Lebanon Crisis-Evacuation

[Jon Skagfeld]

Originally posted by sapper740
A few historical points: The U.K. received a mandate from the League of Nations right after WWI to adminster Palestine. In 1947 the United Nations voted to partition Palestine and an Arab, Jewish, and an International zone encompassing Bethlehem and Jerusalem were formed. The British did their darnedest to keep Jews and weapons from continuing to arrive in Palestine and were only too happy to get the heck out of there. The Arab League refused to go along with the U.N. plan in any event and that resulted in the Arab/Jewish war of 1948, which the Arabs lost. The Arabs get their courage up every once in a while hence the 6 Day War and the Yom Kippur War. The state of Israel is now a fact and is not going to go away. Tired of getting their butts kicked in conventional warfare, Hezbollah, Hamas, et al have resorted to terrorism to justify their existences. I've travelled extensively throughout Israel, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Only one of those countries is a modern, progressive, democratic state. The other three are backwards, dirty, and poor. I'm sure Allah is proud of his children.

Derek: You beat me to it with your response to Vickery's post.

Let's not forget the actions of the Irgun and the Haganah (terrorist Jewish groups who killed Brits)...also, let's recall the King David barrel bomb disaster. (Read, and heed, your history lessons!)

The Israelis don't have lily-white hands.

It was the Sykes-Picot Treaty which, in 1919, decided that there would be a Jewish homeland this, as a sidebar to the Treaty of Versailles.

So a Brit and French bureaucrat decided the future of the Middle East. By 1948, some 400,000 Arabs were displaced from their homelands in which they had lived for 1000's of years, in order that the UN could exercise its mandate to provide a homeland for Jews who flocked from their diaspora to the "Promised Land".

So, based on the above, why do you think that the Arabs are so mightily pissed off? Would not you, under the same circumstances?


Better get off my soap box...could go on...Derek, like you, I've done my time in the Middle East and, like you, can much better appreciate the situation than most chairborne diplomats here at home.