Challenge A Secular Democratic Palestine

Imagine circumstnaces under which basically mandate Palestine could have peaceful coexistence between the Palestinian people who had been there before 1900 and a significant group of Jews.

Query what effect would that have on overall Arab Nationalism?
 
make Zionism stay a fringe ideology among mainstream assimilationist Jews. there will still be a significant Jewish population in Palestine, but without large-scale immigration and funding for the Zionist project, the majority of them will be Arabic-speaking locals and traditionalist communities of Talmudic scholars. In this setting, the relatively few Zionist immigrants will not be able to threaten the Palestinian majority and will eventually be integrated into the state of Palestine as a minority, like the Bedouin, or the Chassidic community in Jerusalem.

Palestine will become independent the way most Arab states did, by decolonisation. Its government is broadly a parliamentary democracy with a strong presidency and quickly develops into single-party rule. It affiliates itself with Arab nationalism and socialism, making modernism an 'Arab thing'. At some point, an analogue of our 1990s happens and the democratic institutions gain teeth again.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Avoid the Holocaust. Nazi Germany selects another 'Final Solution', (like, institutionalised forced labour from all capable Jews), something just bad enough to inspire enough Jews to emigrate to Palestine, but not bad enough to guilt the West into creating an Israeli state.

However, this Palestinian Republic will not be very well off. Aid will not arrive from the West in such bulk and both Jew and Arab will be less wealthy. Furthermore, without the prominent, state-supported role of the Zionist Science Movement, (in OTL, Zionist Science almost single-handedly invented desert agriculture), there will be many more famines and droughts both in Palestine and globally.

Eventually, this state will be annexed by either Jordan or Syria (or both).
 
Avoid the Holocaust. Nazi Germany selects another 'Final Solution', (like, institutionalised forced labour from all capable Jews), something just bad enough to inspire enough Jews to emigrate to Palestine, but not bad enough to guilt the West into creating an Israeli state.

However, this Palestinian Republic will not be very well off. Aid will not arrive from the West in such bulk and both Jew and Arab will be less wealthy. Furthermore, without the prominent, state-supported role of the Zionist Science Movement, (in OTL, Zionist Science almost single-handedly invented desert agriculture), there will be many more famines and droughts both in Palestine and globally.

Eventually, this state will be annexed by either Jordan or Syria (or both).

Or Egypt....
 
Have Palestine go communist,

When the USSR fails Palestine becomes a Secular Democracy
 

ninebucks

Banned
Have Palestine go communist,

When the USSR fails Palestine becomes a Secular Democracy

Yet another reason for it to be invaded. Jordan wants access to the Med, Egypt wants Sinai, Syria wants control of the northern waterways, Lebanon wants what everyone else is getting... they're all just waiting for an excuse.
 

ninebucks

Banned
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_Research_In_Israel

This is an interesting article to read in connection to the ramifications of any TL without Zionist control of Palestine. If we have a POD before the Balfour Declaration, we would never see the institutionalisation of the Agricultural Research Organisation, seeing as all agricultural researchers in Israel were Zionists.

The worst case scenario is that the Arab majority cracks down on Jewish intellectualism and shuts down the Jewish universities and research centres.

Such an event will put agricultural research back decades and by the present day we would probably be facing some kind of Malthusian Crisis.
 
guilt the West into creating an Israeli state.

The Israeli state created itself. "The west" didn't create it.
What do you think, that we got free arms from the US in 48'? WRONG!!!!!!!
The creation of Israel was well on it's way before the holocaust and that is a widely ignored, crucial fact!
 
However, this Palestinian Republic will not be very well off. Aid will not arrive from the West in such bulk and both Jew and Arab will be less wealthy. Furthermore, without the prominent, state-supported role of the Zionist Science Movement, (in OTL, Zionist Science almost single-handedly invented desert agriculture), there will be many more famines and droughts both in Palestine and globally.

Eventually, this state will be annexed by either Jordan or Syria (or both).

Why should it be _worse_ off than mostly Bedouin, mostly desert Jordan? Or economic disaster zone Syria? And the idea of the Palestinians breeding themselves into a Soylent-Green situation...:rolleyes: The demographics of an independent Palestine would be rather different: present birthrates are well above the average for Mediterranean Arab countries, IIRC.

Good chance it gets incorporated into Nasser's Egypt as part of his "united Arab republic": sans the defeats at the hand of Israel, secular Arab nationalism will be a stronger force,[1] and being geographically contiguous with Egypt, there's a better chance that it stays part of it than Syria OTL.


Bruce

[1] Well, until the really shitty economic policies become too obvious to ignore. Egypt won't get it's post-Camp David "stay nice to Israel" financial aid, either...
 

ninebucks

Banned
The Israeli state created itself. "The west" didn't create it.
What do you think, that we got free arms from the US in 48'? WRONG!!!!!!!
The creation of Israel was well on it's way before the holocaust and that is a widely ignored, crucial fact!

Nonsense, states cannot create themselves, they have to be ceded the power to do so by whoever currently has that power. A lot of the ground-work for creating an Israeli state had been laid, but the official declaration of the state could not have occured without the consent of the West.

