AHC: PLO as a US proxy:

The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have the USA in the Cold War embrace a variant of the Palestine Liberation Organization as a proxy. How this happens is up to you, and what happens to the PLO in this situation is also up to you. Maximum points if this PLO remains led by Ahmad Shuqeri, but this is not a requirement in any sense of the term. In terms of discussion from the challenge, how would the PLO fare with US equipment and methodology? Something tells me that given Arafat and company were unable to capitalize on some extremely modern equipment by the standards of the time from the Soviet side of the Cold War that they'd not fare all that much better with US equipment, but US methods adopted well might improve PLO skills to some degree. Personally I think the PLO would be a Middle Eastern ARVN for the USA, in terms of its effectiveness, but having one of those all by itself would be a fascinating cultural POD all by itself.
 
Lets go slightly out the left field here.

Israel decides to embrace the 'Jordan is Palestine' idea, this being that there is no need to create a Palestinian State in the West Bank, because Jordan is already a Palestinian state just waiting for her people to overthrow the Hashemite monarchy and declare it. They decide to coopt the PLO and offer them slightly less generous terms than they offered to King Hussein in the 90s OTL. In return for peace and support in the conversion of Jordan to Palestine, the new Republic will be recognised as a legitimate body for Palestinians in Israel to appeal to, and will be granted ex officio sovereignity over the Islamic Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City (Hussein was offered the Islamic, Armenian and Christian quarters). The US, already seeing the Jordanian monarchy as a weak ineffective force (I don't know why, Hussein was consistently the only one able to tread a course between arab nationalism and accomadation with Israel for a long time) therefore funnels money into the PLO in order to achieve the final part of the bargain in the creation of the new Palestinian republic.
 
Hmm, a southerner or a possible anti-Semite is on the ticket with Roosevelt in 1944, and Israel is the guilt creation of western European nations. Betrayed by the Americans (apparent to the Israelis), they embrace a seeming altruistic Soviet union.
 
That would be only part of what'd be required, however, for the USA to risk potentially alienating Jewish voters by backing a movement like the PLO IMHO. It'd be a big part, but not the only one.

It wouldn't take a lot for Israel to rapidly become one of the Soviet Union's most rabid supporters; unlike many of the other locations that passed into the Soviet sphere, Israel already has a very strong, very ideological Communist movement before joining up. Maybe Communism becomes so strongly associated with Zionism that American Jews catch some by diffusion and become even more Communist (as it was, Communism in the US was already fairly strongly associated with Jews). In a situation where the CIA is afraid that Israeli Communism is causing an internal security issue within the United States, I don't think it's very hard at all to see Arafat receiving lots of second-hand rifles, especially since the Army has so many left-over M14s from the switchover to the M16.
 
It's quite possible American Jews and Israel will have a similar relationship like OTL Cuban Americans and Cuba.
 

RousseauX

Donor
It wouldn't take a lot for Israel to rapidly become one of the Soviet Union's most rabid supporters; unlike many of the other locations that passed into the Soviet sphere, Israel already has a very strong, very ideological Communist movement before joining up. Maybe Communism becomes so strongly associated with Zionism that American Jews catch some by diffusion and become even more Communist (as it was, Communism in the US was already fairly strongly associated with Jews). In a situation where the CIA is afraid that Israeli Communism is causing an internal security issue within the United States, I don't think it's very hard at all to see Arafat receiving lots of second-hand rifles, especially since the Army has so many left-over M14s from the switchover to the M16.
So A World of Laughter, a World of Tears?
 
Yeah, the only real challenge is to get Israel as a Soviet proxy.

Not even that hard...it could probably be done by the British cozying up closer to the Arabs and insisting that the Americans back them on that, accompanied by Stalin being a little less batshit (ASB, I know). OTL, Israel's main arms source in 1948 was Czechoslovakia, which by that time was already basically a Soviet puppet (at least as far as foreign relations were concerned). If the British can make the Americans more openly support the Arabs (again, not that hard to imagine - a lot of people in the Truman administration were openly in favor of that policy on the theory that there were a lot more Arabs with a lot more land than there were Israelis and Israel), Stalin may feel that he has no choise but to support Israel as a counterweight in the region. It could be...interesting. Communist Israel is going to be...well. Take a small country, beset by all sides, highly centralized and aware of security issues...now make it communist. Now make it very communist. I'm not going to cry "North Korea", but OTL's Ariel Sharon and Yitzchak Shamir are going to be Gandhi next to this TLs.
 
Not even that hard...it could probably be done by the British cozying up closer to the Arabs and insisting that the Americans back them on that, accompanied by Stalin being a little less batshit (ASB, I know). OTL, Israel's main arms source in 1948 was Czechoslovakia, which by that time was already basically a Soviet puppet (at least as far as foreign relations were concerned). If the British can make the Americans more openly support the Arabs (again, not that hard to imagine - a lot of people in the Truman administration were openly in favor of that policy on the theory that there were a lot more Arabs with a lot more land than there were Israelis and Israel), Stalin may feel that he has no choise but to support Israel as a counterweight in the region. It could be...interesting. Communist Israel is going to be...well. Take a small country, beset by all sides, highly centralized and aware of security issues...now make it communist. Now make it very communist. I'm not going to cry "North Korea", but OTL's Ariel Sharon and Yitzchak Shamir are going to be Gandhi next to this TLs.

Would it be plausible that ITTL Stalin and the Soviet establishment actively encourage Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel? I mean, it would be a way to strenghten the newly born state, thus earning their everlasting gratitude (?) and also a way for Stalin to get rid of the Jews he so much distrusted.
 
Would it be plausible that ITTL Stalin and the Soviet establishment actively encourage Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel? I mean, it would be a way to strenghten the newly born state, thus earning their everlasting gratitude (?) and also a way for Stalin to get rid of the Jews he so much distrusted.
Once I took this concept a bit too far and got Lazar Kaganovich in charge of Israel. :eek:
 
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