David Ben-Gurion made it clear in 1948 when he said
A Christian State should be established {in Lebanon}, with its southern border on the Litani river. We will make an alliance with it. When we smash the Arab Legion’s strength and bomb Amman, we will eliminate Transjordan too, and then Syria will fall. If Egypt still dares to fight one, we shall bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo … And in this fashion, we will end the war and settle our forefathers’ account with Egypt, Assyria and Aram
That was David Ben-Gurion from 60 years ago; it was not just a plan for a war or for country but it is like a new map for the Middle East 60 years before the new Middle East maps even appear. That old plan was full of confidence despite the fact the Zionists were not actually armies but gangs , that old plan was full of old history despite that then it was in the 20th century, that old plan was full of biblical terms with emphasis to old prophecies despite the fact that founders of Israel , that first generation was mostly from Secular Jews ,that old plan was full of arrogance and confidence that this new small state would rule the Middle East and would have the power to destroy all its Arab neighbour , not to destroy only but to change the demographics and force the creation of the news states. Well it is not strange after all this new country had changed the demographics of Palestine.
It is so interesting because actually I see that quote and I found myself in front of a road map the Israeli administration is applying in a way or another, after 1948 they knew that the Arabs and their armies were not that soft or timid and thus the plan should be alerted to the new findings and updates, to meet the changes in time up till this moment.And up till this moment they are working on it.
Here was the new State of Israel, here its basis, full of hate, arrogance and despise to its neighbours. That was not a Peace language, they did not come in peace, already they knew this very well because they came as invaders and occupiers, and they knew that they were not and are not welcomed in the region like the aliens, like the foreigner western occupiers.
Transjordan or Jordan is a neutral pro-western since 1940s till now , a price the Hashemites paid to price I believe for King Abdallah I ambitions and alliance to the west , when some one of them tried to change the course small kingdom ,he was abdicated from the throne in a dirty conspiracy.
Syria dear Syria ,I believe all that time they did not have to working on making Syria because the leaders of the army that was two steps away from destroying Tel Aviv in 1948 , were too much busy on whom would be the president of the country , seriously look to Syria's history till the six days war many coups took place , many faces were changed , there was no time unfortnately to be ready for this vicious enemy.
Egypt ,oh my Egypt I think Egypt was the big surprise for Ben Gurion in the whole equation , it seems to me that underestimated us and though that we would dare !!
Again please read this quote carefully and stop at the first part regarding Lebanon, shocking is not it!!??
Because Israel did not began to implement this part of the plan except in the 1970s or even in the late 50s when Nasser nationalism was a menace to them and till now they are trying to do it, of course they did not put in their consideration the Shiites in the South because back then they were no Sunni or Shiite but there were Muslim Arabs, Christians in Lebanon, some of them were regarded as non Arabs despite their Arab roots from the Yemen “if we are going to speak in the language of history”.
Oh Lebanon, poor Lebanon was on the top of List of Ben-Gurion who did not forget after all those centuries before Christ what the Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Jordanians and Assyrians did to his people, making their great decedents pay for what their great ancestors had done, ironically he and his people renewed this old hate between the decedents of those people and his people.
Moshe Dayan once said
"The Arabs do not read "
Well As modern Arabs for sure we do not read books or even history and even if we read ,we do not learn or understand enough to the degree that we make something , What Ben Gurion was not a secret but we did not care or pay an attention for it !!
This is why we should read to our enemies before our friends .
i'm sorry, but i have to say that i find this post severly unenlightened. as far as war goes, the state of israel has always searched for allies. and as you (and I) well know, minorities that are/have suffered under the yoke of forced arabism have been (at times) sympathetic to israel. e.g. the poor kurds in iraq and even in egypt there were discussions of 'coptic zionism', the establishment of a coptic country in upper egypt.
