In a very limited, raw policy sense, it would have made sense for Israel to try to force a population transfer out of the West Bank, and particularly the highlands ringing Jerusalem, in the aftermath of '67. That having been said, it would have been disastrous, in that same narrow policy sense, for Israel to have attempted any sort of mass killing of the Palestinians in the same time period, because of Israel's dependence on Western (first French, then American) arms.
Given that the refugee population that the Israelis purposely ejected in 1948 proceeded to destabilize two surrounding states, radicalized much of the Arab world against Israel and the West, and led directly to the modern international terrorist movement, I wonder exactly what the effect would have been if the Israelis had "finished the job" in 1967 by forcing millions more from their homes.Originally Posted by charter6
Probably to have tipped the balance to a PLO victory in Jordan in 1970-71, and inflamed passions to the point that neither the shift of Egyptian policy under Sadat, or the relative realism of Syria under Assad (1970- ) would have taken place....
People think the consequences of 1948 were bad,
it boggles the imagination to think what the consequences now would be, if Israel had "finished the job" in 1967. What Rex points out would have been the immediate and short-term consequences of such actions would just have been the beginning of something far worse than exists even today. Beyond a heavy and sustained "War of Attrition" between Egypt and Israel that would not have come to an end around 1970 as it did, what possibly could have resulted might have been a sort of twisted rerun of the Crusader Wars. And those sorts of wars don't end until only one side is left standing, and the losers lose everything.
Just as a clarification, I'm not saying I would have supported an Israeli expulsion of more Palestinians in '67, just that I could see a rational policy basis for them to have done so, while a similar rational justification does not exist for outright genocide. That having been said, I'll continue playing devil's advocate.
Hope I'm not making a nuisance of myself.
--------
All true Tequila, but at the same time it would have removed the demographic time bomb that Israel faces from the table, and would have left Israel with a Jewish majority in a state with relatively defensible borders. Question of whether the positives would have outweighed the negatives. Birthrate will be the weapon of the 21st century, after all.
Rex, I doubt if the numbers we're talking about would have tipped the balance in Jordan. Hussein was willing to use any amount of force, and his Jordanian arab tankers of the 40th and other divisions proved themselves politically reliable enough to do the job, regardless of the unpleasantness of the fight. Amman was a tough nut to crack, but it cracked in the end just the same. An army with the political will to use overwhelming force will win a kinetic fight in urban operations.
I also don't think the shift in Egypt would have been significant if there'd been a more widespread displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank -- the Egyptians were recovering from quite a drubbing, and their own losses would surely have been more prominently in their minds than Palestinian displacement. Syria is a trickier one, I don't know enough about the post-war atmosphere there to say anything intelligent.
You're not making a nuisance of yourself and I certainly didn't take it that you would have favoured any such action.
However, given that Jordan as of at least several years ago had a population that was 70% Palestinian, if the entire Palestinian population of the West Bank had been forced into Jordan proper from 1967 in order to avoid a Arab demographic time-bomb within Israel itself, I suspect that the successes of the Jordanian Government in the early 1970's vis-a-vis rebellious Palestiaians may have proved very temporary.
Last edited by Norfolk; 10-14-2007 at 02:58 AM. Reason: Additions and Errors.
Actually, it was a close run thing. Despite post-conflict Jordanian military myth-making, the Jordanian 40th Armoured Brigade did quite poorly: when the Syrians/PLA blundered into the Jordanian formations, the latter showed little tactical skill and the Syrian armour eventually inflicted heavier casualties and pushed the Jordanians off the ridges at al-Ramtha.Rex, I doubt if the numbers we're talking about would have tipped the balance in Jordan. Hussein was willing to use any amount of force, and his Jordanian arab tankers of the 40th and other divisions proved themselves politically reliable enough to do the job, regardless of the unpleasantness of the fight. Amman was a tough nut to crack, but it cracked in the end just the same. An army with the political will to use overwhelming force will win a kinetic fight in urban operations.
By the end of the battle on 21 September 1970, Husayn feared that he had lost the war. The Syrians looked like they would break through to Amman, where the Jordanian 4th Mechanized had made only limited headway against the PLO (indeed, much of the capital was still in PLO hands at this time).
The next day was critical: the Jordanians launched massive air attacks against the Syrian/PLA troops. Syrian DM Hafiz al-Assad feared escalation, and refused to commit the much larger Syrian AF, despite orders to do so. It was over the next two days that Syrian intervention was defeated, and the Syrian/PLA troops withdrew. Without Syrian/PLA support, the PLO would eventually lose too, although it wasn't until April 1971 that they lost control of the last Jordanian towns, and they weren't fully defeated until July.
