Hi, Nick here from Pods with Nick and James.
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Anyway, back to the podcast.
Welcome to Pods with Nick and James, a podcast about, well mostly my own and Nick's attempts
to overcome ignorance and to have discussions about either hot topics or political or historical issues.
Today's subject is a brief and massively summarized version of the historical,
well the modern historical context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Yeah, you know what, I up until recently was very ignorant about this.
I thought that this conflict had come about when after the Holocaust,
I thought England and America had sent a load of troops into Palestine
and just carved out an area for the Jews to live in
and the Palestinians had been trying to take it back since then.
So I thought it started in 1945 and was just a bit of a shit show.
Turns out it's way more complicated than that and we'll be getting into it.
I will just to mention my sources here.
I've read the book, The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, a very short introduction,
by the Oxford Press, by Martin Bunton.
I have not memorized the whole book by any stretch of the imagination
and unfortunately there will be some key points that I miss out.
So if you are an expert on this and you are listening to this podcast,
maybe switch off or just get incredibly high before listening to this
because there will be things that I miss that will probably frustrate you
if you are genuinely an expert.
Let's start off though.
One thing I have learned is in some of my stunts, I've done too much talking.
So I'm going to start with some questions.
Nick, how much were you taught about this in school?
I'll be completely honest.
When it's come to Israel and Palestine, I am probably your stereotypical British citizen.
By which I mean I am naive to hell by it.
I know little bits but not enough.
I mean honestly if I was going to be completely straight with you,
I could even ask you the question, who's the bad guy?
You know what I mean?
That's how little I know.
There's obviously a good side, bad side.
Look at Russia and Ukraine.
It's quite clear that there's a good side, bad side, shall we say.
But it's all perspective.
There's definitely an invader and a UN territory which has been invaded.
Okay, so I'm so naive to it.
I have no idea.
Please do enlighten me.
I look forward to learning more about the world.
I'm looking forward to learning from you.
Okay, well the annoying thing here is like I hadn't even done research into the ancient
history of this.
So I'll just use what knowledge I have learned from being like a church member for 10 years.
Okay, so in the area of the Middle East, in modern-day Palestine
and well in modern-day Palestine, there were lots of different kingdoms which were carved
by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then Joseph and following several hundred years later,
Moses moved, sorry, originally it was Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob lived in what is modern-day Palestine.
They then moved to Egypt during a famine in the land.
Several hundred years passed and the good favor of the Egyptians towards the Jews was
forgotten and they became complete slaves.
During Moses, he busted them out of there for a shorter version of doing it.
They wandered around in the desert for an extended period of time even though geographically
this would have been impossible.
I'll cover that and another top point.
And then yeah, I'm just assuming it was like almost like game physics, like they got turned
around or something.
But anyway, anyway, wait a minute.
Right.
They moved.
They moved back in, they invaded the land slowly but surely like there was the fall
of Jericho, there were the 12 spies and the two good spies, Joshua and Caleb.
And there's lots of stories in the Bible how the Jewish people migrated from Egypt into
the land, into this land which God said he had given to them and that was overflowing
with milk and honey.
There is that, I can't remember off the top of my head.
I know which book it's in.
It's in Genesis.
I know which chapters it's in.
It's in the later chapters of Genesis.
I can't tell you which chapter and which verse off the top of my head.
I haven't done my research in this.
I've looked at it as a modern political conflict.
But it's nice to get some historical context as well.
Yeah, exactly.
So the Jewish people have it written in the Torah in the first five books of the Old Testament
which is also included.
So the Torah is included in the Old Testament.
It's also included in the Bible.
It's also included in anything which isn't Islam.
You would be the only Abrahamic faith which doesn't necessarily include the Torah as
scripture per se.
However, all three are linked and we covered that before.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so the Jewish people were promised this land and they moved into this land and they
were fruitful and they continued to expand and their population continued to grow.
They then had the judges and the judges were like these prophets who were like our biters
or I'm trying to think of it like they didn't rule over everywhere.
They didn't necessarily demand tribute.
But when one of the judges showed up at your town in order to resolve a conflict,
the whole town would show up and the whole town would listen.
They were met with reverence.
They were met with reverence and so they didn't build big old palaces for themselves which
is something you see way too often in any religion.
They didn't build big old houses for themselves.
They didn't walk around with armies like their power came solely from God and from
the belief of people had in God.
Weirdly enough, because I'm going by the biblical accounts here, sometimes towns
wouldn't want to accept them at all and sometimes towns would be absolutely shit scared.
I know I certainly would be if a person who had performed...
Okay, again, I'm not going to go into the historicies of the miracles but if you had
seen someone pull an incredible feat, supernatural feat, and then they'd come to your town
to fix a dispute between your neighbor and somebody else, I'd be shit scared.
That's my own natural thing.
Especially given how superstitious people were back then as well.
Yeah, absolutely.
