Think About It. How Far Back? WE INTERUPT FOR BREAKING NEWS! “You hit me.”“You hit me first.”“Your hit was not a proportionate response.”“Yes, but your threats are greater than my response and besides you’re in my space.”“You’re space? A bunch of your bully buddies put you there and protected you.”“Oh, no. God said it was ours.”End of conversation? Not a chance.
The Middle East conflicts began along with the settling of Mesopotamia, burnishing the age bronze for the “cradle of civilization.” That’s as close as I can come to the source of the original enmity between disparate bands of misguided worshipers willing to kill and led by representatives (prophets?) of a competing collection of gods. That didn’t go well.
Say we only look back one century. Europeans forcefully feuding over land enlisted an emerging power known as the United States of America to help in “the war to end all wars”. When things in WWI simmered down then president, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, took up the cause begun by Republican president William Howard Taft. It was simply to end war forever with the force of a League of Nations, which by the way the U. S. never joined. Nice try from 1920 to 1936. The League’s major accomplishment was the British Mandate to provide a Palestinian home for the Jewish people as a refuge from their sixth century Diaspora. Seems that didn’t go well either.
New faces from familiar places immediately took up the cause of neighborhood domination with the would-be isolationist USA again joining the fray for reasons that were somewhat unclear to some. With WWII ending, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed for another multinational group to prevent future global conflicts. Established by October 1945, the United Nations quickly terminated the British governance and replaced it with a new “Plan as Resolution.”It would provide for independent Arab and Jewish States and a separate International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. Many Jews decried being given inadequate territory. Most Arabs felt they’d been robbed of their former homes. Surprise! That also didn’t go well.
Civil war sometimes works, I guess. From 1947 through 1949 the world publicly turned backs while choosing sides to provide financial and hardware help. Israel dominated the struggle, holding on to their assigned territory and taking control of a large percent of the real estate proposed for the Arab state. The 1967 Six Day War resulted in the Palestinian section of Jerusalem being annexed by Israel. While the international community does not “recognize” Israel’s claim, they remain. With the UN monitoring settlement decisions and Nobel prizes given for contributions (actual or potential) to the peace process, why the fuss. Palestinians seem unhappy with acceding to their neighbors’ claims, while Israel seems peevish about the constant threats to their well-being. All together now. That really isn’t going well!
Today’s question. Whom, if anyone, to support? We broached the subject in We Stole It Fair and Square. But, How Far Back? Think About It.