Dianavan wrote:
robomatic - I appreciate your attempt to clarify my thinking about the subject.

Its this part that makes me feel a bit uneasy about the formation of Israel:

"and England assumed the Mandate over Palestine, having made a commitment to a Jewish State partly as a response to a Jewish chemist who enabled wartime production of vital chemicals through an early use of industrial bioengineering. The United Nations approved of a division of the territories between Jewish and Arab, and the Arabs tried to forestall this by armed action on the part of the neighbor states, (Iraq included)."


Wasn't this a rather cruel thing to do to the Arabs who claimed it was their holy land? Or did the world think that Arabs didn't matter and that they had no means of resistance?

What really bothers me is that it was partial payment to a Jewish chemist. Whaaaat?????????????

Dianavan:

I appreciate your efforts to ask genuine questions in the midst of mere "I know you are but what am I" cross-postings! Meanwhile, and this may be me more than you, you give (me) the impression of someone who doesn't find quality reading materials on their own and load up on some genuine facts (i.e. legitimate history books with footnotes and all). Whether it is me or CarolC or Martin Gilbert, all you are going to find in a thread (at best) is opinions and links to other opinions. I tossed out that business of the Jewish chemist* because I found it personally intriguing and I was hoping to stimulate that among the threadfolk. It is an interesting story, but obviously not the only reason His Majesty's government issued the Balfour doctrine. The Balfour doctrine in the main simply means that Zionist organizations in the early 20th Century weren't whistling Dixie by themselves. Jews were being persecuted especially in Tsarist Russia and what was known as "The Pale of Settlement". There were objective reasons for a government to desire a solution to the "Jewish Problem". I don't think HM Government ever issued a Declaration that it didn't perceive to be in its own interest. (And for the most part British behavior in the early part of the 20th Century favored Arabs over Jews, to the extent of inhibiting refugees from the Reich from finding safety in Palestine.

In fact the British government had used Arab nationalism as a successful tool to fight the Turks in WW I. And it resulted in blessing several Arab nations in formation. So why not a Jewish nation? The Balfour Declaration basically indicates that HM Government understood that such a question existed and that it was legitimate.

The fight for nationhood is always just that, a fight. There are many more nations in waiting than space for them. The Confederate States had a powerful will to nationhood. The Basque separatists claim they want to be a nation. The Kurds are well known for the same. There is an Alaska Independence party, there have been Texas separatists. Of the bunch, I personally have the most sympathy for the Kurds, and the least for the Texans, Alaskans, and Basque.

What we have in the Mideast is both Jewish and Arab aspirations for the same piece of territory. Both have been to an extent rewarded. There is effectively a Palestinian state already in existence if you consider that the majority of Jordanians are of Palestinian origin.

There was an objective need for a Jewish state which remains to this day. Just last night I heard a National Public Radio story about a group of people in India who consider themselves decendants of one of the 'Lost Tribes'. Out of an ethnic population of 300,000 mostly Christian, about 5,000 have made efforts to convert to Judaism and many of them want to migrate to Israel. This of course is worth a story in itself and is just the sort of hazy thread information that deserves to be checked out but shouldn't be taken as gospel on first look-see.

By the way, one of my current info sources is Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, whose book "From Beirut To Jerusalem" has a lot of interesting details of the issues of the 80's. He is Jewish, probably a Zionist, but he has been quite critical of Israel at times. He would be my example of somebody who can be critical of Israel without in any way being considered an anti-semite. I am less critical of Israel than he is by a long shot, though I've had my moments. But for the most part he is very clear in his writing, he usually considers a background of facts that many of us are not aware of, and he knows most if not all of the major players on sight, and they know him. These days he has transferred his major concerns to issues of Globalizations. His more recent booksa are: "The Lexus And The Olive Tree" and "The World Is Flat".

*Chaim Weizman masterminded the production of large quantities of acetone which was necessary for the British war effort (WW I). He apparently requested his payment in the form of political support for Jewish National homeland in Palestine. He played an important role in the creation of the Jewish state.