But anyway, sorry, you got the judges.
It also wasn't a clean sweep.
There were a number of times when the Jewish nation was overtaken by, for example,
the Babylonians with Nebuchadnezzar, the Syrians and the Assyrians.
The Ark of the Covenant was lost in this time and David created the first kingdom of Israel
and his son Solomon created the first temple.
Solomon balled it up a little bit towards the end.
Weirdly enough, the kingdom moved up and down and existed for an extended period of time.
As in it changed location or it grew or shrunk?
It did both.
It waxed and waned massively.
As did people's reverence of Yahweh or Jehovah the...
Yeah.
...the God of the Old Testament.
Weirdly enough, there was a schism.
And this is the weird thing because I haven't actually looked into this
and I'm really sorry listeners.
I didn't look into why Israel slash Judea split from or why Samaria split from it.
I just know that it did.
So you have the 12 tribes of Israel,
which were the 12 sons of Jacob.
Jacob means grabber.
Weirdly enough, because he held on to Esau's heel when they were both born together.
James, as it turns out, the name James is just a derivative of Jacob.
So my name literally means grabber.
I have mixed feelings about that.
But Jacob was also renamed Israel and the Jewish people are the descendants of Jacob,
which is why they are called Israelites.
It's also why they have named the land Israel and why they've also called it a people group.
What really frustrates... Okay, sorry, I was still in the ancient history.
I need to speed this up and move on.
Right. Okay.
So the kingdom of Israel and Samaria was conquered by the Romans
a little time before the time of Jesus.
The... and also the original temple was destroyed in about 400 BC, I think.
We're talking about Temple Mount.
This is the thing.
No, the only... the Wailing Wall is the only bit that's left of Herod's temple,
which was the second temple, or the second temple of the Roman Empire.
The only bit that's left of Herod's temple, which was the second temple, or the third,
if you count the one in Samaria.
The Samaritans, which Samaria, the kingdom of Samaria,
which is where you get the parable of the good Samaritan,
where Jesus kind of tries to point out the fact that
it will be the people that you don't expect who will do the good thing.
Moral goodliness doesn't come from your birthplace, your birthright,
your position in society.
It's what you choose to do here in...
Sorry, back to the main topic.
Right. Oh dear.
Deary deary dear.
Right.
But you have these two kingdoms, which make up of the 12 tribes.
They are conquered by the Romans.
After several revolts and things not going well, the Romans walk in in about 70 AD.
They destroy the temple and they rename the area Palestine.
Right.
At that point as a way of trying to crush Jewish identity.
Okay.
However, there's more to it than this.
There's more to it than this.
These places still exist and Jewish identity,
despite having their most holy of holy places destroyed,
the Jewish people spread throughout all lands as they are wanted to do,
or sorry, as they are want to do, as each family is directed.
Now, what I find weird is that the Jewish people spread throughout the land,
but a number of them stay in Palestine.
Yeah.
But they convert to Islam, or not even all of them,
most of them convert to Islam during the course of the Islamic Golden Age.
In 600 AD.
So you've got a number of the Jews, sorry,
a number of the Jewish people convert to Christianity when Christianity first occurs,
and a number more convert to Islam during the Islamic Golden Age and during the Ottoman Empire.
Now, this is where we start to bridge ancient history with modern history.
And I'm really sorry for people who know more about the Ottoman Empire than me.
My understanding of it is,
the Ottoman Empire, I know, took over Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul in 1453.
The Ottoman Empire existed before then, but it also existed all the way up until 1917.
So, the Ottoman Sultans were still knocking about at the time of the Titanic.
That's incredible.
I mean, it's not easy, but it is incredible, especially for modern day.
Well, absolutely.
But this is the really annoying thing.
So, okay, so what we're going to do at the time of the Ottoman Empire,
so we're talking several hundred years ago, and at this point, most of the most of the
populace of Israel have converted to Islam and are now considered by the Ottoman Empire to be Arabs.
Right.
Rather than Jewish.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, the area of Palestine at the time of 1917 was just called the Levant.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, it had the ancient name of Palestine.
The whole area was named to the Levant under the Ottoman Empire, and there were a couple
of different provinces, but the name Palestine and the name Israel was not used.
Okay.
Uh-huh.
Right.
Here's another question for you, just so I'm not talking.
Do you have any idea how big the area of Palestine and Israel is?
I mean, I know how...
I mean, I know how... I'm going to say small.
I know how small Israel is in context, and if I'm right in thinking...
I'm probably going to get crucified for saying this, but Palestine sits inside...
Like, modern-day Palestine sits inside Israel, so I can imagine it's even smaller.
Well, the area... just to... the area is 26,790 square kilometers,
which is slightly bigger than Wales.
Okay.
Is the way to... is the way to do this.
Okay.
There's probably just about the same amount of sheep.
Or goats.
