Challenge- Arab Israeli Settlement by 1973

Derek Jackson

Could a different Soviet Leadership have made a difference?

Would a Kruschev leadership have been persuaded to play ball with promoting peace
 

Grimm Reaper

Hmmm...it IS true that the cost to the USSR of arming the Arabs was far greater than arming Israel was to the US, not to mention the irritant to the Soviet arms exports when Soviet-made arms kept coming up short.

Given Israel's rising strength and nuclear arsenal, perhaps the Soviet Union might decide that ending the burden and neutralizing Israel would be worth trying after 1973?
 

benedict XVII

MerryPrankster said:
There was a village called Deir Yassin where some Jewish zealots massacred the Arab population. The Arab leaders broadcast what had happened, hoping to enrage the Palestinians to fight the Israelis, but instead the Palestinians all ran.

At least that's what "The 50 Years' War" said. I imagine the overall situation was more complicated than that.
Click to expand...

A bit more complicated indeed. The Israeli leadership deliberately waited for 48 hours to condemn the attack to make sure as many Arabs as possible would flee under panick. Oh, and this comes from Ben Gourion's memoirs, not from the PLO web-site.

Btw, just picking up on this one. But I could also tear apart some simplifications made by the Arabs / Palestinians as well. No offense to anybody. Anyway, I don't think we've seen the worse yet in that bloody mess. The fall-out is likely to irradiate quite a few thousand miles around.
 

Grimm Reaper

In all honesty, Deir Yassin is simply something that doesn't concern me.

After a period of 20+ years with dozens of massacres of Jews and hundreds more attempted from 1920-1948, it is to Israel's great credit that they have exactly one such incident on their record.

I might mention that this was done by a more extreme group(Irgun) disarmed by Israel's own military, or note the nearby massacre of 77 unarmed medical personnel from Mount Scopus(under the eyes of British soldiers!), or the fact there is NO record of a Jewish settlement being overrun and surviving while Israel had a quarter million Arabs in 1951, or that men from Deir Yassin were singled out for mention by the British in anti-Jewish crimes in 1929 and 1936 but what would it matter?

Instead, I note that despite many atrocities and massacres, the Jews never started running in 1948 while the Arabs(not called Palestinians then) did.

Is it because the Arabs in general or that region in particular were somehow lacking in courage? No, of course not.

Is it because they knew that THEY had options and alternatives to desperate(and bloody) final stands such as retreat to neighboring countries and a later return? Almost certainly.

Now, if the Palestinians had realized the level of aid and support they would receive(or the lack thereof) in the future AT THE TIME then I expect things would have been EXTREMELY different but why would anyone die and leave their families at risk to make a difference of a few months for what was assumed to be the same result?
 

Grimm Reaper

Actually until the Likud took power in the late 1970s there were no fundies in Israel worthy of note and Arab instransigence had little or nothing to do with religion at the time.
 

cranos

Okay my quick take on this, pretty much the only way to get Arab/Israeli raproachement would be for the whole thing to have been handled differently from the start.

Britain would have had to stick around to provide a buffer zone between the two nations - Palastine and Israel - and the UN would have to be serious about law and order in the region.

The whole setup was screwed from the get go, too little attention paid to the potential problems and too much latitude given to each party.

Each of the surrounding Arab nations would have to slapped down a little as well. Told in no uncertain terms that any move towards war would bring a severe response from the UN (which in those days was willing to go to war - see Korea).
 
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