Nice work BobG, but you have some factual errors in your description of the event. I also disagree with non-factual statements.
BobG said:
After the war, the British and the UN decided on both a Jewish nation and a Palestinian nation (I guess Arab support during WWII didn't meet expectations).
Or you could also guess the world realized Jews deserved a homeland after the holocaust.
BobG said:
...plus the borders drawn up by the British were ludicrous - gerrymandering may work for dividing up a congressional district, but it works pretty poor for establishing national borders, especially when the area isn't even continuous. The Jews accepted the British proposition, but only since it was a lot better than they were likely to get by any other means.
Fact: Modern day Palestinians were not organised in any way at that time, and could not accept or reject it. Rather it was the Arab nations that rejected the partition plan. I would even go as far as to claim there was no Palestinian people at that time, though many would disagree with that statement.
Fact: Much of the area proposed for the Jewish State was uninhabitable desert, thus you cannot judge the fairness of the plan on land mass alone.
I think claiming a proposed border is "ludicrous" is a rather opinionated way of describing this disagreement. I also disagree with your description of the reasoning for the acceptance of the partition plan on either sides.
BobG said:
A war over Israel broke out between Israelis, Europeans, and Americans against Palestinians and Arabs, with the end result being a Jewish country, Israel, getting the entire area (except for the West Bank of the Jordan River, which Jordan hung onto) and the Palestinians getting nothing.
Fact: The European and American powers played no role in the
Israel War of Independence, other than the British who were still in control during the first stage of the war that consisted of civil hostilities.
Fact: Israel did not get "the entire area" - far from it. Some Jewish settlements were lost and the area left under Egyptian or Syrian control. Furthermore, Jerusalem was parted between Israel and Jordan. The territories that were meant to become the Palestinian Nation were under the control of the neighbouring Arab nations - who preferred keeping them their own, rather than giving the Palestinians their own country as per the UN Partition plan.
BobG said:
Both sides were weak and both would have been handed a bad situation that was almost guaranteed to result in conflict. The winner-take-all philosophy after Israel's independence didn't do much to ensure peace, either.
You describe the situation as if Israel won all and gave nothing. First, Israel did not "win all" as I've explained earlier. Second, most the land meant for the Palestinians was held by Arab nations who chose to keep it.
The civil hostilities before the full-fledged war distinguished between hostile and friendly Arab villages. Surely you do not think the newly formed state, barely able to defend itself, should have allowed those who attempted to destroy it to return to the same strongpoints they used to attack and besiege its citizens...
Those peaceful Palestinians living in territories that fell under Jewish control are today full Israeli citizens. They were treated fairer and better then African-Americans by some US states and Aboriginies by the Australian government. I do not think one can describe this as a "winner takes all philosophy".
BobG said:
After nearly forty years of living as refugees, the current deal doesn't look so bad to the Palestinians any more, even though it's much worse than what they were originally given right after WWII.
This is no deal. It is a unilateral move, because of the Israeli public's distrust of the Palestinians following the Oslo accords and the subsequent violence.
It clarrifies it a little bit Mental, but this seems to be an all of a sudden things with the relocation of the settlers. It seems very fast. I know the conflict has been going on for many years but this is the first I have heard of any type of evcuation attempt.