Um, I mean, to be fair, I'd like to think there was slightly more.
In Israel?
Just because... yeah, because the weird thing is,
although a lot of the fighting happens in the cities,
the majority of the land is barren hill country.
Yeah.
So I like to think that there's at least animals there, because otherwise it's just...
Well, it's just somewhat desolate farmland.
So it was called the Levant until 1917.
It was also known as the Greater Syria Empire.
In present day, you've got Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Turkey
all make up that the area of the Levant.
And Egypt.
Okay.
Why is it?
Yes. Well, Egypt's seen as very... Egypt's seen as separate.
Yeah, because I suppose Egypt never contested, did it?
Exactly.
Exactly. Although they've had their hand in things.
Right. Okay.
So...
All right. So, um...
I guess we'll start with...
All right. So a number...
One of the things that really frustrated me is that both sides have claimed the other
as entirely illegitimate at times.
So you've had the Arabs say that if the Zionists didn't exist,
then the Britons would have made them up.
The... And right-wing American, a number of Republicans have said that Palestine is a made-up country.
I find both of those views slightly ridiculous as if a person...
If people exist in front of you and they claim to be a thing,
yes, it might be something all culture is made up,
but to claim that a group is illegitimate simply because it is man-made is ridiculous
because all countries are man-made.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, from what I'm getting at the moment,
and please correct me if I'm wrong,
what I'm hearing is that a group of people that lived in this country
decided that they didn't want to be part of that country
but wanted to follow their own...
Be their own leaders, and therefore took a little area that grew and grew and grew
into its own country, which was the same country,
but they wanted to some... For some reason to keep it separate.
This is the really weird thing. Okay, so...
Also, just a fun fact to try and lighten the mood.
Do you know where the term... Like, have you heard of Jaffa oranges?
Yeah.
Okay, I hadn't. I hadn't even heard this.
I had no idea Jaffa cakes were called Jaffa cakes,
because they're named after Jaffa oranges, which in turn is a port city in Israel.
Oh.
Didn't know that.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. The second thing is, which came first, the oranges or the port city?
So are the oranges named after where they're from,
or is where they're from named after their produce?
Probably the first, but...
I'm going to go with the first, yeah.
Yeah, I think maybe... Yeah.
Okay. So, right, I've covered a brief.
So, in short, ancient land was conquered and inhabited by the Jewish people,
by the mandates of God and by their own will.
It was then captured, fractured, messed about all over the place, and eventually
attempted to be de-Jewified by the Romans.
That's a word and a half.
Which didn't really work.
Yeah, oh God, wrong word, but you know what I mean.
You know what, cut that.
You know what, cut that. The Romans tried to crush the Jewish people's spirit
and the Jewish people's way of doing things.
They tried to do what they do everywhere, which is make everyone Roman.
Yeah.
But yeah, so apologies.
Clearly for the Jewish, they have not had it easy,
and yet I've met quite a few Jewish people, and they seem pretty nice people.
Yeah, well, all people are people.
Alright, right. Yeah, I'm just tripping up over myself.
Right. The point is people have...
So, some of the Jews converted to Christianity.
Some of the Jews converted to Islam.
Over the thousands of years between ancient history and modern day,
the Jewish people in the area of Israel and Palestine became mostly Arab... Arabic.
Until something very specific happened in 1897.
Okay, what happened in 1897?
Alright, so the Zionist movement was born.
Okay. Now, I already know, I'll be completely honest.
Have you been told anything about the Zionist movement?
No, the most I know about Zion is from Bob Marley.
Okay, that's fair enough. Yeah, that's Rastafarianism.
No, I mean literally, Iron Like a Lion in Zion is the lyric, and I have never heard it before
and after. No context for it. It's just a word and a song to me.
No, that's fair enough. It's also used as the name of the city in the Matrix films.
Yes. As the last bastion of humankind.
Actually, yeah, you are completely right. I am naive. I didn't remember that.
Not at all. It's literally a pop culture film. I'm not judging your intelligence based on your
ability to remember that or not. Right. The Zionist... so the Jewish... at the time of...
by the 1800s, the Jewish people had spread throughout Europe and the people who now lived
in Israel and Palestine were mostly Arabic with a very small Jewish community still knocking
around everywhere as they do, which is fair enough. A number of Jews moved back to Israel
during the Russian persecutions through the 1800s under the rule of the czar's Alexander,
the first, second and third. That in itself will be a topic for another time.
Yeah. However, having said that, the majority was still Arabic.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. Zionism was a meeting arranged by somebody called Theodor Haazel.
And in it, it was originally put forward for the creation of a Jewish nation
as Theodor had realized that Jews, as you've said, have had a hard time of it. Wherever they go,
they're different customs, their own, not insular nature, but their own cultural identity, which
doesn't necessarily immediately bleed into the country or change to accommodate the country
where they're in. The fact that they have a separate identity means that they are always
targeted as the alien, as the immigrant, as the outsider.