ReplyDeletethese sentiments do not come out of thin air. and if (when, inshallah) we shall see a kurdish state, it will have to be attributed to the kurds for their bravery (and saddam for killing them en-masse) and not the support of israel. this is not presumption of control a-la-protocols of the elders of zion (is it still a best seller in egypt, where everybody is making a distinction between jews and zionists, then goes off to buy anti-semitist books?), but was rather a pressing need of survival and now on just another method of corrupt diplomacy that's prevalent in the arab world just as well (like the syrian involvement in lebanon. and you say that we don't fit the neighbourhood, heh).
if you're more interested in a more serious discussion aside from hearing mostly an echo to your posts, you're more than welcome to start a dialogue.
@arabjew , when did Israel search for allies in the region before camp David ?? Define allies ?? you mean Jordan .
ReplyDeleteWhat brought to the discussion the Kurds and Copts whom I need to clearify something , real copts hate Jews not just Israel because they blame you for Jesus , this is from real copts
there will be no Kurdistan because Turkey Israel ally does not want them
in fact I do not know how what you said my with all respect related to what the father of Israel had said !!??
here it has nothing to do with the Jews or the minorities
Zeinobia, i didn't mean jordan nor any other regime - i've meant in particular ethnic groups which have a beef with arab regimes or other reasons to be angry at them, thus having something in common with israel.
ReplyDeleteit's no secret that israel trained the peshmerga kurd warriors. this begets the question, how could israel find an ally with muslim people? the answer is that these people were brutally massacred by saddam in the al-anfal campaign, under the title of 'arabization'.
israeli cooperation with the maronites is also no secret. but since the various lebanese factions always sought one ally or another, israel was just another choice in the book.
there are also alleged involvement in supporting the non-egyptian coptic tribes in south sudan against the central muslim government. i recall a tiny but telling news line, that a south sudanese leader sent sharon a get-well greeting. couldn't think of a worse way to spit in the face of the arab world... anyway, they comprise almost half of the copts worldwide, and perhaps more if you agree with official egyptian government tallies.
now, as for egyptian copts, evidently this endeavor bore no fruit. but i know that some copts did consider it. the topic of egyptian copts deserves a much more thorough analysis than the scope of this post...
now, how does all of that relate to your post? the lack of other strategic options for israel better explains israeli policy through this analysis, than the one you've suggested. israel has no particular desire to destabilize and destroy countries out of venegance or mayham or futile desire to expand. i think most if not all policymakers in israel used to understand that trying to spread too thin would be disasterous, it's not an easy feat even within current israel, much less an alleged nile-to-furat fantasy realm. therefore, it's a survival strategy - trying to rack up allies from every possible corner. perhaps with the availability of better strategies or opportunities for peace, this madness could stop. but then again, the arab world better preempt it by treating minorities better, from the berbers, through the fur people, assyrians and kurds.
slight correction - the south sudanese are not coptic, ofcourse. i had them mixed with their ethiopian neighbours, which used to be considered copts before being granted autocephaly.
ReplyDeletebut the key idea is (was) the same - find and empower possible allies - usually by aiding those who feel oppressed by arabism (and without real consideration whether that's true or not).
ben gurion may have been a megalomaniac indeed, but israel wouldn't have lasted that long without at least some political good-sense and someone to rein him. israel just wasn't a regional power back then, its survival was heavily in doubt. much less the audacity to attempt to set a new area order by itself. but with partners, that's another thing...
@arabjew , seriously I do not understand the connection here , but I need to know something ,when did the Jews in the Arab world suffer as a minority before 1948 ??
ReplyDeletewith my all respect do not speak as if the Arabs were like the Nazis
if you want the truth all those suffering minorities were and are living under dictatorship regimes that are unjust to all people but as usual the unjustice to minorities usually appear more , these regime unfortunately use Nationalism policies to come closer to the people and the examples are many
please do not give examples from here and there
I want to remind you that Israel was establish over another country , another nation, another people
the Arabs should be scared
again I do not know the connection between the minorities and Israel till this moment from your point of view , after all I would like you to see how Iraq has become , instead of one strong nation , you got now severl nations fighting
is this what you want ??
