Someone in the ASB forum started some Jewish / Israeli ATL's / ISOT's that I don't really care for. Here are some more appropriate ATL's:-
(0) I heard on the email group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alternate-history
that someone wrote a story where the Jews never left Palestine but stayed there down the centuries to this day.
Of the Jewish diaspora, (a) how many scattered after the Romans suppressed the two revolts, and (b) how many had already emigrated? If in this ATL the Diaspora is smaller and many fewer Jews get into the Hijaz for one Muhammad ibn Abdullah to contact, he might have become a merchant like his father, or preached Christianity instead of inventing his own religion, and if so, this leads into a "no Islam" time line.
(1) In 1949 Israel takes the whole of the West Bank. Shorter frontier to defend, more room for settlers. Nablus returns to its ancient name Shekhem, etc. (What name would Jenin get?)
(2) Geological POD: there is a wide open natural sea strait instead of the Suez Canal.
(3) Geological POD: the Emeq Yitsre.el (from Haifa eastwards) fault graben sinks a bit lower and the sea comes through into the Jordan Valley.
(4) OTL: I read that one of the later Roman or Byzantine emperors let the Jews build a 4th temple. But as the work started there was an eruption of fire from the caves and cisterns below the temple site and the work was abandoned and never restarted. This was likely a sewer gas explosion ignited by a torch (= a piece of burning wood carried by its cold end). Thanks to dirty lazy people dumping their house and street foulness in the first place that comes to hand.
ATL: No sewer gas explosion. The 4th temple is built. Jews return and a Yishuv reforms. Then somewhat like (0) hereinabove.
(5) Napoleon does not attack Russia. Napoleon does attack Egypt and marches into Palestine as OTL. That leaves Russia free to attack Turkey hard while Turkey is sending its army south to defend against Napoleon. Turkey loses a big army in snow on the Allahuekber mountains in NE Turkey (as happened OTL in 1914). When the dust settles, European powers have the Middle East, or at least Palestine and Lebanon and Syria and Egypt. Mass settlement by Europeans there. Israel starts to form a century before OTL. Israel has enough trouble from Arabs for Israel to need a big army and keep it in practice. If all this does not butterfly Hitler away, this would bring some sort of practicality to the understandable but anachronistic (and somewhat distressing) query sometimes asked OTL by young Israeli children: "Why didn't the Israeli Army prevent the Holocaust?".
(0) I heard on the email group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alternate-history
that someone wrote a story where the Jews never left Palestine but stayed there down the centuries to this day.
Of the Jewish diaspora, (a) how many scattered after the Romans suppressed the two revolts, and (b) how many had already emigrated? If in this ATL the Diaspora is smaller and many fewer Jews get into the Hijaz for one Muhammad ibn Abdullah to contact, he might have become a merchant like his father, or preached Christianity instead of inventing his own religion, and if so, this leads into a "no Islam" time line.
(1) In 1949 Israel takes the whole of the West Bank. Shorter frontier to defend, more room for settlers. Nablus returns to its ancient name Shekhem, etc. (What name would Jenin get?)
(2) Geological POD: there is a wide open natural sea strait instead of the Suez Canal.
(3) Geological POD: the Emeq Yitsre.el (from Haifa eastwards) fault graben sinks a bit lower and the sea comes through into the Jordan Valley.
(4) OTL: I read that one of the later Roman or Byzantine emperors let the Jews build a 4th temple. But as the work started there was an eruption of fire from the caves and cisterns below the temple site and the work was abandoned and never restarted. This was likely a sewer gas explosion ignited by a torch (= a piece of burning wood carried by its cold end). Thanks to dirty lazy people dumping their house and street foulness in the first place that comes to hand.
ATL: No sewer gas explosion. The 4th temple is built. Jews return and a Yishuv reforms. Then somewhat like (0) hereinabove.
(5) Napoleon does not attack Russia. Napoleon does attack Egypt and marches into Palestine as OTL. That leaves Russia free to attack Turkey hard while Turkey is sending its army south to defend against Napoleon. Turkey loses a big army in snow on the Allahuekber mountains in NE Turkey (as happened OTL in 1914). When the dust settles, European powers have the Middle East, or at least Palestine and Lebanon and Syria and Egypt. Mass settlement by Europeans there. Israel starts to form a century before OTL. Israel has enough trouble from Arabs for Israel to need a big army and keep it in practice. If all this does not butterfly Hitler away, this would bring some sort of practicality to the understandable but anachronistic (and somewhat distressing) query sometimes asked OTL by young Israeli children: "Why didn't the Israeli Army prevent the Holocaust?".
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