[RobbyS]

I am prepared to support Israel on the simple grounds that they have as much right as the Arabs to have their own country, but God twice took away the Promised Land. As to the establishment of a Jewish state, the potential for violence was already clear by the 1930s, because the Arabs were already wild. If Rommel had gotten to Cairo, the whole of Araby would have united behind Hitler in the blink of an eye.

[HockeyPop]

In describing one of the dilemmas the US and English armies faced in WWII, Eisenhower had this to say:

"One complication in the Arab tangle was the age old antagonism existing between the Arab and the Jew. Since the former outnumbered the latter by some forty to one in North Africa, it had become local policy to placate the Arab at the expense of the Jew; repressive laws in the past became even more so and the Arab population regarded any suggestion for amelioration of such laws as the beginning of an effort to establish a Jewish government. Remembering that for years the uneducated population had been subjected to intensive Nazi propoganda calculated to fan these prejudices, it is easy to understand that the situation called for more caution and evolution than it did for precipitate action and possible revolution." Dwight D. Eisenhower, "CRUSADE IN EUROPE", Doubleday, pg 128 (1949)

No wonder why 700,000 Jews left Arab countries for Israel. Unfortunately, so did an equal number of Arabs who later began calling themselves "Palestinians".