Zeinobia, i never said all the arabs were nazis - but they were hardly saints, either. it's true that in comparison to the fate of european jews, arab jews fared much better. but if that's your point of reference, well, it says something.
ReplyDeletein my country of origin, iraq, jews suffered. they suffered a pogrom from a pro-nazi coup. they suffered random harassments and were fired from government jobs. they suffered from nationalist parties trying to push for an expulsion of the jews, which eventually happened.
i concur that nationalism is at the root of the evil that befell our communities in the arab world. on the personal level, jews would live quite well with their arab neighbours. but on a national level, as soon as nationalism spread, jews found themselves in tighter and tighter positions.
now, about those minorities... it's been roughly 60 years (and sometimes more) since colonialism passed. and how many arab countries managed to establish multiconfessional societies? ONE. a single exception - lebanon. and the lebanese project was unceremoniously trashed by syrian-instigated secterianism, as any lebanese will tell you.
israel is hardly to blame for the failure of arab countries to establish multiconfessional societies. the palestinian issue is hardly what stopped iraq from respecting minorities better, or sudan, or morocco.
and yes, i prefer modern iraq to saddam's iraq and i'm not afraid to say it. the peace and stability in baghdad was maintained on a million-strong pile of kurdish bodies.
now, the lack of acceptance of israel's existance relates to this problem, because if it hadn't been so, israel might have not existed at all. a multiconfessional bilad a-sham would solve the area's problems, but there first need be proof that such an arrangement is workable. otherwise, all sorts of two-state schemes and the creation of various defunct countries without solving the bulk of the palestinian refugee problem and/or the jewish problem in tandem, will not bring peace to the area.
the few things that can get the ball rolling on this issue is even outside the scope for most israelis and palestinians. we can't bring the gospel of multiconfessionalism to the middle east. it will have to come from the bigger players that need to reconcile with their ethnic diversity, like iraq, syria and egypt too. since all are playing the secterian game, and israel is pressed to the corner, would you expect it not to act so?
do you honestly believe that israel is at major fault for all of this? how exactly?
@arabjew , please do not generalize your experince in Iraq with other countries Iraq is violent country
ReplyDelete, you want to speak history , well in my country Egypt Egyptian Jews lived in harmony till 1948 , some of them supported Israel and had to leave , the revolution came in 1952,it was from the result of 1948 by the way and Israel ,yeah another blame ,anyhow the Jews lived in harmony and the head of the revolution then Naguib attended their ceremonies , things were good with the Americans but Israel did not want the new boys in Cairo to have a channel in D.C , the Mossad formed a terrorist cell in Egypt from foreign jews and unfortunately natives from the Jewish community who bombed American places to embrass the new regime aka Lavon affair, after this incident things became from bad to worse
then you got 1956 , the nationalization of Suez Canal , unfortunately many Jews in Egypt had french passport and thus I think in a war it is normal to nationalize french and English , added to it Israel was part of the attack and they did invade Sinai , Sinai is Egyptian land you know
then came the orders of the nationalization in 1961 , all Egyptians suffered from it , so please give me break , it is not our fault that the Jews in Egypt owned many things ,honestly many Egyptian jews left Egypt afterward
then what again oh yes 1967
do I need to continue ?? no
I just remember thing Mr.Arab Jew , you come and open fire on arab people as racists and I forget that till now in Morocco ,Algeria and Tunisia ,Jews are living fine
in Syria and in Lebanaon with my all respect it has nothing to do with nationalism ,this something I know from late old Syrian Christian neighbour , whom by the way was nationalized in 1961
about Lebanon , please do not make me laugh , what are you speaking about Man ??
with my all respect Israel's allies from the Phalanges are the ones who started the sectarian war Al Gameyals of Lebanon ,helloo!!
The Syrians came and left by American orders
please can you explain the part of the Sharm countries coz I missed it ??