I can't help but think that somehow that's got a large amount to do with their input into the most
core religious matters. Yeah. I think I'm misunderstanding here. Please.
So if you think about Jewish input into history, they're right at the middle of the Bible,
they're right at the head. Like you said, they're the key part in the Torah. Even in Islam, there's
heavy input from Jewish. Yeah. Islam and Christianity
both share the same foundations of the patriarch of Abraham. Yeah.
I don't know whether this is the truth or whatnot, but it's almost like the Jews,
the Jewish were here first and everybody else now doesn't like them because they're
like the old ways. Yes, to be fair, there is a sustain, there is,
there is always going to be, is it, ah disdain, there we go. Yeah.
Disdain for the old ways, for ideas of sacrifice, for ideas of you have to do this because it's the
way it's always been done. Yeah. Everybody likes their freedom and in society, in the media,
it's very much always put through that you should, it is your fundamental right to
choose your own destiny and to do your own thing. I agree with that to a point. And again,
that's another conversation for another time. I mean, I've got to give the Jewish people credit
because throughout all of their subjugation and oppression, should we say for lack of a better
term, I mean, they were exiled through a desert for I don't know how long, 40 years. Yeah. And
they were culled during the second world war is the only word I think, like massives.
Yeah, it happened everywhere. Yeah. You know, I mentioned the Reconquista. Yeah. In Spain,
you know, when I talked about almost what's kind of put forward as the utopia of
art, science, literature, tolerance in the, is it mogul base in mogul Spain,
when the Muslims ruled Spain for a time. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, just as the Muslims were pushed
out in that time, the Jewish people did not have it easy during that time either.
But you got to give them credit, right? Because throughout it all,
they are still adamant they're going to do things their way.
You know what? Yeah, that's entirely true. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? They haven't disappeared.
It's incredible resilience. It's either incredible resilience, or incredible stupidity.
And I'm going to go towards it being incredible resilience, because I don't want to insult them.
I've got no reason to insult them. Yeah. Well, I think
what the thing that kind of gets me here is that during the Zionist meetings,
it was decided that they were going to try and move to Palestine, or move to the area of Palestine,
move to the old kingdom of Israel, and make it Jewish again. And they were going to go there,
they were going to go there, and they were going to set up their own Jewish nation. Interestingly,
a couple of people, even who had scouted out the area, noticed that the land isn't empty.
Most of the fields are being sown, and those who are there will not give up their place easily.
Yet, everyone ignored this one bloke who reported that, and the 200 congruence of the first Zionist
meeting all decided that it would be a good idea to still move there and to make it happen.
So Jewish people started moving back to Israel
as a defined and specific political and religious movement of Zionism from 1897 onwards.
Okay, so the problem is that I said that the Jewish people were a minority at this time.
Yeah.
That possibly understates it. I'm not going to say that it's not like there were no Jewish people
there, but we're talking population of Iceland. Yeah, we're talking population of Iceland. Well,
population of Iceland is just about a million now. The population of Iceland compared to the
Jewish population of Iceland is about a million. Yeah, it's about a million.
The population of Iceland compared to the population of the UK.
Yeah, yeah. It was so incredibly minimal that if you were an Arabic person and all of a sudden
people from all over Europe came around and started buying land,
the annoying thing is that so often people say, oh, they're coming over here and taking their jobs
and seeing this outside force as an invading force rather than seeing it as people. The annoying
thing with Zionism is that it gives some truth to that claim because the immigration, the immigration
to that claim because the immigration is organized and because the goal is to take over the land.
Yeah. That is my only problem. Originally, it was the most peaceful way of doing it. It's just,
we're going to go over there and buy the land. Fair enough, but not if nobody wants to sell.
So Zionism started at the time of the Ottoman sultans. They had some rules and some restrictions
on buying land, but not a huge amount. Unfortunately, this is during the time of
the First World War, the Ottoman sultans aligned themselves with Germany, which means that
unfortunately England then starts rearing up its head and pulling some shady shit.
I'll put it to you this way. Can you guess how many different groups we promised
the land of, well, the Levatt or the land of Palestine and Israel to? How many groups do
we promise to? If only they'd throw off the shackles. By groups, do you mean?
I mean, separate political entities. Okay. Okay. I mean,
it's got to be a large number. I'm going to say about 20, but from what I know about the size of
Israel, there wouldn't have been enough for 10, 20. How many?
Four. Which I realize might sound bad, but like there is official documentation
of the British government promising to recognize the land of Israel and
Palestine as a state to four different groups if they should throw off the bonds of the Ottoman
Empire. Right. Okay. So these were oppressed by the Ottomans.
Well, this is the thing. They were oppressed to a point where they were
well, this is the thing. They were oppressed to a point in that they couldn't self-determine.
And they were seen as a province of an empire rather than as a country.