Well, it looks like I'm not WRONG!!!!!!!, because I think that Israel bought its arms from a variety of European nations (predominantly France and Romania) at full price, causing some serious economic problems, but effectively winning them their war.

Plans, schmans. I'm sure there were Arabs making plans for a Palestinian state, and thinking of all the wonderful stuff they could do with it. Unfortunately, some plans fail, while others succeed. If Zionism does not have enough sympathy, then its plan could have easily failed.
 
I assume that a Palestinian state existing since say 1950 would do rather well. Imagine a tourist trade to the Holy land and Eilat without the issue of terrorism??
 
Nonsense, states cannot create themselves, they have to be ceded the power to do so by whoever currently has that power. A lot of the ground-work for creating an Israeli state had been laid, but the official declaration of the state could not have occured without the consent of the West.

Well, it looks like I'm not WRONG!!!!!!!, because I think that Israel bought its arms from a variety of European nations (predominantly France and Romania) at full price, causing some serious economic problems, but effectively winning them their war.

Plans, schmans. I'm sure there were Arabs making plans for a Palestinian state, and thinking of all the wonderful stuff they could do with it. Unfortunately, some plans fail, while others succeed. If Zionism does not have enough sympathy, then its plan could have easily failed.


Your saying it as if it was noawadays, when the neoconservatives saw every damn conflict in the world as their business. This was not the case.
The British didn't leave the country for the Jews. They left it, period.
And nobody would have given a crap about Jews fighting Arabs unless communism was someway involved.
And don't try to make Israeli Socialism appear communist.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Your saying it as if it was noawadays, when the neoconservatives saw every damn conflict in the world as their business. This was not the case.
The British didn't leave the country for the Jews. They left it, period.
And nobody would have given a crap about Jews fighting Arabs unless communism was someway involved.
And don't try to make Israeli Socialism appear communist.

Its quite difficult to argue with you when you consistantly make up things for me to say...

1) Interventionalism is a purely modern occurance!? Pull the other one. There was still a significant proportion of imperially-minded people running the British state at this time. They would have viewed it as their business.

2) Yes they did. Why else would they have helped law down the foundations of the Israeli state and immediately recognised its existance. As opposed to offering similar assistance to the Palestinians. They didn't just leave, they had a plan of what they wanted the state to be.

3) Actually, there is some Cold War element to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Most of Israel's enemies were Soviet-backed, and Israel itself was backed by the Western powers.

4) I wasn't going to... I am actually a great admirer of Israel's economic culture.
 

Ibn Warraq

Banned
2) Yes they did. Why else would they have helped law down the foundations of the Israeli state and immediately recognised its existance. As opposed to offering similar assistance to the Palestinians. They didn't just leave, they had a plan of what they wanted the state to be.

Actually no, Empror Mike is quite correct. The Balfour Declaration was issued not because the British had some great desire for an independent Jewish state but because they thought calling for it would encourage American Jewish to pressure America into getting involved in WWI and encourage Russian Jews to pressure their own government to not back out.

By 1921 according to almost all historians who've studied the situation, such as Paul Johnson and Connor Cruise O'Brien, the British Foreign Service had turned against the idea of creating a Jewish state and even most British politician who supported Zionism did so reluctantly and only because they didn't want to break their word any more than they had to. From then on, untill the British withdrew in 1948 there were constant conflicts between the Jewish immigrants and the British administrators.

Also, with all due respect, your claim that the British "lay down the foundations of the Israeli State" but offered no "similar assistance to the Palestinians" shows gross ignorance about the history of the founding of Israel.

In 1922 the British decided to split off 80% of Palestine and made it into Transjordan. The few Jews in the area that became Transjordan were "encouraged" to leave and laws were passed with the approval of the British making it illegal for Jews to buy land or move into Transjordan. Such laws are still on the books in present-day Jordan. It's also worth noting that I think King Abdullah himself would be surprised at the suggestion that he and his country recieved less assistance than the Palestinian Jews much less "no support." The soldiers in the Arab Legion and their commander with the distinctly Arab name, John Glubb, would probably be equally surprised.

Even if you want to pretend that Transjordan/Jordan was never part of Palestine suggesting that the British never attempted to lay down the foundation for an Arab state within present day Israel is asinine. Read the Peel Commision report of 1937. The British recommending dividing the remaining 20% of Palestine into an Arab State and a Jewish State with the Arab State being roughly twice the size of the Jewish State. The Zionist leadership was bitter and divided but were willing to accept it. The Arab leadership rejected it out of hand.

I'm also confused by your statement that the British "immediately recognized" Israel's existance. Eventually, Britain decided to wash her hands of the Palestinian mandate and left the decision on what to do with it up to the UN. The UN decided to divide the mandate into two states of roughly equal size, one for the Arabs and one for the Jews. The British abstained. Now, yes, they did recognize Israel's existance following the UN vote, but so did just about every non-Arab government on earth.

Oh, and since you said the British had "a plan on what they wanted the state to be" you should note that the UN gave the Jews a much bigger state and the Arabs a much smaller state than the British offered in 1937.

I have to say I think Bevin might be a little surprised by your suggestion that he was a philosemite.
 
You do realise that the Mandate of Palestine used to encompass today's Israel, Jordan, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank? The Golan was still part of Syria.
 
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