Arab/Israeli Conflict

[Hornblower]

Hey all,

Good article on Israel's Future. Raises some interesting points about the way in which Israel will be largely responsible for it's own future in the middle east and paints some alternative futures for the country that provide a bit of useful focus on the domestic situation. It's also the leader for a big economist special report on israel, which has some good stuff in it.

www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10909883

Cheers,

--V

[Hornblower]

In the beginning: (as a follow up to today's discussion.)

Israel was created by the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. This was timed to come in to play as British control over the Mandate Territory of Palestine was set to end. The partition plan called for the creation of a Palestinian State, a Jewish State and an internationally administered area centred on Jerusalem and Palestine. The Jewish state was to be made out of the areas with majority jewish populations, the Palestinian population in Palestinian dominated areas. Israel would have a significant Palestinian minority, few jews would live in Palestine. The land was split slightly in Israel's favour, though the bulk of Israel was to be over the Negev desert, at the time useless, now made productive by Israelis.

Al-Nakba (the catastrophe)/The War of Independence.
When Israel was declared, significant civil war broke out before an Arab League army invaded in 1948. Over the course of the war, over 711,000 Palestinian's fled Israel/Palestine and sought refuge in neighbouring Arab states. There is much historical debate as to the causes of the exodus. Most likely it was a combination of Palestinians being afraid of the war, of being encouraged to come to safety until the war was won by the Arab League, and by intimidation by Israeli military campaigns over the course of the war. This is now one of the greatest barriers to peace - the right of return claimed by the now estimated 4 million descendents of the Palestinian Settlers.

[gem]

Thankyou finkel, for those of us who were not fortunate enough to attend yesterdays meeting of the minds, this is very useful