Kind of like Ukraine in USSR. Yeah. Well, yeah, like any part of any empire,
there is a certain amount of suppression, which comes from being under the umbrella of a larger
force. But as bad as they had it under the Ottomans, which the book that I've read doesn't go into,
what happened following is incredibly bad. What happened was there was Lord
Mahon spoke to somebody called Hussein. And he promised between the years of 1914 to 1918,
he promised to make Palestine a state and give them the right of self-determination.
We also did that to four other groups within Palestine. But additionally, there was this
thing called the Balfour Declaration, where also in 1917, at the same time of the Hussein correspondence,
the English government promised to help the Jews set up their homeland.
And promised the Zionist state our support. Now, the really bad thing that happens here is at the
end of the First World War, rather than consolidating our reach, our
our reach and doing what we were doing. Like we had built the series canal at this point.
Yeah. For our listeners, the series canal is the canal that goes through Saudi Arabia.
No, sorry, Saudi Arabia. It goes through Egypt. It is like a short canal which joins two seas,
which stops traders in the Mediterranean Sea having to sail all the way around Africa
in order to get to India. It saved everyone a lot of time, a lot of effort. And we'll probably do
a podcast on it on a different point. It's an amazing piece of engineering. But at the end of
the day, it's digging a ditch, but it still has revolutionized the world. Apart from when a big
container, container boat just turned sideways and blocks itself in. And then the entire world economy
is affected. That most certainly has happened at some point. Yeah. I'm pretty sure there was a
shortage of graphics cards when I wanted to buy a graphics card because they were all stuck in the
sewers canal. Yep. And there's also a reason for that as well. Yeah, we'll touch upon that in another
point. Okay, annoyingly, at the end of this, despite the fact that the Palestinians did revolt
against the Ottoman sultans and the Ottoman Empire fell apart, rather than sticking to the promises
of either the Balfour Declaration or the Hussein Correspondence, we make another agreement
called the Skies-Picot Agreement. And rather than let people alone and let them do their own thing,
we divvied up the land. That wasn't ours to divvy up? That wasn't ours to divvy up. We divvied up
the land between ourselves and the French. Seems fair. I mean, you can, I mean, if I go into your
house, I can just start giving out your things to whoever I want to give it out to, right? Yeah, no,
that's completely fine. And you'll be absolutely fine with it. And we'll never end up in a fight.
No, exactly. We'll never end up in a fight over it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So this is the annoying
thing. The Skies-Picot Agreement massively screwed over the Arab nations. It was a,
it was shitting on every promise England had made. So rather than having self-determination,
they were now, rather than being ruled by Istanbul, they were now ruled by London.
The way that England legitimized this was that we started, well, I can't, again,
ladies and gentlemen, I'm very sorry. I've done some research into this. I haven't done nearly
enough. At this time, there was something called the League of Nations, which was mostly the allied
states and mostly the rich allied states. Not to be confused. The League of Nations.
Not to be confused with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That was a film with Sean Connery.
Well, annoyingly, it's pretty, the same amount of racism and just generally, aren't we fantastic?
Ha ha ha. Beware the foreigner. Seems to have gone around. The old colonial powers couldn't keep
doing things the way they did. So they gave themselves a new name, the League of Nations,
and then continued to do things the same way that they always had. The League of Nations recognized
Paris, Palestine as something as a, what's called a mandate. Now, a mandate is a state which isn't
quite ready for self-governance yet. Right. So we stuck that label on them and said, you're not
ready to rule yourselves yet. You know, we might have promised you self-determination, but we're
not going to let you do that. We're going to prop up your government. And what we're supposed to do
in the terms of international law is prop up the government and provide advice.
What we did between the years of 1917 and 1937 is actually, you know what? Yes. Can you guess what we
did? Stripped it, mined it, pilfered it as much as we possibly could. Fantastic. And what would be
the best sort of government to do that? I mean, I would say shadow. I mean, like,
puppeteered. So an emplaced government. I can't think of the right word for it now. No, no, you're
absolutely right with emplaced, but we didn't even bother with the fucking puppets. Oh, right.
We just went, we didn't even pretend. We didn't even pretend. Your new leader is going, your new
Sultan is going to be an Englishman. He was an Englishman. That's ridiculous.
Yeah. Most of the government was made up of ex army officers.
Yeah. You literally can't, you literally could not write this stuff. Unfortunately,
no idea. No idea why this war has continued for so long.
Yeah. So understandably, the Palestinians were upset. Yeah. And there was, there was great civil
unrest. And to add to this, we weren't giving the Arabs the right to self-determine.
