Actually I was not looking for anyone to directly answer those questions for my benefit, but for the ponderer's own benefit, introspection as it were.

However, I find CarolC's rationale as expressed in her last posting to be a way to avoid answering those questions to herself. These are not trick questions. Nothing in my questions implicates "punishment", collective nor individual; what is implied is that so long as Arabs held down and mistreated refugee Palestineans no one gave a sweet damn about it. The Arab world had 19 years to set-up a Palestinean state...Iraq didn't call for it; Saudi Arabia didn't mediate it; Egypt didn't advocate for it. When Palestineans tried to wrest a homeland from Jordan, nearly 20000 were killed. There was no hue and cry in the Arab world, nor much in the Western world either. Palestinean power did not suit Arab plans then. No! The Arab world wanted the dismantling of Jewish Israel. And truth be told, that is what they still want. When Israel gained control of the "West Bank", then the Arab world wanted a Palestinean State...and when offered it, radical Palestineans negotiate by the 2nd Intifada.

It is also interesting that CarolC does not find the history of the area to be legitimate in assessing actions in the present. That does not strike me as the action of someone seeking truth, as nothing happens in a vacuum.

PS - when I use the term Arab or Arab World it is meant to reflect Arab leadership, not every Arab.