Posted on 06/22/2008 7:58:24 AM PDT by sauropod
Hi. I have a Syrian officemate and we got into an argument Friday about the history of the Palestinians.
I need an unbiased and preferably short source to read to bone up on their history.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
thx, 'Pod.
Pick up the book I suggested at the library. It reads like a novel.
1964, actually. Otherwise correct.
I'm not confusing anything.
The Jews were granted a "national homeland" by the British (and the French) who were the military powers then (following WWI). Places like Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon were similarly created. The Arabs objected to the size of Palestine (the Jewish area) and so the British split off the 70% of the land east of the Jordan River, called this Trans-Jordan, and forbid Jews to even travel in this land. The Arabs tried to increase their presence in the remaining Palestine and restrict Jewish immigration there. So there were Jewish and Arab areas in this Palestine. In 1947, I think, the difficulties the British had maintaining order there led to the (further) Partition of Palestine by the UN giving predominately Jewish areas to Jewish control and predominately Arab areas to Arab control. The Jews declared a state in their portion. No significant shots were fired, until then. The neighboring Arab states attacked the Jewish and exhorted their Arab brethren to leave until they could wipe out the Jews. The Jews didn't want to be wiped out and fought. They already had sovereignty before the Arabs attacked and this sovereignty was achieved diplomatically. The Jews, so far as I am aware, have respected the property titles of all Arabs who didn't abandon their property in 1948, except for the eminent domain cases I referred to earlier.
ML/NJ
No. Of course not. They would have been slaughtered. That's the Muslim Way.
ML/NJ
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