20A007 Jews by Jim Davies, 2/18/2020    

There are 14,200,000 Jews in the world, or about 1 person in 500; yet their influence is huge. There are Jews - often, several - at or near the top of virtually every profession and business, in this and in many other countries. They are extraordinarily talented and industrious!

In 1948 Jews founded the State of Israel, with the support of the UN and in particular of the UK (which was glad to be rid of its mandate to manage the Palestinians being supplanted) and of the US. The MidEast has been in turmoil ever since, and this year's attempt by Mr Trump to bring those two peoples together may well join the many other peace initiatives on the scrap heap.

By no means is every Jew a religious Zionist, yet it's a religious conviction that causes them all to perceive the Biblical Israel as their rightful homeland; but they are all passionately in favor of giving none of it up. Displaced Palestinians meanwhile show no signs of ending their complaints.

Prior to 1948 there was no integral Palestinian State. It was an area formerly part of the (Turkish) Ottoman Empire, which had disintegrated after having backed the wrong horse in WW1; the British had conquered it during that War and the League of Nations gave the UK the job of running it afterwards. The BritGov was hoist on its own petard of two separate promises, given during the conflict in exchange for support; one (the Balfour Declaration) to Jews to prepare them a homeland, and the other (McMahon's) to Arabs as a reward for their revolt against the Ottomans, promising a Greater Arab State. Oops!

Following WW1 and no doubt in anticipation of a homeland, Jews emigrated to the area steadily throughout the 20s and 30s; the flow began long before the Nazi Holocaust, though understandably it accelerated after 1945. So by 1947 two separate populations anticipated controlling a State on the same land. Very little has changed since, except of course that the UN favored the Jews.

The whole cause of the turmoil is therefore that a State was established, under the control of one of the two contenders. One won, the other lost. That's what happens, when governments exist and wars (or elections, or appeals to the UN) are settled. If no government had been established after WW2, Brits would have quit, Jews would have continued to immigrate, and all residents would have lived beside each other and traded among themselves without domination by either. It could even have become a zero government society.

If Trump's or any other "peace plan" in the future should happen to succeed and so reduce the continuing regional conflicts, well and good; I'll not bank on it. The fix is not to have some form of "two states" or N states, but to have zero states, and that's not a solution with any appeal at all to those already inebriated with political power. The evaporation of government is the only event that will guarantee the abolition of wars, so by far the best hope for the MidEast and every other corner of the world is that everyone learn from a freedom school, resign his government job as a result, and so cause one massive implosion after another. Don't delay.