Would al-Assad been able to do this if the Israelis had done a Kosovo or 1948-style ethnic cleansing of the West Bank? I'm doubtful, given political dynamics in the Syrian Ba'th Party at the time.
Moreover, ethnic cleansing would have added over half a million additional bitter refugees to the PLO's potential recruit base, and probably further radicalized Palestinians in the Army (several thousand of which defected in any case).
Had the SAF been committed against the RJAF, Israeli and/or US intervention would likely have followed. The IAF could have taken on the Syrians, but at the cost of further delegitimizing King Husayn. I'm doubtful the regime would have survived.
We'll never know though, will we?
Norfolk, I agree with your last comment completely. I think we'd be looking at a very different Jordan today. Where we probably disagree is that I think there is a strong case to be made that the benefits of an annexed and secure West Bank would outweigh the cost of a hostile Jordan.
Rex, I'm aware of the difficulties Jordanian armor had, particularly in Amman. It's one of those textbook cases on using heavy armor in built-up areas. I'm unconvinced that additional refugees would have changed the basic calculus of the situation though. Frankly, in the aftermath of 1967 I think the Arabs would have expected Israel to expel the Palestinians from the West Bank -- the Jordanians did after all expel Jews from East Jerusalem, and Jews were not really welcome in much of the arab world after 1948.
I think the really interesting thing about the Jordanian-Palestinian fight is the effect IAF overflights of PLA columns must have had on Syria's decision-makers, especially with the IAF's performance in 1967 such a recent memory. With regard to what you said, I don't think the IAF had to take on the Syrians, the mere threat of them doing so was enough to convince the Syrians that it wasn't worth committing their rebuilt air force to a fight they must have been sure they couldn't win.
Whoops
Well, let that be a lesson to me. I wanted to type a quick question asking why the Israeli-Palestinian issue was not included and whether we should consider that a small war or something else.
Regarding the phrase in question, for clarification, it would have been better to state that Israel could have (and, with their nat'l security interests in mind, probably should have) stomped the Palestinian resistance/terrorists/insurgents into submission long ago. Kind of like how I was gloating last week that the Patriots slaughtered every team that they've faced this season, but those teams are all very much alive. In hindsight, neither the wording above nor in the hyperbole in my original post were necessary for the question.
The decades-long ###-for-tat conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, though it experiences lengthy ceasefires in lethal/kinetic terms, seems like a pretty good example of a poorly funded and underequipped force effectively drawing a powerful opponent into a seemingly endless small war. The bulk of the warfare takes place in the information domain and the lethal actions taken by the Palestinians all appear to be timed and located purely for effects in the information and cognitive domains, with no regard to any expectation of militarily defeating the Israelis or of whittling away at their population.
Small war or not a small war?
My Two Cents
I think that is a bit of an overstatement and a simplification. Much of the modern international terrorits movement as you called developed somewhat independently of each other and had roots going back a long way.
I would like to share with you a comment from a Palestinian (well educated in the west and living in Canada.) He pointed out that frankly (this sort of supports Schmedlap awe at the Palestinians manipulation of the situation) nobody wants or likes the Palestinians and they are much better of with the Israelis are occupying them and not Egypt. Egypt would not have put up with them. This is part of what stopped the peace talks in the 90's. Gaza does not want to be part of or deal with Egypt.
With regards to Schmedlap question of whether or not this is a Small War, I would have to say yes and no. This conflict is hard to classify as anything because everybody has a hand in it and no body cares about the Palestinians in reality. Frankly, most Middle Eastern countries want there to be more conflict, it puts stock in their hatred of the Israelies.
Here's my idea for a two state settlement.
1. Give up settlements.
2. Build big walls. (with moat in between filled with pigs bood. LOL. Pershing would approve.)
3. Let them be.
4. Wait for another suicide attack.
5. Go shoot every Hamas leader you can find.
6. Leave
7. Repeat steps 3-6
Negotiations for peace are going to go no where on both sides. Israelies are too paranoid and have to deal with the settlers, and the Palestinians, those in charge, don't want it to get better because they will no longer have a job and the they will start fighting amongst themselves.
Not really--no one really considered Egyptian control over Gaza (or Jordanian control over the West Bank) as part of a possible deal. Instead, the entire thrust of the peace process from the Oslo Agreement in 1993 onwards was Palestinian self-determination in the West Bank and Gaza.
They came very, very close to this in 2000-01, but all three parties (US/Israel/Palestinians) made major errors that scuppered the negotiations and seriously damaged the prospects for peace any time in the immediate future.
