meta-take on middle east history
Anything that tries to give a history of the Israel-Palestine conflict that starts in 1948 is Part Of The Problem.
You don't *have* to give an entire history of the area starting before the Ottoman empire (though some of that's undoubtedly relevant too). But at least go back as far as the discussions that resulted in the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
I'd call it a "hot take" except it's been my opinion for long enough to get cold.
re: meta-take on middle east history
@sev IMHO 1936 Arab Revolt. Arab attacks on Jewish settlements, British support for Jewish settlements as proxy forces to keep the area, the resulting loss of Palestinian leadership who could have influenced the coming agreement, and the resulting Arab support for the Nazis, directly influenced how bad it was to go down.
Honestly I feel like the Brits especially and the UN in general intentionally failed to set things up to be a stable situation; I think if you read between the lines Israel was supposed to be spectacularly wiped out in 1948 and wasn't; I feel like the people ultimately responsible were neither Israeli nor Palestinian and are never going to have to even acknowledge that they set up a mess.
re: meta-take on middle east history
@Leucrotta yes! That's why I encourage people to make sure their understanding of the history of the region goes back far enough to include the international meddling that happened so much earlier.
The Washington Post recently had a "here's the history of the region" article that said, in an early paragraph, "here's a history starting in 1948..." and then the actual meat of the article went all the way back to 1915, and I wondered, how many people had their fingers in that article? And thank goodness at least *one* of them had a longer historical perspective.