So whilst we were also supposed to be setting up their government for them,
rather than just acting as an advisory role, what we did instead was the government in Palestine
reported to the British colonial office and the British treasury. It directly was accountable to
our colonial office. That's, well, that's not. It's not okay. Is it? No. Let's, let's just be
honest here. So having promised the Arabs the right to self-determine, we'd not even set up a
Shaft, Shaver government with, I'm not even, I'm not even sure if they, you know, we bothered to
wear a turban or anything, just we put an Englishman and English people in charge of Palestine. And
we did that for 20 years and things got worse and worse as the Zionist movement at the same time
continued to move hundreds of thousands of Jewish people into a already overcrowded
place with which not enough room and resources for them.
All right. So, and so as you read this, you begin to understand both why,
well, we'll get to why the Israelis are angry in a minute, but you get to understand why the
Palestinians are annoyed. Yeah. I mean, annoyed is definitely the word I would use if I was in
their position. Yeah. No, well, it's, it's just, it, right. We'll move on to the next bit. In 1937,
uh, Britain, oh, by the way, just during this time, it was a shit show, just massive civil unrest and
too many, too many, too many, too many, too many, too many, too many, too many, too many, too many,
too many wars to count. And unfortunately, up until 1987, I'm not even going to list all the wars
I can imagine in Israel and Palestine. There's, there's, I'm sorry, listeners again, maybe another
time I'll probably redo that. If me and Nick are still doing this in 10 years, I will redo this
with everything bullet pointed right now. No, just too many.
Right. So the Zionists continued to move in and in 1937, um, as things got worse in Germany, more
of them also moved into Israel where they were not necessarily welcomed well, uh, by, by the Palestinians.
The Palestinians, so annoyingly during this time, um, England failed to even set up a puppet government.
It was just to set up a government which would be accepted by the people. Right.
Every time they brought somebody to the forefront, another group of people would shout, no, we don't want him.
And I mean, with all due respect, I had a sneaking suspicion that that would be the case.
Yeah. Given the fact that they were there in the first place. Exactly. Um, when trying to use anybody of the, the, uh,
Arabic notable class, um, it just didn't work. It just, I don't know exactly what happened,
but England completely failed to set up, um, a, a government. Uh, the Arab Arabs were incredibly angry with,
with England and so would, so there was rioting on the streets. Um, and so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so,
so there was rioting on the streets. Weirdly enough, the Jewish people were also angry with England and their hand,
handling of the situation. And so at one point, uh, bombed the King David Hotel,
uh, which is where the, a number of British officials stayed. Um.
I bet that went down like a lead balloon. Massively. Uh,
England, uh, at the time of the death of the League of Nations, as the UN, um, started to become a thing,
uh, England immediately handed over, uh, the problem of Israel and Palestine to the UN.
Um, the, there were also a number of accords and a number of iron illnesses and a number of attempts to
make agreements, uh, between the Jewish and the Palestinian people. However, during this time,
no official government was set up. And when we left Mandate Palestine.
Right. We left no government in place.
The, the, the, the British colonial officer, or the British governor of that, of Palestine,
left his keys under the mat and a note saying, good luck with your experiments in non-anarchy.
Right. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Like you can't, I mean, this is the place on the planet, which is
probably the most significant, um, for the three Abrahamic faiths. It had a huge number of people
living in this area, you know, like, and you gave no structure or system in which, after,
after having gone in and stirred the pot for 50 years, absolutely 30 years. Yeah. You've gone in,
stirred the pot, messed everything up and made it even more unsettled and then gone quick.
Midnight dash.
Let's get out. Yeah. It's frustrating. It's really frustrating. It's just, it's.
Were we ever held accountable as, like, were we ever held accountable for.
So, so this is, so this is some of the stuff that happened. Okay. So.
We stepped back way too quickly. We handed it over to the UN. The UN then tried to do negotiations
again. There had already been several negotiations, but the, the Palestine people have had a number of
groups represent them at different times. And so, and I think that's the, that's the, that's the
Palestine people have had a number of groups represent them at different times and have also
had a number of more local Arabic nations by an intervene on their behalf. Yeah. So the annoying
thing about Palestine and Israel is everybody's got their finger in the pie. And England at the
wrong time and in the wrong way decided we're going to take our finger out of this. Annoyingly.
The thing is the, like, you wouldn't trust if you were in their position, either Jewish or,
or Palestinian. So either Israeli or Palestinian. You wouldn't trust anybody
that said they were there to help. Because, yeah. And that's it. And that's exactly why.
Cause a number of, a number of genuinely well-meaning people have actually come up with a
with a number of good, good, a number of good
suggestions, sorry, a number of good suggestions, a number of good things to put in place, which have
them been rejected because there's no trust there. Yeah. Because historically there's no reason.
You've created two of the most paranoid nations on the planet. Like they're living in the most
religious area on the planet for the vast majority of the population of the entire planet. And
then you've made them the most paranoid people. Well, this is the annoying thing. So during this
time, the UN tried to come up with an idea and I'm just looking at something in the book here
called the 1937 Peel commission partition plan, which I can clearly see it and it does make sense.
