AHC: Palestine gained independence as a single, federal state.

Basically an Arab community and a Jewish community gets created in Palestine along the original UN partition plan borders, seen below.

230px-UN_Palestine_Partition_Versions_1947.jpg


The two regions are united under a single federal government in Jerusalem, but with large autonomy given to the two communities, not unlike Bosnia today, or even Belgium.

What would it take for the war not to break out after World War 2, and how would it maintain stability in the ensuing years?
 
Well...the question is, how does this happen?

Something along the lines of the Dayton accords isn't going to be supported by either side, and certainly not by the other Arabs, and there's little reason to think that anyone would bother trying to impose it. Especially when all of the groups that had any desire to meddle also wanted Jerusalem as an international city.

Anyway, let's say that somehow we get Bosnia in Palestine. I'd argue that such a set-up can only occur after terrible blood-shed because, frankly, it's an arrangement that everyone hates and only goes with it because it's better than continued genocidal war. So I'm not sure that you can avoid war breaking out, especially given the "provocation" of the flood of Jewish immigration (though I guess you could get some other country to take them, or not kick them out in the first place, but that's basically ASB).

Anyway, whatever, let's say it happens; maybe after a terrible war with no clear winner and for some reason the UN decides to intervene. How does it stay stable? Initially at least, with a large foreign peacekeeping force. With any luck, after a generation or so of living near each other without too much violence, and increasing economic prosperity, the two might come together.

Now, there is one way in which Palestine in the 40s is not Bosnia in the 90s or Belgium ever: the large number of other Arab nations around, most of whom were none too happy about Israel. Even if the local Palestinian Arabs are willing to play ball (a big if, of course), those in Egypt and Syria and Jordan are less inclined to do so, especially since each of those countries has a more-or-less valid claim to the territory and her [Arab] people. And this problem isn't going to go away. Even if, say, the presence of UN peacekeepers to keep Palestinian Jews and Arabs from killing each other also helps keep the other Arab armies out, Arab nationalism is probably going to happen like in OTL, and pan-Arabism, and it's going to sweep up Arabs in Palestine just like anywhere else, and keep up constant, if not increasing, pressure for a unitary Arab nationalist state.
 
Mmm.. Make it an Enemy of my Enemy kind of state. For some reason the Arabs don't like the Palestinians. So they are treated like the Druze. Knowing what the Arabs would do to them and knowing that they have no change fighting alone, they work together with the Jews and Druze. Ongoing pressure from Egypt/Syria/Jordan keeps them working together.
 

Deleted member 94680

When the U.N. partition plan was rejected in '47, was that just by the Palestinians or were other Arab nations consulted?

If it was just by the Palestinians, develop a POD that has them and the Jewish community agree. The "new" Federal Palestine needs to survive in peace for 5 years or so (tall order, I know) and it would then be accepted, probably. AFAIK the main reason the neighbouring Arab nations were opposed to Israel (as it became) was that the Palestinians were opposed to it. Contained within it's own borders, without internal strife, there's a chance in the ATL that Federal Palestine survives.
 
When the U.N. partition plan was rejected in '47, was that just by the Palestinians or were other Arab nations consulted?

The other Arab nations weren't formally consulted beyond voting on the resolution in the UN (all voted no), but were very clearly and sometimes vocally opposed to the plan.

If it was just by the Palestinians, develop a POD that has them and the Jewish community agree. The "new" Federal Palestine needs to survive in peace for 5 years or so (tall order, I know) and it would then be accepted, probably. AFAIK the main reason the neighbouring Arab nations were opposed to Israel (as it became) was that the Palestinians were opposed to it. Contained within it's own borders, without internal strife, there's a chance in the ATL that Federal Palestine survives.

Certainly all the other Arab nations said that they were opposed to the Partition because the Palestinians were, but there was also significant anti-Jewish sentiment among the populations of most of them as well, as demonstrated by the series of pogroms and expulsions that accompanied Israeli independence. Iraq's leaders, in particular, made several statements against the plan that didn't seem particularly "solidarity"-ish (e.g., the Prime Minister saying that they would destroy the nation and seek out the Jews everywhere they sought to hide); though, again most were made under the premise of being in solidarity with the Palestinians. It's also worth noting that the territory annexed by Egypt and Jordan weren't made into Palestinian states; Egypt pretended to, but in practice ran the Provisional Palestinian Government as a part of Egypt, and the Jordanians didn't even pretend, just annexing the territory, though they did withhold citizenship from many of the people in the territory they took. And, of course, very few of the Arab countries treated their Palestinian refugees particularly well.
 
But the Palestinians in the region had voted to accept the plan?
There wasn't ever a plebiscite or anything, but the Palestinian Arab leadership was mostly opposed to the plan (though there were some towns here and there who were okay with it (e.g. Abu Ghosh, which famously sided with the Zionists, and the Zionist leadership went out of their way to pacify the Arab community of a few places like Haifa). It's hard to make the comparison, though, with the Zionist leadership, since there was a single, unified Zionist leadership with taxes, public services, and a military, and there was no such organization for Arabs in Palestine (including the "native" Jews, many of which were almost completely Arabicized); so while one can speak of the Jewish community in Palestine having leadership that can make decisions, for the Arabs one is left with characters like the infamous Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was certainly loud and led some folks, but never really represented or had power over anything approaching all Arabs between the Jordan and the Sea. By comparison, even the groups of Zionists who opposed the domination of the Labour Party and its military still participated in "it's" framework (which predated Labour dominance)
 
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