I don't agree--I don't think many ME regimes are served well by the continuation of the conflict. The public salience of the Palestinian question has declined over the years, but it is still an emotive issue as virtually all the polling data (another one here) suggests.....no body cares about the Palestinians in reality. Frankly, most Middle Eastern countries want there to be more conflict, it puts stock in their hatred of the Israelies.
I don't agree here either--whatever his domestic constraints weaknesses as a leader, I think Abu Mazen very much wants to achieve peace. Indeed, the usual Israeli criticism of is not that he wants conflict, but that he can't deliver implementation of an agreement.Palestinians, those in charge, don't want it to get better because they will no longer have a job and the they will start fighting amongst themselves.
Yes, people emote on the issue, but its more like a lot of rich northern liberals. They love every "Black" issue and support them, while personally they don't really give a damn or like them and just want the "status" and their own little cause to champion. Also, a lot of Middle Easterners don't like the Palestinians. They do when it comes to politics, but they don't want anything to do with them. As far as the "ME regimes" are concerned, no it doesned serve them well, but they certainly like having the Palestinian issue on their side when it comes to blaming the West for being in the Middle East. Remember these guys will cut off thier nose despite their face, literally.
First, I wasn't quite saying that about all leaders, but I was about most.
ALso, what about the recent Palestinian vs. Palestinian skirmishes in Gaza and the West Bank. Look at history, almost every group that emerges from years of foreign control almsot immediately runs into civil violence issues. Lets say the Israelis do pull out and leave them alone. This new Palestinian state will still be poor and uneducated. It won't be much better off than its current state nor what it would have developed into if nothing had been taken in '67 or even '48. They are on a piece of land with no significant value, and they lack the education and eperiences the Israelies had (a lot of Europes intelligencia) when they became a country. Look at Eastern Germany and the chaos it is still in, and they were western (sort of) before being occupied.
Adam
Some reading material for anyone interested.
Understanding the basics are usually important.
The basics are that only when Israelis settle in Israel do Arabs care anything about it.
Jerusalem is not even mentioned in the Koran. It states “nearest mosque” (there were no mosques in Israel at the time) Which is actually in Medina.
The simple fact is, those who are called “palestinians” today have no right to that land at all.
Israel was deserted at the first part of the 19th century.
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/%7Edhershkowitz/ Photos of pre-Israeli state 19th century
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=79d_1184884637 A little movie.
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001137.html Totten
Myth of Palestine:
http://www.allthingsbeautiful.com/al...th_of_pal.html
Which states”
1. Palestine was a British invention after WWI and never existed as an independent state. Most of this "Palestine" is called Jordan today.
2. The small number of people (700,000) occupied the entire Palestine Mandate which included Israel, the West Bank, Golon Heights, Gaza and Jordan today. Most of the Arab populations lived East of the Jordan River.
3. The common usage of the word "Palestinian" refers to people who live in Palestine: Arabs (a "mixed race of Arabic speaking peoples"), Bedouins, Christians, Druze, and Jews.
4. Under Muslim rule the region had been reduced to a barren wasteland. Jews were the only people that produced anything causing resentment from the masses of illiterate and poverty-ridden Arabs. Jews never held any political power until 1948.
5. The British didn't want a Jewish majority in the region. This led in later years to a policy of systematically reduced immigration quotas, and indirectly to the death of millions of Jewish refugees in Europe twenty some years later. The British would illegally partition the region into Jordan, (forbidding Jews from living there) then stripped off the Golon Heights giving that to France and Syria. Calling the remainder "Palestine" then flooding it with outside Arabs.
6. Constant agitation by outside Arabs and others leading to riots and murders of Jews. The British did nothing to stop this. Immigration and travel restrictions were almost universally applied only to Jews, no restriction was placed on Arab immigration to help flood the region with Arabs the British favored. Jews were the only economic success even with all of this going on.
7. Whenever there were Arab riots, Jewish immigration was restricted. This was the beginning of the British Policy of Appeasement, and the success of terrorism. The success of terrorism goes on today and appeasement still fails today. When will they ever learn?
8. All lands acquired by Jews were purchased, not taken according to Arafat's Nazi Uncle in 1937 and the British. Haj Amin al-Husseini was a Nazi war criminal wanted in Yugoslavia and mixed Nazi ideology into Islam. Arafat in fact wasn't even a Palestinian, but was born, raised, and educated in Egypt. According to Forbes, his estate is estimated to be worth over $300 million while he locked his own people into concentration camps.
