vision2020
Re: Amb. Hume Horan on the US and Islam in the Modern World
Gentlefolk:
If my Historian's memory serves me true, in the aftermath of the Balfour
Declaration, the Treaty of Versailles, and the British Protectorate of
Palestine, the U.S. Senate sent a committee to the Holy Land in 1921to
determine if the United States too should support, in principle, a Jewish
Homeland in Palestine. The report they submitted said that since the vast
majority of the population of the area was Arab Palestinian at the time (less
than one-third Jewish, as I recall...), the United States, on the principle of
self-determiniation as articulated by President Wilson's 14 Points, should not
support such a scheme.
Don Kaag
Cliff Todd wrote:
> Tim,
> Although the U.S. was not directly involved in the Balfour Declaration we
> may have been used. Read this:
> http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0897/9708018.html
>
> Cliff Todd
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim Ewers [mailto:tewers@uidaho.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 3:57 PM
> To: Sunil Ramalingam; meteor2@moscow.com; vision2020@moscow.com
> Subject: RE: Amb. Hume Horan on the US and Islam in the Modern World
>
> Friedman discusses this issue at length in "From Beirut to Jerusalem." If I
> remember correctly, according to Friedman, the Palestinians were not so much
> forced into exile by the Israelis as they were encouraged to get out of the
> way by the neighboring Arab states. The Arab states, opposed to the
> creation of the state of Israel, intended to run the Mediterranean red with
> Jewish blood. They failed in 1967 and Israel ended up with even more land.
>
> The point that strikes me is the degree to which America is considered
> responsible for the situation in the Middle East. I don't for an instant
> believe our hands are clean, but the cause(s) of the problems there precede
> U.S. involvement, (or even existence). For instance, the Balfour
> Declaration, which lead to the creation of Israel, was drafted in the early
> part of this century. The Declaration was drafted by the British as a
> land-division agreement involving the French and the Arab states. The U.S.
> was not involved.
>
> What I find interesting about the piece by former Ambassador Hume is the
> explication of, perhaps, a more fundamental reason for the conflict in the
> region. Pointing fingers at the U.S., Israel, or the Israeli treatment of
> the Palestinians may be a diversion from actually addressing what ails the
> region.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sunil Ramalingam [mailto:sunilramalingam@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 2:04 PM
> To: tewers@uidaho.edu; meteor2@moscow.com; vision2020@moscow.com
> Subject: Re: Amb. Hume Horan on the US and Islam in the Modern World
>
> One quick thought that jumped out at me when I read this paragraph:
>
> "Once, when I appealed to Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud for more
> help to UNRWA, he replied only "You Americans created the refugee
> problem. You solve it." In response, I asked could he imagine, if a
> catastrophe had driven half a million Canadians into ND, ID, and MN,
> that three generations generations later, these populations would
> still be held in refugee camps? How differently the half million
> Jews driven from Arab lands in 1948 were received by Israel, compared
> to how the half million Arabs, driven from Palestine in 1948, were
> received by their Arab neighbors!"
>
> I don't know how one can compare the treatment of Jewish refugees from Arab
> countries in 1948, and the Palestinians in exile. Israel was established as
> a Jewish state, and naturally accepts Jews from other nations. Lebanon and
> Jordan, just to use two examples, weren't created with such a mandate; why
> should one expect them to accept refugees from neighboring states? We don't
> have that open-door policy here...
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
Back to TOC