is too high to pay for it, which is why we are here, now.
Without the creation of Israel Hamas and Hezbollah probably wouldn't exist. You could debate how devastated the region would be with possible conflict between Shia and Sunni, but it's also possible they would not, and the entire region would be far more peaceful than it is now.
And I'm not saying Israel should be eliminated or destroyed, or that Israel alone is responsible for everything that occurs there, but that looking back, it has not led to the creation of the society they imagined at the time. Nobody would want this. This is all utter ####.
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I don't agree with this for two major reasons.
Firslty, it wouldn't have just been the Sunni/Shia divide in the middle east that would have likely caused wars. At the time the British divided the lands, you had major conflicts brewing between Arab tribes, notably the Hashemite/Sunni conflict. Then you had additional conflicts amongst different factions based on which member of those tribes should lead and various political ideologies. For example, when the debate about Israel's existence was going on, none of the Arab groups were pushing for an independent Palestine. The Syrians declared the region part of Southern Syria. The Jordanians declared it the West Bank of Jordan. The Egyptians felt it was an extension of the Sinai Peninsula. In 1948, the invading Arab armies, weren't just trying to get rid of Israel but also trying to divide the land up amongst themselves, which is what they partially managed to accomplish.
After this initial conflict, you've got all sorts of other conflicts, mostly focused around overthrowing the Hashemite kingdoms or over who got to rule the Pan-Arab nation. Without Israel to focus on, almost certainly one of these conflicts boils over into something major. Let's keep in mind the scale of the other middle eastern conflicts in comparison to the Israel/Arab one. The Arab/Israeli conflict, over the course of 70ish years has a total death count of around 200k. Meanwhile if you look at the death toll of various nearby wars, they are much worse: Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Iran/Iraq, Kurdish genocide, Armenian genocide, etc... All it would take is a moderate conflict in the region to even the casualty numbers out.
Other conflicts, like the current one with Iran, almost certainly occur in any event. The root cause of this conflict was oil prices and the overthrow of Iranian elected president, who tried to remove British and US interests in their oil resources and nationalize.
As far as the experience of the Israelis themselves, who are mostly the descendants of refugees from Arab and Muslims nations. As bad as things are in Israel, it's so much better for them now than it was living as a minority under Arab or Muslim rule.