9. Between 1950 and 1967 when Jordan and Egypt annexed the West Bank and Gaza, they flooded the area with more Arabs. Even today most Arabs in the West Bank, etc. hold Jordanian passports and Jordanian citizenship. After 1967 Jordan/Egypt relinquished claims to the area then started to scream for a second Palestinian state in addition to the first Palestinian State of Jordan. Before that, they claimed Palestine meant land of the Jews.
10. Even with immigration from Russia in the 1990's, the majority of Israelis are descended from Arab, Asian, and African Jews including two-thirds of the 870,000 Arab Jews expelled from surrounding Arab Nazi states. Druze, Bedouins, Christians, and some Arabs sided with the Jews in 1948 and serve in the Israeli Army today. The Israeli military has three Arab generals.
11. Why did the British do this? It's about oil, stupid! Britian didn't give a damn about Arabs or Jews. Just like America today ignores Saudi terrorism it's still about oil.”
And part 2:
http://www.allthingsbeautiful.com/al...th_of_pal.html
Additional:
http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/palestine.htm
http://www.richardwebster.net/israelpalestine.html
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2006/0...t-of-land.html
Hopefully, this helps with understanding the land rights issue.
It certainly helps to understand that such old-school Jabotinskyist tropes are still in fashion among certain types. No doubt some people in Georgia probably still believe the Cherokees left due to the charms of Oklahoma, or perhaps because they foresaw the future glories of Sooner football.
Agreed, mate.
All those years in grad school wasted. Why didn't my professors let me in on such revelations?The simple fact is, those who are called “palestinians” today have no right to that land at all.
Israel was deserted at the first part of the 19th century.
Tom
Cut and paste jobs from biased web sources never help anything....and that's "understanding the basics." Informed debate and discussion is one thing...and a good thing.
Let's hope we don't see this again.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
I got a bit of a shock when this arrived in my E-Mail...
I second that.
It was a tad unsettling to come across this.
Last edited by Norfolk; 12-28-2007 at 10:40 PM.
Idigenous people are invisible to the Colonists
To Herzl and the millions of Zionists who have followed him, the Palestinians were invisible, simply because their existence did not matter. The very idea that indigenous people mattered at all did not come into currency in the capitols of the Western World, until it became apparent in the Cold War that their "hearts and minds" mattered...except in the case of Palestinians.
The 2-state solution is at best a bridge to a stable state. Stability will not be achieved until there is but one state: either a United State of Israel and Palestine, which would be two homelands comingled in one country and sharing the governance of the same; or a Jewish state with all Arabs removed or killed, who were once affiliated with the land called Palestine.
I do not believe that the Zionists will be allowed by the rest of the world to complete their intention to eradicate "Palestine" and to submerge the remnants of Palestinians into the larger genre called 'Arabs'. Of course, the Zionists are counting on the brute force of American military and economic power to cower the rest of the world into accepting whatever fate they eventually decide for the Palestinians. But, as long as the Palestinians have sponsors and supporters beyond the refugee camps and Occupied Territories, it will be difficult if not impossible for brute force to ultimately succeed.
simulated Palestinian refugee negotiations
In June, I helped organize and run three days of simulated Palestinian-Israeli negotiations on the refugee issue for Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) in the UK. This involved some 35 former and current officials (Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, Lebanese, US and others) and technical experts.
The simulation report is here, and the full project description can be found here.
We held it here (complete with bar open well past midnight):
There are times I do love my job
CH, 11 Feb 09: The Palestinian Refugee Issue: A Palestinian Perspective
Summary Points
- The quest of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes is not only a legal and moral right but has become a major part of Palestinian identity and symbolizes Palestinian historical narratives. It has been an effective instrument of mobilization that became the political priority of various resistance groups which later formed the Palestine Liberation Organization.
- The PLO embarked on a line of negotiation which sought to reconcile rightist and realist approaches. They sought acknowledgment by Israel of its responsibility for the refugee issue and acceptance in principle of their right of return while showing flexibility and readiness to discuss various formulations of return.
- At the core of the inter-Palestinian debate is the dynamic between the two objectives of achieving statehood and the resolution of the refugee issue. State-building came to be seen not only as a means of reconstructing Palestinian identity but also as a catalyst to resolution of the refugee issue.
- A peace agreement should widen the options for the refugees and address all aspects of the refugee issue including the rights of repatriation to Israel, return to a Palestinian state, compensation, and equality and full citizenship rights in countries where refugees choose to remain.
- A comprehensive peace agreement must include the regional aspects of the refugee issue and all regional actors.
- There is an urgent need to review the current format of negotiations and bring about more balanced and effective international political engagement in the bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
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