WI - Republic of Israel after WW1?

twistedirregular

twistedirregular

Let's say the British government actually owns up to the Balfour Declaration and establishes the Kingdom of Israel in 1918-20 as a Protectorate/Dominion of the British Empire. What would happen? What would this earlier Israel look like?
 
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Lalli

Things would be even shittier. Massive Arab rebels around ME and there would be serious terrorist problem.

And who even would be king of Israel? There is not any known descendants of any king of Israel/Judea. At least not any who could be proven being such. And wasn't Zionism quiet republican movement? This could cause even more problems.
 

Minchandre

Israel in 1918 has been addressed before, so I'm going to focus on the wrinkle: monarchy.

Who's the king in this case? Is it just George? That might be almost acceptable to the mostly Socialist, anti-tsarist Zionists. Anyone claiming to be King of the Zionists, though, is going to have basically zero legitimacy. If the British insisted, you might see some unenthusiastic acceptance in the short term, but even the Fifth Aliyah (of Jews fleeing Nazis, who are more politically diverse and less likely to complain) were mostly socially liberal and probably opposed to monarchy on ideological grounds.
 

Kalvan

The liberal Zionists are/were Anit-Monarchists, and the Orthodox Zionists were, well, Orthodox. The house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha is either a total strager in blood to the Davidic or Hasmonean dynasties, or else its claim derives from the adultery of Queen Victoria's mother-in-law, which is even worse.
 

FillyofDelphi

Banned
Onkel Willie said:
It would be the constant target of Palestine Arab outrage, though ITTL terror attacks are likely to extend into Britain itself.
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This. In 18' there are FAR fewer Jews in the region than there would be when Isreal formed in our timeline, and at least for the first decade or so far less of an incentive for Jews in Europe to leave their comfortable lives to go to a far off land filled with people who want to shoot them. Only once the people where they live ALSO started wanting to shoot them (and taking away all the stuff that made their life comfortable) does migration start to look appealing, and by that point local instability and horror stories likely cause potential migrants to look elsewhere.
 

Masked Grizzly

What if this ATL Kingdom of Israel was for lack of a better term an Unseated Constitutional Monarchy under British Protectorate/Dominion akin to Egypt under the British during that period (which did not prevent Egypt having having a monarchy)?

It would still in practice be run by the Zionists as in OTL though the country benefits from actually having a written constitution in this scenario, whilst appealing to Orthodox Jews and having them preoccupied (potentially for many decades with plenty of bitter sectarian arguments) as to which prospective Davidic claimants to elect as King.
 
haider najib

haider najib

British raj would explode muslims will be pissed and allow for the mofe radicals indian independence to gain muslim support who always been on the fence.
 
twistedirregular

twistedirregular

For those who have raised the question of who would be the Israeli Monarch in this scenario, could a Rothschild or a Jewish convert from the British Royal Family be suitable candidates?
 

Joshua Ben Ari

An earlier Israel is definitely possible. A earlier and monarchic Israel is not. Many - if not all - of the 94,000 Jews c. 1914 who lived there were either socialists, communists, or Labor Zionists, or they were Jews who had fled the Tsar and held no love for monarchy. While Zionism is actually quite neutral on the monarchy-republic question, Herzl's Der Judenstaat and Altneuland portrayed the Jewish State as a republic.

twistedirregular said:
For those who have raised the question of who would be the Israeli Monarch in this scenario, could a Rothschild or a Jewish convert from the British Royal Family be suitable candidates?
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A Rothschild might be acceptable maybe as a Stadtholder-type figure (maybe someone like Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild or Edmond James de Rothschild; both of whom were strongly involved in the Zionist movement). I doubt you would find a member of the British royal family would be willing to convert to Judaism, however.
 
twistedirregular

twistedirregular

Alright then, it seems the general consensus is that a Republic of Israel is more likely to emerge post-war. What effects would an earlier Israel have on the rest of the world?
 

Joshua Ben Ari

twistedirregular said:
Alright then, it seems the general consensus is that a Republic of Israel is more likely to emerge post-war. What effects would an earlier Israel have on the rest of the world?
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More sustained and larger Jewish immigration to this earlier Israel, honestly. Hebrew and Yiddish compete for status as official languages, and they probably compromise on the two, and make them both (as well as Arabic and English) official languages. Britain probably gives the French a freer hand in the Saarland in exchange for throwing Sykes-Picot out the window. You might see the French give the Maronites/Christian Lebanese, Alawis, and the Druze more autonomy (or even debate independence). But I'm not sure about much more difference.
 
twistedirregular

twistedirregular

Joshua Ben Ari said:
More sustained and larger Jewish immigration to this earlier Israel, honestly. Hebrew and Yiddish compete for status as official languages, and they probably compromise on the two, and make them both (as well as Arabic and English) official languages. Britain probably gives the French a freer hand in the Saarland in exchange for throwing Sykes-Picot out the window. You might see the French give the Maronites/Christian Lebanese, Alawis, and the Druze more autonomy (or even debate independence). But I'm not sure about much more difference.
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How about the Second World War?
 

Joshua Ben Ari

twistedirregular said:
Would Israel join the Allied Powers? What could their performance look like?
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I very much believe they would join the Allies. This Israel would do whatever it could to save Jews from Europe during WWII. I could see a lot of British training along with Israeli developments by themselves. As for their military performance, I think it depends. Probably a lot of tank warfare in the desert against Rommel, parachutists in D-Day, and probably okay fighters. The 5,000-strong Jewish Legion who fought for Britain in WWI will probably be seen as the precursor to the Israeli armed forces.

As for the size of Israeli armed forces, I'd guess around 40,000 but it also depends on how many Jews immigrate to Israel in TTL.
 
twistedirregular

twistedirregular

Joshua Ben Ari said:
I very much believe they would join the Allies. This Israel would do whatever it could to save Jews from Europe during WWII. I could see a lot of British training along with Israeli developments by themselves. As for their military performance, I think it depends. Probably a lot of tank warfare in the desert against Rommel, parachutists in D-Day, and probably okay fighters. The 5,000-strong Jewish Legion who fought for Britain in WWI will probably be seen as the precursor to the Israeli armed forces.

As for the size of Israeli armed forces, I'd guess around 40,000 but it also depends on how many Jews immigrate to Israel in TTL.
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How aware of the Holocaust would the Israeli government be?
 
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