The analytical, intellectual and informational level of the posts on this particular thread are of a superior nature. What a pleasure it is to be reading such civil discourse. I learned things I never knew and discarded things I thought I knew.
I hope the roving FR primary candidates wolf-pack attackers don't find this thread and pollute it. It would be a pity.
I'm bookmarking so that I can return later to re-read the historical perspectives posted by well-versed freepers. Thank you all for your very welcome input.
Leni
One thing I would like to add to the discourse is that the Arabs of Palestine were told by the neighboring Arab states to get out of the way while the new 'Jewish state' was wiped off the map by overwhelming Arabic military supremacy. [Watch the Kirk Douglas movie Cast a Giant Shadow]
Chris Wallace completely stunned me when he told Herman Cain that the Arab Palestinians were forced to leave Palestine... stunned because I thought Fox was above such propaganda mischief and lies.
Another lie that gets great broadcast currently is that this Arab/Jewish thing has been going on for thousands of years. That is a bald-faced lie. After the fall of the Jewish state in 70AD et fol, the Arabs across the Near East and North Africa were most supportive of their Jewish neighbors. Even in the Islamic Ottoman Empire [see previous in this thread] Jews lived peacefully in Palestine. . . . Nor, during this long period, following the advent of Islam, was Jerusalem claimed as anything special by the Muslims. All this hostility began to take form about the time of the Balfour Declaration and subsequently.
This whole mythology much reminds me of all the myths about slavery and civil rights. For one thing, it was the Repubbies and NOT the Democraps that passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Prior to the War Between the States black people were also slave holders. In fact, it was coastal African blacks that captured black families in inland villages and sold their catch to Arab slave traders. It is absurd to believe that American plantation owners were sailing to Africa to capture slaves.
Furthermore, many European whites that came to the New World came as slaves - 'indentured servants' if you prefer. Blacks were by far not the only slaves brought to the New World.
AND - just to keep haranguing so merrily - I say War Between the States rather than civil war because a 'civil war' is defined as two opposing factions fighting to gain control of a country; even an uneducated 10-year-old knows that the South was not trying to gain control of the United States... it was trying to secede from the United States.
One of the great losses of that war was the power of state's rights, whatever else you might think of that unfortunate disagreement.
Other than that, Senator Amidala, what did you think of Anakin Skywalker? :-/