And it's got a proposed Jewish state and it's got a proposed Arab state. And then it's got an area to
remain under the British mandate, which is the holy sites to give both peoples access to the
peoples access. Now the annoying thing, why the English still wanted to hold those religious points?
Well, it's to be fair. I think it was literally a question of partition. Right. It's because the
people were getting on, were not getting on. Yeah. That it was done. The problem is, is that in the,
I'm trying to think of the right, it's so it's annoyingly, it's somewhat similar to the India
Pakistan thing where partition was done and it was done incredibly badly. The way that the problem,
the reason why it ended up not happening is because in the Jewish area, the new Jewish state
would have had over 100,000 Arabs who would then be subject to an entirely hostile government.
And there were several, and there were a couple of thousand Jews in the Arab bit. So it's like,
how do you hand over, how do you hand over the, this state or how do you hand over these people
to another set of people? And that seems to be the core of the conflict in that the lines keep on
moving. The people who live in certain areas feel a demand of, you know, everyone's got the right to
live somewhere. Right. What really annoys me is that the Zionist movement is taking Jewish people
of Jewish descent who have moved throughout the lands for thousands of years. And all right, you know,
I'll be honest with you. There would have been some interbreeding in that point. And although they are,
they are still legitimately Jewish. Yeah. Yeah. My problem is, is that the people in Palestine,
they may have converted to Islam. Yeah. Yeah. And they may also, they may have interbred more with
other races, but, and they may not identify themselves as Jewish, but they themselves are also
going to be the descendants in part, at least, and probably a number of people will take offense at this,
but a number of Palestinians will be have, will be descended from the original ancient Jews. Yeah.
Like, you're not saying that they are Jewish in religion. You're saying that genetically they're the same.
I'm saying, they've got the same roots. I'm saying genetically, like, both may very well be,
may be mixed with other races or mixed with one part this and one part that or whatever,
but all the people, both the people moving back to Palestine and the people in Palestine will have
some Jewish heritage. And it, it frustrates me that both, it frustrates me that it's seen as,
you know, I'm not doing a good job of this. I shouldn't have started this when I had a, am I going,
right, I'm going to, I'll cover something really quickly. During the, this is the modern context.
Israel has been, Israel is generally, from what I've read, more organized than Palestine
because it is backed by the West and the foreign nations and the Zionist movement. Yeah.
And it has one clear, solid identity. The Palestinians are backed by a number of Arabic organizations
and sorry, Islamic organizations, but there's still not enough of a core there.
And none of the cores, the wrong word. There's no one group which represents the Palestinian people perfectly.
What's happened over the years is that a, an organization will resist the, resist Israel,
will get the backing of the people. It will then try and, it will then try and negotiate with Israel
and with the West in order to get what they need. And whilst they do the negotiations,
the fact that they back down on key points means they then lose the backing of the people
and are then replaced by a more vehement and violent organization.
So you had Fatiha, Fatiha was replaced by the LPO and the gentleman Arafat.
And then when he wasn't able to deliver on the promises, people got frustrated with him.
And he was then replaced by, by Hamas, which is now the organization doing it in, doing stuff currently.
But Hamas is, it's got the support of the people, but it's, it is a fringe.
It is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, but it's not all of the Muslim Brotherhood.
And it's, it's weird that you just get this churning ideology where the moment some,
the moment they get close to peace, time and time again, the people who have been negotiating
on behalf of the Palestinians have lost the backing of their people because they're,
because the agreements that they are now making aren't good enough for what both sides want.
Yeah.
If that makes sense.
Yeah.
And annoyingly, it's really frustrating because like the number of wars is ridiculous.
Israel has been, has been backed by the West and it's not just been backed by the West,
it's been armed by the West and Israeli security forces on several occasions.
They started, after a while, they, Zionists meant that the Israelites, sorry,
that the Jewish people moved in, in massive numbers into Palestine.
They also, rather than just going to the ancient hill countries of Judea and Samaria,
they stayed in the cities, so where they can make life work.
In 1990, 75% of the Jewish people lived in cities and only 25% of the people lived in lands.
Yeah.
That could be, that is also, there were also restrictions on buying land,
so it's not entirely their fault, but they were mostly in the cities.
The Palestinian, the Palestinian people, after a while, didn't like the fact that loads of people are moving in.
And so, you know, civil unrest and attacks and all kinds of horribleness happened.
And then the Jewish people, after a while, rather than moving away,
although between the years of 1927 and 1928, more Jewish people left Israel and Palestine than emigrated to.
So the population diminished.
Yeah, but other than that, it's always been on the rise.
Okay.
As this has happened, as attacks have increased and stuff, the divide has gotten wider and wider,
and the economies just haven't interacted well and the trade has been bad and it's not been good for either of them.
As Israel has armed up all of its forces in order to try and, well, the attacks on its citizens, this creates more anger.
