Israel and Palestine switched

So is there anyway to have the current roles of these nations switched with a POD sometime before 1947? Palestine could be the strong state controlling much of the area but would have to deal with Israeli enclaves constantly wanting full independence?
 
So is there anyway to have the current roles of these nations switched with a POD sometime before 1947? Palestine could be the strong state controlling much of the area but would have to deal with Israeli enclaves constantly wanting full independence?

A good POD could be later Zionism - something that does not come into full force until after WWII. Let's say that there is large Jewish immigration to Palestine, however, since the idea of Zionism is not as prominent as in OTL, post WWII there is no notion of creating a "Jewish homeland". As such, this immigration is mainly privately funded and organized.

Instead, a nation of "Palestine" is created from the British mandate, which, through either excellent resource management, numerous skilled leaders, ability to negotiate major foreign investment, ability to make binding treaties and actually abide by them, or anything else that OTL Palestinians did not (and do not now) possess manages to become a reasonably stable, secular, sufficiently democratic state. This would be the absolute hardest thing to achieve - I doubt that independent "Palestine" without Israel ever being in the picture would have been any better than any of the surrounding states, and in fact would have probably been absorbed into one.

The other hard part is, with Zionism as a political idea, there would be strong pro-Israel lobby in favor of any such settlers that are mistreated by the Arabs. Not to mention that, unlike pro-Palestinian lobby, which is of rather dubious disposition and with some VERY questionable connections (i.e. - oil money, and things they finance), pro-Israel lobby would probably be seen as more legitimate, especially if the Holocaust still happens. Imagine the public outcry if the Palestinians in charge did the same thing to Jews as the other Muslim states around them (i.e. expulsion/confiscation/violence), especially if the Holocaust is still a recent memory.

Since there cannot be a real equivalent to Israel's War of Independence (after all, who in their right mind would attack this "Palestine" repeated number of times only to be beaten back every time to add the whole ethnic/religious angle to things - a major power would easily crush them, and other Arab states, well, it takes away the whole ethnic/religious thing), this means that the "Palestinians" position in treating "Israel" as a dangerous, restive "fifth column" would be extremely hard to justify - unlike OTL Israel, which is surrounded by hostile nations who attempt to play the "Palestinian card" every time they feel like it, I doubt "Jewish card" could be played up in the same manner.

In other words, not to make it sound like pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian rhetoric, but some MAJOR changes need to happen to create a situation where the ALT-Palestinians have anything remotely close to moral high ground, and even then, given specifics of the region and of the situation, even with much more lenient treatment of ALT-Israelites, the ALT-Palestinians are likely to come out much worse ethically than OTL Israel in this scenario.
 
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