Annoyingly, Israel then started, well, started in the 1960s, although it was before this, stuff did happen before this,
but during the UN, after the UN partition, there was a particular gentleman who started this way of doing things.
I'm trying to find his name here in the book, but there was a gentleman whose basic tactic was to overreact,
because by overreacting, you stop the violence.
And although that works in short term, what it does is it makes the person who attacked you no longer,
they don't question, oh, well, maybe what I did was wrong.
They then feel like a victim because what they did seems so small to the reaction.
Unfortunately, this was something that started in the 1960s and then continued on, and is still,
you can see it in the modern day news reports of the Israelis' actions to the terrorist actions of Hamas.
Right. You know?
And like, so it's kind of, it's really, really annoying that with this conflict, that it is just repeating itself time and time and time again.
It's also incredibly annoying that we did, that Britain played such a terrible part in setting up the problem and that.
Well, let's say adding to the problem.
But additionally, America has tried to mediate peace talks and a number of.
So like there's the Brussels Accord, there's the Oslo Accord, there's the Camp David Accord,
there's several talks that happened in the White House in several presidential retreats over the years where America and the UN have tried to facilitate peace in this place.
And just every single time.
It has failed.
Well, it doesn't sound like it's getting any better.
Yeah, I'm really sorry listeners.
I've just I've gone off on one and I don't mean to be entirely negative, but just the situation is horrible and learning about this stuff has just genuinely.
Well, you said before when before we started the podcast that like your research into this has genuinely depressed you.
Yeah, it's feel the turmoil of the entire situation.
Both sides.
You can call a reprisal a reprisal.
But if you're if you're killing people armed with stones with machine guns.
It really doesn't seem like an honorable fight or an honorable reaction.
Yeah. So who in like in context, who is the one with the gun?
So so so Israel has had military superiority.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the Israeli army is is one of the best in the world.
That's why it being so small.
And annoyingly, well, not annoyingly, but like the in the 1960s, there again have been wars and Israel has trumped everywhere.
Everyone and everything.
But I think the direct military assaults of your enemies does not quell the unrest of the people under behind them.
If that makes sense. No, it doesn't.
No, it's just you won a few games of chess.
Well done. Exactly.
Annoyingly, though, I can understand why Israel has resorted to violence because there have been so many accords, so many white papers, so many foreign nations putting forward proposals and making promises and trying to come up with solutions.
And no one can agree like they apparently they came.
Apparently, Bill Clinton came close.
In his time, apparently Barack Obama came close, but there's just there's been no solid agreement. Both sides have a bloody nose and both sides are not willing to
Yeah, just there doesn't seem to be a clear solution. Right. I'm really sorry about this.
I'm done at this point.
Listeners, thank you very much for bearing with me.
Hopefully that gives some idea as to what's happened here or what's happened.
I certainly feel a lot more enlightened as to what like the context for the entire fight is, but I don't still don't know whether or not.
I agree with our approach. I don't know whether I agree with the perspective. I absolutely understand the anger that people have towards the actions, the current actions and the previous actions of both parties.
But I mean, there is no there's genuinely no resolving this is there.
Or it's there might there might be, but it would just require huge cooperation. I think with multiple with most with the most extreme volatile important part of the globe for so many people.
Like this is going to be a cake that they fight over for a very, very long time.
And has this is. Yeah, absolutely. It's.
What you said.
It is it's it's very, it's very sad. Like it's just.
I'm not going to say the annoying thing is.
Palestinians have the right to live. Yeah, as to as to the and is and is and exactly that's why that's where I'm going.
As to the end is as the as do the Jewish people have the right to live.
Arguably, if arguably Zionism wouldn't have happened if Europe wasn't so anti-semitic.
And then if if Zionism hadn't have happened, then then the then some of the troubles wouldn't have happened. But then again, if England hadn't of lied to so many different Arabic groups.
And then just gone in and carved up the country anyway, and then left.
Yeah. And then left with nothing with it.
It's weirdly enough, Mandate Palestine is the only colony left without out of government.
In English history and in all in all other cases.
There was something where there was something we're not. We're not struck.
You know, yeah, build on.
You could all you know, in some cases that it would have been better than others, but there was something.
Maybe the or maybe the opportunity that was sought at that point by the British was the opportunity for a war not to find resolution, but to continue for a long time.
Because war is one of the best moneymakers in the world.
Yeah, no, but annoyingly, Russia, the US and several European countries, including us, do make weapons and.
It's a hell of a business. Yeah.
And there's there's definitely been sold. Yeah.
To organizations in this area as well. So we cannot pretend that our hands are clean on this.
Absolutely. I'm sorry. Right.
You're actually listeners next time. I'm going to try and do a lighter topic or at the very least a more focused one on maybe an individual character of some kind.
We'll we'll find we'll find out as and when it happens.
Thank you very much for listening listeners. Yeah.
And take care.
Yeah.